Caerulea-Lawrence

Karma: 98

Hello there,

I chose Caerulea-Lawrence as my nickname as I like birds, the color cerulean and I have an affinity with the name Lawrence.

My most important person in life is my partner. I met her years back, and it has been, and still is, a true before and after.

At the moment, except from introspecting, trying to increase the communication between the cognitive functions in myself, and between me and my partners’, my biggest wish is to find people that can hold the kind of depth, sincerity, intensity and complexity that we hold with each other.

If you are okay with questioning absolutely everything, and to follow the thread wherever it leads, even when that might lead to a direct conflict with senses, experiences and even with the Universe itself (Spoiler, it already does), why don’t you say hello.

There are so many things that simply need others to be able to hold, as they are either too painful or incomplete as individuals, or even as a pair.

We have what seems to be extremely high standards for ourselves and others, that I many times wonder if we will simply travel through this lifetime alone, our longing slowly festering into some kind of social mask we will either choose to have on, or decide to not give a fuck anymore and just be increasingly weird and eccentric. We have intuitions on what we are looking for, but more and more we wonder if we should just be happy with what we have.

We wish to delve, what seems to be, far too deep into dualities, complexities and the depths of our minds/souls. Even behind and into all the nitty gritty dark spiderwebs of ourselves that people hide, without neglecting acknowledging our weaknesses, limitations and faults. The inconsistencies, the hatred, the anger, the sorrow, listfulness, dejectedness, and the intensity and complexity of these emotions and the values that drive them. Not to mention forces that we don’t understand, that we simply call chaos and fate. (Not acronyms, but those are inside words).
We are also not vibrantly healthy, and our life-stories are a painful mess that wouldn’t be a series you would come unscathed out of watching.

Our good qualities are that since we go so deep, and turn every stone, are highly sensitive, introspective and reflective feelers/thinkers, any potential connection, will be as close, intimate, conscious, intentional and committed as we can imagine.

To specify, what we are looking for isn’t simple harmony, deep friendship for life, people to live on a farm and have permaculture with. What we want goes beyond that, beyond life and death. Delving into the “spiritual/metaphysical” with as serious a mind and steady a hand as any worthwhile pursuit, with people that we can trust as much as we trust ourselves.
A group of people that, if we so agree, would decide to leave life, earth and this universe behind, to go on a journey somewhere we would prefer to reside. A group of people, or ‘souls’, if given the choice, you would choose over any and every possible thing imaginable you can have in this Universe.
The group of people that could help contain and help look at whatever truths that inevitably will stab us in the face as we pool our efforts and wills together.
The kind of people that you can trust because your goals and visions align, including every/any future growth, change and evolution.

If you are still with me, we deep-dive into childhood/past lives structures on the daily. Life is a lot of painful thorns, and even though we don’t expect someone similar to us to feel great in society, we hope that the commitment and fulfilling bonds we will share, can help in traversing our lives more compassionately at least.

Kindly,
Caerulea-Lawrence

Caerulea-Lawrence Mar 3, 2025, 3:22 PM
3 points
0
on: Existentialists and Trolleys
I tend to enjoy existential thoughts and ideas, and taking problems sincerely and staring at them head on. Adding in fluff to explain away realities, isn’t the preferred way I would want to find answers.

Though, even when I agree with the usefulness of being more clear-headed about situations we face in reality, the more I thought about this example you used, and how you dismissed the various ways to ‘explain away’ the situation, I got to thinking about why I also don’t find your comparison compelling.

Because, as you point out with regard to Camus, every action/inaction we make influences the world around us. Though in reality, the consequences are not clear to us. To apply a consistent value-system in a world that doesn’t ‘give’ results on moral actions the way it does physical ones, seems to be quite doomed to begin with.

Yes, it is highly improbable that you not pulling the switch would lead to the death of the five people, but it isn’t certain. Nothing Is certain in the way hypothetical scenarios present them. We can try to do our best, but that doesn’t mean it leads to the desired result, or to even a fixed result.

And so I guess I want to recognize that although it is a useful skill to be able to be more level-headed in the face of uncertainty, I don’t see your comparison as a good example of gaining moral consistency, as the Trolley Problem is a very clinical and ‘magical’ scenario.

In my view, existentialism is better applied as a mentality, a way to hold conflicts and difficult situations where we don’t see/feel that there are any good outcomes. Instead of being angry, getting reactive or making a choice that would make the situation worse, to try to bear the pain of there being no good options—whilst simultaneously not assigning any blame to each other on top of the felt ‘insert negative emotion’.
A decision, a mindset of intentions, of not adding that extra layer of ‘blame’ to any given situation that otherwise would just be.

I do agree with the temptation to shirk accountability, but there is also real and extreme terror in facing the reality of the world—and I’m pretty sure it is a reason many people go completely insane. It isn’t some easy fancy or useful tactic you can apply on a whim, or a nice skill to learn one summer. It is an extremely humbling paradigm shift, that changes one’s thoughts, feelings and perceptions of the world, and becoming both more accountable, and less reliant on ‘the gods’ or some external authority. A stance in the face of unavoidable hurt, pain and the continuous “infliction” of deprivation on oneself and others.
With the Trolley Problem we can have clear results, though that is not the case in life. There are too many uncertainties, and our viewpoints and axioms are scattered, lack enormous amounts of information, and are biased in ways that are in direct contradiction with our conscious intentions—and it is a lot of work to just make minor adjustments. This is also something to rest in, the paradox of being the master of ourselves, whilst also not really having control over anything at all.

And so I wonder if focusing on the Trolley Problem in a way is a subtle rejection of reality. The temptation to give in to a view of reality that is ‘simpler’ and makes more sense to our mind. Like a video game, where the actions are programmed, and the results consistent.

To sum up, I do agree with the use of existentialism in general, and some of its uses for sitting in difficult situations and not shirking our role in situations. Though, in general, do not agree with the link drawn to the Trolley Problem. The best uses of Camus and Absurdism has for me been to not assign ‘blame’ as an added layer to a reality in interpersonal relationships and also intrapersonally, by being more able to feel the feelings and thoughts underneath this deflective layer of blame.

Caerulea-Lawrence Sep 25, 2024, 6:53 PM
1 point
0
on: A Path out of Insufficient Views
Hello Unreal,

this was surprisingly relatable, despite us taking very different paths to reach similar conclusions.

The uncompromised mind is something I have sincerely delved into for a good while, and also the part where you describe discarding ‘everything’, is quite relaxing.

Some of your views seem complimentary, and some seem like none of us can be in the right, (or both, but just slightly).

My motivation was and never has been AI, though, and if that is a fixed point to you, maybe we can find out how/why we see it differently? I find the focus on AI to often lead to the kind of ‘one X to solve everything’ complacency our mind is so prone to. *Which is a very short version, on one reason of many.

Maybe you’d like to have a more in-depth talk as well. I’ll send you a PM, so let me know what you think.

Kind regards

Caerulea-Lawrence Dec 6, 2023, 2:25 PM
2 points
0
on: How do you feel about LessWrong these days? [Open feedback thread]
Sadly, LW isn’t a community that I would say that I am a part of. I say that begrudgingly, as LW seems to ‘have been’ and still is, ‘a decent place on the internet’.

The issue with being decent, is that it doesn’t work long term, at least not for me.

Why did other people leave LW before? I’m not sure. Why do I want to leave? And what drew me here in the first place?

I came here to seek for people with integrity, people thinking outside the box, highly intelligent and willing to both pursue their individuality and take/give feedback from equals/peers—with the intention of getting help, but also provide support in growing my own as well as the rationality/general intelligence/EQ/bigger goals of others, in a congruous, open-ended, honest, sincere and cooperative environment.

To take ideas, concepts and take them to their logical conclusion, is something I care about, and was hoping to find a community that is Congruous and Coherent according to its own explicit ideas and values, with enough discernment to make it work. This is a tall order perhaps, but I was hoping, when I found this place, that it was closer to that ideal.

From what I’ve seen, there might be a slightly higher population of the kinds of people I’m looking for here, but on the other hand, there is a wide gulf between what those people want and need to thrive, and the kind of environment LW is providing.

I’m not the most articulate in writing, but I wrote about this gulf of Who is LW for in some comments, and also a post called “The LW crossroads of purpose”.
And, I see it as a very pressing matter, not only because laissez-faire seems to ruin subcultures, but because there are so many places on the internet where your average Joe can go, but so few where it seems those that crave high-end personal, rational, emotional development, can actually get support, and support each other.
A place where integrity, respect and cooperation is a fundamental practice, and where things aren’t solved through “democracy”, but by finding the best way to go forward. A place that supports the creation of the very good/best, and not the decently/average+ good.

I’m not aware if those that ‘left’ LW went somewhere more coherent in this regard. Substack seems to be a place, but is there a ‘community’ out there waiting? At least not that I am aware of? Which means I would rather write this, and on the total off chance that this idea gets traction, and LW will have a “serious dojo” for rationality—with a high bar to entry, in a high trust environment that grows organically and slowly; I’ll at least hear of it, and might even want to join.
I wouldn’t even mind if it had a subscription fee of sorts, and some of the members got paid. Why sweat the small stuff.

For now, I’ll stay in the shadows, and maybe look at older posts and see who was here before. Maybe some of them is someone I want to talk to.

Kindly,
Caerulea-Lawrence

Caerulea-Lawrence Nov 20, 2023, 7:25 PM
1 point
0
on: Caerulea-Lawrence’s Shortform
For a while I’ve been thinking about writing a continuation to the “Is there something fundamentally wrong with the Universe?” question. I’ve read through the answers, and it isn’t that hard to build upon them and further investigate the issue. But something is seriously holding me back, and I’m not quite confident I know perfectly what it is.

Part of it is that I don’t see the comments as that challenging to refute, in many ways. There are loopholes, contradictions and incoherence. At the same time, I don’t know the answer either.

The obvious problem with saying that something is fundamentally flawed, is that on a physical level I am also fundamentally flawed. For all I know, the answer might be right there, under my nose, and I have no way of seeing it, till I either stumble across it and find a way to “discover” it, or someone points it out to me, and helps me in my pursuit of understanding it.

So what is the question I want an answer to? To me, I guess I see this question more as a multifaceted puzzle, a long-term source of joy, entertainment and contentment in my life. A meaning-giving activity, on the high-end of what gives my life purpose and interest.
And as such, I want good stimuli, to find someone to really challenge me, someone who wants to delve into this with me, and for whom I can be the same source of entertainment.

I am writing in the hopes of finding someone who sees in the question a source of long-term entertainment and meaning-making. Not so much the questions themselves, but the complexities that arise from interacting, challenging and delving into them holistically, wholeheartedly and passionately, and try to answer them within ourselves, and within a social context.

I don’t have many qualms writing, but I choose not to. Is it arrogance, dispassion, self-devaluing, or a mixture of all of them and more? If I were to give the feeling words, it says something like “I don’t want to waste words. - Direct my hand to those that want to hold it tightly, and not just try holding everyone that comes my way.”
But how do I do that? How would the people who would derive optimal joy from having me in their life, and me from them, know about me, without me telling them? Is it time to become a believer in “the law of attraction” or serendipity?

As an intuitive person, I know that some things are a sign of a bigger issue. Some feelings are safe to ignore, move past, challenge or transform. But not this one. This one needs “an answer”—a concrete action, that is different from what I have been doing so far.

Which is confusing—because I don’t know how to achieve it. Is there a way to just pierce the fourth wall somehow, and be “Hey, you, yes you, want to hang for a lifetime?” *Googling fourth wall piercer, DIY*

Wishing myself luck on this one.

Caerulea-Lawrence Oct 10, 2023, 11:23 AM
2 points
1
on: Announcing Dialogues
Hello,

I did enjoy the dialogues I’ve read so far, and would like to join one.

I tend to read a lot of different things, and as such am much better at drawing parallels and seeing associative links between different concepts or structures of thought, than delving into one in particular. This is useful for finding novel solutions to problems that are almost impossible to solve with a hammer—but you might have more luck with if you use a pair of scissors

It is hard to know if the issue is one that is best solved with a hammer or with something else—but I do believe I can help in dismissing some fruitless avenues. So if you are just curious about having someone exploring different takes on something (as little or much as you want) let me know.

Besides the more general above, I care about these things. You don’t have to be familiar with it per se to have a dialogue about it, but for it to work, I assume you will have to have an equal interest in something else that we can share our take on, and I want it to be decently advanced as well. Am not much of a teacher, and don’t like to work on the basics, if it isn’t related to a more fundamental, meta-level of understanding.

- MBTI—Cognitive functions and their very different inner “Logic”. Would love to speak with sensors, especially about which skills they have developed, when, why etc.

- Nonviolent communication (practices, issues, uses) - Dyads, group processes, organizations

- Internal Family Systems -

- Spiral Dynamics—An outline theory about complexity-development; Complexity & abstraction of ideas, feelings, self, world etc

- Typical Mind Fallacy; What does it include or not, and could there be other explanations? What about neurodivergent vs neurotypical. How big are the differences in minds really, and are there ways to bridge the gap successfully?

Much, much more, but that is the general gist. I relate all these concepts together, and add in more as well if I find they fit somehow.

So hit me up/invite me if you are just mildly curious to curious, and we’ll take it from there.

Caerulea-Lawrence Sep 27, 2023, 5:34 PM
1 point
0
in reply to: Jiro’s comment on: The King and the Golem
Yes, it is true, but being King doesn’t grant him omnipotence. The great rewards are guarded by someone, tallied by another, taxed by a third, available to some—similar to the great penalties. He is trusting in his power as king that his subjects will follow his every whim—when:
Who could he trust, when anyone around him might scheme for his throne?
The King trusts his subjects Directly by asking them to do things for him directly, trusts them indirectly by believing his given role as “King” is enough for them to follow this squandering of resources. He even ‘trusts’ that this ‘trust’ is strong enough to gather the kind of people that will actually work diligently and genuinely to create something ‘Trustworthy’.

Searching for a ‘trustworthy thing’ might simply be an expression of his lack of discernment—he can’t trust himself—so he tries to compensate by creating something he can trust. But—if he himself is the problem, creating a perfect Golem won’t fix him. And maybe that is what this piece is about -
That we are limited by so many factors beyond our control that we simply can’t reach the level of the Golem, and in its construction, become its weakest link.

Caerulea-Lawrence Sep 23, 2023, 10:08 AM
1 point
0
in reply to: Jay Bailey’s comment on: Would You Work Harder In The Least Convenient Possible World?
Hello Jay Bailey,

Thanks for your reply. Yes, I seem to have overcomplicated the point made in this post by adding the system-lens to this situation. It isn’t irrelevant, it is simply besides the point for Alice and Bob.

The goal I am focusing on is a ‘system overhaul’ not a concrete example like this.

I was also reminded of how detrimental the confrontational tone and haughtiness by Alice and the lack of clarity and self-understanding of Bob is for learning, change and understanding. How it creates a loop where the interaction itself doesn’t seem to bring either any closer to being more in tune with their values and beliefs. It seems to further widen the gulf between their respective positions, instead of capitalizing on their respective differences to further improve on facets of their values-to-actions efficiency ratio that their opposite seems capable of helping them with.

But I didn’t focus much on this point in my comment.

Kindly, Caerulea-Lawrence

Caerulea-Lawrence Sep 23, 2023, 9:42 AM
4 points
0
in reply to: Firinn’s comment on: Would You Work Harder In The Least Convenient Possible World?
Hello Firinn,

Thanks for the linked post, it was right on the money.

I see that I look at market-economy as a problem by itself, but I haven’t really thought about money from a less idealistic point of view.

It is really hard to come to terms with the argument he makes, when the system money operates under is so flawed.

But maybe it is more of a general point. In the instance between Alice and Bob, they might not see or have the ability to try to change the system itself, and under those circumstances I have missed the point.

Again, thanks for the post.

Kindly, Caerulea-Lawrence

Caerulea-Lawrence Sep 22, 2023, 6:35 PM
3 points
0
on: Would You Work Harder In The Least Convenient Possible World?
Hello Firinn,
I can relate to this post, even when I was never part of the EA-movement. When I was younger, I did join a climate-organization, and also had an account on kiva.org. And I would say there was a lot of guilt and confusion around my actions at that point, whilst simultaneously trying to do a lot of ‘better than’-actions.

Your post is very extensive, and as such I find myself engaged by just reading one of the external links and the post itself. Therefore, my comment isn’t really a comment to the whole post, but sees the post through one entry-point I thought might be valuable. I hope it is still useful to the thematic you had in mind.

I focused on Child in the Pond and have used that as my pivot point—as well as reading the whole interaction between ‘Alice’ and ‘Bob’.

Imagining being in the pond situation does fill me with emotions that would steer me towards taking action to alleviate the immediate suffering. But there are two things I believe that the Child in the pond text gets conflated, and which might also be relevant for the interactions between ‘Alice’ and ‘Bob’.

The two are:
1. ‘Why’ you save the kid from drowning, but why you can’t “save” lives.
2. And relatedly, why focusing on money as a metric for saving lives, can fuel the same situations the text implies we should avoid.

1. ‘Why’ you save the kid from drowning, but why you can’t “save” lives.
To take the conflation first.
Why do you save the kid from drowning? Many might be motivated by ‘compassion’ - to want to alleviate the perceived suffering of the child. You perceive the situation, interpret it, feel an emotion, and you choose to act on it. Acting on this emotion, seems like the best course of action—the situation might be complex, there are a lot of things you don’t know, but to do this would be ‘the moral thing to do’.

But there is quite the leap between having the physical abilities, and being in a situation where you can save a child from drowning, and what the Child in the Pond text talks about, namely ‘saving lives’. It says:

Now think about your own situation. By donating a relatively small amount of money, you could save a child’s life.
In other words, an arbitrary link is made between a situation in which you can ‘act’ to save a child from drowning, to a situation in which you can ‘pay’ to save a child.

But if it were the same, you could, If you so desired, save the toddler in the pond by simply pulling out your ‘magical card of FixEveryProblem’, swipe it, and the problem would be solved. If you really wanted to help more, you might even get the option of getting the toddler a ‘good, caring parent’, one/two/three very good friends and the premium helping package where they have healthy, fulfilling and enriching lives for themselves and everyone they come into contact with.

But you can’t. You can’t pay to save the toddler. You have to be there, see the situation, understand it, be willing to act and decide to act. An action that might naturally be followed up by you caring for the child and bringing it to its caretakers (what happened there btw..?), whilst dealing with the reactions the toddler has to the situation, be it anything from loud screaming, crying, to gut-wrenching misery and getting water on your face and clothes, or maybe even puked on. Do you still do it? Yes, I hope you would.

Yes, it is a conflation. It is also made a lot worse by the use of the word ‘save’, and the implicit ‘guarantee’ it hinges on your money—that it ‘saves’ lives.
If your only goal was to ‘save’ lives, the most rational choice I can see would be to try to minimize the amounts of people getting born—as every person ‘born’ is only guaranteed to ‘lose’ their life. You might buy for the vaccines, but they get lost in transport, or destroyed by an earthquake. Losing your life, on the other hand, is guaranteed. Remove religious elements like Jesus, and you have the perfect antidote for human suffering: Antinatalism.
- You can’t ‘save’ lives, you can only ‘prolong’ life.

- You can’t pay to prolong life, there are certain acts/resources that prolongs a life, alleviates various kinds of suffering and even increases well-being.

This might seem like a small problem by itself, but it creates a lot of stumbling-blocks when communicating effectively, because donating money isn’t an action that save children from certain illnesses by itself.

2. And relatedly, why focusing on money as a metric for saving lives, can fuel the same situations the text implies we should avoid.
As I pointed out above, there is a conflation between the drowning child and donating money. It compares apples and oranges, it conflates two different things and compares them as being the same.

Now, in the same text, there is this story of the child Wang Yue dying in the streets, despite numerous people seeing her. What does this have to do with money? Well, if you start to argue that ‘money’ saves lives, then going to work on time, and leaving ‘saving the person’ to someone working in a charity, or to those paid by society to take care of her (Parents?), might arguably be the correct choice of action.

To a charity, the expression ‘Money saves lives’ is true in the sense that you create a product with ingredients like: distinct causal connection between an action and a result—Give us money >> less children die of malaria.
If you save the child Wang Yue, you might not have a product team, a PR team, a photographer or a film-crew on the ready to create a product that people can buy. In other words, you aren’t guaranteed to make money. And since money saves lives, losing money might start looking akin to losing lives.

And it seems like both Alice and Bob have unwittingly bought into the concept of Money=lives.
What actually prolongs lives, isn’t money, but resources, genetics and luck. You need resources like time, effort, skill, innovation, dedication, will, focus, materials, care, understanding and cooperation, to name a few. Money doesn’t create these resources, it is used to direct them

System lens:

Alice: You know, Bob, you claim to really care about improving the world, but you don’t seem to donate as much as you could or to use your time very effectively. Maybe you should donate that money rather than getting takeout tonight?

This was the experience I had with climate organizations and kiva.org as well, that this conflation is very rampant. Ironically, people would on the one hand say that ‘capitalism’ is wrong, whilst on the other saying that donating is good. Which is odd.
If Capitalism is inherently unsustainable, how does monetizing more of human life, values and needs, create more sustainability?

Human resources like care, time, understanding, empathy, love, cooperation, friendships, intelligence, wisdom, skill etc. are interconnected with each other, and don’t grow due to money. Money might give you access to certain resources—but the resources aren’t there due to money.

A different kind of communication:

Reading the argument between Bob and Alice reminds me of discussions that go in circles. In a way, the issue they are arguing might be a totally different one, but finding out ‘what is going on’ needs a different approach.
I remember hearing about this process where people with different political views were to have a talk, but instead of the usual ‘debate format’, they were to explain how they got to believe what they believed in. It lead to much higher levels of mutual understanding and respect, but I haven’t seen this replicated in the national debates.

Conclusion:

One thing is the conflation I spotted, which ties to a lot of conflicts, that seem like they are conflicts on one level—but are really about something else. But knowing that the issues are more ‘fundamental’ might not feel that reassuring, which is why I presented the point about a kind of communication that might bring more understanding and respect, whilst still exploring disagreements or different points of view.
My hope is for more understanding in general, and to see various skills people have applied in ways that increase felt meaning for the people participating in disagreement—as well as anyone listening to it.

Kindly,
Caerulea-Lawrence

Caerulea-Lawrence Sep 21, 2023, 6:26 PM
3 points
1
on: “Did you lock it?”
Hello again ymeskhout,
looking at the answers you have given to people, and the comments I have got on my own reply to this post, I was wondering if I read your post in a specific light, and went through it more in-depth.

You write in your comment that “[...]My post was strictly about “giving advice to victims” and the pushback you’re giving invokes all these collateral issues I never argued in favor of.”
and in a later comment
“The parallels between bike theft and rape are obviously not going to perfectly match, nor should we expect them to. My point here was to start with something small (“giving advice to victims on how to reduce risk”) and then start extrapolating to see if we can reach a consensus on what precisely is bad about that.”

Reading your post again with this in mind, I notice that I am really confused by some issues.
Here they are:

Our questions were problem-solving endeavors saturated with sympathy; we wanted to know what went wrong precisely to help others avoid the same fate.
Maybe I am misunderstanding this sentence, but if you ask someone ‘what went wrong’ to help alleviate further victimization—isn’t that gathering information on what advice to give, and not about giving advice? This might be a small thing, but it is something I noticed.
Kathleen Stock charges right into deconstructing the surprisingly enduring ritual of affixing the “victim-blaming” reprimand to any advice aimed at reducing the risk of sexual assault.

There seems to be no doubt that many people blame some rape victims for what happens to them, irrationally. In one 2010 survey, more than half of respondents thought that “drinking to excess” or “dressing provocatively” made rape victims more responsible for the outcome. Yet it is rapists who are responsible for their crimes.[...]
From the paragraph before the one you quoted.
Maybe there is some statistics on this, with regard to bike theft too. I would imagine the things that have been mentioned in the comments already, like having an expensive bike/what lock(s) you used to where you parked it—would be something people would be prone to blame the victims for.

Still, isn’t there a clear distinction between the explicit goal of your OP and the text by Kathleen Stock? She is talking about giving advice to women (and her sons) that are ‘pre-victimized’, and you saying that the goal is to give advice to ‘post-victimized’ people.
She isn’t saying you should talk to victims like that, the title is “Telling women how to cut the risk of rape is anything but sexist.” not telling Victims.
So there seems to be a sort of conflating of the two in your text, and I would really prefer it if you made it extensively clear which one you are talking about, as they are extremely different issues. There is a difference between “any advice aimed at reducing the risk of sexual assault” and “any advice aimed at reducing the risk of a repeat of sexual assault.” Two different situations, best not get them conflated.
Imparting wisdom on the implacable chain of consequences is about the most compassionate thing you could do.
This goes back to the conflation. If you are talking about pre-victimization, I would say that it could be helpful information—but not a compassionate thing in itself. If we are talking about post-victimization, there are many issues you are dealing with, not to mention problematic physical/emotional issues—neither of which learning about the ‘implacable chain of consequences’ will help you with.
They can choose to accept that advice, and if it is sound then they’ll be met with the disastrous outcome of…not having their bike stolen.
This hearkens back to the point from before: Is this text about talking to people ‘pre-’ victimhood, or ‘post-‘? Moreover, neither accepting nor following the advice saves you from being raped or having your bike stolen—You only reduce the chances. As is talked about in the text you quote, but as also mentioned by @liamk; Among other things, she points out that there is no evidence that preventionist programs work; and evidence that risk-reduction programs decrease the likelihood of female students being assaulted by as much as 50%. - There is no guarantee it won’t still happen. Which doesn’t defeat the purpose of prevention—but shouldn’t be conflated with ‘safety’.

That was all I was confused about when it came to your post.

Your post seems to align more with ‘Preventing’ victimization from happening, so wouldn’t it be better to build on that, as that seems more coherent with the source you use.

If we are to focus only on the goal you mentioned earlier, and answer that using your experiences,
“giving advice to victims on how to reduce risk”) and then start extrapolating to see if we can reach a consensus on what precisely is bad about that.” to me it breaks down the second when you go outside your in-group of similar-minded people. I wouldn’t like to get advice if I lost a bike, I would like empathic support, care, understanding and a friendly hug.

As such, I must admit that it is very hard to read a post like this, that even if indirectly, compares Bike Theft and Rape. If you are either a survivor or secondary survivor, the after effects of trauma goes from terrible to hellish. There are also secondary issues like pregnancy, transmission of diseases, PTSD symptoms and stigma, to name a few.

Caerulea-Lawrence

Sidenote:
Thanks to @Firinn and to @Said Achmiz for making this comment a reality. The former for their empathic listening, which was essential for me to regain my clarity and groundedness. The latter for their willingness to interact with me, and do what I would describe as “throwing wrenches into my mental faculty”, which irks me in such a way that it helps me with my fundamental rationality work. I would have not been able to write this without either of you. Thank you.

Caerulea-Lawrence Sep 20, 2023, 2:29 AM
−8 points
0
in reply to: Jiro’s comment on: “Did you lock it?”
Hello Jiro,

Said and I have some banter going on, but I genuinely value their feedback, and take it seriously into consideration—Humor just helps me to learn things better, and is my way of showing my will to grow and improve—but also my current state of acceptance and honesty. And Said can talk for themselves, but I don’t feel like they are trying to be passive-aggressive towards me in any way.

I’m not familiar with you, however. If you just didn’t understand, that is fine—even though I would have preferred you just ask either of us instead of posting a no-context comment randomly stating ‘This is a passive-aggressive attack[...]’.

Kindly,
Caerulea-Lawrence

Caerulea-Lawrence Sep 18, 2023, 9:53 PM
−10 points
0
in reply to: Said Achmiz’s comment on: “Did you lock it?”
Hello again Said,

Yes, believe nothing else. I am eternally grateful for your foresight and exemplary behavior.

What I meant is that as such a skilled senior, I should treat you as a moderator, and invoking leniency is simply an expression of the fact that even at my best behavior, with the outmost of care, vigilance and decorum, it wouldn’t be fair to you to compare my own efforts and skill to yours. Moreover, that I hope that you will allow me the chance to grow and improve side by side with you, even when that means sometimes showing me the ropes or picking up the slack. Of course, I will not let your effort go unnoticed or unseen, as I value them greatly, and even if they aren’t statistical facts—I hope you can still feel the heartfelt emotions behind my words.

I’m glad you have done this service to us all—and as such I feel really, really hesitant to do the whole community the disservice of making it go unacknowledged, or worse, add to the confusion by changing my former comment—when it shows my factual level of competence—and your higher-level effort of improving on it.

I mean, it is beyond terrible that this happens in the first place, don’t you agree? Some facts are simply so awful, that I wonder not only at the toughness and hardness of the people collecting them, but if it is right of me, or anyone, to speak about this so haphazardly.
Still, finding the truth is important, and I cheer for your monumental dedication to doing things correctly and by the book—even going so far as gracefully improving things—without going overboard. Again, thank you.

I agree, for now it seems I am simply at the level of uncertainty and approximations—but I can’t give up improving by being passive and unconfident, lest I stay in that space forever without improvement. And you saying that I am correct, is simply the highest praise. I’m not quite worthy, but I’ll take it :)

Kindly,
Caerulea-Lawrence

Caerulea-Lawrence Sep 18, 2023, 6:38 PM
1 point
0
in reply to: Rafael Harth’s comment on: Book Review: Consciousness Explained (as the Great Catalyst)
Thanks for the answer,

Still, I know I read somewhere about intuitives using a lot of their energy on reflection, and so I gathered that that kind of dual-action might explain part of the reason why someone would talk about ‘qualia’ as something you are ‘aware’ of as it happens.
I mean, if most of one’s energy is focused on a process not directly visible/tangible to one’s ‘sense perception’, I don’t see why people wouldn’t feel that there was something separate from their sense perception alone. Whereas with sensors, and it being flipped, it seems more reasonable to assume that since the direct sense perceptions are heavily focused on, the ‘invisible/intangible’ process gets more easily disregarded.

The thing is, there have been instances where I didn’t ‘feel’ my usual way around qualia. In situations that were very physical demanding, repetitive or very painful/dangerous, I was definitely ‘awake’, but I just ‘was’. These situations are pretty far between, so it isn’t something that I’m that familiar with—but I’m pretty certain that if I was in that space most of the time, and probably learned how to maneuver things there better—I would no longer talk about being in Camp 2, but in Camp 1.

I would be very surprised if I could see the color Phi phenomenon, as I just think that I would have noticed it already. But, as with many such things, maybe it simply is hidden in plain sight?

Caerulea-Lawrence Sep 18, 2023, 1:18 PM
1 point
0
in reply to: kave’s comment on: Navigating an ecosystem that might or might not be bad for the world
Thanks,

I guess if I were there, I guess I would have wanted to connect what you talked about to specific terms that might further clarify what kind of solution(s) you were looking for. Or, in plain English, to ask which of these needs-categories (NVC-list page 3&4)would best fit what you wanted to talk about.

I mean, you are already meeting a lot of needs, but if you go back to the start, and you ask Which of these categories of needs best fit what you feel right now—It might have served as a decent anchor point both of you could have used to fill in confusing blanks.

Caerula-Lawrence

Caerulea-Lawrence Sep 18, 2023, 12:43 PM
1 point
0
in reply to: StartAtTheEnd’s comment on: Is there something fundamentally wrong with the Universe?
Hello again,
 Thanks for your reply, and I’m happy to agree with the general direction of what you wrote, and add some odd points of mine as well.

There is one very positive thing I see in being able to hold these thoughts, concepts and ideas. In many instances, like the ones we are discussing here in this post, there is no correct answer for everyone, or even you. But, if you can hold the various views, paradoxes and abstract ideas in your mind, you can still choose a lot of useful and enriching tentative positions to give rise to a more creative, healthy inner climate, with more acceptance and flexibility.

I don’t think we can go much higher in terms of abstraction levels without abstracting away that which we talk about. If you get rid of free will, or the idea that we are different from that around us, then nothing can really be said at all.

Perhaps we only talk about what we don’t understand fully, as that which we already understand seems uninteresting and trivial.
My view on this is a bit different. I can absolutely go beyond this level of abstraction. And I also see a point in it, but maybe it isn’t so important to everyone, and I don’t see it as so valuable to delve into here either. This level is sufficiently strong to deal with most ‘weird’ occurring thoughts, concepts and ideas, without being unnecessarily tripped up.

Now, to address your concerns, it might be better to use an “Unpopular” model like MBTI. To simplify, I try to improve all Cognitive Functions; and to apply them to life, learning not only the preferred way for each Function to deal with an issue—but also to discern when my most used tool simply isn’t the best for the task at hand.
From the way you express concern, and focus on ‘living’, I assume you do this as well.

So, it is important for me to delve into this—but similarly it is very important to me to work on supination in my foot, delve into a specific emotional part, to name some of the things I care about.

I wouldn’t say talking about the meaning of life is anymore ‘important’ than those—it is just that that particular function in me, my Ne, is far more developed. And so I want to increase the balance through developing the functions that are weaker, not only in comparison to itself, but to the complexity level of my Ne. But of course, as of now, that is my most used tool, and even though I have others I use, that is still the closest to how I would say ‘I am’ - but that is changing as well.

Going further here is beside the point I believe, but to make that clear to anyone reading this:

It is quite dangerous to be ‘creative’ and boundary-pushing without certain skills. Like anything, you don’t do deep diving without proper knowledge and training—and so delving into things, like we have illustrated here, takes much skill, much training and to actually use the correct cognitive ‘tool’ for the job.

There are various ways to deal with the Question I posted, but I see it more as each of them tackling one piece of the problem. Ideally, I would prefer to have more access in myself to the various tools, and to see how each can improve a specific part of a struggle/problem. Because noticing that focusing on my supination is much more efficient in feeling balance, harmony or progress, than sorting out things in the Ne part of my mind, isn’t ‘obvious’ to me.

I greatly thank you for the exchange, and if you have a finishing comment, go ahead. If you want to continue talking about things, I think DM is the right way to go.

Gratefully,
Caerulea-Lawrence

Caerulea-Lawrence Sep 17, 2023, 10:38 PM
−2 points
1
in reply to: Said Achmiz’s comment on: “Did you lock it?”
Hello Said!

You are my commenting senior, and I understand you want a high standard—Still, I’m very positive that intimate relationships and acquaintances are the number1 group of perpetrators, and that my argument is a valid one—So I’m content with my level of research in the context of this post. I understand if you might disagree with my level of skill, but I hope you can have some leniency.

In the future, I might want to rise to a different level of discernment. To check the small details more, and try to achieve the level of Commentator Enlightenment you have. To have the power to nitpick posts and comments to Death, like you’re able to, or also give them the extra flair that lets them shine—or both.
I must admit, I’m far from that level, But since you have made basically 5432.1% more comments than me, I believe I might rise to the occasion in time.
Remember that all your comments to me are a chance to reflect on myself, and to choose to be better, and I am grateful you give me some attention.
Thank you.

All the best to you,
Caerulea-Lawrence

Caerulea-Lawrence Sep 17, 2023, 5:28 PM
3 points
0
on: Book Review: Consciousness Explained (as the Great Catalyst)
Hi Rafael Harth,

I did remember reading, Why it’s so hard to talk about Consciousness, and shrinking back from the conflict that you wrote as an example of how the two camps usually interact.

Reading this review was interesting. I do feel like I wouldn’t necessarily want to read the book, but reading this was worth it. I also drew a parallel between the contentious point about consciousness, and the Typical Mind/psych Fallacy (Generalizing from One Example—by Scott Alexander here on LW).

One connection I see is that, similar to the Color Phi phenomenon (I only see two dots), people seem to have different kinds of abilities or skills—but I don’t know of anyone having ‘All’ of them. Other skills involving sight that I know of, are the out-of-the-body experiences of NDE’s, (Near death experiences) seeing ‘remnants/ghosts’ and also the ability to see some sort of ‘light’ when tracking, as seen by ‘modern’ animal communicators and tribalist hunters (30:08 and 31:15).

Since we seem to be unaware of the different sets of skills a human might possess, how they can be used, and how different they are ‘processed’, it kind of seems like Camp 1 and Camp 2 are fighting over a Typical Mind Fallacy—that one’s experience is generalized to others, and this view seen as the only one possible.

Personally, I seem to fit into the Camp 2, but at the same time, I don’t disagree with Camp 1. I mean, if both people in your example are trustworthy, the only reasonable thing to me seems to believe that both of them are right about something.

If there is some Typical Mind Fallacy at play, there should be some underlying skills/mechanisms that those in each group have/have developed, each giving them certain advantages, possibilities or simply different perceptions.

On a side-note, for those of us interested in that, I wonder if others thought these two camps align well with Sensors an Intuitives in Myers-Briggs?

Thanks for writing this.

Kindly,
Caerulea-Lawrence

Caerulea-Lawrence Sep 17, 2023, 9:41 AM
1 point
0
on: On being downvoted
Hello Adam Zerner,

I believe it is very useful to look at voting through both frameworks, and agree that this is an important aspect to look at. Thanks for deciding to write your concerns in this post.

Downvoting through the lens of stictly ‘wanting to see more/less of something’, to me, makes it hard to differentiate a response between the functional aspect of writing, and the emotional. Many a post would be much more fulfilling for the posters with differing levels of emotional concerns, if they were accurately and feeling-y addressed—preferably maybe even before posting.

I have tried to write things earlier, that got heavily down-voted, and I left LW for a good while. Mostly because what I wrote was on the Feeling-channel. As such, I primarily wanted an emotional understanding response, and in my naivety I believed that it was obvious. There were vulnerable emotions there, which were never addressed. Of course, I could have been more explicit about my values/needs—but the natural prerequisite for that would be ‘trust’. And from my limited experience, asking for feelingy-things is more risky here, because it, weirdly enough, seems to indicate that what you have written is less than what it could be if you would simply answer ‘neutrally’. Which is true, in a way. If someone were to give me the sought after feeling-y channel feedback, I would be less reactive about the votes.

Your frustration could point to many things, but since the feelings are important—responses to the content alone might totally miss the high value to you when getting a fulfilling response there. And maybe it would allow to to write some things in your posts that is not clear.

I imagine that the format on the recent dialogue-post by habryka and kave, serves to me as a much better example as to how useful it can be to get feedback on the more value-based, personal side of things. In my experience it greatly increase any odds of me being more creative, engaged, content and collected about something.

I mean, I would feel more content and happy about a site that encouraged and help facillitate interactions like those. A simple—I need ‘emotional feedback’ button you could press, to see if maybe there was something very important you were missing. Still, emotional feedback is also a bit more personal—and so you would have to have trust that your respondent was adequately skilled and trustworthy, to be able to handle it.

If you could improve a post, or maybe find the courage and willingness to write something through the support and help of peers—wouldn’t it be kind of nice? Especially if it was easy to do. I have some ideas here, but not sure if I should elaborate here.

Kindly, Caerulea-Lawrence

Caerulea-Lawrence Sep 16, 2023, 2:27 PM
0 points
0
on: Navigating an ecosystem that might or might not be bad for the world
Hello habryka and kave,

I felt a bit uplifted from reading this, and I would love to see more of this on LW. This is more of a direct response to a problem—and so you are not only ‘looking’ at the problem, but your action is a good approach at solving it.

I do have some views that could be of use, but I mean, I wasn’t in this dialogue, you didn’t invite me and so being a ‘backseat participant’ feels a tad odd. Conversations of this kind are more situational in my experience, and so even when you post it—I just assume that the Form and the Content might be separate. If things are otherwise, I’d love to chip in.

Healthy and productive dialogue is good to see, and getting closer to a workable goal, and the process hereto, has broader application. Seeing this kind of dialogue is something I would absolutely love to see, for various reasons.
By exploring things in this way, many ideas and concepts might be ‘helped’ out of their shell by a little water in the form of understanding, willingness to understand and being on the same page enough to make useful plays that help the other person improve upon what they have already got. I believe seeing how this is done is useful, not only as an inspiration, but also a practical guide into how things ‘could be’, instead of chopping left and right. Moreover, it is a good alternative way to explore themes and ideas without the boxed form of writing a post or a question. I guess it caters more to the Extrovert processing side of things—where it is useful, and necessary, for progress to have someone to bounce your ideas off of.

Kindly,
Caerulea-Lawrence

Caerulea-Lawrence Sep 15, 2023, 10:06 PM
2 points
0
in reply to: StartAtTheEnd’s comment on: Is there something fundamentally wrong with the Universe?
Hello again StartAtTheEnd,

Thanks for your reflection. I liked reading it.

I’ll try to reflect with you here. It might look like I disagree with you here, but I am mostly just bouncing off what you wrote and adding in different thoughts I have myself.

“The world is objectively flawed, it’s not just my own opinion, and now I’m suffering the gap between this flawed state and the goal state.

* You notice that your system reacts by fearing insults similarly to tigers, you notice that your ‘body’ never gets ‘satisfied’ and that each time you get something you want, you only create something else—So you conclude that by ‘fighting’ life, you are creating your own suffering, and only by giving this up, will be relieved from the constant Earthly struggle of trying to change something where you yourself create the issue.

But speaking of not living life—How/why do they/you say that it is ‘bad’ to struggle and be ‘unhappy’? Even if you look past things like evolutionary biology, how do you argue for this position, when you at the same time argue that you shouldn’t have any goals and not fight?

As far as I am aware, the goal is to reach Enlightenment, and be relieved from the ‘suffering’ of reincarnation. Which seems oddly similar to saying that there is something ‘fundamentally wrong’ with something. Or, some kind of position where you say that it is possible to stop the ‘suffering’, but it is dependent on Karma or things like that.
But yeah, given the Data you collected to reach that conclusion—is it the only one? By delving into the subconscious, the intuitive and collecting all that information—is that conclusion ‘the whole truth’, and the only Truth?
You didn’t say it was, and I must admit that I am decently ignorant, but it seems a concept that isn’t really ‘debatable’ or ‘traceable’.

To reach the point of choosing another direction than what is ‘self-evident’ or ‘natural’, you are abstracting and meta-evaluating. At this level, you are also consciously looking at things. So, how did you come to the conclusion that it is right to not create tension? To not do that which seems to come natural to us? There has to be some kind of reason.

And if you deem something ‘wrong’ - do you simply connect that to your own happiness? Why would you do that? Ok, so you fight things and it makes you unhappy—let’s become content/enlightened. But again—why?
Isn’t it like creating the game, and then just pretending you didn’t, but follow the rules you made without questioning them enough to reach a point where you can create the game yourself? Isn’t that exactly the same things as you were trying to avoid in the first place?

Yes, if you understand that you can create games—if you stay in that space, and you dip your toes into the process, doesn’t it become quite obvious that playing any game is taxing? That even deciding to be ‘content’ is to overrule the natural impulse of the body? Not playing a game means devolving into an animal—and why isn’t that correct?

From my perspective, I want to live fully, and of course that involves to explore and discover the one part that is the most intimate and familiar to me—myself. That of course includes my capabilities, my mind, my body and how I interact with the world.
When things are ‘wrong’, if it is only in me—well, I can change it, like you point out. But, the problem is, unless you somehow view yourself as isolated, distinct and separate from everyone and everything else—whatever goes on in you is hard to separate from the rest.

In the comments, people talk about being embedded in the Universe, and kind of being physics but having different physics. Well, that is fine and well—but you start to say that something is ‘wrong’, where does it come from—what is it connected to. Not only in myself, but in the world around me. Where does it start?

You point out that Nietzsche might see life as a struggle between forces—But if you can make the game yourself, why do you care?

True, at this level of abstraction, some people either reject everything, get completely lost or conflate the tree with the forest.
But since I seem able to withstand this specific level of abstraction—as I guess with anyone who have honed their craft sufficiently, some things that were difficult, are now just plain.

Instead of renegading on our ability to influence the game itself—I believe it is better to acknowledge our ability to do so—and direct the latent energy towards something productive and not let it swim around in our unconscious, creating all kinds of dangerous oversimplifications.

At the same time—To be a bit more Practical—To skillfully deal with any one element of reality, be it emotionally, relationally, introspectively, intuitively etc., takes a lot of a specific kind of energy, time and ability.
Yes, I might have reached this state of being able to handle it, but it isn’t really something I did irrespectively of the world around me.- moreover, there is so much I can’t handle. I am terrible at showing and feeling certain emotions, physical weakness and pain, or I struggle with the practical and I run away from certain depths in my mind/emotions. To just mention a few things. And I mean, if I don’t sleep well—many of my ideals are reduced to trying, and failing.

But I don’t want to ignore anything, I want to include the different perspectives, our limitations and weaknesses, but also our strengths and all our possibilities even when they don’t seem to fit—and work towards creating a better fit. Something that inevitably needs other people to do.
Well, finding someone to delve deep is high on the list of goals, but for now I am also expressing things here, as a kind of sub-goal, in the hopes of reaching other’s that want to go to uncharted territory with us.

Kindly,
Caerulea-Lawrence