only discipline will save us

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sky
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only discipline will save us

Post by sky »


ThisDinosaur
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Re: only discipline will save us

Post by ThisDinosaur »

That's fascinating stuff. I'm curious about how to apply this sort of knowledge. Like, how can you apply knowledge about your own response to supernormal stimuli to manipulate your own behavior?
It doesn't seem to be enough to know about the effect to stop people from giving in to temptation. People will eat limitless amounts of sweet and fatty foods even if they know they're not starving. Breast implants are still nice to look at even if you know they aren't real.
How about others' behavior? What sort of supernormal stimuli can you use on other people to get them to do what you want?

This is one of the links further down in the page:
http://www.blog.theteamw.com/2009/11/07 ... formation/
It says that the brain's dopamine system (which governs reward-seeking behavior) is stronger than the opioid system (which governs the actual pleasure from reward.) We are more stimulated from anticipation than we are from satisfaction. So we keep seeking and seeking for very fleeting pleasures that can never last.
seeking is more likely to keep us alive than sitting around in a satisfied stupor
Some more thoughts. This is from the Wikipedia page for Tinbergen:
postulated that for each instinctive act there is a specific energy which builds up in a reservoir in the brain. In this model, Lorenz envisioned a reservoir with a spring valve at its base that an appropriate stimulus could act on, much like a weight on a scale pan pulling against a spring and releasing the reservoir of energy, an action which would lead an animal to express the desired behaviour
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikolaas_Tinbergen
This made me think of marginal utility.

IlliniDave
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Re: only discipline will save us

Post by IlliniDave »

Certainly i fall prey to a number of supernormal stimuli--the act of being here (on the web) is one of them. Maybe on a subconscious level it's why I wish to head off to the end of the road and remain off-grid for extended periods.

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Sclass
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Re: only discipline will save us

Post by Sclass »

This was very interesting. Thank you for sharing.

I am surrounded by this stuff. My friends' Facebook posts look better than reality for example. I am always thinking the events look larger than life. They are real but distorted and amplified by social media.

Although I try not to get sucked in by video games and strippers I must say most of my life is driven by dopamine releases with primitive cues.

Making tools. Playing house with SO. Searching for stuff at rummage sales or the thrift shop. Hoarding money. Discovering a new pastry vendor at the farmer's market. Not quite nickel bags and porn but it's related. Gotta acknowledge my inner chimp.

Great article. We are more or less chimps at the crack bar. Some more, some less.

BRUTE
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Re: only discipline will save us

Post by BRUTE »

no social media
phone muted at all times
no notifications

really not that hard

OTCW
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Re: only discipline will save us

Post by OTCW »

BRUTE wrote:
Sun Jun 04, 2017 11:01 am
no social media
phone muted at all times
no notifications

really not that hard
I avoid social media precisely because it exists pretty much soley to market ideas and products using the kind of research linked by the OP to increase its effectiveness. Any side benefits aren't worth it to me.

Dragline
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Re: only discipline will save us

Post by Dragline »

Yes, I think it is a matter of "policing" your visual and aural inputs, much as you need to police your food/substance inputs and relationships. The desire to mimic and choose "the best/biggest/most" one is highly innate, but can hit us on different levels than your average fish or bird due to our ability to think in abstract thoughts.

I try to remember that if I don't know why I want to possess or do something, its probably simply because I see or hear about somebody else possessing said thing or engaging in said activity and my subconscious says "mimic, but see if you can outdo the model." I try to keep the default switch on "not" most of the time unless I've intentionally decided to explore some new area. Its good to be able to articulate to yourself why you are doing what you are doing to make sure its a product of conscious decision-making or part of a planned routine that gets reviewed every so often.

And your fun trick of the day -- if you think people are looking at you and want to test your hypothesis, yawn a couple times conspicuously and see who "yawns back". You'll probably be tempted to yawn just by reading this and thinking about it.

Salathor
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Re: only discipline will save us

Post by Salathor »

BRUTE wrote:
Sun Jun 04, 2017 11:01 am
no social media
phone muted at all times
no notifications

really not that hard
I would say there are supernormal stimuli that draw me that don't fall under any of the above categories. I'm a strategy gamer, and I find that I CRAVE the ability to think really, really hard about stuff, and it's a feeling that I never get to experience in "real life". Very few professions today, and probably NONE that existed more than 50 years ago, require the kind of maximum-energy thinking that gaming provides simply because most "real-life" activities are skill based--as you get better, they get easier. Mental competition with no upper bound of skill level is probably a relatively recent invention that can be addicting.

BRUTE
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Re: only discipline will save us

Post by BRUTE »

is Salathor talking StarCraft or chess?

in any case, that doesn't sound like a smartphone addictions, it sounds like a fun and challenging hobby. nothing wrong with that.

Loner
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Re: only discipline will save us

Post by Loner »

@Salathor : I’d say it’s true that very few professions are challenging in that way. But have you ever engaged in any “extreme” sport (kayaking, climbing, mountain biking, skateboarding, etc.)? They are extremely mentally demanding, much more so than ball sports. And you get the same flow, or rather a more intense one, than you get while gaming. I stopped gaming when I was 15 because the rewards felt empty. It is mentally challenging, but I did not feel I deserved the rewards if there is not risk or pain involved (à la experience machine). As for activities getting easier, that’s true only if you do not increase the challenge. Granted, sports are not pure mental effort, but I personally consider physical challenges a plus.

ThisDinosaur
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Re: only discipline will save us

Post by ThisDinosaur »

I also quit video games as a teenager for the same reason Loner did. I hated stepping away from the console to realize a whole day had been wasted. Gave up TV for the same reason. Now I spend way too much time surfing the internet and its essentially the same thing. That dopamine receptor vs. opioid receptor link above seems like a good explanation for it. Seeking new information is more satisfying than actually finding it. So I keep opening more tabs until my eyes bleed.

I'm not into social media, but I don't judge people who are. My compulsion to chase links on wikipedia is the same as my wife's compulsion to check facebook.

Dragline
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Re: only discipline will save us

Post by Dragline »

Gaming is an interesting example of what makes an activity desirable or valuable, and then how it might cease to be so at some point. Particularly when we are younger, it fills the "big three" components of Autonomy, Mastery and Purpose -- for most young guys, the "Purpose" is simply social interaction with peers that might be filled with any competitive activity in a different time and place. What typically happens is that it loses the "Purpose" element as we grow older and the people we used to play with go off and get involved in other things.

On extreme sports, there is a very interesting book about how these types of things pretty much require people to be in Flow States (think of feeling "Extreme Purpose") to even do them, and how our understanding of the limits of human performance has expanded by looking at these athletes. Its called "The Rise of Superman: Decoding the Science of Ultimate Human Performance": https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00BW54XVO/re ... TF8&btkr=1

The big caveat is that a number of people described in the book are now dead due to their participation in these types of activities . . .

Salathor
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Re: only discipline will save us

Post by Salathor »

ThisDinosaur wrote:
Tue Jun 06, 2017 11:38 am
I also quit video games as a teenager for the same reason Loner did. I hated stepping away from the console to realize a whole day had been wasted. Gave up TV for the same reason. Now I spend way too much time surfing the internet and its essentially the same thing. That dopamine receptor vs. opioid receptor link above seems like a good explanation for it. Seeking new information is more satisfying than actually finding it. So I keep opening more tabs until my eyes bleed.

I'm not into social media, but I don't judge people who are. My compulsion to chase links on wikipedia is the same as my wife's compulsion to check facebook.
I think a lot of this questions the line between addiction and reasonable behavior for someone who appreciates an activity, as well. My gaming is, in my opinion, at a reasonable/healthy level--about 45 minutes a day, on average (about 5 hours a week). I haven't been an obsessive gamer since high school, and even then it was limited to weekends. My social media is "good"--I deleted all my accounts about 5 years ago, when I realized that I was getting too worked up about stuff that made me mad. My news reading is currently "bad". I spend probably 2 hours+ per day reading news that gets me riled up and contributes nothing to personal development.

Writing this, I'm making a commitment right now to tone my news reading WAY down, starting immediately. I'll check in the morning, briefly, and then once, briefly, at night.

Salathor
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Location: California, USA

Re: only discipline will save us

Post by Salathor »

Loner wrote:
Tue Jun 06, 2017 10:13 am
@Salathor : I’d say it’s true that very few professions are challenging in that way. But have you ever engaged in any “extreme” sport (kayaking, climbing, mountain biking, skateboarding, etc.)? They are extremely mentally demanding, much more so than ball sports. And you get the same flow, or rather a more intense one, than you get while gaming. I stopped gaming when I was 15 because the rewards felt empty. It is mentally challenging, but I did not feel I deserved the rewards if there is not risk or pain involved (à la experience machine). As for activities getting easier, that’s true only if you do not increase the challenge. Granted, sports are not pure mental effort, but I personally consider physical challenges a plus.
Conversely, I actively attempt to limit high-risk (or higher-than-average) risk activities in life despite their associated physical benefits. I am, however, making an active attempt to increase my participation in "skill" activities (specifically, gardening) that provide lower physical and mental benefits than other activities with the trade-off being that they develop +value life skills.

Loner
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Re: only discipline will save us

Post by Loner »

@Dragline I actually read this book after you mentioned it somewhere else. Fantastic read. Good caveat as well.

@Salathor Indeed, at some point, the risks of extreme sports (which aren't always really extreme) start counterbalancing the health benefits they bring.

I used to love jumping over cars (BMX). Many crashes later, I now mostly practice technical tricks. I still find a lot of associated benefits: massive confidence increase to undertake anything, pain tolerance, fitness, and to get back to the OP, increase in ability to focus (flow) on something through agency and discipline. It's easier to avoid distractions if you have something better to do.

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