All tweets are fictional, but some tweets are more fictional than others. Don't ruin the joke.
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Feb 22, 2022 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
People always lie about appropriate social norms because they omit the step where you're supposed to read their mind and based on the information revealed to you there do the thing that they wanted.
This isn't even exaggeration. The social norm really is that you're supposed to read people's minds, because neurotypicals are under the mistaken impression that they can do that, and as a result are under the mistaken impression that what they want is obvious.
Dec 27, 2020 • 43 tweets • 7 min read
For reasons I might be less likely to want to tweet controversial things right now and so might stick to sensible safe topics for a while.
...
No, fuck that, lets do a thread about sexuality hacking.
By "sexuality hacking" I mean anything you do to yourself to try and change your sexual interests. I'm almost exclusively interested in *broadening* sexual interests - I don't think narrowing them is desirable, and I suspect if it's possible then it's intrinsically traumatic.
Nov 6, 2020 • 81 tweets • 8 min read
91. Which fictional characters would you love to be if ethics permitted you? What needs are you failing to express as a result of holding on to those ethical constraints?
92. What do people tell you about yourself that you refuse to believe? What does not believing that protect you from?
Nov 1, 2020 • 13 tweets • 3 min read
This was an interesting exchange. Thoughts to follow in thread.
In the context I saw this, it was being painted as a gendered difference. I think it is, but not for the reasons people are treating it as.
The actual reason is that we've put the boundaries of "thinking" in the wrong place.
Oct 18, 2020 • 6 tweets • 1 min read
Idle thought: We were talking about how Less Wrong had a lot (though a minority) of people from less savoury parts of the internet, but that's... actually very good? Less Wrong is actually a great community of last resort because it does genuinely make its members better.
The core LW worldview is not one I would particularly endorse, but honestly most people don't end up staying there. A lot of people seem to have become much healthier and more complete human beings as a result of joining LW, taking on board its worldview, and building on it.
Oct 17, 2020 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
Thread of low key infohazards, to be updated occasionally.
(I thought about doing 1 like = 1 infohazard but I've learned my lesson about how much you all like me being mean to you for your own good)
An annoying social thing you won't be able to unsee.
53. What things are you unusually good at and what negative experiences does being good at them let you avoid?
54. What are your most positive behaviours and what is the most cynical interpretation of why you do them?
Sep 25, 2020 • 175 tweets • 15 min read
Feeling mischievous so here's another thread.
One like = one question you really wish I hadn't asked you because of what your answer reveals about your shadow.
1. Who in your personal life do you most hate and in what ways are you afraid that you are secretly like them?
Sep 25, 2020 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
A big problem I had not previously appreciated with acquiring more chill is that what this does is make you chill enough to do the things you previously couldn't, which necessarily causes you to discover that you are not yet chill enough for the consequences.
1. I am not actually stuck yet but years later this is still my favourite meme and it makes me go "Awwwww 😻" every time I see it so I'll start here.
Sep 23, 2020 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
I do know who needs to hear this, but: Talking articulately about your problems on Twitter is not being a burden to others. It is the opposite of that. It is throwing a lifeline to people who have similar problems but are not yet able or willing to articulate them.
Yes if everyone else had happy and perfect lives and you were just going into those happy and perfect lives unwelcomed and shouting about how miserable you are, that would be a downer. THIS IS NOT WHAT IS HAPPENING.
Sep 23, 2020 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
1. Is having sexual fantasies about someone you know but do not have an IRL sexual relationship with creepy?
2. Which binary gender are you / least badly describes you?
This question prompted by a discussion with a friend in which we took different stances and were each non-judgemental but vaguely surprised by the other's stance.
Sep 22, 2020 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
A psychological theory of social media.
Premise 1: People are inherently plural, each variant adapted to a particular context. Different parts of yourself are expressed and suppressed in different contexts. You are literally different people at work, with friends, with family
Premise 2: Computers hate that, and the nature of social media in particular is that of creating a single consistent identity. A terrifying Zuckerbergian ideal that you have a single consistent and whole "true self" that is equivalent to your public persona.
Sep 22, 2020 • 8 tweets • 2 min read
So emotional reactions are things that you've learned from your environment, and were often adaptive strategies that served a purpose at the time, right? And one of the reasons to relearn them is that they were learned in childhood, and they may not work well as an adult.
A big reason kid emotions don't work well as an adult is that your environment is totally different - you have much more autonomy than you ever did as a kid.
So far I knew this, but I had a realisation of another big reason kid emotions don't work well as an adult: kids are dumb
Sep 17, 2020 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
So there's a fun thing called "misattribution of arousal" which is basically that the physical symptoms of an emotion can be hard to distinguish from the emotion itself. Classic example of this is that fear makes other people seem more attractive because of overlapping response.
This is particularly bad when you are experiencing that emotion for real and also for independent reasons experiencing the physical sensation associated with the emotion more strongly.
Sep 16, 2020 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
How do you deal with days where you're just feeling really sad and anxious for apparently no good reason?
I'm planning to medicate with hugs but I'd like better tools for debugging this.
So here's a terrible plan that I'm finding oddly compelling.
Posit:
1. I am actually very good at dealing with specific anxieties. 2. This doesn't work now because this anxiety is undirected.
Therefore:
3. I should try to make myself anxious about something specific.
Sep 14, 2020 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
There are things I regret badly, but I like my current life and changing any of the things I regret would necessarily undo things that I value more than I regret them.
I am aware of Tim Minchin's argument on this front and he's correct but just because it would probably be fine doesn't mean I'd be willing to choose to consciously choose it.
Sep 12, 2020 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
You know how some people are *really* into being geeks and proudly declare they're geeks and are super into things specifically because they're geeky and it's just incredibly cringe, especially if you're also a geek?
I feel like a lot of identity labels work like this.
I don't think identity labels are bad BTW. Identity labels serve a lot of useful social functions which are hard to replace. It's just that taking them too seriously seems to be a very cringe failure mode.
Sep 12, 2020 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
It's called nonviolent communication mostly because they really want to emphasise that you're not supposed to punch them when they explain how it works.
Oh, huh, I've just realised how much Marshall Rosenberg's writing reminds me of Edward de Bono.
Is there some sort of "How to write like a cult leader" school they both went to?
Sep 10, 2020 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
There's a particularly unpleasant experience that it seems like most people who are (cis?) male feminist nerds have at least some of, which is that they've internalised the idea that their being attracted to women is in some sense morally bad.
Combination of growing up in an environment where "X is attracted to a girl!!!" is treated as a hilarious subject of bullying plus a lot of feminism acquired as an adult telling them that it's almost impossible to hit on women without being an oppressor.
Sep 7, 2020 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
Let me teach you a nonstandard dirty rhetorical trick: People really don't like to admit that they have done something morally bad, so it is *really* useful to argue in such a way that they can cast their behaviour as an honest mistake.
A lot of the time when trying to untangle concepts or explain issues, I ignore the fact that a lot of the behaviour in the relevant space is bad faith. This is me using that trick.
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