Software engineer from Ukraine, currently living and working in Estonia.
I mainly specialize in computer vison & robotics. https://grgv.xyz/.
Sergii
Karma: 164
Nice! I had to re-read this to figure out if it’s satire )
I did not get an impression that most demons are fallen humans, I thought that Jinu is one of the very few humans in the underworld. So the ending makes sense—it’s prevention of humanity extinction by the alien soul-eating demons.
I understand that the point of this post is allegorical )
But, I would think that people ten thousand years ago would see their reflections as frequently as we do: you don’t need an especially still water surface to get a reasonable face reflection. Most streams/rivers work as well, and most people would drink from them several times per day.
Also pottery dates back 20k yrs, which makes for an artificial still puddle with a good reflection.. And clay cooking pits are 35k yrs. And before that it’s a water in a leaf or cupped hands, etc… )
I can relate to #5, and for me it in conflict with baking, as baked goods are rarely very healthy. I guess baking something healthy would be a nice challenge.
I would recommend starting with the simplest things, like shortbread, pound cake, banana bread, and to explore variations on those.
You can check popular psychology books like:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/58014670-why-has-nobody-told-me-this-before
they do describe a lot of similar questions and techniques.Also, I would recommend looking into CBT, just google “CBT workbook”
https://cogbtherapy.com/free-online-cbt-workbook
https://www.reddit.com/r/CBT/comments/1card3p/any_cbt_workbook_recommendations_that_are/
In your post this phrase soes sound strange “Today my state has changed a lot, it’s as if I went from suicidal to immortal”.
This can be just you writing style, but please keep in mind—having sudden profound insights, and being suddenly very excited about some ideas can be a sign of hypomania/mania/delusions/grandiosity. Just be mindful if you are in control of your emotions, or it’s other way around.
oh no reason to be embarassed, one can’t be rational without frequently realizing own mistakes.
Assumption: Depression may be a state of minimal energy where the brain searches for internal patterns.
Let’s start simple. The statement above is quite general. It might be that you have a theory behind it, but I frequently see this terms (“energy”, “pattern”) used as just buzzwords without much specific meaning.
Legible research/theories usually have some references to prior art.
But, it’s possible that you have omitted more specific definitions for brevity? So, decide for yourself—having or not having well defined grounding and references is a good signal for rationality of your ideas.
What I’m trying to do now:
Assumption: Depression may be a state of minimal energy where the brain searches for internal patterns.
Prediction: If we direct this search toward memories classified as informative (sources of satisfaction or learning), subsequent motivation will increase.
Intervention: Create a system to train the practice of “mapping useful memories” to not only relive a memory but also update a model with evidence.
You are trying so “solve” depression, without having education/experience in psychology/psychiatry, this is not a good idea.
maybe it’s Dunning–Kruger effect? or maybe you are being delusional.
in any case, please be mindful of this.Measurement: Compare the frequency of negative rumination vs. recall of useful memories in times of stress.
Assessment: Is recovery time or the subjective intensity of the “drowning” reduced?.
With a more systematic approach to self-analysis, what you are trying in invent seems similar to CBT (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_behavioral_therapy).
But you don’t need a theory, you need a therapist. Please don’t give up on medication and therapy, it might take time to find what works for you.
I can relate to this.
For me, “pacing/tinkering around” is also not super pleasant, so I would mainly just return to work or somethinng at least a little more productive if there is no alternative digital distraction.
I agree with another comment that getting less addicted to digital content is the key here. I went cold turkey on all digital entertainment (I only have 1 cheat day per week usually), and am very happy with this decision.
In fact, after few weeks I crave the digital entertainment so much less that I don’t need the cheat day anymore, I’m just not into it anymore.
His later work, “I am a strange loop”, I think is more interesting for insights on consciousness.
The problem is that most hackerspaces are not this:
”warehouse filled with whatever equipment one could possibly need to make things and run experiments in a dozen different domains”most hackerspaces that I’ve seen are fairly cramped spaces full of junk hardware. which is understandable: rent is very high and new equipment is very expensive.
but would be cool to have access to something like:
https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=530540257789037
Thanks, it’s an inspirtional pitch, I can relate.
And my observation from this kind of communities (hackerspace, engieering/hacking conference), is that a large fraction (I think majority?) of participants are much more interested in the tech itself rather than in applcations. There is also not that much drive for novelty and innovation.
I think that there should be space for exploration and learning, but to me, wizardry is about getting things done, solving actual practical problems.
For example, at hackaday.com, there are cool projects, but a large fraction of the (extremely talented) hackers are building yet another 8bit computer.
You should at lest give the credit to the inventors: https://reason.com/2019/01/16/how-scientology-recruits-inside-florida/
I have found that when using Anki for words/language learning, I frequently can’t remember the correct translation exactly, but can guess the translation as one of top-3 options. In fact, this works well for me—even knowing vaguely what the word means is very useful.
does anyone else uses Anki with non-exact answers?
I have similar issues, severity varies over time.
If I am in a bad place, things that help best:
- taking care of mental health. I do CBT when i’m in worse shape, and take SSRIs. YMMV. both getting dianosed and treated are important. this also includes regular exercise and good sleep. what you have described might be (although does not have to be) related to depression, anxiety, attention disorders.
- setting a timer for a short time, can be as short as 1min, and doing one of the avoided tasks for just that 1 minute. it kind if “breaks the spell” for me
- journaling, helps to “debug” the problems, and in most cases leads to wring down plans / intervations / resolutuons
Ha, thinking back to childhood I get it now, it’s the influence of the layot of the school daily journal in USSR/Ukraine, like https://cn1.nevsedoma.com.ua/images/2011/33/7/10000000.jpg
I have similar thing for week days, but somehow with a weird shape?
in general, it’s a similar cycle, but flipped horizontally, going left to right:
on top it’s: sun, sat
on the bottom: mon, tue, wed, thu, fri
the shape connecting days goes downwards from sun to mon, tue, wed, then upwards to thu, then down to fri, then up to sat, sun, closing the loop.not sure is this makes any sense )
unfortunately, AI research is commercialized and is heavily skewed by capitalist market needs,
so it’s still going to be all in for tryinng to make an “AI office worker”, safety be damned, until this effors hit wome wall, which I think is still plausible.
One possibility is that at some point AI products capabilities would be constrained by compute cost.
At that point, alignment “features” coule become a competitive advantage, so companies would invest much more in alignment.
The latest short story by Greg Egan is kind of a hit piece on LW/EA/longtermism. I’ve really enjoyed it. “DEATH AND THE GORGON” https://asimovs.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/DeathGorgon_Egan.pdf
I don’t like browser extension blockers: too easy to disable. Also, selection of blockers for Linux is limited.
I use hosts file for blocking and a script in crontab that overwrites any changes to this file every 5m:
This makes any hosts edits temporary, and adds just enough friction to fall into unchecked surfing.
I hope someone would make an AI-based internet limiter, I made a prototype some time ago but did not have time to make it actually usable: https://grgv.xyz/blog/awf/