It seems to have become a year long Saturday/Sunday-habit for me to ponder about how I can figure things out: How to make the world better, how to improve myself, what to do next, and so on. Usually it’s horrible, because I often end up in lying bed with my mind touching all kinds of subjects, gaining some minor insights, but gaining little clarity. I don’t seem to be able to use that time of mine very effectively. Writing things down helps, but it also changes the flow of thoughts a lot, not always in an advantageous way (though on average, it is better to write thoughts down).
Anyway, today I had a chain of thoughts that roughly went like this:
What’s my plan to establish a reputation economy?
-> Is that really the most important thing for me to do?
-> The generally most important thing to do is try provide ultimate value
-> What is ultimate value?
-> We don’t know, so we must find out
-> How do we find out?
-> By becoming better at finding things out
-> How do we become better at finding things out?
-> By becoming better in general
-> How do we become better in general?
-> With transhumanist enhancements or personal development
-> Transhumanist enhancements look like a difficult thing to do at the technological level we are in right now, so what about personal development?
-> Personal development is very much needed, because humans have so many weaknesses
-> How to fix those weaknesses with personal development?
-> Develop more self-discipline and stuff
-> How can we develop more self-discipline?
-> By being harder to ourselves and to one another, by not tolerating weakness (more than necessary)
-> Why aren’t people actually harder?
-> It’s easier to blame other people than to work on oneself
AND It seems to be a natural tendency for humans to avoid hardness, because it feels unpleasant
-> How can people overcome this natural tendency?
-> By realizing that it’s necessary to become harder and develop more self-discipline in order to reach certain goals
-> But that’s not enough, or is it?
-> No, because humans are directly driven by motivations, and only indirectly by insights.
-> How can people be motivated to do what they realize as necessary?
-> By creating negative emotions triggered by the full realization, and visceralization of the insufficiency of the current state of things
Therefore it seems to be functional to think like this:
- This is not good enough, so it needs to be made better
- I am not good enough, so I need to become better
Is this anything really new? No really. But I guess writing it down still helps a little bit. Also, I want more people to know how I think, because I really hate not being understood correctly.