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I am not in the mind changing business, and I say that from humility. I wish I was, but I’m just not that great at it. My life has gotten a million times bette

I am not in the mind changing business, and I say that from humility. I wish I was, but I’m just not that great at it. My life has gotten a million times better from listening to and reading stuff specifically from Scott Adams, and Jordan Peterson. Adams for reshaping the reality tunnel and Peterson for getting me to focus on what I can control. For what you’re saying, Scott Adams kinda saved my sanity. After the 2016 election I was having a nervous breakdown. I couldn’t understand what the hell happened. I was depressed and freaking out. I started googling and found out that Peter Thiel and Scott Adams supported Trump. This blew my mind, because Thiel seems fairly bright, and Adams I figured must not be completely stupid because he wrote a successful comic strip, which is harder than you might think. I read a few Adams blog posts, one of them called ‘deprogramming a Clinton supporter’ or something. It was like reading some crazy alternate reality and it made me angry. How could he be saying I was brainwashed!! I kept an open mind though, because he made a good point, that the law of large numbers dictate that if 50 million people disagree with me, statistically at least one of them must be smarter, more knowledgeable, and more moral than I am. But they could still be wrong. However, over time, I started to see his position, about how it is indisputable that we cannot perceive reality directly, that we each filter it. This is fact. Then he goes on to show that if what you have is a filter, you should evaluate the filter for two criteria: how well it predicts the future (accuracy) and how happy it makes you. Over time I started to see how the facts for what you are saying aren’t fully in evidence. Or rather, there are some contradictory observations, that are worth examining. I can’t do justice to the ideas of the people I am referencing. I am concerned that even by typing them here I am doing more harm than good, because my paraphrasing may make you reject them without investigation. All I can say is I think it is worth it to look for a variety of viewpoints, and if you give those two a try, it could reshape your relationship to world events in a positive way so you can feel confident you are contributing to making the world better, rather than powerlessly suffering under tragedy.

pstuart 6y ago
Thank you for your thoughtful words. I recognize that you are well intended and I'm going to try to politely disagree. Scott Adams lost my respect the moment he became a Trump supporter. For all of Trump's supporters I could still give a pass for the initial excitement of "stirring shit up", but I remain, quite frankly, stunned that anybody with any intelligence could support the man today. Jordan Peterson seems to be popular because he promotes "the good old days" mentality. I understand the appeal (from afar), but it's more patriarchal claptrap from where I stand. He had a huge test of character when it came out that he was a drug addict, and all I'm aware of is deflection and finger-pointing, e.g., his daughter's statement that doctors in the West didn't have "the guts" to medically detox her father. If I'm omitting anything key there, please let me know as I'm only interested in being "right" in that I'm not operating on faulty data. In my view, modern conservatism is dead and has been replaced by a literal cult (Trumpism), and in being anti-libtard. Even though I am a "liberal" I could spend hours pointing out the failure and flaws of those ostensibly represent it. For example, I think Hillary Clinton wanted to be president solely for the achievement. She is a war-hawk and a corporatist, and that her politics are of the "finger in the wind" and not of true passion for change. That said, she's also incredibly intelligent, accomplished, and experienced and was without a doubt the most qualified candidate to to hold the office when she ran in 2016. She also had a literal industry of hate mongers that demonized her for years. My elderly step-mother loathed the women but could only explain so by repeating Fox News talking points, e.g., "she gets expensive haircuts!" So here I am again, dancing on the edge of admonishment from @dang for being political in a forum that discourages it. My defense is that I am not a partisan and these discussions are made in good faith. The concerns I've raised have been heavily politicized, but I consider them to be germane to the fate of humanity and my goal is a (perhaps futile) attempt to reach some sort of consensus.
- deleted 6y ago
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- whiddershins 6y ago
  I feel like what you are writing (in this comment and others in this thread) is an indicator that you firmly believe that it isn’t your beliefs that cause your mental state, but rather, objective facts do. The thing is, frameworks from stoicism to Buddhism to cognitive behavior therapy to Timothy Leary to Sam Harris to Viktor Frankl etc etc etc invite us to reconsider that position. Mental states are in a certain important sense entirely self created. Knowing that doesn’t mean we can will ourselves to be happy, but does open the door to finding out how we can productively ‘hack’ our mental state. The facts you name aren’t the important point. It is the fact of you naming them that seem to indicate you are very committed to a certain reality tunnel. Even if that reality tunnel is making you unhappy. Which is your right, maybe it serves you in some other important way. But it’s not a position from which you could ever be convinced of anything, at least, I have no idea how. Because I’m not disputing, and wouldn’t want to be in the position of, disputing any of those facts. Yet I still live in a very different reality tunnel. Not sure how to communicate that better. I don’t think altering your reality tunnel in regards to this stuff would make the stuff somehow more of a danger to you or everyone on the planet. It would just change your emotional experience and potential effectiveness in addressing the problems. For better or worse, depending on the tunnel shift.

pstuart 6y ago

Thank you for your thoughtful words. I recognize that you are well intended and I'm going to try to politely disagree. Scott Adams lost my respect the moment he became a Trump supporter. For all of Trump's supporters I could still give a pass for the initial excitement of "stirring shit up", but I remain, quite frankly, stunned that anybody with any intelligence could support the man today. Jordan Peterson seems to be popular because he promotes "the good old days" mentality. I understand the appeal (from afar), but it's more patriarchal claptrap from where I stand. He had a huge test of character when it came out that he was a drug addict, and all I'm aware of is deflection and finger-pointing, e.g., his daughter's statement that doctors in the West didn't have "the guts" to medically detox her father. If I'm omitting anything key there, please let me know as I'm only interested in being "right" in that I'm not operating on faulty data. In my view, modern conservatism is dead and has been replaced by a literal cult (Trumpism), and in being anti-libtard. Even though I am a "liberal" I could spend hours pointing out the failure and flaws of those ostensibly represent it. For example, I think Hillary Clinton wanted to be president solely for the achievement. She is a war-hawk and a corporatist, and that her politics are of the "finger in the wind" and not of true passion for change. That said, she's also incredibly intelligent, accomplished, and experienced and was without a doubt the most qualified candidate to to hold the office when she ran in 2016. She also had a literal industry of hate mongers that demonized her for years. My elderly step-mother loathed the women but could only explain so by repeating Fox News talking points, e.g., "she gets expensive haircuts!" So here I am again, dancing on the edge of admonishment from @dang for being political in a forum that discourages it. My defense is that I am not a partisan and these discussions are made in good faith. The concerns I've raised have been heavily politicized, but I consider them to be germane to the fate of humanity and my goal is a (perhaps futile) attempt to reach some sort of consensus.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
whiddershins 6y ago
I feel like what you are writing (in this comment and others in this thread) is an indicator that you firmly believe that it isn’t your beliefs that cause your mental state, but rather, objective facts do. The thing is, frameworks from stoicism to Buddhism to cognitive behavior therapy to Timothy Leary to Sam Harris to Viktor Frankl etc etc etc invite us to reconsider that position. Mental states are in a certain important sense entirely self created. Knowing that doesn’t mean we can will ourselves to be happy, but does open the door to finding out how we can productively ‘hack’ our mental state. The facts you name aren’t the important point. It is the fact of you naming them that seem to indicate you are very committed to a certain reality tunnel. Even if that reality tunnel is making you unhappy. Which is your right, maybe it serves you in some other important way. But it’s not a position from which you could ever be convinced of anything, at least, I have no idea how. Because I’m not disputing, and wouldn’t want to be in the position of, disputing any of those facts. Yet I still live in a very different reality tunnel. Not sure how to communicate that better. I don’t think altering your reality tunnel in regards to this stuff would make the stuff somehow more of a danger to you or everyone on the planet. It would just change your emotional experience and potential effectiveness in addressing the problems. For better or worse, depending on the tunnel shift.