Sociopath Community

Now for the rest of it: 

The obvious linear alternatives include that I cannot host meaningful discussions,
I haven't made enough effort to look for engaging people,
that I am too aggressive in conversation,
that I am not aggressive enough,
that I'm too rigid in my thinking,
that I'm not rigid enough,
that people aren't engaged,
that I'm impatient,
that I don't listen,
that I take myself too seriously,
that I haven't tried using tools that allow for more low-level discussions,
that I shoot down ideas prematurely,
that I suffer from duning kruger/hindsight bias/curse of knowledge/shared information bias,
that I am too antagonistic,
that I don't give people time to think,
that my language is prohibiting me from accurately expressing my thoughts,
that I don't convey my ideas properly,
that I don't contribute enough to the conversation to set up a common domain knowledge upon which to build information,
that I'm not entertaining or fluid enough,
that I don't conform to other people's way of working,
that I'm not connecting with concepts that I am unfamiliar with and thus consider them unimportant,
and so on and so forth.

Have you asked yourself why those things might be happening though, or at the very least why others might be responding that way, or are you going with the easy answer of presuming it's the world's fault? 

From my experience, people who blame the world demonstrate to me that they're struggling with something in themselves. Are you really going with "I've thought of this before, so I'm done with it", rather than questioning why this might keep coming up? When cornered in this way it makes sense to try new things, even if those things might feel "dumb". 

Each of these presuppose that I couldn't figure it out over years of trying

What's so weird about that? People tend to fall into cycles and habits, and blindspots have a tendency of being hard to see. 

, and each one of your suggestions fall into this category, which is why indeed there is a prevalent lack of novelty also in this discussion, because you go for the straightforward linear explanations that everyone who would be in my position would've already explored, and then bootstrap every nuance that you pick up on and propose it as an alternative explanation; for example here you could pick up on the fact that I'm shooting down your ideas and offer as an alternative explanation to my decades-old problem that perhaps I have never tried not shooting down everyone's ideas, as though I was not self aware.

You're aware of the words, but what about the context? There's more to conversation than novelty, if anything hearing something over and over shows consistency in how others are perceiving you. 

Again, I'm stuck seeing you as the common denominator. 

I'm not ungrateful. However, I try to first and foremost be clear. If we really wanted to get into it, there are also other standards that at least suggest that I'm intelligent, but I, like you, do not appreciate anyone gloating over their academic and intellectual achievements so let's just leave it at us both knowing what I'm talking about

The idea is to find where the source of the complaint roots from within the self, as the dissatisfaction over others is arguably independent from intelligence when I've seen stupid people argue the exact same thing as well as smart ones not having any problems with it. 

Any problem people have with something tends to root from their perception of the problem, as others exist who do not have that perception for one reason or another. My point here is moreso that I see how smart you are as irrelevant to your opinions of people and the novelty you find lacking in their conversations. 

So yes, like I said before, I am a part of other internet communities which are for "intellectuals" like for example slatestarcodex and I've taken the last 10 years to seek intellectual company IRL.

What do you find them lacking over, and what tends to be the criteria to join? 

I bet it's not as rigorous as something like Mensa. 

The same problem applies also to your suggestion to consider the nuance of what a sportstar vs a nutritional expert might have to say about fasting and to consider the fact that perhaps other intellectuals aren't having the same problem (there are some examples); you're missing the point.

The whole sportstar vs nutritional expert thing you mentioned is of course true and interesting in its own right.

Just to be clear and repetitious over this portion, my point is that context adds an extra layer to whatever's being said, that two separate people can say the exact same thing and convey a very different message. 

My personal philosophy on all of this is something akin to connectivism, but the point is that 95% of everything exists in our shared reality and only a small percentage of people can go beyond the immediate horizon to explore any question, and even smaller percentage exists in a reality that is less shared, because only few people truly introspect.

As long as people share history and media, there is some provable real life tangibility to this at least. Noosphere-adjacent ideas don't really hold water in a spiritual way, but through an established canon through record keeping I'd argue that it's somewhat bridging the gap. 

Which kinds of people tend to go beyond sociological boundaries though? I mostly see that out of people with disorders. 

So while I appreciate that a sportstar have different nutritional advice from a nutritional expert, the personal nuances at best color the topic, but truly novel ideas require deep thought and introspection, and a sportstar jacked up into the wide web for the most part will not have gone significantly further beyond the horizon of the collective knowledge.

This view deprives you of subtext though, it's like judging a book by it's table of contents (rather than it's cover). 

I already know the left-wing and right-wing talking points, I know what the apologists say about God, I know what the atheists have to say in return, and so on and so forth, and while I appreciate hearing the same things over and over again (with slightly different "colors" painted over a global adiabatic evolution of knowledge), I appreciate even more when I hear something fundamentally new.

If that's all you're looking for, then you're better off trying to be a jack of all trades rather than an artisan. 

Maybe a traveler even? Surely other cultures can throw some spin at pre-expectation. 

Yesterday, I was chatting with one of my students over lunch, and he told me something very interesting. He said that people in the past used to have more imagination, and he recommended I read the Time Machine by H. G. Wells. What I think is possible is that the collective knowledge around 100 years ago was so fundamentally different that reading some of the old sicifi book exposes us to a shared reality of knowledge that no longer exists within our society, so it "feels" novel.

Okay first off, how does someone even measure Imagination? 

I'd argue our level of imagination is about the same but that more things have now been done before and that there's more of a platform for artists to the point of lower quality work becoming more accessible. 

At least that'd be the connectivist view. But maybe we've since then also become too attuned to having all the information accessible to us, and we've put all our efforts into keeping up with the constant stream of information, being spoon-fed all sorts of garbage about how to live instead of sitting down and thinking about life ourselves, in the process forgetting our collective prime directive, which we all know we have. Who knows.

I don't see it as being too different from people in a small town sharing the same religious texts, when it comes to the above at least. 

From my own experiences, I've seen more creativity come from Constraints and a lack of knowledge of what's deemed Canon. There's artists who hate looking at others works over how they feel it will taint their own potential, and it's been said that our dreams tend to be constructed out of that which we've seen before, so perhaps exposure to the same things has produced a similar enough foundation to seem less novel to others. 

Some see Post Modernism as an attempt to escape what's expected, with enough exposure to it as a way to free themselves from the entrapment of the accepted modern canon. Art in general is an escape for many who feel trapped. 

Jada said: 

Why do you figure that, with both of us spending years of our lives meeting people, that we'd have a contrast between us when it comes to finding novelty in other people? 

I spend more of my time thinking and introspecting, I'm more curious than you are, I'm very knowledgeable, and I have developed a more efficient mental framework for learning.

This to me sounds like you're saying you spend a lot of time in your own head. 

How would you measure these things though, especially Curiosity? 

Most of what I hear I've thought of already at a deeper level, so the information is not novel or impressive. If it is novel, it's more of an a-ha minute moment and then after that I'm already ahead.

This to me sounds like you being stuck on Novelty over Broader Concepts, like judging the entire Horror genre over a few scary movies. It's like saying that you've effectively read all books of a genre by reading a few from it, rather than exploring what each author within the genre might be doing differently. 

In a broad sense most things have been found, but when dug into deeper the room for variation increases over the smaller details. 

Can I ask a question? What have you learned from one of the forum.members here that was entirely novel in a deeply meaningful way to you, that you could not figure out yourself, in the past 6-12 months?

Why only that period of time, to have your position take advantage of this year's social drought here? 🤨

Even within those constraints though I've learned quite a lot actually, but most of it's been in private. A word like 'entirely' is a bit daunting, parts of it came from things I've seen before, but how others utilized those very same things shows enough variation to not be the same. 

I have considered at length the possibility that you are right, exploring that for nearly a decade before making up my mind. Neither a nor b fits me.

It doesn't really matter if I'm right, just the capacity for conversation. 

A lot of what I've seen gained from conversations tend to come from applying what I heard at a later time, and people being 'wrong' can still teach something. 

Ill reply later but now I'm curious about what you've learned. Forget the time constraint.

Jada said: 

Ill reply later but now I'm curious about what you've learned. Forget the time constraint.

Without the time constraint that's moreover there being a lot to consider, especially if IRL interactions and private conversations that came from this forum count rather than just public activity. 

People here have had wildly different experiences from my own life, how couldn't there be a lot to learn? 

Why do I keep encountering those explanations? The simple answer is I don't, you're the only one who has suggested ones that I've crossed off the list. People generally suggest less than glamorous explanations to problems when they encounter someone as confident about their intelligenve as me, because it races against their a priori assumption that everyone is a normie. It's an extraordinary claim and so people want to naturally challenge it. When I'm not busy making the claim, people see me as smart and come to me when they want solutions. But you're missing the most important thing, which is that, if my problem is e.g., that I shoot down ideas, I can simply try not shooting down ideas. It doesn't elude me that many people are overconfident, but it also doesn't elude me that there are some genuinely smart people in this world.

But at the end of it all, surely we've encountered a situation where we were the most knowledgeable or smartest person in the room? Surely it's not impossible to know. When you watch the debate between J. Peterson and K. Newman, surely we both get the feeling that one of the people is smarter in at least that particular conversation. It's not even a hot take.

What tends to be the criteria to join slatestarcodex or the academic circles I'm associated with? There's none. I'm not into exclusive rich boy clubs, but the criteria to becoming a research scientist at faculty level is pretty stringent. However, I engage with people no matter where they come from or what their "level" is; knowledge is for everyone, and so I treat people who want to learn from me the same way I would want others to treat me. That's why based on principle I don't like exclusive clubs like Mensa. They don't want to involve themselves with dumb people, which reeks of this idea of  a weird class society based on intellect. Ironically, if there is a group of people who form an even more exclusive smart boys club then Mensa should subjugate themselves to that group. If I was a part of Mensa I'd hide it like it was a criminal record. I'm also not sure if I could pass the test.

I do spend a lot of my time in my head, but I'm generay highly curious and driven to learn about a wide range of topics from physics to maths to psychology and social sciences to philosophy and religion to people and cooking, and so on, it's what I most love about this world, learning new things. So I can confidently say  I am more curious than you are. If I had a genuine character flaw that I could admit to it's that I'm too curious, and when I was younger it put people off, because I wanted to constantly learn or know something, if I was not busy thinking about it myself. After decades of doing that, I've become smart.

I'm precisely complaining about what you said about going deeper than the surface level analysis, this is precisely what is missing.

Regarding how one would measure the other things, an efficient ability to process information would mean that you can draw upon existing concepts from your mental framework fluidly and connect those with other concepts easily, which is a process that takes time. I draw upon a wide range of concepts, which is when you say I am too broad, and then I can also dig deep, which is when Med says that I can only focus on one thing at one time. It requires building a foundation, which is a process that happens within all of us, whether or not we realize it. So it's the ability to process knowledge at different levels and incorporate them down to the depths of your soul, going beyond the surface level. If you were looking for an exact "measure" it'd be something akin to how many different topics influences everything you say without cognitive dissonance, in harmony, and how fluent you are in blending, evaluating, and incorporaring new information in a way that minimizes conflict with your existing worldview, how motivated you are to reconcile conflicting information, and how frequently you can go beyond the collective hive mind and create entirely new knowledge.

Regarding the artisan thing, Im not really a jack of all tfades in the sense that I'm an artisan by profession. I happen to have a broad interest, but I do still have a specialization within a subfield. My depth of knowledge is deeper in other subfields than most people who specialize in them though, but occasionally, rarely, that's not the case.

I dont get the thing you said about postmodernism. If anything, postmodernism contributes to the lack of novelty, with the ideas and thoights being propagated over copies upon copies until the original foundatiom crumbles and we're left with a painting without being able to comprehend it, like looking at a spoon and not realizing it's supposed to bend. If anything, going back to the source is what brings out novelty. I do see what you're saying about artists refusing to look at others' work. I spent some years reading about heuristic biases and how being presented with information limits your horizon. Interesting implications for introspection and novelty. What I should be doing even now, if I wanted to be more constructive, is think about what you will say, then read what you've said, noting the differences, areflecting upon it, looking beyond what is immediately accessible to me, and only then replying. But alas, we're all sleep-deprived aren't we?

Jada said: 

Why do I keep encountering those explanations? The simple answer is I don't, you're the only one who has suggested ones that I've crossed off the list.

I have trouble believing I'd be the only one suggesting things of that nature towards you, as that would suggest you don't keep company novel and varied enough to have said it before I did. 

I'm not saying anything unique at all, which has me question the sample size and variation when it comes to the people you find yourself above, or how you as the common denominator may be affecting the explanation. Even Gypsy has shown herself to see it in a similar light, hasn't she? 

People generally suggest less than glamorous explanations to problems when they encounter someone as confident about their intelligenve as me, because it races against their a priori assumption that everyone is a normie.

Like what? 

It's an extraordinary claim and so people want to naturally challenge it.

I still see it as an independent variable, yet you seem convinced it's all about intelligence and nothing else. 

I don't really get why, when there are intelligent people who do not share this problem. 

When I'm not busy making the claim, people see me as smart and come to me when they want solutions.

Has that been the case with this forum? 

But you're missing the most important thing, which is that, if my problem is e.g., that I shoot down ideas, I can simply try not shooting down ideas.

What's the problem then, if it's that easy to make yourself try something? 

It doesn't elude me that many people are overconfident, but it also doesn't elude me that there are some genuinely smart people in this world.

Why can't it be both? 

Do you see these 'genuinely smart' people as the sort to understand everything, or as one who has strengths that lend to their field? 

But at the end of it all, surely we've encountered a situation where we were the most knowledgeable or smartest person in the room?

When I've found myself to believe that, that hasn't stopped me from finding novel experiences nor the room for meaningful conversation. 

Surely it's not impossible to know. When you watch the debate between J. Peterson and K. Newman, surely we both get the feeling that one of the people is smarter in at least that particular conversation. It's not even a hot take.

You are so fixated on intelligence, it's weird. Surely there's more to the two of them than that to measure, or is that all you see about them that matters? 

It's like a bodybuilder judging the world by how they don't lift. 

I'll handle the rest in a bit: 

What tends to be the criteria to join slatestarcodex or the academic circles I'm associated with? There's none. I'm not into exclusive rich boy clubs, but the criteria to becoming a research scientist at faculty level is pretty stringent. However, I engage with people no matter where they come from or what their "level" is; knowledge is for everyone, and so I treat people who want to learn from me the same way I would want others to treat me. That's why based on principle I don't like exclusive clubs like Mensa. They don't want to involve themselves with dumb people, which reeks of this idea of  a weird class society based on intellect. Ironically, if there is a group of people who form an even more exclusive smart boys club then Mensa should subjugate themselves to that group. If I was a part of Mensa I'd hide it like it was a criminal record. I'm also not sure if I could pass the test.

I do spend a lot of my time in my head, but I'm generay highly curious and driven to learn about a wide range of topics from physics to maths to psychology and social sciences to philosophy and religion to people and cooking, and so on, it's what I most love about this world, learning new things. So I can confidently say  I am more curious than you are. If I had a genuine character flaw that I could admit to it's that I'm too curious, and when I was younger it put people off, because I wanted to constantly learn or know something, if I was not busy thinking about it myself. After decades of doing that, I've become smart.

I'm precisely complaining about what you said about going deeper than the surface level analysis, this is precisely what is missing.

Regarding how one would measure the other things, an efficient ability to process information would mean that you can draw upon existing concepts from your mental framework fluidly and connect those with other concepts easily, which is a process that takes time. I draw upon a wide range of concepts, which is when you say I am too broad, and then I can also dig deep, which is when Med says that I can only focus on one thing at one time. It requires building a foundation, which is a process that happens within all of us, whether or not we realize it. So it's the ability to process knowledge at different levels and incorporate them down to the depths of your soul, going beyond the surface level. If you were looking for an exact "measure" it'd be something akin to how many different topics influences everything you say without cognitive dissonance, in harmony, and how fluent you are in blending, evaluating, and incorporaring new information in a way that minimizes conflict with your existing worldview, how motivated you are to reconcile conflicting information, and how frequently you can go beyond the collective hive mind and create entirely new knowledge.

The problemI have is that I do not have ppeople around me who can intellectually cbannge me which makes me feel lonely, despite my best efforts.

I don't really care about being smart beyond the fact that it causes me problems. What I think is happening is that you're more fixated on the whole smart thing than I am, and on proving that my problem is some deep rooted insecurity instead of what at face value it actually is.

I'm not sure, but did you notice that after you told me that the fact that people agree with your assessment supports what you're saying and I clarified that they dont, you said that the fact that they don't agree with you also supports your assessment? Not sure if you picked that up, but I thought it was curious.

In the end what I want is intellectual discussions. I'd love to chat about the meaning of life and how we learn new things. I think you're misunderstanding my enthusiasm for knowledge and my disappointment in not being able to share my enthusiasm with someone at a level playing ground for arrogance. I'm not arrogant in the least.

I'm sure that if there was a bodybuilder out there who was surrounded by scrawny people he might likewise feel lonely, and I franjly think it'd be understandable. It's almost like you're harping on tbe bodybuilder looking down on people, when it's not what they're doing, blaming them for working hard, and trying to convince the bodybuilder that actually all those scrawny people are stronger than him and he's just suffering from dunning kruger bias, to provide an apt analog.

Jada said: 

The problemI have is that I do not have ppeople around me who can intellectually cbannge me which makes me feel lonely, despite my best efforts.

To me, this sounds like you're saying that you expect those around you to do all the work. 

As long as you have direct autonomy over yourself, how you feel for the most part is no one's responsibility other than your own. 

I don't really care about being smart beyond the fact that it causes me problems.

Did you ever see the episode of The Simpsons when they removed a crayon from Homer's brain, which in turn had him become smart? 

If you're interested, the episode is season 12 episode 9; HOMR. 

What I think is happening is that you're more fixated on the whole smart thing than I am, and on proving that my problem is some deep rooted insecurity instead of what at face value it actually is.

I would be responding the same as I am with you if someone gave a similar rationale over body building, fashion aesthetic, or philosophy (and have actually). Intelligence in this case is moreso what you have chosen to cling to as your sense of value and appraisal, but it could be over pretty much anything (again, like Med does ironically with the English language). 

It's how much you keep centering it as the foundation of your situation that I think serves as a distraction from the real problem, as I've even seen people do with Media Elitism (music taste, their tastes in anime, sports team loyalties, etc). People will often focus on their strengths as a way to say the world is inferior, a clear expression of ego that rationalizes to them why they cannot succeed in other areas.

It's externalizing, similarly to the logic I see MGTOW go through to blame women for their own problems. 

Keeping it to your Intelligence only serves to allow you to distance yourself from your peers further, it's the tool you're using to stop yourself from diving deeper into it. At the end of the day you might be smart in selective areas, but you do not sound as if that intelligence translates towards a mind open enough to 'Empty Your Cup'. 

To some degree, you'd have to be willing to interact with people in subjects you struggle with if you want to find people unlike those you've spoken with before. The majority of people share this struggle over a variety of strengths, which has me try to seek out the common lines when it otherwise looks uncannily similar. 

When others find things to learn from you, they are succeeding where you failed right in front of you. It'd be very easy for them to disregard your strengths in favor of their own, and in that way they are proving themselves your superior. 

I'm not sure, but did you notice that after you told me that the fact that people agree with your assessment supports what you're saying and I clarified that they dont, you said that the fact that they don't agree with you also supports your assessment? Not sure if you picked that up, but I thought it was curious.

You said no one else says these kinds of things to you, yet I have at least one other person in recency that has. Your point after making that list of potential flaws you've chosen to disregard was that only I was saying it, which isn't hard to disprove. 

Why do you figure you'd say only I said it if that's otherwise not the case? My first presumption is subconscious Cherry Picking, supported by how what I'm saying is otherwise not unique or unusual advice. 

In the end what I want is intellectual discussions. I'd love to chat about the meaning of life and how we learn new things. I think you're misunderstanding my enthusiasm for knowledge and my disappointment in not being able to share my enthusiasm with someone at a level playing ground for arrogance. I'm not arrogant in the least.

How would you measure Arrogance, though? Like how do you know that? 

How many arrogant people have you found that openly call themselves as such? Calling themselves as such would typically be an expression of non-arrogance if they haven't gone full blown Solipsist, Narcissistic, or Snarky wouldn't it? 

I'm sure that if there was a bodybuilder out there who was surrounded by scrawny people he might likewise feel lonely, and I franjly think it'd be understandable.

I meanwhile would recommend the bodybuilder take up other interests, show a willingness to try things others have deemed their strengths, so that the builder would become more worldly and wise. 

It's almost like you're harping on tbe bodybuilder looking down on people, when it's not what they're doing, blaming them for working hard, and trying to convince the bodybuilder that actually all those scrawny people are stronger than him and he's just suffering from dunning kruger bias, to provide an apt analog.

I'm moreso seeing the bodybuilder as self-inflicting his own loneliness. As a shallower example, it'd be like if I didn't take anyone seriously who was bad at playing d20 games. 

The point is moreover seeing the loneliness as a subconscious choice being made towards familiarity, rationalized through externalizing the struggle as if it's others fault. We're the ones in charge of our own lives, if we are dissatisfied with something then it's something over ourselves that creates this conflict, and it's up to ourselves to find ways of handling it. It's not like this strength of yours is poisoning your ability to be with others, that's your own doing, as can be seen by other intelligent people not falling into the same pitfalls. 

If two have the same trait, but only one struggles with a flaw, the simpler guess is that that flaw is independent of that trait. As an example I am smarter than others in some areas and dumber in other ones, yet this is not hindering my ability to have novel conversations. 

It takes a brave person to allow themselves to appear dumb in front of their peers, and it takes even more patience to listen without just being a passive yes-man or an enabler. I've straight up seen people cobble together absurd explanations (if not excuses) over their knowledge in a subject never explored rather than just say "I don't really know much about that".

Beyond that it's really moreover trying to find Common Ground, which everyone otherwise has. 

We're making progress, because now I know that you've been trying to tell me to take up other interests, just like you would be telling the bodybuilder to take up other interests. Earlier I was not sure.

I'm interested in many things. I guess I could silence the voice that tells me to love knowledge, but then we're back to me being fed up with being an airhead. I've lived a very varied life. It all started when I was 4 and wanted to become zorro, the Spanish swordsman from TV.

In reality, though, I guess it started with video games. Most people I chatted with when I was a kid were 20 years older than me because I played and modded Quake 3 and JKA. That's when I heard about all these philosophical theories, politics, physics, theology. But then I look at my grandfather, and he's the same. So maybe I picked it up from my family, after all, and it just took me several decades to realize it. So I'm just curious about stuff and want someone equally curious and inquisitive.

I don't really want to silence the voice. It's like asking me to kill the part of me I enjoy the most.

I think you're too worked up about intelligence to be honest. I love knowledge, and I love sharing it. I think I can do something about it. I can start a new hobby, reading about Albert Einstein's thoughts and seeing if I can relate. Honestly, I'd love to find one of these world altering scientists and just sit with them over a cup of tea or something, and enjoy the conversation. Maybe I can do it by reaidng a book. Or maybe I just accept that I'm there to create new information alone, without sharing that joy with anyone. It's enjoyable in its own right, even if I can't share. Or maybe I need to bring the best out of others; I certainly usef to think everyone was capable of being smarter than me, maybe I can just make them.

Who said I didn't take anyone seriously? I've taken you seriously, haven't I? However, I do think that you're capable of deeper thought and drawing upon more from within inside of you than this linear mirroring thing, but then I haven't given you much to work with either have I, when I've been digging my heels into the ground asking you to accept my way of thinking.

Regarding the arrogance thing, most people who are arrogant wouldn't openly call themselves arrogant, but a large portion of arrogant people would realize that they're arrogant, and the portion that didn't, didn't because they fail to introspect. I've explored my ego and reflected on myself and my actions over the years, and I've come to the conclusion that portraying yourself as arrogant or angry is sometimes objectively the best course of action because it gives people around you a sense of control and certainty (among other things), that they otherwise wouldn't have if they knew you weren't actually angry or weren't actually arrogant. I guess I just see most of my actions from afar. Call it dissassociation or Nirvana if you want. So I guess I choose to portray myself in a way that comes naturally while my meta-self has become my default persona, wih a subconscious self, something like that. Except when I feel desperate and haven't eaten carbohydrates, then I'm just an angry child with no self awareness. I have a very fluid sense of self, and I used to think others were like that, but then when I say these things they look confused, so probably not really.

Regarding clearing your mind, you're right. I already do that. I take meditative walks, among other things. What's your trick? Cats maybe?