Erlend K

The economic freedom index is basically a scam, designed to fabricate a corrolation between prosperity and economic freedom. If you the a look at the algorithm for calculating it, its clear that "economi freedom index" score has little to do with economic freedom. "A particularly tragicomic case study is Saudi Arabia: Economically successful despite being a nightmarish dystopia of wahhabist dictatorship. A government led by a nepotistic royal family with tentacles penetrating all sectors of the economy; An unrivaled abuser of international marked power — the very antithesis of free markets; Its bureaucracy, infamously cumbersome and corrupt; Its legal system, Sharia-based; The female half of its population denied even the most fundamental economic freedoms; The male population mostly employed by the bloated public sector, or living off welfare. One would reasonably expect to find this totalitarian horrorshow’s Economic Freedom score lingering in the murky depths of the scale, wrestling the likes of North Korea for the rock-bottom spot. Its actual score however is a staggering 6,24, comfortably ahead of the likes of Argentina [2.92], Venezuela [4,88], Ukraine [5.38] and Brazil [5,75]. Like any economically successful countries, Saudi Arabia's score is boosted, helping to establish the statistical correlation between EFI and economic success." https://medium.com/@erlendkulanderkvitrud/the-economic-freedom-index-is-a-steaming-pile-of-neoliberal-bullshit-a35205855e29

"Finding your passion" is not an armchair activity. As you go about your life, you have to pay attention to what you feel passionate about. If there is nothing at this point in your life, that's fine. Besides, you are not likely to have one overarching subject/activity that you will permanently feel passionate about. Passions ebb and flow throughout life. If you get bored from studying art, that's probably not something you are very passionate about. Travel is great, but requires money. Money requires employment. Well compensated employment requires skill training. Attending college is meant as an investment in skill training, a door opener for well-compensated employment. Despite the handful of high-profile college dropout entrepreneurs, most highly successful people completed college. The optimal strategy for creating an enjoyable career as an introvert (who is not inclined to risk or perpetual sales) would be something like: - Identify a few skills you have a natural talent for and hone them throughout college. Ex, I excel at logic and critical thinking, so I got into STEM. - Get an entry level job where you can apply these skills - Focus on mastering this job, learn to enter flow, and get recognized in your organization as someone who reliably does an excellent job - You will gradually be asked to contribute on evermore varied and complex projects which bestows you evermore autonomy to select projects you find interesting, and to shape your own workday. Through experience, you will map out which projects/tasks you generally feel the most excited/passionate about, and then just keep steering your career in that direction.

CO2e (carbon dioxide equivalents), not CO2 (carbondioxide). CO2e is all greenhouse gasses expressed as an equvalent amount of carbondioxide (An amount with equivalent effect on global warming). For instance 1 tonn of methan = 21 tonns of CO2e. And no, we clearly can't ignore any piece of the pai. I agree with the rest of your arguments, but in the short run our most pressing issue is cutting carbon emissions. It's an emergency we simply have to deal with right now! According to the new IPCC, humanity either takes massive action over the next 12-15 years, or we will miss the 1,5 degrees target. Humaity need to drop everything else and just deal with this crisis for a couple years.

agriculture etc. constitutes 25 % of global CO2e emissions.

Here are a few paragraphs from an essay, I am working on regarding the humanitarian and geopolitical consequences of climate change: Rising sea levels, dwindling water supplies, desertification, and changing weather patterns are expected to erode farm- and pastoral land throughout the developing world. The expected results include unprecedented population displacements, surging poverty, and rapid urbanization, à la Syria’s 2007-2010 drought. Coinciding with the anticipated automation revolution, this booming urban underclass might be largely unemployable - spawning a global archipelago of hotspots for destabilization, civil unrest, civil wars, resource conflicts (à la the unfolding Egyptian-Ethiopian conflict over the river Nile), failed states and a surge of jihadist organisations (Sullivan, 2007), (Nett, 2016). Gemenne (2011) estimates the potential number of climate refugees by 2050 as high as 300 million. The unsanitary living conditions of some of these refugees might become ground zero for antibiotic-resistant bacteria epidemics, rapidly spreading along their migration routes. Some climate refugees will undoubtedly migrate northwards, putting the EU under massive strain. Looking back, the puny refugee crisis of the Syrian Civil War will seem minuscule. Like describing the horrors of the Napoleonic wars to a WW1 trench-veteran. Coinciding with other drastic changes, the scene might be set for populists movements and strongmen. The power to influence migration routes towards Europe might shift the EU-Turkey power balance in Turkey's favor. Ditto for Russia, whose influence over Iran and Syria as well as naval presence in the Black Sea, might strategically interfere with northbound migration routes. Climate change is expected to particularly wreak havoc on Pakistan, where destabilization might result in Taliban acquisition of nuclear weapons. This could usher an age of nuclear terrorism, or at least force a NATO withdrawal from Afghanistan. A Unified Afghanistan-Pakistan governed by a nuclear-armed Taliban: a breeding ground for terrorism and a geopolitical worst case scenario for the west.

What does that mean? You just sit and zone out for 45 min? what do you feel like you are gaining from this activity?

Awareness of awareness, i.e. being aware that you are aware of something is what psychologists call metacognition. This is completely different from the transformation of mind "Enlightenment" normally refers to. Of course, one might import the sequence of letters "E-n-l-i-g-h-t-e-n-m-e-n-t" into whatever language game one wants to play, and declare anything as "Enlightenment".

What sort of meditation are you doing? Samatha: Every time your focus shifts towards the physical sensation note "sensation", and move your focus back to the breath. Be mentally prepared for any negative thoughts or feelings associated with the sensations, and set the intention to notice these asap, so that you can note "thought"/"feeling" and move your focus back to the breath. Vipassana: You may use these sensations as an object of meditation. Observe the sensations with as much equanimity as you are capable of, observe your mind's resistance to the sensations and longing for them to pass, notice how neither the sensation, the thoughts/feelings associated with them, the resistance and the longing for escape are "you" but just ever-fluctuating streams of information passing through awareness. If the sensations are too strong for these techniques, you might want to temporarily switch to walking meditation, or meditating lying down.

This sort of dogmatism doesn't seem fruitful. Defining attributes of "God", with a capital C, include omniscience, omnipotence, and omnipresence. By asserting "I am God" you either profess these attributes, or you have simply appropriated the word "God" into your own private language game. It's like stating "I am a turtle", and by "turtle" I mean "man in his early 30's". This is a hopelessly confusing way of communicating my gender and age. Insisting on this conceptualization of "turtle" only begets miscommunication. Most of the great contemplative traditions, including Buddhism, dissent from your "You are God" maxim.

You have two choises a) Only share, never sell. This means you either have to leech off someone else, or be 100% self suficient: grow/hunt your own food, make yout own clothes, live outdoors/in a tent, repair your own bike etc. This leaves you little time to master your prefered craft (for you, music). b) Sell something. Spend most of your time mastering a skill, monetize this skill, use the money to take care of all your remaining needs.

The slogan "life is meaningless" is vacuous nonsense, with a phantom aroma of profundity and insightfulness. It's like saying "Life is joyless/angerless/boredomless/loveless/courageless/whatever part of the human condition- less". Meaning is no hocus pocus, it's a phenomenon of the mind, triggered by striving towards particular goals. Nothing is objectively meaningless. "Objectively meaning-full/less" makes as much sense as "objectively boring" or "objectively fun": nonsense. Meaningful, meaningless, boring and fun are 100% subjective.

Make sure you don't turn meaning into som abstract, metaphysical pie in the sky. Theoretical arguments for why something should be meaningful are bullshit. Meaning is not something "out there", but merely phenomenological, triggered buy certain purposeful actions. There are decades of empirical reaserch on the necessary conditions for work becoming a source for meaning. If our work helps others, we are good at it (or as a junior: practice diligently to get good at it), we work on engaging, flow promoting tasks, and with people we like, then we tend to experience work as meaningful.

The most effective drugs against sa is maoi's, particularly Nardil. The only longterm solution is systematic, incremental exposure, combined with whatever you can do to decrease anxiety levels during exposure: nardil, heavy weight lifting, avoiding suggar and coffeene, get enough sleep, stay hydrated, breath with your diagphram, do yoga/meditation, cbt/psychodynamic terrapy etc.

What is "audio masterfield"? Is this something it is possible to make a career in?

Spot on! ?

Platos republic would be a totalitarian dystopia, with little regard for the individual, political self-determination and free expression. Each of us would from an early age have to squeese into one of platos 3 made up "types of people" and spend our life fufilling the role "appropriate" for our assignes caste. Political power would be concentrated in one absolute bloc, the ruling caste. The majority of us, put into one of the two non-ruling casts, would have no means of influencing this echo chamber of aloof rulers. Massive propaganda efforts would make us submit to our "natural place" in society, convincing us that what the ruling caste decrees as idea for the city per definition has to be ideal for each of us as individuals. There would be no room for dissidents. I havnt read More, so I have no comment about his idea.

What is sexual energy? Is it just a pretensious way of saying "horny", or is it something else?

Gandhi's autobiography - The Story of My Experiments with Truth

Hi everyone. The way I see it, humanity is at a crossroads. The way we deal with the inevitable transformations that will happen in our lifetimes will likely determine the entire future of humanity. Global warming is due to exceed two degrees, possibly three degrees. The last time the world was three degrees warmer was during the Pliocene, three million years ago, when beech trees grew in Antarctica, the seas were 80 feet higher and horses galloped across the Canadian coast of the Arctic Ocean. Three degrees would be nightmarish. It would mean casualties in the hundreds of millions, unprecedented refugee streams all across the third world leading to massive destabilization of already weak states, mass unrest, civil wars, failed states, resource wars, a boom of Islamist terrorism, epidemics of antibacterial-resistant bacteria. The collapse of nuclear-armed Pakistan and (probably) Iran will likely mean terrorist acquisition of nuclear weapons, ushering the age of nuclear terrorism. Nationalist, racist sentiments in the first world will lead us to seal off our paradisic bubbles from them. Leaving this 2/3 of humanity to rip itself apart. Meanwhile, the first world will develop evermore refined AI. AI will replace the majority of labor, leading to near-universal unemployment, and the means of production controlled by a tiny group of multinational corporations. Biotech will reach the point where designer babies become the norm. Scientists have already genetically increased the intelligence of mice. In China, genetic engineering is already used on humans to cure genetic diseases. Designer babies are right around the corner. Humanity will for the first time in its history split in two. The old homo sapiens specie living in the climate change-wrecked, war-torn remains of the third world. A new, superior specie: Smarter, stronger, healthier, happier than the primitive homo sapiens, and deeply embedded with nanotech/AI breakthroughs that lie just a few decades ahead of us. Surveillance will be truly panoptical, big data owners will know you better than you know yourself: Cambridge Analytica and the Chinese social credit system is just the naive beginnings of what we might see in the coming decades. Nuclear weapons will be evermore cheap and readily available. Antibacterial resistant bacteria can be printed with biological 3D printers. Economic inequality keeps skyrocketing. The 1% is projected to control 2/3 of the global wealth within a few decades. Democracy may not survive all the stress that is about to be put on it. Even if it survives it might be irrelevant, as the real power increasingly shifts towards multinational giants. I believe it's the responsibility of every decent person living through this monumental time period to make whatever contribution they can to nudge the development just ever so slightly in the right direction. My passion is writing. I will try to make my contribution by slightly nudging the zeitgeist through my writing. For this, I need to master the craft of writing. Step 1 is to train writing essays, ask for feedback/criticism and take this in. I just published my first essay on Medium.com. I would appreciate anyone checking it out. I would welcome any criticism, and feedback on how I can improve. My first essay: Sorry Libertarians But Scandinavia Is Indeed Socialist - And Just So Happens To Be The World’s Most Prosperous Region

hi again @supremeyingyang Thanks a lot for sharing your thoughts. We both agree that multiple potential paths lay before humanity. Wich one we end up traversing depends on human decisions. There are powerful forces pulling us towards the cliff. We have a responsebility for futrue generations to do our best to puch towards safety. Each of us only have enough power for a light push, but if enough caring people join, we can do it. Catastrophes usually change peoples ways. Look at the cultural impact of WW2 as a prime example. I thought my point was pretty self evident. I might have been mistaken. I can elaborate on it later if you want. I don't have time right now.

Hello @Joseph Maynor! Thanks for the input! "First of all, you don't even have compassion for yourself yet." This is a weird shot in the dark. Having been away from this forum for a while, I forgot about the community's tendency for such random, unfounded bursts of psychoanalyzing to pathologize contrarian ideas. Luckily the shot completely missed its target :). I have plenty of self-compassion and a genuinely great life. If I had to pay a fine to be allowed to write, I would gladly pay it. Contentment comes from within - Meaning comes from without. From purposeful engagement with the world. Contentment is a goal fit for animals - Meaning is a goal fit for humans. Even tho you have bought into an ideology telling you that meaning comes from solving your own problems, this is an extremely sad, egocentric way to lead your life. Focusing on yourself, obsessing over your own petty problems is a horrible long-term strategy for living a meaningful life. I am obviously familiar with Bukowski. ‘SO YOU WANT TO BE A WRITER’ is a stirring, soulful poem, but its message is BS. If you want to write, write! You don't need anyone's permission. With a few, rare exceptions, even the greatest writers start out mediocre, struggling to master the craft. They practice, practice, practice. Experiment, attend workshops, seek constructive criticisms and meticulously hone their skills for years. Going through this path of mastery is precisely the source of their humility and self-appreciation in relation to this mastery.

Thank you for the tips @Robert I guess you are right. This is just the only forum I have been active on over the last year, so it feels like my online home, and was the first place I thought about asking for feedback. I would love to find a writers group. After reading your reply, I searched a bit trying to look for an online writers group, but I couldn't find one for essay writing, witch is what I'm primarily interested in.

Hey @supremeyingyang First of all, thanks a lot for the compliment! It makes me feel both humbled (a bit awkward, actually) and deeply motivated to keep at it, striving to master this craft. Your third line made me stop an ponder for a while. I'm not sure if you mean my forum post or my article. My forum post was written in the tone it was, due to the enormity of the stakes. I know it seem pessimistic when it's all put together in a few paragraphs, but every single one of my statements are highly plausible. Overwhelming forces pull humanity in the wrong direction, a couple missteps in the coming decades is all it will take for us to burrow ourselves so deeply, that before we know it we will no longer, ever be able to crawl back up. Many leading experts believe 3 degrees warming is plausible. There is no question what will happen then. My description is a distillation of the conclusions of various UN, Pentagon, CNA’s military advisory board reports. The ever-increasing concentration of wealth is widely agreed upon by economists unless income is radically redistributed. AI is already in the process of killing jobs. Certain developing countries like India will be particularly hard hit by job loss, combined with climate change-induced droughts, which will massively destabilize this nuclear-armed giant. Similarly with its hostile nuclear-armed neighbor, Pakistan. When asked what keeps him up at night, Obama famously replied "Pakistan". Designer babies are right over the horizon, with China currently leading the charge as the west have a lot of moral scruples with this idea of playing god. If the rich are willing to pay fortunes to enroll their kids in elite school and universities, they will no doubt be willing to pay even more to genetically enhance the intelligence, creativity, sociability etc. This will give their kids a massive edge over poor kids, and the cement of class differences will dry, never to soften again. Those living through this century does not have the luxury of sticking our heads in the sand, ignoring the gravity of the era we will live through and focusing on the petty positives. Like the generation living through the 1930-40's didn't have the luxury to stop being pessimistic about the Third Reich and focus on the positive. I am for acknowledging and celebrating the positive, but we have a historic responsibility to take on this unprecedented danger, exceeding even that of the early-mid-20th century. There's an idea by Jordan Peterson I find intensely inspiring. Bear with me here. Despite his propensity for pseudo-intellectual bullshit, he has one great idea. Meaning comes from striving towards some important goal. The more important the goal, the more meaningful your striving becomes. From this, he draws the conclusion that in order to live a maximally meaningful life, aim for the highest possible good, tool yourself into someone who can achieve this end, and spend your life going for it. I agree. Dedicate your life to this struggle - THE struggle of our generation - together we might tilt the balance in the right direction.

That's cool as fuck! Best of luck!

Wow, thank you so much, @ChimpBrain! Both for the praise, and for pointing out those typos. I corrected them now.