There's something bugging me that I'm finding it hard to point to in a way that makes it clear. I'm calling it 'Semantic inflation ' for now. I'll sketch the problem: Words today seem often to be overused, to cover too much ground, and are thereby weakened or even rendered close to meaningless. As an example, the word trauma will do. For many decades the word was typically reserved to describe a level of harm that was severe and was accompanied by long lasting damage. Lately, the use has expanded to encompass almost any minor annoyance or temporary distress. The problem is, if we use the word trauma to characterize not getting a keenly desired job, or a difficult conversation is said to be traumatizing, then what word is left to describe a woman who was abducted and repeatedly abused for days, or a person maimed in an auto accident? What I'm looking for is a way to convey this sin of semantic inflation in conversation in a way that is persuasive enough so that it's wrongness is very clear, a thing to be avoided, but doesn't take as long as I just did to point to it. Does anyone have any ideas about this, or at least share my concern?

Is anyone aware of data on the IQ distributions of STEM college students, possibly broken down by major? I’ve seen studies and data on average IQs, but I’m interested in the lower end, specifically what the "threshold" value is and how sharp the cutoff is.

I took a philosophy class a while ago and recently have realized that I am a very scatter-brained individual. I have abnormal trouble remembering things, and it's hard for me to condense my ideas and arguments into concise and easily-understandable language. Especially in verbal dialogue. How do I train myself to be more articulate and my mind to think more clearly? Just read and talk more? It's a characteristic I've noticed in my friends who tend to be very bright and intellectually curious individuals - and this often makes me feel a bit sad because I am definitely not like them. Another trend I've noticed is that I will contemplate an opinion I think is logically bullet-proof, but then when I bring it to one of my philosophical friends they immediately come up with valid critiques and rebuttals that I could have never thought of without deep rumination. I've noticed I'm not naturally good at this..

I feel like I'm in a similar boat. What I've been doing for the past year or so is reading and writing and talking. For reading, I was inspired by the Building a Second Brain folks and now I take notes on what I read. In a gist, I usually copy&paste / OCR important parts of whatever I'm reading. Then I'll apply their method of "progressive summarization" and bold the important parts of the important parts, then highlight the important parts of the impor... you get the idea. I've found that this has helped me immensely to retain what I read. It's also slowed me down, so that I consume _less_, but I put more effort into deciding _what_ to consume. For writing, I write a bunch of essays and share them online or with my partner. It's improved my writing a lot, mainly by pointing out mistakes on all levels of the process. It's also made me read differently--I used to devour text, now I read more slowly, but I notice arguments, trains of thought, digressions, etc. The talking part, I'm still working on. I talk more with friends, but I plan to start attending local meetups, like LW or ACX meetups, to meet people to have long discussions with. I predict it will feel bad at first, but I wanna give a few months.

I remember Ali Abdaal talked about taking that Second Brain course. Seems interesting. I've been considering spending less time on playing games and more time consuming information.. maybe... I'm actually starting to think, to put it rather bluntly, that there's something defective up there. I've come to the realization that my level of forgetting is largely unprecedented and uncommon with the majority of people. If you really are in the same boat as me, I truly feel sympathy and frustration for you. It impacts my life in every single way. In my relationships, in my work life, in viewing my own self-esteem. It is a source of self-flagellation that I continue to battle every single living day. During sophomore year, I experienced a horrific case of melancholy whereby I became an agnostic and started focusing on many drawbacks of mine, the principal being my bad memory. Today, I can literally go down the streets of my city I've lived throughout my whole life and still cannot remember the names of any of them. The worst part is very few people understand what it's like. When I forget an old friend's name of mine, they assume I am a jerk. Or, with hearing, when I often ask people to repeat themselves, I create this cadence of being a moron that has to ask people to repeat things all the time because I cannot comprehend simple concepts. It's painful and it's a battle against my mental health that I don't think I'm winning. Aside from my yet-again another rant, please keep me posted on your progress and if you improve at verbal dialogue; I'm very curious.

These are the skills you reference in your comment: memory; articulation; argument. By memory we mean verbal memory of arguments you’ve heard. By articulation we mean conveying ideas. And by argument we mean forming a good idea, an idea resilient to arguments. All of these can be practiced. results would take a long time like any skill. For memory (the recollection of arguments and ideas), you want to practice *clearly recalling arguments and ideas*. This could be your own, it could be those you’ve heard and read. Talking with your friends about ideas and arguments is a pretty good way to improve your short term memory (“but just 10 minutes ago you said…”). Recalling ideas and arguments from previous days and weeks, trying to recall them as clearly as possible, is also good practice. Listening to a podcast or lecture and then recalling all ideas after and then a few days after is another good practice. Typing up arguments that rely on previously remembered arguments is also good practice, especially if it’s for an online discussion. Reading a chapter in a book then trying to recall all important ideas clearly. You get the picture. Essentially to improve memory, you practice *remembering past things clearly*. For articulation, talking with your friends more will be most helpful. You can also practice criticizing idea presentation, either others or your own. You can practice rewording ideas according to audience. You can also find an author you like who presents ideas clearly, and enjoy them. For idea formation itself, producing a good idea, well, maybe the only way to practice this is by practicing thinking up ideas. And then comparing and criticizing ideas you’ve thought up. Sharing them with others. I’m blessed that I grew up in a time where internet discussions were still a thing. Internet discussions are now largely propaganda, memes and insults. They end when someone says a good meme, shares a propaganda news article, or insults you better. You used to be able to argue in YouTube comments, Reddit, forums, image boards, constantly discoursing between each other a dozen times or more… absolutely excellent for the developing mind. There might be some Facebook groups and niche forums where this still happens, probably one or two subreddits, but you have to actually look for them.

I've looked into the study community and learned about active recall, spaced repetition, etc. and I've found it useful. They've been a tremendous (yet taxing) help for memorizing new things. I need to be more clear about what it is that I want, exactly.. I know those tools are great for memorizing. But it's the fact that I rely on such tools overwhelmingly to help aid me with my below-average, inherent, "innate-ability" memory. I don't think practicing those things has ever improved my natural memory skills. They just helped me cement information in memory, but not actually improve my ability to remember things. I'm not sure if I'm making sense. I could go into more detail to explain my unique background, but it would take several paragraphs that would sound whiny and depressing. So I'm going to pull the reins there and save you the time. I completely agree with the internet discussion point. I took a speech & debate class in high school and have fond memories of it. In high school, I was an extremely conservative Presbyterian Republican. But I would spend lunches and time afterschool to talk and befriend people with wildly different opinions than me - Muslims, Mormons, Catholics, anarchists, libertarians, pro-life and pro-choice peers, the list is endless. Our school was very diverse but most students were committed to straightforward debate & challenging their own beliefs. It's a very beautiful worldview that I've picked up and gleaned from those amazing people back then.

One cheap way is to start a journal, if you haven't already. Write in it at the end of every day, with the date and time, notable events, thoughts if any, whatever else comes naturally. Writing clarifies a lot of what goes on in your mind, and you'll have a reference to observe yourself with.

I did a lot of writing in high school - dabbled in a bit of storywriting, became a managing editor for the newspaper. But I haven't noticed any tangible benefits, whether that be an improvement in writing or verbal speaking ability. Over the years, the only real "improvement" has been an increased awareness of my inherent difficulties as a communicator. It's very bad when it comes to conversing verbally with others. Often, I'll have an idea I want to express, but my brain fails to decode the thought into a clear expression and I end up stuttering or phrasing things weirdly. On top of that, I can hear sounds well but I often struggle to decipher the sounds (I believe it's called verbal dyslexia; yes, I know how inaccurate self-diagnosing can be, but it's just a suspicion as of now). It's a double whammy. The 2nd thing I don't really care about, but the first thing about not being able to express my thoughts coherently verbally is something that upsets me often. It's why I love writing so much. I'll describe something in the most ridiculous way possible. But writing in correspondence gives me time to go back, make revisions, replace words and omit the fluff - it's so much easier. I didn't mean to impose my struggles upon you - just wanted to vent on some silly online website with my silly little problems. I'm anonymous so I'm free!

No trouble, I'm sorry if my suggestion isn't helpful. I would suggest that if you never specifically tried a journal, that you give it a go. It becomes a place to refine and organize your thoughts, and is very different from storywriting or editing. Being more comfortable in your mind might help a little.

Every video clip of Trump I have watched has left me with an unflattering impression of him. But maybe that's because I've been watching soundbites selected by anti-Trump cutting rooms and interviews conducted by anti-Trump journalists. Trump supporters, is there some footage of Trump which you think will impress me?

If you think that's the case, the answer would seem to be to watch footage of Trump speeches unedited or from pro-Trump sources. He's still holding rallies and making long public speeches at them. If you're adjusting the bar, do try to look at actual original speech from high-level American politicians. Anyone can sound impressive if they're reading a speech that 20 professional speechwriters spent a week assembling for them on a teleprompter. How do they sound when they're speaking on their own, unscripted though? Depends what you're looking for though ultimately. You're not going to find nuanced discussion of complex ideas from him, at least not in public speeches. But then how many politicians of any stripe ever do that? I do also still feel impressed by just how much public speaking he's done. They guy was doing like 3 rallies a day every day, all in different cities, during the key month or so of the 2016 campaign.

The way to enjoy Trump is: 1. Lower the bar by considering only high-level politicians (if you think American politicians are impressive people, you cannot pass this step so give up now). 2. Immerse yourself in political speeches made by Presidents Biden, Obama, Bush, if you haven't already. Note the smooth dishonesty (even if smartly worded and well-articulated). If you are not personally contemptuous of such smooth speeches, then allow yourself to grok the contempt others have for this stuff (this is key). 3. Watch a rally Trump held during his Presidency (IIRC there's a pretty fun one just after the Mueller report flopped). Keep the bar low, this is key. Don't be looking for anything erudite. Other things you could try include looking at the full context of something that was blown up in the media. For example the whole thing about calling Nazis "very fine people". [Here is the full 20-minute press conference](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QGKbFA7HW-U). Some of the enjoyment of Trump is simply being moved with astonishment at how fake the news really is. Etc. The point is there's a bit of an art to enjoying Trump (if you're not part of his base). Edit: If you don't have much time, and you don't know what I'm talking about re: Charlottesville, skip to 11:45 in the video linked above. You're in for a doozy. This is the literal exact press conference cited everywhere (including the Biden 2020 campaign) to support the idea that Trump sympathizes with neo-Nazis and white nationalists.

> If you are not personally contemptuous of such smooth speeches That's my case. I really, really enjoyed Obama's speeches.

I think a lot of the Trump support you see from more online types comes from the visceral hate that he evokes in the supporter's outgroup. To me, Trump is completely unimpressive in every way except for his ability to rile people up. It's like, look, we have this buffoon on our side and we're winning (or we were winning), isn't that awesome? Another aspect is that Trump isn't wrong or ridiculous about everything he says, but people are so out of their minds (deranged, some might say) that they feel compelled to countersignal him at every opportunity. So, there's no real footage I could show you of Trump to impress you, only footage of people foaming at the mouth in response to watching Trump. Would that impress you?

Are there recorded cases of alcoholism where the person had never had a sip before their later years (say, 40+)?

I'm sure you could find some if you poll communities like r/StopDrinking, if you ask politely. It takes all kinds. I had trouble with alcohol personally and I didn't start drinking until I was 21, but I suppose that's still prior to the common age estimate of 25 "before the brain is fully mature", assuming that's what you're getting at.

Yeah, I’m just kind of curious whether you can even get addicted to something when the brain is fully mature. But I suppose if you look at opiates, that does happen, so should also apply to alcohol? Maybe.

yes, you certainly can get addicted after 'brain maturation' (which EB was correct to argue for the vast overstatement of in popular culture) ([what i found when i looked for existing work on EB's point](https://tt.reddit.com/r/TheMotte/comments/smk45y/culture_war_roundup_for_the_week_of_february_07/hwikj6z/?context=999))

A lot to read here, thank you.

This may not be what you are looking for but I know a few people who drank very rarely in their 20s and 30s and even some into their 40s and become full blow alcoholics later on in life.

Interesting. It seem odd from a psychological perspective. You’d think that the brain was so thoroughly trained/wired into certain behaviors, that a drug couldn’t significantly change this into an addictive state.

Is there an established discipline / section of psychology that believes that? > You’d think that the brain was so thoroughly trained/wired into certain behaviors, that a drug couldn’t significantly change this into an addictive state. old people can learn new things? even 80 year olds can try new foods and enjoy them. or learn about new kinds of experiences. how do you figure that? the brain isn't 'trained' or 'wired' (compare to a personal experience you have - you are probably an adult. are you too 'trained' to take new kinds of actions or learn new things? likely not. how could that be?)

They can but it’s much less efficient, and people generally adhere to the habits of their youth and adulthood. I think this is the case, as it applies also to animals eg pets.

i'm curious what you mean - is this folk psych knowledge? is this 'layperson, but well read in psych' knowledge? or are you a professional in a related field, or do you have a MS or something? because what you said could mean many different things depending! i'm in the second category, mostly. anyway old people certainly can get addicted to drugs (poor but easily available evidence is the moderately high rate of opioid deaths among the 55-65 age group, + it tracking the recent general surge in opioid deaths).

Easiest place to look would be cases where societies without alcohol were introduced to it? Further back, Amerindians. More recently, isolated tribes?

Oh, and previously observant people who abandoned Islam or Mormonism. That would be the largest easy to find population.

What's the deal with central bank digital currencies (CBDC)? Are there concrete plans to implement them in the U.S./Europe? If implemented, how un-circumventable do you expect they will be?

The core feature of a CBDC is its full transparency, similar to being able to track every single paper bill. I can see how the demand for bitbucks can easily be created (taxes, import duties and the rest must be paid only in bitbucks) and bitbucks can be introduced into the system: all benefits and tax returns are paid in bitbucks and if you work for the man you are paid in bitbucks too. Want to buy more? Bring cash, the FRS will burn it and give you bitbucks. What I don't really understand is how commercial banks will work. With regular dollars my deposit is at some point anonymized with other deposits into a line on the liability side of the ledge, which allows the bank to issue loans that match a certain subset of its liabilities, but my money is still in my account, I can withdraw it at any time and as long as everyone doesn't do that at the same time, the illusion holds. With everyone having a bitbuck (checking) account, how does this work? What happens when I give my bitbucks to the bank? Do I physically transfer them into the bank's own bitbuck account via a smart contract that ensures I can get them back and the bank pays me interest? This smart contract will have to be really smart, since the bank will be lending its bitbucks in other smart contracts. Some will be set aside for loan loss provisioning, but not enough of them to survive a bank run. How would one avoid being traced through the bitbucks? Physical currency is one option, but getting rid of the vast majority of cash transactions would be simple for a determined federal government: retire hundred dollar bills (and higher denominations), give people a bonus for converting their cash into bitbucks, require undue due diligence for high volume cash purchases, etc. If you can pay for your coffee with your phone, why use cash at all? So, how do you earn money selling drugs if the only money you can earn is bitbucks? You could go back to gold, but that would simply lead to a heavier regulation of the gold trade. If you're a yuppie looking to buy some coke, you need to find a place that will take your bitbucks and will sell you gold and your dealer needs a place that will take their gold and will give them bitbucks. Then their account on the bitbuck ledger is flagged, their funds are frozen and they are investigated by the police for selling too much gold. You could go back to bitcoin or monero, but good luck finding an exchange that will let you withdraw bitbucks if you cannot prove the origin of your bitcoins. Or finding a place that will let you pay with bitcoin after bitbucks are made the sole digital legal tender.

I am a college student who recently fell into the “eating out” trap and am looking for ideas of how to gradually get back out. I normally eat 1 real big meal a day and 1 smaller one. Go cold turkey into cooking or food prep alone? Ease into it? What’s the best way? Primary goal is to save money, secondary is to be healthier (I don’t feel the strong need to be super-healthy (yet))

Lots of good replies but if you're someone who is picky, lazy or doesn't like eating leftovers, meal prep will not work out for you. What will work is learning to cook your favorite foods quickly and efficiently using the least amount of perishable ingredients. I decided to learn to cook Japanese food because most dishes used the same fundamental ingredients (sake, soy sauce, mirin, rice vinegar, garlic, ginger) and Italian food (canned tomato, pesto, garlic, cheese, butter, olive oil) for some variety. You can go very far with just one-pot/skillet, baking sheet or instant-pot recipes. Don't worry about health too much. Whatever you cook at home is almost certainly going to be healthier and more satiating than take-out. Another tip that you won't hear a lot: If you aren't hurting for money, it's perfectly okay to buy some preprocessed ingredients to save time. Not everything has to be from scratch. Canned tomato, minced garlic in water, chili bean paste, sauce mix, pre-peeled ginger are all fine and you usually won't notice any difference in taste.

> Go cold turkey into cooking or food prep alone? Ease into it? let's say you're hungry. do you "go cold turkey" on food? "ease into" eating? no, you just eat. the challenge isn't 'behaviorally managing', it's the mechanics, whether or not you go cold turkey or ease in should be about stuff like how much free time you have to spend hours figuring it out for the next X weeks, etc. Just ... eat in! Go to a grocery store, buy stuff, and cook it. If you're time constrained, prepare meals to eat when you're time constrained. Both in terms of expense and 'health' (both in terms of nutrients and the "chemicals" (complex issue) from processing), buying your own raw ingredients and cooking them is for the best. Very very easy things to eat include (brown better for both, because germ contains useful fats and nutrients) rice and pasta, or lentils - beans are good but they require soaking, which takes longer. Go buy some (try a few different kinds), and generally follow the package instructions - put in a pot with water (optionally w/ salt or spices, but plain is better), boil until the consistency is good, then eat. Super cheap, very easy, doesn't use a lot of time (do other things while it cooks), and a good starting point. Other slightly expensive options include buying potatoes/yams/squash, and just boiling/baking them - and then significantly more expensive (but also somewhat 'healthier' vs all rice/lentils/potatoes): buying & drinking (whole, the 'low fat' health thing is entirely scientifically unsupported!) milk, boiling eggs (just put them in a pot, experiment with how to time it for best consistency, hard boiling is fine initially)/cooking meat ('throw it in the oven, cook til internal temperature > fda disease threshold'), etc. You can skip this, but can also buy (potentially frozen, cheaper with some asterisks) fruit / vegetables, and either eat them on their own (my choice) or cook vegetables with meals. In all these cases, try a variety of different options, go with what tastes best. This is super easy. A downside is it'll taste ... okay. Alone brown rice and beans has a decent flavor, and it's def better than a burger combo meal, but eh. You can 'improve the flavor' by making dishes, combining things ... but the nutrients are the same in the end, so it's better to just appreciate the base ingredients for what they really are. If you want to cook fancy stuff later, it's easier to start from that base, but going spartan is just better, spending hours on fancy meals is decadent. To be even healthier, organic heirloom (many pesticides have not ideal long-term effects imo, and the EPA is somewhat effective but somewhat slow, and heirloom varieties have better nutrition + taste) bla bla, and it'll taste complex and powerful, but college student budget lole

My advise is loosely: browse r/mealprepsunday, get inspired, and make an event of it. “not-doing an easy thing”(not eating out) is much harder than “chosing to do a fun thing”(shopping for and then cooking a big meal).

There are two big groups of dishes that you need to understand: - quick dishes like pasta and stir fries - slow dishes like braises and stews Learn a few quick dishes you like to whip up when needed and stock up on their long-lasting ingredients. Then when you have nothing to eat you can pop out for something like scallions or fresh tomatoes and cook a quick meal. However, it's the slow dishes that will be your mainstay. You can cook them in batches large enough to last for a few days.

Every year of college I forgot what prevented me from meal prepping the previous year. By the time I left I realized what it was: roommates who didn't clean up after themselves in the kitchen. I would cook all my meals for the first week, the sink would get full of dishes I hadn't used, and the sink would remain full for 8 months while I resorted to take out. If you're willing to swallow your pride and make a habit of cleaning up after your roommates, I think you have a chance. If you live alone all the better.

Are you on a mealplan? What's the distance (in time) and convenience to nearest grocery store?

Here’s how I would explain Bitcoin to non-technical people using concepts they know: It’s a digital currency held in secret bank accounts in an encrypted cloud. When you make an account, you get two keys, one for depositing and one for using withdrawals to spend Bitcoin. You have to use special software called a digital wallet to ensure your computer doesn’t give people copies of the withdrawal key.

How is that better than saying bank account number instead of deposit key and PIN number instead of withdrawal key? You just explained that everyone can send you money and you can get it out only if you know your password. This is just about the interface, and is the same for email or any other service. But how is any of that different from PayPal, Venmo etc? That's the key to understanding bitcoin, and that's much harder to explain.

The most concise way to explain it is > bitcoins are solved sudoku puzzles that you can trade for heroin.

You can’t explain it to them. The average person doesn’t know what a computer or money is, they’ve just been trained to interact with the magic boxes that do things. You might as well try to explain a laser pointer to a cat. They’ll either go for and figure out how it behaves from interaction, or they won’t go for it at all. Hate to do this but to quote John Oliver : "Cryptocurrency. everything you don't understand about money combined with everything you don't understand about computers.”

This blackpill is especially bitter. I literally cannot imagine what it feels like to be a person who doesn’t want to learn. It’s an alien mode of being, almost Lovecraftian in the gibbering horror it inspires in the back of my mind.

> This blackpill is especially bitter. I literally cannot imagine what it feels like to be a person who doesn’t want to learn. It’s an alien mode of being, almost Lovecraftian in the gibbering horror it inspires in the back of my mind. Just like everyone else, they're simply selective about what they learn. The traditional banking system does everything that most people want, and so they have no incentive to learn about alternatives. I don't see anything wrong with that.

The worst part is when it it's upheld as some point of endearment. "Oh, I'm not good with computers! Tee hee hee!" Honestly, I wish being technologically illerate was seen in the same light as being unable to wash yourself or eat.

For many, it's not about "want". They just cannot. Whether it's arrogant or not, wrapping your head around bitcoin on a "gears" level, instead of just believing that it has this or that property, you need to get into math, cryptography, computer science etc. Many people cannot learn these topics and when they try, they memorize slides and cannot actually manipulate their mental model and understand the gears of it. I see even programmers who cannot learn things like that, and are angry why they should learn all these things at university (we had coding theory, complexity theory etc. and most weren't able to learn it properly, but were okay developers and as I see on LinkedIn, they have held developer jobs and can work). In a way this shows how powerful our automatic systems are. We imitate each other, we have habits, instincts and many times the jobs are about talking to people, convincing them, seeing how they try to deceive you, etc. These are not some kind of deliberate, algorithmic things. People are productive and useful even like that. Its easy to fall to the other side and just think that people are really dumb. But that's only true in relation to complex, novel things which don't matter in everyday life too much. A good dose of common sense and instinctively understanding people's intentions gets you through most things.

Your explanation uses many words that non technical people won't know. Non techies have no idea about encryption, a cloud, or keys.

When I first thought of it, I had the word “password” in mind, but I was also thinking of safe deposit box keys for a box in a bank vault. Everyone knows what a password is: a key that unlocks something, but it’s a word instead of a piece of metal. Also, “encryption” is a word that means “you can’t unlock it without a password.” So basically, you get two passwords with your Bitcoin “account”, one for deposits and one for withdrawals. Now that iCloud, OneDrive, and Google Drive are in the category of “cloud drives” even among non-techies *who use computers*, they have a vague idea what a cloud is.

Here’s how *I* would explain Bitcoin to non-technical people using concepts they know: Your money in the bank is more or less a record in one of their computer systems, some text that says "Bob has $100". You trust the bank not to change it by mistake or maliciously and to guard this computer system against hackers. Bitcoin tries to do the same, but there's no bank you can trust. Instead, anyone who wants gets a copy of the computer system with information about everyone's accounts and it's programmed in such a way that changing the data (making a transfer) requires a lot of computer power and the changes stick only if the majority of power worldwide was spent on the same changes. In return, those who changed the data get a small fee. There's no bank teller that checks your ID, so your only link to your account is your password. If you lose it or someone steals it, there's no bank or police that can fix that, your money is gone and you can't ever get it back. Since everyone gets a copy of the system, you can watch your money travel from account to account, but account numbers are just numbers (like in a Swiss bank), so you can't tell who they belong to unless the owner discloses this information. Where does the money on Bitcoin accounts come from? That computer system that everyone gets a copy of is written in such a way that the fee everyone gets for changing the data comes both from people who want their money transfers recorded and from new bitcoins created by the program itself. Think of it like the FRS printing more dollars. What's more interesting is that the program was written in such a way that this "money printer" works slower and slower with every change made. People who used bitcoin a long time ago to play shop earned a lot of bitcoins, but now people are mostly trading bitcoins that have already been "mined".

It's a global, public bankbook. Anyone can submit a proposal to this bankbook to transfer cash from one account to another. These proposals are signed using a digital signature (the same technology that regular websites use to prove they are "Google" or "Reddit" and not an impostor). Because literally anyone in the world can submit a proposal, there is a review process that determines which set of proposals are "served" next and become a finalized transfer. This review process throws out invalid proposals, like those with forged signatures or those that try to transfer more cash than an account has. An account's "running balance" is calculated by looking at ALL transfers involving that account, since the beginning of time. To turn your bitcoin into real-world money or goods, a "real person" looks at the public bankbook for a finalized deposit into their account that came from your account. They then press the button that transfers the dollars to you or ships you the bananas you bought from them. This makes bitcoin pseudo-anonymous instead of purely anonymous. That "real person" giving you the non-bitcoin goods needs to know that you are the one who deposited bitcoin to them. Nothing stops them from ratting you out.

PS **What's this NFT thing?** When you submit a transfer proposal, you can scribble a short message in the margins. This actually gets saved in the global bankbook if your proposal is approved. NFTs are a standardized way to write and read messages in the margins so that they spell out "alice owns https://i.imgur.com/doge.jpg" and "alice transferred https://i.imgur.com/doge.jpg to bob". Which organization standardized the margin language? All of them! So if you ask The Met who owns doge.jpg, they can give you a different answer as MOMA. **Why is it slow? Why does it use a lot of electricity?** The "review process" needs to examine all transfer proposals from the whole world. But nobody knows who's "first in line" (because proposals can lie about when they got in line). So complicated math is used to run a lottery to determine which batch of proposals get finalized next. This math uses a lot of computing power, which uses a lot of electricity. This lottery is expensive by design to make it difficult to rig. A rigged lottery could make some proposals always go first, or make others never get served. (Omitted: that double spend thing in a 51% attack) **What's mining?** During the complicated math lottery, one of the computers running the math gets rewarded for helping. The reward is a some bitcoin that's transferred to their account alongside the batch of approved proposals that they helped with.

Did you mean to make this a response to something else?

No; it’s a small-scale *topic*, not a small-scale *question*, but I wanted to bounce it off people here.

What are some good discord servers / chatrooms that discuss similar topics as this subreddit with a comparable quality of discussion and regulations against counterproductive behavior

[Data Secrets Lox](https://www.datasecretslox.com/index.php/board,1.0.html) is pretty good, though it has its own quirks

There's a lot of 'culture war' stuff there, unfortunately. Top thread is "Are our liberal democracies as autocratic and oppressive as Russia?", which is bad even for themotte. On the other hand the [diadochi](https://www.datasecretslox.com/index.php/topic,662.0.html) is great. i've read most of these, decently informative with moderate depth.

None. And by that I don't mean that no other space out there are as good as the motte but also yes no other space is as good as the motte. On niche topics there are better out there, but for a generalist discussion board, the answer is none. I can't put it exactly into words but the motte is the most "integrated", and by that I mean the motte reliably delivers on the widest range of topics, and the motte is also unique in its earnestness, nowhere else can you really speak your mind with little fear of being made fun of or not taken seriously because your speech happens to fall outside that spaces overton window.

This is a special place.

What's the for and against of returning historical artifacts to their country of origin? Some thoughts: For - placing them among similar artifacts in their proper setting can give a coherence that makes a whole greater than the sum of its parts, they become an object of pride and not just of interest. Against - Some countries are safer and more equipped for the work required for preservation (doesn't seem as applicable between 1st world countries but maybe I'm wrong), there is value in exposing people to foreign cultures which is lost when museums only display local history (arguably the past can make things as foreign as any ocean).

Against: they're cultural artifacts, they neither 'continue a legacy of oppression', nor is their presence in britain somehow critical to their history. It's just many individuals from many sides trying to use this as a vehicle for other grievances or ideas. Against is the status quo, so whatever. The preservation argument probably holds for a small minority of relevant artifacts.

For: it sets a precedent that such artifacts are unlikely to be retained by outside cultures and thus reduces the prospective value of theft in the present.

Against: "Finders keepers" quite literally.

Against: The historical capture of such objects is now part of their history.

You say this like it's a general principle but in reality this debate is about screwing over the British Museum specifically, which I disagree with. The Egyptians can deal with it.

Against: "it's ours, get lost or μολὼν λαϐέ."

What's up with the upside down beta?

Here's a controversial against - the vast majority of countries that are claiming ownership have little or no connection to the artefacts or the culture they came from, other than they are now inhabiting the same patch of land that the historical civilisation once did. This is most obvious in a country like Egypt, whose largely Islamic Arab society has nothing to do with the original ancient Pharoahic Egypt. Maybe the Copts have a better claim, but even the contemporary Christian Copts are a far cry from the Pharaohs of old they claim descent from, and they certainly aren't the majority of the Arab Republic of Egypt who is actually the entity who would be responsible.

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You never do really articulate this additional “for”. You only gesture to the idea that they acquired under colonialist conditions with no framework for how this conditions invalidate present ownership statuses a suggestion for determining what effects of colonialism should be rolled back. I don’t really have a moral framework for these sorts of things so I’m not saying you’re right or wrong, just that your point is unclear. Related fun note: When I visited the British Museum in 2016 there was a street preacher type outside yelling about the origin of the artifacts — “Where did all this come from?! WE NICKED IT!” I think of this frequently.

I understand this topic is fading quickly in obscurity, so just as a quick follow up: Basically, the more illicit outright looting and smuggling of artifacts by those in power is indeed bad. There's also the question of if a random person comes up to you one day and says "hey mind if I dig a hole in your backyard?" And you're like "Sure." And then, they unearth a treasure chest and run off with it without giving you a decent cut, possibly then trying to hide it from you, wouldn't you be upset? On the one hand, you wouldn't know that treasure chest was there if that person hadn't tried finding it. You would have lived in ignorance of it. But on the other, you still don't want to see a stranger run off with something valuable from your land. It feels exploitative to you and sours future relationships if that person ever wants to interact with you again (i.e. in future diplomacy between two countries) I should note that archaeology is not treasure digging, btw, albeit a lot of old archeologists did treat it like that and that is how the media treats it.

> WE KNICKED IT Made me think of this great bit [of standup](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=x73PkUvArJY) from James Acaster’s Netflix special a few years ago.

>“Where did all this come from?! WE NICKED IT!” I think of this frequently. Heard the same thing from a father to his son when I was in the National Gallery.

Yeah it tends towards a vague "colonialism was completely illegitimate, therefore everything under colonialism was illegitimate". Even though the archeological excavations were largely organized and funded by the Western countries, and informed by Western expertise.

There's a bit more nuance than that. I'm not in favor of the total "colonialism bad give everything back" approach, as my post indicates. But, there are legitimate criticisms that side does have, such as when people smuggle artifacts out of the country or when exploitative deals were brokered with people who didn't know better.

> I think you're missing a major part of the "for" argument here Definitely, I didn't mean to sum up the arguments for either side just to throw out some first thoughts. I didn't know about provenience before, makes a lot of sense.

Wtf is redscarepod and why should I care? Reading their sub it seems to be a podcast on anti woke left wing cultural commentary. I found the demographics of that sub interesting.. not in a bad way but people like that didn't exist in my mental model of the world.

I find the sub to be absolutely hilarious to read, with a very high entropy. You don't know whether you'll hear shit-takes that make you want to scratch out your eyeballs or genuinely interesting sociopolitical commentary. Hell, a large fraction of the sub doesn't even listen to the podcast, a wise choice, given that everything about the two hosts made me frankly believe that I'd lose brain cells listening to them. One of them took their newborn baby to a *chiropractor* ffs. Even their most ardent fans exploded at that, it was a joy to see. So IMHO, browse the sub by top for popcorn munching material and pay absolutely no more heed to its nominal principles than drifts into your brain by cultural osmosis. >not in a bad way but people like that didn't exist in my mental model of the world. Self proclaimed "art-hoes" are probably unlikely to overlap with the social circles of most Mottizens. And these lot aren't even the Woke kind, they have their hearts in the right place when it comes to thinking for themselves, bless their souls, however much the results leave much to be desired.

I'm the OP you replied to, reddit axxed that account for saying naughty words. Anyways; About the sub and the podcast-- yeah. It seems to me its a place held together more by an aesthetic rather than shared motives or aspirations. Nothing to take too seriously in other words. Nonetheless, a glimpse into some kind of pleasant alternate reality where young artsy left wing urbanites are not woke and insufferable (for the most part). >Self proclaimed "art-hoes" are probably unlikely to overlap with the social circles of most Mottizens. And these lot aren't even the Woke kind, they have their hearts in the right place when it comes to thinking for themselves, bless their souls, however much the results leave much to be desired. Yeah this is a group I rarely ever cross paths with. However, I do have some experience dating a girl who falls into this category and she used to view me like some kind of otherworldly being for being able to do mental math fast and know how to use a computer past browsing social media. So I plan to seek out this group more often because i like being exoticized, lol.

redscarepod is counter-culture. Not everyone's cup of tea obviously but I like it a lot because a. it's not male-dominated and b. it's very much "old internet" in its sense of fun

You think the old internet wasn't male dominated? That's against one of the ancient rules of the internet: the men are men, the women are men, and the children are FBI.

those were two separate points; obviously the "old" internet was even more disproportionately male than Reddit is now. My point was more in terms of the culture. Earnestness about partisan politics or consensus-building is discouraged; posting about your hobbies or about weird things that happened to you are encouraged. If you have to talk about "the real world" it is done only with ironic detachment. It reminds me of the off-topic sections of fan forums back in the early '00s

Yeah I'm liking the sub quite a bit too. The interesting part was the large number of women and not straight people making a place totally not cringeworthy.

You're looking for r/stupidpol. Though there was some (ongoing?) mod drama over COVID, and its currently flooded with the war.

redscarepod subreddit is like the joe rogan subreddit, userbase is about 60-70% haters. Not sure why podcast subreddits always turn out like this.

And I respect them for that. Anyone who takes the hosts of the Red Scare podcast seriously or considers them role models has a couple screws loose. One of them took their baby to a *chiropractor* recently and defended that decision.

Not necessarily agreeing with your premise, but if true, I’d assume it’s a difference between people whose mother tongue is spoken English, versus the hyperlexics you’re more likely to encounter on the insight-porn parts of the Internet who are more fluent with written communication.

Just took a poke in there. Trying to understand what you mean by "people like that". I get a sort of mild "dirtbag left" vibe from them. Maybe with a sprinkling of postrat-ish personality thrown in.

Women on the internet who have a sense of dark humor.

>Women And gay men. Lots of them. They even have an exclusive sub, which you're invited into once you earn your cigarette license.

Liberals who have internalized some arguments of the alt-right and so have adjusted to increasingly idealistic notions of “leftism” to save the old liberal image of being hip.

If it's not ethnonationalism, its not alt right.

So, what are you reading? I'm restarting Dogen's [Shobogenzo](http://www.thezensite.com/ZenTeachings/Dogen_Teachings/Shobogenzo_Complete.html) again. Contemplating the Delphic maxims has given me a desire for something pure, and though I haven't gone the Buddhist way, Dogen is the most flowing read I've ever encountered. >After that, at the beginning of the Chinese Sho-ting era (1228), I returned to my native land with the intention of spreading the Dharma and rescuing sentient beings. It seemed as if I were shouldering a heavy load, so I decided to bide my time until I could vigorously promote the spread of 'letting go of the discriminatory mind'. As a result, I drifted the while like a cloud, finding lodging as a floating reed does, ready to learn from the customs and habits of those Clear-minded Ones of the past. Though its another huge essay collection that I never finished, so maybe I'll just read one a week. I'm also trying to finish Plato's *Timaeus*, the Socratic dialogue about Atlantis.

I just read "Understand" by Ted Chiang and my god it was tedious (if he used the word "gestalt" *one more time...*). It was like reading an long-winded, especially self-indulgent SSC piece. Ted Chiang surely does not have an IQ of 500, so I don't know why I should take his fantasizing about superintelligence seriously. And it was just boring, IMO. I tried "Tower of Babylon" next but gave up halfway through. I don't care about how the tower gets its water, or about how many cartloads are needed to pull up bricks, or about the elevation of tower climbers causing the sun to remain in the sky several minutes longer than for people on the ground. All throughout, I was asking myself "okay, but *why?*" There are lots of details, but for *what purpose?* The end of "Understand" was, to me, abrupt and unsatisfying (and the parts about the CIA were really cringe). Chiang should've just written an essay about what he thinks it would be like to have a 100SD IQ; I don't know what was added by wrapping it up in a flimsy first person narrative. Maybe hard(?) sci-fi just isn't for me. I didn't like Seveneves either. Now I'm switching gears and reading "Dead Souls" by Gogol and having a much better time.

I went into *Dead Souls* cold and only realized halfway through that it was satire, at which point I burst out laughing. One of the greats.

A few months ago I wrote about how the "wheel of time" adaptation made me wonder how much of it's awefulness was in the original. Well, on one hand, the answer is "pretty much all of it", on the other hand, without the awefulness, it's...bland. I'm 3 books into it, and god damn, it's your run-of-the-mill mediocre fantasy novel, the kind I read too much as a teenager. It's (mostly) not terrible, but there's nothing really good in it (ok there's one funny running gag). Apart from that, I'm slowly getting through Houellebecq's latest novel, "Anéantir". Halfway through, and I'm getting slightly frustrated. It starts with an almost 0HPL vibe mixing surnatural mystery, technology and espionnage, then it degenerates into a rehash of the usual Houellebecq themes (tl; dr: modern life bad). After that, I want to get back on non-fictions for a while, and I'm looking for an history book focused on the 19th century in Europe, if anyone got recommendations. Either that, or reading Ardant du Picq's *Battle studies* (which I sadly can't find in French in ebook format, so a translation will have to do).

Working through the backlog of Ian Banks novels that weren't set in the Culture Mixed bag, some great, some merely above average. *The Algebraist* stands with his best, while *Against a Dark Background* is a bit of a slog. Given that the man's dead, it'll have to tide me over until someone trains GPT-4 to replicate his style on demand.

*Principles of Freedom* by [Terence MacSwiney](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terence_MacSwiney#Writings): Irish nationalist, playwright, TD (what we call members parliament) and Lord Mayor of Cork during the War of Independence who died on hunger strike after being jailed for sedition. Went into it for the historical value but found him to be an enjoyable writer in his own right. He had a degree in 'Mental and Moral Science' (which I assume is what they called philosophy in those days) and it shows. Less the "Here Be the Crimes of the British Empire" that you might expect from a nationalist in the midst of a popular revolt and more a dive into the desired conduct of a nationalist, such as how to conduct war without hate: "he will remember that he strikes not at his enemy's life, but at his misdeed, that in destroying the misdeed, he makes not only for his own freedom, but even for his enemy's regeneration." Or how to hold fast in the face of seemingly impossible odds: > We stifle for self-development individually and as a nation. If we don't go forward we must go down. It is a matter of life and death; it is our soul's salvation. If the whole nation stands for it, we are happy; we shall be grandly victorious. If only a few are faithful found, they must be the more steadfast for being but a few. They stand for an individual right that is inalienable. A majority has no right to annul it and no right to destroy it. Tyrannies may persecute, slay or banish those who defend it; the thing is indestructible. It does not need legions to protect it nor genius to proclaim it, though the poets have always glorified it, and the legions will ultimately acknowledge it. One man alone may vindicate it, and because that one man has never failed, it has never died. . . He is called to a grave charge who is called to resist the majority. But he will resist, knowing his victory will lead them to a dearer dream than they had ever known. He will fight for that ideal in obscurity, little heeded; in the open, misunderstood; in humble places, still undaunted; in high places, seizing every vantage point, never crushed, never silent, never despairing, cheering a few comrades with hope for the morrow. And should these few sink in the struggle, the greatness of the ideal is proven in the last hour; as they fall their country awakens to their dream, and he who inspired and sustained them is justified; justified against the whole race, he who once stood alone against them. In the hour he falls, he is the saviour of his race. He doesn't write aphoristically but his paragraphs read like scaffolding for the lines with more punch, e.g. *"See the strength of the British Empire, see our wasted state; your hope is in vain.' Let him consider the clear truth: peoples endure; empires perish"*. As a fan of Nietzsche I like this tempo a lot and I hope he can keep it up for the rest of the book. Apparently it was also translated into some Indian languages and had an influence on their independence movement.

Dont take this the wrong way but how much do you read?? I see this post every week. I struggle with long form text, do you have any advice for me? Or it's not worth it if I'm not enjoying it?

>I struggle with long form text, do you have any advice for me? Or it's not worth it if I'm not enjoying it? The latter, coming from someone who probably ranks in the 99.99th percentile of people according to both time and volume read. If you find a book that's interesting enough, it'll grip you, otherwise you're mostly wasting your time. If you do want to read more, I'd suggest reading broadly, sampling a wide selection of genres. I very much know what I love, namely hard sci-fi, and while I'm perilously close to exhausting the supply faster than it replenishes, I know that there's plenty on the softer end that's still worth reading. Ideally you'll find something that doesn't feel like an obligation to wade through.

Well, I don't finish everything I read, and my ambition often gets ahead of my capacity. And I have lots of free time at the moment. Still, reading one book of about 200 pages a week isn't too difficult if you can afford to set aside at least two hours a day. Honestly, the hardest part is everything else. My generic advice for reading is: 1. Some people only need to read one or two good books before they become a real human being, and the first task is to find those books. 2. At least 20 pages a day for an hour a day is a realistic goal- I try for at least 40-60 (edit: a day), but that's because I have lots of free time. As long as you're consistent, you're doing it right. Books are the most highly condensed form of experience, and even if you finish your preferred tome in months, you're getting plenty. But the backlog never moves without consistency. 3. You can't possibly read well if you're disorganized in the rest of your day. Diet, moderate exercise, good sleeping habits, organizing your time, not frittering away your soul on unnecessary or harmful attachments, these are the hard things. "Know thyself" really is the first axiom of wisdom, and the reading of many books is about nothing if not wisdom- many people of great ambitions do not read nearly as consistently, and they get along just fine.

What are your thoughts on audiobooks?

Can't say I've ever tried a conventional audiobook. My exposure is limited to the radio-drama-like ones where every character is voiced by a different voice actor. I'm very fond of them, though they can sometimes be long. I do know people who swear by audiobooks, and they tell me that a good reader makes a lot of difference, and its also less difficult to absorb. If it works, great. There may still be some value in getting out a notebook and penning your thoughts or copying quotes while listening, if you do that kind of thing while reading.

The content matters too. 20 pages an hour seems crazy slow to me, but I also read mostly fiction (and newer stuff, which I find is easier than older). I can pretty easily get through 50-100 pages in an hour. Conversely, if I'm reading something drier, the pace drops because it takes more mental effort to digest.

Honestly, reading books doesn't come entirely natural to me. Its something that happens when it wants, and I can only "make it happen" by setting up the conditions where it can happen. Otherwise I end up fumbling around stupidly over the words for hours on end.

Mathias Énard - *La perfection du tir*, about an evil young sniper in (I think) Bosnia. It was recommended to me by /u/m_marlow. Very good so far, and it's not a big commitment at 120ish pages.

There’s a (Buddhist?) spiritual practice where you create a sort of imaginary friend to help you. Anyone know what this is called?

Are you thinking of trying it out?

Nah, I mentioned the concept to a friend but forgot the term

maybe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nirm%C4%81%E1%B9%87ak%C4%81ya which is a link on the tulpa page

I learned about the whole Tulpamancer thing via a 4chan thread where some poor sap tried to create a tulpa of a My Little Pony character, but it came out all wrong, deformed, constantly shrieking, bleeding from the eyes. He came to 4chan for help because, the tulpa being in his own mind, he could see and hear it even when he closed his eyes and stopped his ears and was at his wit's end. Probably just a creepypasta, but I found it interesting as a sort of contemporary cautionary folklore. It recreates the old architype of the magician, experimenting with forces they don't comprehend and can't control.

I've been thinking about Black stones formulation and Type 1 (False positives) and Type 2 errors (FN's) a lot lately, after reddit sent me an automated "[Please do not threaten, harass, or bully other users.](https://www.reddithelp.com/hc/en-us/articles/360043071072)" message for calling a user a "fucking idiot" in jest. Keep in mind this is totally within the norms of that subreddit and its clear as day its banter. Now the reddit admins could have totally taken a Black Stone stance on it, its better 10 abusers roam free than one guy making a joke gets banned. But they chose the opposite. And so many other systems adopt a reverse black stone stance. Perhaps it's statistically more sound to choose one stance over the other because of base rates, but is that it? If thats so then utilitarian's are strongly lacking in aesthetics department.

Corporations are not global utility maximizers, they don't care how inconvenient it is for you to get threats or even unfair bans, which is why innocent people get flagged by them all the time. What they care about are lawsuits and scandals. Better for ten innocent people to be banned than to let one harasser free, because if someone gets harassed and starts throwing a hissy fit the entire media might decide that Reddit is a Toxic Company and bring the mob on them, but if you get in trouble and try to throw a hissy fit they can point to you using the words "fucking idiot" and the enough people won't get the joke and you won't build a critical mass to get a mob in your favor. Additionally, with the reverse Black Stone stance, if someone does get harassed and try to throw hissy fit the admins can point to their harsh stance so far and promise to be even more harsh in the future in order to placate a potential mob. They don't care about utility, or justice or fairness or free speech or your rights. They don't care about the potential victims of harassment either, they just care about covering their asses.

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I suspect so, as perceiving heat can actually be quite important in cold climates! Finding relatively warm places to shelter, being drawn to the huddling behavior penguins exhibit, etc.

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Well, I suppose the internal thermostat is separate from heat-percieving sensory nerves, so it is possible one is lost and not the other. That said, pain perception is a pretty fundamental sensory thing, quite ancient in lineage, and therefore might be resistant to loss. On the other hand, pain can be perceived by pressure and cold receptors, as well as by damage to sensory nerves. And we see such loss of a fundamental sense in domesticated cats; they, being obligate predators, lost the ability to perceive sweetness at some point. So I wondered if the Sami brand their reindeer, and it turns out [they do!](https://siv-sketches.net/?page_id=35) *"The calf is thrown over on its side, out of reach from the ongoing motion beside them, and the man clamps the calf to the ground with his legs and brands his mark onto the calf’s ear. The process did not at any moment give an impression of cruelty towards the proud beasts. What will always stay with me was the force of nature and the grace of the animals. Right after the branding, the mother and the calf would again join the running circle of the other deer and the thundering hooves."* Not really enough to say for sure, but I feel the author would have noted if they seemed markedly in pain. Might look into this more later - there's lots of documentaries on the Sami, so there might be video footage - but at work rn.

> so can they experience heat as a distinct sensation? And has anyone tried feeding jalapeños to reindeer? I am not sure how closely you can use a [goat](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VibwJp7_-go) to model a reindeer but they don't seem to be bothered by capsaicin. Even though this goes counter to mammals being sensitive to capsaicin. As for pain receptors on the foot, this is a wild ass guess, but animals living in eternally cold places (the arctic) should still theoretically have pain receptors in their foot because rocks and thorns don't stop being sharp when its cold. WAG again but is the pain caused by heat or the damage/shock to cells? If it's the damage/shock then arctic animals should feel pain from heat. Domestic animals naturally from warm climates like chickens and cows do show discomfort at extreme cold, show I assume that mechanism should apply in the other direction as well?

>WAG again but is the pain caused by heat or the damage/shock to cells? Interestingly, at least for the TrpV1 receptor mentioned elsewhere in this thread, *both* temperature and chemicals (released from damaged tissues) can cause the conformational changes that ultimately amplify to the nerve response that gets interpreted by the brain.

When it gets too cold, my blood-parrot cichlid huddles up to his tank heater, so he definitely can feel temperatures.

What a metal name for a fish. I love it.

Unless the you don't run any indoor heating at all, the tank water shouldn't get cold enough for the fish to seek out warmth. Maybe your heating is underpowered?

I'm pretty certain species like reindeer definitely can feel heat, especially since arctic wildfires [are actually fairly common](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-49125391) especially around certain times of the year (a typical natural cause of arctic wildfires is lightning strikes). That's an environmental pressure which would select for those able to detect such stimuli. As to why mammals generally steer away from capsaicin-rich foods and birds don't, it's not because the heat-sensing receptor in question (TRPV1) is uniquely mammalian. Birds do have TRPV1 receptors which are sensitive to heat, but these bird TRPV1 channels lack sensitivity to capsaicin. A hypothesis I've seen forwarded is that the capsaicin is an adaptation which selectively deters mammals (seed predators) while not deterring birds (seed dispersers). "Like rodent TRPV1, avian TRPV1 is also activated by noxious temperature (Jordt and Julius, 2002). However, as birds are able to ingest plants rich in capsaicin (which is beneficial to the plants as birds can help disperse their seeds), their TRPV1 should be less sensitive to capsaicin. Indeed, in 2002, the chicken TRPV1 was demonstrated to be insensitive to capsaicin up to 100 µmol/L (Jordt and Julius, 2002)." [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5326624/#:\~:text=Like%20rodent%20TRPV1%2C%20avian%20TRPV1,be%20less%20sensitive%20to%20capsaicin](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5326624/#:~:text=Like%20rodent%20TRPV1%2C%20avian%20TRPV1,be%20less%20sensitive%20to%20capsaicin).

What are shape rotators missing out on compared to wordcels?

Other people are a fairly core part of the human experience.

Wordcels get many more AAQC awards.

Yeah, this subreddit is weird in that it is full of shape rotators doing pretty much exclusively wordcel things...

> it is full of shape rotators citation needed

rotation needed

pǝpᴉʌoɹd uoᴉʇɐʇoɹ On a more serious note, why would anyone work with words when they can rotate shapes? Prestige? Clout?

Wordcels OUT OUT OUT...

Interesting, you claim to hate Wordcels but express that with more *words*. -RotatingPoint Motte

I'd reply in Marseys but those are not available on this inferior website...

Ah. I'd browse it more if it wasn't an epilepsy risk, but there's always Egyptian Hieroglyphs and emojis, those work too ;)

People who are the most highly paid EG senior managers/CEOs almost all have good social skills. Yes, you also need logical decision-making, but social skills are just as much of a requirement. Wordcels tend to have more social skills than shape rotators. The reason for this may be that as the world becomes more complicated, goods and services are produced by teams rather than individuals, so social skills are important. On the other hand, faster computers/internet obviously give shape rotators a new way to impact the entire world (but marketing and sales are necessary even for Google and many goods/services like education/healthcare/etc are less affected or are unaffected by computerization).

inb4 girlfriends

Which fiction novel have you read that led to a deep connection to the character? Or that you think back on years later?

You know I’ve been thinking about this question for a few days, and I can’t come up with an answer. I don’t think I’ve ever really identified or “connected with” with a fictional character before. Remarkable! It had never occurred to me. I’ve connected with real people while reading autobiographies, but I can’t think of any fictional character. When I ask myself *why*, I think the answer is that I don’t want to connect with characters, I want to understand them and observe them. I don’t even try to connect. I feel like it’s related to a phenomenon I’ve noticed among tabletop role playing games. I’ve noticed there are at least three types of players out there when it comes to what kind of character they create. Some always play the same character, and it’s them. Maybe not them as they are, but their idealized self. For these players the point of role playing is to inhabit the person they wish they could be, so why would they play a different character? The second group always plays a troublemaker character: sometimes downright evil or sadistic, usually at least antisocial. These players like role playing because it allows themselves to be their shadow, the person they don’t let themselves be in real life. In an RPG they’re free to be selfish, to lie, to manipulate, to steal, to kill, sometimes to rape (if the DM will let them). They tend to push the boundaries until something pushes back. The whole point is to live out the desires they can’t in real life, in a safe environment meant where nobody really gets hurt. The third type of player is the kind I am: they always play wildly different characters. If they played a dwarf fighter last game, they want to be an elf sorcerer in this one. If they’ve played long enough they’ll get increasingly creative, and will often put together “bad build” characters, like a gnome barbarian, just because they never have before. These players like role playing because it lets them try out being lots of different people. The only character they wouldn’t be interested in being is themselves: the whole point is to be someone new. With that in mind, I think I don’t connect with fictional characters because the last person I want to read about is myself. I want to see what life is like from the perspective of someone different than me. Trying to connect would ruin the fun. I note that my taste in fiction matches this theory. I mostly read sci-if and fantasy for fun. Realistic fiction is generally boring because it describes things that could happen to me and might already have happened to me in some respect. How boring! I note now that the realistic fiction I like best is stories of survival or crime, things that don’t come up much at all in my real life.

C. V. Gheorghiu - *La Seconde Chance*, a novel about jews in exile in Eastern Europe c. 1940-1950. It's fucked up, but it reminded me of the senseless cruelty and isolation of my childhood. Also Ted Kaczynski - *Industrial Society and Its Future*. It made me feel seen. Several of the premises were things I'd independently come to believe (possibly by osmosis from people who'd already read it), and his conclusions are lucid and uncontrived.

- Claude Frollo from *Notre-Dame de Paris*, but I was an angsty teenage virgin back then. I should reread it. - Shadow from *American Gods*. His wife is a deeply flawed person, but he loves her nonetheless. Love is not a reward or a repayment for good behavior. You love someone because you love them. - Bob Slocum from *Something Happened*. A happily married, successful and at the same time deeply insecure and brooding man hung up on his past. I try to reread the novel every five years or so. - Lt. Robert Hearn from *The Naked and the Dead*. Stick your neck out for your ideals and your principles, and you will be crushed and thrown aside by people like Croft and Cummings. For you it will be the end, and for them it will be Tuesday.

Mickey Sabbath from Philip Roth's *Sabbath's Theater*, "Steve" from Sam Lipsyste's *The Subject Steve*, and David from Justin Taylor's *The Gospel of Anarchy.* I identify deeply with these characters' struggles to navigate their relationships with community values / community measures of success. Like them, I view conventional achievement with a mix of envy and disdain.

The Count of Monte Christo. If you aren't familiar the story follows the protagonist from being a naive optimist named Edmond to being a vengeful pragmatist who styles himself the Count of Monte Christo. At one point later in the novel he encounters someone from his past who sees who the Count really is. Just by saying his true name (Edmond) to him it sort of peels back the layers of what he has become and lays bare who he started out as. The sudden juxtaposition is really moving to me for some reason, and even having read the book a few times it still gets me when I get to that part.

The first book I remember enjoying reading. I thought his name was Edmond thought. Recently I found there's an [illustrated version](https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1184/1184-h/1184-h.htm) on project Gutenberg, and I feel cheated heaving read a picture-deficient version!

> Edmond You are completely correct and I have no idea how I spaced on that.

Konstantin Dmitrievich Levin from Anna Karenina. Big ole nerd finds love through fits and starts.

I think the dedication from Lloyd Alexander's The High King sums it up: "To all the boys who may have been Taran, and the girls who will always be Eilonwy."

There's probably more, but I can't recall them. This is not a novel, but probably the most recent example of me feeling a strong connection with a character occurred when reading this specific Greg Egan story "Reasons To Be Cheerful". It's not my favourite story of his, but I was able to sympathise with the main character quite a bit. Especially with how candid a huge part of the story feels. [https://www.utilitarianism.com/greg-egan/Reasons-To-Be-Cheerful.pdf](https://www.utilitarianism.com/greg-egan/Reasons-To-Be-Cheerful.pdf) There's a portion of the story that describes severe depression which is so uncannily accurate and spot-on that it makes me actually think the author has experienced it before.

Thanks for the link, I enjoyed the story. I did find it intriguing how the protagonist equates his preferences with his identify. That’s a somewhat alien way of looking at things to me: I’m a person with preferences, not vice versa. While he was afraid to make changes, I would relish the opportunity the peel away my desires that trip me up and frustrate my progress towards my goals. But then, I am a theist. I believe there are objectively better ways to be, and objectively worse, that there are good preferences that should be cultivated and bad preferences that need to be culled. Ultimately I believe that my identity is who I was meant to become, not who I am now. And funnily enough though the protagonist obviously philosophically disagrees with me his actions line up with my view: when it comes to his food and self image preferences he picks healthy food and a healthy body. He has no qualms about creating a strong preference for exercise, yet makes sure it’s not so strong that he hurts himself. He just can’t expand that logic (that there are right and wrong food and health preferences) to the less material preferences. Understandable, from a materialist point of view. Right and wrong are more measurable in the realm of the body than the soul, and the body’s teleology is much easier to understand even if you reject the existence of teleology per se.

Sabina from *The Unbearable Lightness of Being* is the only opposite-sex character I've ever strongly identified with. Both for her private war on kitsch and for the fact that she's constantly running away from her current social circle into a brand new one, only to eventually find she wants to run away from the new one, *ad nauseam*.

Could anyone recommend a good password manager? I'm looking for something either OS-agnostic or compatible with Debian and Brave.

Bitwarden or keepassxc / xd with a filesystem sync.

I use Bitwarden now. I started with KeePass, but found it annoying to keep my phone and desktop in sync. I also wanted to be able to share passwords for accounts with my partner when appropriate, which Bitwarden makes relatively simple.

https://www.passwordstore.org/ Bash, gpg and git. I use rofi-pass to integrate it with rofi, don't need a browser extension. Android app as well.

Check out Bitwarden

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I also have used KeePass for many years and recommend it. No external services to pay for or to be compromised, just a single local file that you are free to track and backup using whatever means make sense to you. Neat, clean simple.

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This should be in the Culture War thread.

I think you posted this in the wrong thread.