brute journal

Where are you and where are you going?
bryan
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Re: brute journal

Post by bryan »

Yeah it was an entertaining read. I thought about sharing it on some other thread, but wasn't sure which one (here it made perfect sense, at least, considering your ~nihilist tendencies). @Riggerjack, if you are bored, I think you might enjoy it as well. Touches on a lot of stuff: memes, art, narcissism/neurotic, nihilism, entropy, rationality, pc culture, ruling class, media, etc.

Riggerjack
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Joined: Thu Jul 14, 2011 3:09 am

Re: brute journal

Post by Riggerjack »

@ Bryan,

https://hotelconcierge.tumblr.com/post/ ... ikes-again

Is where I would recommend to start. Tower was, overly artistic.

I'm from the PNW, if you have heard a broadcaster's voice that lacked a local accent, that's what we sound like. Oh, we have a backwoods version, with a bit of drawl, and and extra "r" occasionally added, but regionally, not much of an accent. This makes me a bit accent deaf. When I hear someone with a strong accent, I have a hard time following what they are saying. The more time I spend with them, the more of what they are saying makes sense, until I don't have to interpret what they are saying, I just have to listen, much easier.

The linked hotel concierge blog is like that. It had interesting concepts, but was written in such a stylized way that it was hard to follow.
Art is compressed communication. The better the compression, with regards to both perceived fidelity and amount of information contained, the more artful the art. Limitation—poetic meter, scene-cut-scene, verse-chorus-verse—is the essence of every form because removing redundancies and noise, unnecessary memes, is how one creates a map. Satire is effective when via exaggeration or noun-swapping absurdism it calls attention to the underlying pattern. A twelve minute ambient or noise track may lack musical structure but conveys a precise-yet-generalizable mood to the listener; a random field recording feels less artful because it does not. A Pollock canvas may be composed through randomness and chaos, but the choice to use randomness and chaos…and so on. Life itself is walls between fluid. Beauty is objective, because we all interpret beauty by this criterion, and subjective, because experience dictates the extent to which we can unpack a given compression.
With tower, I think he was writing with too much compression to unpack if one is still adapting to his style. I didn't feel like it was clicking until section VI, and the other posts he wrote this year were much clearer. Rereading tower after getting used to his style made it much clearer.

He has a nice grasp on group interplay, and breaks down the coreography of media campaigns very clearly. I agree with his ideas, and he states them in ways much more step by step than the ways I have tried to describe it in other threads.

There's much there to learn, in patterns and models we should all have, but rarely do. I recommend everyone read some of it. But it's way too rich in pop culture for me to be a regular reader. I had to keep a Google page open to look up abbreviations and celebrities, because I have dropped that stuff off my personal radar. Younger audiences probably won't have that obstacle.

bryan
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Re: brute journal

Post by bryan »

I haven't yet gone through any other posts of THC's. It's definitely quite an abrupt writing style. I had to start over after getting about a quarter of the way through.

I'm kind of sad the PC thread was locked. Lot's of PC running amok recently (e.g. Quinn Norton).

Riggerjack
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Joined: Thu Jul 14, 2011 3:09 am

Re: brute journal

Post by Riggerjack »

Yeah, I hate to see threads locked, too. But I can see Jacob's point. Even agree with it, eventually.

THC seems to spend a lot of energy unpacking the public relations/press release meaning from the stated content. It seems like this should be clear, but I seem to be the only one who thinks so.

Putting yourself in the shoes of whoever you are paying attention to, seems like the best way to understand what someone is saying, and not saying. I don't know why it is so rarely done. But THC does it well. Once you get past the associative writing style, he has some good stuff in there.

Though I prefer the more direct and deeper thought SSC brings to his blog.

bryan
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Re: brute journal

Post by bryan »

One gripe I have with rationalist folks (or those who read them) is the tendency towards hubris.

edit: of course I wasn't implying SSC himself (or his writing) is like that. It's more of a perceived quality of the average rationalist or those who assign a heavy weight to rationalist analysis/thought as input to their own systems?

daylen
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Re: brute journal

Post by daylen »

bryan wrote:
Fri Feb 16, 2018 5:14 pm
It's more of a perceived quality of the average rationalist or those who assign a heavy weight to rationalist analysis/thought as input to their own systems?
What do mean their own systems?

Also, doesn't it make sense that rationality is coupled with confidence? The validity of an analytical statement is more easily determined than that of an emotional one; this naturally leads to more confidence in the validity of analytical statements as opposed to emotional statements.

Perhaps your gripe with rationalists stems from your preference for not wanting to evaluate the logic of others?

bryan
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Re: brute journal

Post by bryan »

> What do mean their own systems?

In simple terms, their preferences, biases, heuristics, decision/thought making systems etc.

> doesn't it make sense that rationality is coupled with confidence

Sure, if just limiting the confidence to the appropriate scope. I mean more the tendency to have increased confidence in 1) various conclusions given the statement is just one variable and 2) the aforementioned preferences, biases...

Just because you can be quite confident in one specific thing doesn't mean you now know how it all fits together or how things ought to be. I have a soft-spot for (and respect) the chaos.

> Perhaps your gripe..

No, I'm quite a rationalist myself. My gripe (err, one of them) is laid out plainly, I think. I like to inspect the state of being/mind, logic, incentives of others.

I admit I may myself be guilty of some attribution error, even if I tried to point that out ("or those who read them"). I do believe it (just as a I believe medical doctors have more of a god complex than most), for now, though.

BRUTE
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Re: brute journal

Post by BRUTE »

brute has yet to see a self-proclaimed rationalist be more right than the average. or as convincing as the average.

BRUTE
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Re: brute journal

Post by BRUTE »

5.3 years of expenses

daylen
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Re: brute journal

Post by daylen »

What makes a statement more right or convincing from your perspective? Also, what is the "average" and how do you determine that?

BRUTE
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Re: brute journal

Post by BRUTE »

brute doesn't have real statistics or data, but he knows and reads humans that claim to be rationalists (e.g. LW), and they don't typically seem to have more insight or be more right than those who don't claim to be rationalists. personally, brute thinks that the whole concept of mainstream rationality (i.e. dichotomy between rationality and emotions) is bullshit. so humans making something brute thinks is bullshit a major part of their identity, and being very confident without the ability to back it up, doesn't exactly enamor brute with these humans.

BRUTE
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Re: brute journal

Post by BRUTE »

4.3 years of expenses

FBeyer
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Re: brute journal

Post by FBeyer »

How are you feeling about the net worth volatility?

Have you changed your mind (investing-wise) about anything or do you enjoy your job too much to bother right now?

BRUTE
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Joined: Sat Dec 26, 2015 5:20 pm

Re: brute journal

Post by BRUTE »

net worth volatility does not concern brute too much right now. maybe he always viewed last year's crypto gains as monopoly money, or a bonus. even without them, brute is on a decent path.

brute has not changed his mind on investment, but then again he hasn't really seen a 2008-style bubble pop. if the market crashed now like it did then, brute might panic.

the job is mixed. like all jobs, a lot of the exciting things stopped being exciting after a while. there are some new exciting things, and some new unexciting things. time will tell.

BRUTE
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Re: brute journal

Post by BRUTE »

5.4 years of expenses

BRUTE
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Re: brute journal

Post by BRUTE »


bryan
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Re: brute journal

Post by bryan »

Westworld worth the watch?

BRUTE
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Re: brute journal

Post by BRUTE »

definitely

2Birds1Stone
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Location: Earth

Re: brute journal

Post by 2Birds1Stone »

Definitely, maybe.

BRUTE

suomalainen
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Joined: Sat Oct 18, 2014 12:49 pm

Re: brute journal

Post by suomalainen »

I really enjoyed season 1. Watching season 2, all I can think is that JJ Abrams fucked up another perfectly good show.

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