Social DGames Social | V/LA |

[#HBC | ѕoup]

Sometimes I feel like I could be extravert if I tried but I've been stuck in my hermit introvert ways that I don't want to put the effort in.

 

[#HBC | ZoZo]

It's a part of it though, right? I normally said niederländisch, but a lot of Germans call it Holländisch as well, so it's kind of a forced habit for me to subconsciously say it without meaning it

It's a part of it. It's like calling American English "Tristate English" or something though, lol.

 

[Overswarm]

And if you think about it, we almost have one gender. Most people consider ships, cars, etc. to be female. So you almost always hear "she" or girl names.

Whoa.


10 whoas.

 

[Overswarm]

As for selflessness, OS stop being a big dummy head. The fact that your postulated general cause of selflessness (feelgoods) can't satisfy the most undeniable act of selflessness (saving someone's life at your own life's expense) sort of shows that it might not be right.

That's exactly what I said

 

[#HBC | marshy]

Then there's dudes like Stanislav Petrov, who had the balls to defy the infallible Soviet Union's military machine and may have prevented world war three: nuclear boogalee as a result. Remember that defying the unfailing superiority of the USSR as a Soviet citizen, much less a military man, was a pretty good way to ruin your life.

Or John Basilone, who held the line against Japanese forces in Guadalcanal for three days without sleep, food, or rest, and personally took the suicide run job of fighting through the Japanese to acquire and then redistribute the depleting ammunition reserves for the turret guns. By the end of it Basilone had nothing left but his .45, but the entire Japanese regiment was more or less annihilated. He was brought home as a hero, given the Medal of Honor, went on a war bond tour and generally had a cozy life of lapping it all up for his own gain, pride, safety, you name it... before specifically requesting a return to the Pacific theatre, resulting in his death on the first day of Iwo Jima.

I know military examples of heroism are shaky, but you really can't deny that people like Petrov and Basilone had not only balls of steel but some kind of internal drive to do things that felt right, ended up being crucial to the well-being and lives of others, and yet were obviously to their own personal detriment. Heroism totally exists and you're just being a snide cynic to suggest otherwise.

Also:

Soldiers jumping on grenades. It's not a movie cliché, it ****ing happens.

werd. met a marine nearly a year ago being considered for a medal of honor since he jumped on a grenade after insurgents ambushed his squads humvee. i believe he was later denied for bull**** reasons

cool to see someone appreciate sacrifice in a similar vein as opposed to pseudointellectuals ****ting on it through use of linguistic gymnastics like a robot

 

[#HBC | marshy]

happy birthday xonar!

 

[~ Gheb ~]

I don't see how Basoline could be a hero. He did something for his country but he's also a mass murderer according to your description of his actions, which is why find the stereotypical concept behind a hero so laughable. That's exactly the kind of hero that Batman et all are. They murder people and because "their" side is propagated to be the "right" one, or the "moral" one it's generally perceived to be heroic to kill all these people. That's why I keep disagreeing with the concept of a "hero".

Now, in case of Petrov I'd totally agree that he is a hero [at least in this very incident]. But clearly, that is not the kind of hero you've been talking about when you introduced the subject. You may find it nit-picky but those are two different things, though both given the label "hero". And I don't think people like Petrov are the kind of hero that kids look up to and want to become like. What they want to become like is Batman - somebody with superhuman powers they can use to murder people. That's not a hero to me and I find the idea laughable.

 

[#HBC | Ryker]

To all these self improvement questions, I thought I'd share a bit of advice I've given people before (forgive me if this doesn't apply to anyone, too lazy to read back).

Motivation. It's often described as a catalyst that inspires people to improvement or success, i.e. getting fit or turning your life around. Well motivation is bull****, and I can guarantee that if you think it's "motivation" you need to be successful at whatever it is you want, you're sadly never going to succeed. What is it you need then? Commitment and dedication. You have to be prepared to fail over and over again before you see any results. Does an olympic marathon runner wake up at 4am every morning and run 30kms because he feels motivated? No, he does it because he is committed to his training and knows exactly what is required of him to succeed. And even then he is prepared to run last place or get injured, because that's life. Motivation can be a catalyst, but without commitment and dedication you won't get anywhere, no matter how much motivation you have.

No, it's not a catalyst, it's the origin. You'll never apply that commitment and dedication without being motivated to do so. At least on some level, you have to know that, for whatever reason, you want something before you will make moves to obtain it.

 

[BarDulL]

V/LA probably all weekend, I have the flu .

 

[Overswarm]

What is it with sick people not able to check their laptops?

I've played mafia from my bed in a halfway state of awake and asleep at 3 a.m. and I was so sick I didn't know what day it was

step yo game up

 

[Handorin]

I'd play more if I was sick and stayed home. That never happens though.

 

[Praxis]

You should talk to Praxis for this in regards to nutrition, he's a good descriptor. Honestly most of this is determined at a genetic level, but you can influence it heavily.

Heyo!

To lose body fat, simply take in less calories than you expend. That's it. Literally nothing else to it.

Calories in, calories out.

I actually have to disagree with this. Hear me out for a moment

"Weight gain is caused by taking in more calories than you expend" is not a false statement. My argument is that it is, however, a nondescriptive statement that does not reflect practicality.

To make an analogy,
"Global warming is caused by the Earth taking in more energy than it expends"

This is a true statement. It is a nondescriptive statement in that it does not reflect what is causing this condition. It's not the sun being hotter, it's that greenhouse gases are reducing output.


Now, you're probably saying, "But Praxis, these situations aren't the same- isn't the problem in weight gain because you're taking in too many calories, i.e. the sun being hotter?"

And I'm going to argue no. Bear with me.

Okay, the typical model is this:

Where G is gain, EI is Energy In (calories consumed), and EO is Energy Out (calories expended).

G = EI - EO

What I consider to be the mistake people make is the assumption that EO at rest (assuming no extra exercise) is a constant, and that EI is the only variable. In fact, EO can vary drastically.

I would make the argument that the true variable is G- if the body is trying to gain weight, it will attempt to adjust the other two factors accordingly. If the body wants to gain weight, it will (A) increase your appetite and (B) decrease resting metabolism (calories burned at rest).

In other words, I am arguing that you get fat because your body is trying to get fat.

To elaborate:

In our "global warming" analogy, we have an equivalent to greenhouse gases- hormones. Most people intuitively understand this and yet there's a cognitive dissonance when we talk about weight loss. There are a ton of hormones that have the sole purpose of preventing fat cells from releasing fatty acids, and there are hormones that have the sole purpose of coaxing them in to releasing fat.

A few examples that should be really obvious to anyone with experience:

• People with thyroid problems gain weight rapidly when unchecked.
• People who are lactose intolerant gain weight quickly in the presence of lactose.
• Women on their periods bloat.
• Women in menopause gain weight quickly and cannot lose it easily.
• Men with declining testosterone gain a gut.
• There are people with hormonal imbalances that find it very difficult to gain weight.

Another intuitive example: Children. Under the Calories In/Out concept, we would say "Children grow because they consume more calories than they expend." This is a nondescriptive statement. Children are growing because their growth hormones are driving them to grow. Their appetite increases to match and their hormones utilize the intake for growth instead of fat storage.


If the body is hormonally trying to store fat, it will increase the appetite and decrease metabolism. Yes, if you imbalance the equation sufficiently, you can still lose weight in this environment (because thermodynamics is fact), but it is much harder than it should be and you will be constantly fighting hunger.

This is the reason I object so much to the "it's just about eating less calories" statement. It's pretty much true in lean people, but in fat people with hormonal drives to storage, it undermines them. It carries an underlying assumption that they are simply "eating too much" and accuses them of Sloth and Gluttony.



Now, I've been skirting around one big topic: Insulin.

I would argue that insulin as a hormone is the primary culprit behind the modern obesity epidemic. Insulin is a hormone with one single purpose- it prevents fat cells from releasing fatty acids, but not from absorbing it. Insulin is a fat storage hormone.

Insulin is released in response to blood sugars (glucose) getting too high. Too high of blood sugar is a bad thing, so if blood sugars go too high, and the body isn't immediately using them (say, a high intensity workout), the body releases insulin to shove the glucose in to the fat cells to get them out of the blood stream. The fat cells stop releasing fatty acids that the body can use for energy until the glucose from the blood is down to safe levels (either used or absorbed in to the fat cells).

Everyone's body has a different "threshhold" for insulin, a different amount of insulin released in response to blood sugar. Further, everyone has a different tolerance; some bodies overproduce insulin in response to the same amount of blood sugar, and then they continue to store (thus reducing EO in the equation) far longer than they need to.


This is why some people seem "naturally lean" and can seem to eat whatever they want without gaining weight. These people are very tolerant to and sensitive to insulin. Their body only produces a little, gets the blood sugars out of the way, and goes back to burning. Meanwhile, another person who is more resistant to insulin produces far more, and ends up lowering metabolism and storing far more than needed to the same amount of glucose.


"Blood sugar" is not just table sugar. Glucose is broken down from any carbohydrate (except fiber). However, not all are equal; a sweet potato, for example, is a complex carbohydrate that breaks down and releases slowly (thus not spiking the blood sugar very fast and giving the body time to use it), while white bread is loaded with glucose that breaks down immediately and spikes blood sugar through the roof.

This is why "Bread makes you fat". If you are insulin-resistant (sometimes called "metabolic syndrome" in bad cases, or "pre-diabetic"), you gain weight rapidly in the presence of high glycemic index (fast-breaking-down) carbohydrates. This is directly related to type 2 diabetes and the reason diabetics are almost always overweight; because diabetes is a disease of insulin intolerance.

(Anecdotally, ever noticed that bears eat meat in the summer and then fruit in the winter to gain weight? And wild predators often eat until full and leave the leftover food out in the open and are never fat, but housecats will eat and eat and need to be calorie restricted to stay lean, because cheap catfood is full of grains and carbohydrates?)


Why is everyone different? For one, we know there are genetic factors to insulin resistance. This is why diabetes runs in families. It's being theorized lately that fructose builds insulin insensitivity.
Examples: (1) (2) (3).

Table sugar is 50% glucose and 50% fructose. High Fructose Corn Syrup has an even higher fructose-to-glucose ratio. This theory makes a ton of sense in the context of the American obesity epidemic: we are the only country that produces and really uses high fructose corn syrup, and we also have very high sugar consumption.

What's happened is that over the last 30+ years the U.S. department of health and American Heart Association have been demonizing fat, which turns out to not be nearly as bad for us as prior assumed. The U.S. actually consumes an unusually low-fat diet compared to many parts of the world. We sell "low fat" products, but once the fat is removed, they taste bad, so we add sugar to compensate. "Diet" products such as yogurt are usually always low-fat-with-sugar-added. The French and Swedish consume far more fat than Americans and have lower heart disease and obesity....the American Heart Association calls this a "paradox", but it's not at all; it's only a paradox when you view fat intake as the issue and ignore sugar as the primary culprit behind obesity, heart disease, and diabetes.




Whew, okay, done.

If you want more, Gary Taubes made an excellent presentation summarizing exactly the kind of stuff I just said RIGHT HERE.


I'd also recommend his books, primarily "Why We Get Fat".
He presents this better than anyone I've read.


If you're still skeptical, studies have actually demonstrated that you burn more calories at rest on low-glycemic-index and very-low-carb (ketogenic) diets.

Source 1: Note that the ketogenic dieters had even better cholesterol improvements than the low-glycemic-index group, which is counterintuitive to "classic" concepts of fat and cholesterol intake (which are pretty much all bunk). Ketogenic dieters generally eat a lot of fat and/or protein (fat is recommended to be above protein) and have almost no carbohydrate intake (absolutely no sugar). It's clearly demonstrated that sugar is worse for blood cholesterol than fat is. I've experimented with this in my own body; eating a high-fat (70+% of calories from fat) diet with as close to zero carbohydrates (besides fiber) as possible lowered my LDL cholesterol and triglycerides.


Source 2 (some of the "commentary" I find obnoxious, especially the last line which is basically contradictory to the study itself, but this is journalists being journalists.)




So anyway, if you find that calorie counting is a struggle for you, I recommend a low-glycemic-index diet or a low-carb diet (fiber not counting as a carb). Note that if your inability to lose weight is NOT due to insulin, but instead due to declining sex hormones or thyroid issues, a low carb diet might not have a very visible effect. But thyroid and sex hormones usually just result in a gut, not being significantly overweight.


Why is it that other diets beside low carb or low-GI work? Well, calorie restriction is INHERENTLY a carbohydrate restriction. If you used to eat 2500 calories, 1250 of which were carbohydrates, and you cut down to 2000 calories, you are now eating only 1000 calories of carbohydrates.


Look at the diet Overswarm recommended below:

#1 Eat your colors

You need low calories, and you need nutrition. How do you do this? Vegetables. Lots of them. Slightly less fruit. Even less meat. Hardly any grains (they are calorie dense). No processed foods if you can avoid it.

This is "secretly" low carb! Veggies are mostly fiber, and the few carbohydrates they have are very low glycemic index. He said "no grains", which bans all high glycemic index carbs. OS just prescribed a low-GI/low-carb diet here without knowing it.

To determine what vegetables to eat you can do your research OR you c

Your body can create all the amino acids it needs except for handful. Beans and corn fill all of those amino acids. You can get vitamins, minerals, and the like from all your vegetables.

Beans are also low-GI.

#2 Keep calories low

We've got a bunch of vegetables and some fruit and some beans and all our major nutritional needs are met, so what now? What do we eat to keep our calories low?

You will eat chicken breast. Lots and lots and lots of chicken breast. This will fit #3. It is high in protein, low in fat. If you want to season it with something, use balsamic vinegar, salsa, salt (if you don't have high blood pressure) or mustard (TRUE mustard).

All of these items in this list are low-carb. Mustard is low carb. I actually use bleu cheese, or olive oil, or ranch on salads if I can find ones that have little or no sugar added as well (cheese is also low carb, it's hard to find a low sugar ranch though, most ranches are "low fat with added sugar").

You will eat NO condiments of any kind that have a calorie count. At all. No ketchup, no BBQ sauce, nothing. If it has a calorie you don't use it.

All the banned things are loaded with sugar. Ketchup produced in the U.S. is made with high fructose corn syrup.

#3 Protein and Fiber

Protein has a high satiety value. That means it fills you up and keeps you filled up. Fiber does the same thing and while Protein has a calorie content Fiber does not.

If you eat a lot of fiber (in vegetables, already are) and protein (chicken breast) you will remain full while eating less!

Again- all low carb! Fiber is a carb that doesn't break down in to glucose, and you definitely want it or you will get constipated.

I would argue one thing- high protein diets put a lot of strain on the kidney and you're going to want to drink a lot of water. This is where people mess up doing stuff like Atkins, and the reason I actually prefer having the majority of my calories from fat with protein in second place. But regardless, neither are carbs.

#4 Get rid of fat slowly

You want to lose it fast, but you said you wanted to gain muscle later? Then you want to lose fat slowly. Your body will EAT YOUR MUSCLE if you aren't careful. You HAVE to have good nutrition when losing weight.

So here's the key point.


Some of you are reading this and thinking, "Yeah, but if restrict calories enough, you'll still lose weight...I've never seen a fat man in a concentration camp!"

This is true! However, there's two downsides.

(1) The hormone drive on a "candy bar diet" will still be to store fat. You are more likely to lose muscle before the body finally gives in to the fat reserves. Plus, a "candy bar" diet is nutritionally poor. It's much better to fix the G=EI-EO equation by having the body attempt to lower G and this increasing EO, then to force EI as low as possible.

Anecdocal: My roommate and I did a weight loss race- he starved himself, I did a ketogenic diet and didn't reduce my caloric intake. We both lost a ton of weight, but I didn't lose any muscle and actually am a bit stronger. He used to be a lot stronger than me and has a lot less muscle now.

(2) Sticking to it will be very difficult. You will be fighting hunger urges constantly. Once you're off the diet you'll probably regain weight rather quickly. I suspect this is the reason people are so likely to regain weight after dieting- they're told weight loss is about calories, not hormones.

#6. Exercise

Excercise and do it EVERY DAY. Cardio EVERY DAY.

Not only will this improve your body's physique and prepare you to do some resistance training later to gain muscle, but it's how you keep your base metabolic rate at a higher level!

True, but I'd argue that exercise is less effective on weight loss than one would think. The resting metabolism boost of a pound of muscle is actually only 5-6 calories a day. It's not huge.

That said, exercise has tremendous health benefits, makes you generally look better, AND can kick start other hormones. For example, men with declining testosterone as the culprit of their weight loss (rather than insulin) often find they get a big boost by starting to run again.

Also, exercise after eating a bunch of carbs can provide an alternate usage for all that glucose besides storage.

So I will never shoot down exercise as a valid addition to a diet, but for weight loss alone, diet is more important than exercise.



Long story short: Most diets that work are "secretly" low carb diets and probably don't work for the reason people think they do. Also, everyone has weight on their bodies for different reasons almost always relating to hormones; I emphasize carbohydrates because insulin is by far the most common, but thyroid or testosterone or intolerance to lactose or plenty of other things can cause weight gain.

Figure out what your body responds best to and stick to it.

And don't be afraid of fat; be afraid of sugar. Fat keeps you full (protein does too, but fat is even more effective). Don't be afraid of cholesterol intake; be afraid of sugar. (Blood cholesterol is produced as a repair tool; high cholesterol is indicative that the body thinks it needs to fix things. Eating cholesterol doesn't raise your blood cholesterol. Eating sugar/fructose actually damages things and causes the body to produce more.)



Quick example of the magic of fat-and-protein satiety: Think about eggs. If you were going to eat nothing but eggs for a day, breakfast, lunch, and dinner, how many eggs do you think you could eat?

Three eggs at breakfast is only 210 calories.

Even if you ate a dozen eggs in the day, you'd only have eaten 840 calories.

Two dozen eggs, 1680 calories! Could you even eat that many?

The appetite drops if the body is not actively trying to store the stuff you eat. Fat and protein and fiber all accomplish this.

Eat veggies, eat eggs, eat low glycemic index carbs, eat meat.

 

[~ Gheb ~]

tl;dr

The body stores carbs that aren't burned as fat -> you gain weight via carbs

The more refined a carb is [white sugar, white flour] the more extremely it will affect your insuline and the sooner you will feel hungry again. If you eat 200g of White Breat you will feel hungry faster than after eating 200g of full grain bread because the less refined carbs of the full grain take longer to be absorbed into your blood and thus keep the blood sugar level consistently feed over a longer amount of time

Fat is important regardless of your diet because the body can absorb a lot of essential nutritients only via fat. Rule of thumb: The easier it is to gain oil out a resource the healthier the oil is.

eat meat.

No. Don't.

PS: I wouldn't blindly trust Praxis' advice. There are a lot of truths in it but each body is different from the other so there's no truly "right" diet. Carbs are still the main and most important source of energy for the human body. Most people just consume too much sugar, too much white flour, too little water and not enough veggies. If you eat more veggies you can also eat more fat.

 

[Overswarm]

There he is!

I would also like to note that carbohydrates are the only thing that power your brain so starvation of carbs results in foggy head.

 

[KevinM]

Overswarm why am I so cute?

 

[Overswarm]

You are not

 

[~ Gheb ~]

Overswarm, I'm still waiting for the set-up!

 

[Praxis]

What are the best ways too look introvert for improvement in a more general sense?

So I've been having a bit of fun lately studying some psychology, and one thing that I really enjoy is the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI). Hear me out for a moment (again), because some people might have the same automatic groan response I used to have.

The MBTI is supposedly a "personality test" that categorizes people in to sixteen types (a four letter combination with two options in each category).

What the MBTI acronym actually is is a shorthand for Jungian functions. The Myers-Briggs organization took Jung's work on cognitive functions, codified it in a very useful way...and then developed a really cheesy test that tests for stereotypes on each letter of the codified shortcut and frequently is inaccurate because "what people want to be" is separate from cognition.

The Myers-Briggs association will tell you that you are either an Introvert or Extrovert (I or E), Intuitive or Sensor (N or S), Thinker or Feeler (T or F), Judger or Perceiver (J or P).

This is a load of crap. They've simplified it so they can sell a test, and then elaborated on stereotype personalities that they can describe.

So to use it effectively as a tool- and you CAN!- forget anything you've read about MBTI, and if you haven't, great, start here.

Carl Jung developed this stuff for insight on human COGNITION, not on "personality". But it does tie in to the concept of introversion and extroversion.

Is this stuff a hard science? No, an observational one, and likely a massive simplification of human cognition, but still useful enough that I can find practical applications of it and am rather enjoying it.



---------


Okay, so what Carl Jung postulated was this. There are four different cognition processes- methods the brain uses to take in, sort, and categorize information on-the-fly. Two of them he called Perceiving processes (used primarily for taking in and recalling), and two of them he called Judging processes.

The Perceiving processes are Intuition (abbreviated N) and Sensing (abbreviated S).

Intuition is pulling information from the abstract. Making connections that aren't directly evident. Reading between the lines. Intuitive understandings of a concept as opposed to a factual one. Theoretical, mental models.

Sensing is factual intake of data. The taking in of what is, the concrete. Factual, practical, sensual.

The Judging processes are Thinking (T) and Feeling (F).

Thinking is essentially an objective thought process and breakdown.

Feeling subjective; not necessarily emotion, but decision-making and categorization based on valuation rather than objectivity.

So far I haven't broken with the MBTI "blurb", but here it comes.

Everyone uses all four processes, and uses each of them in a different direction or attitude. Introverted or extroverted on each process. So there are actually *eight* processes, of which everyone utilizes four. You use each function (N, S, T, F) in a certain direction (e or i). So the eight are abbreviated in that manner; Ne is extraverted Intuition, Ni is introverted intuition. In the end: Ni, Ne, Si, Se, Ti, Te, Fi, Fe.


To describe each in my own words:

Ni = Intuition turned inwardly...long-term modelling, looking at things in depth conceptually, seeing things in an irrational manner that is kind of hard to explain to people but having a clear mental picture of how things work. Very conceptual, long term, having a vision in the head.

Ne = Intuition turned outwardly- seeing possibilities and connections with everything in the short term, seeing intuitively lots of things others might overlook. Not necessarily the kind of long term depth of Ni- more of a Ni on ADD- but a lot more attuned to the moment.

Si = Seeing things factually, basing things on an understanding of "what I know works/what has worked in the past" as opposed to theory. Experiences are linked with other knowledge or experiences as opposed to the "mental model".

Se = Same factualness turned outwards- very perceptive of facts and details in the moment, in the world around. Not the same depth as Si but quickly noting and categorizing all data around.

Ti = An objective breaking down of concepts and ideas based on the internal validity of the concept and idea. Ti people, when presented with a new concept, look *in* to the concept and look for an internal consistency. They're usually a lot better at holding multiple concepts in their head with equal weight and playing devil's advocate.

See example below Te.

Te = An objective systemizing; concepts and ideas are broken down based on a comparison to frameworks, to other things. Te users are great at running systems and understanding how things work together more than how the things actually work. Te optimizes for systems and efficiency.

Quick example: I am a Te user. A friend of mine is a Ti user. We both love math. My Ti-using friend thinks that the proof is the most beautiful part of mathematics. He can go on and on to show me a cool proof he just learned. Myself, as a Te user? I couldn't care less about the proof; I want it demonstrated to me that it works in practice, and if I can have it sufficiently demonstrated that it works in practice I will accept and use it and get carried away thinking about all of the cool things I can do now that I am armed with the theorum. I'll learn the proof for the sake of being convinced it works, perhaps, but I don't care about the proof that much compared to the application.

Real life example: I'd consider Steve Jobs a Te user and Steve Wozniak a Ti user. Steve Jobs was better at managing people and business model and the end product displayed to the user, he needed someone working with him to handle the details (which was Wozniak).


Fi = Valuation of things based on internal values.

Fe = Valuation of things based on community values. Fe users are much more apt to be attuned to what other people want/need and consider that and even speak for the group.


Next:
So, everyone uses one of each of these directions for four in total. Carl Jung then postulated everyone had a "dominant" one of these. In fact, an entire ordering (most preferred to least preferred), but he focused on the dominant.

So people who are Ni-dominant see the world through their mental models. People who are Te-dominant see the world through their lens of optimization and want to control it. People who are Fe-dominant see the world through community and valuation and are super people-oriented. People who are Fi-dominant are hippies that see the world through rose-colored glasses, *cough*, I mean, see the world through personal valuation.

Believe it or not, these actually match up to brain scans. People who identify as Ne users, for example, have a christmas-tree-like brain pattern that shows up on EEGs. A presentation and a blog post.


What was later noticed by people who continued Jung's research as that there are patterns to the "ordering" of the four.

Everyone perceives the world from both an internal and external perspective, so if you use one perceiving process one way, you use the other the other way. So if you are a Ni user, you also use Se. If you have a strong preference for Ni, you rarely use your Se or use it much less.

Secondly, you'll generally develop an extroverted process next if your primary is introverted. For example, if your dominant function is Ni, your second function will be an extroverted judging process (either Te or Fe). Someone who is Ni first, Fe second will tend to build elaborate social models in their head; Ni first, Te second tends to build systems.


If you know two, you know the other two. If someone is Ni first, Te second, then they are Fi third and Se fourth, because the other two are the opposites.

In the end, there's only sixteen different cognitive patterns available. These map directly to the Myers Briggs type indicator.

The "I/E" part of the MBTI simply indicates if the top function is introverted or extroverted. The J/P indicates if it is the Judging or Perceiving process that is extroverted. The middle two are the actual preferred functions.

So INTJ, for example. J means the T is extroverted, or Te, and this the N is introverted, or Ni. I indicates Ni is on top.

INTJ is:
Ni
Te
Fi
Se

in that order.

ENTJ (what I am pretty sure Steve Jobs is):
Te
Ni
Se
Fi


INTP is:
Ti
Ne
Si
Fe

in that order.



This has NOTHING to do with:
(A) your personal values
(B) your stability as a person
(C) your loyalty and other qualities
(D) what you like to do
(E) Security/insecurity

It only has to do with how you take in and break down information quickly naturally.


-----------


So how does this relate to introversion?

People with an introverted function on top tend to fall in to certain patterns. All of them usually find extra input to be a negative thing. If you are an introverted intuitive, like myself- extra input are extra variables to your model! More people is more input, and thus draining. Practice makes perfect, but, more input is draining. Thus, introverted.


People with extraverted functions on top are the opposite. Ne people for example THRIVE in pulling ideas out of thin air. The more stuff that is going on the more fun they are having.


That's how Myers and Briggs test off of stereotypes. They noticed "I" people fall in to certain patterns and ask questions like "Would you prefer to read a book or go to a party?" But these questions often mistype people because there's plenty of introverts who enjoy socialization and would answer "go to a party".


Everyone's got different level of function development. INTJ's (Ni, Te, Fi, Se) with poorly developed Fi tend to be oblivious to other people's needs. Poorly developed Te? They haven't learned how to juggle the data around them and retreat in to their own head (Ni).


If you struggle with introversion, you need to work on developing the other functions. I am an INTJ with a very well-developed Te. I'm usually pretty quiet and reserved, generally find crowds overwhelming. Throw me in my element- say, at a tournament- and I actually get pretty loud and bouncy. People who've only met me at Smash tournaments assume I'm an extrovert sometimes. I crash after.



---------------

I've actually been able to make tons of practical implementations after studying this a lot- there's facial expressions associated with each type. Intuitive thinkers, for example, tend to break eye contact when expressing an idea, especially Ne-types- their eyes go crazy around the room when expressing an idea.

Figuring out how people learn things has been fascinating. I myself am an INTJ and my roommate is ISTJ. That's Ni>Te>Fi>Se vs Si>Te>Fi>Ne.

We discovered that we learn languages completely differently. I have to just be exposed to it and I'll start to see the patterns. The ISTJ doesn't learn from the patterns very easily; instead, he has to come up with "hooks" in his brain, tricks to relating words he knows in english to the words in the language he's trying to learn. He learns from connecting with things he already knows, while I pick up the structure intuitively and totally forget things I read in a textbook.

Another interesting practical application is stress. Under stress, the inferior function often comes out in a negative fashion. I become super-sensitive to environment and very factual under stress (Se). My ISTJ roommate becomes paranoid and sees connections that aren't there under stress (Ne). An ENFP (Ne top) friend of mine becomes super routine and structured and factual (Si) under stress. An INFP (Fi top) friend of mine makes rash take-charge decisions that often get him in trouble (Te). I know several ENFJ's (Fe top) that become super critical (Ti) under stress.

It's fascinating to actually find the applications in reality.



My preferred Myers-Briggs test is:
http://www.humanmetrics.com/cgi-win/jtypes2.asp

But remember to take any test with a grain of skepticism. The tests try to pretend there is a dichotomy (you are either N or S!) and test on stereotypes. That's the reason why people tend to test on Myers Briggs in a bell curve, not on the extremities. The test is inherently flawed in that respect, but I find it to be ~75% accurate.

Take the test, look at the functions, and see if you fit it. Typing yourself on functions is more accurate than a test. Then google some stereotypes and see how close they line up. Mine for example.

 

[~ Gheb ~]

We've done this one already, Praxis ^_^

 

[#HBC | Dark Horse]

Ryker why the hell do I keep receiving facebook notifications in my spam email saying "Do you know ryker fiction?"

 

[Praxis]

PS: I wouldn't blindly trust Praxis' advice. There are a lot of truths in it but each body is different from the other so there's no truly "right" diet.

Me either, and I agree. There's no universal truths in nutrition because we don't have the ability to test it in a moral fashion. Observational studies are all over the place and often contradict each other.

For example, the recent Nurse's Study claimed to find a correlation with eating red meat and mortality. This was blown out of proportion by the press who published it as "red meat kills you" or "red meat causes heart disease".

The problem with an observational study that finds a correlation is twofold:
(A) too many external variables
and
(B) correlation is not causation

To illustrate, there's a few potential issues with the Nurse's Study that claims red meat kills you. Remember, all they did is ask people to check a box, "Do you eat red meat? Y/N. Do you drink alcohol? Y/N. Etc" and then follow up with them ten years later.

(A) the death correlation was actually fairly small.

(B) red meat ALSO was correlated with poor lifestyle factors like smoking and alcohol abuse. I'd speculate that red meat is also correlated with fast food and other unhealthy food sources. In other words, people who don't eat red meat don't eat at McDonalds. People who are vegetarian consider themselves health-conscious and thus eat more greens and less fast food.

(C) compliance bias. The common piece medical advice is "eat less red meat". People who say "I don't eat red meat" are also likely to comply with other medical advice ("don't smoke or drink too much alcohol").


There's thousands of similarly flawed studies going both way on almost every topic. Modern nutrition is heavily a soft/observational science. They make conclusions on correlations more often than conclusive fact.

That goes for me too, since I'm looking at studies just the same.

Carbs are still the main and most important source of energy for the human body. Most people just consume too much sugar, too much white flour, too little water and not enough veggies. If you eat more veggies you can also eat more fat.

Yes and no. Carbs are a great energy source, and the stuff you posted above- avoid things that spike the blood sugar, fats are nutritious- are both true.

I don't think everyone needs to go on a ketogenic diet. And since everyone's body is different, some people might actually feel worse like that. I've known vegetarians who are vegetarians because they don't digest red meat well and bloat.

I would argue that the total carbohydrate amount required by the body is zero though. It's not a "necessary" nutrient. It's just an option.

The Inuit survived on a nearly zero-carb diet for centuries just fine and have almost no incidence of heart disease or cancer. Again, I'm saying we all should be zero carb, but I do think we all should avoid sugar and high-GI carbs; the blood sugar spikers.

No. Don't.

Can you tell me what inherently is wrong with eating red meat- specifically, unprocessed red meat such as steak?

 

[Praxis]

We've done this one already, Praxis ^_^

Oops. How far back?

 

[#HBC | Ryker]

Ryker why the hell do I keep receiving facebook notifications in my spam email saying "Do you know ryker fiction?"

 

[~ Gheb ~]

You murder an animal, that's wrong.

And I know you didn't mean to have that taken at face value but Inuit are a particularly bad example because of how much their expectancy of life is limited, in part due to their diet.

We talked about personality types a couple of months ago I think. 3 or 4 months would be my guess. We also took a test [not sure if it's that one] and then checked out or types. Majority was INTJ. Still an interesting topic.

 

[Praxis]

There he is!

I would also like to note that carbohydrates are the only thing that power your brain so starvation of carbs results in foggy head.

Almost correct.

Ketones can also power the brain. Ketones are only produced if you have been glucose-deprived for several days.

This is why you feel like crap and foggy-headed for the first 3-4 days of ketosis until suddenly everything snaps back in to clarity.

If you do a low-Glycemic-index diet instead of ketogenic diet, you still rely on glucose, and want to get at least 100g of carbs (preferably from a low glycemic index source) a day to power the brain or you'll feel foggy-headed. You can even make due on a high carb diet if it's really low glycemic index.


So yes, stop carbohydrate reduction at 100g a day unless you're going to go all the way (I do 20g a day for ketosis, and have sweet potatoes or fruit when not doing keto).

 

[Praxis]

You murder an animal, that's wrong.

Ah, I can accept moral reasons for vegetarianism.

Preaching vegetarianism-for-health for general use seems silly to me.

And I know you didn't mean to have that taken at face value but Inuit are a particularly bad example because of how much their expectancy of life is limited, in part due to their diet.

My understanding is the low life expectancy was due to external factors (cold, disease, lack of health care due to more nomadic lifestyle). They had zero recorded instances of heart disease and cancer when first studied.

 

[Overswarm]

Given that plants have a form of consciousness I can't really condone any sort of diet on moral grounds.

Plus they're tasty.

 

[Praxis]

I'm home sick today and hyperactively browsing the internet. Wheeee

Looking at the old Myers-Briggs discussions.

INTJ's are very common. Not shocking, since INTJ's are attracted to the internet, despite being the second-rarest type.

I looked at that, and I definitely have traits of both ISFP and INFP (since I'm basically both).

Can't be both. Tests are just inaccurate. Test might stick you on the border, but you're one or the other.

They're both really similar though- ISFP and INFP are both Fi-dominant and Te-inferior, so they're externally lookalikes. Fi dom, and either Se or Ne second, then either Ni or Si third.


So the real question is Ne vs Se. Do you find yourself taking in data more factually or abstractly? Ne types will see all these different branches and possibilities and over-read in to details, Se types will see things more concretely. But both ISFP/INFP will use that as a secondary filter to their internal valuations (Fi).

I've gotten INTJ on various Jung tests while getting ENFP on this one. Makes no sense lol, but I don't try to read into these much anyway.

Kind of a big difference. You don't seem ENFP to me. They have crazy bouncy eyes and know all kinds of crazy random details about people.
I love them. <3


Wait, ew, Xonar's ENFP? *swears off ENFP's*

Obviously from my prior post, I am INTJ.

KevinM, will you go out with me?

I'm actually a WHOLE NEW BEAST not yet on the list!

ESFP
Extravert(44%) Sensing(38%) Feeling(38%) Perceiving(11)%
You have moderate preference of Extraversion over Introversion (44%)
You have moderate preference of Sensing over Intuition (38%)
You have moderate preference of Feeling over Thinking (38%)
You have slight preference of Perceiving over Judging (11%)

Ew, I hate you.

 

[#HBC | Ryker]

Ew, I hate you.

Join the club.

 

[Overswarm]

What are the best ways too look introvert for improvement in a more general sense?

What exactly is the question? I do not understand it.

Also ignore in myers-briggs stuff or most of the old psychology stuff. If it's popular, it's probably wrong.

 

[Raziek]

Praxis, why?

 

[BarDulL]

Idk about you OS, but a flu is pretty lame when you're puking everywhere and your digestive track is essentially ruined. Makes me nauseated just thinking about it. I also feel bleagh whenever I look at a screen or try to focus on anything...

/requiremorefomfort

Praxis!! Hai, I totes forgot to pm you after I got super busy. I'll ask ya stuff later when I'm not near death -.-

 

[adumbrodeus]

OMG, praxis is here, sup man?

You murder an animal, that's wrong.

And I know you didn't mean to have that taken at face value but Inuit are a particularly bad example because of how much their expectancy of life is limited, in part due to their diet.

We talked about personality types a couple of months ago I think. 3 or 4 months would be my guess. We also took a test [not sure if it's that one] and then checked out or types. Majority was INTJ. Still an interesting topic.

Meat is murder, tasty tasty murder.


But in all seriousness, a massive number of animals die in grain cultivation, the only way to avoid harming animals in making food is to farm and exclusively subsist on that. Pretty much any outside source is gonna be the result of killing animals, including fertilizer.

 

[Evil Eye]

I love how Praxis abandoned us like a total jerkbag, but still seems to namesearch his way to any discussions about diet stuff

I don't see how Basoline could be a hero. He did something for his country but he's also a mass murderer according to your description of his actions, which is why find the stereotypical concept behind a hero so laughable.

Hey look, linguistic gymnastics. I'm only going to touch on this part of it a little, but if you're going to try to push ethical/moral relativism in this discussion you're saying John Basilone's "mass murder" is the same as Adolf Hitler's mass murder. Agree to this point or concede that you were reaching, because you can't have it both ways.

See, the thing is that I wasn't emphasizing his actions on Guadalcanal as the things that make Basilone a hero, I was providing them as a prelude because they show ludicrous tenacity and perseverance on his part, and adding in the combat angle makes him a good example of the classical bad*** type hero in real life, so long as he can satisfy a definition of heroism that goes beyond mere military competence. In fact for this exact reason I avoided using Dick Winters as an example, since he was an excellent soldier but I wasn't so sure about heroism, he was just doing his job well.

The heroic things about Basilone are for starters the fact that he took the suicide run to obtain the ammunition, and that he kept doing this throughout this three day period with absolutely no relief. He was taking the well-being of his fellow soldiers and putting it above his own well-being, as dying in the process of performing this job was extremely likely.

But even that wasn't the crux of my point, which you have completely shirked. My point was that Basilone had more than put his service in and had a long, cozy life ahead of him as a hero. He'd have danced up the ranks to a highly-paid bureaucratic position with ease and probably found himself constantly being requested to speak at universities and military colleges and generally have admiration and love heaped upon him no matter where he goes.

And yet he decides that this is not what he wants, and goes back to the war. Given his skills, he probably saved a few more lives prior to his death. If you still want to handwave all of that as not heroism because of a cultural relativism argument you are being obtuse as ****.

Okay I lied, I'm gonna revisit this.

The U.S. didn't randomly invade the Pacific like it did with Iraq, the Pacific Theatre was preceded by both the invasion of Thailand by Japan and Pearl Harbor, a direct attack on America. Okay, so let's indulge relativism. They should have just been left alone, right? Because, after all, no belief system (stop invading countries, stop attacking us) is superior to any other.

I don't understand why people invoke relativistic arguments and show almost no knowledge of philosophy, particularly as it pertains to subjects like crime and sovereignty. In fact, most philosophical discussion pertaining to this area accounts for relativism by looking first to justify the limitations of liberty imposed by an overseeing power. Hobbes thought that government and regulation were necessary because in a vacuum of it life would be a miserable existence of people ******, killing, and otherwise abusing one another when left to their own devices. Locke's social contract offers that we implicitly authorize the creation of our formal society and the authority of the state as a ubiquitous action of self-preservation, as formalized society and state powers protect one's liberty and safety. It puts it to the state to be an impartial and objective judge of matters because the individual generally cannot be, which is the core of why the state should have power at all. Rousseau subscribed to social contract theory as well and added the main point that it has stem from the input of the people.

What I'm getting at is that in many, many, many many schools of thought there is a right side because the creation of the state ebbs forth from the people that are governed by it, placing trust and power in the state to decide upon matters with objectivity that is not afforded to an individual. Obviously this is imperfect in practice, but it at least ensures a multitude of views are considered before legislation is created, which is almost never the case where an individual is permitted to judge and act on all things in the manner they wish. In spite of this fact, some argue that there is no right on the part of the sovereign to govern individual action, and likewise for this on the world scale, because all morality is relative and cannot be rank-ordered. That being the core of relativism, the argument you're pushing.

Getting back to it, nations and militaries in the area of the Pacific had all of their strongest resources committed to the fight against Hitler, and thus the unprovoked Japanese army was shredding through them like wet paper. The prime minister of Australia specifically beseeched the assistance of America. Mainland Australia itself was under a major threat of invasion and swift domination.

I mean, I know being an Austrian probably makes WWII a touchy thing for you, but I'm sorry, you are reaching so far up your *** if you're going to try to push a relativistic argument on the Pacific Theatre. Unless you're going to make some kind of argument that the greater policies and objectives of the Axis served such an overwhelmingly positive greater good that it justifies the actions of all Axis nations (and the Japanese invasion of the Pacific, which includes not only several invasions of sovereign nations but also Allied forces' military bases, making the Pacific Theatre a retaliatory act as much as a preemptive one), you don't get handwave the actions of particularly selfless soldiers from the Pacific because "they were serving their country".

That's exactly the kind of hero that Batman et all are. They murder

Uh, I already have to stop you. Batman does not murder people. He has an explicit rule against killing people, ever. Superman also doesn't kill people. Neither does Spiderman. In fact, the vast majority of superheroes do not kill people, and people that do kill people (The Punisher, Cable, Wolverine) almost always end up classified as an antihero. So, you're already bungling your definitions here and these definitions are allegedly where you're drawing these beliefs from.

Anyways, I'm not the shirking type so I'll return to that point and answer the actual crux of your argument, but still, what in the goddamn ****

That's exactly the kind of hero that Batman et all are. They murder people and because "their" side is propagated to be the "right" one, or the "moral" one it's generally perceived to be heroic to kill all these people. That's why I keep disagreeing with the concept of a "hero".

See I'm having trouble even responding to this, since Batman and almost every other superhero are not killers, and often are explicitly not killers, with this often being part of the definition. Still, you're pushing relativism. I think I've demonstrated above that there's a damned compelling argument that certain actions of authority and exertion are demonstrably good overall. Consider utilitarianism and Bentham's calculus. He felt that we are governed by our pursuit of pleasure and our avoidance of pain. This is arguably the basis for instrumentations of criminal and military authority. Fall in line or suffer the consequences. Utilitarianism makes no assumptions at all about one thing being more right or wrong than any other, though. Utilitarianism is all about the optimization of the distribution of good among all affected parties in an action and the minimization of harm. It's completely distinct from rank-ordered morality.

So let's look at the Pacific Theatre again. The options of America were to do nothing or to invade. If they did nothing, Japan would sweep across the area, invading, dominating, and annexing sovereign nations it does not have legitimate authority over. Japan had also already made a direct attack on America, which wasn't even part of the war at the time. If left to its devices Japan would continue its spread, increase its military power, and likely have brought the fight back to America at some point. Let's not forget the fact that Japan was an implicit supporter of Hitler's actions, given its allying with him as a member of the Axis, which could have some pretty significant ramifications for a certain population of a certain people who follow a certain holy book that's certainly not the New Testament.

Bad: Unholy tons of lives lost (both by nations defending themselves and for the invading Japanese forces, not to mention civilian innocents local to the area being invaded), Japan continues its expansion and increases its power and that of the Axis, Allied Forces are weakened overall due to some nations now being under Japanese occupation, possibly future American lives lost as well due to future military aggression or even invasion by the Axis, lots of Jews probably die.

Good: ........? I can't think about anything, at all, that would be good about. I'm really trying. I really am. I've got nothing. American soldiers don't die because they're not invading, I suppose.

The good and bad of invading should be kind of evident after all I've done to explain the above, and writing this post is getting very tedious. My point is that by using a calculus of the good and bad done to all parties affected by an action, utilitarianism creates a moral system that has no relation to government, spirituality, or ethnocentrism. That means you don't have to accept Hobbes, Locke, or Rousseau to understand the value here.

So, I say again. If you want to push relativism over this argument, then say this with a straight face: John Basilone's "mass murder" is the same as a Hitler concentration camp processing the same number Jewish people through the death chamber. If all such actions are the same and we're just justifying them with elaborate constructions of lies and ethnocentrism and assuming we're right and everyone else is wrong, that should be pretty easy.

...but if you really can say that with a straight face, we've got nothing more to talk about.

Batman, Superman, and others are heroes because they save lives, prevent crime, and do it all without any deference to their own self-interest. The population that is "wronged" by their actions of "assuming" their framework of morality to be correct are psychologically unstable murderers, intergalactic tyrannical dictators, and other garishly self-absorbed and callous sorts. I would say the "harm" of their incarcerations is minimal in the scope of dozens, hundreds, or thousands of lives saved, and if they get a handful of bruises in the pursuit of the end of saving lives (possibly including their own, given that police would likely just shoot such a person), I am not all that offended.

The rule of law and other such authority has value when it is truly proceeding toward ends such as these and not agenda.

Now, in case of Petrov I'd totally agree that he is a hero [at least in this very incident]. But clearly, that is not the kind of hero you've been talking about when you introduced the subject. You may find it nit-picky but those are two different things, though both given the label "hero". And I don't think people like Petrov are the kind of hero that kids look up to and want to become like. What they want to become like is Batman - somebody with superhuman powers they can use to murder people. That's not a hero to me and I find the idea laughable.

@Bold: That's because I was relaying the fictitious characters that I thought were cool and looked up to as a child. It's not like it's a list of my heroes and role models of adulthood, which would probably include a lot more real people, and Stanislav Petrov would be one of them.

I don't find them to be two different things at all so long as they can survive the moral calculus of the greater good and the actions are done with a certain amount of selflessness in pursuit of that aim.

And, reiterating: Batman does not murder people. He also doesn't have superhuman powers, for that matter. Batman has money, training, resources, and dedication, which he uses to stop/prevent crime and save lives, not murder people.

 

[Evil Eye]

I'm also a little amused by Gheb using a relativistic argument wrt world war two actions and then a deontological one to argue against eating meat.

 

[adumbrodeus]

sounds like gheb is a true pacifist though, does sort of fit with my image of social justice warrior I initially developed for him.

 

[#HBC | Dark Horse]

I've always pictured gheb as a liberal arts college student.

I mean when you say things like "Religion is nothing but self-imposed slavery" and "Reality TV shows that people are still slaves," it's kind of hard to think otherwise.

And as an old man yelling at people to get off his lawn when a mafia game that he was in just finishes

Wait, he's austrian, right? Then I also picture him as a gay porn star.

 

[#HBC | Joker]

Yea when I was reading Gheb's post, and he said "Kids wanna be Batman so they can have superhuman powers and use them to murder people." all I could think was "wow, gheb doesn't even know the first thing about batman."

 

[Dooms]

Took it again :3.

Introvert(100%) Sensing(38%) Feeling(25%) Judging(1%)

You have strong preference of Introversion over Extraversion (100%)
You have moderate preference of Sensing over Intuition (38%)
You have moderate preference of Feeling over Thinking (25%)
You have marginal or no preference of Judging over Perceiving (1%)

 

[~ Gheb ~]

Lots of talk about me lol

I'll look at Overswarm's set-up and then respond to stuff.