Yesterday we had an especially interesting conversation on the ERE chat. Group invite:
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[22/02 4:33 am] +56 : Hey guys! How are you?
Chilean student here, I've been into ERE since 2016, mainly as a lurker
[22/02 5:07 am] +44 Welcome Felipe!
[22/02 5:08 am] +44 I was surprised how long the movement has been going for, i think since 2013 or so?
[22/02 5:09 am] +44 Great to meet new people into ERE, I find it motivating
[22/02 7:10 am] +1 : Hello!
[22/02 7:14 am] +1 : What do followers of ERE call themselves? (Followers of MMM being "Mustachians")
[22/02 7:27 am] +56 : Thanks, as far as I know ERE has been around since 200x, to me ERE was just an easy way to name something that I had been trying to do on my own, it pointed me in the right direction
[22/02 7:28 am] +56: Hi, No idea
[22/02 7:29 am] +66 There's less appeal to authority and group think so I've noticed less of a focus on using ERE as our identity here. Instead, the finance is part of a web of goals that mutually support each other.
[22/02 7:31 am] +1 I like that. It's rather rad!
[22/02 2:25 pm] +251: So I was just contacted by an unknown guy, through facebook messenger, who is moving to Addis and looking to make contacts.
On the one hand, I'm wary of scams. But on the other, I try to be charitable towards people initiating social contact. I know personally that it requires effort and I try to respect that. As an introvert it's just so easy to not bother putting the time on to maintain existing relationships, let alone forge new ones.
[22/02 5:04 pm] +44 : I’d say be careful about personal safety when it comes to strangers
[22/02 5:05 pm] +44 : I prefer to be strategic about who I interact with and go out and choose people rather than just wait for the right people to find me
[22/02 5:05 pm] +44 : I think introvert/extrovert is 100% bullshit as a concept and is invented to hold back people who lack power
[22/02 5:06 pm] +44 Everyone becomes an extrovert in the right kind of company. The trick is to identify who the right kind of company are and then work hard to listen and understand then
[22/02 5:07 pm] +44 : A good deal of it is also introspection including identifying what your power is, where you have power
[22/02 5:08 pm] +44 Then you harness that internal power and apply it to the “contacts selection process”. Sorry if I sound cold and calculating but it’s reality.
[22/02 5:10 pm] +56: Do you know how he found you?
You could meet him in a place where you are not stuck in case things go wrong, maybe a restaurant/park you know.
[22/02 5:10 pm] +44 : Don’t believe anything, be constantly critical, try not to get too engulfed in other people’s thought bubbles.
[22/02 5:31 pm] +251 : Oh never fear I'm not proposing to meet randoms in unfamiliar environments. I'm not that trusting!
But I think I have a somewhat innate tendency to reject new experiences so I try to take conscious steps to work against that.
[22/02 5:31 pm] +251 Also I've taken to heart the lessons of all those corporate training programmes warning against corporate espionage and stuff... You have to be careful.
[22/02 7:19 pm] +1 : I see the extraversion dimension as the willingness to play the games of the masses. Introverts tend to look for different games to play.
If you think about it.. basically all language is used to signal power.
Will to power.
[22/02 7:20 pm] +44 :
[22/02 8:12 pm] : Thanks
[22/02 8:32 pm] +66 : It's just how you get your energy. It is unrelated to shyness.
[22/02 8:38 pm] +44 I think how you get your energy is relational not all from you
[22/02 8:38 pm] +44: I get more energy In some situations than in others
[22/02 8:54 pm] +1 : I agree with CONW, that definition isn't useful.
Social interaction is too diverse.
[22/02 9:20 pm] +44 I believe in cause and effect. If someone’s shy there’s a reason they’re shy, a reason that’s not just “in their heads”, even if the shyness might be on some specific occasion or other. Even then I don’t think it’s entirely in their heads.
[22/02 9:37 pm] +251 Great, power's down again. I'm 'practicing resilience'.
[22/02 9:38 pm] +251 : Seems to correlate with rain.
[22/02 9:41 pm] +1 : Electrical energy and water don't mix.
[22/02 9:48 pm] +251 : Well yeah. It must be a grid thing I think.
[22/02 11:04 pm] +55 : Repeate with me: being shy is not being introvert. Being introvert is not being shy.
[22/02 11:05 pm] +55 : Until it sinks in
[22/02 11:07 pm] +1 : Yeah, I have never liked the label "shy". I was called that a lot as a kid. I just didn't talk since I could simulate the responses in my mind.
[22/02 11:10 pm] +44 : Labels are contextual.
[22/02 11:10 pm] +44 : Not intrinsic.
[22/02 11:11 pm] +55: Get the right context then
[22/02 11:13 pm] +44 You can give yourself labels too - ones that help you
[22/02 11:13 pm] +44 : Depending on who you need to be in any given situation
[22/02 11:14 pm] +44 : I probably sound like a sociopath at this point but I do try to couple this with empathy and belief in the inherent good of all people
[22/02 11:15 pm] +55: Except that introversion can be measured in babies and it's possible to predict wether they'll be introverts as adults
: Again, you don't seem to grasp what the psychological definition of introversion is
That's what we are talking about, and not how to choose to act and appear
[22/02 11:27 pm] +1 : The psychological definition of extraversion is based on preference as opposed to appearance. It is a single dimension that measures our adaptation strategies.
Shyness implies that the person wants to interact but doesn't due to some emotional barrier.
[22/02 11:29 pm] +44 : Situations change and I change. But the change is connected to what preceded it and to the larger cosmos.
[22/02 11:30 pm] +44 : I don’t see myself as a solid unchanging entity in a world of arbitrary flux. That would be solipsism.
[22/02 11:31 pm] +1 : Preferences tend to be stable; actions change across context and are unstable. Hence, there is more scientific utility in measuring preferences.
[22/02 11:34 pm] +44 : Preferences can appear to be stable despite not actually inhering in the individual.
[22/02 11:35 pm] +44 : I think science gives the appearance of power.
[22/02 11:37 pm] +1: Understanding is not equivalent to controlling. Though, they do overlap to some extent.
[22/02 11:38 pm] +44 : I wish I could learn Chinese medicine
: Control can be a vulnerability: You don’t necessarily want to be in control!
[22/02 11:39 pm] +1 : Makes you a target. What you want is invisible control.
[22/02 11:40 pm] +44 : Hmm maybe
: I want harmony
I want to be able to fit into the universe
[22/02 11:41 pm] +1 : Seems like too vague a goal to be useful.
[22/02 11:43 pm] +1 : That could be accomplished by killing yourself and making your body into compost.
[22/02 11:43 pm] +44 : There’s a chance I’ll do that if that’s what it takes
[22/02 11:43 pm] +44 : I just want peace and harmony
[22/02 11:43 pm] +44 : That’s all I ever wanted
[22/02 11:46 pm] +1 : Sounds romantic, but life isn't so simple. Harmony can operate at different levels.
[22/02 11:58 pm] +55: Hahahah
[23/02 12:17 am] +1 : If you want to live in harmony then consider that the most basic force that allows your existence is your adaptive ability.
The complexity of your strategy should depend on the complexity of your environment. Your environment is very complex and so your strategy should be as well.
Without any control, your environment will control you. Control gives you the option to act in accordance with your own morals.
If you trust the morality structure that your environment will impose on you then there is no need for control. Though, anyone with any brains at all understands that the current global strategy is oblivious to any long term considerations.
[23/02 12:18 am] +1: I'll turn down this free compost
[23/02 12:19 am] +1: For growing vegetables anyway
[23/02 12:19 am] +1 : For flowers... maybe it'll beautify my garden even more?
This was yesterday on the ERE group. Drop by to say hi:
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