Basman

You are anxious about your life purpose because you are overthinking the "how" question. Acting your vision is much more important than trying to plan it. If you want to play chess. Just play more chess. It doesn't have to be life changing chess. If your lucky, it might come but that isn't as important as just playing chess, no? You can't perfectly predict how things unfold. Therefor just focus on the act of your purpose and see how things go. You don't have to be rich and famous for it to be worth it to pursue your passion.

At the closing of every year, I like to fill out one these, a Year Compass. I've been doing it since 2019 and it is been good to both reflect on how the year went and what I want the next year to be about and what goals I'd like to maintain. It'll also look good over years and decades, as I'll accumulate basically a log of my life. This year I felt like I matured a bit and became a more mature and even keeled person. Less in my head. Though I didn't accomplish much in terms of concrete things, I've made good progress on Leo's Life Purpose Course after a long time of deliberation. I've discovered that making art is very important to me and I've been practicing a lot. Here are some 2024 goals of mine: Fully finish at least one drawing per week Get a gym membership and exercise weekly Finish the Life Purpose Course Meditate daily What are some of your 2024 goals?

Hikikomori are on average more likely to be autistic. It signals an inability to cope with the pressure to conform to Japanese norms as well as the prevalence of technology that allows such a lifestyle. Hikikomori are probably always traumatized. I believe it is kind of like homelessness, in that when you lose your social connections and slip off the radar nobody notices you and the problem festers.

If the point was highlighting that the assumption of long-term human survival is inherently erroneous than I missed that. Your post read more like fiction than an essay, But what people do you think assume such, that humanity will be preserved eternally? Most people I know barely think of tomorrow let alone hundreds of years into the future.

Not buying into the idea that bio-mechanical creatures will overrun the world without a shred of evidence doesn't make me presupposed.

Humans have been altering the environment since the stone age. What is happening now that is just a continuation of that. There's nothing mystical about it. It is just happening at an accelerating pace due to urbanization and industrialization. Many species can't keep up with and adapt to the changes in time. OP is down a rabbit hole imagining a technological fantasy.

Incel ideology is a mind virus. It is a meme that spreads misery instead of humor. It preys on insecurity and makes you believe that you are helpless. Giving away your power is what make being an Incel both tragic and pathetic at the same time. If we wish to "cure" Incels, they have to be decoupled from their ideology that makes them believe that they can't meaningfully change their lives. The problem with that is that their ideology gives them comfort and belonging. Being helpless is convenient and easy and I believe many Incels simply aren't interested in putting in the effort to create lasting change. They must want to change first. One problem I see with modern culture is that it is often not safe for men to discuss their issues without being ridiculed or have their issues minimized (by comparing them to women's issues for example). These "pill" and Incel forums (redpill, MGTOW, men's rights, etc.) do represent spaces where men can discuss their issues and have them taken seriously but they follow with a lot of toxic baggage. There is a culture of "damned if you do, damned if you don't" for men's emotional issues. I remember reading a thread about a guy who seemed to express what appeared to me as sexual trauma over having had unwitting sex with a trans women, where they didn't find out that fact until after having had sex. The OP wasn't really taken seriously, being asked if they where "insecure" and told that they shouldn't feel the way they did. And that was a thread on this very forum, a place where we are meant to better ourselves as a human beings. It shows just how implicit certain expectations we have of men that aren't reflective of the reality we live in. If there is one thing we can do to help insecure and lonely men then it is to listen.

Not sure what you mean? Probably because it is hard. Physically strenuous activities rarely become addicting. Exercise does lift your mood though, so could say that you become "depressed" when you don't exercise. The Nofap community is rife with confirmation bias. Reddit, as a social media platform, filters out posts that don't follow the general online culture so you'll never see posts that say "nofap doesn't work" for example. That is a huge selection bias that makes it less than reputable. The Reddit page gives the appearance of unison, but only because it isn't even possible to go against the grain. It is an echo chamber and an ideological cult. The problem with researching porn is that it often relies on self-reporting and assumptions. Political, religious, moral and business interests can introduce self-bias to research. There isn't definitive conclusive evidence that porn is bad as far as I can see. In my own opinion, if you have porn-related issues, it is more often than not a symptom of something else.

Social media is a suppressant. It is when you are bored, feeling fidgety or anxious (like at a party) that you reach out for your phone. Exercise releases endorphins, which is primarily what makes it pleasurable from a chemical perspective. There are few activities that are as direct and simple a way towards self-improvement and promoting health. Morals (like religion) is a better predictor of porn-related issues than porn-use itself. If you think porn and masturbation is moral, you are more likely going to think that you are dysregulated when you do use it. That and/or you just don't have a lot going on in your life and attribute your unhappiness to porn. I get the impression that there is a growing cottage industry of porn demonetization on social media. Not that porn has no faults, but it sensationalizes issues that are ostensibly moral first and foremost. In my experience it draws a lot of people who are ignorant and don't know that dopamine isn't a pleasure chemical or think not masturbating will magically solve their issues.

Plants have a clear survival agenda. Of course because they are living organisms. I'm not sure about the sun having a survival agenda as it is simply a burning ball of gas. It is more like a natural phenomena rather than something trying to survive. Plants are always in competition for sunlight. I don't remember the exact term for it but I learned once in school that forests follow a cycle of evolving into gradually more "dominant" tree species. In Scandinavia, the "apex tree" are coniferous trees (evergreens) because of how they blot out the sun for other tree species down below and change the composition of the ground. An open field, if left untended, will eventually be overgrown by shrubbery, then leafy trees and eventually coniferous (in that general order). It is all ordered around what plants can dominate the best spots for sunlight, which the tallest and bushiest trees will do best. A pretty clear example of a survival bias in the plant kingdom. If you are on a hike and you see birch trees in the woods, it is a good sign of an opening or of a bog because of how trees order themselves.

Nuclear's bad PR is a serious obstacle to overcome if you want to build plants. It is a lot harder to build nuclear energy if general sentiment is against it, which exacerbates the lack of intent to put in the long-term investment it takes to build plants. If you are for nuclear you have to argue for it more than with other energy sectors.

I find Nazism fascinating because to understand it you have to separate actual National Socialism from the way "Nazism" (the term) has a taken a life of its own nowadays. It has kind of just become a slur and no one cares to understand the true historical context of the ideology. Actual Nazism is very unique to a specific time in history.

This whole discussion around spoilers just seems kinda overblown to me. People don't like having their favorite media spoiled. It is not that deep. I see more people and "articles" complaining about spoiler culture rather than people complaining about spoilers. The problem is more with social media as it is inherently about the propagation of information while spoiler culture is the opposite. You can't freely use social media and be completely safe from spoilers at the same time. But it it also not much to ask for some basic courtesy.

Really interesting take on the "Doom Clone" game. There hasn't been much exploration of 1st person shooters using 2D vectors outside of some of the recent "Boomer Shooter" games. I think there is a lot of potential for unique and interesting artstyles. I wish the AAA space was more original and creative like this. One look at the trailer and you can immediately grasp its identity. And it is unique and different so there is a reason to look forward to it if you like it. Nowadays AAA games are so homogeneous. It is rare I ever get excited for anything.

This is a great definition. I don't think shame is inherently bad. It serves an important function of helping you integrate with you community. If you for example make a tasteless joke during a funeral then you should feel ashamed. The pain is letting you know you failed as a person and that you need to learn and do better. Of course it can be maladaptive if you are ashamed of things you shouldn't be ashamed of. Maybe you lack good role models who could show you the way in your life.

AOT is one of the most multiperspectival fictional stories I can think of. From start to finish, everything gets recontextualized and expanded upon. No one is shown as truly 100% evil, rather everything has a reason for why it happens. In a nutshell, AOT shows how vicious geopolitics can be. There are no inherent "bad guys" only competing survival agendas with very complex relations between different groups of people.

I think the problem with anarchist communes or whatever you want to call them is that they aren't very scalable. The more the population exceeds the size of a typical tribe (100-150 members), the more structure you need to keep bad actors in check and to get things done. The fact that the predominant form of government today after thousands of years of human history consist of centralized authority with rules and regulations as opposed to anarchy hints at it being more effective at the scale of population we are at.

It seems like communes like these have a shelf life of about 30-50 years before their lack of structure ends up becoming too dysfunctional. It is a shame to see Christiania change because I can imagine there being a real sense of community for the inhabitants as they came together to run the place. That will be lessened with an influx of new people and more governmental control if they accept the deal.

I don't believe immigration is equal as a solution to actively working to better the birthrate since immigration doesn't tackle the underlying reasons for why people don't have kids. After a generation or two you are back to square one. Immigration is a quick fix that can introduce its own set of problems in terms of the birthrate crisis. Especially if you import people from cultures that are less developed and you don't handle their integration well (or at all). Cultural identity should also be considered. If people feel like they aren't heard you get backlashes like Brexit. Immigration is viable if done well but it shouldn't be your only playing card.

It is definitely true that people value making "the right" choice and plan familyhood way more than before. I can appreciate it because I've felt the pain of divorce, incompatible parents, lack of resources. People are more savvy now because they've been taught that having a child is life changing and most simply lack the resources to make it something done on a whim. They rather "do it right" than at all.

I enjoy the discussion primarily. There aren't a lot of forums on the internet where you can discuss nearly anything without general partisanship in how the forum itself is run. It is well moderated and it is a great resource if you are into self-help, spirituality and want to learn more about humankind. I care the most about the politics sub-forum since I enjoy learning and discussing how humans work. I've quit most social media platforms since they are not conducive to discussion (Reddit, Twitter, etc.). Non-algorithmic, "old-school" forums are the best places for high quality discussions on the internet.

The reason for why birthrate is falling is because it is no longer an asset to have children. The incentives aren't there. When we used to depend a lot more on our immediate community, in a society without social institutions, we relied on our family to survive. Kids helped out by doing tasks and took care of us when we got older. They made us money, so to speak. Now we have children for more intrinsic/cultural reasons and having kids is a burden. If the birthrate is to be reversed/stabilized than there needs to be more incentive for couples/women to want to have kids. Generally the more incentives you give people to want to have kids the more likely they are to and vice-versa. Affordable housing Better wages Affordable and convenient daycare and after-schoolcare Paternity leave for both mothers and fathers Cash benefits to parents -All possible avenues for making people want to have kids. Economic uncertainty for the future is a major reason why people don't want kids, even if they are currently doing fine.

It's true we live in a very busy and hectic society. But then again, human kind has always been kind of busy. I believe that having rituals through out the day can help us keep us more grounded and self-aware, that demarcate between work and not-work. I meditate every morning as well as work to integrate other habits that might improve the quality of my mental space. I avoid getting worked up as much as possible through out the day. I find that being appreciative of the small things make the daily bustle more bearable and I'm less focused on myself.

Talking a big game about "buying Twitter" because of a gripe to only end up actually having to do it. It is pretty funny from an outside perspective because he's clearly just a narcissistic twitter addict (like Trump) who just chatting a lot of shit but with too much money and not enough sense. Also rebranding Twitter to "X" has to be one of the most unnecessary rebranding moves ever. L+Ratio