Unconscious Influence Cialdini has long studied the forces of influence that exist outside of our conscious awareness. The most common is social proof, but this one is a bit tricky, since everybody knows what social proof is, and every tends to try to leverage social proof in their favor. But all of us […]
Blood and Semen
How Do I Do This? I read and interesting research paper recently about the rapidly diminishing skill set of most normal humans. They reported that up to 40% of people were dependent on the Internet to understand how complete basic house hold tasks. They couldn’t do simple tasks like fixing a leaky faucet, […]
Post Rational Crash
Bike Riding A long time ago I used to do a lot of cycling, about a hundred and fifty, two hundred miles a week. I’d go riding after work, and I’d go on long rides on the weekend. At one point, I changed my pedals to this clips that are attached to the […]
Between Two Hallucinations
Role Model Theory A very common and useful strategy for improving your skills in any competitive game or sport is to play against somebody better. This is why having a good mentor is good, but it has to be carefully calibrated. If they are too much better than you, or they aren’t too […]
Emergent Universal Consciousness
Economist I read an interesting article by an economist recently. He said that along with a global economy and financial system, there is a kind of emergent system. Kind of like a supra-national financial system that individual central banks and treasury departments aren’t really aware of. Feedback Systems https://loopvids.s3.amazonaws.com/Nov14Loop.mp4 Organic systems all […]
Emergent Sentient Consciousness
Beat The Races If you look at the times of various horse races, like the Kentucky Derby, over the past hundred years, you’ll see a slow decrease. This is due to scientific advances in nutrition, sports medicine and strength and endurance training. But similar times of human races, like marathons, the 100 and […]
Whose Thoughts Do You Think?
Hot Neighbor I have this really hot but kind of messed up neighbor. She’s not what you would call an intellectual type, but she’s friendly, perhaps overly so. Kind of naive, in that she let’s herself get taken advantage of. She just got dumped in a pretty horrible way and it kind […]
Emergent Alien Consciousness
Self Awareness One of the most perplexing scientific ideas is self awareness. Of being aware of our own thoughts we think them. Of being aware of our own words as we speak them. Of being aware of the never ending loop between brain and speech and thought and ideas and memories and […]
The Once And Future Hallucination
The Demon There was this philosopher guy a couple hundred years ago named Descartes. He came up with a problem that was unsolvable then, and unsolvable now. The problem was how do we know whether what is happening all around us is real, or just a hallucination? His idea was that our […]
Bird House Manifesting Technique
Unexpected Heart Attack I had a friend a few years ago who had a light heart attack. He didn’t need surgery or even a stay in the hospital. But for him and his wife it was pretty terrifying. Once the fear was gone and he realized he wasn’t going to die, he got […]