Gyroscopic Investing

Pointedstick wrote:

MachineGhost wrote: Yes, but that is more of a curse from being an intellectual than anything else.  I don't quite think people with diminished mental capacities quite feel "hopelessness and despair" as we can.  You're almost 30, so its around time for you to hit your "intellectual mid-life crisis".  Its perfectly normal, I assure you!

Still, the fact is if you ignore your spiritual and emotional development for the sake of the superficial consumerist body, you will feel like there's nothing else to strive for.  This is a worldview fully under your control.

What's your approach or suggestion? I'm genuinely interested, since it's exactly as you've described.

I can feel myself yearning for spiritual depth, but none of the theological traditions I've studied have really resonated.

Greg wrote: I thought these were interesting. Existential depression and such for gifted people and how to deal with it.

http://sengifted.org/archives/articles/ ... individual

http://psychotherapyservicesforthegifte ... dults.html

Pointedstick wrote:

MWKXJ wrote: Perhaps little rituals, harmless superstitions, thesisless stories, etc., are not only the inefficient things that thicken novels and quicken lives, but also act as a counterbalance to the march toward extreme efficiency.

In other words… culture.

This is especially hard for us Americans because our unique cultural history is shallow to nonexistent.

He was an old time cowboy
Don't you understand
His eyes were sharp as razor blades
His face was leather tanned

His toes were pointed inward
From a hangin' on a horse
He was an old
Philosopher of course

He was so thin I swear
You could have used him for a whip
He had to drink a beer
To keep his breeches on his hips

I knew I had to ask him
About the mysteries of life
He spat between his boots
And he replied

"It's faster horses
Younger women
Older whiskey
More money"

He smiled and all his teeth
Were covered with tobacco stains
He said, "It don't do men no good
To pray for peace and rain"

"Peace and rain is just
A way to say prosperity
And buffalo chips is all
That means to me"

I told him I was a poet
I was lookin' for the truth
I do not care for horses
Whiskey women or the loot

I said I was a writer
My soul was all on fire
He looked at me
And he said you are a liar

"Son, it's faster horses
Younger women
Older whiskey
More money"

Well, I was disillusioned
If I say the least
I grabbed him by the collar
And I jerked him to his feet

There was somethin' cold
And shiny laying by my head
So I started to believe
The things he said

Well, my poet days're over
And I'm back to bein' me
As I enjoy the peace a
And comfort of reality

If my boy ever asks me
What it is that I have learned
I think that
I will readily affirm

"Son, it's faster horses
Younger women
Older whiskey
More money"

Faster horses
Younger women
Older whiskey
More money

Faster horses
Younger women
Older whiskey
More money

It's faster horses
Younger women
Older whiskey
More money

Greg wrote:

Pointedstick wrote:

MachineGhost wrote: Yes, but that is more of a curse from being an intellectual than anything else.  I don't quite think people with diminished mental capacities quite feel "hopelessness and despair" as we can.  You're almost 30, so its around time for you to hit your "intellectual mid-life crisis".  Its perfectly normal, I assure you!

Still, the fact is if you ignore your spiritual and emotional development for the sake of the superficial consumerist body, you will feel like there's nothing else to strive for.  This is a worldview fully under your control.

What's your approach or suggestion? I'm genuinely interested, since it's exactly as you've described.

I can feel myself yearning for spiritual depth, but none of the theological traditions I've studied have really resonated.

I thought these were interesting. Existential depression and such for gifted people and how to deal with it.

http://sengifted.org/archives/articles/ ... individual

http://psychotherapyservicesforthegifte ... dults.html

jafs wrote: It is odd that given our great wealth and freedom (relative to a lot of other places), Americans aren't generally happier.

I think part of it is cultural, in that our culture is very focused on individual rights/freedoms and competition, both of which aren't great ways to create good social relationships/communities. 

Old fashioned values can also help - there's no reason we have to lose simple pleasures, and simple connections, like eating meals with family (without everybody being on their own little electronic devices), playing cards, etc.

Pointedstick wrote:
How likely is this person to go off to college out of state and give up his life in his hometown instead of working in the mill?

TennPaGa wrote: For whatever reason, it seems to me that we have evolved to a world where default option for most people results in misery.

• Widespread perception that a fancy college education is necessary to get anywhere => Many college degrees are undervalued; people are paying off student loan debt for decades
• Automobile-dependence virtually everywhere => People need to own and maintain automobiles, which is expensive and socially isolating; houses are so far apart from one another that actually interacting with your neighbors and people passing by can be hard
• No more "social default" that everyone is a mild, stoic protestant => No guaranteed community you belong to; spiritual fulfillment becomes an individual responsibility; rise of religious fundamentalism/extremism
• Culture of productivity and overwork => People work 9+ hour days and multiple jobs, paradoxically increasing the supply of labor, driving down its value, and suppressing wages
• Culture of low price and low quality => Most basic goods made abroad or by illegal immigrants, destroying domestic manufacturing jobs
• Economy dominated by large firms => Mad crush for everyone to move to geographically small but economically prosperous regions of only a small number of cities, leading to ever-rising housing prices in these regions
• Most jobs and economic opportunities are "somewhere else" => No incentive to stay where you are and serve your community; people move around a ton, damaging their social relationships and isolating them from friends and family

Maddy wrote: The culture of small, rural towns often revolves around individual rights and freedoms, yet at the same time fosters close-knit relationships between neighbors and a strong sense of community.  Unlike the typically self-centered, self-serving view of rights and freedoms that predominates in the city, however, country folks tend to view these ideals within a larger social context.  It's precisely because I value my rights and freedoms that I voluntarily conduct myself in a way that respects the rights and freedoms of my neighbors.

Maddy wrote: Actually, the mass exodus of young people from small towns is alarming.  They view working at the mill as a dead-end job.  When you talk to high school-aged kids around here, they all want "point and click"-type occupations.

MachineGhost wrote:

Maddy wrote: The culture of small, rural towns often revolves around individual rights and freedoms, yet at the same time fosters close-knit relationships between neighbors and a strong sense of community.  Unlike the typically self-centered, self-serving view of rights and freedoms that predominates in the city, however, country folks tend to view these ideals within a larger social context.  It's precisely because I value my rights and freedoms that I voluntarily conduct myself in a way that respects the rights and freedoms of my neighbors.

That's not what small towns are generally like.  The vast majority are rigid places of religious-political intolerance, i.e. Conservative-Christian-Republicanism where "in group" conformity is the utmost virture.  You're not going to find deep intellectual stimulation in such small towns without some kind of intervention nexus like a university interjecting liberal arts influences.

Maddy wrote: it's clear that we really do not want the same thing at all.

Maddy wrote: MG--  One last thought:  If you were eating out of my garden, maybe you wouldn't need all those supplements. 

Maddy wrote: MG--  One last thought:  If you were eating out of my garden, maybe you wouldn't need all those supplements. 

MachineGhost wrote:

Maddy wrote: MG--  One last thought:  If you were eating out of my garden, maybe you wouldn't need all those supplements. 

A nice fantasy, but plants don't provide enough nutrition of anything.  Vegetables are only good for low doses of protective phytochemicals, not optimal levels of such or vitamins and mienrals.  They're essentially just filler fiber food for the gut microbiota.  But I do bet your garden tastes 100x better than the boring stuff in a grocery store!

This also goes directly to your point of how we do see things differently; you think in terms of just "surviving well"; I think in terms of life extension and de facto immortality.  Different end goals require completely different methods.  The ultimate point here is that everyone should be actively living in harmony with their beliefs and goals, so why be in conflict???  Conflict == unhappiness.

P.S.  Soon as I find a small town that isn't a religious cult cesspool (and a long list of other variables), guess where I'm going!  The ultimate reason I don't like cities and suburbia essentially comes down to a lack of community and political-religious group thinking.  I'm with Cortopassi in that I rather live alone than live with people I just don't connect with at a deep level.  I'm tired of having to practice radical tolerance and respect emotionally immature idiot's "safe spaces".

http://www.newworldeconomics.com/archiv ... 91910.html

On the one hand, it seems like if there isn't "growth," then there's horrible unemployment and everyone suffers. However, if there is "growth," then we end up burning more oil, cutting down more trees, mining more coal, etc. etc. once again in proportion as we push the slider towards More of the Same.

Both of these groups also imagine that their slider, from Less of the Same to More of the Same, corresponds to historical circumstance. So, if they decide that they would prefer Less of the Same instead of More of the Same, they push the slider to the left, which, in their minds means getting in the Way Back Machine and going to some 1880s or 1830s lifestyle.

One reason I bring this up is because I think that the unintended consequences of More of the Same, having built up over decades, have finally reached a point where many people can no longer call "growth" a good thing. Do we need more McMansions and big box stores, with more SUVs to drive around in and parking lots to park in while we burn more oil and kill off more of the natural world, not to mention our own cultural heritage as we gradually decay into a nation of "consumers"? This is why I go on and on about the end of the era of Heroic Materialism. We are so done with that Heroic Materialist crap.

I think this has a lot to do with the general unpopularity of "pro-growth" economic approaches (low taxes, stable money) throughout the developed world. It's popular in the emerging world, in places like China or Eastern Europe. They want what we have. But we've gotten a bit tired of this treadmill. However, the alternative, which is economic stagnation -- The Same Old Same Old, with more unemployment -- doesn't work so well either. So, we need "growth" that actually represents an improvement in the overall quality of our civilization -- our "lifestyle" -- which includes things like the natural world.

Previously, I brought up the idea of an economy that is centered on performing arts. Performing arts count as "economic activity" just the same as paving parking lots. This was an intentionally whimsical idea to get people to think about what a "service economy" is. A "service economy" is about people doing things for other people, instead of making things for other people. You could imagine an economy which had an enormous output of performing arts. We would spend a lot of our income on watching live performances, several times a week. Consequently, we would have lots of people employed as performers, and in related jobs. We can see that this has practically no resource component. An economy whose output is performing arts doesn't require natural resources, doesn't consume much energy, and doesn't pollute. You could have "growth" in the form of -- not more -- but better performing arts. (Most manufacturing is about more but most services are about better. You can't eat two dinners at once, but you can go to a better restaurant.) In that case, growth would be Better of the Same, which would of course be more highly valued (think of an expensive restaurant compared to a cheap one), and which would then turn up in the standard economic statistics as "GDP growth." And if you decided that maybe you had maxed out on performing arts, you could enjoy some other sort of service -- let's say massage therapy -- or maybe just take the time off. Then, you would have Better and Different. Even taking time off -- enjoying more leisure instead of more services -- counts as increasing productivity, if not necessarily "growth." We would have the Same or Better with less work (the Europeans have already been experimenting with this for decades). If we spent 50% of our income on performing arts, or massage therapy, then 50% of the economy would consist of performing arts and massage therapy. To finance our love of performing arts, we would naturally have less of everything else, or in other words, all the people employed in performing arts wouldn't be producing some other sort of good or service, like building McMansions in the suburbs. Imagine, if you like, a society where people lived in modest little apartments, and didn't own cars, and didn't own many other material items either, and didn't do things that required a lot of resources (like flying to Jamaica for four days in February), but instead walked to the theater several times a week to catch the latest show.

Kriegsspiel wrote: I only wonder if it was a mistake to use the third person plural.