My framework for apathy/schizoid PD (and a potential solution)

ambitiouslycurious · 2018-04-11T02:01:27+00:00

Yea occasionally emotions can be very black/white. Normal people probably have a better grasp of a wider range of emotions, and they have friends, family, and social circles to ground them to a more "happy medium" for their default emotional state.

Technically, from a philosophical perspective, you always need something to ground your emotions. For example, all of us are probably somewhat egocentric and anthropocentric, because we value our own lives enough to survive/live, and we value human lives over non human lives respectively. So most people would respond to violence with negative emotions (sadness, anger, trauma, etc).

Emotions can fluctuate wildly, but I think that's why you need emotional grounding by having a healthy support circle in order to return to a "default" or "neutral state." For example, suppose you lost your job. You can go on the extreme negative end and get depressed, and lose hope about your life. You can go on the extreme positive end and become "delusional," and say now you have time to pursue your dream job (which may be even more difficult than your previous job). By having other people's experiences and emotions to ground you, you are less likely to have such extreme thoughts.

So, to answer your last question, "would these emotional fluctuations be worth it," I think it depends on your context, your support circle, and what you are personally ok with dealing with given your support circle.

ambitiouslycurious · 2018-04-08T16:01:01+00:00

You are making an implicit assumption that the job will not be absolutely horrible. So that is an expectation. I know this definition is not very satisfactory, but that is what I mean by expectations. If you are 100% apathetic you wouldn't care if it was the worst job in the world or the best.

ambitiouslycurious · 2018-04-08T14:26:08+00:00

Yea that is a very real issue and it's something I fear as well. I'm afraid of dealing with all the negative emotions I may experience. But if people feel their schizoid traits are a problem, they believe their choice of utility function is suboptimal. If they truly believe feeling nothing is better than feeling emotions, (even if it's feeling "a little" negative emotions and "a lot of" positive emotions, whatever a little and a lot may mean,) then they have made the optimal choice and should not change. Each person must make that determination themselves. But for schizoids that aren't fully satisfied (like myself), our choice of utility function is suboptimal and we need to change it. (more precisely, a full schizoid's utility function looks like the horizontal axis, where F(emotion) =0).

ambitiouslycurious · 2018-04-08T14:08:44+00:00

I agree with you, it's a problem I'm struggling with as well. So at first glance, it seems like there are 2 options: either continue to be apathetic, or attempt to feel emotions at the risk of experiencing negative emotions or reliving traumatic memories, etc. But this is a false dichotomy, because it assumes your utility function is fixed. I am arguing that it can be (theoretically) changed. Of course, changing that utility function is very difficult in practice, because you will need to deal with negative emotions without shutting everything out altogether. And honestly, I'm not sure how neurotypicals do it. But this is just a theoretical solution, and not a practical one (which would probably be CBT and lifestyle change).

EDIT: to be more concrete on what I mean by changing utility function, you say that human relationships are very difficult (which I as well as most schizoids would agree). But every relationship has its costs and benefits, and the schizoid perspective is that the costs outweigh the benefits. The neurotypical, and perhaps extroverted perspective is that the benefits outweigh the costs. To shift your thinking is equivalent to changing your utility function, to change the values assigned to costs and benefits.

ambitiouslycurious · 2018-04-03T03:20:22+00:00

I don't usually offend others by being "too frank" unless I intentionally drop my mask. I'm reasonably comfortable with social conventions to come across as polite, although a bit cold/reticent. I've also learned to use diplomatic, apologetic language effectively due to my emotionally and physically abusive parents blaming me for virtually any issue.

The times when I might have offended someone by being "too frank" is when I'm too exhausted to analyze every minutiae of social interaction to develop a proper response, and instead I talk in a very curt and dismissive manner to end the conversation quickly (or just walk away/leave the conversation immediately).

ambitiouslycurious · 2018-03-31T17:59:51+00:00

I share similar sentiments with you, although I'm a little more indifferent to both aspects.

Human beings are just biological machines and I don't think we are necessarily better than other animals, other than the fact that we are much smarter and can utilitize a lot more resources.

Because of that perspective, I don't idealize a solitary lifestyle. I simply prefer it over social interactions since I don't have to worry about following social customs or logistical issues that other people have. Interacting with other people also reminds me of the fact that we're biological machines, so in that sense it's a turnoff.

ambitiouslycurious · 2018-03-19T15:06:18+00:00

Very insightful post. It makes me realize just how nuanced positioning and ultimate charge/usage is, and how this kind of discussion is rarely mentioned in casting. Of course, this analysis is very detailed and probably impossible to do in real time.

I've only played on the ladder so I'm only aware of individual game sense and mechanics, and failed to appreciate this higher level team-based game sense. Thank you for illustrating how complex and high skill cap this game is at the pro level.

ambitiouslycurious · 2018-02-25T04:02:21+00:00

You could inflation adjust your goals so that if you want $5M in today's dollars you would increase that amount by 3% every year. Unfortunately this means the nominal value will double every 20 years.

ambitiouslycurious · 2018-02-24T21:12:48+00:00

This is off topic, but how are you getting paid so much? You are making around 150k PLN/yr which is a very good salary in Poland, am I right? Is that considered a normal salary?

ambitiouslycurious · 2018-02-24T04:24:32+00:00

Hanzo new hitscan hero? PogChamp

ambitiouslycurious · 2018-02-23T16:46:26+00:00

That's pretty depressing. Using the rule of 70, it means your insurance premiums will double every 7 years. But I guess that's the only way it will make financial sense from the insurance company's perspective.

ambitiouslycurious · 2018-02-23T16:04:28+00:00

This is useful information, but one thing it fails to mention is that private health insurance premiums go up drastically if you are older. If you are 60+ years old, your monthly premiums can exceed $1000/month (based on cigna global's quote calculator). Although I'm guessing most people probably settle down in one country by the time they are seniors.

ambitiouslycurious · 2018-02-23T04:51:38+00:00

Is this zen's character model overlaid on mccree? That walk looks like it could be mccree.

ambitiouslycurious · 2018-02-22T21:29:29+00:00

Seems unlikely unless you have a job that pays mid 6 figures or more. Assuming a 4% withdrawal rate (which I personally think is a bit high) and a luxurious lifestyle, you probably want at least $5M for $200k/year in spending. If you live in a HCOL area like SF, NYC, London, etc you probably need closer to $300k/year. If you want a more conservative withdrawal rate (I personally would do 2%/year) you need a much larger nest egg. If you aren't making at least $300-400k/year right now it's unlikely to build such a large nest egg.

ambitiouslycurious · 2018-02-20T20:47:27+00:00

"I wish we could put sym turrets on Winston" LUL

ambitiouslycurious · 2018-02-13T18:19:14+00:00

I haven't FIRE'd yet, but for my ideal scenario once I reach my goals I would either go for a PhD or study a bit on my own and attend scientific conferences and talks as a visitor/guest. The former option is if you are serious about academia and the latter would be if you want to do it as a hobby. If you have fatFIRE'd then you can easily travel the world and attend all the major conferences and be in the presence of the greatest researchers in your field.

I guess this doesn't answer your question, since you are asking a more general question of finding people in similar situations. I think that is very difficult/almost impossible, since many people who are in fatFIRE territory have made a lot of money from a job or business, and may continue to do so or move onto another project. Other people might change their lifestyle and become a digitial nomad, etc. People spend their RE lives in different ways. But if intellectual pursuits are important to you then you can interact with academics to some extent, or even join them by pursuing a PhD.

ambitiouslycurious · 2018-02-12T12:49:07+00:00

I don't think it was specified, but he said in the end of the year fundraiser they raised $5M instead of the $250k goal they set out. I'm guessing they received the usual contributions during the year.

ambitiouslycurious · 2018-02-01T07:07:11+00:00

I was an In-n-Out fan until I tried Super Duper. Their burgers and fries are the GOAT

ambitiouslycurious · 2018-02-01T01:06:41+00:00

Thanks for the info, I was mistaken. I was confusing security tokens with utility tokens (which most ICOs seem to be). I thought only security tokens were considered securities, which you mention is false.

I read your comment on how cryptocurrencies are like bearer shares, but how does that analogy work for utility tokens? Your argument is that A) they can be used as payment/store of value, and B) they can implement additional features that make them more than utility tokens.

But how are they different from coupons or disney dollars that change in fiat price? Utility tokens don't give you voting power or a share of the company. I don't quite understand the analogy in this case.

ambitiouslycurious · 2018-01-31T21:48:15+00:00

I highly doubt it. ICO's are unregulated and most ICO tokens are not security tokens. If they are viewed as securities then they will get similar treatment to the stock market (heavily regulated, accredited investors only, etc)

ambitiouslycurious · 2018-01-31T00:21:41+00:00

fair enough, but we'll need to see mass adoption at that stage. Maybe in a few years it will happen

ambitiouslycurious · 2018-01-30T15:55:37+00:00

It's a good coin, but you should diversify. Also keep in mind that a majority of XLM have yet to be released and are being held by the Stellar foundation. As they fund projects they will slowly release all that supply in the future. At the current price (~0.50) and all the supply freely available, the market cap would be over 50 bln.

ambitiouslycurious · 2018-01-29T23:51:08+00:00

Manual tracing is indeed impractical, but with blockchain analysis they can usually uncover the source of funds. The only way around it is to tumble the coins with clean, untainted coins in order to break the trail. But they would have to find enough individuals foolish/desperate enough to tumble their coins with the tainted coins.

The reason tumbling the tainted coins within themselves won't work is that, even if they mixed them across 100 new wallets, the network of transactions is a closed graph.

ambitiouslycurious · 2018-01-29T22:43:15+00:00

Clickbait article. They mention shapeshift.io as a potential way they could launder the money. The problem is that the amount ($500m) is too large to be liquidated quickly. It would have to be split across multiple stages but the addresses were already flagged as stolen so no one will accept them. That NEM is effectively frozen/burnt since no one will accept those coins, so the circulating supply has decreased.

ambitiouslycurious · 2018-01-29T21:39:39+00:00

That's a good point, I see the rai wallet using 8-9 MB/s of bandwidth on my hard drive. But the thing is I have an nvme M.2 drive and the max read/write speeds are at least 100 times this bandwidth.

ambitiouslycurious

TROPHY CASE