bazera

@BlessedLion Halfway through it, great interview! It's amazing how we integrated a concept of a "subconscious mind" as culture, and think that there really is such a thing. History of psychology is worthy of research just to identify all the concepts that was invented in the last 100 years that we just take for granted. But the idea that we could just become conscious of stuff right now, in the middle of generating our state, and just stop it, sounds so simple but so complicated at the same time. But takes lots and lots of practice. It sounds like a superpower honestly.

@Lila9 Oh I have that one, it's super comprehensive and full of lots of really good techniques. It also gives a nice gradual approach to adding practices over some time. I purchased a neti pot because of that book, and I find it very useful.

@Lila9 Could you share book title and author?

@Leo Gura Did you resolve some of those in your initial trips? I remember Christopher M. Bache was describing in his book that initial big part of his trips was spent in resolving his personal issues, and only after that he accessed higher things and transcended his history. Was your experience similar?

@Natasha Tori Maru What's the longest you've run?

@Leo Gura AI video was very insightful, thanks for sharing. I liked the part when AI outputted "aha" token to indicate having an an actual aha moment, but in reality nothing new was added to the context except for that literal one token. It's so deceptive. It's crazy. These people who make AI tools on top of LLM's make it harder to notice that illusion of reason. One example, when you prompt something, some models show "Thinking..." label, instead of something like a generic "Loading". It tries to sell you the idea that LLM's do reason, but as they guy was saying, they rationalize instead of reason. LLM's are really helpful in many ways, we just have to not bullshit ourselves on what they really are and do. But since the topic is too technical to dive into deeply the maths of it, it stays unnoticed. ChatGPT is epistemically irresponsible I wonder if we'll see some entirely new AI based on a different technology. It's apparent that probabilistic search system won't do it. And this tech-bros make it seem like AGI is around the corner, when in reality the current technology just isn't in the same ballpark as it seems. He mentioned Emily Bender, and I found some of her videos YT interesting. Also there is this book that I'll check later: https://www.amazon.com/Surveillance-Capitalism-Artificial-Intelligence-Information/dp/0063418568 If anyone is interested.

Yes I think over time as this AI slop pollutes the web more and more, more people will value actual artist's craftmenship. Hopefully artists won't lose motivation to produce good work because if I was an animator and saw the above video and that dude says he made it in 48 hours under $100, I'd be bogged down because it would take weeks to manually do that. But at the moment, the art that's actually valuable isn't made with AI. Probably artists use AI in initial phases to test some ideas, and for all sorts of different valuable reasons in the process of making a product. Same as coding, LLM doesn't replace an engineer, just enhanses abilities. At least as of today. Hard to speak of the future.

Lately, after Seedance 2.0 came out, I've been seeing pretty cool AI short-movies on YT, wanted to share some of them here: Most of internet is filled with AI slop videos, but some of them are pretty cool. And just a reminder, this is the worst it will ever be, so 😂 Personally, I don't see much value in AI video, I think it will cause more harm then good. But the genie is out of the bottle, so we might as well embrace it.

@Ramasta9 Same, but the issue is that as months go by, it's getting harder and harder to distinguish what was made with AI vs not. Take this as an example. Would you recognize that this was done with AI? It looks like a nice regular animation with an interesting style.

It's 06:30 in the morning, just woke up, I think I finally fixed a sleep schedule after months of trying. This time I put a real effort though. Before I was just bullshitting. Yesterday was an okay day. Weight loss progress: -0.1kg (in total -0.4kg in 2 days) What I did: No addiction relapses 1900 calories, 170g protein 20m run 10k steps 20m TMI (The Mind Illuminated) meditation, 12 pranayamas 1.5h read, finished Yeonmi Park's book Cooked for the next day What I didn't do: Work. It was a holiday Study. I procrastinated till the evening, and then I was too tired / lazy to do it. What worked and I need to change: Morning spiritual practices worked, definitely gonna continue those first thing in the morning (after this post) Followed up with exercise Followed up with study session So I need to move study session before reading, because reading is a relatively low-effort activity and it's fun as well, I can do it in the evening, for the study there is some resistance and friction so I have to get it over with in the morning hours before work to be consistent. Some random insights: Patience is super important in developing skills over time, and really, in accomplishing anything meaningful. I lost 0.1kg today, that's like 0.3% of a total weight that I need to lose. So, yeah, this will take some real patience. Also, this relates to spiritual practices because I suck at them, and I know I'll suck at them for many months and I just have to keep showing up every day, because in the past I didn't, and because of that I sucked for years, instead of months. That's it, good luck for me today

To be honest if I had constant access to psychedelics, I'd do it slowly and methodically instead of Holotropic Breathwork. Maybe it works in different ways idk but still. Stan Groff invented that hopotropic thing after LSD was outlawd and he coudn't practice his therapy with it, so... Hey man, just remembered, I found this book last week: https://www.amazon.com/Psychedelic-Therapy-Revolutionary-Restoring-Reclaiming/dp/1645476049/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0 It will come out at the end of March, you should check it out it could be helpful.

@Judy2 I think it's more of an individual thing. For example for me, I have no problem working out fasted except for the lowerbody exercises. For some reason I get very dizzy and nauseous on leg day on an empty stomach to the point that workout becomes impossible. So I eat a banana and 1-2 egg before it. It also depends on the intensity of the workout. As guys said above, loading up with carbs prior evening or in the morning is a good idea if the intensity is high enough. It all depends. It's irritating, yeah. For me it depends on current priorities. Is that situation going to last for month / years? If so, then I'd go for a version that's more sustainable. Which is more sustainable, eating at home or at work? Do you bring home-prepped food to your workspace? If eating at work means eating out daily, I'd go with the home version. What would be the ideal schedule for you if work wasn't interrupting?

Sure, but I was referring to people who struggle to find food and safe shelter, like a lower class North Korean people for example. Not sure how resourceful would be to lecture them on epistemology.

What I like about this is that it not only makes truth-seeking more accessible, it also frames survival nicely. It creates a context for it, so instead of blind survival, now you have an overarching vision of developing proper epistemology, and properly handling a survival serves that overarching vision. So now working on survival aspect of life becomes more exciting because it has that extra meaning and proper context.

If you struggle to survive, or barely do so, truth will be the least of your priorities, even if you don't literally die. I think people underestimate how powerful the survival force is.

I found him through Rogan's James Fox podcast, it has some interesting interviews like the one with a Brazilian neurosurgeon from Varginha case. But there's a lot of wacky shit as well, like a guy claiming that he's a time travaler.

The Next Two Years of Software Engineering: https://addyosmani.com/blog/next-two-years/ This was a good read

I've just finished reading Yeonmi Park's "In Order to Live". She is North Korean defector, who escaped with her mother. She just described unimaginable things, seeing dead bodies was an everyday normal thing for her growing up, she didn't meant what it was to not feel hungry all the time, she ate grasshoppers and fireflies to survive. She was trafficed and sold multiple times in her teenage years. She escaped North Korea 2 weeks after appendix surgery, where she woke up in the middle of surgery because the anesthetic wasn't proper dose. She saw her mother getting raped in China in front of her, and later she was raped as well. She nearly killed herself multiple times. She was ridiculed and told that she won't achieve anything. And so much more. I can't watch this without tearing up myself. Such a brave girl. Her story made me so grateful for everything I've got, the fact that I have food everyday is really a privilage if I think about it. It's not something to be taken for granted. But I forget that often. I want to remember and appriciate my life and circumstances much more. And not be complaisant. There is so much opportunity around us that we take for granted. I will continue researching North Korea, it's such a great example of the cruelty and deception that humans can do to each other. Great example of when you don't have basic survival handled, you don't care about anything higher. These people were motivated by hunger and safe shelter. To that little girl, freedom meant she could ate food.

@HopefulMan Hey man, sorry to hear that. I don't have much experience with serious trauma, but when I did Holotropic Breathwork many pent up emotions came up via crying, laughing, shaking, screaming, etc. I still plan to do more of it weekly, maybe you should try that as well. Also, I've been researching some other ways of trauma release, and I've found Trauma Release Exercises (TRE). It's couple somatic exercises with your body that causes shaking and trauma release, you could also do that, you can find instructions on YouTube.

@Joseph Maynor I have periods when I crave lots of alone time, weeks at a time. Then sometimes I crave socialization and I go out from time to time, with friends mostly. But I'd have much better socialization skills if I did it much more. Not at the moment, but in the near future I will. So, I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing if you plan ahead and if it's intentional. When you are working on other aspects of life, socialization might get deprioritized from time to time.

@PolyPeter I'm using Android, but still, drop it in my PM when it's approved.

That's when years of experience come in handy. That's why senior engineers are best users of those tools nowadays. But again, if all the new people vibe-code their way through first years of their careers, I don't know what good will come of that. We'll see. At the moment I see a need for deepening fundamental knowledge and caring about understanding the output of AI plus working on some projects without using LLM's (for solutons, I think it's okay to use for boilerplate even in study projects), just for deepening the knowledge.

@Infinite Tsukuyomi Nice. Why don't you just use honey instead of artificial sweeteners? Not sure if it's healthier though.

@Natasha Tori Maru Oh okay, makes more sense now. I do some of that on some sundays when I'm not too lazy, cutting and prepping ingredients and saving them in the fridge, and use them daily, I just cook the marinated meet and use pre-cut veggies, saves some time. This is the reason I don't go nuts with eating same thing day in day out lol. I just change combination of condoments on my chicken, rice and other things, makes a real difference. Also changing combinations gives me different taste variations, so that meat doesn't taste the same every day. Same. Just imagine the hustle and prepping that people go through when they have a need to eat something different / special each day. So much energy and thought process would go into eating. For me it it's a waste. But I have a friend who can't eat same thing daily and he spends half of his day in the kitchen lol, and always trying to come up with something different daily. Gourmet type of people. Kangaroo hamburger sounds interesting, sounds exotic 😀 Maybe I'll try it one day. The most exotic thing I've tasted outside my local cuisine was some snails in French.

@PolyPeter Yup I've seen it. Good stuff. But still, most of that will be senior positions though.