Mudaphil

Punish inaction – not failure

Mixed Signals by Uri Gneezy

As time passes, I become more sure that I won’t be a game-designer in any shape or form. I’m too old and cynical now, and some dreams are destined to stay nothing but dreams.

Still, if John Clerk of Eldin managed to write a piece on naval tactics while not being a seaman then I can still leave a mark, right? Opinions of others and myself be damned!
So, with the power of wine and the “Fuck YOU!” attitude, let’s cook something up and watch a couple of Crash Courses, Big Thinkers, and deers getting smashed by truck drivers who just strangled a prostitute. There is a whole serial killer truck driver society out there. Mothers be aware

Economics

• economics is a study of people and choices
• specialize on what you do best
• (they ignored Smith’s critique of the division of labor. You have to use specialization to subsidize other fields)
• modern economies are mixed
• (the course is fine but I like when it helps me with my day-to-day business. It’s economics, not politeconomy)

Media Literacy

• we live in a media saturated environment
• 10+ hours on watching media daily but we have no idea how to deal with it
• Media messages and effects
• Media is not independent but class affiliated
• Every ad is propaganda
• relevant, accurate, bias, reliability
• a lot of medias we use every day are only 10+ years old

Philosophy

• Everything is philosophy. What and how we know stuff
• It’s about asking big questions: what’s the world like? What the nature of reality? How do I know I’m right? How should I live?
• Ethics – human conduct. Aesthetics – nature of beauty
• Tripartite soul – rational, spirited, appetitive
• Abduction – drawing a conclusion based on the explanation that best explains a state of events rather than from evidence provided by the premises
• What you know might be false
• Disbelieve everything. Accept only those there is no doubt about after careful consideration. Then the cycle begins again
• Rationalism – reason is the most reliable source of knowledge. Empiricism – sense-experience
• Subjective Idealism – Esse est percepi – to be is to be perceived
• We all start with a hunch
• Put your belief to a test and try to disprove it as much as possible
• Aquinas doesn’t prove the existence of any particular god
• A flawed world implies a flawed creator
• Asking God for anything is pointless (Isaiah 1:10-20)
• You need evidence to believe something
• Philosophy is about dialectics – proposition, comments and refutations
• Meaning of life is given by you
• No reason to be afraid of death – it’s part of a cycle of life
• Our mind is directly affected by what happens to us physically
• Absistence – every possible object you can think of. Subsistence – numbers and theorems. Existence
• Art – expressing your feeling when mere words are not enough
• There are more benefits in cooperation
• Virtue is a sweet-spot between two extremes
• Eudaimonia – live well lived. Keep improving
• (Should we help our parents? Cooperation is good and our family is our first team so the answer is yes by default. However, if you don’t feel like doing it which should have a concrete origin in the past – then don’t. Sometimes you’re forced to live with people you don’t want to live with – deal with it)

Sociology

• Sociology – a study of people and society
• Comte
• Society – group of people who share a culture and a territory. Nation – “A nation is a historically constituted, stable community of people, formed on the basis of a common language, territory, economic life, and psychological make-up manifested in a common culture.”
• Durkheim
• Empirical evidence – verifiable information collected in a systematic way
• positive – objective and fact based. Normative – subjective and value-based
• Lack of social integration leads to suicide
• Historical Materialism – view of history through the development of material forces
• Culture – how ideas affect reality. We often don’t notice it
• Reality is socially constructed (at least in part)
• Bureaucracy – organization constructed to do things efficiently
  • Specialized roles
  • Hierarchy
  • Formal, Written communications
  • Technical competence
  • Impersonality
  • Rules and regulations
• Gulag population reached a peak value (1.5 million) in 1941. At yearend 2020, an estimated 5,500,600 persons were under the supervision of adult correctional systems in the United States
• Brahmins, Khsatrias, Vaishyas, Shudras
• Meritocracy is a lie
• Core->semi-periphery->periphery
• The future is global
• (Just 4-10% of LGBT people but so much fuss. Conservatives created all these enemies to justify their own existence)
• Democracy requires well-educated people

Soft Skills & Entrepreneurship

• Fake it till you make it
• These days, if it looks slightly better than your average sludge – totally a scam. My formula is simple – have fuck you money? Invest them in whatever. Otherwise sit the fuck down!
• multitasking is a myth
• Solve a particular problem

Your Brain on Money & Get smarter, faster

• We are just monkeys in clothes
• Always ask questions

Brian Tracy’s How to Save Money, How to Become Rich, How to Run a Business

• Self-Discipline is important
• Write and review your goals
• Concentrate on the issue
• Self-improve
• Spend money to make money
• Find your thing and move in that direction
• Don’t be a subjective idealist
• Set an overall budget
• Dream big. Start small
• Be consistent
• (Tons of repetitions and his infographics suck ass)
• Do your homework
• What kind of problems are you trying to solve?

Crash Course Study Skills Preview

• Computers increase productivity and writing speed
• Avoid everything that doesn’t matter
• Don’t forget about supplementary reading
• Survey, question, read, recite and review
• (we procrastinate because we don’t know why we should do it. For what? The economy is in shambles and we are going to get killed by these nazis in a year or two anyway. This is the era of scientific satanism)
• Memory is context based
• Battle has to be fought every day
• Brain dump – throw everything you have on a piece of paper
• Exercise

History of Science

• What we know and how we discover things
• Don’t believe something just because someone tells you it’s true. Test it yourself
• Just asking about stuff turned people away from mythology
• Ask questions, break down big questions into smaller parts
• Normal science -> revolution -> paradigm shift
• Independent confirmation
• (I wanted theory of science)
• Standpoint of understanding reality

NPR Lifekit

Decide what matters at the moment
If it takes 2 minutes – do now
Impossible to improve if your activity is invisible
Carve up time for a specific activity
Learn with mentors
Put money in envelopes
During crisis sell what’s on top and buy what’s fallen