[FRIAM] more evopsych

[steve smith]

Glen -

We are all complex creatura methinks, but we are also mutually resonant, 
entrained, empathetic to different degrees in different dimensions.  I'm 
sure my response will miss important aspects of what you were 
thinking/feeling when you wrote/shared this.

first an anecdote:  In my 40s I worked for a woman in her 60s who was 
going through a (delayed?) midlife crisis.  She confided in me from time 
to time but the most useful of all confidence was when she reported 
something her therapist had just given her:  "your opinion of me is none 
of my business".     I was only vaguely useful to me in the moment, but 
(obviously) still haunts me (in a good way).

The point of this anecdote being primarily responsive to the topic of 
the article but also to the issue of what our coupling functions are 
with other people, their writings and to the point of the current 
fad/phase, the synthesized fusion of the multitudes via an LLM.   A 
feature of the LLMs is they never seem to have (or share) an opinion of 
me with me.

second anecdote:   in the 90s (my 40s also) my parents who I took to be 
pretty progressive, thoughtful people (as I grew up) had been entrained 
into the proto-MAGA world via Rush Limbaugh (and perhaps FOX or 
proto-FOX?).   I generously, kindly, deferentially allowed them to talk 
about things in a tone and style that I didn't fully recognize from 
them.... myu father in particular (who was intrinsically more openly 
prone to judgement?)  had begun to say things which contradicted what I 
knew of him from my years growing up where they both resisted the 
strongest xenophobic/judgemental/dismissive tropes of the cultures 
(rural, extractive industry, frontier mentality) we were embedded in. 
the punchline comes when after a few years of creeping negative, 
judgemental talk aimed in every direction that the limbaugh/fox machine 
directed them I very bluntly said "I am happy to talk with you about 
just about anything, but it is the mean-spirited style which I cannot 
abide".   Sadly (or conveniently or both), I don't think we discussed 
politics much more after that.   I think I thought that simple, blunt 
statement would sink in.   I now suspect they simply didn't understand 
the point?  Or maybe they had finally reached a point in life (in their 
70s) that the only thing they knew to do with a world that was moving 
onfaster than they could keep up was to judge it and blame anyone far 
enough from them they couldn't fight back?

Specific to the question of how "folks who like to chat with LLMs" might 
defend ourseles from the time-wasting/toxicity of 
articles/authors/thought-provokers like Peterson or this guy you 
linked:    I have developed an intuition on tone not unlike what I had 
come to with my parents...   and with the outrageous plethora of reading 
out there to be offered, I no longer treat *much* as precious.  There 
was a time, for example, (even into the 2000s) when I could hardly force 
myself to leave an issue of any magazine I might have a subscription to 
(e.g. SciAM, ScienceNews, WIRED) with any article unread.  I also had a 
hard time not finishing any book I had opened and begun reading (beyond 
the intro).   Since too much of my headlines/teasers comes through a TS 
(tiny screen), and my eyesight so lame and my attention span so 
frazzled, I have learned to "cut my losses" early.

Regarding the siren call of topics like the one presented in the article 
(or a lot of Peterson's bait), I wish I had had much more "wisdom" in my 
early teen years when the likes of Ayn Rand caught me...  I now 
recognize it as (perhaps) the attraction of grievance... the fuel of 
many of our modern ills, most acutely, presently MAGA.

I don't know if this rambling helps, maybe you "cut your losses" as I 
hope most people do with my massive missives if/when/as they might 
recognize them as tangential to their interests...

but you asked.

- Steve

On 4/7/25 8:28 AM, glen wrote:
> https://www.skeptic.org.uk/2025/04/reputation-why-do-we-care-so-much-about-what-other-people-think-of-us/ 
>
>
> Not as toxic as Jordan Peterson, but still insidious. I regret reading 
> it. I'll never get that time back. So why post it here and bait some 
> other poor soul into wasting their time as well? I think because I 
> don't have my own defense. I keep getting suckered into this stuff. 
> Why? What practical things do you do to prevent yourself from reading 
> trash like this? I can't help but wonder what those of you who enjoy 
> *chatting* with LLMs (chatting is very different from something like 
> declarative programming) might opine.
>
> Also, I used to enjoy the mere act of reading. I literally did not 
> care what the words meant. I enjoyed reading an article in the journal 
> Ethics just as much as, say, a long novel by Michael Moorcock. But 
> once I started having to read as part of my job, it grew less and less 
> fun. Now I don't enjoy reading at all, despite doing it all day every 
> day. But my decision support system for choosing *what* to read is 
> very broken.
>
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