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The Collapse of Self-Worth in the Digital Age

thewalrus.ca

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Re: The Collapse of Self-Worth in the Digital Age

#191

Post by passion__desire »

namaria wrote: post #184
chuckadams wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Were there meme-pages on tiktoks which contextualized his writings in different day-to-day scenarios so that the importance of his general ideas were imprinted on their minds? I honestly cannot tell whether this is satire or if I just don’t want to be on this planet anymore.

I hope it's satire. It would be quite limiting to believe that people can only learn things from short format video

Marcus Aurelis wrote in short snippets format. They were notes to himself which were latter organized into flowing organized essays by historians and writers.

Re: The Collapse of Self-Worth in the Digital Age

#192

Post by mettamage »

leonhard wrote: post #163
mettamage wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, very opinionated but here we go: dating, it’s about matching personality. Do the hexaco.org test, figure out how to identify the extreme dimensions on your profile that you identify with (openness in my case). Learn to find those women. Now be prepared to talk to 10000 women by cold approaching or through online dating. It usually takes more like 200 for a GF but you will be doing socially uncomfortable things,…

Thank you, very interesting. Can you talk more about cold approaching respectfully? How did you overcome that feeling of being a creep in the beginning when you’re not calibrated yet on what works for you?

Creepiness is a judgment from others and their problem. You can do your best to improve on lessening it (aka always approach from the front because it’s best to be in view, at least 5m distance and a loud enough “excuse me” to draw their attention and to let them know you are about to say something. If they show any sign of having no time, disengage and quickly wish them a good day). All you need to do is: your best and be as respectful as possible. If you do that and you know you have strived to the utmost to be the best version of yourself then others have no moral ground to stand on IMO. Freedom of speech is what ultimately makes us all approachable, yes, you too

Re: The Collapse of Self-Worth in the Digital Age

#193

Post by inquisitorG »

nemo44x wrote: post #9

What I love about these types of articles is it reminds me how fortunate I am to live in the wealthiest and most comfortable time Earth has ever seen and it’s very likely to get better. These types of existential panics aren’t possible when you’re sustenance farming as nearly every human that has existed was forced by nature to endure until a painful, horrifying death from disease or illness perished them. In order t…

We simply do a terrible job at educating people about how much the past sucked and instead do the opposite with ridiculous Goethe like romanticism of the past.

Never mind that Goethe was the eldest of 7 children with only one sibling not dead as a child. Then going on to have have 5 children of his own. 4 that also happened to die as young children.

Modern people are so clueless we literally take the lack of dead children completely granted.

The type of person who writes this cultural word salad slop I suspect has an IQ of 100, thinks it is 140 and can't figure out what is wrong with the modern world that they are not above average in their output.

Re: The Collapse of Self-Worth in the Digital Age

#194

Post by MichaelZuo »

s1artibartfast wrote: post #133
MichaelZuo wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because...? Of what underlying reasons?

There is no fundamental force of the universal that makes it so, if that's what you're asking. There is however a tremendous amount of psychology that predisposes people to seeking the admiration and respect of others. If you want a deeper reason, it is likely due to a cultural understanding that these things are actually advantageous, and some amount of deeper evolutionary biology

That is understood… but why do you think such a child would have received more ‘admiration and respect of others’ 300 years ago in some tiny peasant village?

Re: The Collapse of Self-Worth in the Digital Age

#195

Post by MisterBastahrd »

Apocryphon wrote: post #137
MisterBastahrd wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's pretty funny when you consider that a huge part of Christian evangelism is the attempt to convince normal people that they aren't worth dirt and are condemned to eternal torture unless they believe in somebody that the religious can't prove exists for a feat that they can't prove ever happened.

That's a rather reductive take. Telling people "they aren't worth dirt" is a hard sell, for one thing.

It's not reductive at all. Telling someone that they are only worthy of torture or destruction for not believing in an unprovable entity is actually worse than that.

Re: The Collapse of Self-Worth in the Digital Age

#196

Post by skissane »

ajb wrote: post #185
ttpphd wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah it's your lack of insight and your projection of your own psychology onto others

The problem with that is: while it's true that one can't treat neurodivergent people fairly without taking heed of their testimony of how their mind works, selfishness is a behavior that has to be evaluated from an external perspective - for everyone, not just the neurodivergent. Because everyone who is ever selfish denies it, and has a story about why they're not being selfish. So it's always evaluated by POSIWID.

> Because everyone who is ever selfish denies it, and has a story about why they're not being selfish

Ayn Rand wrote a book The Virtue of Selfishness - of course, if she views selfishness as virtuous, she is going to claim that virtue for herself

Back to the realm of the more mainstream: a lot of people will admit they act selfishly sometimes - including me. I think you got to look after yourself, but you also should look out for other people - but if you go overboard on being selfless, you can start to be drained, and need to allow yourself a bit of selfishness to recharge.

I think what we really need is a healthy balance between selflessness and selfishness. And that’s the ideal I am for. But do I always get the balance right? I’m sure I don’t, sometimes I go a bit too far in one direction, other times a bit too far in the other.

I think what I’m saying here is pretty prosaic. Not everyone is going to agree, but heaps of people will.

Re: The Collapse of Self-Worth in the Digital Age

#197

Post by consteval »

MichaelZuo wrote: post #194
s1artibartfast wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no fundamental force of the universal that makes it so, if that's what you're asking. There is however a tremendous amount of psychology that predisposes people to seeking the admiration and respect of others. If you want a deeper reason, it is likely due to a cultural understanding that these things are actually advantageous, and some amount of deeper evolutionary biology

That is understood… but why do you think such a child would have received more ‘admiration and respect of others’ 300 years ago in some tiny peasant village?

Because the stakes and standards were lower. So long as you did what your father did before you, and him before he, then you will get admiration and respect. You will get a family, you will have your job, you will be the shoe cobbler. Or the baker. Or the farmer. That's you, who you are, and we need you.

Things are complicated today. Doing what's always been done is not enough, you need to do better. Having a job is not enough, we no longer view jobs as purpose.

Re: The Collapse of Self-Worth in the Digital Age

#198

Post by MichaelZuo »

consteval wrote: post #197
MichaelZuo wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is understood… but why do you think such a child would have received more ‘admiration and respect of others’ 300 years ago in some tiny peasant village?

Because the stakes and standards were lower. So long as you did what your father did before you, and him before he, then you will get admiration and respect. You will get a family, you will have your job, you will be the shoe cobbler. Or the baker. Or the farmer. That's you, who you are, and we need you. Things are complicated today. Doing what's always been done is not enough, you need to do better. Having a job is…

This is looking at the past with extremely rose tinted glasses, in reality life was very nasty and usually short for anyone below the lower gentry. (>90% of the population)

Especially in tiny peasant villages in pretty much every country, except maybe Switzerland and some Polynesian islands.

Re: The Collapse of Self-Worth in the Digital Age

#199

Post by s1artibartfast »

MichaelZuo wrote: post #198
consteval wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because the stakes and standards were lower. So long as you did what your father did before you, and him before he, then you will get admiration and respect. You will get a family, you will have your job, you will be the shoe cobbler. Or the baker. Or the farmer. That's you, who you are, and we need you. Things are complicated today. Doing what's always been done is not enough, you need to do better. Having a job is…

This is looking at the past with extremely rose tinted glasses, in reality life was very nasty and usually short for anyone below the lower gentry. (>90% of the population) Especially in tiny peasant villages in pretty much every country, except maybe Switzerland and some Polynesian islands.

Life being short, difficult, and full of unpleasantness is tangential to the question if human interaction was different in much smaller exposure.

You dont even have to go that far into the past, you can simply talk to anyone who lived prior to the internet.

pick something like skateboarding. The best skateboarder in 100 kids could shock and impress peers with tricks they had never seen.

Pick a given subject, the best expert someone would be exposed to was very limited.

Re: The Collapse of Self-Worth in the Digital Age

#200

Post by wpietri »

73kl4453dz wrote: post #181
wpietri wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Got it. I am talking about a function, and particularly the expected reward function for a behavior. If some factor has no influence on the score, the function does not depend on that factor. If it does, it does. Even in your sense of the term, I think I was correct to say that HN "depends so heavily on the upvote". It's a fundamental constituent of how this place works. But I'd also argue that even in the person I'm…

Upvotes have more to do with placement than visibility.

Do you think those two are somehow unrelated?
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