👁️ autosurveillant 👁️ @pee_zombie@schelling.pt
consider those who refuse to hold discussions with people who don't share their object-level goals, who take hard-line positions and refuse to discuss nuance or compromise. these groups tend to be very aligned in purpose, but have difficulty growing, accepting only true believers
some believe that only unity of purpose can truly motivate people to work together for a common goal; some shared vision of the future, a common raison d'etre, a compatible way of approaching problems & making decisions. this theory of change is often applied in far-wing politics
I posit that the divergence is one of values and theory of change, specifically in how one envisions the relationship between the two. does change flow from values? are values even relevant? can groups with differing values collaborate on large projects? if so, what is necessary?
it's interesting how different groups are able to grok certain types of decentralized systems but not others. compare the sets of people who understand markets vs that which understands antifa; some overlap, but broadly disjoint sets.
where does this different stem from?
an excellent observation, broadly true IME; many have difficulty conceptualizing the mechanism of action in decentralized systems, understandably so, as emergence & convergent evolution is complex & legitimately difficult to understand. how can things happens w/o smth doing them?
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RT @kaschuta
Humans want to attribute agency because causal chains are how we learn and interact with the world. In reality, especially in large, complex sys…
https://twitter.com/kaschuta/status/1435889956166189062
psychological well-being is a fragile thing, susceptible to breakage by outside disruptions; we must proactively draw & defend our borders to have any hope at inner peace.
the universe is fundamentally chaotic, but we can carve out a garden in our minds
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RT @pee_zombie
homeostasis is the pursuit of biological ergodicity by living beings, an attempt to perpetually stave off the cessation of optionality, the halting state; in this wa…
https://twitter.com/pee_zombie/status/1393631100497432577
one often runs unto casual parallax when beginning to enforce boundaries with people they previously hadn't; many are entirely unused to finding no-go zones where they could previously run amok, and react unkindly. don't let this discourage you; we are each entitled to our peace.
or perhaps when a well-meaning but tedious friend takes it personally that you don't let them dump their rage on you for the umpteenth time, asking them too communicate in a way that respects your boundaries; they're hurting themselves by making demands which you won't meet
imagine someone walked up to you on the street and demanded you moved, when they could just walk around you, and got upset when you refused; that's causal parallax.
is it any different when someone demands you join them in their panic, and gets upset when you remain calm?
when stuck in this psychic well, we see everything solipsistically, being the centers of our own universes; it becomes nigh impossible to truly consider others' perspectives, to place equal weight on their desires. everything they do HAS to be about us, bc what else is there?
our egos, our illusions of a coherent Self, are highly sticky metaframes; pervading everything, they shape every thought, relate all back to this self-concept. this is done for good reason, namely that it's a powerful heuristic & saves energy; but the attractor is hard to escape.
getting out of this quandary requires a cognitive reframe, to step out of the lens one is using and trying a different one on for size. the issue is, however, that when emotions come into the picture, the ego clings, not wanting to relinquish control
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RT @pee_zombie
"sticky" frames are powerful and dangerous tools; they tend to become all-encompassing and to infect every belief they come in contact with
our psychic immune system, w…
https://twitter.com/pee_zombie/status/1414093335027982338
the fundamental issue here similar to that of the inertial frame; without an external reference point, it can be difficult to objectively determine which of you is "doing" the action in question. after all, subjectively, each of you perceives the other to be moving towards them!
such people often get upset with you for maintaining your boundaries, as they expected to be able to "pass through" the space they're protecting; instead, what seems to happen is that you approach & push them. this parallax can be frustrating to resolve, as it requires a reframe
this happens often w/ people who are not very self aware, or don't have a good understanding of boundaries; from their perspective, clearly they're standing still while the world moves around them. they don't realize that they're even DOING anything, by setting up an expectation
you know when someone's blaming you for whatevers happening to them, but you're not doing it, it's just their expectation of you doing something that's hurting them? that's causal parallax
it's the emotional equivalent of repeatedly running into a brick wall & getting mad at it
doin that lil head nod to the fruit fly that's been living in your apartment for the last few days as you pass by it in the hallway like sup bro
this applies to both individuals & collectives, unsurprisingly, as an individual itself is a collective of psychological subcomponents
any agent wishing to remain a live player should continuously balance the competing impulses of openness & distrust
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RT @pee_zombie
the function of your primary ideological frame should be to ensure psychic ergodicity, avoiding memetic calcification and maintaining metacognitive optionality; this is…
https://twitter.com/pee_zombie/status/1398735589525098505
as usual, the centrist path tends to be the right one; while each situation has its own optimal tuning, generally one should seek to aim for somewhere in the middle; sticking to the standard solutions for known problems, but being willing to explore new approaches when they fail
the spectrum of openness to experience and modes of thought exhibits horseshoe dynamics, in that both extremes tend to fail in comparable ways
those too closed tend to slowly die out as the world changes around them, while those too often tend to quickly spiral out of coherence
