Carl-Richard

That was easy ?

You can compare anything with anything, but some things are easier to compare than others. 1960s and 1800s are not very comparable. Imagine trying to explain Foucault's philosophy to Rousseau.

NOTE: this is not an endorsement, just a curious inquiry. JF's argument is an evolutionary one and is essentially that welfare leads to selection of weakness, which is why we should shy away from collectivist ideologies (socialism) and adopt a firmly capitalist ideology. His argument seems strong on the surface, but I believe that SD can provide some context: Human society has been strongly collectivist for ~50 000 years (technically millions of years). Pre-agricultural tribal societies gave individuals a minimum safety threshold even though their value contribution was variable. Sure, if you were found out to be a leech, you would be cast out, but there are also systems in place for that today (e.g. welfare employment programs). Capitalism arose only after ~10 000 years of agricultural feudalism. If the weakness selection pressure argument holds up, JF must differentiate between archaic/tribal collectivism and modern/governmental collectivism (which I don't think he does in this conversation). He also prides himself on using a theory with few assumptions but underestimates the depth of each assumption. It's not that clear whether or not the selection pressure for weakness in one specific area (helping people in deep poverty) will dominate the wide range of selection that is made available by solving the problems that are in fact caused by deep poverty. Let's say JF got some welfare while he was poor. Would the JF we see today really be diminished because of that or would he actually have been enhanced? Let's say he skips 5 years of poverty and gets a headstart on his career compared to today. Even if we granted a level of weakness induced by having received welfare, wouldn't that headstart possibly be a net benefit? Stuff like that. The general conception is that his argument is rather strong but that he goes way overboard with the conclusions (given that he doesn't particularly specify the scale of the problem, only the possibility of its existence). It's true that even though welfare could provide net social benefit or even some evolutionary benefit, it could degenerate the entire system if the weakness selection is strong enough. Any other ways to come at this?

I shortened down my take on it: The original human societal organization was intensely collectivistic for the majority of evolutionary history (pre-agricultural, tribal societies), where a base minimum safety was provided for people with variable value contributions, and somehow that didn't lead to a dominant, self-terminating weakness phenotype. So-called "individualism" didn't come online before ~10 000 years ago (agricultural, feudal empires), and the less exploitative version of that (capitalism) came even later. The supposed selection pressures created from a couple centuries or millenia of individualism is comparatively speaking homeopathic to the millions of years of collectivism from our evolutionary history. JF must 1. clarify why modern collectivism would be more detrimental than archaic collectivism, and 2. clarify the exact level of expression that would create a dominant, self-terminating phenotype. So far, he has provided a couple of big "ifs" but relatively few "hows".

Strong

Try a couple of trips of longer-acting substances while working yourself up in dose. The specifics is up to you.

Just got first dose of Pfizer BioNTech

Do you meditate every day?

Every comment section is an endless, fractal cascade of reactions ?

In this universe, there is no reason to fear something that has never happened before in the history of the universe.

If there are no limits, there have to be cases where that is extremely unlikely to happen.

You need to have a mystical experience

McKenna was an incredible speaker and a psychonautic pioneer, but his Novelty theory (based on "Timewave Zero") was a joke, and I believe his weed addiction was partly to blame for that

Change happens in the present moment

Is there anything happening that is not happening right now?

@JosephKnecht Exactly. He talked about the distinction between knowing about the "force" of gravity (9.81m/s^2 - an acceleration) and knowing the mechanics behind how it works (his examples about free fall). He lost me at the differential geometry jargon though

There is this idea that gravity is just acceleration. While there is some truth to that, it's obviously not the whole story. Let's say you were accelerating in a car. One obvious thing is that you'll feel like you're getting heavier (inertia). However, if you're jumping from a cliff and into a lake, for a while you'll feel like you're weightless (you're in "free fall"). The point is that those are two rather different experiences even though both involve some form of acceleration. But it gets deeper, and here is my insight: Now, that is only partially true, but it serves as a good opener for the point about reference frames. But first, another common description that is also not very satisfying, is that the earth is "pulling" you using its gravitational pull, because let's say if you were pulled by a car on earth, you would still feel like you're getting heavier (inertia). So the problems with these two descriptions of gravitational "pull" or "acceleration" is that the everyday experience or common conception of them are not very accurate for describing gravity (the lack of feeling of inertia). So about reference frames: in space, there is no absolute frame of reference for movement. In that sense, when you have two bodies in space entering their respective gravitational fields, they will simply start moving towards each other. It's not that the Earth is "pulling" you, it's not that you're "accelerating" towards the Earth. No – strictly speaking, the distance between the two bodies is decreasing. But more importantly, from the perspective of what you're actually experiencing on a bodily level, it's as if you're simply floating in space but the Earth is moving/accelerating towards you. From the Earth's perspective, it's as if it's simply floating in space and your body is moving towards it. The nature of this movement can of course be partially described as acceleration, but the point is that it's qualitatively different from other phenomenas involving acceleration. I tried to keep it as laymen friendly as possible (as that's what I am after all), but I'll appreciate any input from people who are more immersed in physics than me

That is one model, yes. However, Einstein is also using reference frames as a basis for his models, hence the Lorentz factor for estimating time dilation in Special Relativity and the equivalence principle in General Relativity: The idea that your reference frame is accelerating is exactly what my insight was about: it's what you would experience if you imagine that the Earth is accelerating towards you. In reality, in a sense you are accelerating, but you're also weightless because your entire "frame" is accelerating, not just your body so to speak. It's not so much that your body is accelerating relative to the background than it is your body "+" the background accelerating in unison. "Gravity is not a force – it's an acceleration" is a statement made by the yt channel Veritasium, which is obviously just an opener for a deeper explanation, but that is also why I included it here. If I had to state it again, my point with this topic was to point out the peculiar nature of gravity using laymen terms without copy-pasting some physics textbook. This is just one way to do it.

I wasn't comparing them. I was making a distinction. Both involve acceleration but they're still not the same. The car example is only to explain a point.

With absolute infinity, the answer is always: why not?

...and that's your opinion

Mood is one thing. It's possible to be in a relatively good mood while ignoring the fact that you life is shit (by doing drugs for example). Psychedelics will shove that right in your face.