banner, obey barnes

luminousalicorn:

• You utter a statement. Someone says, “Yet. Growth mindset.” This happens more and more. If you are very careful in your phrasing, you may hear, “So far,” instead. You speak in soft whispers, alone. Pessimistically. “Yet,” says a voice. “Growth mindset.” Silently, in a deserted office, you say nothing. “Growth mindset,” says the voice. Louder. It is growing.
• You did not always live in the Bay Area. Once you began a circle of friends based around similar interests, somewhere else, far away. You made a pilgrimage. You did not return. You do not know if you have abandoned your friends to the wider world or if they will join you one day. You do not know what you hope they will do.
• It has been six weeks since you met someone who was not a programmer. Perhaps everyone is a programmer. If we were in a simulation, everything would be programming.
• You’re sure you’re imagining the blood on your friends’ teeth when they endorse killing babies. That was only a story. You’re so happy.
• It is the Solstice. Something is wrong with the tech for the ISS footage. You wait in darkness. You have a light, but you are forbidden to ignite it.
• You listen to Michael Vassar. You don’t remember traveling to this party or sitting on this beanbag. You don’t remember when he began to speak. He is still speaking. He sounds like madness and glory given lisping poetry, and you want to obey.
• Someone is getting married. You speak dutifully of statistics when asked what you think of their wisdom. Someone toasts the Chosen One. You raise a glass that is lit with changing colors.
• You are caught up with Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality. You have always been caught up on Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality. You were born caught up on Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality. Your car clock ticks to the moment of its update and you drift into oncoming traffic as you scramble for your phone. You will always be caught up on Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality.
• You’re struggling with akrasia. You have insight into your condition. You pity people who don’t even know to call it “akrasia”. You have not done anything in months.
• Your house has a name. Your house’s whiteboards have messages on them that none of you remember writing. Your house wants you to buy seaweed snacks and almonds. They’re paleo. Your house is concerned about diets of the ancestral environment. Your house is gluten-free.
• You have not found a way to connect your hobby to rationalism yet. It itches. You are not whole. It is forbidden to post an article entitled Rationalist Hobby on Less Wrong. You lie awake at three in the morning, trying to create puns.
• You stare at plastic pyramids. Your eyes are playing tricks on you. There is a koan with both a black and a white Go stone. Your eyes must be playing tricks on you.
• You have a nightmare about committing the fallacy fallacy fallacy fallacy fallacy fallacy fallacy. You wake up. You haven’t, really. Probably. One is not a probability and you are not safe, never safe.
• You see movement out of the corner of your eye. You dismiss it on priors. You still see it. You dismiss it on priors. You fear updating.
• You are prepared for Omega to appear to you and present you choices. Ecstatic choices that will leave you laughing from the top of a heap of utility or in torment for all eternity. You are ready. You fear and yearn for this day in equal measure. You are ready and know exactly what you will do and so does Omega.
• You want to be frozen when you die. Not sooner. You look around corners before you step past. Sometimes, you consider leaving your necklace at home. Not yet.
• You aren’t afraid of paperclips. They can’t hurt you. They’re only paperclips. Don’t be afraid.
• Politics is the mindkiller. You do not need to come up with thoughts about politics. They would only kill your mind. Rest now.
• You have expanded your comfort zone. Today you have committed two felonies and eaten a motorcycle. You are comfortable, you remind yourself, as you flee the authorities. You are comfortable.
• You abandon a sunk cost. You didn’t want to. It’s crying.
• You donate to effective charities to signal virtue to your friends. They are impressed. You feel cold. Friendship isn’t about affection. You signal louder and louder to nothing and no one. You have never done anything real. You are not real.
• Everyone you know is talking about the end of the world. They say they are worried. They talk about it a lot. They barely talk about anything else. It seems like they are having so much fun. They say they are worried. They only chant dark rituals sometimes.

nostalgebraist