Why was it just assumed that “emotional blocks” are bad though? I would expect this to be more effective if you were… more inclined to unpack that assumption and explain it.
But of course, if you unpack the assumption, it might turn out that it was wrong.
Here are some bad things that often happen to people who over-connect: They become tribalized. They come to feel that they need the approval of an incoherent set of philosophies. They develop a news addiction, as well as substance addictions. They have difficulty sustaining interest in specialties and devoting themselves to original work, they find it lonely and they can’t separate their own sense of what is important from the already exhausted common sense of what is important. They’re unable to condemn mundane evils. They file down any of their burs and eccentricities that would make it challenging for another person to face them and to see into them.
You think you can overconnect without these sorts of things happening to you, but if that’s true, I’m not sure what kind of connection you’re even engaging in. Most of these things seem to me a fairly direct effect of love, of those systems that cultivate trust by verifiably tearing down protective psychosocial barriers.
Story time! I wanted to run a fun party: “Make 100% eye contact or get sent to jail!” But I didn’t want to force people to make eye contact… I wanted everyone to be genuinely comfortable! How?
Consider: Eye contact is effortless without emotional blocks. If you have trouble making eye contact, you’re probably held back by emotional blocks. And these blocks are probably to help you stay safe… so forcing eye contact could even be harmful!
So what if I helped attendees notice and integrate their blocks?
This is something that in my opinion would deserve a longer focused debate, because I believe that you are pointing roughly in a direction of something that definitely exists, but I also think that your conclusions are exaggerated and wrong.
Like: look in the eyes—release oxytocin—get stronger ingroup feelings, yes, there is definitely a mechanism for that. But I think if we made a survey of people that would measure how much they look each other in the eyes and how tribalistic they are, it would be mostly noise. Or maybe I’m wrong, dunno.
This is something that in my opinion would deserve a longer focused debate
I’m not sure I have much more to say (I could explain the ways those things are somewhat inevitable, but I don’t believe it’s really necessary, just like, look at humans.), since I don’t really know what to do about this, other than what I’m already doing, which is building social environments where people will no longer find it necessary to overconnect/where being intentional about how we structure the network is possible, and I would guess that once it is real and I can show it to people, there will be no disagreements about whether it’s better.
But in the meantime, we do not have such social environments, so I can’t really tell anyone to stop going to bars and connecting at random. You must love, and that is the love that there is to be had today.
I think people will generally assume that when you’re doing a thing, that you think the thing is usually good to do, unless you say otherwise. Especially if it’s the premise of a party.
all I needed to do was help everyone safely untangle their blocks
The assumption that you could do this implies that you thought the blocks were usually unwarranted. I doubt this. I think in most cases you didn’t understand why the fence was there before tearing through it.
So, again, you did guess that you’d be able to do that for everyone, and I disagree with that.
I think most of the people who have difficulty making eye contact and want to overcome themselves on it are not in a good place to judge whether they should.
So all I needed to do was help everyone safely untangle their blocks ;)
bring those parts into dialogue with their blocks/resistance to eye contact, and watch what happens.
So, in a way, his avoiding eye contact was completely rational. (Or rather: locally optimal.) If he had crudely forced himself to make eye contact, it’s quite possible that he could’ve actually gotten hurt.
Next I asked him, “How would you like to manage those risks?”
Why was it just assumed that “emotional blocks” are bad though? I would expect this to be more effective if you were… more inclined to unpack that assumption and explain it.
But of course, if you unpack the assumption, it might turn out that it was wrong.
Here are some bad things that often happen to people who over-connect: They become tribalized. They come to feel that they need the approval of an incoherent set of philosophies. They develop a news addiction, as well as substance addictions. They have difficulty sustaining interest in specialties and devoting themselves to original work, they find it lonely and they can’t separate their own sense of what is important from the already exhausted common sense of what is important. They’re unable to condemn mundane evils. They file down any of their burs and eccentricities that would make it challenging for another person to face them and to see into them.
You think you can overconnect without these sorts of things happening to you, but if that’s true, I’m not sure what kind of connection you’re even engaging in. Most of these things seem to me a fairly direct effect of love, of those systems that cultivate trust by verifiably tearing down protective psychosocial barriers.
How about this? Edited the post:
That addresses the concern.
Thansks!
This is something that in my opinion would deserve a longer focused debate, because I believe that you are pointing roughly in a direction of something that definitely exists, but I also think that your conclusions are exaggerated and wrong.
Like: look in the eyes—release oxytocin—get stronger ingroup feelings, yes, there is definitely a mechanism for that. But I think if we made a survey of people that would measure how much they look each other in the eyes and how tribalistic they are, it would be mostly noise. Or maybe I’m wrong, dunno.
I’m not sure I have much more to say (I could explain the ways those things are somewhat inevitable, but I don’t believe it’s really necessary, just like, look at humans.), since I don’t really know what to do about this, other than what I’m already doing, which is building social environments where people will no longer find it necessary to overconnect/where being intentional about how we structure the network is possible, and I would guess that once it is real and I can show it to people, there will be no disagreements about whether it’s better.
But in the meantime, we do not have such social environments, so I can’t really tell anyone to stop going to bars and connecting at random. You must love, and that is the love that there is to be had today.
I respect your effort to build an environment matching your ideals.
Sorry, where in the post did I imply this? I tried to emphasize how they’re locally optimal
I think people will generally assume that when you’re doing a thing, that you think the thing is usually good to do, unless you say otherwise. Especially if it’s the premise of a party.
The assumption that you could do this implies that you thought the blocks were usually unwarranted. I doubt this. I think in most cases you didn’t understand why the fence was there before tearing through it.
i see
hm that’s why i put “safely” werp
So, again, you did guess that you’d be able to do that for everyone, and I disagree with that.
I think most of the people who have difficulty making eye contact and want to overcome themselves on it are not in a good place to judge whether they should.
I’m aware that you have a nuanced perspective on this which is part of the reason I’m raising this.