91–100 of 126 posts
> Your life’s goal should be to become the most improbable person you can be. Your life's goal should not be dictated by Substack philosophers. > Here is what you gain with your most improbable life: > The authentic you. Your particular mix of talents, native abilities, personal inclinations, genetic limits, life experiences, and ambitious desires points to a mixture that is distinctly unique – if it is allowed to bl…
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I was recently talking to a friend about this, the concept of a normie. A normie is kind of a mirage, it only exists in the realm of statistics, but when you look at any one individual who could fit that label, they are unlikely, so, can they really be a normie? Once internalized, the only real way out is to be less judgemental. Sure, you won't be friends with everyone, but the buckets are just not super useful when…
The usual way of measuring a trait would basically be measuring N amount of people on a specific thing, and the distribution based on that. But if you take 1 person, and N amount of specific things/traits, just about everyone would probably make their own sort of distribution with a bunch of "normal" traits and a long tail of "unusual" traits. Still a simplification, but has made the "illusion of a normie" clearer to…
https://austraffic.com.au/aba/us-air-force-finds-averages-ca...
Edit: the report itself:
THE "AVERAGE MAN"?
Gilbert S. Daniels, December 1952
> Your life’s goal should be to become the most improbable person you can be. Your life's goal should not be dictated by Substack philosophers. > Here is what you gain with your most improbable life: > The authentic you. Your particular mix of talents, native abilities, personal inclinations, genetic limits, life experiences, and ambitious desires points to a mixture that is distinctly unique – if it is allowed to bl…
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Well, let's start with the second sentence: > Your path, your character, your life, should be the most unlikely, the most unexpected, the least predictable version you can make. Now, I ask you, is that really what I want from my kid's school bus driver?
Huh. The post in effect is about a choice of one's career, about what one offers to the world. Of course the execution of the chosen career must remain flawless. One must develop one's own unique offering. Don't let the world trap you in its box. I came across a bus driver today that told me he owned a juice bar on the side, and invited me to visit. I thought this was most unexpected. This didn't make him a bad drive…
If a stranger spontaneous brings up they run a "juice shop" and "invites" you to visit, 99 time out of 100 it's a front for an MLM.
https://www.mcgill.ca/oss/article/critical-thinking-health-a...
https://www.eater.com/22958985/loaded-teas-herbalife-mlm-sil...
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The usual way of measuring a trait would basically be measuring N amount of people on a specific thing, and the distribution based on that. But if you take 1 person, and N amount of specific things/traits, just about everyone would probably make their own sort of distribution with a bunch of "normal" traits and a long tail of "unusual" traits. Still a simplification, but has made the "illusion of a normie" clearer to…
This is literally true on a physical level: The US airforce did a study in the 1950s that showed none of the thousands pilots they measured matched the average across multiple body measurements. i.e. no one was average. https://austraffic.com.au/aba/us-air-force-finds-averages-ca... Edit: the report itself: THE "AVERAGE MAN"? Gilbert S. Daniels, December 1952 https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/tr/pdf/AD0010203.pdf
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Exactly. 無為
But is that not also "following a path laid out by someone else?" How do we know when we "are [...] being the "authentic you"" when so much of our early lives have been conditioned by our environment if we never challenge that by looking for other ways; be that through exploring western "self-help", Chinese philosophy, or both (and others). Maybe it's through that action, the West's obsession with "self-help" that de…
That's the whole point. In fact, if you're trying too hard to achieve 無為, you defeat the purpose.
I had the improbable experience of contracting with a community of foxes and then made up the cover story that "this is a character I play to get better smiles when I do street photography" and then made that story true.
So most of the time I am the one-and-only fox-photographer and feel unique but there are some places where a lot of beastly people are around and I think "I feel like just another fur". I don't think of myself as a fur at all but I find that being out as a hard-working therianthrope it has an effect on all sorts of closeted furs and therians and whatnot and when a fur asks me "are you a fur?" I feel bad disappointing them.
The whole thing is possible because of a database of legends that exist in folklore and pop culture. If I go out in a kitsune mask I think about 20% of people have seen Naruto or Demon Slayer and recognize who I am right away and in that situation I think of myself as the cast member at Disney whose job is easy because guests have already seen the movie. Even though I work from sinosphere legends, the fox-photographer is legible because people agree about what kind of animal a fox is anywhere there are foxes.
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> The "should" in a statement like that is not a command. Or expected to be interpreted as a demand. Personally, if the author's intention was what you suggest, I would argue this kind of writing is "lazy" for lack of a better word. Words have specific meanings, and they matter. The most simple (and I would argue proper) understanding of "your life’s goal should be to become the most improbable person you can be" is…
Being able to incorporate many incomplete and even contradictory models, without dissonance, is most certainly a scaling factor. Wisdom often has unexpectedly wide application, and so is more multiplicative than it is simply additive. Reality is never contradictory, but it is complex. The seeming contradictions in models are because models capture different subsets of reality, not because they are wrong. Yes, we get…
My opinion is that telling people "your goal in life should be..." is an aggressive form of advice-giving. I believe that the plain text wording of the statement speaks for itself. You're free to disagree.
I don't know why you feel the need to try to put me down for my opinion and go so far as to speak for everyone else by suggesting this is a "wording style that other's [sic] don't have any trouble with." How do you know what everyone else who reads this thinks?
I do find your approach to this conversation ironic given your repeated comments about the value of engaging with differing viewpoints.
> Your life’s goal should be to become the most improbable person you can be. Your life's goal should not be dictated by Substack philosophers. > Here is what you gain with your most improbable life: > The authentic you. Your particular mix of talents, native abilities, personal inclinations, genetic limits, life experiences, and ambitious desires points to a mixture that is distinctly unique – if it is allowed to bl…
This is, quite obviously, just one person's perspective on life. But it's a call to action, so let me ask you this: what do you propose? From your response, I see two takeaways: don't try to be creative because this only helps AI, and don't be spontaneous because the society wouldn't want you to. Is that it, or is there more? To be clear, I'm not trying to be overly snarky, but we don't get the option of doing nothin…
What gives you an unique perspective and your own voice can be sticking to your thing for a long time and exploring your exact path more deeply than anyone else has. You don't need to take a million random stabs to become "improbable", and there's no reason that should lead to anything authentic.