I interpreted J-’s comments to be criticism of this post in particular (and some other meditation discussion on LW in general), in that this post isn’t giving much in the way of correct instruction; it’s giving a very general model of what’s happening, but it’s not saying what one actually needs to do.
I definitely agree that it’s better to have a good theoretical model combined with good concrete instructions of what to do; that’s why I recommend The Mind Illuminated so widely. But I didn’t read J- to be disputing that; in fact, they seemed to agree. Rather I thought J- to feel that “learning to actually become better at meditation” wasn’t the motive for why people post meditation stuff on LW, and that people were actually optimizing for something like “seeming smart and getting to philosophize around an interesting topic”, which doesn’t get anyone to actually practice.
If everyone is just doing intellectual analysis all the time and never practicing, then shutting up about it for a while and going to do some practice is in fact the thing to do; but this is compatible with also reading up on how and why you should do it, if you haven’t already done that reading.
Ah, I see. I read J-’s instruction paragraph as “here’s all the instruction you need to start meditating, now go meditate”, which stirred up agitation in me because I see many people waste their time acting on too little instruction.[1]
Possibly, in the context of the OP, it is better read as general frustration: “Ugh, you guys keep overthinking everything, just go do X instead of talking about X all the time, for all X.”
Maybe J- sees many people wasting their time intellectualizing and overthinking; the two of us draw from different experiences, so we have different triggers and even perceive the entire situation through a different lens.
So let’s go back to this:
But, for fuck’s sakes, philosophizing serves the role of masturbation. This is an endemic problem for LW adjacent people, because you all enable each other! There’s a culture of it here.
I agree that rationality (just like all intellectual communities) select heavily for the type of a person who overthinks everything, but I don’t really see the content on LW enabling this. Or—hmm—maybe it depends on how you see LW. I see LW as a place where I come to read Insight Porn and have intellectual discussion, because it is pleasant and entertaining. If someone sees LW as a place which serves up self-help advice, then, necessarily, just as roughly all self-help advice in existence, this would be viewed as enabling intellectualization-as-psychological-defence-against-change.
Apart from meditation and weightlifting, learning to code comes to mind. I see people-who-self-study struggle needlessly for months, because an online course explains how to write functions and how to write ifs and whiles and whatnot, but doesn’t explain what happens under the hood. Way too little instruction.
No, you’re missing my point. Idk if we disagree on anything concrete, the issue is that you’re both Fluttershys or something. Kaj, you say,
Or rather, it may help the individual who makes that choice, but it doesn’t help the community in general.
How do you go from “help the community” back to “oh, what we’re doing is great”? THIS is the problem; if help the community was your goal, you’d go about nudging norms to encourage “meditate more, read less”. But that’s not what you’re doing; instead, you’re throwing your emotional support behind the status quo.
This is one of those things where you won’t change what you’re doing, because you don’t want to, deep down. You’d rather have a nice happy community.
Your first step is to stop being fake, and gaslighting us about how much you want to help. Do you think I believe for one second you don’t know how to do better?
This is the point where we accuse each other of arguing in bad faith. No amount of politicking is going to change us, and the only way communities like LW change is when people start getting banned.
I interpreted J-’s comments to be criticism of this post in particular (and some other meditation discussion on LW in general), in that this post isn’t giving much in the way of correct instruction; it’s giving a very general model of what’s happening, but it’s not saying what one actually needs to do.
I definitely agree that it’s better to have a good theoretical model combined with good concrete instructions of what to do; that’s why I recommend The Mind Illuminated so widely. But I didn’t read J- to be disputing that; in fact, they seemed to agree. Rather I thought J- to feel that “learning to actually become better at meditation” wasn’t the motive for why people post meditation stuff on LW, and that people were actually optimizing for something like “seeming smart and getting to philosophize around an interesting topic”, which doesn’t get anyone to actually practice.
If everyone is just doing intellectual analysis all the time and never practicing, then shutting up about it for a while and going to do some practice is in fact the thing to do; but this is compatible with also reading up on how and why you should do it, if you haven’t already done that reading.
Ah, I see. I read J-’s instruction paragraph as “here’s all the instruction you need to start meditating, now go meditate”, which stirred up agitation in me because I see many people waste their time acting on too little instruction.[1]
Possibly, in the context of the OP, it is better read as general frustration: “Ugh, you guys keep overthinking everything, just go do X instead of talking about X all the time, for all X.”
Maybe J- sees many people wasting their time intellectualizing and overthinking; the two of us draw from different experiences, so we have different triggers and even perceive the entire situation through a different lens.
So let’s go back to this:
I agree that rationality (just like all intellectual communities) select heavily for the type of a person who overthinks everything, but I don’t really see the content on LW enabling this. Or—hmm—maybe it depends on how you see LW. I see LW as a place where I come to read Insight Porn and have intellectual discussion, because it is pleasant and entertaining. If someone sees LW as a place which serves up self-help advice, then, necessarily, just as roughly all self-help advice in existence, this would be viewed as enabling intellectualization-as-psychological-defence-against-change.
Apart from meditation and weightlifting, learning to code comes to mind. I see people-who-self-study struggle needlessly for months, because an online course explains how to write functions and how to write ifs and whiles and whatnot, but doesn’t explain what happens under the hood. Way too little instruction.
No, you’re missing my point. Idk if we disagree on anything concrete, the issue is that you’re both Fluttershys or something. Kaj, you say,
How do you go from “help the community” back to “oh, what we’re doing is great”? THIS is the problem; if help the community was your goal, you’d go about nudging norms to encourage “meditate more, read less”. But that’s not what you’re doing; instead, you’re throwing your emotional support behind the status quo.
This is one of those things where you won’t change what you’re doing, because you don’t want to, deep down. You’d rather have a nice happy community.
How do you suggest I do that? I honestly don’t think I know of a better way than what I’m currently doing.
My strategy is to try to create small exercises that people can try. Experiments or experiences that can show something.
I used to do this for rationality techniques too.
That’s the best way I know how.
Your first step is to stop being fake, and gaslighting us about how much you want to help. Do you think I believe for one second you don’t know how to do better?
This is the point where we accuse each other of arguing in bad faith. No amount of politicking is going to change us, and the only way communities like LW change is when people start getting banned.