"The ultimate goal is optimizing one’s emotional state."
I was watching some Rory Sutherland Youtube-short brainrot recently, I then got to watching some of his full lectures, and you two seem to have discovered this independently. I would give a somewhat different list of corollaries for this than you have though; people desire:
1. Status
2. Pain avoidance
3. Certainty
4. Autonomy
5. Belonging
6. Fairness
I've remarked before something to the effect that marketing is despicable because the average person is despicable and the job of the salesman is to appeal to the average person. But Rory made the point that in business, you can either find out what people want and then figure out how to build it, or you can find out what you can build and then figure out how to make people want it. In this way, I think he presents a more-noble vision for what marketing can be: changing the desires of the average person and thereby ennobling the populace.
One of the reasons I'm happy with Trump's election actually: I feel that it has been an achievement in raising the nobility of society. With his victory, society has given itself permission to break free of old ways of thinking.
I am 20 and for the past 3 years I have- kind of- arrived at the exact same conclusions.
From 12 up until 18 I jumped around the entire political spectrum, and I came out with the conclusion that both of the Left and the Right are deeply retarded, but in different ways and for different reasons. I wish I had discovered the rationalist space when I was much, much younger (I think I had come across Scott Alexander when I was around 15, but I was a retarded leftist back then and my little naive juvenile brain couldn't handle the nuance so I sperged and blacklisted him. If only I had read more, I blame the generational cohort I belong) because I wasted all of my teenage years chasing dragons. Rationalism might not be the best framework out there, but every single actual smart person I have come across online has either originated from Rationalism or is affiliated with them, so it's at least a good starting ground. Much better than the Anarchist FAQ or Rationalwiki, that's for sure!
Yeah, Nietzsche was right about basically everything, but I have noticed that while a lot of the Rationalist people tend to agree, almost no one wants Nietzsche in practice because we already know what that looks like (anyone who tries to tell you that Nazism had nothing to do with Nietzsche is either lying or doesn't know what he is talking about). There is this Liberal-Nietzschean tendency that seems to be rising as a response/cope to this, that Hanania represents and Scott appears to favor( https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/matt-yglesias-considered-as-the-nietzschean), but this just seems like cope to me.
The more I think about it, the more I realize how pointless life is and how humanity is just doomed in a never ending quest for meaning in a universe that simply has no higher truth or final purpose. The smartest among us are distracting themselves with space colonization, but I don't think that this is as exciting or as meaningful as most people think. This is why I am terrified of AI. Once AI abolishes all human labour, the crises of meaning that will ensue is something humans, especially the low-IQ ones, are not biologically wired to handle. Moldbug is the only person I have seen who has written about how badly AI can backfire.
You should read my stuff I basically curb-stomp Relativism (which Nihilism basically is)
If you think life is meaningless I would only ask: “by what standard are you so certain?” If you can’t provide one, you should look for one. I provide one. This is coming across as a shill but my life story is largely identical right down to my hatred of both political wings and begrudging respect for rationalists. So I’m shilling because I saw the same problems but now perceive a solution.
Maybe you could adjust #1 to say think about the biggest questions longest, not first. When I look back at what I thought about the big questions when I was younger it seems like I was completely naive. Small questions can sometimes be answered quickly. Big questions can’t. So don’t wait until you have the answers to the big questions before you answer small ones.
"The ultimate goal is optimizing one’s emotional state."
I was watching some Rory Sutherland Youtube-short brainrot recently, I then got to watching some of his full lectures, and you two seem to have discovered this independently. I would give a somewhat different list of corollaries for this than you have though; people desire:
1. Status
2. Pain avoidance
3. Certainty
4. Autonomy
5. Belonging
6. Fairness
I've remarked before something to the effect that marketing is despicable because the average person is despicable and the job of the salesman is to appeal to the average person. But Rory made the point that in business, you can either find out what people want and then figure out how to build it, or you can find out what you can build and then figure out how to make people want it. In this way, I think he presents a more-noble vision for what marketing can be: changing the desires of the average person and thereby ennobling the populace.
(certainty/control rather)
One of the reasons I'm happy with Trump's election actually: I feel that it has been an achievement in raising the nobility of society. With his victory, society has given itself permission to break free of old ways of thinking.
I am 20 and for the past 3 years I have- kind of- arrived at the exact same conclusions.
From 12 up until 18 I jumped around the entire political spectrum, and I came out with the conclusion that both of the Left and the Right are deeply retarded, but in different ways and for different reasons. I wish I had discovered the rationalist space when I was much, much younger (I think I had come across Scott Alexander when I was around 15, but I was a retarded leftist back then and my little naive juvenile brain couldn't handle the nuance so I sperged and blacklisted him. If only I had read more, I blame the generational cohort I belong) because I wasted all of my teenage years chasing dragons. Rationalism might not be the best framework out there, but every single actual smart person I have come across online has either originated from Rationalism or is affiliated with them, so it's at least a good starting ground. Much better than the Anarchist FAQ or Rationalwiki, that's for sure!
Yeah, Nietzsche was right about basically everything, but I have noticed that while a lot of the Rationalist people tend to agree, almost no one wants Nietzsche in practice because we already know what that looks like (anyone who tries to tell you that Nazism had nothing to do with Nietzsche is either lying or doesn't know what he is talking about). There is this Liberal-Nietzschean tendency that seems to be rising as a response/cope to this, that Hanania represents and Scott appears to favor( https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/matt-yglesias-considered-as-the-nietzschean), but this just seems like cope to me.
The more I think about it, the more I realize how pointless life is and how humanity is just doomed in a never ending quest for meaning in a universe that simply has no higher truth or final purpose. The smartest among us are distracting themselves with space colonization, but I don't think that this is as exciting or as meaningful as most people think. This is why I am terrified of AI. Once AI abolishes all human labour, the crises of meaning that will ensue is something humans, especially the low-IQ ones, are not biologically wired to handle. Moldbug is the only person I have seen who has written about how badly AI can backfire.
You should read my stuff I basically curb-stomp Relativism (which Nihilism basically is)
If you think life is meaningless I would only ask: “by what standard are you so certain?” If you can’t provide one, you should look for one. I provide one. This is coming across as a shill but my life story is largely identical right down to my hatred of both political wings and begrudging respect for rationalists. So I’m shilling because I saw the same problems but now perceive a solution.
Maybe you could adjust #1 to say think about the biggest questions longest, not first. When I look back at what I thought about the big questions when I was younger it seems like I was completely naive. Small questions can sometimes be answered quickly. Big questions can’t. So don’t wait until you have the answers to the big questions before you answer small ones.
Incredibly alpha for just being 20 years old. There is nothing here I fundamentally disagree with (only peripheral claims).
No im the best philosopher. Nietzsche gets no. 2 for now.
https://open.substack.com/pub/mkhanshahani/p/7-enlightening-illustrations-people?r=4q2315&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true
Humans life meaning wouldn't be reproduction?, doesn't point 7 undermines the veracity of point 5? Why you don't elaborate more on point 9?
Sure