7 ms·

I don't think something like that is fixable; maybe another way of saying it is, most basic animals are built like this by design - it's a feature, not a bug. W

I don't think something like that is fixable; maybe another way of saying it is, most basic animals are built like this by design - it's a feature, not a bug. We evolved to become the biggest and strongest, and a very effective part of that is "fake it until you make it"; be bold and have confidence! Developing a more global and rational perspective is super expensive and our ape brains already consumed way too much energy until we (just recently) learnt to cook food to save our stomachs the digestive energy. (At the risk of being [rightly] accused of scraping the bottom of the optimism barrel: I actually think we're doing alright given the tools / monkeybrains to hand. Unfortunately you see what happens with populist rule / mob mentality, but on the other hand, Euler, Gauss, Newton, Riemann, von Neumann, Noether, Ramanujan etc suggest that we apes can approach basically godhood with our normal metabolic system.) Transcending this self-centred existence requires logical and relative consideration. It is ~certain that YOU, the very person reading this right now, are not the smartest or strongest or richest or <any weighted success metric you'd like to choose> in the world. So, as a vaguely smart functioning person, you are aware of others who are better than you at various things, and you need to intelligently deal with it. In any case, we're all going to be a bit nacissistic until we join some kind of posthuman Borg, probably in some Gaussian distribution about a mean same as our heights.

hosh 7y ago
Oh, it is very much fixable. A lot of what we think are animal instincts are actually subject to a lot of influences and can be tweaked any number of ways.
- pixelpoet 7y ago
  It's "fixable" at the surface level of course, and this is expected of anyone in a basic functioning society. In another thread about how it's legal in Germany to try to break out of jail because it's human nature (literally this is the legal justification!), I made the point that it's also sometimes human/animal instinct to murder, rape or steal. We are expected to overcome these instincts in daily life, and so IMO it should be no different in jail... As "normal" humans we will always have these animal natures talking to us. It's nothing to be "fixed", it's something to be accepted, understood and managed. They called this being a Gentleman (for men) and being a Lady (for women), given the values of the time.
  - hosh 7y ago
    No, I mean it is fixable at a deeper level, and not just through things like behavioral conditioning. The techniques may not be wildly available or accessible. To give you some examples -- - Changes taking place with use of psychedelics, including traditional shamanic methods - Use of acupuncture on something called the "extraordinary meridians". Similarly, internal alchemy methods that messes with that - A phenomena called Kundalini (which describes a large spectrum of psycho-spritual changes). - Breakthroughs from certain kinds of realizations on the nature of being, such as those resulting from Zen or Vipassana Animal instincts are just that. They are more like firmware. Difficult to change if you don't know how, but very much possible if you are a hacker -- have the will, knowledge, and skill to do so.

hosh 7y ago

Oh, it is very much fixable. A lot of what we think are animal instincts are actually subject to a lot of influences and can be tweaked any number of ways.

pixelpoet 7y ago
It's "fixable" at the surface level of course, and this is expected of anyone in a basic functioning society. In another thread about how it's legal in Germany to try to break out of jail because it's human nature (literally this is the legal justification!), I made the point that it's also sometimes human/animal instinct to murder, rape or steal. We are expected to overcome these instincts in daily life, and so IMO it should be no different in jail... As "normal" humans we will always have these animal natures talking to us. It's nothing to be "fixed", it's something to be accepted, understood and managed. They called this being a Gentleman (for men) and being a Lady (for women), given the values of the time.
- hosh 7y ago
  No, I mean it is fixable at a deeper level, and not just through things like behavioral conditioning. The techniques may not be wildly available or accessible. To give you some examples -- - Changes taking place with use of psychedelics, including traditional shamanic methods - Use of acupuncture on something called the "extraordinary meridians". Similarly, internal alchemy methods that messes with that - A phenomena called Kundalini (which describes a large spectrum of psycho-spritual changes). - Breakthroughs from certain kinds of realizations on the nature of being, such as those resulting from Zen or Vipassana Animal instincts are just that. They are more like firmware. Difficult to change if you don't know how, but very much possible if you are a hacker -- have the will, knowledge, and skill to do so.