Today I’m contemplating my routines.

Routines are very useful shortcuts or mental heuristics that allow us to function more efficiently. Routines are rigid by nature, and classically associated with adult thinking. Non routine behavior or thinking is more typical of children and is more plastic/fluid.

Given the inherent advantages and disadvantages of routine behavior then, it is useful to sometimes stop and think about their relative merits as we will inevitably develop a few nonproductive or unhealthy ones along the way.

The one that most recently has given me reason to pause is posting to #nostr.

In addition to taking the occasional break from posting here, I also regularly ask myself why I bother to do so at all. I fortunately don’t have any other social media and never will.

As for why I bother, I’m really not sure. I recognize the typical social media behaviors in myself, such as enjoying a reply or occasional zap. I also tend to post far more controversial content than most, so there is the possibility that I enjoy the opportunity to say things anonymously that would get me punched in the face in real life.

So therein lies the partial truth of it anyhow, the beauty of social media and #nostr for me lies in its anonymity and the fact that I’m not generating yield for some corporate monster like Facebook or Twitter with my thoughts. I also genuinely need the catharsis that comes with screaming into the void.

What’s your reason?

#thinkdangerously

#grownostr

This is outstanding. :)

There is a quote I like that says something like “the butterfly only remembers its days as a butterfly, never as the caterpillar”.

Point is, as we mature and inevitably change (with most becoming “normal” over time), we forget the people we once were and the beliefs we once had and view these as completely alien.

So try to be forgiving or at least understanding of people who are or think differently from you. You can still think they’re nuts, and not want to have anything to do with them, but maybe they’re just still caterpillars like you once were.

And remember, maybe it’s you who is still the caterpillar.

#grownostr

#thinkdangerously

Those looked like NPCs at first.

You are not wrong. Academic medicine is an abomination these days with narrow publication networks and rampant political and industry manipulation.

That said, if you understand the biases and can interpret a methods section, you can often detect the garbage or outright fraudulent stuff pretty easily.

And of course, single studies with results that haven’t been replicated yet are usually not worth paying much attention to.

A PowerPoint slide with the words “Harvard study” printed on it though, seems unlikely to sway me.

If you can’t get good local beef in Texas, I’m not sure where I’d try next. :)

Had a delicious steak myself yesterday. Woke up thinking about it still.

Maybe time for steak and eggs. :)

So sorry for your loss.

From the pictures he looks like he made it to old age. What a sweet creature.

If it helps, consider the pain you feel as a repayment of the love debt we all owe our dogs.

Please share the pubmed source for this study.

Author, title, and journal would also work.

This will serve you well.

This is #bitcoin already. Bitcoin is Woodstock personified, every single day. Its very existence is the biggest, most actually significant, middle finger to the establishment one can possibly imagine. It’s literally “fuck you” money.

Ask yourself, does Bitcoin need to change or do you? :)

Last I checked, Sublime was a terrible band that I prefer to continue to forget. :)

Do you get tired of the sycophants?

Hahaha. Gross. :)

Next you may be surprised to learn that bar/nightclub owners hire prostitutes to have sex with male patrons during their opening weeks to generate “buzz”.

Or that pharmaceutical companies bribe the FDA for preferential treatment.

Or that the world bank is a criminal enterprise.

Wait… I think you already know that. :)

There is a LOT of debate in this area as it introduces many difficult and potentially dangerous topics.

The simplest way though is to take the square miles of livable land (about 25M sqm) and determine how much is needed on average for sustainable food and industrial production per person. The second part is tricky because many people want to figure out the maximum population instead of the ideal one, and there are many variables, such as climate change, which may drastically reduce the number of livable square miles in the years to come.

After spending a generous amount of time researching this topic though, I can say that well-founded high end estimates for sustainable populations for humans is 2B. Still 6B away from current levels and 8-9 billion away for current estimates of year 2100 population estimates.

If you want to find the human population that is sustainable for all species though, that is closer to the 50M-100M that I quoted before. That is to say, the population of humans that would no longer cause lasting damage to other species on the planet. Not surprisingly, this requires an order of magnitude less than even that which I describe above. It’s about 0.25-0.5 sq. miles of livable land per human.

#grownostr

#thinkdangerously

Looks lovely.

First, thank you for engaging in a discussion about an emotionally charged topic in a thoughtful and civil manner even though we are clearly on different sides of the argument. Your ability to do that is impressive to me and much appreciated.

And you make a very valid point, even to me. There is no absolute proof beyond history that says I’m right about the ultimate disposition of humans relative to nature. You take an optimistic view, while I take a pessimistic one. I admire your ability to think kindly of humans, and I myself have come across examples of people who surprise me by their kind and thoughtful nature. Yourself included.

Where the sticking point for me still lies is in the general direction that humanity seems to be headed in. The appropriate sustainable human population (at least ecologically) seems to be between 50-100M. This means that at some point (maybe your children’s generation) there will need to be a massive culling of humanity, whether through war, famine, or disease. At current population levels that means that 7.9 billion people will need to die and not be replaced just to get things back to where they stand a chance of reaching equilibrium.

In the meantime though, we have impressive systems in place to resist such changes from occurring gradually, like governments and corporations locked into the notion that perpetual growth is sustainable. Their incessant need to kick the can down the road simply removes any hope for me that humans will make it through this without tremendous suffering.

I wouldn’t burden my worst enemy with the possibility of that future, let alone something that I would be biologically driven to love more than anything.

Hopes and dreams do not a rosy future make I’m afraid.

I see your point, but someone else wearing a mask in public doesn’t harm me in any way.

I can also envision a number of situations where someone may do what you are describing but be immune compromised (from chemo for instance) and simply not want to live their life as a shut in.

A mask, even if improperly worn, still might offer such a person the motivation or (even false) sense of security to get out in the world and experience what little of life they can.

I say more power to them.

This could be the epitome of selfishness I’m afraid. Again, not judging with certainty since you are in the majority of humans, but reproducing simply to make your retirement more comfortable is a pretty lousy thing to expect from/burden your children with no?

I have no kids. If my retirement becomes so unpleasant that I must rely on others to care for me, I will simply painlessly end my own life. Granted, I have acquired the necessary skills and knowledge to do this in my lifetime but such an option is not outside the rest of humanity’s reach.

Point is, there are plenty of other options other than breeding a generation of indentured caregivers. That seems really shitty to me for the children. What do they stand to gain from this arrangement? Life? Ha!

Not a trade I would make and I am one of the objectively happiest people I have ever met. Blind no, delusional perhaps (like the rest of us), but happy almost certainly by comparison to the rest of humanity.

And these opinions certainly don’t make me intelligent. Intelligence is too subjective a thing to precisely label.

I do think the ability to reason outside the bounds of our own convictions is a key part of it though.