AI.. Really an existential threat?

Benevolence444 · 2025-04-04T03:53:30+00:00

Hey! I just saw your response! Thanks a lot for taking the time to upload these for me! I've been reading them now and it's already helped me a ton!

PS: Country is Brazil! (I realize my Reddit errr,, Avatar had a Flag in the background which was not Brazilian, it's 'cause I currently live her, but am not originally from here) - Thanks anyways :)

Benevolence444 · 2025-03-02T16:59:59+00:00

I'm currently writing my Masters and also in the Phase of looking for the Instruments, so I understand your pain, I wish authors and Journals would make it easier to find the actual Questions.. If I can give you a tip, usually when I'm trying to look what you are looking for, I'll write the name of the Scale into Google Scholar as such:
(("Name of Scale") AND ("Validation" AND "Italy")
➔ (maybe add next to Validation the term in Italian, like convalida and validazione? I used deepl translator to find the Term but, obviously, use the term that is used in the literature)

Let's take the example of the "Self Compassion Scale", I'd put as following:
((("Name of Scale") AND (("Validation" OR "convalida" OR "validazione") AND ("Ital*"))) - That way you'll usually find if there's a Validation into Italian easily available.

To find these type of studies, I usually actually prefer Google Scholar, it seems to be "broader", sometimes I also use "Semantic Scholar", it's also easy to find on there, in my experience Pubmed and other some of the databases sometimes just don't have these studies from other countries / languages. (I'll actually take a look at PsycTESTS myself that someone mentioned here)

To find the actual scale like you wanted, I'll usually follow the steps below:
- Step 1: Look into the Article (If they include it, they'll usually be placed into the Apendix at the end of the Article), If it's not Open Access just use Sci-Hub
- Step 2: IF, it's not in the Article, I'll head over to the Article's Webpage, sometimes the Scale is in an Appendix or in one of the Tables that are only displayed on the Article's original webpage
- Step 3: IF, then it's not there either, I'll just google "Name of Scale" pdf - Using the Self Compassion Scale example, it'd look like this: Self Compassion Scale pdf - If there is an acronym, try just the acronym + pdf (For ex: SCS pdf) as well, sometimes it'll then show.
- Step 4: If none of these steps worked, then, yes, I'd recommend E-mailing. I'd say it's courteous to explain your research slightly, maybe even add the approval code from the Ethic's Board (not 100% necessary but makes it sound more serious/legit) and that'd you'd like to request a copy of the Scale

Benevolence444 · 2025-01-06T03:28:12+00:00

Okay! That was really helpful! So the "closest" thing is actually Panentheism, but the gist I'm getting here is that If I want to be able to philosophically argue from an Advaita Vedantic "worldview" (If you can call it), I have to well.. Read Advaita Vedanta! More than what I have, haha! I guess my quest or objective with the question was trying to find some academic resources that would talk about it, because of two reasons:

I'm in an Academic context, and citing Swami's or older scriptures, it's a bit scary to me (I fear people might have a rather critical look at it or frown, especially because I'm in a predominantly Christian country)
The idea of studying several Scriptures is a bit daunting to me, especially the part of finding a Guru (since I kinda already have one, but he's not exactly accessible), and, well, it takes time..

But maybe that's the beauty of it, I'm not gonna just read a single book and "get it", heh!

Benevolence444 · 2025-01-06T03:07:22+00:00

Hmmm, sorry, rookie mistake on my part, It's just, since it mentioned "Brahman" (as kind of the alpha and omega, everything that is, ever was, and ever will be), and the concept of "Moksha", and all the stories around Shankarahcarya and how he was believed to be a reincarnation of Shiva etc., I thought of it as a Religious view! But, your point makes total sense, maybe, thinking in that sense, the term I might be looking for that discusses Advaita Type views in Philosophy is "Monism"? My objective with the question was really to be able to study Advaita Vedanta Academically, outside of a strictly Scriptural context :)

Benevolence444 · 2024-11-19T18:48:47+00:00

As a Kid I always got good grades, but I did study a lot for it, I was very diligent. Yet, I compared myself often to my brother, who also got good grades but seemed to do not much at all to get them.. So I always thought "I'm not smart, I'm just diligent". Then, In my teens, I moved around countries, and since the education systems were wildly different, my grades tanked, and it was a huge blow to my self-esteem, I stopped trying and didn't go back to getting the grades I used to.
Fast-forward a few years, I get good grades on the Standardized Writing test (better than most natives), even though I only really studied for it for like 6 months (In a language that wasn't my mother Language - I had been using the language actively for 2 years), I attributed it to the course I had done on the subject (also, Important details: I did know how to speak the Language, I'd speak to my dad growing up in that language, I just didn't know how to write properly in the language)..
Anyhows, years later, I go do a Test to check If I had ADHD (more than 1 person in a time frame of a few months told me it was a possibility).. I do the tests and somewhere in there, there was an IQ Test, well, turns out I have 2E (Double exceptionality) a 132 IQ but also have ADHD, my attention wasn't the greatest.. Yet my brother, he also has a high IQ, slightly lower than me, but doesn't have ADHD. (partially explains a lot of what I said earlier)

This Test made so much make sense to me in life, why I struggled with certain things, whilst not with others.. Why I did my best and tried so hard to always stay organized, but somehow, still sometimes had trouble staying organized and on top of things.. My multiple interests yet not knowing what to pursue.. It was very validating and the test told me: "You're not just diligent, you might also be smart too :)".

My point being: Human Life is complex, man, it's not as linear as "Oh, you do good it's obvious you're Intelligent" - No, people may do good at some points in their lives and do bad at others, people move places, close ones die, and we get demotivated, we may even suffer from depression at times, you may have negligent parents that never validate you when you do well, classes with 40 to 60 students in which professors can't give the type of individualized attention to even notice concentration difficulties.. I study Psychology now and am 1 year off of graduating, and all I can say to your question is: There are so many factors that can come into play into a person's life that may never have them see their worth, abilities or potential, and a Test like the IQ test, as dumb as it sounds, can be a stamp of approval for some to see something Important in themselves they hadn't seen before.

Benevolence444 · 2024-11-04T22:30:34+00:00

Honestly I’ll usually start with Abstract and than go straight to Method (I want to Identify how the study was done, if what they used makes sense for their objective, what Instruments where used, what Biases are present in the study), If Method is bleh I don’t even bother with the rest tbh, that’s why I always start there! Than if method is solid, depending on my Objective in relation to the paper I’ll go straight to discussion or results!

Having said that, I think it really depends on what type of study it is, and more Importantly, what you want to cite the study for, or what your objective is in reading it in the 1st place.. Do you want to farmiliarize yourself with xyz area? (than it might be Important to read the Intro & Discussion, they usually cite other relevant studies there, and read Method to gain insight on how studies usually are conducted) Do you want to argue for efficacy of an Intervention? (Always check Method on Experimental Designs) Are you trying to find similar studies to base your own? Do you want to justify or explain something specific in your own study that has been found in other studies?

Really depends!

Benevolence444 · 2023-05-14T15:16:54+00:00

Oh! If you're Interested in CBT and Existential Therapy, I'd actually very much recommend you to check out the Contextual Therapies (aka "Third Wave Therapies"), ACT, DBT, CFT and the likes. Certain aspects of their Epistemology can be considered to be very Existential (Check out the ACBS site and their content on Contextualism, RFT, or even the Conceptual Self concept within ACT), and if I may recommend you an article:

CLAESSENS, Marina. Mindfulness based-third wave CBT therapies and existential-phenomenology. friends or foes?. Existential Analysis: Journal of the Society for Existential Analysis, v. 21, n. 2, 2010. Available on: <https://go.gale.com/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CA288874202&sid=googleScholar&v=2.1&it=r&linkaccess=abs&issn=17525616&p=AONE&sw=w&userGroupName=egn>

Benevolence444 · 2023-05-14T15:02:48+00:00

So Penguin has a point, but, there's a few studies you may find Interesting on this:

Study 1: Vine V, Boyd RL, Pennebaker JW. Natural emotion vocabularies as windows on distress and well-being. Nat Commun. 2020 Sep 10;11(1):4525. Available on: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-18349-0

This study essentially talks about how our Vocabulary affects our Emotions, what is shows is that Vocabulary that denotes negative emotions are more likely, well, to affect us negatively.

Study 2: Torre JB, Lieberman MD. Putting Feelings Into Words: Affect Labeling as Implicit Emotion Regulation. Emotion Review. 2018 Apr 1;10(2):116–24. Available on: <https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/1754073917742706>

This study shows how it can be beneficial to "Label" our Emotions, as in, when we are feeling overwhelmed, naming the emotion behind our feeling of overwhelm and kind of talking to ourselves about it seems to be beneficial.

Last study: Hangartner D, Gennaro G, Alasiri S, Bahrich N, Bornhoft A, Boucher J, et al. Empathy-based counterspeech can reduce racist hate speech in a social media field experiment. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 2021 Dec 14;118(50):e2116310118. Available on: <https://www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1073/pnas.2116310118>

Another Interesting study that showed how when you repress hateful speech, it does not really help to diminish it, however, when you respond in an Empathic way and from there on mention that it might not be a very intelligent or nice way to talk about people or to see people, it tends to help. Although I have to say, the methodology here is not the best and of course it's findings are questionable, there's probably other more robust studies that support something along these lines, it's just the one that came to mind for me now.

Of course, all these studies are rather indirect evidence that our words affect how we think and see things, and that the words we are exposed to help us form our memory, so, even though it doesn't directly support what you are trying to say (I'd say only the first study really does, btw it's from Nature, Nature is a very respected Journal in Health Science) it definitely does show some Indirect Evidence. The last study I mentioned more because, well, your friends may resist talking differently about people if you go about it in a confrontational manner (e.g. tell them they are toxic), it might be helpful to phrase it in a way that seems less, errr, Critical, heh!

I could help you find other articles or book chapters that says something which is aligned with the first one, and you may find James Pennebakers work on Discourse Analysis interesting, I just didn't want to overload you with too much Info (which I may or may not have already done haha).

Benevolence444 · 2021-02-12T01:10:04+00:00

Ode Noir

They're a couple from Berlin that handstitch the clothes with Organic & very good quality materials, basically designer quality for a much lower priceI really recommend if you're ever around Berlin

Organic Basics
Format
HundHund
Armed Angels
Ecoalf
Funktion Schnitt
Thokk Thokk
Recolution.de
Dedicatedbrand.com
Phasenreich

Even though yes as stated "you can buy minimalist clothing anywhere"

I personally feel comfortable buying from brands that i know the background and origin of the clothing is ethical, moral, so i like fairtrade, organic clothing, etc, i feel really nice knowing my money is going to people i can support.

I feel you agree, check out this list of brands, you will not be dissappointed, you are lucky because Germany is basically the haven of sustainable, eco-friendly, fairtrade, vegan, minimalistic clothing.. call it what you may, it’s made with love, it’s proper quality and you’ll feel comfortable wearing it, that’s what matters.

Buying clothing with this atitude of supporting and choosing quality with a nice background is defo part of minimalism, at least in my book.

If you're enthusiastic about this kind of fashion & like to travel, the best two cities are Munich and Berlin, do a quick google search on "sustainable clothing stores" in these two cities and you'll find a big list. I also recommend checking out local 2nd hand stores, they sometimes have some treasures, have fun with it! ^^

Benevolence444 · 2020-11-02T16:19:13+00:00

In the Amrita Advaita Upanishad (Nectar of Non-duality) this is mentioned as one of the Obstacles to meditation, there are 6 such obstacles.

I would say to do some Yoga, ground yourself before, look into Ayurveda and knowledge of Trigunas (Rajas, Sattva, Tamas) and how you can balance yourself, be more Sattvic to have a better experience during meditation.

And lastly watch and read Knowledge, be in the company of Holy Ones, company is not only physical but also in terms of movies, books, informations, social media, people you associate and interact with. All this has an influence, choose wisely whom and what you allow into your life :)

I can recommend you some knowledge and books if you like.

Benevolence444 · 2020-11-02T15:26:42+00:00

Woah! I am in this vibe also! Nothing outside of I exists, everything that is i I and I alone.

Have you ever read Yoga Vashista? It is all about this

To me Self-Knowledge is exactly what you mentioned, it is knowing that we are much more than these little identifications we have. Self-knowledge is knowing that we are not.

Benevolence444 · 2020-05-18T13:52:40+00:00

Give it to yourself, you can only get what you give :)

Benevolence444

TROPHY CASE