Carl-Richard

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Everything posted by Carl-Richard

  1. Who left the carrots out? 😮‍💨🐇🥕
  2. Hedonism vs. eudaimonia. Don't do more of the same things: do the right things, at the right place, at the right time, in the right way. That is what virtue is, what balance is; flexibility, functionality, health. The trick is that eudaimonia requires facing your skeletons head on, tracing every step your mind makes to justify its behavior, and catch it before it escapes into its addictive cycles again. That requires some awareness, deliberation and repeated experience of seeing how the hedonism strategy fails. But until then, it might seem like it's Easier To Run: (I'm in love with this song. It's probably not the last time I'll be quoting Linkin Park songs btw).
  3. In that case, if you want to fix yourself, don't you first have to be broken? 😉
  4. I've gotten the habit of opening way too many tabs at once because I see something that I don't want to miss, and then I feel compelled to finish them all. It takes way too much time and feels like a chore, so I've decided to implement a three-tab rule (max. three tabs at once). That would also force me to watch higher quality videos. That said, I only really watch videos while eating, and I go for a walk after eating (and I feel like I have to when my blood sugar is rising), so that's a good way to break the spell. This curiously only started happening after I started with brain training and cardiovascular training (more blood flow to the brain). I guess a faster brain can be a curse 😂
  5. An open forum is not much different from people on the street. Not much to contemplate there, unless you got some burning insights like you seem to be implying 🤐
  6. "Demons", "entities", "energies", are frames to make sense of your experience, and often less fortunate ones at that. They assume some sort of malevolent force or agent that is involved, which may not be the case and which can complicate and magnify the traumatic response (which is a more appropriate frame imo). Traumas happen quite easily without involving malevolent agents, and when they are involved, they tend to be worse. So be cautious about invoking such notions after a traumatic experience, especially when the reason to do so is not clear. Have you ever seen a demon with your own eyes? Have you ever seen a demon that you for sure knew was personally invested in inflicting harm on you? If not, what use does that frame have? Is it not enough to say you underwent a traumatic experience and that you felt that it left a mark on you?
  7. It's time for my bimonthly Destiny post: The context is Dan critiquing Dr. K's affiliation with Ayurveda (which he equates to homeopathy, which is a mistake in itself, but not the biggest one). The big mistake is when Dan critiques homeopathy by mixing theoretical claims with empirical claims, and Destiny does a decent job at pushing back. His argument is essentially "homeopathy is 100% bullshit, because it's not supported by current theories of pharmacology". Even though current theories of pharmacology don't jibe well with homeopathy, that doesn't mean we can't find significant effects in a study or that we can't get new theories in the future. 38:23 - 50:03 Notice how he later capitulates to "I trust the experts" when he gets cornered (I know it's a funny "jab" at one of Destiny's arguments for supporting COVID vaccines, but at the same time, it seems like he meant it). That's the dogmatism. The problem is that no expert would agree with what he just said. There were also some factual errors about the placebo effect (it doesn't just affect pain, but all kinds of psychological and physical conditions) and probably some other things (Destiny misdefining the Nocebo effect was hilarious). As if it needs to be said, I would be careful taking medical or scientific advice from these guys.
  8. I already somewhat touched on it with how no expert would agree with what he just said, but another mistake (which also goes back to mixing theoretical claims with empirical claims) is when Dan implicitly equates Destiny appealing to experts for evaluating the empirical state of COVID vaccines with Dan appealing to theoretical claims of experts when he should actually be appealing to their evaluation of the empirical research. Those are two different things. One involves admitting the limitations of one's knowledge, the other involves fundamentally misunderstanding the scientific process.
  9. I was so close to stopping the video because of too much cringe, but I somehow persisted. At some point, it just becomes self-harm, like intentionally ingesting poision (like homeopathy) 😆
  10. I think this is what you think the law states (which I mostly agree that it should state and which warrants a different and more suitable name), but I think most people have a more flowery conception of it, hence I was referring to the "usual conception" of it.
  11. The problem is that taking DXM produces a state reminiscent of dementia, so that defeats the purpose 😂
  12. When you put it like that, it's less accurate, but not invalid, because it's more general. If everything functions according to attraction, then you're describing a more general phenomena. The usual conception has the opposite problem: it's too specific, and unreasonably so (because given the option, you would probably not use it, imo). It says you attract things that you intend to attract, but it misses that you sometimes attract things that you don't intend to attract but which you're inadvertedly paying attention to. But these are really trivial knitpicking points. You can use whatever words you like
  13. Masturbate more, overeat nutritious foods (proper ratio of carbs, fats, proteins), avoid strong daylight when possible, learn to adopt sub-optimal hunched-over postures, perpetually tighten the left side of your abdomen (even when falling asleep), constantly distract yourself with your phone or conceptual thinking, sleep on your stomach. Your goal is to reinstate a suitable level of contracted energy in all of your daily behaviors.
  14. I think there is a saying that goes like "tripping is like holding up a mirror"
  15. This is one reason why I think it's healthy to reclaim the word "religion" and not use the word "spirituality" as some "better than you" ("holier than thou") shield for ironically protecting your own dogma. It's simply the case that your idea of spirituality (most likely New Age for people here) is a set of beliefs and practices just like traditional religion. To constantly fixate on the ways which your idea of spirituality is not that (i.e. the mystical dimension), can be a definite source of self-deception. What we need more of is to fixate on the dimensions that New Age lacks, which is everything else than the mystical dimension (at least in this place).
  16. A mix between New Age and traditionally religious person And I mean that quite seriously. I'm not married to a single tradition (historically defined "tradition", e.g. Buddhism, Hinduism, Christianity, Islam), but I'm also wary of the possible pitfalls of picking and choosing between different traditions in a way that gives you a malnourished or incomplete framework. In other words, I would want a New Age religion that is rich in its content, with multiple dimensions (mystical, intellectual, institutional, communal, ritual, aesthetic, law and ethic) and that is firmly integrated into the culture and larger society. Why? Because I don't believe my introduction to New Age was at all safe, responsible, grounded or healthy. The lack of social nets, the lack of people to go to for help, is probably the biggest lack that New Age currently has. Other than that, the rampant anti-intellectualism, skepticism to ethics, narcissism and generally disorganized and lonely nature of the movement are important aspects as well.
  17. You experience being the author of your actions, but you also experience things being outside of your control, and these things influence your actions, and your actions influence these things. Hence compatibilism: determinism and a certain type of free will are compatible.
  18. My first trip gave me a hard lesson in the first of the Four Noble Truths: the truth of suffering. I was grasping so hard, wanting to have a fun experience on the substance, while the grasping itself became the only thing I could focus on, and it left me feeling more empty and hollow than I had ever felt before. That kick-started my search for "something more" (which ironically involves the end of looking for something more).
  19. I'm tempted to post a video of Jan Esmann showing you exactly what kundalini energy is, but I believe kundalini is so real that it would be like assault to do so.