Hidden Knowledge

[boccher]

doctor will fix me they'll do a scan and find a terrible darkness seated in my stomach and be like "oh my god we're so sorry we were supposed to remove this at birth like everyone else, i don't know how this was missed, we're so sorry you've been living like this your whole life" and it'll fix my brain too and all clouds will part

[balioc]

So now you've got the largest cash flows in the history of commerce, a closed M&A window, buybacks already maxed and getting politically smelly, and dividends — these are growth stocks, you start paying a dividend and you've announced you're a utility, your multiple gets repriced overnight. There is exactly one remaining way to move a hundred billion dollars a year that the SEC, the FTC, and your own shareholders will all applaud, and that's capital expenditure. Capex is the one door left open.

I am not enough of a business guy to know whether this is an accurate vision of How Things Work Right Now. I certainly don't regard the source as trustworthy or authoritative. It feels accurate, it matches up with lots of things I've heard in lots of different places, but - if the answer is "that's just not the system," I'm prepared to believe it.

Assuming arguendo, though, that it is How Things Work Right Now -

- that's the whole ballgame, right? That's every theory about why markets work, done and dusted, when it comes to the giant companies on which the modern world and the modern economy are built. That's "it doesn't matter how you feel about capitalism, because we are not actually doing capitalism right now in any sense that matters."

If make a good product, have people buy it, make lots of money, enjoy success is no longer viable as a business strategy in the realms that matter - if you literally have to be chasing unicorns forever until you flame out and die, even if you've already caught a unicorn or ten - if all your vast reams of profit are never allowed to cycle into the rest of the economy -

- how the hell is this supposed to work, even in theory?

Am I actually just the one taking crazy pills? Am I missing something?

[occultbookstores]

As long as they're not holding the stock if and when reality crashes down. As long as number goes up, which is their first commandment.

[coyoteroadkill]

ive said this before but it was on my old blog so I'm saying it again

dehumanizing abusers is not effective at doing anything other than make people think they're ontologically incapable of violence

[ajunicetryagain]

it's also creating a class of people who you can abuse while telling yourself that you're Good and Moral and Not an Abuser.

[kyraneko]

if you dehumanize the caught abusers then the uncaught abusers will use their humanity as proof of innocence

if you dehumanize the hypothetical abusers you create incentives for false accusations as a means of dehumanization whenever dehumanization is desired for other reasons

[uss-edsall]

At 1 PM on a Friday I get an email from my boss. I'm busy as hell so I don't check it immediately. Then I get a phone call from my boss, which has almost never happened before. I'm a white collar worker, a historian. There's never a 'historical emergency' requiring a phone call to kick me in the ass and get to work.

The request is so urgent my boss needs it by the end of the work week. Which, y'know, is 5 PM on a Friday. So I have four hours to do it.

It's a forwarded request. Somebody contacted a member of the donation team asking for help, "I need a map from the Vietnam War to use for a presentation." It's somebody she's trying to coax into giving a five figure donation to the museum.

The request was asked to the donation team member, who then emailed my boss, who then emailed and called me urgently.

This map required:

North and South Vietnam in it

All four areas that South Vietnam was divided into for military purposes ('Corps') clearly delineated

Four cities, all of them horrifically misspelled, and only identifiable because I know what battle the requester is asking about (it’s in III Corps on the border with Cambodia) (the requester danced around the battle but I’m knowledgeable enough to identify it)

Has Laos and Cambodia in it

Has the Ho Chi Minh Trail in it

So. I was mad about the 'you have literally four hours to find a map with a lot of requirements.'

I was then mad at myself about finding a copyright free map from Texas Tech University within half an hour, proving her right for asking me to do it.

Then, after I found a map that perfectly met the requirements, I was equally amazed, baffled, and horrified when I read further into the forwarded email chain.

The donation team team member they were speaking to used AI to generate a map.

The above put half of North Vietnam in South Vietnam, made the Ho Chi Minh Trail a country, made 60% of Cambodia part of South Vietnam, put the DMZ extremely high up in North Vietnam, completely disconnected the southern tip of Vietnam, misplaced all of the Corps zones, etc etc

At the very last second the donation team member had a moment of divine clarity, remembering there's three historians on payroll to ask for this kind of thing from. So she contacted my boss while saying, "I had fun with this, but I decided I should check for accuracy before I send it to the donor! I need a fact check by the end of the day, then I send it"

My boss, while not the most knowledgeable on the Vietnam War, does know her geography. She took one look, and knew it was so off she called me to tell me how urgent it is that I look at the email and respond

good fucking god, jesus tap dancing goddamn christ, I'm glad I was asked to look at it and then find a real map

[the-murmuration-project]

My fear has never been that AI would replace human intelligence. My fear has been that the people who Know Things and the people who Make The Decisions are almost never the same people.

We’re throwing real intelligence out on the street to starve while worshipping the shambling Frankenstein-ed corpse of knowledge puppeteered by those who see us as disposable assets.

[ordinarytalk]

Recovering from autistic burnout as a high-masking adult:

To recover, you literally need to manually learn skills that most people learn as a toddler

You need to learn what makes your body uncomfortable, and what to do to fix it

If you are high-masking, that usually means that you have learned to ignore every distress signal your body sends unless it is a distress signal that a neurotypical person would recognize. People have likely been unintentionally gaslighting you about your lived experience your entire life

If you feel bad or panicked for no reason, stop and try to pay attention to your body. Are you tense? You are likely feeling physical pain somewhere. If you've been gaslit about your pain your entire life, you might not be able to identify it.

Go through a sensory checklist.

SIGHT: Try closing and covering your eyes. If this gives you relief, the lights are probably too bright. You may also need differently-colored lights

SOUND: Cover your ears. Does this give you relief? If so, you may need earplugs or noise canceling headphones. You may also benefit from a neutral or pleasant background noise, like soft music or brown noise.

TOUCH: Are your clothes uncomfortable? Your chair? Your body? Do you feel greasy, like you need a shower? Do you need softer, sensory-friendly clothing?

TASTE: Do you need to brush your teeth or tongue? Would chewing on something help?

SMELL: Is there a strong or unpleasant smell in the room? Do you need to clean or empty a trash can? Would an air purifier help? Would a pleasant smell like a candle help?

INTEROCEPTION: Are you hungry? Thirsty? Tired? How is your posture? Are any of your muscles tight or sore? Scan your body slowly from head to feet, tensing and loosening each group of muscles. Going for a walk or doing a series of quick stretches may help a lot.

Learning how to do this stuff is not intuitive, if you've had an entire lifetime of gaslighting telling you that everything hurting you isn't a big deal and you're being dramatic over nothing.

This takes time, it takes work, it's not intuitive, and it's hard. Most people forget how hard it is, because they learned this as toddlers.

If you want to recover, you need to relearn your whole body. And get over your idea of "normal" and just wear the damn sunglasses and put on the headphones. If people stare, fuck em. You're disabled and they can deal with that.

[nerdery-and-shenanigans]

THIS! THIS! THIS!

[thesweetiepienovels]

“No one is coming to save you.” I disagree ! I believe many people made up of many small moments come to save pieces of you , even if just briefly. The mentor who believed in you . The friend who said they’re proud of you. The family member that makes you laugh . The random person who held the door for you out of nothing but kindness. The teacher who took extra time to help you understand. The person who smiled at you when you walked into a store. The little kid who looks up to you. The person who randomly complimented you. Being “saved” isn’t about being whisked away and all your hardships gone, it’s about the people and things that remind you life is not all hardships, it is kindness, love, gentleness, softness, care, thoughtfulness. It is many moments made up of your lifetime that keeps you going and showing you the world is still beautiful, and will always be. Despite.

[slyandthefamilybook]

I can't remember who said it but I saw a comment or tweet talking about hypocrisy that essentially said The Hypocrisy Is The Point. hypocrisy is power. it's the ability to set rules for everyone else except you. and if power is a virtue then hypocrisy is a virtue. it's why you never really get anywhere with "by your logic..." or "then wouldn't that mean...". it's not that they don't realize they're being hypocritical. they do it on purpose to prove that you have to listen to them and they don't have to listen to you

[exeggcute]

I need a polite and effective way to say "hey your heart is truly in the right place and your anger is often righteous but I think sometimes you’re getting recreationally mad about things that are frankly not worth the amount of energy you’re spending on them, and every time you do this you're driving yourself slightly more insane with nothing to show for it," and then I need a way to broadcast that message through a loudspeaker to roughly 30,000 people at once, and THEN I need a time machine to send that message to my past self lol. and maybe a second time machine in case past me tries to be clever and sabotage the version of me who comes through the first time machine

[flutterbvnny]

does anyone know how to stop feeling like a weird kid looking on from the outside at everyone

[valtsv]

if you're an adult behaving immaturely i'm not going to "treat you like a child" about it because i have a lot of respect for children as an oppressed and vulnerable class of people. i will however treat you like an embarrassment. which you are being.

[valtsv]

[dragon-in-a-fez]

one time I told my therapist "I tend to have issues with people who think of themselves as authority figures" and she burst out laughing and then said "I think we need to pause and reflect on how you phrased that"

[theweirdwideweb]

[rimonoroni2]

unfortunately very true. Doing Better does not always mean never being upset or never being triggered or never having trouble. often Doing Better means experiencing those things and being able to keep going/cope healthily/move on. if you’re in a bubble with no sensation, if you’re numbing yourself out, that’s not what recovering really is. it won’t help you have a happier life it’ll just make your world smaller and smaller until you can’t fit anywhere anymore. gotta learn to make peace with the hard stuff too, that’s the only way to keep going

[ktempestbradford]

I did not come into Tumblr dot com to be called out in this way.

[lazyyogi]

The things that seem “deep” only appear that way because they are tucked under layers of distraction and restlessness.

What seems profoundly deep is also profoundly relevant.

[memecucker]

anyway remember when the US government commissioned a study on dangers of pornography and when the commission returned with a report saying it doesn’t pose a danger and recommending removing restrictions the US government denounced its own study

[seven-winged-liar]

the only place that 'i suffered and because i suffered so should you' belongs is when you see something diabolical or emotionally devastating on the internet so naturally youve gotta call up your best friends

[dragonsorceress22]

may I respectfully add: "This is awful; try it!" *holds out a food or beverage*

[tyrantisterror]

A while back I saw a post going around about how people hate modern retellings of Greek myths that confirm to the standards of the modern day because they're too cowardly to be "true to the myth." And, like, I get it, and I also think Lore Olympus kinda sucks, but "retelling an old myth in a way that confirms to the viewpoint of the modern storyteller" is actually the main reason we have any records of myths at all. If you want ONLY the original version of a given myth to exist, then pretty much all of mythology would have died back during the days of oral tradition.

People have been retelling myths with their own spin reflecting their own values and interpretations since before we invented writing. Homer didn't invent the Odyssey or the Trojan War, he just wrote a really popular version of those stories, and did so according to the values of his time. He made the Lore Olympus of his day.

So, like, yeah, hate modern myth retellings if you think they suck. You can even hate them for making choices that are worse than the ones in older versions of them that you like. But to hate them just in principle because they changed things at all is asinine. Myths are fluid things, to be retold and reinterpreted as the storyteller pleases. That's how they survive.

[tyrantisterror]

Also, once you get over the petulant and frankly nonsensical complaint of "This isn't true to the original myth!", you get to have the much more fun adventure of analyzing how different versions of myth are in conversation with each other.

Example: I love Arthuriana, and almost every version of the King Arthur story works with the premise that Arthur was a nearly perfect King. This means each version in turn reflects a different author's idea of what a near-perfect king is. Is he a conqueror, or a peacemaker? Does he rule by might, or by diplomacy? Is he wise and experienced, or innocent and naive? Is he a furry? You know, important questions.

And even the adaptations that try to subvert our expectations by showing Arthur to be a bad king, actually, are playing into that conversation - because it is a pretty powerful statement to look at a history of stories about the best possible king and say, "No king can be good."

All of this isn't to say I love EVERY Arthur story. There are some that I dislike intensely, but even those have some interesting contributions to make to the conversation that is this folklore's history of retellings. And Arthur survives because we find new angles to tell his story from, even if some of those angles suck ass.

[twiststreet]

She got the idea for the study while walking with her advisor at Stanford to discuss her thesis topic, and the paper she eventually published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology in 2014 is sharp enough that it should have ended the seated meeting on the day it came out.

She ran 4 experiments on 176 people. Same person tested twice. Once sitting, once walking. The creativity tasks were the standard ones psychologists have used for decades to measure how good a brain is at generating novel useful ideas.

81% of participants in the first experiment produced more creative ideas while walking than while sitting. In the second experiment, 88%. In the third, 100%. Every single person walked into a more creative version of themselves. On average, people generated 60% more novel useful ideas the moment their legs started moving.

The skeptical question is the obvious one. Maybe it was the fresh air. Maybe it was the scenery passing by. Maybe it was the change of environment doing the work, not the walking itself.

Oppezzo killed every one of those explanations with one experimental decision. She put people on a treadmill facing a blank wall. No scenery. No fresh air. No environmental change. Just legs moving in place while staring at white drywall. The 60% boost held.

Then she ran the experiment that closed the case completely. She took participants outside in two conditions. Half of them walked through a Stanford courtyard. The other half were pushed through the exact same courtyard in a wheelchair. Same outdoor stimulation. Same scenery passing at the same speed. The only difference was whether the legs were moving.

The walkers produced dramatically more novel high-quality ideas than the wheelchair group. The outdoors did almost nothing on its own. The walking did everything.

She also tested the opposite kind of thinking. Convergent thinking. The kind where there is one right answer and you have to narrow down to it. Word puzzles where 3 words share a hidden fourth word that connects them. The seated participants did slightly better on these. Walkers got slightly worse.

Walking is not a general intelligence enhancer. It does one specific thing. It opens up the divergent search inside your brain. The part that generates options. The part that produces unexpected connections. The part that takes a problem and finds five ways into it instead of one.

When you need to converge on the single right answer, sit down. When you need to find the answer in the first place, get up.

The mechanism is now well understood. Walking selectively activates what neuroscientists call the default mode network, the system inside your brain that runs when you are not consciously focused on anything. The DMN is where mind-wandering happens. Where memories cross-reference each other. Where ideas that have been sitting in separate folders inside your head finally bump into each other.

When you sit at a desk and force yourself to concentrate, you suppress the DMN. When you walk at a natural pace, the executive part of your brain gets just busy enough handling the walking that the DMN comes online and starts doing the work that focus was blocking.

The most useful finding in the entire paper is the one almost nobody quotes. The boost did not turn off the moment people stopped walking. Participants who walked first and then sat back down stayed elevated. Their next round of seated creativity work was still significantly better than people who had been sitting the whole time. The rest lingered for at least several minutes after the legs stopped moving.

You do not need to do creative work while walking. You need to walk before the creative work. The brain holds the state.

Edited down a long tweet. (x)