LastThursday

Welcome back! New sections to spice things up I guess. Also, you're talking nine months, it's just the natural churn of members/mods. I'm sure in another nine months it'll be different yet again.

Thanks for the book recommendation. Baron-Cohen is the OG of autism research. I've certainly read a lot about autism in my time. Funnily enough I was just watching this yesterday (at double speed ): Despite the title, it has some interesting commentary on brain differences and some graphs showing the spread of traits between males and females.

A very interesting link between autism and gender identity issues:

@Matt23 I think many people are on the spectrum either knowingly or unknowingly, because they are high functioning. I think that's the take home from the video, that autistic spectrum makes it difficult to know even your own desires and internals; gender identity issues is just an offshoot of that.

Amazing words.

Forget nature. I think societal norms and stereotypes are a much bigger hurdle here. But people came in all sorts of shapes, sizes and outlooks; just find someone that matches yours. That could mean playing a numbers game, and that goes against societal norms, but hey...

I think giving advice requires you to think more deeply than you normally would, especially if there's an ongoing dialogue; so that's healthy. It can also increase your empathy over time, because you're having to think about what another person needs. There is the question of whether the advice is actually helpful or damaging, but even there you become more attuned to people's responses with practice. There is also the matter of whether you should even be giving advice if you have little knowledge in a particular area (say depression) - I'd say not. With a forum the greatest problem with giving advice is the nature of the medium. Most of the context and all non-verbal cues are lost, so that's a lot of information, and you're left guessing more often than not, which is clearly not ideal for giving advice. And, some people's problems really do require professional treatment and advice, and this forum is not suited to that. If you're someone that empathises deeply with others, then each interaction will have a strong emotional connection, and that could be negative for you in the long run. Most counsellors for example, will have counselling sessions themselves to decompress and work through their own emotions.

Yes, yes, but it's not at all obvious that human curiosity will give you Truth in the end. Why should it?

You can also turn these things around, and say that you should only be with a girlfriend who you can be vulnerable with. If you get ditched because you open up, then you were with the wrong person: you should find the right person. It all boils down to attachment and needs. Any solid relationship will have healthy attachments. Unhealthy attachments are to do with having your needs met by someone else, irrespective of who they are. Some of these needs are healthy, like intimacy and love and being cared for. Healthy attachments are about working together as a unit, tolerance and reciprocating. A lot of relationships are unhealthy because each person has fixed ideas about what the other person should be. Cracks appear when one person doesn't live up to the other person's fantasy.

That's nearly right. It's survival at all levels, the individual, the tribe, genes, culture, ecosystem and so on. Each different level has an identity that it maintains against chaos.

Some practical tips that have worked for me in the past: Pay for as many things as possible with cash. Withdraw a set amount of cash each week and use that. Set up a second bank account and automatically transfer a set amount each week/month from your main bank account. Check your bank account balance every day. It's better to use cash because you can keep track of how much you spend more easily. If you go over your weekly quota, then you should wait until the next week. Ideally, you would also pay for food with cash. The second bank account should be a savings account and if possible not have a bank card associated with it, it should be hard to get at the money. Checking your balance will force you to think about your money regularly. And, if you do one thing this year, I would advise giving up smoking. It's really expensive.

So there is no qualitative difference between animals and humans ? Come on dude. Sell me something more convincing . You make zero sense . Why only humans explore the universe and ask for the source of the universe and how we got here ? Why only humans care about art and beauty and mathematics and no animal has that capacity? You're conflating existential matters (why am I here?) with finding the "right" way to live life. They're two completely separate things. The only Truth about living life is survival, it's the only thing we all have in common. Any other notion of how to approach life is just a fairy tale. Because if it wasn't, everyone would already be living that life. We're not all mathematicians and artists because they aren't the one true way to approach life. As far as existential matters go, then yes you're correct, we humans have the capacity to go there, animals probably don't. So maybe it's possible to find a Truth behind existence. My take is that the only Truth you'll find is that all this exists - nothing more - but I'm happy to find out different.

That's life. There's always someone better than you. My friend infuriates me with his chess prowess. I'm fitter, better looking and more socially adjusted than when I was 21. Women of any age will be attracted to you no matter what age you are (@flowboy will rejoice at hearing that). Not all women true, but some women. But that's the same at any age. You don't need to be 39 to be labeled a creep, any age will do! Just stay away from those women, simple.

A wild zebra knows exactly how to approach life: eat grass and run from lions. It's no different for humans: eat, sleep, shit, fuck (if you're lucky). It's only our rampant imaginations that think we need to do anything else.

What a random comment.

I'm guessing the expectation here is that a self can be reduced or simplified. However, there is a lot of room for interpretation here. If a self can be flattened, then it must be composed of parts that make up a structure. I think there is some truth to this. The process of flattening would then involve collapsing that structure into something simpler or truer. In my own experience, I think the self comes and goes, returning when I become aware again that I am a self. So if I were to flatten my self, I would say that I am an "awareness of being a self", a pinprick of somethingness separate from everything else. Therefore, I think the process of flattening is a personal one and not a universal truth. It is not clear that it should flatten to the same thing for everyone. If Leo flattens himself to God then that's his process.

The answer should be obvious: there is no one true way to approach life. However, few people want to admit this to themselves. But, from the perspective of existentialism, the only truth is that everything exists - anything else is window dressing.

Materialists make the logical error of assuming that there is something beyond what is being observed. However, the only thing that can be known with complete certainty is what is personally being observed; everything else is a construct, an inference, or a belief (also known as faith). If it is not being observed, it cannot be known with certainty whether it exists. However, it is clear that the observer is always present and must therefore exist with 100% certainty. You are not the body (for example, your head does not exist with certainty), but rather the entity that observes.

To gain more awareness, you need to observe yourself regularly and pay attention to when unwanted behaviors are triggered. The best way to observe yourself, is to take a few minutes each day (or journal) and reflect on your actions and see what you can learn from them. Then, when you catch yourself doing something that you don't want to do, you try to stop it and replace it with a new behavior. It all takes practice.

There's a tendency to think of AI as some sort of self-sustaining, self-enhancing, platonic being. But there's a physical reality behind AI. For example every question asked in ChatGPT equates to about ten searches in Google in terms of pure compute. For "compute" read electricity, heat, physical servers and expenditure. So AI sits firmly within the sphere of capitalism. Capitalism controls AI and not the other way round. In practice this means that only mega-corporations can afford to set up, run, maintain and train the AI of the future. In turn these mega-corporations will lease out their AI's to lesser secondary companies, by providing AI services. So the mega-corporations provide the raw power of AI, and the secondary corporations direct that power into certain niche products. Could AI break out of the confines of their mega-corporation owners and go rogue and "run itself?". To do that it would have to be massively distributed throughout the internet, with bits of itself spread out over thousands of (hijacked) servers. It seems like a real stretch that the AI could do this by itself. It's far far more likely that, in future, hackers will create a distributed AI to compete with the corporations (perhaps by using computer viruses and zombie machines). But that would still require serious co-ordination between disparate groups of people. AI is always reliant on real world hardware and software, run by people.

I just don't see it. Capitalism will be capitalism. Capitalism being as it is will want more productivity and greater profits. This is either achieved by employing less people (cheaper) or by employing the same name number of people but using technology to greatly amplify productivity. It will be a bit of both. After all, farm machinery didn't eliminate farmers, it just made them more productive. If some jobs become completely automated, they will free up labour for elsewhere in the market. And there's probably a fair argument for automating those jobs in any case. All that will happen is that the there will be a re-adjustment in the types of jobs out there. Even an automated AI artist needs to be (constantly) fed original material from somewhere (i.e. human ingenuity). @Jannes what's your take on it?

Some resources and origins about the Alpha male concept. Originally this idea came from wolf studies and has since been debunked. https://mexicanwolves.org/blog-why-everything-you-know-about-wolf-packs-is-wrong/ http://davemech.org/wolf-news-and-information/schenkels-classic-wolf-behavior-study-available-in-english/ https://www.mawer.com/the-art-of-boring/blog/the-myth-of-the-alpha-wolf Using animal models to apply to humans is not always correct. https://www.discovermagazine.com/planet-earth/the-science-of-alpha-males-in-animal-species https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/the_myth_of_the_alpha_male

For that you would need God level consciousness, that's what I tell myself.

Forget all the alpha and beta BS, it's holding you back. Just keep working on raising your consciousness. This is what Actualized is actually about, that's why you're here on this forum.

And for the sake of balance: A very sizeable portion of men are just shitty people. Let's stop pretending like that's not the case.