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owen cyclops

@owenbroadcast

Feb 16

here's a book called richard scarry's busy busy world. i find this book extremely interesting from a pedagogical perspective.

our culture has taken the position of having an extreme aversion to stereotypes. well, that's all this book is: the stereotypes of each country.

[...]

the story in france has people in fancy restaurants. the story in switzerland has goats climbing mountains. the story in mexico has a guy eating beans and buying clay pots. the story in india has a fortune teller. and so on. the entire content is just basic stereotypes.

i don't think you could do this with a major publisher today. it would read as educationally irresponsible, in a sense.

but, this book has allowed me and owen jr. to discuss other countries. he has a conception of holland, and talks about it, because of this book.

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owen cyclops

@owenbroadcast

Feb 14

what is the nature of the self in christian eschatology?

for those unfamiliar, eschatology is a branch of theology that just means, "how everything ends up". the final state of things. end of the story. how does this all play out? how the pieces land: that's eschatology.

[...]

in the eastern system i'm the most familiar with, buddhism, there's a concept called shunyata. usually translated as emptiness - it means things are empty of inherent existence. like a sweater: you can see the sweater, but if you keep pulling threads off, you never get "it".

the self in buddhism, in my experience, is like this. it's a momentary aggregate of interdependent factors. its like a ball of things that only has provisional existence. it's there, but it's not eternal, like a ball of twine that just happens to be stuck together right now.

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owen cyclops

@owenbroadcast

Jan 22

today i flew to nyc. a guy tells me they just implemented a program where, to drive into lower manhattan, you have to pay $9. its to ease traffic congestion.

why is this unethical? well, if youre familiar with the work of B.F. skinner, its very easy to explain.

here’s why: […]

skinner himself wouldnt have seen this as unethical, but would have clearly recognized it as a form of operant conditioning (conditioning operants, changing people’s volitional actions) - as opposed to classical conditioning (pavlov’s dogs drooling)

can we find it on this chart?

the average person would intuitively see this as some type of punishment. thats what it obviously feels like: you drive into manhattan, you’re punished by having to pay $9. that makes perfect sense.

but its not. in terms of behavior modification, thats not what it is at all.

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owen cyclops

@owenbroadcast

Jan 8

it's fascinating how quickly a culture's conception of a topic can change. an entire civilization can basically forget or remember large pieces of its own history.

one of the first recent psychologists to treat the phenomenon of self-harm is a guy named steven levenkron.

[...]

of course the phenomenon of self-harm had probably gotten people referred to psychologists for some time. however, when he told his colleagues he was opening a practice specifically focusing on people who engaged in self-mutilation, he got an interesting response from them.

essentially it was that: those people are failed suicides, and we already have a whole network and practice dealing with that.

this is interesting because it means that, up until very recently (he wrote a book about this in 1998), self-harm was viewed as failed suicide attempts

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owen cyclops

@owenbroadcast

Dec 21, 2024

i have a folder on my computer called:

“insane christmas vibes 1850-1950”

here are some things from it:

the above image is louis rhead

this one is eugene grasset:

eric gil, 1910s:

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owen cyclops

@owenbroadcast

Dec 21, 2024

https://twitter.com/borjomidrinker/status/1870277191562604922

every aspect of having a pregnant wife is almost designed to be a thought experiment that illuminates 1000 aspects of our culture that are always there, but mostly invisible - and therefore difficult to grab until they’re impressing upon you - then suddenly, they’re right there.

https://twitter.com/borjomidrinker/status/1870277191562604922

consider: the due date. how do they know what day your baby is supposed to be born? well, they give you this date. they don’t tell you, generally (lets presume not out of malevolence) that something like 5% of babies are actually born on their due date. almost no one knows this.

so, your wife naturally tells people this, because everyone asks. if she doesnt tell them (maybe she says “late november”) people flag it as weird. “late november? what do you mean? they didn’t give you a date?”. okay. now you’re kind of crypto-hassling my wife. lets ignore that.

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