Friendship and Other Social Contracts

Important post, lengthy, high information density, interesting, un-skippable, assuming you're either a friend or someone who has friends or intends to make friends in real life. If you're not, I'd like to talk to you because I want to learn how to become a hermit. At least for me, everything is subjective of course, and relative to my other posts. For me, none of my posts are dense and all of them are interesting, but for most people, it's either that they love it or hate it because of my unique writing style, no in between. This post is only about friendship and social relationships; I write about love in other posts. New to this blog? Start here.

So you just read and try for yourself. I’ll start with something that might sound out of context because it’s from my notepads but it’ll start to make sense later on. I’ll later move to some conversations I had with people whom I consider my friends. I’ll just add random conversations and stuff and my thoughts from my notepads, and it might seem like it’s all unconnected but as always it’s all part of one single theory and my thoughts on friendship.

And other social contracts. I’ve also created a YouTube video about this topic in very brief but this post is much more detailed whereas the video is just 1-2 minutes of some ideas from this post. It gets more interesting towards the end, in my opinion, so if you start getting bored, look up the second occurrence of the term 'cognitive dissonance' on this page and start reading from there. And as always, please stop reading if you feel like you can use your valuable time doing something more productive or interesting.

Enjoy the journey and not be too disappointed if you don’t achieve the goals, because when you do something that you enjoy, you are less likely to worry about the goals and counterintuitively more likely to achieve them cause you’ll be good at what you do, if you enjoy it. For instance, I don’t care if anyone is better than me or I don’t achieve my set goals in writing, reading or playing the piano, because these are things I enjoy.

That’s till you get the ability to manipulate your own dispositions, personality traits and cognitive processes, including higher-order executive function, in which case you would have to first grapple with the philosophical questions related to the ‘self’, and what’s the most rational thing to do, and it’s implications.

A small note on facing discomfort for your goals: lately I've been trying to figure out the optimal levels of discomfort or suffering required for flourishing, and how much you must push yourself before you start going against your natural inclinations and predispositions, in which case you must stop, re-evaluate your plans and focus on harnessing your strengths. This is the reason I've been trying to discover processes I enjoy and setting goals based on that so I'm more likely to attain them, rather than setting goals and later realizing that I hate the process.

For instance, if I enjoy playing the piano, and set an ambitious goal to learn some difficult piece or win some competitive tournament, I won't be too disappointed if I don't achieve my goals, because I enjoy playing the piano anyway, but if I didn't, and I was just forcing myself to play it so I could win the tournament, I don't believe that going through the process would be worth it even if I do finally win the tournament, because the opportunity cost of the time lost doing something I dislike and that I could have spent doing something I enjoy.

This is one of the very few posts of mine that isn’t about any idea that I believe must be understood by everyone, for the simple reason that it’s unrelated to my moral criterion of checking if anything involves suffering. Directly, at first glance, it doesn’t. But if you internalize some concept and principles I’ve described in some of my other posts, you’d realize that indirectly it is, because everything is interconnected by cause and effect.

And even something seemingly small and insignificant could have significant large-scale butterfly effects. But then everything would become important, and most people, including me, don’t have the time to learn everything unless they’re immortal or are super-intelligent, so the time or cognitive resources, and so we don’t learn everything and focus on stuff directly related.

(That’s one of the reasons I decided to go ahead with a non-mathematical-sciences major in my blog post Myth: Psychology is Unscientific, because everything in not just mathematics but even physics might be relevant in the near future to solving my research questions, but I can’t learn everything, and so I learn stuff as and when required, and stick just to the more directly related stuff.)

I also recently discovered some fancy technical philosophy terms talking about the exact ideas that I know intuitively but don’t have words for, but I’m not going to use them because 1) I’ve not studied them yet, 2) I have no intention of sounding smart by using unnecessarily complicated philosophical terms when some of my posts are already dense and complicated enough even when I try to use simple language, and-

3) I dislike needlessly complicating something using obscure academic terminology because philosophy is a subject that everyone needs to learn about and there need to be more philosophy communicators as there are a few good science communicators (which means that even if I were to become an academic and learn the jargon, I’d try to explain everything in layman language, without oversimplifying.

Before ending the preface: this post is skippable but I suggest you read it just because it’s one of my more interesting posts. It’s also one of my more complex posts in terms of information density, and I go really abstract at some points, but I also share some interesting personal experiences and give concrete examples to help you develop intuition.

It does actually have a few important life lessons and insights, but if you’re only interested in a very brief and simple version of those, read my posts with ‘Love’ in the title. As you might have guessed, I- a 19-year-old person who has never been in a relationship and gives love advice to everyone- talk about how people act very irrationality when they blindly follow their emotions and leave themselves prone to behaviour that causes harm to them and others around them.

I actually give good love advice that is much more logical and rational that the person in love might not be able to see due to their subjective bias, and even some neurotypical external unbiased observer who is not obsessed with logic and rationality might miss.

Which is probably my friends still ask me questions related to relationships despite knowing I’ve never been in one but that they can rely on me for not leaving any aspect of the event, all the alternatives, possible future consequences and associated probabilities without scrutinizing them with logic and reason, and all my tools in the decision-making toolkit, even if I have to invent my own.

You won’t be incorrect if you said that I treat my friends much better than how many people seem to treat their lovers, and needless to say- but I’ll still say it in order to clear any misunderstanding or misconceptions so no one gets the wrong impression- it’s platonic love, which for me in a sense if much stronger than romantic love, because it’s not driven my lust or emotions or selfish genes or anything that might wear off with time or accidents dependent on random chance. It’s logical, conscious and based on good reasons, and so counterintuitively it’s a stronger form of love than most people may realize, as I’ll explain later.

I take friendship seriously, and it’s not easy to become my ‘friend’, but once you are, you can be sure that I’m never going to leave any stone unturned in helping you no mater what. I’m not influenced by emotions and intuition, and I don’t attach myself to any one aspect of a person as I know that all traits and abilities are just as malleable, superficial and transient as appearance, just less apparent.

Which is the reason that I stick with my friends be it a time when they’re at their best or when they’re at their lowest. I actually might be reluctant to join them when they’re at their highest, even if they forget about me, but I am always going to be there for them at their lowest, because that’s when they need someone the most and when they are most likely to be abandoned by everyone.

I know, because I’ve experienced the feeling of soul-crushing loneliness where you have no one to share anything with, and I don’t want anyone else to experience that ever, so I never take my current mental health for granted and always try to help those less fortunate than me.

It’s a recurring theme throughout my posts, and it’s getting more intense every day, to the point that I might never be able to enjoy any praise or accomplishment without thinking of those who didn’t, due to random chance or accident of birth. Those who are less fortunate and at a relative disadvantage, and especially those who suffer due to this.

So, as I was saying, I am very selective with who I include in my group of friends, because it’s for a lifetime, and I always have their best interests in my mind, even if they decide to end the friendship, I’m still not going to act selfishly and stop them if that’s going to be in their best interests and make them happy. Even if I’m hurt, I’m always going to prioritize their happiness and well-being over my own, and use all my thinking and decision-making tools to help them for anything and everything.

Which is why I’m also not as gullible as I used to be, in case anyone is wondering, I was the sort of person who everyone took the advantage of because I could not say ‘no’, and I knew this person is taking advantage of me yet helped them at my own cost. That old me is now dead, and I’m glad.

Now I’m much better, which is why I’m talking about this in the first place- I’m not so stupid to expose such a weakness like that. You’ll know how later in this post, but rest assured that if anyone tries to mess with me, there’s a very high probability that the outcome is not going to be too desirable for them, to say the least and put it mildly; will be more explicit later.

Here's the structure: I start by talking about my idea of a ‘friend’ and defining what I mean by that word, and I would not be doing so if my definition were no significantly different from the definition others seem to have from my observations. Hint: they use it much more liberally for my taste.

After talking about my subjective personal feelings, preferences and thoughts about friendship, I move on to how I believe everyone can find good friends and maybe even partners, and maybe leave a hint about another ambitious project I’m planning to help people find people most likely to be good friends or partners. Then I move on to the more interesting stuff that you should not read if you’re not yet emotionally mature. That was a joke, because the brain doesn’t get emotionally mature till around the age of 21, and I’m myself just 19. But yeah more seriously, please do have an open mind and pay attention to all the warnings and important points to remember.

In that section, I talk about the dark arts, game theory, some deception and manipulation tactics, not for anyone who has any malicious intent, but to help everyone to detect it when it’s being used against them or someone they know. I’m also not giving anyone any ideas, as I explain later, but in brief, those who are going to use it for their selfish motives are going to figure it out without reading my ideas, and those who need to know are probably never going to do so unless their mind works in a way that is able to grasp the thinking process of such people. Yes, I fall into the latter category of people, as I explain in my post Confessions and will also explain later in this post.

Not even me, and I say this to my friends. Not because I’m saying I’ll never betray them and always stay by their side- of course I’ll say that, everyone says that- but they need to be skeptical and develop critical thinking skills that would also help them in other domains of their life. I’m also saying this to those who might not be my friends, because you need to learn to not trust anyone by what they’re saying.

Now, I personally never would be dishonest or insincere to my friends. As you’ll learn later, it goes against my core values to be dishonest and insincere because I am always direct, logical and honest with my friends because I don’t tell them what I expect would make them happy short-term, but I tell them what they need in order to improve themselves and what I think they’re doing wrong, because you won’t get that from strangers and even most people who you may call friends, who care too much about your feelings and are afraid they might offend you or harm the friendship; I make it clear from the start that nothing they say to me or I say to them is going to harm the friendship, and that if either one of us is offended, we’ll be honest and state it explicitly and clearly why and apologize, but always keep in mind that we have the best interests of each other and only wish to see our friend learn and grow and achieve their goals, be their best self and prioritize their happiness over our own selfish desires.

Probably the same people who don’t realize that absolute morals don’t exist, there is no good or evil and right or wrong, nothing matters in the grand scheme of things, and when you die, and the cosmos does not care about anything you do, the universe is meaningless and nothing you would do is going to matter after a certain point of time, it’s all psychological and social constructs; and if you create your own values and morals according to your inclinations. See blog post logical reasons to be ethical.

I also suspect that there is significant overlap of this population with the people who believe that being selfish is wrong, immoral, unethical, necessarily bad and a sin or something. They do not realize that the basis of not just being helpful, but also making friends is inherently a selfish pursuit. You feel this biological social need to be understood and have a friend or partner, and yes you do help them grow and improve, but it’s because you yourself wish to do so and you have to give something to have something, and if you won’t then they won’t, but if you both join you could be mutually beneficial to each other.

This might sound like overly cynical picture of human nature to some, and you might be correct and I could be biased and I’d be happy to change my mind if you are able to present me with contradictory logical reasons and evidence. But this theory is consistent with my observations, which is that friendship is transactional in nature and people don’t realize this because it’s a subconscious desire to connect and feel understood, and their system-2 rational and logical conscious mind rationalizes their desires and intuition to fit with their own self-perception and sense of morality or ethics to avoid cognitive dissonance, and so they can feel good about themselves.

This is what people who are perceived as cynic by the majority might mean when they say that each on is on their own and people are going to leave you at the first sign of trouble. It’s because their end of what they wanted from the relationship might not have anything, so they just act according to their selfish best-interests and do what they feel like doing, not realizing that if that is what they were going to do they should have made it clear logically, and sticked to it despite their biological impulses, which is why you don’t act on what you feel like and try to be rational, else there would be total chaos, the bad kind, the one with lots of suffering. Read the post unconditional love is a myth, especially the ending paragraphs and examples of the person who tells me about his girlfriend.

This is illustrated very well by the very frequent, at least in no way uncommon, occurrence that we come across every day in various forms of media and even our social lives- if we happen to have one, that is, and which you do must not be taken for granted- which is the fact that when people break up, they act irrationally and instead of thinking about the best interests of the person who broke up with them- which is what they would be logically expected to do as they loved them not too long ago- they resort to violent threats and blackmails.

I explain this in detail in my blog post falling in love rationally. This is why I think that people who have no such social desires or needs would in all probability not just be overall happier and satisfied, for their self-sufficiency and not needing to depend on others for their fulfilment and care about others, they would also be better friends, more rational friends who could actually help you grow and improve.

Before explaining why, I’d like to present my rough definition of ‘friends’ and what I mean by this term. For me, the criteria for being a friend is someone who is able to understand me and who is willing to make themselves understood, who is direct and open to- willing to provide and themselves receive- constructive criticism and honest feedback, learn from each other and grow to be their best selves, their ideal selves according to their values, whatever their interests be, just have the bare minimum of open-mindedness and rationality to be able to hold a decent conversation, but for close friends I’d prefer those with similar core values, but again regardless of other traits or beliefs.

A friend is there for you at your lowest and highest and to support you when you go wrong and stray from the right path, act as an objective external observer who has your best interests in their mind, and would go to great lengths to help you, which is why it is an important social contract and commitment. Not counting jokes, they won’t be insecure and threaten to end the friendship at petty things or let you go so easily, because the two would be similar and like-minded, and finding like-minded people is very rare for some people. They would enjoy interacting with you as much as you do with them, and be honest and genuine about it, valuing truth and honesty over white lies or superficial concerns about your feelings, which would be more hurt if truth is kept from me. It would have to be a two-sided interaction with both parties equally interested, otherwise it’d just be a toxic relationship which would be irrational to get into, even if the only option is to suffer from the consequences of loneliness.

Coming to the people who have no such desires that I just mentioned in the paragraph before the previous one, that category might include some psychopaths with some level of self-control and mild manipulative tendencies who may not have a conscience but do not desire to hurt people- physically or emotionally- because their genes and early environment happen to predispose or incline them in such a way that maybe their values happen to not allow them to be okay with hurting people and being unethical, or maybe because they wish to be honest and strive to achieve social status or external validation without resorting to tactics such as manipulation or deception.

Other categories could include high-functioning individuals with Autism who may happen to be gifted in thinking logically and rationally, or maybe neurotypical people inclined in a way to try to be as perfectly rational as possible. These people don’t get it as intuitively as the general neurotypical population, so they have to learn it explicitly and logically, and so even though people who are not knowledgeable about it and say what they feel like might ostracize them and mock them, I believe that they could make better friends if they desire to engage in such a social contract.

As they put it all explicitly and logically, unlike other people who may have irrational subconscious desires, they won’t fall for heuristics or mental shortcuts that misguide them or lead them to make bad- or even less than optimal- solutions. So they would likely be direct, honest and clear, and open and frank about giving feedback, because they know that lying and fudging to make you feel good might make you feel good temporarily but would be dishonesty and deception and keeping you from the truth so you could improve and work on your shortcomings.

Now there is more risk of course because these people for the same reasons that they could be more beneficial to you as a friend, for the same logical and selfish thinking they could be a lot worse if you don’t do it right and are not mentally strong enough to handle it, because if they get to it they could manipulate you and destroy your emotional health, so I guess if you want to play it safe, with less upside but also less downside, depending on your values, priorities and risk-taking ability, it might be better to form friendships with neurotypicals. High risk, high reward.

They would also be more easily able to detach themselves emotionally from you and think about your best self-interest and respect your opinion if you decide to not be their friends due to any reason, or even no reason at all, and be logical and rational about it, unlike the lover who threatens the one who rejected them. One very important thing to keep in mind here is that I might just be projecting my own beliefs and inclinations, erroneously extrapolating and generalizing to everyone from my own personal experiences and due to my poor understanding of such neurodivergent individuals. It is true that I consider myself open-minded because rationality and logic are some of my core values and beliefs, and I use such guiding principles to follow a sort of algorithm and set of rules that enable me to live life without being disoriented or overwhelmed, some things I have in my notepads and elsewhere.

if you’re the more emotional type- nothing wrong with it perfectly fine if you’re inclined that way- you could think of it this way: if the person you love is sad you should be sad, and if they’re happy you should be happy, otherwise its not true love and just selfish lust or whatever you are using them for, whatever need or desire, and you should be aware of it, and so you must not be sad when they’re happy and vice versa.

Analogy of the friendship contract with when I discovered ChatGPT and my experience with Autism doctors, next three paragraphs: see in ASD doc how my mama said that docs have ego issue and care about selfish gratification and one-upping other docs rather than the patient’s well-being cause the incentives have skewed their priorities, but it’s still one of those situations where collaborating would help them more even in their selfish desires, cause together they could achieve better outcomes and also feel better about themselves, so they’re being irrational now.

It's also like how when I discovered ChatGPT I was so happy cause it’s so good with language and could augment human capabilities and even if not augment, then I was just surprised that AI could use language so nicely and I would not feel bad that it’d replace humans because even if I would be obsolete- being gifted in linguistic ability myself compared to other mathematical subjects- I know that in the long run AI is still going to benefit humanity and greatly improve the quality of life- maybe even allow people to self-actualize- and going to automate almost everything.

Plus I don’t have ego issues or want to one-up anyone, so I am fortunately not narrow minded enough to not be able to think in the long term and moreover, it’s not my ego or my own abilities that I’m attracted to but rather natural language and linguistics and how it manifests in the real world, I love the disciplines for their own sake and how they manifest in human behaviour, and so I don’t care if it’s me who does it, or someone else, or AI, that uses it beautifully it still remains beautiful to me, and if it’s AI that makes the progress then IA be it; I like the idea and subject and want to see it flourish and extend knowledge in the domain, no selfish desires.

Just enough rules to not be totally chaotic, yet allow a lot of room to allow creative artistic freedom and inconsistency to be able to modify my plans and recalibrate my beliefs by updating my priors in light of new relevant information. It’s the sort of constraint that encourages and is conducive to creativity rather than stifle it, and as we know from scientific experiments and philosophy, too much freedom actually hinders creativity. It also satisfies my desire to be as close to perfectly rational as possible and over-analyze everything using logic. Using decision science, scientific method and the methods of rationality to maximize the probability of my living a fulfilling life and self-actualizing; including discovering my true values, interests, desires, beliefs etc. and constantly learning and growing through novel experiences, never trapping myself into established patterns of thought or behaviour.

I thought that people who have suffered are unable to think straight, and this seemed to present a paradox as I described in my blog post about civilized debates and heated arguments. Now I realize I was probably projecting my own views, erroneously extrapolating and generalizing from my own thoughts and experiences, because it seems that can think logically, it’s just that it’s not every person’s core value.

Rationality takes into account your values preferences sand your values depend on your emotions and feelings and intuition to certain ideas and experiences—as determined by genes and early exp.

In my opinion, engaging in excessive hedonism is not irrational, but if and only if you are taking a calculated risk, which means being aware of all the pros and cons, the potential risks and the opportunity costs, what you are going to lose and if you are willing to make the trade-off after being aware of all the consequences and fine with taking your chances- with the associated probability that it could occur and that you’re willing to bear the cost and the worst case scenario because the expected utility or satisfaction if worth it for you, then you are not being irrational.

From my personal experience, I have an uncle who keeps smoking despite repeated health warnings and old age issues, and I recently came to know that it’s getting severe and he’s still unwilling, or unable, to quit. The family thinks that they are being stupid and irrational, and after reading the previous paragraph you might think that I think the opposite, and then you would be wrong, because I think the same, just for different reasons.

My uncle most probably has not taken into account all the factors, trying to make an informed decision based on the consequences that may be death and leaving their family that wants them to live, but then again, I’m not sure because I never asked him, so if he happens to already have considered this and is fine with death and everything else, including the suffering, he is not being irrational, at least in my opinion and current understanding of rationality.

If he has, and this is just a problem more pronounced in the Eastern cultures due to the focus on community rather than individual, then my uncle would be told and pressurized by my family to quit smoking due to their own selfish emotional reasons, because maybe they want to preserve their reputation in society or- here’s my being less cynical- maybe they wish him to not die and live longer- and here’s me being direct, logical, realistic and cynical again- which is again very selfish of them because he is already at the end of his life, he would pass away if not in one then in three years approximately speaking, and if he decides that this is how he wants to go away, and this is what gives him happiness despite the suffering that he is going to expect anyway, and he is willing to make the trade-off given his values and preferences, then his family has, in my honest opinion, no right to stop him.

This is also why I believe in the Overman, being free of all societal restraints and people trying to make you conform to the prevalent ethical code and societal norms of the time and society you happen to be in, and if the rational thing for you to do based on your values and preferences happens to be in conflict with what is acceptable in society, then you do it because it is the rational thing to do, you are not obligated to please anyone, you did not choose the genes and environment that inclined you in a way that this is what you desire, and so you must not subject yourself to unnecessary suffering due to unreasonable restrictions imposed by society.

And eventually society should also follow the maxim of what is traditionally and in popular culture implied- or at least what people usually seem to have in mind from my perspective- when they use the old saying ‘live and let live’ so people should respect unconventional and deviant thoughts and preferences as long as they are not harming them, because they have to reason to stop someone from acting on their desires and preferences just like they have the liberty- and social support- to do. That includes my stance on euthanasia and queer community.

Random piece of information relevant to this post before proceeding further: solution to a question I was asked as part of a university I once applied to: If you could choose any two fictional characters from a book, movie or television series to be your friends, whom would you choose and why? [150 words]

One would be Harry Potter James Evans Verres, who is the protagonist of HPMOR by Eleizer, and like me tries to be hyper rational in all situations and doesn't enjoy interacting with most people, preferring to stay withdrawn and engage in his own scientific experiments and ambitious grand projects, just like my own list of research questions and overarching goals and plans for the future.

The other characters would be someone I don't relate that much with but who my classmates have told me I am like- Sheldon Cooper. In my opinion, Sheldon is a bad representation of rationality, but he is understandable dramatized, yet in terms of similarities I like to think I'm much more emotionally mature than him, as compassion, kindness and empathy are some of my core values, and I'm not as easily offended or rude. Yet we have a few common intellectual interests, habits and mannerisms. button up, robotic handwriting behaviour and language, asocial and introverted, intellectual interests and hobbies, pedantic and Asperger's..

I’m sometimes shocked by how people my age spend hours every day playing video games and scrolling mindlessly when they could be doing so many other, better things" Exactly this, exactly what I think. I know these are my formative years when my neuroplasticity is at it's peak, and how I spend my time and what habits I form would determine what sort of person I become in the future, and I'm unable to comprehend how someone could be fine with doing all that..

Me: You seem to be better at reading people than most and, more importantly, being direct and honest in situations where others usually aren't, so- Quick question: Do you think I overshare in casual conversations too frequently? Where oversharing is defined as disclosing too much info about yourself that makes the other person feel uncomfortable if shared too soon before establishing a connection or getting close, and it's boundary I find very confusing to navigate, to separate it from being open in conversations and talking too little so the person feels you're not even interests, so I kind of overcompensate by overdoing it, but wanted to know what you think.

“I think it depends on what you would like people to know, and what you wouldn't like people to know, if you're conservative/selective about people knowing your opinions on things, I guess you might come off as oversharing. Ultimately it depends on the boundaries you keep for yourself.”

Me- “Okay, so our definitions are different. I mean, your definition also sounds right to me, but I used to think about it more along the lines of: If I'm sharing it, of course I'm comfortable with sharing it with the person I'm talking to, that's why I made the decision to disclose such info, but it might make the other person feel uncomfortable for any number of reasons- if they think I'm sharing info that would later compel them to reciprocate and share similar info about themselves, consciously or not, or maybe because they think that by sharing such info I'm trying to deepen our friendship and they don't wish to be my friend, but if they're not direct and honest about it and feel like it'd be rude to let me know, they might be uncomfortable yet tell me I'm not oversharing, and so I'd need to depend on other cues or factors that could let me know if I am oversharing and if the other person is just pretending but giving off some sort of signals that if I could read I'd know that I'm oversharing and stop right there and not continue our conversation. You might also think that the person could just ignore, and I agree that'd be a good way to signal their disinterest, but again if they are too polite and nice they probably won't, so yeah it again comes down to me knowing when it's too much.”

Them-"I think if you're saying something a bit touchy and personal, you can explicitly say you don't expect them to share things in a similar fashion. More often than not though, people are pretty calm about it. If you've mentioned something they don't want to talk about, they tend to ignore it and reply to the rest. Still can't please everyone though, but this works for the majority"

Me-Good idea. Also consistent with what I think about being clear and direct with the other person even if they are not, to make everything clear and leave no doubt about your true intentions or expectations, and make them feel as comfortable as you can. And something similar to what I realized I already have been doing; telling people to let me know if they think I'm oversharing and feel uncomfortable, but could be taken a step further to include that you don't expect them to reciprocate.

"If you've mentioned something they don't want to talk about, they tend to ignore it and reply to the rest.”: Yes, I've noticed that too. Fair point. That makes sense.

“Still can't please everyone though.”: True, and I also don't realistically expect to or intend to, with my limited time and cognitive resources. Unless someone happens to be a really charming leader good at influencing masses and employing rhetoric effectively, no one could do that, and even that I seriously doubt such a person could please everyone.

Now I'm fine with it if they're okay and don't feel any such need, after all I think they might find it much easier to be happy than me who is constantly worrying about the best way to maximize my satisfaction and learn and achieve my goals and being productive and overthinking about everything.

But who you become also in large part is determined by who you surround yourself with, and that's the reason I have effectively isolated myself, because I think I can do much better by myself as I haven't come across any such person in real life yet, but that's also because I'm introverted and don't like talking much so it's harder to make friends, but I'm also working on being more confident and outgoing, and it still remains to be seen how well that works.

From another conversation, one I had towards the end of a discussion I described in ‘Heated Debates’:

I don't know what your definition of 'friend' is, for me it's someone from whom I can learn and see grow and help them and allow them to help me and be direct without fear of judgment or offending them and understanding them and listening to them, more or less that's most of the points needed to satisfy my criteria of being a friend. I personally would never unfriend someone just because they happen to have an opinion different from me, even if they offend me, just as long as they are open minded and willing to listen and understand me and make themselves understood; polite and calm would be nice, but as I said it's fine as long as they can explain and make me understand, and listen to me, and are at least somewhat rational.

But if you think that your definition is different and you just cannot tolerate being a friend of someone who- however open minded- might hold an opinion different from you now or in the future, then I'm afraid we really cannot be friends, and in fact it'd be in our best self-interests to be just- acquaintances I guess. I'm never so brutally honest, frank and direct with anyone, but you brought it up and I think you would understand so I just felt like explaining. If that is what you decide, then that's perfectly fine, no hard feelings on either side, we are educated and civilized beings and don't bear grudges and hatred on such small things that we could sort out by talking it out. If you decide you don't wish to be my friend for any reason at all, maybe for what I have said or done in the past maybe, or even for no reason at all, I would like you to let me know, and I would respect your opinion and leave the server as soon as possible, no hidden grudges or anger or anything, we are better than that. Just let me know.

End of the conversation.

Knowing what you need friends for is essential. It's damn sure not motivated by lust, because I have more intellectual needs and a desire to be understood. While some people seek a partner out of attraction, I believe love is a waste of time and emotional energy, although that might be because I've never fallen in love. I don't want to take the risk because the opportunity costs are too high, and the worst-case scenario sounds too terrible. Even if this is another one of my brain's rationalizations, I know that I have no realistic chance of finding someone with a like-minded outlook.

Love and unconditional love are myths, and very few people would even attempt to understand, even if I tried to explain. There are two main reasons for this: firstly, I have ambitions that require my full attention, and I don't want to settle down, have a family, or children. Secondly, I either give you a social contract for what I like about your personality, mentality, etc., and if you lose it, I leave you, or I tell you that no matter what happens, I won't leave you, but that would be difficult due to point 1. However, all of this comes after the bare minimum prerequisites, which are that she is somewhat logical and rational, understands stuff I know as the empathy-determinism relation which I’ve developed to include system 1 and 2 brains, is motivated and curious about something, and if not, at least is a good listener and tries to understand. Moreover, she must believe in compassion, kindness, and politeness at all times.

I have realized something important. I used to think similar people and only similar people can be good friends, and I'm right and backed up by social psych, but now I think it's not so much as being similar as sharing some core values. For example, if I find someone who is literally my opposite, but still strongly believes in rationality and logic, and is open minded enough to hold an intelligent convo and productive debate, then- this is an extreme dramatized example or fringe case just to demonstrate my point- I don't care even if they're literally a psychopathic serial-killer, though that would suck because I also believe in being compassionate, but at least it would satisfy my intellectual social needs..

Maybe this is enough, being listened to and understood, and feeling comfortable enough to talk to someone about anything and everything, rest is just an added bonus. You say you rarely do so it's kind of not a reciprocal relationship and it might send signals that you don't wish to do so, so you might want to consider putting it explicitly, but please don't take my advice too seriously cause as I said I'm at times too logical for my own good and people really don't like it, I recently learned the hard way that it's better to keep my mouth shut and not ask questions and not act logical in front of certain people, only those who are rational enough to talk..

But yeah even if you don't share your problems but are fine with listening to her problem it's fine I guess. And yeah supporting each other is also good, whereas physical attraction again a biological phenomenon- oh another important insight that occurred to me is that I used to think that love based on appearance is superficial, and I still do, but now I realize that even love based on traits is kind of not as genuine cause traits are just as deterministic and biological as appearance, both stem from genes and constantly change, though traits change less but the self is still prolly an illusion.. I also created a post about this.

Random out of context message: “I had a good time conversing with you, friend. I wish it could last a bit longer, but all good things come to an end, and so instead of lamenting that it's coming to an end so soon, I shall rejoice at the fact that it happened at all. I shall hope for the best but prepare for the worst, and trust doc on this one. I hope you would find me the same person typing this message after a month of such medications. Best of luck for your future, it was a pleasure meeting you, and you have a bright future ahead. Goodbye. Farewell. Hakuna matata. Bon voyage.”

Message I may or may not have sent to a close friend who may or may not be imaginary:

I had started suspecting something is wrong with me cause very few people were able to even try to understand me (you're one of them, so thank you very much!) and I knew something was off which is why I am still socially isolated most of the time but now I have decided to work on it and be more outgoing with the help of the newfound knowledge of how my brain probably works, maybe even starting a group of neurodivergents or something, people who don't fit in but are made to conform, because I really don't care about what other people think as much as I did once upon a time, but I'm still open minded enough to try to explain if someone seems like a person who would listen and understand.

I really appreciate it and you have no idea how reassuring it is for me because it's so hard to find non-judgmental open-minded and rational people who actually understand you (and are even interested in killer robots, sociopaths and world domination strategies!!)

I'd like it more if you feel the same- that is if you too feel comfortable with talking about anything at all that you feel like sharing with someone who might get something that other people just don't seem to get it, or that any interesting observation or thoughts you wish to share, because I don't want it to be a one-way convo where I'm annoying you with my ramblings just cause you happen to be polite enough to allow me to do so. This is important, because I like being direct and perfectly honest with everyone, but especially my friends, because you could tell white lies to other people if the context is appropriate and to avoid conflict, but if your own friend lies to you, you would never get to

Know the complete truth and improve yourself, and also be honest and direct with your friend when they need it. So it helps to establish that there needs to be no obligatory and indirect word games if we have the best interests of the other person in mind, and I know I cannot tell this to everyone because it takes time to know if they'd be capable of this, but from how little we've interacted I am confident that you are one of them, and you're capable of being rational and honest with someone who would has the ability to understand it and not be offended too easily, and I want you to be that sort of person while talking to me, if that makes sense.. it's understandable if it doesn't, of course, but I think you get it.

For instance, if you at any point of time feel like I doing something wrong or believe in something irrational or behaving in such a way, you should not think about hurting my feelings or making me feel bad or anything, because I would feel bad only if you are not honest and direct with me, and I consider myself open minded enough to try to understand and not take it personally because I'd know that you are a well-wisher and just want to see me improve, just like I would do with you.

To take another example, just a very extreme case that I sincerely hope never happens in reality, if you happen to decide that for whatever reason you wish to not be my friend or even not continue our conversations, you could let me know, and instead of acting on my emotions and intuition, I'd try to understand your perspective and point of view, why you think so, if I could make up for something that hurt you that led to it, or even if there is no reason at all (though you're better than that, acting upon your intuition without scrutinizing it with logic)

And if you tell me that, I'd understand that not talking to me would make you happier, and so I'll also be happy not talking to you because I care more about your happiness and well-being than my selfish desire for social connection with like-minded people, because if you were to tell me something like this I'd know that you have good reasons and have thought out everything very well already, and so I'd respect your decision, something I can't say for most people, in fact I'm having great difficulty thinking of anyone else I've met in real life except you who could be so rational and honest like that..

And same goes for you- if you every have something to say that you are afraid could be taken the wrong way by others or don't feel understood, you could always. And if you allow me to be just as direct with you, it could turn into a mutually beneficial social contract where I also be honest with you when required and try to tell you if you're going wrong somewhere without worrying about you getting offended or anything.

(that's what true friendship is, in my honest opinion, two people who wish to best of each other and enter into a contract to help each other improve and see each other succeed and become their best selves no matter what, regardless of if they happen to be at their lowest or highest, always there to support them and guide them when they think they might be going in the wrong direction, and see them become the person that they aspire to be, and that goes both ways. Ofc I'm open to debate and changing my mind)

So it's not like if I tell you about something I think you are doing wrong, or disagree with your beliefs instead of just politely agreeing with you and avoiding conflict, but I could expect to engage in a productive discussion and debate without any fear of making you feel bad, because we both know that we want the best for each other and have the best intentions which is why we're doing this, and so I also won't have to worry about losing you as a friend just because I try to tell be logical and honest with you about something while others tell you what they think you want to hear and what they think will make you feel good, but I wish to tell you what I think would be in your best interests and avoid irrational decisions and behaviour, and likewise you could tell me if I'm doing something wrong and I'd try my best to listen and understand you with an open mind and not getting hot headed or offended, and definitely not being afraid that anything that any one of use tells the other person could threaten our friendship..

Because if we started to be afraid that anything we say could offend the other person and cut off the friendship, we would not be able to be direct and honest with each other. But it's your call, if you wish to do this, I'd be happy to do it with you, because even among the very few people I know well enough and have conferred the title of 'friend' on, I still currently know very few of those very few who could be capable of and likely to be do something like this, in terms of open mindedness, honesty, rationality, and mental and emotional strength and aptitude.

(I just realized I can use coloured fonts on the blog so just an experimental coloured next paragraph) I have been thinking that maybe I'd be better of all by myself and isolated, and I actually am much better when I'm lonely and alone than when I am lonely and surrounded by people I don't understand and who don't understand me. (Okay, maybe let's just stick with black for now.)

Being human we currently can't be hermits or perfectly self-sufficient with no social needs or desires without at least some people who get you and with whom you can be your real self and share anything and everything without being afraid of judgment or offending them or threatening the friendship or anything like that, because you know they would get it, they would never lie, even white lies, and even if they don't get it, they will try to listen and understand and be there for you no matter what, and such people are rare to find.

most of the time people don't make it clear due to their linguistic ability or ambiguity of natural language or whatever reason, and this is why social contracts and relationships fail, and people just call anyone and everyone a friend, but I don't, and as I said even though I call a select few my friends, I have till now not known anyone enough to be able to propose such an idea of a mutually beneficial direct and honest idea of helping each other be who they aspire to be and keep in mind their happiness well-being all the while being rational, seeing them through the ups and downs till you don't absolutely ensure that they succeed and become their ideal best self.

I am a secretive person with everyone who I think won't get it, and it might sound weird and silly but I feel like I can just sense it and intuitively know if someone is that sort of person from their first impressions which aren't reliable so which I test by talking to them to them and learning about them and I've found that my first impressions and intuitive sense is always right.

I can know if that person would get it or won't, and I would still talk to them if they won't, just not as openly and comfortably as I would if they were, and so I'd have to pretend a little and try to make a more deliberate conscious mental effort to keep in check what info I share and what I say, from my rough mental model of them which is probably accurate enough to be context appropriate and not overshare yet not come off as talking too little or being too.. robotic, which is what I still do most of the time around such people, hence the nicknames AI, computer, robot, Sheldon.. -

For instance, I would love to disappear from the face of earth or just drown myself in a river or something if everything I'm sharing with you were to be shared with someone else.. so yes I get it. Also the success thing, I also don't share such things unless it's some accomplishment that I'm really proud of and feel like sharing with at least one person but there is no such person and so I just write it down in my notepads and so I've now grown more comfortable with not having anyone to share my thoughts or successes with but I'd be lying if I didn't say that I still don't feel a little lonely and wish that I had such a person in my life.

So yeah I respect your preferences and have no problem with it, because I'm exactly like that, and my brain has even stopped getting surprised at how similar our thought processes and ideas are, and it's a cognitive bias of getting accustomed to something that's very rare but I don't remember its name right now.

Life is too short to worry about anything superficial that society tells us to value, and I have myself realized that I won't care about most things I had earlier been conditioned to aspire for, and so I've come up with this neat detailed well planned framework to live perfectly according to my inclinations and interests with practical implementable algorithms that could allow me to be as rational as possible while working towards being to sort of person I desire to be in the near future and accomplish my goals and do what I really want to do instead of what others want me to do or caring at all about what others think if that's something that would make me less likely to achieve my goals and make it more difficult for me to live according to my inclinations and values and hence act irrationally.

I am getting more comfortable and confident with it and believe that I'd be able to resist such external factors that sway others so easily, people who don't even seem to think about it much and examine their own life and values but are conditioned to conform to the rules set by the majority and never question it, never try to live according to their own values and interests and only join everyone blindly working towards goals set by others to please others without questioning why they are doing what they are doing, what they want out of their life, which is so short and time so precious and valuable yet they don't see, and it's sad but at least I can do what I must do now that I realize this, and I'm glad to know that you have realized that too.

It's true that I don't care what others think as long as I'm doing what's best for me, but as I mentioned earlier, I also don't express myself and be open with people who I don't intuitive sense to be like minded or be able to understand me, so I don't talk to such people much, but otherwise I like talking less and doing more and it's the doing part where I do whatever I want and don't care what others think in the slightest. Okay maybe I do a little but I now care much less than I used to before, and I logically know it's the rational thing to do but my human brain still feels like I need to fit in, so I have to override it with my logic.

I said realized that I should not even care about what others think, just like you said, life is too short and my time is too valuable to spend with the people whom I feel uncomfortable around- just the bare minimum maybe, but never more than I feel like- and I have much more important things to do books to read research projects to work on than worry about trying to fit in with such people who probably don't even have any such ambitions or interests, so I absolutely cannot let them pull me down, and maybe actively seek out people similar to me from whom I can learn and grow and help each other achieve their goals. But still focusing on my research activities and interests for the moment, because they are so fun and fascinating..

But I am also someone who- again depending on environment like you said, cause different people bring out different aspects of my personality, and I strongly dislike being around the sort of people who don't bring out my best self or at least the self that I like, pushing me to be my best self, people like you, and I hope I'm not too stupid or dumb to be the same sort of person for you and you don't feel too uncomfortable or have to pretend while talking to be- which is one of the reasons I told you to be honest with me.

Also relatable how I tell everyone I talk to no one (though I really don't IRL) but it's more like I'm very selective with the sort of people I want to talk to and I don't waste my precious time talking to people who won't understand me because my mental and emotional energy has much better things to be diverted to.. if that makes sense.

end of conversation.

_

Whenever mom says “friend”, I usually correct her and say that they’re an acquaintance, batchmate, classmate, colleague, whatever. And mom doesn’t like that. So one day I explained why, because I was getting annoyed every time my mother was getting annoyed and bothering my about this peculiar habit of not calling “friends” “friends”. I explained that it’s not possible for everyone to be my friend. I choose my friends wisely. My time is precious, my age is 19 and neuroplasticity is at it’s peak this time and brains literally synchronize- there is scientific evidence, brain imaging studies- when two people talk and these are my formative years and I already started too late and company is important which is why I’m socially isolated right now; I don’t wish to spend time with people who do activities and who have traits and qualities I don’t wish to cultivate in myself and who are going to hold me back from achieving my dreams, I won’t let anyone pull me down.

Even in this blog, I use the word a bit too liberally for my taste. I’d just say for now that the distinction is much finer and there are several levels I don’t explain here due to reasons described in the beginning of the meta-post, and also because I just intuitively know and haven’t tried to capture and describe it in words yet, but there are levels, and everyone in this post is past the basic level and is A “friend” in the simplest meaning of the word, yet the relationship I have with all of them is very different even between people I group into the same category for this post to keep it simple. I don’t wish to go into the psychology and sociology and analyze every aspect of the relationship and in what ways and how and why they are different, so I’ll not.

From conversations with some close friends who again may or may not exist:

Even when I'm at my lowest, I appreciate direct honesty from my friends, as I can't expect others to stop caring about being polite and telling me white lies, but you I can assure you that I would never get offended or hurt if you only try to point out something I'm doing wrong, or thinking wrong, anything that could be harmful for me. I'm not that irrational, even though everyone seems to do this, even seemingly intelligent people, whenever you try to have an open discussion or honest feedback, they take it personally and their ego is hurt and they don't realize that with this attitude they're never going to improve, learn and grow. I promise to not be like that.

Another conversation with another close friend who may- I think you get it by now.

Them: "A conversation has two participants. I myself have struggled with the idea that if I learn to conduct myself in a 'perfect' enough way, I can get the other person to converse on constructive terms. Unfortunately, that's not how the real world works. It's not how people work. If somebody is stupid, irrational, emotional, arguing in bad faith or just disinterested, there's nothing you can do to make things go better.

Essentially, there's only so much burden you can realistically place on yourself people do things for their own reasons. Some people cannot be gotten through to on some things, and most people don't share your framework for what constitutes the optimal way to talk about things (or what the right things to talk about are) I'd say there are 3 actionable things here: 1) who should you talk to on any meaningful level? 2) who are the people you can talk to in an entirely rational way? 3) when you have to talk to people who don't want to engage in an entirely rational way, how do you go about it?

Think of it as being on a sliding scale. At 0 we've got the most perfect rational robot imaginable, and at 10 we've got the most hysterical/delusional irrational person imaginable. You're closer to a 0 than most, and ideally want to have convos with people acting as close to 0 as possible. But, there are people meaningfully above 0 who are still worth talking to just, perhaps with different expectations than what you might otherwise have. However, there are some people who're so irrational that you're unlikely to get much out of talking to them. 'ideal range' = 0-2 ; 'can have suboptimal convos with' = 2-5 ; 'only talk to when necessary' = 5-7; 'avoid at all costs' = 8-10. Numbers somewhat arbitrary but they illustrate the point."

Me- "I have also realized something that is hopefully going to keep me sane for a little longer- know when and with whom to talk, because some people are irrational, illogical, too emotional for whatever reason, be it there predisposition, dislike for logic, past experiences or plain ignorance. Whatever the reason, I used to think that I'm somehow obligated to make them see and bring them closer to truth, but lately I've realized that it's simply not worth my time and too mentally and emotionally draining, even taking into account the fact that they might have something insightful to share.

It's not about seeking people with similar beliefs and creating an echo chamber, it's more like finding people with similar values such as those who might diasgree with every single belief of mine, to give an extreme example they might be homophobic, believe in killing all humans etc. But have an open mind and willing to listen and understand and have the ability to make themselves understood if not politely then at least logically, honestly, directly, not getting too emotional by associating their beliefs with their selves and taking any attack on the idea as a personal attack on their ego.

I think that I should seek only such people and talk to them because being an introvert and almost certainly an aspie I am not inclined to be able to handle such people and engage with those who might not be open to changing their minds, because even though I believe gullible and irrational people must be helped, I don't believe it's worth it for me to compromise my own mental and emotional well-being to save such people from whatever they are going to bring upon themselves if they don't change their ways, or more like what the society is going to bring upon itself, because to be completely frank and perfectly honest, there is a little hope, but society is fu- or if not then definitely on the path to get- cause as I'm training myself more and more in formal logic, psychology, cognitive science, philosophy and the methods of rationality, I'm starting to see the absurdity of the humans such that it went from being indifferent to mildly amusing to freaking hilarious to a little worrisome but now I'm trying to maintain the levels at hilarious cause that's what it exactly is.

And I haven't even read all about the topics I've mentioned. But I know enough to see how beautiful and mysterious and fascinating and absurd the universe is, and things that were earlier funny are now boring, while everything I used to overlook earlier is so hilarious and fascinating, simple everyday things governed by principles and cause by phenomena that mainfest in funny ways and cause humans to believe and behave in irrational and meaningless yet curious ways, things that most people still fail to see,almost certianly none I know in real life. Cause they are conditioned to do so, and because external factors that sre influencing all the time they don't even try to understand are making their decisions for them and they are not even curious to understand, let alone control, them even though there is a little talk of social egalitarianism, no one talks about the deeper and less apparent sort of egalitarianism, and I was surprised I can't be the first but turns out I probably am, though I'd like to meet some old dead white man again who's done it before me, but I'll go ahead with this theory I'm developing now. I refuse to be controlled by factors I don't know about and have important traits and preferences of mine be dictated by forces I'm currently conditioned to unquestioningly succumb to such as the societal norms, ethics, traditions, ideologies, ways of thinking and doing things, genes etc. Obviously not all of them but those that make me susceptible or prone to irrationality, where I define rationality is what would maximize the probabilitynof me achieving my desires and goals, given my values, because my desires depend on my values and preferences, which I have learned that I would be able to discover through exploration and experimentation and trying stuff to check out what values and interests and desires my genes and early environment has predisposed me to, so I could develop some sort of tech or behavioral tools and interventions to allow people to be perfectly rational and self-actualize."

Them- "Exactly! That's a common mistake that most people fall into. All of friends in real life do not share many of my beliefs and ideas. I frequently have discussions and arguments with them, which don't destroy our relationships, but improve them. However, they share some core qualities that I seek out in every human being: outright honesty, open-mind, loyalty, desire to change and improve."

Me: "Good to know you do this too. For me the core values are- I'm still discovering them so I may update them as and when required: logic and rationality (including using logic and reason over rhetoric and expressing their opinion clearly without getting too hot-headed), open-mindedness (willing to change their mind in light of logical arguments or contradictory evidence), honesty, empathy (cognitive empathy- I learned the distinction very recently, and realized cognitive empathy is more useful than affective empathy, in my opinion, though both are important in their own ways), lifelong learning, self-improvement, and motivation, ambition or curiosity." (My core values have been updated, so it's now less core values, such as logic and honesty, the ability to express thoughts clearly, stuff that is more specific and concise, such as I defined everything I'd earlier just felt good about, so it's not just 'kindness' but a very specific idea of morality and exceptions and stuff, but this is not the post to explain my updated belief system. I explain it in some detail in my post Madness and Meditations on Murdering Moloch.) end of conversation.

Are we supposed to accept our personality as it is and make all our decisions around it, ORshould we push yourself to mould it according to the expectations of your society or peers, like trying to be more outgoing and extroverted to meet new people and form new friendships? Perhaps trying to change our natural disposition could lead to dissatisfaction. Or maybe we can change with a little effort and meet awesome people we would never have met otherwise..

Drawing upon my feelings and past experiences, If I could have it my way, I'd ideally prefer to be completely self-sufficient, at peace with myself, incapable of feeling loneliness, give up on society and go live somewhere in a cabin in the woods somewhere far away from civilization, like the Maine hermit. Also, aromantic asexual psychopath capable of loving himself and never feeling lonely.But our intuitions can be misguided; it's unclear when they should be relied on. I'm not even sure if it's wise for a human to depend on another human for their emotional needs. The idea of having a best friend.but there are very few people who would be able to be completely self-sufficient and be satisfied with zero social life. After all, humans are social animals. But I still admire people like the Maine Hermit. Related book rec- The Stranger in the Woods by Michael Finkel.

If I could have it my way I'd prefer to be completely self-sufficient, at peace with myself, maybe even self-compassion, incapable of feeling loneliness, give up on society and go live somewhere in a cabin in the woods somewhere far away from civilization, like the Maine hermit. That's the problem. And you can't please everyone at the same time. And you can't give everyone the power to affect you emotionally. Of course not everyone should be given the power to affect you emotionally, but humans are biased. Like, we are better at finding flaws in others than in ourselves, we attribute external circumstances to mistakes our mistakes while thinking of other's mistakes as inherent character flaws.

That's why it's so important to choose the right company. But finding the right people is so damn hard. Me too. Until it starts feeling lonely. And that's when I wish I had the option to turn off some switch and not feel lonely and love myself and reject humanity and return to monke ANARCHO PRIMITIVISM FTW HUMANS SUCK. I wanna be a robot. (This was sarcasm, in case anyone didn't detect sarcasm, like I fail to do sometimes and take stuff seriously and then logically overanalyze it. Half sarcasm, to be more accurate)

-

Another message from a conversation that may or may not be another imaginary daydream with one of my imaginary friends (it's just the next few paragraphs, not the whole post, just saying because I don't think I have any indicator down there, but it doesn't really matter because I connect the post with the end of the conversation smoothly as a single flow without any interruption, so you probably won't notice):

We are like-minded and similar in several ways. And so for instance, if I hate myself, I'll also- to be logical and consistent with my beliefs in order to avoid cognitive dissonance- have to hate you. Same goes for you- if you hate yourself, you'll have to hate me too.

But we know that's not true. For me at least, the self-hate is not bad enough that I also start hating you instead of trying to work on my self-hate. Because self-love is hard, but starting to hate you is even harder, if that makes sense.

And so whenever I feel self-hate, I just need to remind myself that I need to hate you, and that would be even more unacceptable and my brain would realize it's better to just learn self-love, because going against my core values of logic and rationality is even harder than hating you which again as I said is much harder than loving myself. Everything fits together nicely.

And you could do the same if you have values similar to find and if hating me is harder than loving yourself, and actually wait a second there- even if you don't, please say that you do because it would be harder for me to love myself if you say that you can just start hating me with much more ease than loving yourself.

I know it's selfish. And I realize I just made this needlessly, unnecessarily complicated by adding that request because even if you say that you do I will think you're either being polite or accepted my request but wait I see two flaws with this approach-

If you do this, it won't be out of politeness because I know you're honest, direct and intelligent and don't hesitate to put forward your opinion as you know lying to your friends is bad for them and you need to tell them the truth even if it hurts at first because it's good for them and everyone is too coward or too polite.

Second reason is that if not polite, then you will accept my request but that itself would mean you care enough about my requests and what I think, to accept it and do something that's in my best interests even though you don't have anything to gain from it (remember we're talking about the case assuming that you think hating me is easier than loving yourself).

And third and the most important reason: I strongly dislike dishonesty, insincerity and sugar-coating myself and from my friends, as it goes against my core virtue honesty and I have several good logical reasons to not violate that virtue. I have very few people (lower left-side end of single digits on the number line) I call friends and who are capable of being perfectly honest without fear of judgment or harming the friendship- and you’re one of them. So of course it'd be stupid and irrational to myself ask you to be dishonest.

So here's the deal now. You be honest. And tell me if this also works for you. Without any regard for the effectiveness of this technique for my own goals. I'd like to know the truth, even if it's hard, because I am one who believes that ignorance is never bliss, and more info is always better than less, with a few technicalities and exceptions we don't need to get into here. (In brief, info that's relevant to my goals and that I'm inclined to enjoy or find useful and living according to my values and inclinations.)

So I'd like to know if whatever I said outweighs whatever I said (sorry my brain needs to rest now and I can't even be bothered enough to scroll what I said but I said it several times above you can read it there, thanks). And I do care what you think because even though I don't care what most people think but I can't go around offending the very few people I'm able to call friends. And I know you would never be offended by what I say and that is the reason I'm asking you to give me a honest reply.

(Incoming: high information density ahead- when I do this people call me insane, if they themselves don't go insane first. You have been warned, and this is actually one of my simpler principles.)

That's actually a nice principle I should start applying to other situations too. Taking something I need to change, trying to figure out its consequences, both positive and negative- and it's got to have both (cause-and-effect and butterfly effects)- and then when I find the right consequence that doesn't sound acceptable or outweigh the costs or generate larger amount of emotional affect than the starting proposition or axiom (IDK if it can be called an axiom but you get the idea) then you stop and use language to reframe and rationalize it in a way that acts as negative reinforcement by visualizing how you'd feel if that scenario occurred and wow that's also a cool idea to turn anything positive reinforcement into an associated negative reinforcement for greater motivation, for anything positive or negative for yourself, or if required (or just to be aware of such deceptive people in case they use it against you) do the same for someone else's motivation and reframe some negative consequence further along the chain of cause-and-effect, with all the preceding and succeeding events in the causal chain going back the start of the universe from the Big Bang (current best guess according to scientific evidence) to the cold death or Big Freeze (current best belief and forecast with current computational power and scientific evidence), to crush their motivation and wow it would immeasurable emotional damage such a powerful weapon if used for some goal associated with Frank's Logotherapy, their greater overarching meaning.

And of course also could be used to change someone's worldview to a more optimistic one and turn something boring or undesirable for them (and desirable for you if you're selfish) but that they have the ability to succeed in, to further maximize the probability of achieving your desired goals. Just reframing and rationalization employed deliberately using some logical and linguistic skills to change someone's perception of reality, worldview and outlook in life. Or your own. Positive to negative, negative to positive, positive to more positive or negative to more negative. (Just choose an effect or consequence that is as desirable as the starting point or axiom). It's good that my morals are currently in several ways aligned with the prevalent code of ethics but I'd like to play this game of 4D chess with someone when the time comes.

Here's another similar life hack, another abstract general principle that you can use when you say something offensive or silly that may hurt someone or indirectly make it less likely for you to achieve your goals (also for pre-planned deception but I strongly suggest you not to do so; and no I'm not giving anyone ideas because those who are inclined in a way to do so would have figured it out anyway without my telling them, and I'm writing this for those who won't and those are the gullible people who need to know this and who also won't be able to figure it out on their own in order to protect themselves from people with evil malicious intent.) Can also be used to some language games or light-hearted fun (wit, sarcasm mocking someone who's a close friend; not for bullying; if I get to know that's how you're using it, I'll go meta and use the same thing at a higher level of abstraction on you- not to harm you, though I won't have any moral compunctions doing that but it goes against my values of compassion and empathy, but to make you understand how it feels to just make you experience enough mental agony to realize how bad it is and still stay sane enough yet remember to not deal such suffering on others. I think that's enough warning now, coming to the principle.)

When you say something wrong, use your ability to rationalize to reframe it into something that's not just neutral but even conveys intentions that seem like you have the best interests of that person in mind- the same person you mistakenly offended or hurt the sensibilities of. You do this by taking the starting point as the offensive comment you made, and then you do two things.

First is to acknowledge and closely analyze the logical structure of the comment, including the exact definition of every word. (Which is again subjective and arbitrary; but for this discussion take the standard as the Oxford English Dictionary, so that no one is able to call out on re-interpreting any word according to your goals, though no one would be able to do it anyway if you're good enough and do it right, but in my opinion it's not worth the risk, considering the probability or likelihood of the worst-case scenario, and the associated expected utility and opportunity costs.)

Here, you should have a question. What words or specific components of the logical structure are we talking about here? If that question did occur to you, good. If it didn't, stop reading, do a few push-ups or splash your face or get some rest and come back when your brain is working at peak optimal efficient to be able to comprehend this idea, which even I think is a bit higher in terms of information density and complexity.

Coming to the solution of that question: you select the words and components that could be relevant to- or help you- reframe and re-interpret the comment, or utilize the ambiguity of natural language to make it sound like you were talking about something that is the polar opposite to what it seems and what is the most likely meaning or interpretation or how you think it would be perceived-

Clarifying on aspects of the last paragraph: The perceived perception or interpretation of the other people needs to be negative, for obvious reasons I've mentioned several times now.

And in case you're wondering why the polar opposite, again it's obvious, and to answer both questions at once as a reminder, you need it to be negative because you don't want to be perceived as evil or someone who's not worthy of their respect, and you take it to the opposite extreme of the spectrum so as to not just neutralize the initial effect brought about by the first impression they might have had from reading it, but reframe and reinterpret it in a way to actually make it sound like you're praising them or saying anything that has a greater than chance probability or likelihood of producing positive emotional affect or making them feel good, to put it simply.

Another clarification and important point to remember, related to selection of the component or word that would be most suitable for the specific purpose keeping in mind or taking into consideration or accounting for (using synonyms for greater clarity): you deliberately, consciously use your logical brain to form connections (and this brings me to the second solution I mentioned earlier) by taking each and every component in the chain of cause-and-effect and trying to figure out which event in the chain would be more suitable for your purpose so you could connect it back with the axiom and use some of your language skills and maybe rhetoric- a minimum amount of creativity required- and anything you can to influence, convince, persuade them so it doesn't only sound 'right' intuitively but is also logically sound, in every sense of the term.

You could do this step intuitively if you can, if you have internalized this principle with enough practice, as I have, and can recognize or detect the general logical structure in novel situations and apply them automatically without much deliberate mental effort so you can focus on improving it more and do it better than get lost in the details and also use too much mental energy and time; that's how learning takes place in humans and non-human animals, why you get good at writing once you learn how to write, and chess grandmasters can play much more strategically once they have internalized all the basic rules and strategies, and how doctors make decisions in emergencies, and how you're able to speak words to convey ideas without paying attention to your tone, accent, inflection, pitch.. you get it.

You would still require some intuition to select one component anyway unless you happen to be immortal (unlimited time) or have large computational resources or biological intelligence, which I'm presuming you don't, so use your intuition here. This is one of the rare instances where I'm not telling you to scrutinize your intuition with logic, because it'd be irrational to do so and in my opinion not worth the expected utility or potential upsides, as even though the worst-case scenario is undesirable (you don't want them to get offended, remember?), the opportunity costs are too high (assuming you don't wish to end up in a mental asylum, lunatic asylum, insane asylum, or whatever you like to call it. Plot twist: I'm sitting in one right now typing this on my laptop being monitored by psychiatrists). It's trial-and-error, hit-and-miss. Takes some natural ability, but can be learned by practice~

(That's true for every ability or trait: some people can do it naturally, and you can emulate them by observing and trying to learn lessons or algorithms to allow you to consciously deliberately do what comes to them naturally intuitively, and with time you internalize it; or you use neurofeedback to aid behavioural and psychological tools; or direct manipulation using interventions like implants, neurotech, psychopharmacology or neurobiology, among several others out of the scope of this post. One very simple and underrated but highly effective way is: surround yourself with the sort of people who have qualities or abilities you admire, and slowly you'll be like them. And I also have a hypothesis that says that the traits and abilities you admire makes you similar to those you admire, and you just need to find similar like-minded people who value the same virtues or qualities as you, inclined in the same way, and this creates a funny situation for people with an inferiority complex- it's obvious how, and left as an exercise for the reader- and for extremely introverted or antisocial people who don't like meeting others, again obvious how. Okay, hints: for the inferiority complex, read the message in this same post where this topic started, the text messages I sent to a friend; another hint, read my post series about Asperger's, specifically the part where I talk about how it's funny that I happen to have so much in common with people who have certain abilities and traits that I admire. No hints needed for the lonely part of the question, that's too obvious.)

Coming back to what we were talking about before I started bombarding y'all with brackets (Unexpected unintended alliteration! Yay I'm also a poet now. Edit: I moved the brackets to a few paragraphs later but didn't change this sentence because alliteration; I might be wrong and if any English expert is reading this, please don't correct me-- no actually please do because that would violate my core values of honesty and self-improvement. Yep, so if you message me, also let me know how I could improve, which entails you telling me in what ways I could rephrase that sentence to say the same thing to get alliteration or another better-sounding literary device. Oh wait, I already have ChatGPT for that. Never mind.):

This time I won't give examples because if you need examples to comprehend this then you're also likely to be the sort of person who should never use it; saying for your own good so you don't get into trouble, so trust me here.

Stick to the other principles I discuss, they're potent enough. I got this idea not because I've ever used it but because I was thinking of using it and caught myself even before I made the comment possible to misinterpretation- not that's offensive to anyone in particular, but to a community that might take it as a lack of commitment or solidarity even though I'm one of the main contributors and I don't think they could afford to lose me anyway, but I still care enough about the community which revolves mainly around certain topics that are my secondary research interests and whose members I might need for future collaborations on my projects, as I'm not too strong at the subjects all of them- all highly intelligent people- seem to be gifted in. It's open to all but not too well-known, but if I come across anyone passionate about the same subjects, I always send them a personal invite to join the community, as I have the permission to do so by the person who leads the community and guides us, an accomplished, intelligent and helpful academic who is passionate about helping young aspiring researchers, also features in my post Roko's Basilisk when I discuss the questions related to Schrodinger's cat. So, what I was going to do was not that complex and you'd laugh if you realized what the comment was that I was thinking of posting- it was about apologizing for being late to comment in a section of the community about lessons we learned that week, a completely optional task that few people do anyway.

Another important part that I almost forgot to include while trying to explain the other steps: here you use something similar to how- in my other important posts while presenting some unconventional novel idea or unpopular opinion- I sometimes request the readers to consider the prospect or possibility of me having already considered what they are thinking now, and then trying to come up with counter-arguments in order to counter confirmation bias and themselves think how they could be wrong, or at least what piece of evidence could prove them wrong (if there is none, you're either closed-minded or fallen for dogma and need to re-evaluate your life choices and decisions right now, but for now I'm assuming you're open-minded).

I always say that for things when the first impression is always misguiding which is why you must test your intuitive thoughts in situations that are novel and while making important decisions, situations of a class, set or category that you have not encountered before, or even more dangerously, have encountered but made mistakes but not learned and are going to repeat mistakes until you not just learn your lesson for that specific instance, but at a general level of abstraction that accounts for all such mistakes.

And if you go high enough and find the answer to life, the universe, and everything, please let me know if it's not 42. Coming to the next step I was talking about: you get into this attitude and adopt this worldview for a second where you consider the other people at least as intelligent as you, and assume that everything you know they already know, and perhaps much more.

How does this help with my solution? It's obvious, figure it out on your own.

Just kidding, it's not that obvious, and I'll try my best to explain as clearly as possible. Well, you do this: you said something that has a good chance or realistic probability of being misinterpreted by people you don't wish to hurt- (Or maybe willingly hurt to have fun and knew you can pull off this plan to make it sound like it was a joke or in their best interests, trying to help them; I strongly suggest you to not do that, and if you do, not blame me, because I'm just playing with ideas and I myself don't consider myself smart enough to do this, so if you think you are, I would be the one happy to learn something from you, so don't blame me if you do anything that's mentioned in this post and get into trouble; I refuse to take any responsibility for ideas presented in this post specifically, as it's my personal subjective opinion and I'm not endorsing them or telling people to be stupid and do such things deliberately; it's just in case it's used against you, or you make a sincere mistake with good intentions and have the ability to reframe it, but even then I'd say the best decision would be to admit your mistake and apologize, if required, and then make yourself clear and try to explain your true intentions.)

Now, in the next step, you explain yourself, using the algorithm or process I described and explained above, and then say that you had assumed- that you know- that that person or everyone in the community- everyone who's listening- is smart enough to know this already, but just in case, you felt like clarifying so no one gets the wrong ideas, and you felt it's your responsibility or obligation to do so in order to avoid any misconceptions or misinterpretations (unbeknown to them that you are interpreting it in your own favour, but mean to harm, as you probably don't have any malicious intent and only wish to avoid spoiling your own reputation and likeability) which is the reason you just made it explicit and clear, saying it out loud logically to clarify that you have only the best intentions of everyone in mind.

And maybe that there was this possible misinterpretation or these few ways it could be misinterpreted and you wished to avoid them and make it clear how you did not phrase it that way to mean that, and make it clear that if anyone has any issues or is hurt in any way due to your actions, they have your sincere apology, and that they should feel free to voice out their opinion without being afraid of judgment, and that you promise to listen, understand and have empathy for them, understand their worldview and improve your mistake to ensure you don't repeat it again in the future. No need to say all of that, just use as much as the situation requires, and use words sparingly unless you wish to come off as a weirdo, or don't care about coming off as a weirdo, like me.

Yeah, so I turned that potential comment (more like the imaginary conversation and it's all possible future consequences and ways it could be interpreted in and checking if any of those interpretations could lead to behaviour or attitude of any member towards me in a way that'd be undesirable for me- be it conscious or a biased influence caused by the phrasing I used; and my brain did all of this subconsciously, and I'm just trying to psychoanalyze my past behaviour from the memory I have of all my intuitive thoughts and trying to put it into words so people who are not me can comprehend my thought process, though I'm not sure if I'm a good job of doing so, but I'm having fun so I don't really care, and I do realize I just went another level of abstraction higher, and to be able to realize this, meta-meta-cognition?)- anyway..

I turned it into this, abstracted away from the specific and took it to an extreme and also figured out the specific use cases and ways it could be used in deception and manipulation tactics, again, not to use them myself, but to be aware if it's being used on me, though I'd be more than happy to meet someone who actually uses such tactics to deceive, and play a little game. I think that only happens in fiction, doesn't it? One old friend of mine once told me about this series COTE that I tried the novel version of, and now I realize it's kind of like that- what's his name- Kiyotaka, and Arisu. And the only anime I've ever watched- Death Note. Light Yagami and L, though I stopped watching when L died. My principles do seem like something out of the category or set of such fictional works, yet I don't consider myself nearly as intelligent as those characters.

Even the writers of those characters, as I don't think I can turn this into some fictional novel where characters use such tactics to play strategy and deception games, like COTE. Though my brain surprises myself quite frequently when it comes to creative writing and literary topics like that, so I could try, someday when I'm in the mood and I have more time.

Also, as you might know, I don't use ChatGPT to write my posts despite many people telling me to consider it. I tried it, and it's not as good. It's good at making stuff concise or eloquent or talking nonsense, but I can't conceive of any prompt by which you could give it ideas such as those I just described. I actually even tried using one of such ideas as input and asking it to write a fictional story, and looks like ChatGPT is too stupid and it's language skills are not that good at the moment. It is good at turning stuff into smart-sounding bullshit though. I don't do that, and as I repeatedly point out throughout my posts, I strongly dislike both clever-sounding cult leaders who use eloquent sophisticated needlessly complicated words to convey simple ideas, and also science communicators who oversimplify using sensationalist clickbait content to maintain attention, not educate.

I use simple language, but some ideas simply cannot be conveyed using common words used in daily casual conversations, just like complex quantum mechanics and other mathematical equations cannot be conveyed in any natural language without significant information loss, let alone English. Looking forward to GPT-4. Also, if you think that I'm capable of making up ideas as complex as those, you need to recalibrate your belief system to be more in line with reality, as I'd like to make it clear that I'm not that intelligent to be capable of making up stuff like that. As Hardy said for Ramanujan, paraphrasing from memory: he could not make it up for the simple reason that it's impossible to make up stuff like that, and it's highly improbably and unlikely that anyone could make up something so convincing.

Now, don't get any wrong ideas, I'm not nearly as smart as Ramanujan and I suck at mathematics, but it is definitely the case, at least in my opinion, that the idea of the complexity gap between the actual ideas and trying to imagine it being made up holds true for me. In other words, just like Ramanujan was smart but as Hardy said, probably not that smart to make up something like that and it not being true, is also true for me- because it's beyond my logical and linguistic ability or language skills to come up with something that like if I hadn't come across such instances from observations in my personal experiences; if I hadn't encountered events or situations that my brain abstracted away from until I deliberately practiced extracting general principles from specific instances (and still somehow suck at mathematics, for some reason, though maybe I should give it another try when I'm done with my current projects.)

It also doesn't help that I'm trying to explain my linguistic ineptitude using natural language and my own language skills LOL. Also, just in case anyone decides me to question me about any of the ideas presented in my posts, with an information density higher than an average teenaged kid would be able to comprehend without much mental effort, I'm not going to comply with your request and pretend to be even dumber than I already am, but please don't overestimate me by thinking I have all these principles on my tips and can reproduce them for you. So I may or may not actually remember the principle, as it's very possible that I either don't remember it or don't care enough to explain it again, so dumb for real, but I might be pretending.

How would you be able to distinguish? You won't. You cannot. What could you even do? Play logic and language games? Use psychological and behavioural principles? I'd like to see someone try doing that, and then play the game and beat them at it as you might already know from reading my own posts that my superpower, unlike Aspies gifted in mathematics, is language and psychology- more broadly the brain and cognitive sciences. And I'm obsessed with logic, as you might already have guessed.

But here's an idea to help you beat me, a hint. It's related to my hypothesis that everything is interconnected by a continuous chain of cause-and-effect and that every single object or event in the external objective observable universe is actually connected at some level of abstraction, and going deeper it might boil down to a few axioms that we could figure out using apriori logic just like mathematical theorems, just applied to a Mathematical universe, but for all events and all objects more generally and at a higher-level of abstraction, perhaps like pure mathematics. We might be able to come up with every general concept or process and never need to memorize anything or calculate what can be done by computers, and just deal with abstractions and logical inferences. I discuss this in my post related to my philosophy of education.

Coming to the hint, but some necessary background knowledge first. It logically follows that every single discipline and topic is related. And this is true because it's one of my hobbies to come up with hidden connections with seemingly unrelated topics by finding analogous events that share a logical structure at the right level of abstraction and use such analogical thinking to explain complex subjects using analogies with simpler topics, and also solve hard problems by using tools and solutions from analogically similar events from other disciplines connected with that problem or event only if we could figure out the right level of abstraction.

Also, here's another real-life easier to understand example from the real-world that's not directly related to my obscure unconventional eccentric hobbies: you can try this yourself. Select any object or event from your immediate surroundings or anywhere in the observable universe really, and try to use any conceivable discipline that you know of to analyze it. Actually, to build intuition, just select a topic or subject that's most distantly and seemingly completely unrelated to the event or object you're trying to analyze, and don't just limit it to two, but select several such subjects and events and list them all together, and now I'll tell you how to perform operations on them to build intuition for the general prinicple I just explained.

Select anything, like, I don't know, I'll just type here some random stuff that comes to my mind: psychology, astrobiology, population ethics, bedsheet and mattress, hammer. And now, if you have a big matrioshka brain with superintellgence- biological or artificial- and an IQ of 1000 (I know that's not IQ scores work, it's relative and that number is meaningless without setting the average and the criteria or scale and it's all relative, so relax, I also know how unreliable and inaccurate IQ tests are, but I'm just simplifying it for those who aren't nerds or pedantics obsessed with every single detail or maybe aspiring psychologists or neuroscientists- I'm one of them. If you can't imagine being that unrealistic, think an IQ score of 150 on any one of the standardised and widely accepted IQ tests in modern society.) then you could try coming up with some general principle at the right level of abstraction connecting all of them. But I'm assuming you're not, and in case you're wondering, I'm also not. Probably, or at least that's what I'd like you to believe. In this case, you use ChatGPT.

I know I just said ChatGPT is not that good with ideas, but that's for my original ideas, and this one is one of my original ideas, but here's the thing: ChatGPT can connect specific topics that you instruct it to, and talk clever and insightful sounding bullshit, or even give you some abstract connections, but nothing like what I explained, and trust me because I tried, and I'd be happier than anyone the day it does, because even though it's a rare ability I have, I don't have any ego problems or attach my 'self' to any specific ability or trait too much, and I'm not fine with the unfair distribution of abilities based on random chance and accident of birth anyway, genes and early environment, and so it'd be level playing field for everyone if that happens, and I'm attracted to language and the idea of finding a middle ground between logic and language (making formal logic more accessible to the general public or make natural language more rigorous and less ambiguous for the appropriate situations and context, or maybe something else.) and so I'd like to see AI much more intelligent than me that's much better at this, and all the possibilities and interesting stuff we could do to create a better society with such an AI system.

Anyway, coming back to the topic, which is helping you develop intuition for the general principle that're required for you to understand the hint to a solution that would make you infinitesimally more likely- increase the probability by a tiny negligible amount, in other words- to beat me at my own games, if you still think you can, that is, and if you really do think so, I'd like to have a chat with you. As I said, I have no ego problems, and you have no idea how happy I'd be to meet with similar like-minded people which you are likely to be if you are still reading this, let alone comprehend this, let alone beat me at it. You're probably more intelligent and I'm more stupid than my posts might suggest, but you could have the same mental representation associated with or mapped to different words or terminology, and have similar ideas, and I believe there is something to learn from everyone.

So after developing the intuition, you'll be able to understand this hint: exploration and experimentation and trying novel disciplines to find true inclinations and aptitude, then using the disciplines you have natural ability in to come up with some innovative ingenious solution that you think I won't be able to conceive- preferably something other than my own domains of expertise and proficiency which I listed earlier- to find out how exactly it could be connected with all methods you are proficient in and connect them with the stuff that such logical argumentation takes place in at a similar level of abstraction to defeat me at the games the rules of which I've already established in your own creative ways; in simpler language, try to figure out how your preferred disciplines could be used to critique and outthink my own ideas that I described above, and keep in mind that it's impossible that they cannot, because everything is interconnected by a chain of cause-and-effect.

I won't elaborate, because then it would not be a hint, and I want you to figure it out on your own. There's actually a second easier to understand yet exponentially harder, much more difficult solution that you could consider of your domains of proficiency happen to be the mathematical sciences. Study automated reasoning and argumentation theory to develop several narrow AIs that work in conjunction to accomplish a common goal, or just develop AGI and then ASI and tell it to play this game with me. As unlikely it is that this would happen, I'd love to see someone take this challenge personally and bring about the technological singularity just to beat a 19-year-old confused kid at a silly game LMAO.

(Also just before proceeding, here's another useful general life hack to use when you have an idea and you forget it and feel frustrated cause it could have been the next unicorn or won you the Nobel prize but your working memory was too full with other ideas and you didn't have access to any notepad or piece of paper to write it down and now it's lost forever, to you and to humanity. Scary. Oddly specific? Anyway.

Here's the principle, in very brief: you acknowledge that you are just one possible combination in a sample space of an infinite number of sets containing an infinite number of permutations and combinations of various traits and abilities, of all possible ideas there have been and could be- this holds true even if you don't believe in the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics, though I may be biased because I just happen to have a personal preference for it (because it sounds cool; I don't know enough mathematics yet to have any logical reasons; physicists reading this, help me out?) but I'm still trying my best to be free of all subjective bias and be objective about it- and when you acknowledge this, you realize that nothing matters in the grand scheme of things and that one idea would likely have negligible insignificant infinitesimal influence on your life trajectory and that of others. You are not obligated to do anything, and you do what you feel like because life is short enough already and you can't waste time thinking and going insane spoiling your mental health over something that was a product of determinism and randomness. You don't allow external factors to influence your attitude and mental health, as that would be unhealthy. And that it's the wise thing to quit humanity and join monke. Ignore the previous sentence. A simpler one- just be happy that it ever happened, not sad that it’s ending- that’s an oversimplified version of the idea I just described. Realize that by chance you could

If that was too complex, here's another simpler one, which I have described elsewhere but will just describe in brief here: you extract all the general lessons you can in order to ensure that you don't repeat the same mistakes in the future, then you forgive yourself by keeping in mind that anyone would have done the same thing had they been in your shoes (figuratively, not literally, meaning: in the same position as you are in) and now you reframe the experiences by rationalizing it in a way that makes it more optimistic according to a more positive worldview or outlook because you can't change it and you need to make sure that you don't obsess over it for the rest of your life. Now you find the silver lining and leverage your experience to find how it has something positive hidden in it- there has to be something positive if you think in terms of cause-and-effect and butterfly effects. And you share your experiences with others so they don't repeat the mistakes. In my ideas example, I just had an idea and I forgot it and my brain is built in a way that it is able to recall that I had an idea and I forgot it and it was a good one but not what was the damn idea itself, so I just realized I had other ideas that I wouldn't have had otherwise, and that now I'm able to write about it in my post and help those who are reading this, and if you wish to go more meta: I made the mistake of committing such mistakes and obsessing over my failures and falling for learned helplessness adn self-doubt for a long time, so I just used that to learn and not repeat the mistakes again, using the principle that itself self-referentially said that we should learn from our mistakes, and so we go in loops and it's hard to say at what point it occurred to me to apply this principle to my past failures- okay now I'm probably overthinking and overanalyzing something much simpler and a neurotypical would have the interpretation that's closer to truth.. but there is no 'truth' and what I said also makes sense, just violates Occam's razor but still relevant somewhere I don't know where and I'm not in the mood to expand on this idea right now. Let's move on.)

In case you're wondering, no, I don't care about the Nobel as it's a source of external validation and attributing an external locus of control to your happiness is irrational as such outcomes are dependent on several external factors out of your direct control and you must choose a criteria that under your control. Also, the Nobel as an external validation is a great way to lose passion in your subject, though this is just a hypothesis of mine that I need to test before saying anything for sure, but in brief it's related to 1) how intrinsic motivation is turned to external motivation, and 2) intrinsic wears off with time and you're only left with a sense of meaning or purpose which may explain why people who are likely to win the Nobel also aren't too greatly affected by the prize, at least with regard to their motivation or passion for the subject, but then there was also that study I read about how it's during adolescence that a certain category of humans is more likely to do stuff that wins them the Nobel later in life or gets them killed; and I realized how true that was for some of the greatest mathematicians and scientists in history, and also for many serial-killers and psychopaths, and also how all of them seem to have a childhood eerily similar to my own- more on this topic in my post Confessions. And last but not the least, it's just a superficial social constructs involving value judgments with no objective basis in reality.)

Resorting to violence is a sign of mental weakness in Ravenclaw. It means that you have such a low IQ that- I’ll just add some stuff I sent to another friend who is also a Ravenclaw, and it might seem out of context but you don’t need context so just enjoy the out-of-context messages and try to understand the point that doesn’t require any context: (It just happens that most like-minded people turn out to be in Ravenclaw, just like me and one of the most relatable fictional characters from one of my all-time favourite books who I quote in some of my other blog posts)

Oh comon- that's so stupid- WHAT has happened to you fellow Ravenclaw why are you suggesting stuff that people with low IQ and no planning capability would do? Don't you know there are weapons much much better than violence? DON'T YOU? WAKE UP RAVENCLAW!

Something very similar happened with me once when in very brief three of us early sleeping roommates were daily troubled by this one roomie who always came in with his noisy gang at 1 AM and disturbed our sleep cycle and the other two were too scared to say anything so I had to and it actually worked. Firm and direct yet polite and tactful. Nothing is impossible with those things and some logical and linguistic ability, perhaps some psychology or neuroscience. There's a few more tools much more powerful than violence, Ravenclaw.

You can move masses to do anything with that, which is why with great power comes great responsibility to do whatever the hell you want cause "responsibility" is one of those subjective value judgment with no basis in objective reality and hence could be interpreted to mean literally anything. So there's logic, language skills. Here's some more. Power, rhetoric, applied psychological and behavioural tools.

After this I'd like to not hear you say something dumb that includes violence, and would appreciate some clever ingenious schemes and strategies instead. Oh no no no no Ravenclaw I don't know what's happened to you but I'll try to explain. Pain. Is. Exactly. What. I. Am. Talking. About.

My point is that there are ways to inflict pain much more potent and intense than violence, which is the resort of stupid idiots. And inflicting pain in a way that you don't even face any consequences. That's what I'm saying.

Okay now this is important I know we're joking here but what I said is actually true and i want you to not take it too seriously cause it’s like the dark arts. Literally. In the methods of rationality and with the right training you can do things you probably shouldn't.

But yes please think more deeply next time before saying that violence is the best way to inflict pain. Or I'll recalibrate my current belief system to think that you have been sorted into the wrong house, a house I might have very little respect for. But I know you're smart and intelligent and you are probably just tired or something so no worries.

Now you're more in your senses. Good to get you back, Ravenclaw. I had started thinking one of those other evil ppl, maybe the griffys, with their guns akimbo foolish mindless courage and no tact had got to you. Looks like I was mistaken. Glad to be mistaken.

(Just in case any reader gets the wrong ideas, no I don’t actually believe in using such tools, just being aware so they are not used on my and others, and as I will explain later, I believe in using a tool much even more powerful. It’s composed of sub-tools such as empathy, kindness, compassion and it involves killing a person with love, so they can realize for themselves how they are wrong, or even if they are not wrong, how their reactions or their past actions could have hurt those around them. It takes much more self-control than deception, let alone violence, yet it’s much more effective and fulfilling at the same time. More on this later.)

Now, in case you are wondering why I’m bringing in a children’s fantasy fiction book’s house names into such a serious (Not exactly serious, but also not as unimportant as a fantasy book might seem to some people) discussion, here’s the reason: It’s simply a nice way to explain what I believe in reality. Which means, don’t think that just because I’m using such fictional houses to explain an important concept means that I’m just joking. I’m not, though I might use humour every now and then, the main idea is not a joke, and actually reflects me true opinion and beliefs.

Of course, I don’t believe Hogwarts is real or these houses are meant to be taken seriously, but I do believe in what I’m trying to explain through these analogies, and I hope the message is conveyed as clearly as possible in a manner that is easy to comprehend for all readers with no prior knowledge of personal experiences and information that I have.

So, now, I’d also like to make it clear that I believe that emotional manipulation and psychological damage is just as foolish and immoral as violence and more unsophisticated abuses, because both involve unnecessary excessive preventable suffering for sentient beings, which my core values and morals don’t permit me to believe in as it’s inconsistent with my other beliefs and inclinations, and if you have read my other posts, you’d also know that I don’t care about cognitive dissonance and I can rationalize absolutely anything- ethical or not- with my logical and linguistic ability.

But I don’t, because even though it may be in my best self-=interests to simply not care about beings suffering, I believe it’s my responsibility to help those who are less fortunate than me and at a relative disadvantage due to accident of birth or random chance, suffering due to external factors out of their direct control. I talk about this elsewhere.

And moreover, the psychological manipulation thing is what psychopaths and Slytherins do. What I actually believe in, and what I’m just going to describe now, is more like a combination of Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw. Perhaps Ravenpuff or Huffleclaw. I don’t know anyone else- not even just talking about fiction- in the real world who has similar beliefs.

I’m not saying I’m the only one, only that it’s rare because I’ve never come across anyone who shares my opinion, though I can imagine some other people with some combination of high levels of cognitive empathy, strong sense of morality and moral responsibility, belief in rationality, motivation to create a better society or maybe even autism having similar beliefs.

I think that no person is evil. ‘Evil’ is a psychosocial or social construct with no basis in objective reality and the external observable universe, and we’ve been conditioned by society to believe that it is by those in positions of power today and in the past, and people don’t question or think and simply accept it like mindless automatons being pushed around by people who do. I talk about this in my other posts.

Coming back to the topic, I believe that only actions are evil, and all people can be ‘fixed’ and made to conform in extreme cases where their inclinations and desires includes causing harm to other sentient beings. I’m generally against making people conform to the norm or prevalent code of ethics in modern society, but this is the only exception I have made to account for all the suffering and harm that such people cause, be it serial killers, sexual predators, terrorists or psychopaths with malicious intent.

I know that many people, including researchers, believe that this is simply impossible and certain people are born with genes and have early experiences in environments with abusive parents and a traumatic childhood that makes them unfixable and that rehabilitation is impossible, and also that prevention involves either early detection and imprisonment, or torture and death, something I think is just more useless unnecessary preventable excessive suffering dealt for no good reason because it never works in preventing such incidents from happening again.

I will stay on topic and talk about friends and friendship here, but I’ll just say for now that I have some interesting research project ideas that I can’t wait to start working on once I get the support, facilities and mentorship. And I am confident that I can solve such problems; I’ve already promised a friend who has had a traumatic childhood, a victim of sexual abuse, that I’ll develop such solutions in the next few years soon if they’re not already developed, and assured them that I have a few great ideas and interventions in mind using methods, tools and techniques from various disciplines to achieve that.

So, I believe that all ‘evil’ people can be fixed, all victims helped and made as healthy and happy as the average person, and also help the criminals in the same way (see my post Schopenhauer).

Coming back to psychological manipulation for a second, I’d like to say that I’ve read a lot about psychopaths- even talked to one once as I describe elsewhere and why it’s a big deal- and won’t be able to live in peace if I fall for something like this, though self-compassion is another weak point that I’m trying to improve; applying the same empathy and moral standards and compassion and love that I apply to other beings. But if anyone thinks that I’m acting overconfident and wants to test my abilities and play this game with me, you’re most welcome and I’d be more than happy to come across a worthy opponent!

I’d also like to confess and assure you just in case you have high expectations and aren’t too disappointed: I’m actually very stupid and dumb compared to the impression that my blog posts might give off; if you are not someone who knows me personally and judging my abilities and traits solely on the basis of my posts without talking to me, then your perception and mental image of me is probably going to be wildly inaccurate and unrealistic, in my opinion, because I am only at most above-average in these few topics that are related to my research interests, but other than that I’m really stupid and lack common sense, so I apologize in advance if it sounds like I’m a worthy opponent but it turns out that in fact you are able to deceive me too easily.

Also, if you are thinking that I’m just bluffing and saying all that to catch you off guard or trying to appear dumb so you underestimate my abilities and make mistakes that give you away, then let me assure you that- even though I know that the readers of this blog are probably more intelligent and rational or wise than that- I’m not, and even if I were, I’d not talk so openly about it, because even though I admit I’m stupid, at least I’m not that stupid.

Nonetheless, it’s hard enough to find people who are similar and like-minded, so I’d be happy to meet people who are not just that but care enough to play such games, and even if I am deceived- which let me assure you once again is probably not as hard as you think; the bar is set pretty low, in my opinion, relative to an arbitrary measure I just made out of thin air, in case you’re wondering, good catch.

Even if I fail and lose the game, I’ll only learn something, and I’m sure that at least I won’t fall for rookie mistakes, so anything I learn would either be something new or something that I’d learned before but failed to internalize and apply in a situation that required me to use my previously acquired knowledge when stakes are high.

In any case, it’d be an interesting new personal experience, one from which I’ll surely be able to extract some valuable life lessons.. and practical training in social psychology, cognitive science and game theory, because till now I’ve been too deep into theory but not enough in the practical aspects, and even in theory I’ve not going above and beyond the very basic foundational concepts explained in any introductory pop-sci book or textbook. So I’ll get some hands-on experience in how it works in real life, so I’m able to better inform my theory when I dive deeper into such topics.

I’m not even talking about love, just friendship, for love you can check out my post falling in love rationally.

So now I’m expressive, might come off a mentally unhinged, independent in thought and free of all judgment, even conquered the fear of offending the universities I’ll be applying to by criticizing the world’s most selective university just before it released the decisions (see post with same title) and not being afraid to go contrary to the society’s expectations and norms when I decide it’s logical and rational for me to do so. I’m getting closer to my idea of my best self and my interpretation of the Übermensch with his own values and morals, and good for humanity that my morals include helping people who suffer, as it could have gone very wrong and I’m judging based on empirical evidence and scientific paper to form this judgment when I say there is a very realistic probability for this to be true (see post Confessions).

I still have a long way to go to get free of all external influence at least the social conditioning part in which I’m not prone to act irrationally by being aware of all the ways in which superficial social constructs might influence my behaviour and decisions in any significant way. I still need to care less about some things, and be more self-dependent and not worry too much about coming off as offensive while putting forward my honest opinion tactfully and politely; currently I’m too agreeable for my own good.

I also think that being in any sort of social contract is too emotionally draining and mentally exhausting, requires a lot of commitment. Not just love and friends, I’m soon going to question and scrutinize the social institution that no one even thinks about yet is a very central part of our life and causes great suffering when it goes wrong and doesn’t fulfil what this institution was established for. Also doesn’t help that this institution is much harder to fix because it’s entirely dependent on accident of birth, random chance or blind luck, yet I’ll stay true to Rawl’s Veil of Ignorance and my commitment to eradicate suffering and enable everyone to live fulfilling lives without being influence by external factors out of their direct control, at least the non-biological social aspects and factors. Let’s see if you guessed anything and if your guess is right. It’s Family.

I believe that you should not be required, obligated, held morally responsible- however you wish to put it- to stay with some people who you just happen to be born to but who might not be the best environment for you. Keep in mind I’m not projecting my personal subjective preferences and emotions here, as I’m fortunate and lucky enough to have got some really nice parents, but that doesn’t free me from the responsibility of helping those who have been less fortunate than me, have got abusive closed-minded parents who get to control their lives, in some cases even harm and assault then and the messed up social systems are set in a way that no one would intervene because “it’s their family matter not our job” even if it’s clear as day that the parents are literally making the kid’s life worse than hell, that’s the sort of outdated backward thinking mindset and social constructs that I was talking about, that were set to allow people to make their lives easier and act ethically in a way that is “right” and “correct” and “good” and then they do stuff like this and that’s more evidence for me to be misanthropic and quit all my projects and just live my life peacefully with my own logic and rationality with no concern for this lost cause- that’s of course not what I’ll do, at least not yet, even though I have a very nice plan to do so and it’s within my best self-interests to do so, and I’m perfectly capable of doing so while knowing sentient beings are suffering even though I’ve elsewhere said that this makes me angry and sad, and it does, I’ve now with enough practice learned to override and control the emotional parts of my brain that were earlier governed by morals and values; which put in other words means that I can now override anything that involves values and morals with my logic and linguistic ability, which once again allow me to assure you is good enough that I can rationalize absolutely anything that’s in my best self-interests and that I intuitively desire or prefer by coming up with perfectly sound logical arguments when combined with my ability in logic and language skills.

I’m telling you all this so you know that I don’t really need to go public with my opinions and try to understand other people’s worldview, I don’t even need to plan my career as I’ve been doing for so long in a way that maximizes the probability of my helping those less fortunate than me, helping those who suffer, I absolutely don’t, but I want to and now that you know that I am emotionally detached from the outcome and completely indifferent to whatever happens, you can be damn sure that I’m going to try my best- logically , rationally and free of all distracting emotions- to help those who suffer, and I think it would be easier if like-minded people were to join me on this journey which is what one of my current short-term goals is. (see my post Confessions)

I also have some great ideas in mind about how I could reform this social institution in a way that might face some opposition and resistance at first, of course, because all novel radical ideas do, but with time people might see how rational and logical and a huge improvement over the existing models it is and help create a better society. And of course I’m not going to force everyone to conform with my beliefs, that’s stupid and foolish, I’m not even going to try to change their mind, that’s also irrational and I’m not sure why some highly intelligent people and politicians adopt such methods. What I’m going to do is question your beliefs and have an open discussion, a productive debate, express my beliefs and opinions clearly, evaluate all points for and against and not just talk about what I believe but also what I think others believe and how I think that’s wrong, and I need an equally open-minded person willing to it not politely then at least calmly and in a civilized manner. (I used to think this needs not be stated but I’ve come across some really intelligent people who get all emotionally motivated and abusing and using fallacies and so I’ve realized I need to make sure some minimum criteria of core values is being met, at the very least valuing logic over emotions and willing to express their thoughts and reasoning behind them clearly and articulate them in a way that’s not obvious to those who already know it, just like I’m trying to do).

I always try my best to be understanding, polite, have empathy for the other person and respect their opinions even if they start abusing me and attacking me personally on sensitive topics rather than my ideas, (see post Heated Debates) like making fun of my loneliness or autism, which I can assure you is very hard to do because I myself crack self-deprecating jokes all the time, but my weakness is that I also tend to either keep silent or overshare and I might share some personal experiences that led to great suffering and mental agony in the past, and I wish to make sure I’m now more selective so people don’t attack me for those experiences and just for my ideas. (See post Algernon)

And while taking all such decisions and expressing all opinions I’m perfectly aware that society is interdependent on each other, science is a joint collaborative effort, in what ways we need to depend on each other to some extent and how hard life would be without each other, not even taking into account social needs and desires such as belonging or need for external validation, but even everyday tools and ideas that we buy and borrow and rely on each other in order to do what we like (there is some interesting stuff I might have posted in another post, something about how society is interdependent on each other in a discord community in a discussion with a mathematician, and a quote where the ancestors slave away so their kids can study art and mathematics and philosophy, but I won’t get into it here due to reasons I mention in the beginning of the meta-post, but if anyone is interested feel free to reach out) and so any decision I take would be a well-informed calculated risk rather than being ignorant and as always I’d be open to changing my mind and not imposing or endorsing my beliefs if I know they’re mistaken if someone is kind enough to point out the flaws or inconsistencies in it.

So, anyway, I am just being myself, and until recently I used to think that ‘self’ being an illusion (which I still believe it is, se e my post Unconditional Love is a Myth) it’s hard to be yourself free of all external influences, but now I’ve realized how it actually is possible to be free of- if not all, then at least social influence which makes it harder for us to live fulfilling lives according to our inclinations by imposing unreasonable social constructs and forcing most people to conform to what the majority feels comfortable doing, even though it might not harm anyone and it’s simply a matter of live and let live. (see post Schopenhauer and Thus Spoke Zarathustra) and now I’m trying to make everyone see, make them realized what I already have, not because I’m any more or less self-aware or anything, I’m absolutely not, I’m no more correct than anyone else who might think differently.

What I am, is autistic and a few other things I describe in my post about Asperger’s such that I’ve realized my brain processes information differently and I have worldviews that allows me to question and see flaws in systems that other’s apparently don’t, so I’m just trying to express in words what I think and what goes through my mind, which for your information is not as easy as I thought when I try to keep in mind that other people don’t have my experiences and prior knowledge to make sense out of what I write, so I’m trying to not just be as clear and articulate as my current language skills permit (I’m also working on constantly improving my language skills so I hope I soon get better at it) but I’m also open to any questions and I welcome people who think differently or wish to seek clarification on any of the ideas I mention in my post. I promise to explain without getting frustrated and I’d be more than happy to have a little chat! Absolutely not because I talk to very few people and experience a sense of loneliness quite frequently, absolutely not because of that.

Coming back to the friends, I have been saying in my other posts how I’ve never met anyone in real life who shares my level of motivation and core values, and the ability to hold a decent conversation. Now I have found a few, but let me assure you the number is near the left extreme of the lower half of the single digits on the number line. Just in case anyone is wondering, I’m being so abstract and vague in this post specifically deliberately without explaining what it means with concrete examples because this concerns people who may be- infinitesimal chance but possible that the people I mention in this post know me and read this, and I absolutely don’t want to take the risk of them recognizing themselves for obvious reasons.

So even though in my other posts I explain very clearly in as much detail as possible with real-life examples and analogies, here I won’t, for reasons I just mentioned. And because I think that the readers understanding what I’m writing in this post is not worth the cost of the worst-case scenario where I compromise on my personal peace of mind. This is also one of the times when I’m grateful for my ability to turn anything specific into something very general and abstract because I can’t talk about this to anyone and my only emotional vent or creative outlet is this, my notepads and my blog, and I would have to suppress my emotions and true feelings and as you might already know that’s very unhealthy and it would have adverse effects on my mental health, I could go instance, though I doubt I could go any more insane than I currently am but anyway.

As I said, writing is therapeutic and if not writing I would have held them in my mind till the exploded and manifested themselves through my behaviour in ways that could have caused harm to me and concern ed my parents and those around me so I’m glad to have this ability to consider a specific case and not just turn it into a logical abstraction and express it in natural language but also find similar instances belong to the same set or categories at the same level of abstraction and detect analogous situations to be able to apply abstract general principles to novel cases and form novel connections through this interesting insight generation process between seemingly unrelated topics. Anyway, coming back to the topic.

I did find some the quantity of which is in the range I described earlier. But even though I am grateful it’s like I it gets harder to make friends as you grow older. And no one has the time or don’t fulfil the social needs or desire you have, that may be some specific quality or trait you’d be looking for in a person, and as you might be able to guess it’s exceedingly unlikely and highly improbable that you’d find one person who is the ideal best friend (perhaps I am such a person which is why I’m talking to myself so much replying to my own replies to my thoughts and going off on tangent in my own blog post as if there are several people inside my head talking to each other bounding off ideas and I’m just typing their meeting conversation here; it actually feels like that because when I start writing anything that my comes to my brain my brain just starts giving me new ideas forming new connections somehow and I write everything stream of thoughts type as if I’m having real time conversation with you the reader assuming you’re interested which you should be if you’re still reading and if not please save your time but my point is I have not planned in this advance and I edit less than it may seem it’s all real time and this is also how I talk in real life and on calls though then I have to be more mindful of the persons time and interest attention , here on my blog I don’t cause anyone can stop reading at any time.); it’d have to be someone very similar to you and it gets harder when like me you have some very uncommon unconventional hobbies interests core values and a unique way of thinking about the world worldviews, but now I’m thinking maybe I could try writing about sharing it with others who might wish to expand their worldview expose themselves to new perspective and ways of thinking, and also in the process make it more likely to connect with similar like-minded people.

Four people who I know are similar to me in several ways are in a relationship, first time for two of them, and of course I’m happy for them because I have their best interests in mind but I’m confused because now I can’t exactly say that it’s just my being unique due to which I have never been in a relationship for 19 years of my life. Not that I care, and I’m not even saying this to cover for the fact, as you’d know if you read my other posts. I have some pretty good logical reasons (though it could be rationalization again) such as how it’s a distraction from my main goals, opportunity costs seem to high, and I’m being selfish by not helping those less fortunate than me who might be unable to live without suffering, let alone experience love, people who need love the most yet don’t get it.. (three of them just broke up within the span of a week and told me about it and all of them used to ask me for advice but I swear I was only being perfectly logical and rational and never hinted at anything like breaking-up so I’m surprised how three of them just broke up at the same time, all of them my friends, considering I have friends in single digits..)

This is also sort of a small update to the post Unconditional love is a myth (refer there to here) but you can have both unconditional love and also let the person know what qualities you admire in them. So I could tell my friends that I like their honesty, intellect, compassion, way of speaking, appearance, whatever, but also say that it won’t matter if they lose it because my friends are friends for a lifetime. Another thing is honest specific feedback. I talk a lot about honest feedback in this post, but being specific is very important, almost as important as being honest and direct, because if you just tell someone “you’re rude, you never listen to what I have to say” and in general are being vague and ambiguous, the person would never even get a chance to know what they’re doing wrong, but if you say that this incident on this day or that event upset me and ask them to justify it, have some empathy, try to understand, and despite repeated warnings and specific feedback they refuse to improve, well then you again have two options. You either accept them for who they are and compromise, but if it’s making you feel too uncomfortable and you feel like I cannot be around or associate myself with such a person and they’re harming my mental health, then you tell them that it’s not working out and maintain a safe distance. Depending on the specific circumstance.

You tell them exactly what actions bothered you, you feel like you like them for who they are but this thing makes them uncomfortable and how it’s bad for them and people around them, so why and how they can fix it; rest depends on them, of course. I’d be happy to help anyone who is in a situation like this, though remember I’ve never been in a relationship myself, find it hard to make friends myself, and for some reason, three of my friends who were in a relationship and asked me for advice suddenly break up all within the span of a week, and I’m still unable to comprehend why that happened, though I’m sure that I had no role to play in it, as you can see, I always just prioritize my friend’s interests so they can get a more objective unbiased logical perspective on things, plus two of them had seen it coming anyway and kept telling me it’s going to happen someday. One didn’t. And if I had even a little suspicion that I had anything to do with it, I would not have been writing about it here. Or maybe I predicted that an intelligent person would know that I could be doing this to make myself less likely to be seen as suspicious?

But then why would I point this out? Maybe for the same reason? But then- okay, seriously now, let’s hope my friends get into a relationship again. Me never, because I’ve lost interest and I won’t be able to devote time to a relationship as my research and projects are much more important to me. I can’t even spend time with family as much as I want and I’m scolded for it very frequently, as they don’t understand why I’m working all day on my projects. So such a relationship would be doomed to failure from the start, unless the person is willing to accept me as I am and understand that my projects are more important to me, or even better, themselves have similar levels of motivation and are like-minded in general, and so themselves don’t have as much time to give to the relationship so we can just help each other be out best selves, though I’m not sure if there exists another robot on this universe as insane as I am, but it’s possible.

Here’s one interesting personality who, unlike others I mention in this post, I’m not concerned with recognizing themselves, though I’m still going to try to be vague and exclude identifying details and only stick to the relevant details. It might seem irrelevant or boring at first but I’m going to build up to the interesting part, which was really unexpected to me the first time I knew.

I have already told you it’s unexpected, but I still don’t think you could anticipate or predict what’s going to come after what I tell you, though you might, but guessing the exact opposite, but you’d probably not really expect it to happen in real life.

So this person happens to be shy, reserved and extremely introverted; not expressive and also hesitant in taking a stand and expressing their opinion even when it’s causing them discomfort because they are too agreeable and don’t know how to confront others while at the same time not coming off as rude or offending their feelings, even if they themselves are being hurt by the actions of others. In fact, I had to explain why they should be confident and learn to express their opinion, because they would then not be able to speak up when the stakes are higher and it concerns their well-being.

I explained how if they don’t start now, they’d have to overcome a lot of discomfort and also think it’s consistent with their behaviour when the stakes weren’t too high, which is why they must learn to take a stand and express their views firmly yet politely and tactfully. I also explained how meeting new people is actually great once you get the hang of it and start getting more comfortable, but they liked just keeping to themselves and not too interested in meeting new people, which is of course perfectly understandable to me, of all people.

Are we supposed to accept our personality as it is and make all our decisions around it, OR

should we push yourself to mould it according to the expectations of your society or peers, like trying to be more outgoing and extroverted to meet new people and form new friendships? Perhaps trying to change our natural disposition could lead to dissatisfaction. Or maybe we can change with a little effort and meet awesome people we would never have met otherwise..

Drawing upon my feelings and past experiences, If I could have it my way, I'd ideally prefer to be completely self-sufficient, at peace with myself, incapable of feeling loneliness, give up on society and go live somewhere in a cabin in the woods somewhere far away from civilization, like the Maine hermit. Also, aromantic asexual psychopath capable of loving himself and never feeling lonely.

But our intuitions can be misguided; it's unclear when they should be relied on.

I'm not even sure if it's wise for a human to depend on another human for their emotional needs. The idea of having a best friend.

but there are very few people who would be able to be completely self-sufficient and be satisfied with zero social life. After all, humans are social animals.

But I still admire people like the Maine Hermit. Related book rec- The Stranger in the Woods by Michael Finkel.

If I could have it my way I'd prefer to be completely self-sufficient, at peace with myself, maybe even self-compassion, incapable of feeling loneliness, give up on society and go live somewhere in a cabin in the woods somewhere far away from civilization, like the Maine hermit. That's the problem. And you can't please everyone at the same time. And you can't give everyone the power to affect you emotionally.

Of course not everyone should be given the power to affect you emotionally, but humans are biased.

Like, we are better at finding flaws in others than in ourselves, we attribute external circumstances to mistakes our mistakes while thinking of other's mistakes as inherent character flaws. That's why it's so important to choose the right company. But finding the right people is so damn hard.

Me too. Until it starts feeling lonely. And that's when I wish I had the option to turn off some switch and not feel lonely and love myself and reject humanity and return to monke ANARCHO PRIMITIVISM FTW HUMANS SUCK. I wanna be a robot. (half-joke)

Now, I personally never would be dishonest or insincere to my friends. As you’ll learn later, it goes against my core values to be dishonest and insincere because I am always direct, logical and honest with my friends because I don’t tell them what I expect would make them happy short-term, but I tell them what they need in order to improve themselves and what I think they’re doing wrong, because you won’t get that from strangers and even most people who you may call friends, who care too much about your feelings and are afraid they might offend you or harm the friendship; I make it clear from the start that nothing they say to me or I say to them is going to harm the friendship, and that if either one of us is offended, we’ll be honest and state it explicitly and clearly why and apologize, but always keep in mind that we have the best interests of each other and only wish to see our friend learn and grow and achieve their goals, be their best self and prioritize their happiness over our own selfish desires.

I now I have realized it's not about same interests, it's about if they share some core values that you live by, such as if they are willing to listen and understand, if they are open-minded and able to have a decent conversation with you, if they're at least a little logical and have enough ability to understand what you are saying and also express their thoughts clearly, then I'd say I don't care what their interests and beliefs are, I think that they'd be likely to be a good friend of mine if they satisfy the minimum criteria and have the few qualities that are absolutely essential and without which we would never be on the same page or feel comfortable or enjoy conversing with each other.

"who's as passionate as you in the same topic and would actually understand what you mean" I was exactly like that till very recently, but now I have realized it's not about same interests, it's about if they share some core values that you live by, such as if they are willing to listen and understand, if they are open-minded and able to have a decent conversation with you, if they're at least a little logical and have enough ability to understand what you are saying and also express their thoughts clearly, then I'd say I don't care what their interests and beliefs are, I think that they'd be likely to be a good friend of mine if they satisfy the minimum criteria and have the few qualities that are absolutely essential and without which we would never be on the same page or feel comfortable or enjoy conversing with each other.

Also realized how hard it is to have an open-minded convo with people who don’t share your same values – I'm not even talking about beliefs, I don’t care if some person believes all autistic people should be tortured and then killed, I wont get angry and would try my best to listen and understand their perspective and why they believe what they believe, and if nothing else, just agree to disagree. But if the person get emotionally heater and all hot headed and not even willing to explain his reasons logically and calmly in a civilized manner, then I find it too mentally exhausting and emotionally draining to engage in a debate with such a person, even taking into account the opportunity cost of any insightful ideas they might have to share, because the discomfort is just not worth it, and I’ve learned this the hard way; knowing when, how, what and with whom to talk, cause not everyone’s core values include logic, empathy, open-mindedness, love, compassion and rationality. (Using an extreme example to demonstrate that everything that is less extreme is even more acceptable, which is almost everything else unless you could dream up an even more extreme example that I should personally care about- cause I could also say queers and I have many queer friends and still face backlash by stupid people who misunderstand and misinterpret it to believe that I’m saying I’m homophobic. No one can do that with autism cause it’s me and if anyone has any doubt that I have suffered at all and its due to not suffering much that I’m able to talk like this, read my post flowers for Algernon, and I challenge you to read it all and text me directly after that telling me that I have never experienced true suffering.)

One other instance where my spidey sense went wrong, but in a completely unexpected manner, which would have taken much more experience and learning, practice, training and understanding of the underlying processes and meta-cognitive strategies and heuristics involved, to avoid. So you won't be wrong if you said it was unavoidable. It happened with this person who seemed to be highly intelligent and capable of thinking deeply and also communicating their ideas clearly to be able to hold a decent conversation that I find mentally stimulating, and accomplishment very few people out of everyone I've met in my short life are capable of.

People usually don't have the ability, those who have the ability don't have the interest, and those who have the ability and interest might decide I'm stupid or something and ignore me, or even more dangerously, as with the first time I went wrong with my intuition about such people, they might not share my core values in a way that is not apparent until I've shared much about myself- which I don't do unless I think the person is the right one- and if it turns out that the person doesn't share even one of my core values- not talking about beliefs- such as open-mindedness, logic, curiosity, motivation, and empathy, to list a few- or even more dangerously, if the person does seem to have those values or says that they do but then act irrationally in a way that goes against the values, or what I thought they meant by the values, as we must keep in mind the fact that the mental representations mapped to those symbols we call words and erroneously attribute meaning to don't actually mean anything, it's all in our mind, and we need to explicitly state every assumption and make clear everything we mean in as much detail as possible, which requires at least some level of language skills or proficiency with dealing with natural language, a bare minimum level of linguistic ability, which is why I'm also training myself by expanding my vocabulary and learning more about topics such as applied linguistics, literary devices, rhetoric, psycholinguistics, fallacies, logical reasoning, among several other topics. I don't know but this seems to be true from what I've observed.

My intuitive sense that allows me to know if a person has similar core values has misled me twice, though I should also mention it has helped me many more times and in comparison the failure rate is insignificant, negligible, infinitesimal, yet the failures are important in order to learn and improve, the anomalies even if not resolved must be kept in mind and studied in order to figure out why they don’t fit the general principle, why they are an exception to the rule, and how the rule could be modified to minimize the likelihood or probability of coming across such false positives (and maybe false negatives that I’m overlooking but have similar values) in the future when mistakes could be more costly and making friends becomes even harder than it already is, considering my age, already a little above mid-life, reflecting back on one half of my life, looking forward to the second half. Yes, I know, I might be underestimating but I’m just being optimistic okay, I know I’m older than that but still. 19 is no joke, I’ll be- oh no, I don’t even want to think about it.

So old and never accomplished anything significant, I might die mediocre, nothing against mediocrity, I respect those who are fine with it, but I personally can’t.. unacceptable.. I will try my best as long as I’m alive and try not to compare myself with those child prodigies who build nuclear reactors in their parent’s garage and cure cancer and solve the Millennium problems and win the Nobel and complete their PhD from Harvard or MIT before they’re 10. Yes that’s an exaggeration but not too far from reality if you know the sort of people I’m talking about, I could even name names, and send news articles if you’re interests.

I'll be intentionally vague and abstract in order to not arouse any suspicions or drop any significant hints, because this person might be one of the few people who actually read my blog posts, though I'm not sure, but I don't wish to take any chance and a quick cost-benefit analysis shows that it's a risk I don't want to take-

Something that I'm now able to do much more quickly, automatically as I've internalized it such that it's done by my subconscious so I don't have to allocate much cognitive resources or working memory is free to focus on other tasks, something I aspire to achieve with other similar abilities and thinking tools that I still have to deliberately apply to each specific instance and that are slightly more complex and hence might take me longer to learn, but I'm not sure as I currently don't know about cognitive science and psychology to say anything for sure, but I do have some research project ideas in mind to speed up the learning process, through better learning techniques and general principles, neurofeedback training to enhance skills transferable to novel situations by training the traits that would make it easier to internalize the principles, and direct manipulation involving various interventions, but let's come back to the main topic for now.

So, this person, who seemed to be very clearly have the ability and interested, at least initially, soon seemed to lose interest, and at one point- won't say ghosted, because some formal commitments require us to occasionally interact a little every now and then which means that we they can't completely ignore me- they stopped responding to my texts altogether; texts which they were replying to with some really insightful ideas and a conversation that I greatly enjoyed not just because I was socially isolated and extremely lonely- have been for over three years now with a two-month gap when I had to live in a hostel, ongoing streak of three consecutive months now with total physical social isolation.

Loneliness was definitely a big factor, and there were times when I feel too depressed to function normally and that made my very prone to not just having but also acting upon irrational pessimistic thoughts and impulses, with regular mood swings and unpredictable behaviour, zero productivity and all days spent sleeping- in contrast now I don't even notice when I'm sleepy even though the loneliness problem still hasn't been resolved, I have found some very effective coping mechanisms and distractions that allow me to not think about it and escape from reality.

Writing has been really therapeutic and when no one is willing to listen and even try to understand, even my parents who are my only source of real-life social interaction, then I turn to my notepads and blogs, which is why I wrote almost 50 blog posts within the span of just two months, and that too lengthy dense posts that very few people read but that makes me feel more content and fulfilled just by thinking of the prospect that people in the future might read it. But let's not get into the darker stuff here, there's my post Flowers for Algernon for this; let's return to the main topic that I'm perfectly aware I've got distracted thrice now, no guarantees I won't do it again but I'll try my best with my sleepy brain (It's 1:30 AM at the time I'm writing this).

As I was saying, loneliness wasn't the only reason I greatly enjoyed interacting with this person, though a large one, but an even larger one- and the primary reason- was intellectual needs, a subcategory of my social needs, a need I didn't even know I had but that once I experienced and was taken away from me I felt immensely unfulfilled without, which is why I started bouncing off ideas on my own in my blog and talking to myself and my notepads.

I actually have some more interesting points that made me even more frustrated by their behaviour, such as when I realized that they're talkative and social with other people but not me, and which made me confident that I'm the problem. Now, I know I'm not the 'problem' and it's just a matter of preferences. And I don't even care nearly as much as I used to before. I'm actually very resilient now and don't care in the slightest what others think of me, but this person was someone who really felt like someone I could have some great conversations with, and as much as I hate this flaw in my human brain- including the flaws that make me have social needs and desires that would make it harder for me to live as a hermit in the middle of nowhere completely isolated from society- and irrational brain that craves for social connection, the rarest sort of which was being fulfilled here: intellectual needs.

So even though I know that I should not care, I do care, and it's selfish just like almost everything else, but I know better than to be selfish, because I like to think I am rational enough to respect the other person's preferences and have empathy by having the person's best interests in mind, such that if I really care about them, I would want them to be happy and fulfilled rather than something I want that could make them unhappy; and likewise accept them for who they are, just if they satisfy a minimum criteria of having some core values because as much as I believe in having compassion for and understanding all beings, I do not have the cognitive resources and emotional energy to have a long-term decent conversation with someone who, say, believes in astrology, conspiracy theories, pseudoscience, consumes movies and comics in large amounts, has no intellectual interests or hobbies and plays video games all day, doesn't believe in the scientific method and is closed-minded, and relies on emotions and intuition over logic.

I just can't. I might be able to- with considerable effort- understand their worldview by making full use of my ability to have empathy, but I would prefer to not talk more than absolutely necessary, the bare minimum required to get by and not offend that person or hurt their feelings, which is why I'd make it clear in a polite manner that it'd be in out best interests to not interact.

So, when I realized that this person isn't just ignoring me, but is also interested in certain other people, I couldn't help feeling jealous and badly wanted to have a friend circle like them. This person seemed to have a group of similar friends to satisfy their intellectual needs, which is great, I would never want anyone to experience what I did, but just saying- if they were as lonely as me, they'd realize how great it feels to talk to a like-minded people, and how much it hurts when they leave because they have a choice and you don't.

Well, that's life. Some have the choice and some don't. Some are by accident of birth, random chance, which determines their environment and genes, get to find themselves with traits, abilities and connections that makes it easier for them to be happy while others are not, and I'm just complaining here while I'm perfectly aware- can never forget it not just because it's an effective distraction from reality but also a way to make reality a better place for people who are less fortunate than me and suffer greatly due to being unfortunate enough to be born in the wrong place at the wrong time with the wrong genes.

(edit: No, I am born in exactly the right place at the right time with the right genes, even if it’s reframing, I’m just going to make the most out of it now- this edit comes three days after I’d written this post)

It's all relative, and while someone must not downplay their own suffering because someone else is more unfortunate than them (that's illogical because there is always going to be someone less fortunate than you, except one person, assuming there is an absolute measure, which probably isn't the case) they should also acknowledge their gifts- everything they might overlook and take for granted- and learn to express gratitude by looking at those who lack things they have and maybe volunteering if not being able to help in any other way.

Social constructs can be irrational, but if you are inclined to enjoy prestige and power, then it is fine to pursue them. Even if you are forced to do so by external forces, it is important to be aware of their influence and try your best. If you fail, you can find the silver lining in the situation and learn a general lesson from it. Share the experience with others so that they can avoid it in the future.

If you have social needs and desires, you are likely to be inclined to be around certain people, care about what they think, and seek external validation from them. This may be due to biological, social, or other factors, such as social constructs, prestige, fame, or power. In this case, it is fine to love according to your inclinations and not be contrarian for the sake of being contrarian. Do what you enjoy. Personally, I control the factors and go with the flow until I can control the flow. I am always aware of the situation.

If you are not interested in psychology or neurology and are not bothered by such factors, you can explore, experiment, discover your true inclinations, and live according to the values that fulfill you. For example, today I was forced to go to a temple. I convinced myself to go at a time when there would be fewer people, but it was difficult to explain my worldview to others. I do not care about imaginary people who are selfish and cause suffering and need people to worship them. I tried to explain this, but these people did not seem to like logic. I said I would go where I wanted to go, but in the end, all my family members forced me to go. So, I decided to waste some time and view it as an outing to a new place. I could not use my phone, but I had a notepad to note any ideas and cotton headphones. I always keep my earphones with me and use them as earplugs.

To my friends: I met three people who are very similar to me. I am demisexual and sapiosexual, which is not a sexuality, but I do not have a better word for being attracted to intelligence. People tell me that I am intelligent, but I dislike myself. I love to learn more about complex subjective bias. I am getting an IQ test now. Is funny because of this thing- a question I came up with.. let's just read something from my notepads:

I could be biased against my own abilities, especially as I know about the Dunning-Kruger effect- I have a question about that too- because I have never come across any studies about how the knowledge of Dunning-Kruger effect affects the self-perception people regarding their abilities- like if a person with below-average intelligence reads about the study, but then as they are more likely to think they’re above average, they would read how above-average people are more likely to underestimate their abilities, so it would create a funny situation where the below-average person correctly believes that they are below average but in truth secretly believes that they are above-average.

I know that it's just genes and environment and determinism and randomness and there is no agency as in you didn't choose to be gifted- same way those with deficits and disorders didn't choose it. But still I'm probably human and so I can't help feeling a sense of admiration and reverence for these traits- as intelligence and creativity are two higher-order executive functions that fascinate me the most, not just on the biological level but also how it manifests in individuals in real life; I look up to such individuals- I have never really shared this with anyone but that's because I could never really relate and felt they won't understand, but I think you are more likely to and the potential benefits are worth the risk of the worst case scenario, which really doesn't sound that bad to me, so seems to me the logical thing to do. But it would be a comical situation if turns out that- and it does seem that it's true judging by the current evidence- that I am one of them, because them I would have to reconcile my belief in intellectual humility with where the scientific evidence lies, and I might be able to come up with some clever rationalization- my brain is good at it, so I have some checks and balances in place that actually work.. But then I would either have to- give up my admiration and respect for highly talented and gifted individuals, as I'd be one of them and it does not make sense- at least in my opinion- to admire and respect yourself in the way I respect and admire and look up to such people. OR start admiring myself but that's equally unbearable as I won't be able to live with being a narcissist, which I would technically be if I were to hold my belief the superiority and admiration of such gifted people and myself turn out to be one- that's just as bad- that's a paradox, and I don't want to think about it right now. So yeah let's hope for the best- that I don't turn out to be gifted to avoid all of it.. no, wait, that doesn't sound right, because logically speaking if I admire such people, which I do, I should aspire to emulate them and be happy to be one of them.. dam- it pardon my French but this is so hilarious and absurd, I'd understand if you sim or skip, I'm just enjoying talking to myself, or rather my mental image of your personality, here.. please don't feel obligate to read it all if you feel like it. Oh yes here's a solution- I could just shift up my expectations and levels- you know, modifying my admiration.

Oh and this turns out to fit one of my general principles and common thinking pitfalls- I was thinking in absolutes, black and white, on or off, yes or no, either I admire them or I don't- I could just admire them less, and admire more those who are even better than me- because there are always going to be people who are better than me and who I can aspire to emulate and cultivate their qualities and habits within me if I decide that's what I desire and also the rational thing to do. Yes, that's a good solution- just admire your current new levels- presuming they really increase- less, very less- and look up to those who are even better, so you still strive to be better, your ideal best self, it's the process, not the goals, and improvement must never stop, just like learning, and there is always scope of improvement and more things to learn, and levels you don't achieve.

Now here's a fringe case, a very unrealistic hypothetical: even if I happen to be the smartest in the world- my inferiority complex is screaming at me right now- even then I could dream of AGI and ASI, and their equivalents in creativity, whatever that could be! But I'm still curious- how do you even measure creativity? I know that intelligence tests are not perfect as I said earlier, but at least it is somewhat understood by almost everyone that it probably means an IQ test. But what about creativity- musical, artistic, linguistic, what type of creativity are you gifted in? All of them? Or is there some measure that is like the g-factor for creativity?

There's more, but due to reasons I explain in the meta-post, I won't write about it all but in brief, I just got an IQ test which I explain elsewhere, I have low expectations because then the worst case scenario won't disappoint me (Indifferent) and anything slightly better would be unexpectedly (maybe expectedly) pleasantly surprising, and more importantly:

I know that it means nothing; I know that no one knows what is "intelligence" exactly, and that these measures are all unreliable and inaccurate predictors of true ability. I will stand by this belief even if I get a "good" score, which they told me I will- they said it's definitely above average- above 110- but didn't say exactly how much above average, just that I did "very well". If it's even 111, I'd be happy because I was expecting 100 and because I know that if it's low, it's EVEN BETTER because then I could accomplish stuff and show people that just having a low IQ means nothing and I was able to do everything I'm going to do with a low IQ, so it'd work in my favour any way. I appreciate your concern though.

Appearance-wise, I find certain faces attractive, but I feel like beauty and money are somewhat accidental and random chances that you get at birth. Though you can improve them later to an extent that your environment and genes permit, both are necessary but not sufficient for success. Beauty alone is not enough, and no beauty can make up for perceived negative cognitive biases. Money won't make you happy, but the lack of it will definitely make you unhappy.

Now, I have realized that, even though I was somewhat correct for the average population, I have different preferences. After meeting and talking to more people, I have realized that I am attracted to someone even if I do not perceive them as subjectively beautiful or attractive. Instead, I am attracted to intellect. I know this by paying attention to my internal subjective mental states, monitoring my feelings, being mindful of my emotions while talking to such people, and noting how much I care about their thoughts and how I act around them differently from others. This is my current best guess.

I find appearance superficial, but even traits and abilities are superficial. At a deeper level, both genes and environment play a role, but one is more closely associated with a sense of self. However, I haven't fully internalized determinism as it applies to daily life yet. It's important to realize that there are different social needs such as emotional, romantic, and intellectual, and not everyone can fulfill them all. This reminded me of a meme that- never mind. It's interesting to think about being self-sufficient and free from all social needs and desires, but it's a powerful concept that I need to think more deeply about.

I also realized that I'm more comfortable being myself around certain people, and that some people bring out the best in me. It's hard to explain in words, but being around certain people makes me act more like my true self. I've never realized this before I talked to these individuals, but it's an interesting phenomenon. I'm not sure if social psychology has a scientific term for it or if there are experiments related to it, but some people bring out the best in me. It's like how you're predisposed to act in a certain way based on the company you keep, which could be due to genes or early environment influencing your happiness and ability to express your true self around like-minded individuals.

This is why I feel unsatisfied and lonely around dissimilar people, but feel happier alone or with those who make me feel like being around them brings out my real self. I can be comfortable and surprise myself by being more me than I ever realized I could be. Even though I usually hate myself, I love this new me that emerges around certain people. Maybe this is related to the idea of how true friends or partners make you feel loved.

Amoral unrealism goes against these points. I used to experience euphoria at Khyathi and Caltech, but now I'm more moral and less happy. I feel like I should help others who are less fortunate than myself, rather than just enjoying my privilege. It's harder to do so, but it's the right thing to do. The easier option would be to rationalize that good and bad are just concepts that I can manipulate with my powers of rationalization, logic, and language ability. However, deep down, I feel like it's wrong and unfair for those who are less privileged due to relative disadvantage from birth, genes, or random chance.

I use rationalization to make myself sound like I put in more effort than I actually do. I allocate my energy towards things that are controllable rather than relying on natural inclinations or abilities that come easily to me. It's like how a high IQ person may not deny praise for acing an easy exam, even if they didn't have to work hard. However, it's better to stay silent and not complicate things by explaining the situation, especially given society's bias against determinism, biological intelligence, and chance.

In case you're wondering, I was not a child prodigy with a high IQ. I never topped the class except for English a few times. I think it would be awesome if ChatGPT could rationalize anything with logic and morality, like the AI in my sci-fi story on Reddit.

Even though I would lose a valuable unique ability that gives me an unfair advantage in my career, I'm not going to hide it or use it to get ahead. I'm talking about it and advocating for its automation in AI so that no one is less privileged or less fortunate, and everyone is on an equal playing field without any relative advantage or disadvantage due to genes, random chance, or accidents of birth.

Additionally, I have come to realize the importance of recognizing different social needs, such as emotional, romantic, and intellectual needs. It's unrealistic to expect one person to fulfill all of these needs for us. This reminds me of a meme that asks, "Do you need friends or just sex and a therapist?" It's important to recognize that we may need different types of relationships for different needs.

I've also noticed that some people bring out the best in me and make me feel more comfortable being myself. This phenomenon is interesting to me, and I wonder if social psychology has a scientific term for it. It seems that being around certain like-minded people can help us express our true selves and feel happier, while being around dissimilar people can make us feel unsatisfied and lonely.

I have also been reflecting on the idea of privilege and how it relates to moral responsibility. While I have the privilege to enjoy certain liberties due to my abilities and traits, I feel that it's important to use my resources and privilege to help those who are less fortunate. It's not fair that some people are disadvantaged due to factors beyond their control, such as genetics or random chance.

I sometimes find myself rationalizing my accomplishments or abilities in a way that makes me sound like I put in more effort than I actually did. However, I realize that this is not productive or honest. Instead, I want to focus on allocating my effort towards things that I can control, rather than relying on natural inclinations or abilities.

Finally, I have been exploring various philosophical concepts such as absolute idealism, dialectical materialism, (check out the post logical reasons 2) Kant's moral philosophy, Schopenhauer's emphasis on not causing harm, moral anti-realism, absurdism, Nietzsche's ideas on method acting, and more. While I find these concepts fascinating, I also recognize that they are complex and not always easy to understand or apply in real life.

From a recent conversation, one of my principles applied in reality:

Person Z: One person told the truth. Impressed.

Me: Yes, because when you just say wow its impressive great job you don't actually care about that person- if you don't want to see them learn and grow and improve, you'd just say what you expect them to hear and make them happy, but I am giving honest feedback because I care about you trying to improve your skills and I'm presuming that direct honest feedback and constructive criticism is what you were seeking. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

Talking about myself, because I can only talk about myself- can't generalize it to everyone as it might be different for others- I was sort of unhappy and knew it's not me but you won't even be aware and it'd be hard to pinpoint what's off, and that makes sense considering that the 'self' is probably an illusion anyway (see my post unconditional love, some others firgetting the name of, will edit later) and so it makes no sense to say be yourself cause you're like the Ship of Theseus who might change with time, and you can't asdociate your self with any one isea or event or object; but it's also true that you have certain genes that incline you to be more happy and fulfilled when you act and behave in a certain way, and you would never know until you try putting yourself in new situations and trying nww stuff, and you might keep trying to pretend and fit in, but eventually you will- not may, not might, will; I'm seldom so certain about anything as you might know, due to my belief in open-mindedness skepticism, and epistemic humility, and so you can give it appropriate weight (though of course I'm ready to change my mind in light of nww evidence) when I say that sooner or later you'll came across your type of people, people you vibe with, as many like to say, and people you would feel more comfortable being yourself around, acting and behaving in ways and talking about topics that you might feel anxious or apprehensive around others, and those are the people you would want more of in your life; if you are around people who make you feel lonely, its better to be alone and be yourself, as Ive learned the hard way and after a lot of pretending, and you will be much more fulfilled being yourself and also make it more likely to attract the sort of people who are similar to you and hence share your core values and those who would be more likely to be good friends or companions.

if youre the more emotional type- nothing wrong with it perfectly fine if youre inclined that way- you could think of it this way: if the person you love is sad you should be sad, and if theyre happy you should be happy, otherwise its not true love and just selfish lust or whatever you are using them for, whatever need or desire, and you should be aware of it, and so you must not be sad when theyre happy and vice verse.To ed system post add preface entirely skippable in fact i myself request you to save your precious time and spend it more productively or more interesting stuff but you could read it entertrainment purposes i no one to tell you what to not to do im not your mom say this in the absurdism post too. Also add to absurdism- I might just go walden hermit in the woods cold dark rainy snowy silent isolated and adopt schopenhauer or more like nietzsche give up all ambitions to help others its always an option cause time is limited and just like its not my fault being born with these society genes inclinations its not my fault being born as a human on this planet and conditioned to conform to prevalent norms and beliefs, but def not without even trying.

Update: person H: "how would that make said partner more than a friend then"

that's a good question. Here's the point I've been trying to make repeated in different words and my answer to that question: it won't.

Even if it will, they would be a friend first, and only after I get to know them for some time and if they display signs of affection or make it explicit, because I almost never pick up signs and I'd think they're being nice and polite like with everyone, so if someone proposes, the probability of which I estimate to be as close to zero as anything can ever get because nothing is impossible because epistemic uncertainty and cognitive limitations and open mindedness and probability theory and all.. then I would have to think about that individual case, so as to not offend them because I care about other people's feelings too much trying not to offend them, even though as I said idgaf about closed minded people who won't try to understand even after I justify myself, I try not to come off as rude or impolite..

so to answer your question, what makes them a partner not a friend? well, that's .. what separates friends from a romantic partner i guess?

it's in the name itself, romance, sexuality, sexual preferences. But for me it's more, it's sharing similar core values, valuing the same things, curiosity, ambition, open-mindedness, not necessarily similar, I don't want a clone, but more like not a .. normie.. okay that came off as derogatory but you know everyone is like.. ambitionless and not curious and like a mindless automaton and I respect their preferences but I hate the idea of being average or mediocre..

so yeah that's it it was vague and abstract but so was your question tbf.

I'd like to post the same question to you, do you distinguish between the two? people are like going into a relationship then breaking up and I'm like wtf how can anyone judge someone by such superficial traits and then also suffer from mental agony no one seems to think logically at all, and then they're also the same people who say you don't use logic in places like those, alright then suffer. I don't believe in leaving gullible people prone to irrationality, but it's not worth my time and mental energy so I've just written a few blog posts about it and still try to explain when it feels the time and context is right, but otherwise I just try to be rational myself.

I know what it feels like, what you're talking about. I have never been in a relationship but I do have the desire to be loved and understood for who I am, because I am always worried about coming off as annoying, ending up a lonely depressed suicidal socially anxious person, someone who I used to be, I don't wish to revert back to that dreadful state, loneliness is one of the worst experiences I've had, and the bar isn't low in case you're wondering, so yes, I know how it would feel like to have someone who would stick with you no matter what, understand you even if not relate, non-judgmental and empathetic, help you achieve your best self, even on your worst days be there, even if they're annoyed they'll be honest and yet be with you, the unconditional love.. it's possible with friendship too but at that point it would be more like a very close friendship and if sexuality and sexual preferences aligns then romantic love and close friendship are almost synonymous. I still don't think I would ever take the risk of placing my mental peace and happiness to someone who might act unpredictably or irrationally, they could be selfish, have evil intentions, and I know that it's not worth the risk, even considering the expected benefits, the expected utility, upsides of the mental peace and comfort that would come from having such a person, it's not worth it. But does it even matter? As you said, there might be a time when I am not able to control my emotions and they guide me, but if I have the resolve, I have the logic, I can override my emotional self, have done so in the past, even if it involves suffering a bit, I can do so. might be unhealthy, but I can. And most probably will, if that ever happens.I 'd rather try to push the limits of 'friendship' with that person than get into love, iykwim.

You're right. I just study neuroscience and become a lab rat and isolate myself and fix my brain so I don't have any social needs or desires then. That was plan B but I knew that I'd have to resort to it because real world sucks and humans such and I have hope for humanity but I don't want anything to do with society, in this context at least, involving social desires and needs, not for my overarching goals.