sus

Well-known member
Maybe there's a better way of thinking about it... I don't love this way either, b/c I'm not sure how to rigorously think about how "multiple selves" works cognitively, but...

There's a self that wants to go on Twitter and a self that wants to go on Twitter less, and their desires are in conflict, and if the self that wants to go on Twitter is more powerful, it wins out.

Typically, the anti-Twitter self is this theoretical, moralistic, idealistic picture of "Who I want to be" and the pro-Twitter self is this more concrete, "I have desires that I wanna fulfill NOW" and while I empathize (actually no I don't) with people who struggle to quit Twitter, there are a bajillion things in this world where you needa strengthen your resolve and make the long-term idealistic self win out, otherwise your life is gonna be this moment-to-moment optimization, where you never get the Big Things you want, rather than a big picture optimization, where you properly prioritize and hold yourself accountable.
 

version

Well-known member
For all the pseudo-scientific nonsense boomers pass around about how they're manipulating us with "dopamine" hits, we actually don't even clearly know how dopamine works or how to game it.
I do wonder how much of the stuff like this we take as read does actually exist and how much is just us behaving as though it does and that essentially having the same effect.
 

sus

Well-known member
How do you explain the rise and fall of cigarettes?
Very simply!

People love nicotine and the MAOIs in tobacco.

People don't love dying of lung cancer.

When they found out that lung cancer is part and parcel of smoking tobacco, most of them used that long-term idealistic self to quit.

Nowadays, the link is uncoupled by vaping, so lots of people use nicotine again.

What's missing in your mind from this description?
 

version

Well-known member
I do wonder how much of the stuff like this we take as read does actually exist and how much is just us behaving as though it does and that essentially having the same effect.
"... Deprogramming simultaneously retro-produced the program, just as witch-trials preceded devil-worship and regressive hypnotherapy preceded false memory syndrome. Yet, once these ‘fictions’ are produced, they function in and as reality. It isn’t that belief in Project Monarch produces the Monarch Program, but rather that such belief produces equivalent effects to those the reality of Project Monarch would produce, including some that are extremely peculiar and counter-intuitive."

 
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version

Well-known member
Very simply!

People love nicotine and the MAOIs in tobacco.

People don't love dying of lung cancer.

When they found out that lung cancer is part and parcel of smoking tobacco, most of them used that long-term idealistic self to quit.

Nowadays, the link is uncoupled by vaping, so lots of people use nicotine again.

What's missing in your mind from this description?
That a lot of resources went into making people aware they liked tobacco and supplying them with it and a lot of resources went into making them aware of the health risks and pushing them away from it.
 

thirdform

pass the sick bucket
Very simply!

People love nicotine and the MAOIs in tobacco.

People don't love dying of lung cancer.

When they found out that lung cancer is part and parcel of smoking tobacco, most of them used that long-term idealistic self to quit.

Nowadays, the link is uncoupled by vaping, so lots of people use nicotine again.

What's missing in your mind from this description?

The jouissance of the death drive, of course. Why do people take LSD? Nicotine is just the squares patient way of ending up at that goal.
 

version

Well-known member
"... Deprogramming simultaneously retro-produced the program, just as witch-trials preceded devil-worship and regressive hypnotherapy preceded false memory syndrome. Yet, once these ‘fictions’ are produced, they function in and as reality. It isn’t that belief in Project Monarch produces the Monarch Program, but rather that such belief produces equivalent effects to those the reality of Project Monarch would produce, including some that are extremely peculiar and counter-intuitive."

You could apply this to the "there is no outside" talk too.
 

thirdform

pass the sick bucket
What is there? And don't say baked beans or nuclear-powered gabber or something.

There is everyday life. We are all part of capital. There is no recuperation, it's always like that, until the qualitative leap occurs and these relations of production are destroyed. It's never a case of want but of pure animalistic instinct.
 

version

Well-known member
Maybe there's a better way of thinking about it... I don't love this way either, b/c I'm not sure how to rigorously think about how "multiple selves" works cognitively, but...

There's a self that wants to go on Twitter and a self that wants to go on Twitter less, and their desires are in conflict, and if the self that wants to go on Twitter is more powerful, it wins out.

Typically, the anti-Twitter self is this theoretical, moralistic, idealistic picture of "Who I want to be" and the pro-Twitter self is this more concrete, "I have desires that I wanna fulfill NOW" and while I empathize (actually no I don't) with people who struggle to quit Twitter, there are a bajillion things in this world where you needa strengthen your resolve and make the long-term idealistic self win out, otherwise your life is gonna be this moment-to-moment optimization, where you never get the Big Things you want, rather than a big picture optimization, where you properly prioritize and hold yourself accountable.
Is the pro-Twitter self conscious? It doesn't feel as though it is. I think most people have experienced suddenly snapping out of a daze and realising they've been aimlessly browsing the net in almost a trance rather than actively choosing to keep doing it each moment.
 

thirdform

pass the sick bucket
The 60s counterculture, rave, private eye, Sex in the City, Dido, Public Enemy, Don Don Don DeLillo/white noise, A Clockwork Orange, none of these things started out pure and then they were recuperated...
 

version

Well-known member
Why do you think the idea that there's an outside and an inside persists? What function does it serve, if any?
 

thirdform

pass the sick bucket
Why do you think the idea that there's an outside and an inside persists? What function does it serve, if any?

(over)politicising the middle classes, a class which is always in a precarious position with no future. You either go up or you go down. There is no permanent middleclass position.
 

thirdform

pass the sick bucket
Which is why I called Goldsmiths Cone Boy an ambulence chaser much to @luka 's chagrin, even though he would say the same for Trim in 2004...
 
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