Consumption Week 35
My notes from some of the media I consumed this week.
Contents
[Modern Wisdom] #674 - Adam Lane Smith - 17 Ugly Psychology Truths No One Wants To Admit
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1676925337194704897.html
- Should Women Have Sex on the First Date?
- People Who Are Obsessed with Politics are Messy & Unhappy
- The Danger of Avoiding Uncomfortable Conversations
- How Our Relationships Are Being Systematically Destroyed
- Both Men & Women Hate the Dating Scene
- The Key to Protecting Your Marriage from Divorce
- Why Men Are Demonised in Marriage Therapy
- The Disadvantages of Sending Your Baby to Daycare
- Most Men Don’t Understand Female Communication
- The Difference in Perspectives of Past Romantic History
- Do Men Want Respect More Than Love?
- The World Doesn’t Want Men to Have Any Power
- If You Love Your Children, You’d Let them See Your Separated Partner
- Why Nice Guys Finish Last
Tags: Relationships, Dating, Mental Health, Therapy, Psychology
[Founders] #318 Alistair Urquhart
- This guy must have lived one of the hardest human existences of the last 100 years, if not the last 1000. Incredible.
Tags: Mental Fortitude, War
Why You Are Probably An NPC
https://gurwinder.substack.com/p/why-you-are-probably-an-npc
- The Conformist → but common wisdom can be wrong, and experts can have vested interests
- The Contrarian → mindset: the mainstream is wrong, therefore the anti-mainstream must be right
- The Disciple → a Contrarian, overwhelmed by the quantity of fringe theories, follows a leader, to reduce cognitive load
- The Tribalist → believe everything on their side, disbelieve and blame the other side
- The Averager → hedging beliefs and intelligence-signalling
- The solution is to divide issues into tertiary, secondary, and primary.
- Tertiary issues are those you don’t need to care about: the overwhelming majority of things.
- Secondary issues are things that interest you, but which you don’t need to get exactly right.
- Primary issues are the ones you care about most, the ones you’re determined to get right.
Tags: Mindset, Tribalism, Politics
China’s blueprint for an alternative world order
https://www.ft.com/content/8ac52fe7-e9db-48a8-b2f0-7305ab53f4c3
- In the case of Cambodia, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Zimbabwe — all of which owe hefty debts to China — their voting alignment with China in the assembly registered at 80 per cent or above, according to the research. “On average, a 10 per cent increase in voting alignment with China in the UN General Assembly yields a 276 per cent increase in aid and credit from Beijing,”
- In October last year, the UN Human Rights Council voted down a western-led motion to hold a debate on China’s human rights abuses after a cohort of developing countries backed Beijing. The council has 47 members, of whom 19 voted against the motion, 17 for and 11 abstained. It was only the second time in the council’s 16-year history that a motion had been rejected. It came just weeks after a finding by the UN Office of the High Commission for Human Rights that “serious human rights violations” had been committed by Beijing against Muslim minorities in Xinjiang, a region in north-west China. Following that victory, China then enlisted 66 countries — most of them recipients of Chinese lending under the BRI — to support a statement at the UN praising its human rights record. Its signatories outnumbered the 50 mostly western countries that endorsed a rival statement which condemned China.
Tags: China, Geopolitics
Did People Used To Look Older?
- Yes! Due to worse healthcare, nutrition, etc. But also no! It’s just old fashions.
- Also: people change their appearance to match their names, and certain facial features are correlated with names
Tags: Anthropology, People, History, Aging