agnos

This reminds me of the current research in ML of "simplifying" models for inference (pruning, distillation, etc.). Our model of reality is so imprecise, can we be confident that all the local details are insignificant to the global context?

Silicone -- easy to throw in the dishwasher, too.

Yeah, people aren't paranoid enough about this IMO. Legislation needs to catch up with research coming out about the serious health impacts.

Reducing personal exposure seems possible. I mean, realistically there are only so many ways microplastics can enter the body, so it's a matter of managing your "attack surface".

Of course there's no way to know what the impact really is, but what we've done in our household in the past few years:

- Eating/drinking: started using glass food containers, ceramic cookware, silicon kitchen utensils. Got a good reverse osmosis water filter, stopped buying bottled water.

- Skin: lots of fabrics are derived from plastics these days, so try to get 100% cotton. Do research on skin products you use every day.

- Air: get a good air purifier and run it throughout the day. Even if the windows are closed, furniture can off-gas microplastics into the air. HEPA air filters for your car, pretty easy to install yourself.

> The book asks, even in the face of that kind of cynical and over-intellectualized view of the world, why and how do we try to find meaning in our lives regardless?

This. I don't get the sense that Kundera himself is advocating for either lightness or weight. The novel asks a question that's as much philosophical as it is psychological, and the beauty lies in the question itself rather than any answers.

To quote Kundera: "On the surface, an intelligible lie; underneath, the unintelligible truth."

I've had similar experiences with psychedelics. It seems like once you lose touch with some sort of "self-image", it can be very hard to get back. Wish this was talked about more.

The first and most pronounced depersonalization experience I've had was with mushrooms. I had taken ~2g of dried mushrooms and was feeling pretty good, so I decided to take a walk in the park near my apartment. Gradually I started feeling like the boundary between my self and the outside world was getting fuzzier. My body felt like a machine that existed as part of a larger machine.

Then, suddenly, I thought: who is the driver of this machine? If I'm the machine, what is driving it? I felt like I was taking a walk in the park with a VR headset on. I wanted to take off the VR headset and experience "true" reality. I kept asking myself this question, shedding layers of self-identity, until I reached a state of absolute nothingness. Absolute, zero, blackness. It was probably only a brief second, but in that moment time didn't seem to exist. I didn't seem to exist.

The actual experience of the "absolute nothingness" wasn't bad per se, but integrating it back into daily life was a struggle. It felt like nothing made sense. I "remembered" who I was, but I couldn't seem to just immerse myself in that person again. The layers of my self-identity didn't feel real anymore. Nothing felt like it had a reason for existing. Everything was arbitrary.

For a while after that experience, daily life became a struggle. I didn't have the motivation to do anything. Talking to people was hard because I felt everyone was wearing a mask of sorts. It's also hard to understand this sort of DP/DR unless you've experienced it. Like the article, I remember discovering the terms "depersonalization" and "derealization" from desperate Google searches. It gave me a bit of relief to just be able to put labels on the experience. I read about "ego death", which also gave me some perspective.

I also started developing physical symptoms. The explanation is probably just stress/cortisol, but it seemed like the cells in my body also suffered from this lack of subjective identity. I developed chronic inflammation, an autoimmune condition, and had trouble sleeping.

Gradually, over a year or so, I got better, I think due to gradually forgetting about the experience. Still, I don't think I ever returned to the person I was before. It seems like there will always be a part of me that "refuses to drink the Kool-aid" -- that can't fully subscribe to my ego's self-identity anymore.

That being said, I don't regret the experience, as I think there was some sort of truth in it. But I do wish stories like this were talked about more. It's not about avoiding "bad trips", but finding a way to integrate it into your life.

That museum is great. Spending a day there gave me a deep appreciation for Van Gogh, maybe even art in general. Pictures online definitely don't do it justice. The museum also has a good guided audio tour that narrates Van Gogh's life story as you go through the collection.

The mesmerizing colors and poignant landscapes, the neurotic physicality of the brush strokes, all told through Van Gogh's letters to his brother -- it was a vivid experience. I understood that Van Gogh saw the world in a different way, and for a moment I saw it too.

I bought and played it the day of release, because of the hype and since I loved BotW. Yeah, they added some new mechanics and items and overall the gameplay seems more refined, but it definitely feels like a sequel with a lot of familiarity. If TotK was a standalone game, it'd be a masterpiece. But in comparison to BotW, it's just more and a little better.

Admittedly, some of my disappointment comes from chasing the thrill of playing BotW for the first time. Maybe those were unrealistic expectations, but for the same price and more hype, TotK just didn't have nearly the same impact for me.

This. They made BotW to sell the Switch, and this sequel doesn't add any novel elements to it. This game deserves the success if BotW didn't exist, but as a sequel the hype is pure marketing.

If game of the year awards were reserved for new, non-sequel games, maybe franchises would be discouraged from selling the same game multiple times.

From the article:

The project of the guides is utopian, but they’re a symptom of deep pessimism. They belong to a fractured culture in which symbolic gestures are preferable to concrete actions, argument is no longer desirable, each viewpoint has its own impenetrable dialect, and only the most fluent insiders possess the power to say what is real.

Though I wonder if this diagnosis is actually too optimistic, in that it assumes people are 1) aware and care about the real problems and 2) willing to put in effort to enact meaningful change. Perhaps this is too cynical, but I think most people who adopt this sort of symbolic gesturing are pretty detached from the root issues of power and wealth inequality. "Virtue signaling" is a product of vanity, not pessimism/powerlessness.

I've also struggled with this question since working in industry. There isn't an objective answer to this. I think it largely depends on the narrative you tell yourself about the work you do.

IMO, the "meaningful", tangible problems in the world today are social problems. Most programming jobs _are_ the same from this point of view because as engineers, we make tools. We can hope that these tools are used for "good", but at the end of the day, they are existentially and morally neutral.

That being said, I think cybersecurity is a safe bet. Or sacrifice the 200k and go the teaching route.

Maybe just an untimely experience, but I visited Austin once a little over a year ago during the summer, and downtown was basically a ghost town. I assumed it was because UT was on break, but still I couldn't help thinking "where is everybody?" given the Austin hype.

That being said, as a remote worker becoming increasingly disillusioned about Bay Area cost of living and politics, Austin is on my radar. Any Austin transplants here who can shed some light on moving there? How easy is it to establish a social network/sense of community as a newcomer?