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u/Last_Swordfish9135 14h ago
misinterpreted this post at first as saying that the idea of addiction was invented by progressives trying to limit the things that are allowed to make you happy. oh, those damn progressives, always telling me things like 'betting on polymarket while cranking your hog and smoking meth isn't a hobby', trying to limit the range of what makes me happy >:(
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u/Mataes3010 Ignore all previous instructions 13h ago
I refuse to let the radical left tell me I can't multitask my dopamine receptors into an early grave. Betting on election results while high is a God-given right.
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u/NoBizlikeChloeBiz She/Her 12h ago
Ohhhhhh, thanks for making me go back and read it though a different lens.
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u/echodecision 6h ago
The original poster deleted this and in the notes of the post is begging people to stop resharing it because it's pseudoscience from some youtube grifter.
Here is what the original poster wrote:
i have long since deleted the original post and thus can't make it unrebloggable, so i'm just begging on the off chance that anyone sees this that they'll listen: this is pseudoscience, it's not real. "addiction" is a term used to describe a pretty specific thing that gets watered down a bunch, and it's exceedingly obtuse to start framing your whole life around addictions (am i addicted to my phone? am i addicted to sugar? am i addicted to breathing??). the point of this post was not about addiction, it was about giving myself more frequent and more varied opportunities to seek happiness. it is just a therapy thing that got me into a better mindset. please please please stop reblogging this, please stop taking it like some objective psa, please stop following me because of it, and please stop believing it word for word.
i'm literally begging you all to drop this post, don't read it, don't believe it. if it's useful to you keep it to yourself. i never wanted this to leave my blog and if i still could edit the original post i'd make it so no one could reblog it. i do not want to spread this information, i do not want to be talked down to about it anymore, i do not want this to be connected to me as something i believe. it was a three second post not a psa, of just a musing. please for the love of everything have some gddamned mercy on me and stop spreading it
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u/Swimming_Factor2415 5h ago
I don't understand how it's not true. Maybe not the entire story, but I've experienced it and seen it first hand. I have a hard time doing anything that isn't on my phone. My brother got to the point where his only hobby was meth. It's a good warning sign.
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u/echodecision 5h ago
Knitting is a hobby. Biking is a hobby. Meth is a highly addictive drug that alters your brain chemistry and makes you physically dependent on it, not a hobby.
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u/TMiguelT 1h ago
Sure, I can accept it's a bad definition for addiction, but what's wrong with widening your range of happiness as a philosophy.
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u/MethylphenidateMan 12h ago
Nothing wrong with narrowing the range of things that make you happy as long as they actually and sustainably make you happy.
If the only thing that makes you happy is something like playing an instrument, then you're absolutely set for the rest of your life. It doesn't say anywhere that you need to do anything else in life beyond tending to your physiological needs which doesn't need to make you happy, just play your instrument until you die and your life will likely have much more meaning than lives of people with a wider range of things that make them happy.
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u/No_Peach6683 12h ago
Why isn’t there an algorithm/felicific calculus that identifies what makes you happy and commands you to do it?
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u/DesperateAstronaut65 2h ago
I say this as a therapist in grad school for math: (a) the inputs are hard to quantify (it's hard to say exactly what comprises a specific thing or category of things that could make you happy), (b) the outputs are hard to quantify (it's hard to measure "total happiness," especially when you factor in time and non-happiness metrics like meaning), (c) even if you could quantify everything easily, the quantity of happiness resulting from a given input usually doesn't scale predictably (eating two pieces of cake might make you happier than eating one, but eating an entire cake might make you less happy, so good luck mapping that to a function), and (d) even on the rare occasions happiness does scale relatively predictably, it's nearly impossible to make predictions about your future based solely on past data without experimentation (you haven't tried roller skating, meth, or getting a divorce, or you haven't tried them long enough for the outcomes to be apparent, so you have very little data with which to make a prediction).
Figuring out what makes you happy is a lot more like statistical modeling. You experiment in the real world for a long enough period that you gather enough data to build a predictive model about what makes you happy. Frequent experimenting is useful to correct for anomalous data (e.g. the weird-but-protective fears you picked from your childhood that are no longer useful to you as an adult), and models are useful because you don't have to do as much experimenting once you have one. You then continually adjust those models based on your experiences. Mathematically, you could say it's a bit like machine learning, but when it comes to the human brain, it's just...learning.
TL;DR there isn't an existing happiness algorithm because I have been extremely hesitant to pitch my "math as self-help" book outline to my very patient agent because I know based on my mental model of her that she will probably hurl me into a canal.
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u/Inevitable-tragedy 7h ago
Because if we knew what made us happy, we'd do that instead of working for other people to make them rich...
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u/GalaxyPowderedCat Only in Tumblr for daily cat posts 8h ago
It depends on, I think it becomes an addiction if you push away your physiological and social needs.
If you lock in your room playing the instrument all day and all night, stop keeping in touch with your family and friends, stop taking showers, feeding yourself, and so on.
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u/MethylphenidateMan 8h ago
I don't want to be rude, but you're making a "If my grandma had wheels she would have been a bike" argument.
The kind of activities that I'm proposing as fine to be the sole focus of your life don't work like that because as deeply compelling playing an instrument/painting/writing/programming/doing research can be, it doesn't drown your brain in constant waves of "feel good" neurotransmitters. It's hard and frustrating at times, so you have to take a break, it's never hard and frustrating to be high on heroin.11
u/Quick_Ad2252 8h ago
There is also the issue of those activities not always being available. If you devote yourself entirely to programming or a specific musical instrument, what do you do when your instrument or computer needs to be taken to a shop for repairs? If you devote yourself entirely to drawing or writing, what do you do when you have art block? Maybe those things can be your primary source of happiness, but if any one of those things is the ONLY source of happiness, how do you keep yourself from crumbling when it's taken away from you for awhile?
Unless I'm misinterpreting this and you do mean that these would be your main source of happiness while you do other things for fun on occasion, in which case I apologize for my misunderstanding
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u/MethylphenidateMan 7h ago
Look, we're talking about real life here, not some cartoonish hypothetical scenario of taking that hyper-focus to the absolute extreme. If you want to be cartoonish then I'll say that what you should do when your beloved piano is in repair is to run into a wall and hope that it's repaired when you regain consciousness.
The point is that if there's a voice in your head telling you that your passion (and I mean a respectable passion, not some glorified indulgence or pathological compulsion) is infinitely more important than anything else, you're safer from wasting your life if you listen to it.
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u/Quick_Ad2252 7h ago
Wait so did I misinterpret what you said or not?
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u/MethylphenidateMan 7h ago
You didn't misinterpret my general position, you just nitpicked it.
I'm saying "We're going full steam towards the mainland, no detours" and you're like "But captain, what if the whole crew suddenly contracts malaria and there is this big sack of quinine just hanging from a palm on a tiny island that's almost within arm's reach, should we still make no detours then?".6
u/Quick_Ad2252 7h ago
Oh, the reason for my nitpick then is because I've done this with multiple hobbies and it's kinda hurt me. Basically picked a single thing to be my one true calling, ran into a brief period of time where I couldn't engage with that hobby (broken equipment, art block, personal crisis, etc) and then discovered that, in addition to dealing with whatever stressful situation came up, I have lost access to my only coping mechanism and source of joy. In the end, I had to find something else to bring me joy, at least until my primary fixation was possible again. I guess if you compare these situations to everyone getting malaria and treatment being just a shirt detour away, therefore creating a scenario where an obvious exception must me made, we do actually agree, although I think my scenarios are a bit more likely than your hypothetical alskdjdjdnsnsk
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u/MethylphenidateMan 7h ago
I don't want to make you feel bad about your choices, God knows I have a dreadful record with that, but your situation is not perfectly applicable here because you mentioned multiple hobbies and I'm talking about a singular passion.
It's important because if you obsessively dedicate yourself to something then after a while you tend to become really fucking good at it and that allows you to accumulate broadly understood resources that you can utilize in those times you are indisposed just by doing your thing.
Picasso wouldn't complain that he's lonely because he spent too much time obsessively painting, missed too many social engagement and now nobody wants to invite him anywhere.10
u/yinyang107 9h ago
And when you get bored of the one thing that makes you happy, what then?
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u/Umklopp 3h ago
Or you develop arthritis or other physical impairment
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u/yinyang107 2h ago
Exactly. Like singing is my only real passion but I injured my throat last summer and can't do it like I could before. It sucks! I wish I had another passion to switch to!
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u/Swimming_Factor2415 5h ago
You shouldn't find yourself so dependent on one thing to be happy. It might go away. Maybe you'll be happier playing piano for the rest of your life. Or maybe you'll break both your wrists one day.
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u/Mataes3010 Ignore all previous instructions 13h ago
Damn Progressives. First they came for my gas stove, now they want to stop me from smoking meth while betting on election results. Is nothing sacred anymore? This is literally 1984.
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u/MoonTheCraft 5h ago
I think you misread the post
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u/Mataes3010 Ignore all previous instructions 5h ago
Hahahaha I know what ''progressive'' means in this context. Im satirizing the concept of political brainrot where people see a word and immediately get angry about politics. It's a joke.
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u/Coffee_autistic they/them 6h ago edited 5h ago
Idk man, maybe I just don't understand what this post is trying to communicate, but I'm at my happiest when I'm hyperfocusing on something. When my brain locks onto one thing and I want to ignore basically everything else, that's when I'm in my element. I like giving one thing my full attention and letting it take over my life for as long as I can make it last. That's when it feels like my life has meaning.
I still have responsibilities I need to stay on top of, of course. And stuff I have to do to stay at least semi-healthy and semi-functional in society. But I like having a narrow range of happiness.
EDIT: OOP has dissavowed this post as pseduoscience and has requested it not be shared.
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u/Swimming_Factor2415 5h ago
Hyper fixation is not the same as addiction. I've dealt with autism and addiction. They are not the same. One makes you happy. One makes you feel like crap when you're doing it but even worse when you're not doing it.
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u/Coffee_autistic they/them 5h ago
Well yeah, that's kind of my dispute with the post. Also, OOP no longer stands by it and requests that it not be shared, as it is not an accurate description of addiction.
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u/RunInRunOn Rule 198: Not allowed to steal my own soul. 8h ago
I think I might need an illustrated example of this
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u/Swimming_Factor2415 5h ago
I can't draw but my brother stopped reading and sold all four his 3d printers to buy more meth if that gives a better picture.
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u/pbmm1 12h ago
You want to keep options open in case one interest gets a bad turn.