Learning to be alone or: Getting lonely?

Our generation is wild. So many requirements from society. Be chatty, go out, meet friends, enjoy your hobbies. Everything is about being present and active. Even social media. Don‘t get me wrong. I enjoy all of these things. But most of the time, I just want to be alone. In my own little bubble, all by myself. Like charging my social battery to do all of this above. Even to be capable of doing these things. Exhausted from everything. From life outside, staying in my safe place. But how can it be so ambivalent? The need of going out, but also just would like to stay in. Communicating with no one. Some say it’s a task or something you have to learn, to be alone. For me it’s the easiest thing ever. But deep down there is a fear in me. Being alone now is my choice, but what if someday it isn’t a choice anymore and it turns into loneliness. So sealed off, no one gets to you. Physically and mentally.

It all comes down to being overworked

I am really shocked by various different governments' denial of this problem. Look it all comes down to being overworked. the crisis of population (less people being born) which is a part of the problem of pensions essentially being a ponzi scheme, obesity and health problems in the world. It all comes down to being overworked.

I remember watching a documentary about how Japan was having this problem that nobody there was dating, getting married, having kids. This is a problem as there are not enough people to pay for pensions for those who are retired as less and less people are born into the world. The government was trying all different methods in order to increase dating and reproduction in the Japanese population. The odd thing, is that even though they held all these events for people to meet each other, all they would have to do is interview people to realize the cause of the problem. Nobody had time to date. Everyone was overworked. If you're leaving your house at 8am and coming home at 10pm every night it's no wonder you don't have time to date. how could you? it would be insane to think otherwise.

As for Obesity: this is also a problem of being overworked and lack of time. Dude for real, I think the general population/society is way too mean to fat people. it's not their fault. it's society and we are just directing our anger to the wrong place. You think those guys want to be overweight, have health problems, and be gene...

The slow descent into postdoctoral madness

If you wont read any more posts or comments from me, youll realize that my descent into madness was a swift one. Im a last years phd student (in fact 6 months to go and 3 more months hopefully to write) in biology who is grasping to his last bit of sanity at the moment all the while sailing through the troubled waters commonly referred to as the "terrible last year". With work piling up from the last 2,5 years, multiple projects requiring attention and people expecting me to perform well, there is also a constant dread for my future career so the pressure is coming from the past, present and the future ready to gang up on you any time of the day. A general phd in life sciences (and i dont count medicine because its not a real science, sorry early falcon) includes 3-5 years of laboratory labor, depending where you live and how fucked or blessed you are with your supervisor. After the terrible last year, you are kicked out to write your thesis and depending where you life you can be lucky if youre still hired by then or if they lay you off to write your thesis on welfare (social programs yeeaahh am i right ?) By then you are ready to defend your thesis and earn your well deserved title, unless you have decided to quit at any of those moments, which i have seen people do from first year right up to only having to write everything together. Afriend of mine recommended me to start writing a journal book but im terrible with such things...

unhinged journal

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How I Maintained a Regular Exercise Regime for Over 2 Years

Let me tell you a bit about myself. In my other post, I talked about how I went from being a carb-addicted maniac to eating high-protein foods and thriving from it!

Well, another thing you might not know about me, which is a common trait among all of us humans, is the natural tendency we have to avoid exercise. I read 'Exercised' by Daniel Lieberman, and I really recommend this book to anyone else that hates exercise. I found it really motivating and not at all condescending towards those who did not exercise regularly or didn't like it. The long story short is that exercise was something we basically never evolved to do because it expends precious calories. However, as our society evolved and calories became abundant, we, as humans, never really adapted to this as we are still "evolved" to conserve calories. So, knowing this made me feel a lot less guilty about my exercise-aversion.

What really motivated me to start exercising regularly was having a goal that felt genuinely important and came from within me. During the time that I decided to participate in regular exercise, it was during the pandemic, and I was starting to feel sluggish from the lack of movement while being in lockdown. I also was doing something very difficult and mentally taxing at this time: I was learning a new language. I needed to learn it to at least B2 proficiency, fluent in other words. This was not at all an easy task, as any of you w...

health fitness exercise exercised by daniel lieberman video games

A user acquisition conundrum

One of the fastest ways I can attract the first users to Sanity and start getting feedback is by posting about it and engaging on Facebook and Twitter. The thing is, I find them too addictive and full of dark patterns, which is why started Sanity in the first place. I always tell myself I’ll only use them for a specific purpose, or for 15 minutes a day, or only occasionally, and then I gradually get sucked into using them all the time. I start out by visiting once every few days, I check for new posts from a few people I follow, read some AI news, visit groups etc. With time, I find myself using them more and more until several weeks later, I check them throughout the day. This is more of a problem for me with Twitter but, to a lesser extent, also applies to Facebook.

So the question is - how to I get the word out about Sanity without using the addictive social media networks it’s meant to be the alternative to?

I'm focusing on writing content and optimizing SEO for now but it's a slow process. Any tips?

indie makers building in public seo social media social media addiction

Stanczyk: A Self-Portrait of Our Times

I recently came across the painting "Stanczyk" by Jan Matejko, and I must say, I'm truly captivated by this piece and many others by the same artist. In fact, he may become my new favorite artist, possibly of all time.

I believe Stanczyk represents many of us in these tumultuous times. We often feel compelled to put on a happy face and maintain a cheerful demeanor while, in reality, we're quietly losing our sanity and suffering in silence. The outlook for people these days is far from optimistic. In the post-pandemic era, we're now grappling with war, inflation, and the potential loss of all jobs and humanity once AI takes over. We are all Stanczyk – sitting, slumped in our chairs, burdened by this realization as others around us dance away, seemingly oblivious to the impending doom. We feel helpless to change our fate.

We are all Stanczyk.

Note: If you ever get the chance, check out Matejko's paintings at the National Museum in Warsaw, Poland.

The Meaty Prison: Are We Truly In Control of Our Bodies?

When we speak about our bodies, we often refer to them as if they are something we possess and control. However, I argue that we are actually spirits trapped inside a "meat prison."

Here's why: Our bodies dictate our every move, from our basic physiological needs like eating, drinking, and relieving ourselves, to more complex actions such as experiencing mood swings and cravings due to hormonal fluctuations. While we may make choices about what we eat or drink, these choices are ultimately driven by our bodies' needs, not our own free will.

If we neglect our bodies' demands, our "meat prison" will punish us with sickness and disease. We cannot decide to eat a month's worth of food in one sitting and then not eat for the rest of the month. Our bodies simply won't allow it. Even if we consume enough nutrition to sustain ourselves for months or years, we remain imprisoned in our flesh.

Despite our best efforts to care for our bodies, we are still beholden to their limitations. We cannot fly or breathe underwater without the aid of technology. We cannot regrow limbs or organs once they are lost. In many ways, we are prisoners inside our own bodies.

However, some might argue that we do have agency over our bodies through healthy habits like exercise and eating well. I argue that these choices are not truly made out of free will. Our habits are shaped by external factors like education and the influence of gut bacteria...

#My most horrfyingly embarassing and by far toxic trait

I love this website because really only so few of my friends visit it I could just use it to vent to the world. like a little personal diary.

I have this horrible toxic trait of like, sometimes looking up people in my past life to see how their shitty decisions or shitty behavior has led to their lives turning out. Are they as miserable as I imagine they are? sometimes I watch them and through their facial expressions or little clues on their social media and make up little stories about how they're really doing

But I realize this is a toxic trait that I NEED to stop. Doing shit like this will not make my life better, it'll only hold me behind. I need to ignore those people, like they're from my past life. They're dead. Who cares. Work on your own life and trying to drive yourself forward. Why am I obsessed with the dead?

Someone, send me your therapist please. But yeah, definitely need to work on that...where do I start?

confessions toxic traits venting therapy someone put me on a watch list

Why I started Sanity Media

If you have watched The Social Dilemma, read Stolen Focus or Hooked you probably already know that present-day social media is designed to be addictive. The more time you spend online, the more money social media companies make.

You may also be aware of how social media algorithms can inadvertently create echo chambers, where people are only exposed to views they already agree with. This leads to increased polarization and political extremism.

I’m trying to build a service that's more down to earth. A place where you can log in, read some news or stories that interest you, and then forget about it until the next day. No infinite scrolls, no constant streams of notifications, and no incentive to keep checking the site throughout the day. While it might be a hard task to remove echo chambers altogether, I hope can at least limit them.

How Sanity works

Here are the main features in a nutshell:

All posts created on a given day are published simultaneously at midnight UTC time.
You can only make a single post a day - make it count.
No infinite scrolling - the number of posts you’ll see is limited.
You can upvote and downvote posts - but there’s a combined limit of ten a day.
The algorithms are simple. For example, everyone s...

We are all in a simulation and the developer who wrote this one is has AI on the same timeline as COVID

I need to post this crazy theory before somebody else gets to. I noticed a lot of similarity between the AI timeline and the covid timeline.

There was this time before COVID was really a thing. back when few people knew about it but there seemed to be swirling rumors that it could be serious. this was back in December 2019. I would say this lines up with the time Dall-E was released (and other image generators). when people realized what AI was capable of, many knew it was only a matter of time before things started to get increasingly "weird". However, AI was very much under the radar for many people and to be honest it was for myself as well. I thought, oh how cool! AI can make art, how fun is this. But I never thought about the wider implications of Dall-E's release

Afterwards, came more general AI. ChatGPT-3 was released, along with many other companies that were developing their own AI. Google's bard and Bing's AI are what come to mind but many others. This is now an AI arms race, so to say. weird times but I would say that this corresponds with some very early times of covid. Before the lockdowns but things were already starting to get out of hand.

now we are at the timeline when chatGPT-4 is released, midjourney photos are fooling people into believing fake news (things like Trump's arrest, for example) , people are now worried about the ethical and future imp...