People's Self-Evaluations

I'm always on the lookout for potential peers and equals. The fact I so rarely find them is one reason why I hate you all. But when I do, talking to them is wonderful and invigorating. Even the occasion where I talked all night with an equal only to decide I despise him for being a nihilist. I never once regretted a single minute of that conversation after the fact. It was a great experience even without counting what I learned that night.

What I regret each and every time is the people who snow me. People who I initially think are my peers and equals but who after being pushed just a little forcefully, end up spouting the most bizarre crap. Stuff like going through a Star Trek transporter means you die and a copy lives on. Or that AI in our future is something you can choose to "believe in". Or that your opinion in a subject is precious and valuable even though I know literally 10 times as much of it as you. Or that "withholding judgement" makes you a nice guy when I would myself have rendered judgement on 1/10th of the data you have available.

I shudder in horror and revulsion every time I find out they lied to me. And they DID lie to me. Every single one of them swear up and down they are logical and creative and intellectual. Then I find out they are incapable of applying their so-called logic to a simple scenario like their mind/body being copied. Or they are incapable (*) of applying their so-called creativity to the ebb and flow (the meta-level) of the conversation they are involved in. Or they are incapable of applying their so-called intellectual curiosity to anything that doesn't have practical ramifications for themselves. When I find out they've lied to me, those are the conversations I regret ever having, those are the people I wish I'd never known.

How can you count yourself an intellectual without being curious? How can you count yourself logical when you can't apply logic to personal situations like your own life and death? How can you call yourself creative when you scorn the very form that original ideas come in as "mere talking"? And yet these people do. Perhaps they think there's something wrong with me for being a linguistic thinker instead of a pictorial one? Oh wait, that would just mean they have no conception what an 'idea' is. No, these are just self-inflating blowhards who like to think they're analytic synthetic intellectuals because it sounds nice. When in reality they're just putting their egos before the truth. And I hate that.

Over 95% of people are cognitively broken. And even though I dismiss greater than 9/10ths of the people I see around as worthless, I still end up with a dud rate of about half. It's pretty sad. And exasperating. Which is probably why I'm not in the mood to handwave these liars away by saying illogical people have no conception of logic or uncreative people have no conception of creativity. That's crap. They should fucking know. It doesn't take much effort to compare yourself to fellow high school students and see that you are more or less capable at math, programming and logic than others. Or that you are more or less capable at artistic and creative endeavours. Or that you are more or less intellectually curious. Who here has never met a good math student, a good student artist, or a good philosophy student?

They should fucking know and they are willfully and blatantly lying.

*: I can tell when someone is resisting willfully versus when they're simply unable. To resist something willfully you have to know it exists and recognize it when you see it. I consider it perverse and exasperating to resist meta-leveling but I can work with it. Just like an artist might work with another who insists on doing everything in black and white, but not with a blind person. There are limits to what one can work with.