triviatise

Despair is the absence of hope. People have been given an unrealistic view of what life should be and when it is so much worse than their expectations they fall into despair.

The media hurts because we are exposed to the "lifestyles of the rich and famous". Im gen X which seems to have the suicide problem. Gen X was raised with "greed is good" and glamorized miami vice. That is a hollow empty promise even when fulfilled.

I think another of the key problems is a lack of life philosophy (spirituality?) where people can find meaning in their lives outside of material goods. This is partially due to the death of religion. There also is a lack of understanding that life is fundamentally unfair and there somehow is the expectation that it should be fair. Without religion people are missing a clear moral compass that guides their life to find meaning. There needs to be a new modern philosophy that has moral underpinnings, but incorporates science, without necessarily having a deity.

Finally, children (including my generation) have been sheltered from lifes daily challenges by being given too much. I suspect when they become adults they simply can't handle what their lives actually are.

I think the current generation of kids are being raised to try to change the world and to seek meaning in helping other people. However they are also being raised to think that life should be fair and they are going to be bitterly disappointed.

political choices are completely irrelevant to your ability to have a happy life.

People living in garbage dumps are able to figure out to be happy.

None of those things should have any impact on your daily life. If you didnt plug into the internet (your choice) you wouldnt know about any of those things and they simply wouldnt matter.

I live in the same country and I have a great life based on the actual people around me, not based on news media that pulls the worst things from around the country to try to generate more clicks.

I havent read much about stoicism. But if I had to guess, being serene all the time is not being stoic. You should experience all the emotions, yet simultaneously realize you can be angry and still have peace. Because you can accept the feelings as natural. The question then becomes will you act on the anger or not act. Either way you then have peace with your decision.

Im not a buddhist or a stoic, but from what little I have read I somewhat live that way.

My parents once told me that one of my biggest problems is that I was too happy. I have always had the mantra "the path to true happiness is to want for nothing". This means you can either have the things you wanted or choose not to want the things you dont have. If I want something badly enough I work to get/achieve it. If I'm not willing to work to get it, then I am at peace with my decision because apparently I didn't want it that badly.

I have a lot of material possessions and I enjoy them, yet if I were to lose them all it would be ok. There was a time in my life where I had to dig change out of the couch to buy enough to eat and I reveled in the moment, that I was a person that had to live that way. There was a certain thrill to finding a dollar so I could go to the farmers market to buy a basket of the veggies of the day which could be an entire basket of green peppers (yuck). I enjoyed learning a variety of recipes to make do with green peppers.

Im happy to be able to travel, help others, raise kids, do hobbies etc. I enjoy them, but the loss of all of that, especially as I get older, I think I can accept. Every phase of life brings something new to enjoy, even pain.

I often think about all the things I will lose, especially people, even to the point where it brings me to tears. I work to accept that loss today and to enjoy the having right now. One day I will lose my parents, I might lose my spouse, a child, a friend. When they are gone, I'll have the sadness, but I'll still have the joy of having had them in my life.

Someday I might not be able to walk, see, or get out of bed. But I will appreciate and treasure the time I did have.

As a concrete example I look at people who are so angry at trump, most of them are simply angry. The anger itself is pointless. In my world view you either act to create the change you want or accept that you dont care enough to act. Each person is motivated differently and people aren't bad because they don't care as much as you.

Even if you act, you might fail. If you recognize that failure is possible, even feel anguish over the failure, yet try to see the pleasure in the attempt and the failure, then you can have peace.

This means not being afraid of failure, because there is still joy in failure, the journey as well as the learning.

If you want peace, you can have it. Many people simply dont want peace.

This seems to be one of the most common logical fallacies, especially in politics. I dont know if it has a name, but I call it "qualification without quantification".

It creates a logic chain that could happen, without any discussion of actual probabilities or costs.

For example banning of assault rifles, discusses how it could save lives. People are surprised to learn that there are less than 200 deaths per year from any type of rifle.

The same goes for universal background checks.

Austin is still like this (pop 1M). You can be anywhere in town and still run into people you know.

People can still work 9 to 5 and comfortably raise a family. While it is becoming more pretentious with tech money, it isn't too bad.

Austin is a tier 4 city that can at times still feel like a small town with some bigger city amenities.

that is the opposite of how science is supposed to work. Using the method described you will statistically always find false correlations in data sets. This is because you can find patterns in any set of data.

You have to start with a hypothesis and then come up with the measures and expected outcomes based on it. Then you design the experiment to determine if the hypothesis is false.

there is an infinite amount of work to be done. There are needs unfulfilled today because there arent enough people and therefore the price is too high.

There will always be work that machines cant do.

just buy yogurt with live cultures. back when I used to make my own yogurt I would just put a tablespoon of dannon into a gallon of whole milk.

The path to true happiness is to want for nothing.

uhaul will generally fill propane tanks. When you swap tanks you get substantially less than what uhaul will fill to.

predictit has trump getting impeached by end of 2019 at 36 cents for yes. If mueller finds any "collusion" it is guaranteed impeachment. Old crimes possibly not.

So predictit at least disagrees that mueller finds collusion.

And as always if you are absolutely certain that mueller will find collusion, you can make some money. Put your money where your mouth is.