A request for non-correlated inputs \ stacker news ~mostly

pull down to refresh

8251 sats \ 22 comments \ @elvismercury 29 Dec 2023 mostly_harmless

A fact I try to keep front-of-mind is that your outputs are a function of your inputs. An implication is that if you consume the same info as everyone else, you will think the same thoughts as everyone else. You will have the same "insights" and be vulnerable to the same exploits. In the same way that trusted third parties are security holes, an information monoculture is a security hole. Worse, it's a hole you may not even know you're in, because the people around you are in it too.

And aren't you all free?

To get around this issue, I try take in as much non-correlated information as I can, about as diverse a set of topics as I can manage without being overwhelmed. (Dealing with overwhelm more intelligently is a goal of mine for 2024.) One powerful way to do this is reading a wide variety of fiction. Another is travel, esp to unusual places and for unusual reasons. Another is having an eclectic friend group.

Despite feeling strongly about this, I don't think I'm very good at it, which is bad. What's good is that this means that there's much opportunity to improve! So I'd like to solicit suggestions for other things to do, other input sources to broaden my perspective. Anything goes, but a rule of thumb is that if it's already in the bitcoin cannon, either directly or thematically, then it's no use to me.

Give me the groundbreaking podcast on prairie restoration, or the show you fucking love about making soup dumplings, or the documentary about beauty pageants that changed how you see gender roles, or the course about philosophy and meaning that keeps you up at night.

Something to make the world new, at least a little.

view all related items

1438 sats \ 0 replies \ @MaxAWebster 29 Dec 2023

Great question! Here are a few things that have helped me gain new perspective over the years:

Do a Vipassana retreat - 10 days sitting in silence will force you to question a lot of beliefs https://www.dhamma.org/en/index
Travel somewhere new and ditch the phone. Navigating and being forced to interact with strangers will give you all kinds of new perspective
Learn a new language - this one is a major commitment, but helped me reflect on how universal concepts get distilled in human communication and gave me a tool to interact with new groups of people with very different life experiences. I used Baselang several years ago for Spanish https://baselang.com
Travel somewhere where people live radically different lives. Chiapas and parts of Oaxaca were big ones for me
On the idea side, some of my favorites: Buckminster Fuller, Terence McKenna, Robert Anton Wilson, and Kevin Kelly. I've also really resonated with Vedic wisdom. Here's a great resource to find similar thinking, which I think you'll enjoy: https://organism.earth/library/

This is an excellent reminder to once again question my own experience/information inputs - thanks!

1382 sats \ 5 replies \ @siggy47 29 Dec 2023

Great topic. I try this also. I'm fortunate in that I have different friend groups who have divergent world views. The problem is that for me to get the most out of this would be to in essence bring up taboo subjects all the time, which can literally damage friendships and cut off that perspective. So, I taylor my public persona to fit in, don't talk about stuff I would find interesting, and wind up feeling like a fraud. That's why I prefer consuming diverse subjects in books and film. Less conflict.

474 sats \ 4 replies \ @elvismercury OP 29 Dec 2023

So, I taylor my public persona to fit in, don't talk about stuff I would find interesting, and wind up feeling like a fraud.

I know it all too well. I struggle with how to handle it when people say something like:

These dumbassess believe X / like Y.

And I'm sitting there as a person who believes X or likes Y. It's not that I mind that people disagree / have another perspective (as I've repeated on SN ad nauseum) but the person presumably likes and respects me, and so I feel obligated to say something like:

I, a person you like and respect, believe X and like Y; so either there is more to X and Y than there appears at first; or else we should probably not be friends, if you honestly think that something I believe in is so contemptible.

But do you really want to have that conversation when you're at somebody's house for dinner? Ugh.

That's why I prefer consuming diverse subjects in books and film.

Siggy, you tease! What are some examples?

809 sats \ 2 replies \ @siggy47 29 Dec 2023

Oh, I'm indiscriminate. I'll watch or read all kinds of stuff. One example did occur to me, though. I'm pretty much a libertarian hard money kind of guy, but earlier this year I read Debt, The First Five Thousand Years. I almost stopped reading immediately. I'm thinking to myself "this clown is a commie." But I forced myself to stick it out and I got a lot out of it, although I never agreed with his criticism of capitalism. Later, when you did the book club on Broken Money, I discovered that Lyn addressed many of his arguments. If I had stayed in my libertarian lane I would not have been aware of his perspective.

522 sats \ 0 replies \ @k00b 29 Dec 2023

I was also triggered by Graeber at first. I find myself leaning in when I get triggered probably due to some kind of insecurity around later learning I've been operating on wrong info.

294 sats \ 0 replies \ @elvismercury OP 29 Dec 2023

Great example. You see the world differently after reading that book, for sure.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @ek 30 Dec 2023 freebie

These dumbassess believe X / like Y.

And I'm sitting there as a person who believes X or likes Y.

This reminds me of a situation I had recently with friends. We were talking about finances and someone said "As long as you don't put it all into bitcoin it should be fine." He laughed, all others laughed and I laughed, it was fun. Then I said: "I am laughing as if I didn't do exactly that." Then silence for a few seconds. Then someone brought up a different topic and the conversation continued to flow naturally. So it wasn't a big deal.

This experience made me a bit more open regarding being open with what I think, even if it's controversial or confrontational. You don't have to go all the way immediately. Just "dip your toes in the water" first and check how people react.

However, since this post, I would even say that I like to be confrontational now. It's funny to see how some people react. It became kind of a sport for me to say or do something that people don't expect.

For example, a few days ago, I walked into a small store that sells used phones and is probably run by a single person.

That single person in the store however seemed to ignore me. He didn't look up when I came in (at least I didn't notice) from his apparently very important call with someone. It was a language I didn't understand so I couldn't even tell if this was a call related to business or just a private call. It seemed more like a private call for me though.

I patiently waited in front of him, constantly looking at the phone I wanted to ask him about because there was no price tag on it. For me, it must have been obvious that I am waiting to ask him something. But he kept ignoring me. I expected that he would put the other person on hold for at least a moment so I can ask my question and he can give me his answer and then he can continue to ignore me as long as he wants. But he didn't. Then I looked at my phone (making sure he could see this if he would pay attention) as if I am only impatiently looking at the clock. But I started a timer (he didn't necessarily saw this). I kept looking at the clock ticking my life away for another 45 seconds of no reaction from him. I think I was already in the store for at least 2-3 minutes, waiting for him to acknowledge me. Then I turned around and left.

I noticed from the corner of my eye while I was turning around how he suddenly looked up. But I was already out of the store - as mentioned, it was a small store. All I thought was:

Hey, if someone shows up at your brick and mortar store - which might be kind of rare nowadays and for which you might be paying a good chunk of money for rent in this location - at least fucking acknowledge that person? If I want to get treated like shit, there are tons of other stores out there to which I can go. So FUCK YOU for wasting my time and I am very sorry that I was interested in buying something from you. I hope you tell your friend or whoever this is what just happened so he can shame you for your behavior because it must sound extremely stupid that you just lost a potential customer because you were too fucking arrogant or dumb or whatever to put him on hold for at least a second. Or don't tell him which means you already know that you should be ashamed of yourself.

I hope he got the message. But I will probably never know since I don't intend to go there again.

As you can see, I just need to make sure I don't become an asshole with my newfound confrontational nature, lol

1511 sats \ 0 replies \ @Coyote_Cosmico 29 Dec 2023

This is specifically why I don't use Twitter. Maybe it's the algo showing me similar people, but the whole space seems like an intellectual circle jerk. Everybody reading and citing the same sources.

Your post instantly brought to mind one of my favorite books by computer scientist Gerald Weinberg - Weinberg on Writing: The Fieldstone Method.

He had a quirky obsession with building stone walls, and really milked that knowledge for use in programming and writing.

Drawing an analogy to the stone-by-stone method of building fieldstone walls, Weinberg shows writers how to construct fiction and nonfiction manuscripts from key insights, stories, and quotes. The elements, or stones, are collected nonsequentially, over time, and eventually find logical places in larger pieces.

I found the book most useful in absorbing the way he thinks in this way - snatching insights from one craft to use in another. Writers on the internet now are obsessed with zettelkasten, but seems nobody reads this book which emphasizes an emotional element to deciding what information is worth capturing.

Personally I try to follow one interest into a related space that I normally wouldn't go.

I lived on the ocean last year and many mornings would walk 40 minutes to check the surf, only to get skunked regularly. That got me studying oceanography textbooks and math formulas of waves to make better predictions for ideal days to surf.

When I lived in the mountains I was hiking a lot and found myself in sketchy situations with relatively close lightning strikes. Scared the crap out of me. I ended up taking a meteorology course on Wondrium (The Great Courses company) which I found really enriching.

Recently went to the planetarium in Bogotá which got me jazzed about not only watching the sky but also mythologies and worldviews of different cultures. It's really interesting to see the same star patterns interpreted in different ways, with different stories attached.

I look for things that are all around me but I know little to nothing about and think "how much richer would my daily experience be if I understood even a little about this?"

Things like the weather, plants/ botany, architecture. I'm a complete dunce on those topics and it's like I'm waking around with blinders on now.

Hunting mushrooms became a favorite hobby of mine for a while too when I lived in a great area for that. It's really addicting, and you get a lot of time in the woods with your thoughts. Developing a visual habit of scanning/ noticing things definitely bled into other areas of my life.

2390 sats \ 0 replies \ @k00b 29 Dec 2023

Doing something new has been the easiest route to non-correlated inputs for me.

Once I took a car repair course from a local adult school. I eventually found myself reading books about engine design. So looking through course catalogs at a local adult school or community college might turn up something.

I did BJJ for a few years. The rabbit hole is very deep (which keeps me away from it now) but it was a source of a lot of non-correlated inputs: how non-sexual touch affects feelings of self and others, unspent aggression's role in anxiety (I've never been less anxious than after a good sparing session), and how fine, amazing, and underutilized our bodies are as tools.

Gardening was another source for me. Getting into fermentation was another. I spent some time building and upholstering my own furniture. I did a stint as a buildering graffiti artist 🍏 and another as an oil painter.

One of the weirder things I started doing recently that I don't actually have time for is perfume making.

Those are the highlights at least. Much other half-assery omitted. Fiction is the next best source of immersion probably. If stories weren't so hard to write, I'd demand all information be presented as a story.

Despite feeling strongly about this, I don't think I'm very good at it, which is bad.

Based on the variety of links and discussions you share alone, you're exceptional at this actually.

325 sats \ 3 replies \ @Lux 29 Dec 2023

https://www.bitchute.com/video/jAb7Mt3qD4FE/

Books : Cracking the code - Maxwell Jordan The UCC connection - Howard Freeman Fruits from a poisonous tree - Melvin Stamper

All this material regards your daily life, but bitcoiners keep ignoring it. No fiction here

0 sats \ 2 replies \ @Natalia 29 Dec 2023

marked! I watched that vid before, VERY interesting:)

0 sats \ 1 reply \ @Lux 29 Dec 2023 freebie

lots of links below, Darth is the curator of the channel I think

391 sats \ 2 replies \ @niftynei 29 Dec 2023

I have two book recommendations:

Ishmael by Daniel Quinn
Cities and the Wealth of Nations by Jane Jacobs

0 sats \ 1 reply \ @elvismercury OP 29 Dec 2023

Thanks for the recs -- I've read parts of the more famous JJ book but didn't even know the one you recommended existed.

Could you say more about why you picked those two? What did they mean to you / do for you?

228 sats \ 0 replies \ @niftynei 29 Dec 2023

Personal favorites for giving new perspectives on old explanations for how the world works (book of genesis, macroecon)

228 sats \ 0 replies \ @needcreations_ 30 Dec 2023

one thing I didn't expect that helped me gain more perspective on my life was to pay close attention to my dog during walks and other activities. Dogs are ALWAYS living in the moment, and as long as they are cared for, they are ALWAYS happy. During a walk, they are enveloped by their surroundings and nature...smelling everything, glancing at everything they pass by. So different than humans, who are always looking at a screen. Dogs show unconditional love. I heard someone say one time, as an example, "lock a person in a trunk and a dog in a trunk, and drive around a windy road for an hour. open the trunk and only one of them will be smiling at you when they see you."

Anyways, this is what I thought of when I read your plea for suggestions. Maybe get a dog? Or sit for a dog for a friend who is on vacation. If you want a side hustle to stack more sats (as I am doing) download the Rover app and start sitting for dogs professionally. It is so much fun and quite lucrative. Best of luck!

228 sats \ 1 reply \ @Undisciplined 29 Dec 2023

My wife's favorite podcast is Philosophize This. It's very good and covers a vast array of different schools of thought.

I especially enjoy hearing the strongly steel-manned versions of philosophies that I don't subscribe to or know much about.

424 sats \ 0 replies \ @elvismercury OP 29 Dec 2023

I love that podcast. Mainly I love the host's enthusiasm. He's very bitcoin, in the good way: follows his passion down the rabbit hole and now has a deep, personally meaningful expertise that he's excited to share.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Signal312 9 Jan

Try different news sources. For instance, instead of mainstream media - https://www.rt.com/, https://www.aljazeera.com/.

Yes, it's propaganda. But it's from a different angle, and it's useful to hear what they're saying.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @art 30 Dec 2023

Love this question and finding myself unable to stop reading people's responses.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @BitcoinIsTheFuture 30 Dec 2023

Thanks! My spiritual, neighborhood, investment, running, and work groups give me unique perspectives. I can then push and challenge myself in new ways. I also try to donate time and talents. Volunteering and coaching!