April 2018

Replying to Rhys @RhysLindmark · Jan 11, 2018

Related counterintuitive thought: Those under 35 should *not* save for retirement. In 2061, when I'm 70, converging exponential tech will have either: a) Created abundance so I don't need my accumulated savings b) Destroyed humanity b/c we had an #accumulation/scarcity mindset x.com/RhysLindmark/s…

quoting @RhysLindmark: We're vectoring towards non-accumulation of wealth. The #blockchain ecosystem has a "non-rent seeking" mindset w.r.t. **companies**. It hasn't fully trickled down to **individuals** yet (i.e. #CryptoPledge), but it will.

@RhysLindmark Ha, I wrote about this as well: malcolmocean.tumblr.com/post/170295526…

Apr 3, 2018 2 likes 0 RTs

Replying to John Nerst @everytstudies · Apr 3, 2018

@sonyaellenmann Unless focusing directly on them, we don't actually separate different kinds of "oughts". The oughts we accept, of all categories, is the material we make our morality out of. So we're rightly concerned that any ought of any category is going to sneak into morality.

@everytstudies @sonyaellenmann This. And "here is what is optimal given your goal is actually kind of just an "is" (to the extent it's true). If you want to get to the grocery store, here's the shortest route. I think the confusion occurs in part when ppl fumble & drop their goal and fixate on the directions.

Apr 3, 2018 2 likes 0 RTs

Replying to @sonyasupposedly

@sonyaellenmann This might help: mindingourway.com/shoulds-are-no… (@so8res has a whole series on replacing guilt/shoulds, but this post is the one most directly relevant to your tweet here)

Apr 3, 2018 1 like 0 RTs

Replying to @AdamOculporate

@AdamMGBaiton @ortoiseortoise @sonyaellenmann This reminds me of @everytstudies' The Signal and the Corrective: everythingstudies.com/2017/12/19/the…

Apr 3, 2018 1 like 0 RTs

Replying to Venkatesh Rao ☀️ @vgr · Mar 31, 2018

What’s the difference between people who seem to catch every cold that’s doing the rounds and people who catch none of them? I am starting to half-believe it’s some mind-over-matter sorcery. Is there a constructivist theory of immune response. 🤔 Cc @LFeldmanBarrett

@vgr @LFeldmanBarrett There's a field studying this stuff, called Psychoneuroimmunology: en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychoneu… Seems pretty early stages (and I have looked into it that much) but definitely something to it and likely something really important.

Apr 4, 2018 2 likes 0 RTs

Replying to Science Banana @literalbanana · Apr 5, 2018

@cwage it’s amazing that markets work so well given that people seem to lack the basic ability to make beneficial hedonic tradeoffs

@literalbanana @cwage Take: people mostly aren't orienting to the hedonic dimension per se, but in relation to fear (which can include "fear of not getting to play/relax/enjoy"). So excess slack ($ or otherwise) doesn't get wisely spent OR invested, because fear-based thinking is myopic.

Apr 5, 2018 5 likes 1 RT

Replying to Visakan Veerasamy @visakanv · Apr 5, 2018

(To clarify - I meant that this is rarely malicious amongst friends, mutuals, etc. It's often malicious across ingroup/outgroup divisions, and outside of nurturespaces... So actually maybe malice is the default? 🤔)

@visakanv I think it's less malicious than Molochian. If nobody is listening, there's not much point in saying something worth hearing.

Apr 5, 2018 2 likes 0 RTs

Replying to Visakan Veerasamy @visakanv · Apr 5, 2018

@Malcolm_Ocean That's good! Wonder if there's a way to convey that without using that term

@visakanv Another jargony way: tragedy of the commons of attention

Apr 5, 2018 2 likes 0 RTs

Replying to Visakan Veerasamy @visakanv · Apr 6, 2018

Enough time has passed that Evanescence's Fallen album seems fresh, sincere and relevant

@visakanv Funny story: I came across Evanescence's 2017 album, Synthesis. I was listening to the first couple of tracks and struck by a sense of "omg, you're still dealing with the same loneliness as over a decade ago?" Joke's on me: turns out it's a rework album of old songs. Still tho

Apr 6, 2018 1 like 0 RTs

Replying to Visakan Veerasamy @visakanv · Apr 6, 2018

@Malcolm_Ocean Always relevant

@visakanv Mmm! Nothing against bringing back old songs. The "omg" was trying to imagine the level of stagnation that would cause someone to *write* the same song about their own life, 14 years apart. (I'm a songwriter and it colors how I listen to lyrical music)

Apr 6, 2018 0 likes 0 RTs

Replying to Visakan Veerasamy @visakanv · Jan 23, 2018

Thread of books I'm reading in 2018. Deciding that I'm going to focus on optimizing for "books started" (which is fun and interesting) rather than "books finished" (which for me has a sort of masochistic, completionist connotation I'd like to be free of).

@visakanv I wrote an article on this philosophy! (Including a spreadsheet for incentivizing it) malcolmocean.com/2014/07/focus-…

Apr 6, 2018 7 likes 1 RT

Replying to Visakan Veerasamy @visakanv · Apr 6, 2018

@Malcolm_Ocean I think it's a little harder for a band like Evanescence that gets very typecast/pigeonholed into a very specific sort of vibe, space, context. They're more like AC/DC or Iron Maiden in that sense. It can probably be done but it takes a lot of courage, daring, inventiveness, play

@visakanv Mmm. I've appreciated LinkinPark's evolution too... their only album I listen to a lot is 1000Suns, but the older/other stuff helps contextualize it, so sometimes that too. & now @mikeshinoda+#PostTraumatic is exploring things in a vein that is both new yet still has continuity.

Apr 6, 2018 2 likes 0 RTs

Replying to Courtland Allen @csallen · Mar 7, 2018

@Malcolm_Ocean @manavo @levelsio @jessethanley @IndieHackers You're added! Go here and you should be able to connect to Stripe: indiehackers.com/product/compli…

@csallen @manavo @levelsio @jessethanley @IndieHackers Took me awhile. Got this initially but then I tried again and now it's working! Epic bump around New Year's from the goal-setting workshops that we ran—that's not subscription revenue, but definitely we couldn't have gotten the participant# without having a userbase to draw from.

Apr 10, 2018 2 likes 0 RTs

Replying to @popcornyyyyyyyy

@AstraKing97 How's it working out for you a few days later? (Not sure how long you've been using it; lots of people are very stoked on day 2 but need some encouragement to really stick to it for the long haul)

Apr 10, 2018 1 like 0 RTs

Replying to @kittsonian

@ms_crowne This is brilliantly clear. What's it from?

Apr 13, 2018 0 likes 0 RTs

Replying to Visakan Veerasamy @visakanv · Apr 13, 2018

Here's something I wrote for myself once, a guide to getting unstuck

@visakanv Nice! Are you fleshing out more layers to it?

Apr 13, 2018 0 likes 0 RTs

Replying to Visakan Veerasamy @visakanv · Apr 13, 2018

@Malcolm_Ocean I did, but it's ironically one of those "once you write it you don't really need it anymore" kinda things

@visakanv I have a thing like that, also in workflowy. The fact that I recognized that there was a way to intentionally get myself out of the type of headspace I'd been in made it so that I could never quite get stuck in it in the same way in the future.

Apr 13, 2018 1 like 0 RTs

Replying to @kittsonian

@ms_crowne Mm, thanks. Which episode? (I've been thinking a lot about the phenomenon blindspots lately and wanting to collect lots of perspectives on it.)

Apr 13, 2018 0 likes 0 RTs

Replying to Tiago Forte @fortelabs · Apr 13, 2018

This is amazing to me. I trust my intuition totally. It's basically never wrong

@fortelabs I answered somewhat. Maybe I don't trust my intuition as much as I should 😉

Apr 13, 2018 2 likes 0 RTs

Replying to Will @anactofwill · Apr 13, 2018

Surreal moment with men in suits while behind them a man running scared and on fire. ⚡️ “Image of protester ablaze wins World Press Photo of the Year award” x.com/i/moments/9847…

@anactofwill This new meta-photo could be photo of the year for 2018...

Apr 13, 2018 0 likes 0 RTs

Replying to Tiago Forte @fortelabs · Apr 13, 2018

What are some cool conferences, workshops, or events happening in the SF Bay Area I’d enjoy going to in the next 6 months? I’ve decided meeting ppl and going to events is my priority for the rest of my time here

@fortelabs I'll be at Effective Altruism Global in June. It's a spectacular conference of people taking seriously the question of how to do the most good in the world. You could potentially even give a talk designed to help people researching complex problems! eaglobal.org

Apr 13, 2018 1 like 0 RTs

Replying to @sonyasupposedly

@sonyaellenmann $200, with up to $60 off as financial aid for those who need it. (I'm happy to sponsor people to go, also, if need be 🙂)

Apr 14, 2018 1 like 0 RTs

Replying to @HiredThought

@BenMosior I pick a different one each time, playing/punning on the theme of the email. Not actually. Well, I do in mail-merges though where it's worth spending that much time because 1000+ people will read it.

Apr 15, 2018 1 like 0 RTs

@HavocVulture Fine but still a waste of time--all the more a waste if it works exactly the same! I'm a business owner, not someone getting paid by the hour to write whatever code I feel like :P

Apr 19, 2018 0 likes 0 RTs

Replying to Visakan Veerasamy @visakanv · Apr 19, 2018

been talking to several SMB entrepreneurs lately and here are some of my observations

@visakanv All of these resonate for me!

Apr 19, 2018 2 likes 0 RTs

Replying to @eigenrobot

@eigenrobot ...I think that's what I meant. Ah weel.

Apr 19, 2018 1 like 0 RTs

Replying to @joyurge

@gmws82 @So8res See also "But" Considered Harmful. namelessvirtue.com/2015/08/19/but…

Apr 19, 2018 3 likes 0 RTs

Replying to Tiago Forte @fortelabs · Apr 19, 2018

Looking forward to my OneTaste introduction coming up. Anyone else tried orgasmic meditation?

@fortelabs Yeah, 5 years ago. Found it quite powerful at that stage in my life. Have done it a little bit recently, and it's not blowing my mind but I still like it. Maybe the learning is more integrated at this point. Enjoy!

Apr 19, 2018 1 like 0 RTs

Replying to Rob MacLachlan @robamacl · Apr 23, 2018

@Meaningness @SomeDrake Also reminds me of Jon Haidt's story about realizing he was justifying his not doing a chore to his wife by shading the truth, exaggerating how busy he had been.

@robamacl @Meaningness @SomeDrake If you want a whole book on how this kind of self-betrayal & self-justification messes up relationships, check out C. Terry Warner's The Bonds that Make Us Free. I just started reading it based on a recommendation from a friend, and it's really good! amzn.to/2HUxDPn

Apr 24, 2018 1 like 0 RTs

Replying to Tiago Forte @fortelabs · Apr 24, 2018

What are pingbacks and why do I have to approve them? Any negative impact to just turning off these notifications?

@fortelabs I like them. It's someone who's written a post that links back to one of your posts. Maybe your confusion is that WordPress wants you to approve pingbacks when you link to one of your own posts. Should be an "always"/"never" setting (maybe there is; I haven't looked hard).

Apr 25, 2018 3 likes 0 RTs

Replying to David Manheim ✈️ Vacation @davidmanheim · Apr 24, 2018

For example, I was convinced today that with very high probability, we're past the "Great Filter." This has implications on what we expect to see elsewhere in the universe, on the tractability of climate change, and on what the biggest risks to civilization look like. To start.

@davidmanheim Hmm, seems we could be past some 1e-100 Great Filter, and still have relatively low odds of making it to the stars, just from inside view. But I guess it would still be reassuring relative to thinking that we currently have a 1e-100 chance.

Apr 25, 2018 1 like 0 RTs

Replying to M@tt @atthatmatt · Apr 27, 2018

@visakanv Looking for something valuable. In my experience, if the barrier to entry is just "join us!" then the group is a funnel for a product/service.

@atthatmatt @visakanv My experience has been similar, but I like @visakanv's thinking so I'd be curious to find out if his is different :P

Apr 27, 2018 1 like 0 RTs

Replying to Tiago Forte @fortelabs · Apr 28, 2018

Once I start working on a blog post, I can’t move on with my life until it’s published. It’s like a vise on my brain, a bottleneck to all other thoughts and ideas

@fortelabs Was this true of you 5-10 years ago? Is it something that you observed about yourself, or did you deliberately make yourself this way? I ask because I've been thinking about throughput & writing (which of course is something you've pointed at) & wondering about different styles.

Apr 29, 2018 0 likes 0 RTs

Replying to Tiago Forte @fortelabs · Apr 29, 2018

@Malcolm_Ocean No it’s definitely last few years. Probably due to idea superstructure of BASB where everything is connected. I need current block to be finished to be able to build on it

@fortelabs Oh man, I want this experience. I instead have a feeling of everything being deeply intertwingled, with circular dependencies. I need to write A before B, B before C, and C before A. It's not literally true but that's the feeling. Not sure if answer is superstructure or play.

Apr 30, 2018 0 likes 0 RTs

Replying to Visakan Veerasamy @visakanv · Apr 30, 2018

This thread spits out notifications faster than I can read or respond to, & it is as surreal as I suspected If this happened on a regular basis it would almost definitely alter my concept of other people Mad respect to anybody with 100k+ followers who remains sane&well-adjusted x.com/visakanv/statu…

quoting @visakanv: we already live in a boring dystopia https://t.co/4feoT4DWSC

@visakanv I was wondering where you got all these before I saw the /r/aboringdystopia link. And they (the ones you picked, at least) seem to mostly fall in a few categories: - #Atomization - #LateStageCapitalism (branding, marketing, and jerbs) - [President that shall not be named]

Apr 30, 2018 1 like 0 RTs

Replying to Visakan Veerasamy @visakanv · Apr 30, 2018

I just remembered – I actually have a bunch of notes and links about dystopia-related stuff on my blog: visakanv.com/blog/dystopia/

@visakanv ...indeed. Yep. Curious about this article but it's paywall'd super hard. @visakanv or anyone else have a subscription to dig up the deets? statnews.com/2016/02/18/dru…

Apr 30, 2018 1 like 0 RTs

Replying to Visakan Veerasamy @visakanv · Apr 30, 2018

over the weekend my wife and I laid out all our books in the living room and discussed each and every single one of them. it was a very interesting, challenging and sometimes even tense experience

@visakanv Highlights? 🤓

Apr 30, 2018 1 like 0 RTs