@neanderthalsnavel Lord have mercy on you🙏 a great friend of mine looks for positive and useful... Not mindlessley, false positivity immediate gratification rubbish, but something that is a another drop in the bucket of overall positive and useful ❤️
@neanderthalsnavel at the end of 2020, I removed the social media apps from my phone for that same basic reason. I also stopped listening to most podcasts. It helped get my thoughts in order to stop hearing everyone else’s. Major changes in my life were the result.
Even in 2024, I don’t spend a lot of time here on the massive dong.
If the yootoob algos take a bad turn, I’ve found them responsive when I listen to more positive content and get a more virtuous trend rolling.
To my surprise, Jordan Peterson’s more recent interviews (especially when he’s being interviewed by someone else) have been particularly helpful for me the last few months. His psychological take on the Biblical canon have been a useful bridge for me as I’ve transitioned from lifelong agnosticism into Orthodox Christianity.
I’ve also been listening to wayyyy less of *anything* news related and that’s been hugely beneficial.
@Draven — I’ve not! Thanks for the tip. :)
There's some amazingly good stuff out there. Our cups runneth over.
The key with any sort of news or economic stuff boils down to one question: "Is this information good enough to help me run my life better?"
Overly optimistic news is obviously a problem because it might have you taking unnecessary risks because everything is fine. On the other hand, doomerism is just as bad because things aren't always all bad, and every cloud has a silver lining.
In the past I listened to a lot of APM or NPR, and I made decisions based on the news I got from them, and my predictions were often wildly wrong -- Predict one thing and the opposite would happen, pretty often. Much of the establishment media is like this -- if you listen to them, you'll be led astray because they report the official narrative, and it only shifts significantly after news has already started to happen and you can't do anything about it.
I often go back to my decision in 2020 to refinance my mortgage. (In Canada there's essentially no such thing as a 30 year fixed mortgage since banks take all the risk on such a thing and so while a 5 year fixed could be gotten at 1.9%, a 25 year was closer to 10%). 92% of people go with mortgages of 5 years or less, and they need to renew every 5 years or less at a new rate) -- the financial doomers I watched ended up helping me understand I should break my mortgage and refinance in 2020 for 10 years at a slightly higher rate because government policies at the time were almost custom-made to produce stagflation and thus Interest rates would inevitably rise. They did rise, and if I had taken no action I would be refinancing closer to 6% right about now as many people are.
In another case, I saw news stories about potential food shortages, and potential fuel shortages, and so I grabbed some gas cans with some stabilizer, a generator and some electric space heaters and filled the cans up with gas, and grabbed some staple foods that would last in storage for 20 years. It turns out there were food and fuel shortages shortly afterwards -- just not in my region. Europe got hit hard, and there were many stories of massive consequences to a lack of energy, and there have been revolutions in part over lack of food such as in Sri Lanka. I didn't end up needing the stuff I bought, but it was a measured response so I have fuel for years to come (I just use it in the lawnmower and snowblower), and occasionally we have some rice from one of the 80lb bags I've got tucked away. Not really the end of the world having food and fuel on-hand. It's important not to let total doomerism take over your psyche because even with good news sources you can get things wrong because you read the signs wrong.
The day Trump was shot, I had spent most of the day outside at the park with my son. And after I found out about Trump getting shot, I went back outside and we continued to play. What was actually important to me that day was the time I got to spend with him, not time I'd later spend looking into the details of a bit of political violence.
I used to host OpenStreetMap on fbxl (used the server for something else later), and I had an interesting moment I'll never forget. You start off looking at a world map. You see every piece of land on earth and go "This is what's here". As you slowly zoom in, the country lines show up, and you go "this is what's here". As you keep zooming in, you see provincial or state lines, and you go "this is what's here", and as you keep going you start to see cities, and then you see the streets in a certain city. Keep zooming in and you see the individual buildings, and that's where the map stops. But that's where the map stops but that isn't where complexity stops. Inside those buildings are many individual details -- what furniture there is and where, the relationships between the people there, other things strewn about. If someone has a handful of money, that's a tiny thing but it can be really important to the people inside. In the dirt in the back yard or even in the drain under the sink there can be entire microbiomes living, breeding, and dying and to the microorganisms living there, the drain under your sink is their entire world, it looks to them like the map of the world I started with.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ekt7VujAWNE
The world is infinitely complex, and it all matters, but we often ignore the small for the very big as if the very big is more important, but it isn't necessarily. As the western roman empire fell, that was a huge event, but most of the planet didn't care. There were tribes in the Americas that didn't realize the western roman empire ever existed. Asia mostly went unaffected. Australia didn't care. North Africa was affected, but Africa is a huge continent and most of it didn't care at all that something called Rome went away. Northern Europe lost its biggest customer for bog iron but otherwise wasn't directly impacted. For many of the people within the western Roman empire, life actually got a lot better. According to evidence from people's bones, the average person's health improved more than at any point in history when the western Roman empire fell. Despite that, many people think this empire falling was one of the worst things to happen in history.
Given that fact, it's probably important to pay a little bit to the outside world to make sure you're prepared for the future, but it's more important to make sure the world around you right now is good. I've always considered my relationship with my wife important, but I've really spent time cultivating it in the past 5 years and I'm happy I have because we're closer than ever. The time I spend with my son is surprisingly beneficial for my own mental health, but more importantly he's going to grow up and the decision to spend time with him is going to splay out in consequence that will pan out for generations -- the world around him will be different based on whether I spend quality time with him or not, and what specifically I decide that quality time looks like, not just in this moment potentially when he chooses who to marry, how he treats his kids, and how their kids decide to live their lives as well. Unlike many things where there isn't much evidence to support the idea that you can make a change, we know the overwhelming difference you can make in the life of your child, and the lives of people around you.
And in the same way the microbes under your sink could potentially get you sick and you can get your whole household sick and if you've got a kid in school they could send those germs to the school affecting a chunk of the school and thereby the city, I think part of the problems we're seeing today in the world are caused by people making the wrong decisions about their micro lives. At the end of the day politics matters but equally doesn't matter. It has effects on your personal life, but it isn't all that affects it or even the most potent thing -- you can't really talk about how your life is going based on who is president as much as what's actually going on in your life.
And that's where I think the media is dangerous but also can be beneficial. If you're able to take what you see and use it to make your micro life better, then it's useful, and if it only stresses you out over things you can't change or it misleads you into making poor decisions, then it's harmful.
The key with any sort of news or economic stuff boils down to one question: "Is this information good enough to help me run my life better?"
Overly optimistic news is obviously a problem because it might have you taking unnecessary risks because everything is fine. On the other hand, doomerism is just as bad because things aren't always all bad, and every cloud has a silver lining.
In the past I listened to a lot of APM or NPR, and I made decisions based on the news I got from them, and my predictions were often wildly wrong -- Predict one thing and the opposite would happen, pretty often. Much of the establishment media is like this -- if you listen to them, you'll be led astray because they report the official narrative, and it only shifts significantly after news has already started to happen and you can't do anything about it.
I often go back to my decision in 2020 to refinance my mortgage. (In Canada there's essentially no such thing as a 30 year fixed mortgage since banks take all the risk on such a thing and so while a 5 year fixed could be gotten at 1.9%, a 25 year was closer to 10%). 92% of people go with mortgages of 5 years or less, and they need to renew every 5 years or less at a new rate) -- the financial doomers I watched ended up helping me understand I should break my mortgage and refinance in 2020 for 10 years at a slightly higher rate because government policies at the time were almost custom-made to produce stagflation and thus Interest rates would inevitably rise. They did rise, and if I had taken no action I would be refinancing closer to 6% right about now as many people are.
In another case, I saw news stories about potential food shortages, and potential fuel shortages, and so I grabbed some gas cans with some stabilizer, a generator and some electric space heaters and filled the cans up with gas, and grabbed some staple foods that would last in storage for 20 years. It turns out there were food and fuel shortages shortly afterwards -- just not in my region. Europe got hit hard, and there were many stories of massive consequences to a lack of energy, and there have been revolutions in part over lack of food such as in Sri Lanka. I didn't end up needing the stuff I bought, but it was a measured response so I have fuel for years to come (I just use it in the lawnmower and snowblower), and occasionally we have some rice from one of the 80lb bags I've got tucked away. Not really the end of the world having food and fuel on-hand. It's important not to let total doomerism take over your psyche because even with good news sources you can get things wrong because you read the signs wrong.
The day Trump was shot, I had spent most of the day outside at the park with my son. And after I found out about Trump getting shot, I went back outside and we continued to play. What was actually important to me that day was the time I got to spend with him, not time I'd later spend looking into the details of a bit of political violence.
I used to host OpenStreetMap on fbxl (used the server for something else later), and I had an interesting moment I'll never forget. You start off looking at a world map. You see every piece of land on earth and go "This is what's here". As you slowly zoom in, the country lines show up, and you go "this is what's here". As you keep zooming in, you see provincial or state lines, and you go "this is what's here", and as you keep going you start to see cities, and then you see the streets in a certain city. Keep zooming in and you see the individual buildings, and that's where the map stops. But that's where the map stops but that isn't where complexity stops. Inside those buildings are many individual details -- what furniture there is and where, the relationships between the people there, other things strewn about. If someone has a handful of money, that's a tiny thing but it can be really important to the people inside. In the dirt in the back yard or even in the drain under the sink there can be entire microbiomes living, breeding, and dying and to the microorganisms living there, the drain under your sink is their entire world, it looks to them like the map of the world I started with.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ekt7VujAWNE
The world is infinitely complex, and it all matters, but we often ignore the small for the very big as if the very big is more important, but it isn't necessarily. As the western roman empire fell, that was a huge event, but most of the planet didn't care. There were tribes in the Americas that didn't realize the western roman empire ever existed. Asia mostly went unaffected. Australia didn't care. North Africa was affected, but Africa is a huge continent and most of it didn't care at all that something called Rome went away. Northern Europe lost its biggest customer for bog iron but otherwise wasn't directly impacted. For many of the people within the western Roman empire, life actually got a lot better. According to evidence from people's bones, the average person's health improved more than at any point in history when the western Roman empire fell. Despite that, many people think this empire falling was one of the worst things to happen in history.
Given that fact, it's probably important to pay a little bit to the outside world to make sure you're prepared for the future, but it's more important to make sure the world around you right now is good. I've always considered my relationship with my wife important, but I've really spent time cultivating it in the past 5 years and I'm happy I have because we're closer than ever. The time I spend with my son is surprisingly beneficial for my own mental health, but more importantly he's going to grow up and the decision to spend time with him is going to splay out in consequence that will pan out for generations -- the world around him will be different based on whether I spend quality time with him or not, and what specifically I decide that quality time looks like, not just in this moment potentially when he chooses who to marry, how he treats his kids, and how their kids decide to live their lives as well. Unlike many things where there isn't much evidence to support the idea that you can make a change, we know the overwhelming difference you can make in the life of your child, and the lives of people around you.
And in the same way the microbes under your sink could potentially get you sick and you can get your whole household sick and if you've got a kid in school they could send those germs to the school affecting a chunk of the school and thereby the city, I think part of the problems we're seeing today in the world are caused by people making the wrong decisions about their micro lives. At the end of the day politics matters but equally doesn't matter. It has effects on your personal life, but it isn't all that affects it or even the most potent thing -- you can't really talk about how your life is going based on who is president as much as what's actually going on in your life.
And that's where I think the media is dangerous but also can be beneficial. If you're able to take what you see and use it to make your micro life better, then it's useful, and if it only stresses you out over things you can't change or it misleads you into making poor decisions, then it's harmful.
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