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My 2022 self was wrong about meditation, monitors, and sleep

• carabiner 4y ago
  lol, you gotta admit these were some harebrained ideas that he got over. The lessons amount to "learn to chill," probably because he has gotten a bit older (and yep, looks like he's in his 20s). In coming years he'll be writing about the importance of family, paying attention to physical health, and spending time in nature. Universal revelations for humans as they enter their 30s.
  • Dr_Birdbrain 4y ago
    Haha my thinking exactly. I actually read some of Guzey’s crazy ideas on sleep last year, and I am happy to discover he was just going through a phase.
  • pard68 4y ago
    Can confirm, the year I turned thirty I bought a dairy farm in the middle of a national forest, hours from a Walmart and moved my family across the country to experience a quieter and hopefully more holistic life.
    • bongobingo1 4y ago
      > kids hate it > moves to city for education and excitement >> "yeah dad moved us to the middle of no where when i was 10, i hated it" > gets high pace job >> "yeah I grew up on a small farm in the middle of no where, it was nice thb. my dad still lives there. here's bessy our cow." > starts family > sigma grind set to support family > gets burnt out > buys farm in middle of no where :GOTO 0
      • dsr_ 4y ago
        You're jesting, but: my parents both grew up in major cities. When they could afford it, they moved out to a semirural town of 5000, with the larger towns 25 miles in each direction. All their kids moved back to cities.
        • unethical_ban 4y ago
          I live in a city center and don't want to leave - in fact, I want to move to a larger city often. I'm also single and wish to have a life partner. If and when I find someone with whom I find peace and contentment to share my life with, I imagine being in the middle of the bustle won't be as necessary. (I'm aware I should not look for a life partner to make me at peace, but it sure would help).
        • iamthepieman 4y ago
          We moved back to nowhere before our kids were out of the toddler stage. All they remember is rural life. Maybe that's the key? Not that I care if my kids move to a city. I'll have a place to stay while going to the museums. My parents moved us to an old dairy farm on 30 acres with only one other house on the road. 7 miles from a town of 6000 and 50 miles from the nearest Walmart. I loved it and only moved away after college because there were no jobs here. Moved back 3.5 years later because I could buy a house for 1/3 the cost while working remote for a "city salary" and because I missed raising animals.
          • floren 4y ago
            It's something I didn't appreciate as a kid. I had to immerse myself in constant city noise and hostility and filth for almost 2 decades to really start yearning to get back again.
            • BizarreByte 4y ago
              I’ll be honest I don’t really get why rural life appeals to those in the city. I think there’s a very romantic idea people have of rural life, which both does and doesn’t exist depending on location. I’ve done rural living my entire life and I’d much rather live in a city if it were a viable option. Even very basic things are far easier in the city and the city has things like emergency rooms that are open 24/7. I can’t assume my local hospital will be open if I hurt myself and the next is a ~100km drive away. Most rural areas are less hostile to your face, but the local rumour mill can be incredibly cruel and harmful behind one’s back should you not conform or if someone takes issue with you. A gay couple moved to my area and at least initially suffered greatly for it. I guess the grass isn’t necessarily greener in either direction, the challenges and issues are just different.
      • floren 4y ago
        I grew up on a farm and now I work a tech job & live in the bay area. I'm currently between stages 5 and 6, looking forward to the farm in the middle of nowhere stage.
        • eddsh1994 4y ago
          Hahaha I'm in Palo Alto, grew up in a farm, and constantly look at places online to buy. Moving to Stockholm in August, hopefully the next stop after that will be a farm.
    • hammock 4y ago
      Tell us more
      • pard68 4y ago
        Not much to tell. We got sick of the city life and wanted a place where we could have our horses close at hand. Ended up moving across the country because of land costs. Bought a hundred or so acres surrounded by national forest, figure I'll never need to worry about neighbors that way. I milk cows in the morning and evening, might figure out how to make a living off that some day, and I am a software engineer working remotely thanks to starlink.
    • nicbou 4y ago
      What do you do for a living now? This isn't my cup of tea, but I would just love to read about it regardless.
      • pard68 4y ago
        I'm still a software engineer. I just get up early and milk cows first. With Starlink, I can pretty much work from anywhere so the lack of internet out here isn't a problem for me.
        • nicbou 4y ago
          How do you handle the social life aspect? I found it hard to settle in the capital of another country. Does it get lonely out there sometimes?
          • pard68 4y ago
            Not too bad actually. Some one comes over to our house nearly daily for a visit. I sell raw milk, eggs, and sometimes other stuff (meat when I have it). I am the only place to buy any food stuffs for 30 miles. On top of that, we have a very active and young (like 60% under 12) church community we are part of. Then my neighbors stop in a few times a week usually to say hi or drop off compost for the hogs or something. It is quieter, but I don't think it's too quiet or lonely.
  • sockaddr 4y ago
    You’re so right it’s hilarious to me. I’m currently going through this phase now. Relearning the same lessons that have been relearnt and forgotten ten thousand times before me. Sitting outside watching bees go about their day is a good use of your time in your 30’s.
    • Sebb767 4y ago
      > Relearning the same lessons that have been relearnt and forgotten ten thousand times before me. I don't think they are forgotten, you just changed. If I think back to being a child, going to a restaurant and just sit there and talk was incredibly boring. Also, Broccoli simply tasted like shampoo. Even when people told me I would enjoy it at some point, I just could not imagine this at all. It's just a completely different mindset and it sounds absurd when people tell you that you will change that drastically.
    • swyx 4y ago
      getting real Good Will Hunting vibes off this thread. "You wasted $150,000 on an education you coulda got for a buck fifty in late charges at the public library."
    • nicbou 4y ago
      You would probably enjoy The Secret Life of Trees. It kicked my nature walks into twelfth gear. As did Google Lens for identifying stuff.
  • Swizec 4y ago
    Productivity is for people with no leverage. Folks in their 20’s usually have little choice beyond grinding harder. In your 30’s you not only have more resources, you’re also more effective with their deployment. But you do have less oomph to give. I say use the oomph while you have it.
    • doesnt_know 4y ago
      This one of the primary ideas in "So Good They Can't Ignore You"[1]. In your 30's there is a decent chance you've spent a bunch of time building career capital, so you're now in a position to cash that in. Highly recommend reading the book. [1] So Good They Can't Ignore You: Why Skills Trump Passion in the Quest for Work You Love, Cal Newport, https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13525945-so-good-they-can-t-ignore-you https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13525945-so-good-they-ca...
      • deleted 4y ago
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      • arvinsim 4y ago
        Guess it sucks for us who weren't taught about concepts like career capital. We have to grind more to make up for lost time.
  • fallat 4y ago
    Let me buy you a drink or pastry, because god damn I feel like this is more relevant than ever.
    • titanomachy 4y ago
      Would take you up on that offer, but I no longer consume sugar or alcohol now that I'm in my thirties.
  • oregano 4y ago
    This rings true for me as well. I’m in my mid thirties and just moved out of Seattle to live on a nearby island surrounded by trees. The night sounds of coyotes and owls is so much better than a city street.
• cheschire 4y ago
  I need larger monitors. Even a 16" monitor feels cramped to me, which either increases eye strain from high resolution, or mental load from having to visualize the things that aren't on the screen. Even if it's just an extra inch, that can reduce mental load for me by a lot. Make that a 24" monitor and it feels practically liberating. But definitely only one, MAYBE two if I'm doing a fullscreen thing on one of them like media.
  • sammalloy 4y ago
    The 24" monitor on my desk is about to be retired since it’s way too small. Currently looking at ~32 and above. The 35" looks like it’s the new standard, but that 49" has me intrigued.
    • dsr_ 4y ago
      I use a 42" 4K monitor. It's just like having 4 21" 1080P monitors all bonded together with no seams.
      • sammalloy 4y ago
        42-49"; definitely going to be my next purchase.
  • LarsAlereon 4y ago
    I found that it's really beneficial to me to have one monitor where the task I'm focused on is maximized to reduce distractions, and a second monitor where I have distractions and supporting information. So for example I typically have a web browser maximized on my right monitor, and at work I've got Outlook, Notepad, and Teams on my left monitor. At home I've got Notepad, IM windows, and folders on my left monitor.
  • xboxnolifes 4y ago
    I'd be surprised if 16" didn't feel cramped to someone. I've used 3 21.5" monitors for over a decade now, and those are starting to feel small. Now my minimum size is around 24" at 1440p.
• justsocrateasin 4y ago
  Meditating every day before bed is the best lifestyle change I've made in the last year. I think it's as important as brushing my teeth twice a day. A few years back, I was almost killed in a shootout between two rival gangs while in my house. A bystander walking by wasn't as lucky and he was shot to death in front of his wife. Major US city, not in a bad part of the city either, just bad luck, bad timing. It took a while for the PTSD to hit but eventually my therapist and I realized that a lot of my anxiety symptoms were stemming from a constant feeling of danger / feeling that I wasn't safe. I started meditating every day about 3 months ago and the difference has been night and day. My friend started the journey with me and he's had similar results. I feel so much better every day, and I would estimate that my anxiety symptoms are down about 80%. Therapy is helpful too, and I would encourage anyone who feels like anxiety affects their life at all to do both CBT and meditation.
  • deleted 4y ago
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  • OriginalPenguin 4y ago
    Can you go into some detail about how you meditate to reduce anxiety?
    • marmetio 4y ago
      Not who you asked, but Healthy Gamer GG has a lot of short meditations that only take a few minutes. There's a course on his site but a lot of the same information is scattered throughout his YouTube. https://youtu.be/86sYinrLuPA https://youtu.be/86sYinrLuPA
    • edgyquant 4y ago
      Headspace helped me tremendously.
    • Sirenos 4y ago
      There's a great book by Culadasa: The mind illuminated. It covers a lot of what ancient meditators thought about the practice, but the essentials can be found in the first chapter.
• alar44 4y ago
  Who is this? Why do I care? I'm sorry, but the amount of absolute tripe people post on the internet is absolutely baffling to me. I don't give two shits about some 20 year olds ideas with absolutely no credentials. Who wants to read this crap? I don't get it.
  • the_af 4y ago
    I agree. I found this article obnoxious and immature, just as I found his anti Why We Sleep tirade back when it was posted last year on HN. My overriding thought is "why do I care what this random guy thinks about anything?"
    • alar44 4y ago
      That's what I'm saying. I think I find these types of articles arrogant, or implying narcissism. That he feels that anyone would find this tedium valuable is almost offensive to me lol. I'm just sick of seeing these kind of articles everywhere. If there is something to be learned in your 20s, it's that you aren't special, your likely average, and your experiences aren't new or unique. Live your life in your own way, but for YOURSELF, because no one gives a shit.
      • allenu 4y ago
        This is one of those things that make me feel old (45 here). Articles like these would be the kind I’d either read or write in my 20s. There’s a sense of self importance that you have at that age and everything feels important and new to you. Now I just can’t be bothered to read things like this since I know better. It helps to at least know the age of the author. There are many articles out there that make me shake my head, but if I knew the author was still relatively young, I’d at least understand the context something was written.
        • alar44 4y ago
          Yup exactly. Haven't really found self-awareness yet. Still thinking your GPA means something, you and your parents will live forever and life is going to be great. I'm coming off super cynical now, but this just feels like the product of the Twitter/everyone is a blogger mindset and I don't like where it's leading us. These "conversations" used to happen in bars and the 60 year old regular would laugh this greenhorn out. Now, people just tell their stupid thoughts into the void and pat themselves on the back for expressing their feelings like their therapist told them to. End rant.
• ulizzle 4y ago
  This post is a clear example of the dangers of Dunning-Kruger and how it can drive someone to insanity.
• procinct 4y ago
  > in 2050 it will be an accepted fact that focus on psychological health (including meditation) was one of the biggest biggest disasters for the advancement of humanity ever > Get minimum possible sustainable amount of sleep Wow those original opinions were some seriously hot takes. Please don’t hustle and grustle yourself to the expense of your mental/physical health.
  • sph 4y ago
    With such ridiculous hot takes last year, I would not trust that whatever prediction they make this year is any more rooted in reality, even though they seem more valid this time around. Except the 16 inch monitor part. I bet their neck and eyes enjoy looking down at a small screen for a dozen hours a day.
    • poulpy123 4y ago
      In 2023 he will discover that an exclusive Cheerios diet isn't great
  • blue039 4y ago
    I dont know if the take is as hot as you think. Meditation is cool and good (I try to do it) but it's not the panacea that, like all new age things, the average hacker news reader thinks it is. Optimizing sleep improves productivity. Not a hot take. I don't know anyone who enjoys blowing an entire day sleeping. Do you? Perhaps people who are ill (whether they know or not) need 12-14 hours of sleep a day but a normal healthy person can get by on 6-8 with 7 being the recommended median for most people. Psychological health is the hardest problem we face. The entire field of mental health is rife with fraud. Psychology as a "science" suffers from one of the greatest reproducibility failures we have witnessed. We have legitimately no idea why "mental health" is a problem in 99% of cases and our medicines and treatments are only marginally better than electroconvulsive therapy and divination to drive bad spirits away. We have, for example, almost no idea how and why SSRIs work. Many anti-depressant studies fail to reproduce. We often overmedicate people who just have a little sadness resulting in even more difficult and sometimes fatal problems. The only other field with more problems is chiropractic which, by my estimation, is only marginally less scientific than psychology. In fact if I pulled a random psychology study and compared it's reproducibility to a study on cracking people's spines to fix slipped discs I'd imagine they'd be similarly impossible to reproduce.
• borroka 4y ago
  This is the course of action that goes back to the, in my opinion, ill-inspired motto, "strong opinions, loosely held." For some, this is an admirable position. To me, a scientist, it is a cautionary tale: don't trust strong opinions, always verify.
  • trw55 4y ago
    I always thought that the loosely held part of that motto meant that you should reevaluate a position you’ve held onto when new evidence is presented.
    • borroka 4y ago
      What about "strong opinion when there is strong evidence"? Otherwise, you have absurdities like that of the author of the article, who told everyone and their cousins that, for example, 4 hours of sleep was enough and then realized he needed more sleep. He had a strong opinion without solid evidence. The "loosely held" part is meaningless, of course (in theory...) one has to change opinion when the evidence changes.
  • andreareina 4y ago
    It's nonsense on the face of it, which I think is on purpose with the point to be deliberate about one's opinions. If the subject matters, do enough research and thinking to actually form an opinion, but of course remain open to new data and arguments. A good example of this in a scientist is Sean Carroll's belief in the Everett formulation of quantum mechanics, or Hawking on black hole information loss.
• aeturnum 4y ago
  Getting some real Poe's law vibes off this post. > Meditation is terrible -> meditation is amazing > By “meditating” I mostly mean sitting around with my eyes closed. I haven’t done any research at all on what meditation is supposed to be. Definitely ok with this person calling their practice meditation - who cares? But I'm more likely to listen to reflections when someone can commit to a particular meaning of a word. Is the meditation that you thought was terrible the same as the one you think is amazing?
  • procinct 4y ago
    Not to mention asserting that something is terrible when you haven’t done any research into what that thing actually is…
    • prox 4y ago
      People belief something first, and then add ad-hoc rationales to it.
  • monktastic1 4y ago
    Yeah, I found this hilarious too. He says he went from thinking meditation was terrible to thinking it's great, but he really went from thinking it's terrible to not knowing what it is.
• bee_rider 4y ago
  Being open to changing your mind is of course admirable but… From the post: ====== “What I changed my mind about: 1. Meditation was invented to make people get rid of all desires and self-mummify. Actually, I have no clue why meditation was invented. I think I just saw a picture of a monk who meditated himself into a mummy once and the image got stuck in my head.” […] “As of writing this, I’ve been meditating >=1h/day for 48 days in a row.” […] “By “meditating” I mostly mean sitting around with my eyes closed. I haven’t done any research at all on what meditation is supposed to be.” ====== Clearly this is all a bit tongue in cheek but, I dunno, maybe there’s a lesson here about doing a little more research before forming strong opinions?
  • TechnicolorByte 4y ago
    >1h a day seems like a lot. What does this look like for you and what benefits have you seen?
    • bee_rider 4y ago
      Those were all quotes. I’ll edit it to hopefully be more clear.
  • stackbutterflow 4y ago
    It clearly lacks a meta lesson about letting go of strong opinions, especially when he held them before doing any prior research.
    • rileyphone 4y ago
      > Finally, a bit of advice for myself: be just a bit less confident in your beliefs & remember Joel Becker’s minute-long “hmmmmmmmmmmmm” whenever he hears you be 100% confident and just maybe stop at 95%. Sounds like he got it.
  • deleted 4y ago
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• agolio 4y ago
  I can't help but wonder — if the author has changed their mind so radically about so many fundamental concepts — why should the new opinions be trusted?
  • nebulousthree 4y ago
    I can't help but wonder — if the CEOs changed their mind so radically about so many fundamental decisions — why should the new decisions be trusted?
    • agolio 4y ago
      I would actually agree with that, when a startup radically changes it's direction I generally see it as a sign of weakness. Of course, not always the case.
  • yipbub 4y ago
    I'd be way more concerned of someone who doesn't change their mind.
  • guzey 4y ago
    Consider reading the last section of the post.
    • agolio 4y ago
      https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html > Please don't comment on whether someone read an article. "Did you even read the article? It mentions that" can be shortened to "The article mentions that".
• derbOac 4y ago
  Section 2 could be titled "Alexey discovers newest-generation cognitive behavioral therapy." It's so on point it's hard for me to believe he wasn't reading some acceptance-commitment therapy book or something. But good for him, and good for him for writing about it.
• deleted 4y ago
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• strken 4y ago
  His monitor conclusion is a bit silly. There's zero cost to having an extra monitor if you turn it off when you don't need it. When coding I use Emacs like a tiling WM and like to have every relevant file visible, which sometimes means overflowing onto a third monitor. M-x writeroom-mode[0] on a single monitor is perfect for writing, but you can just reach out and turn the others off, or use them for non-distracting content like references or notes in a scratchpad. [0] Expands the buffer you're working on to the entire monitor, sticks it into a fixed-width column for readability, and gets rid of the modeline and other junk.
• madeofpalk 4y ago
  Idolising Margaret Thatcher as an “impressive person”, in 2022 is certainly a take.
  • tomhoward 4y ago
    This piece was not "idolizing" her at all; her "impressive" status can be presumed to pertain merely to her having been a long-serving prime minister of a major country, and she was mentioned only for the purpose of countering an oft-repeated factoid about her.
• chias 4y ago
  I will be the one to bite the bullet and make the least important correction possible here: The fractional digits of pi rounded to 11 places are 14159[2]65359 :)
• paulpauper 4y ago
  I know for a fact a lot of people were wrong about inflation, crypto, etc. in 2022. The prevailing narrative was crypto would be a good hedge against inflation. Inflation and crypto went in opposite directions. I have found that not getting enough sleep just makes me feel slightly weird the next day but not too bad either. Not recommended, but not the end of the world either.
• alex_young 4y ago
  I haven’t used an alarm to wake up in over a decade. I find natural sleep much more restful. Perhaps I sleep 6 to 7 hours on average, and knowing that there isn’t a device set to wake me at a given hour allows me to avoid the mental stress that previously kept me from deep sleep. I don’t actually know if this is for everyone, but it’s been beneficial for me.
  • kerpotgh 4y ago
    [dead]
  • stefandesu 4y ago
    I tried this at the end of last year, I would guess for about 3-4 weeks. What usually ends up happening is that I sleep like 10-11 hours, then I'm unable to fall asleep the next night because I woke up so late, so I wake up late again the next day, and so on. I would love to get rid of my alarm, but so far all my experiments have failed...
• yewenjie 4y ago
  The wording in the title reminded me of this deleted scene from The Office (US). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PlXIBY2kzUA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PlXIBY2kzUA
• eBombzor 4y ago
  Depends on what you're doing but I find multiple monitors to be useful in only a specific set of contexts. Otherwise I'd rather have one. Even worse is when you're trying to multi-task or context switch between two screens.
• Ancalagon 4y ago
  Agreed with everything except I would amend: Multiple monitors < 1 16” screen <<< 1 5k 40” curved ultra wide :D
• Grapefruitwoes 4y ago
  Kinda ridiculous how he says that he hated on meditation yet is like I actually don't know what it is... Like why even argue about it if you have no information about it.
  • smt88 4y ago
    This is an article about an arrogant idiot being an arrogant idiot about different things. I think it's getting attention because of the headline, but otherwise it's totally uninteresting. It's just someone who was deeply, utterly, confidently wrong about certain topics realizing that everyone else was right.
• thenerdhead 4y ago
  What a strange post. “I’m wrong, but I’m still confidently right! Also, I need to be more humble”. The arrogance just hurts to read. Why would you ever take sleep advice from a person who celebrates being sleep deprived and admits being addicted to video games?
  • dnissley 4y ago
    Someone who's addicted to video games and can admit it is a rare bird though!
  • dorchadas 4y ago
    > Why would you ever take sleep advice from a person who celebrates being sleep deprived and admits being addicted to video games? Because he confirms what people want to hear about how they don't need as much sleep as is recommended.
• kerpotgh 4y ago
  [dead]
• MengerSponge 4y ago
  I'd love to see some research on optimal display size/configuration. My intuition is that there's a balance between 1) having enough space to see what you're focusing on and some reference/documentation and 2) having so much space things get lost and you spend time trying to find that thing you care about. I feel like 30" is the upper limit here. I use a 27" 4k monitor at 150% scale, and wouldn't want more than two at that resolution. An ultrawide would probably be nice, though.
• arvinsim 4y ago
  I keep on oscillating between a multi monitor setup and a single laptop screen. I found out that as a web developer, multi monitor setup is a must because you ideally want 1 screen dedicated just for the web site you are working on. But I understand that compromises must be made if you are going to be moving about.
• dr_dshiv 4y ago
  “By “meditating” I mostly mean sitting around with my eyes closed. I haven’t done any research at all on what meditation is supposed to be. Apparently there’s a million different styles of it, so I’m just going to go ahead and call what I do meditation too, fight me.” I can’t tell if he is serious. This didn’t help me take him seriously.
  • theragra 4y ago
    He looks like typical arrogant tech bro in this
    • dorchadas 4y ago
      Honestly, I've gotten that vibe from all of his writing I've read. Set ideas that he constantly tries to justify and then says others should follow. I'm glad he's doing a review, but even in that it doesn't seem there's really any real introspection going on, just more optimisation of life, as if productivity, etc. is all that matters.
  • nicbou 4y ago
    I did crossfit once. Exercise is overrated! What I understand about meditation from hearing and asking about it is that it also takes practice to get right. Perhaps picking up a guitar once doesn't give you the same feeling as jamming with friends either.
    • monktastic1 4y ago
      You saw an image of a guy who exercised once.
• mckravchyk 4y ago
  I never felt like I needed anything more than a 13" laptop screen. I have a 25" monitor on my desk and I almost never use it for work. I mainly leverage multiple workspaces, I think it's faster / more convenient to do Meta key + 1,2,3,4... than turn my head / eyes around between monitors. Some OSes make it sloppy though, last time I checked Mac OS has an annoying delay when switching workspaces that you can't get rid of.
  • creakingstairs 4y ago
    IIRC You can get rid of the switch delay using Yabai[1] but you will need to disable SIP which may be a no go if you have work assigned MacBook [1] https://github.com/koekeishiya/yabai https://github.com/koekeishiya/yabai
  • bombela 4y ago
    I have been playing with KDE/wayland lately and after turning off all animations I am really liking it. I come from i3. I am missing the independent virtual desktop / monitor mapping. But this can be somewhat worked out with pinning. I often only display one desktop on the second monitor. If I even use one. As I also find switching workspace is just much faster than turning my head! What I am missing the most is the scratch space. Where you can shortcut windows in and out of existence. But I think this can also be worked around by using an extra workspace, and pinning windows via shortcuts.
• inDigiNeous 4y ago
  Kudos to being honest about your previous silly ideas. Meditation has been the most life changing thing for me, the only thing that without any external tools has been able to silence my mind. Had to learn to meditate when working at a mobile game company, and under a lot of stress. Could not quiet my mind when going to sleep, so I started learning meditation in the game room of the company. 2 minutes at first, then 5, and so on. Now I try to meditate every day at least 18 minutes, which feels like a good amount where my mind is quiet and I can defrag the thought processes and let them go. The writer reflects nicely the strong ideas that we attach to and think as of truths in our lifes. I now understand a little bit better why some people like to push their wrongful agendas to others, so thanks for this reflection moment. I can reveal one of my silly ideas, I used to not want to consume any dairy products, as part of me believed that "you are what you eat", and I did not want to be a cow, an easily controllable herd animal. This made my life too difficult for too many years, until I finally through help from a friend and lots of inner reflection, managed to let go of this thought. I might have pushed this idea to others also in my fiery moments, so I can relate to this writing in some way.
• profstasiak 4y ago
  I mean, I am all in for updating your opinions, but I remember his blog post about Why We Sleep where he tried to shit and basically discredit whole book, talking so authoritatively and now 3 years later he does 180 switch? I think this just shows, trust the scientist that spend their whole years studying stuff like sleep. Don't trust random self proclaimed "internet scientists". Best would be to find experts that are humble about what they are unsure of what the field knows. He spent 100 hours trying to debunk the book, but it just shows - if you are highly motivated and biased to prove something you are emotionally motivated to find you will find the way. I do the same. I believe random bullshit that can change my mind and preach it to my friends and then 2 months later I change my mind. I am sorry to my friends, but at least I don't post blogposts trying to debunk scientists
  • guzey 4y ago
    Consider actually reading the post before commenting next time. I didn't do an "180" switch. I wrote: >1. There’s no good medical reason to sleep more than the minimum you can sustain. >Not this one! Fight me.
    • Llamamoe 4y ago
      You really should do more reading honestly. Sleep is when the wear and tear of activity is repaired and reversed, and is to a large extent regulated by molecules that amount to metabolic waste, which accumulate during consciousness, and are cleared away during sleep. As far as my deep dives into the science of sleep have suggested, any deficits in sleep, either qualitative or quantitative, result in essentially minuscule quantities of irreversible kinda-neurodegeneration. "kinda" because it's not neuronal death, just the failure to maintain important connections and peak performance properly.
      • deleted 4y ago
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      • tzekid 4y ago
        The important connections ... are important. By definition they will not be affected that much. Without much drama (like the "kinda-neurodegeneration" wording), this can be easily summarized as: optimal amount of sleep = you're at peak performance, otherwise you're working at less than peak mental performance.
• RamblingCTO 4y ago
  Meditation has lots of research to back things up. Maybe look into it before having an opinion about it? > Meditation comes from Asia, where the culture is that of escape from the world versus the Western culture of embracing the world head on. Ouch. > I learned that Adderall is used for ADHD and one other condition: narcolepsy. This further implies the connection between attention/executive control and sleepiness. What? How on earth can you just make this assumption, especially if you have no idea how the brain works? Sorry, but this is just controversial garbage.
  • spoiler 4y ago
    I can't tell if the post is just embellished in places for comedic effect or if they sound like a not very nice person with a big ego. I mean, they tried to impose their somewhat ludicrous display set-up on people, and then though people were stupid for having different preferences... I've never seen a person with such strong convictions over trivialities. At least not a real person. They also used to hold strong opinions and convictions about subjects they know nothing about as well. What do you even call this? I'm glad they have become a bit wiser, though.
    • RamblingCTO 4y ago
      > They also used to hold strong opinions and convictions about subjects they know nothing about as well. What do you even call this? Ignorant? I actually met a few people in my live going about live like this. I never stuck around long enough to get more insight into how people like this function, would've been pretty interesting I guess. Especially what story they have, how their childhood has been etc.
    • chemmail 4y ago
      What do you call these people? Republicans/Democrats.
    • alar44 4y ago
      [dead]
  • Llamamoe 4y ago
• stranded22 4y ago
  I used to listen to a podcast (not going to name and shame). I absolutely loved it but I found one of the hosts annoying as he spoke in absolutes- ‘I’m never getting married and having children, it isn’t who I am etc etc’, then a few months go past and ‘I’m getting married - and have kid on the way’. It removes credibility and I know realise it shows immaturity.
  • lentil_soup 4y ago
    Agreed, speaking in absolutes is a self imposed cage. You end up either having to lose credibility or forcing yourself to live by something you don't actually believe in anymore. Ignoring the fact that speaking like that just comes out as arrogant
• noisy_boy 4y ago
  > One 16" monitor is perfect for reading and writing. Coding is the only task that really benefits from having more monitors and I barely code. As a person who switched to a large multi-monitor setup during covid and does programming, I can share my personal experience. Programming is indeed amazing on such a setup. But this setup also made engaging in addictive behavior like endlessly watching Youtube videos, infinite scrolling of social media/forums etc, much more easy. A phone or a tablet would be physically uncomfortable after a while but staring at things on a 43" screen while slumped on a comfy chair removes that barrier of physical discomfort too.
• TomSwirly 4y ago
  "Random, smart, opinionated guy with little actual knowledge free-associates about life tips." As other people pointed out, > Meditation comes from Asia, where the culture is that of escape manages to be twice false _and_ offensive in such a tiny number of words.
  • tzekid 4y ago
    He's not wrong though. And nobody's give any reason in this thread __why__ he wrong. When somebody mentions meditation, most people talk about the types of meditation that are based off religious practices originating from Asia. Religions where the end-goal in most cases is to escape the physical reality we live in.
    • monktastic1 4y ago
      First, he's saying that there's some monolithic "Asian culture" that in general is about escapism. That's a big claim. Second, you may have a misconception about what those religions say. Buddhism, for example, is entirely about becoming fully immersed in one's present reality. If one discovers that it's not the solid, external entity that one thought it was, that's not "escaping" it. In fact, their claim is that the constant distractedness of the untrained mind is the real escapism.
• r00sterZA 4y ago
  For interest sake, why "fuck you, Dostroyevsky"?
• HEmanZ 4y ago
  This guy makes me think of https://youtu.be/_o7qjN3KF8U https://youtu.be/_o7qjN3KF8U for some reason.