Another catcher for the why
Introduction People are more likely to encounter optimistic memes (ideas, thoughts, concepts, arguments, etc.) than pessimistic ones. For example, the subreddits “fun” or “getmotivated” have a lot more readers and posts than the subreddits “anti-natalism” or “depression”. One might argue (and many do) that this is evidence for 1) a relatively positive reality (the better our
[Unimportant] Personality disorders, mostly those belonging to cluster B, could be seen as evolutionary adaptive strategies. (Just to be clear, something is evolutionary adaptive if it increases inclusive fitness. It doesn’t matter if it makes you and others miserable, more or less creative, etc.) Borderline personality disorder: Borderlines are manipulative and are able to extract
Scott Alexander is one of my favorite writers and Slate Star Codex is (by far) my favorite blog. It’s pretty difficult for me to communicate with people who haven’t read most of Slate Star Codex. It’s like trying to have a conversation with a frequentist Hegelian who doesn’t believe in evolution. The inferential distances are so huge,
First written: April 2017. Last updated: December 2017. Introduction Tranylcypromine (brand name: “Parnate“) is a nonselective and irreversible monoamine oxidase inhibitor (MAOI) used to treat major depressive disorder. See this previous post of mine about MAOIs (written in 2013). Prophetically enough, I wrote: “So my current plan is to first try Moclobemide and then Selegiline. If
Some ways of viewing and interpreting reality (or certain parts of it) can make you much more productive and happy than others, although they are not less accurate than other, more “pessimistic stances” of viewing and interpreting the world 1. In this post, I’m going to outline two such stances of viewing and reacting to life events, particularly stressful
Previously: In the first two parts I mainly described cognitive habits on how to become happier. In this last installment of my “Happiness Sequence” I will talk about stuff of a more “behavioral” nature like exercise, diet, sleep and social relationships.
[Previously: Happy by Habit, Thoughts on Happiness (1)] 9. Seeing the positive Stupid and/or irrational people can really annoy me. Someone just has to say that “evolutionary psychology is biologistic” and my day is ruined. The fact is that the irrationality, overconfidence and ignorance of some people boggles the mind. If this sad fact is brought home to
[Previously: Happy by Habit] This is a collection of thoughts on how to become happier. The first 2 parts are mostly focused on cognitive habits that I’ve found useful. That means I’m not talking about obvious stuff like regular exercise, good diet, enough sleep, socializing with friends, having healthy relationships and keeping the cocaine to a
Many of you will probably think: “Come on, Nietzsche?!” I know, I know. But I have holidays and a pretty smart, rational person recommended Nietzsche to me in order to overcome my existential angst. I won’t bore you with the obvious shortcomings of Nietzsche. Not surprisingly, 90% of what he writes is either completely wrong,
First of all, I don’t want to teach rationality, because I’m an emotion-hating guy with a number-fetish. No, one of the main reasons (among many other altruistic motivations) is that I wish people would understand me and what I am living for. A prerequisite for this is knowing the epistemological operating principles of my mind, i.e. how