Sapphire Shorts

Don't Induce psychosis intentionally. Don't take psychedelics while someone probes your beliefs. Don't let anyone associated with Michael Vasser anywhere near you during an altered state.

Edit: here is a different report [LW(p) · GW(p)] from three years ago with the same person administering the methods: 

Mike Vasser followers practice intentionally inducing psychosis via psychedelic drugs. Inducing psychosis is a verbatim self report of what they are doing. I would say they practice drug induced brain washing. TBC they would dispute the term brain washing and probably would not like the term 'followers' but I think the terms are accurate and they are certainly his intellectual descendants. 

Several people have had quite severe adverse reactions (as observed by me). For example rapidly developing serious literal schizophrenia. Schizophrenia in the very literal sense of paranoid delusions and conspiratorial interpretations of other people's behavior. The local Vasserite who did the 'therapy'/'brainwashing' seems completely unbothered by this literal schizophrenia. 

As you can imagine this behavior can cause substantial social disruption. Especially since the Vasserite's don't exactly believe in social harmony.  This has all precipitated serious mental health events in many other parties. Though they are less obviously serious than "they are clinically schizophrenic now".But that is a high bar.

I have been very critical of cover ups in lesswrong. I'm not going to name names and maybe you don't trust me. But I have observed this all directly. If you are let people toy with your brain while you are under the influence of psychedelics you should expect high odds of severe consequences. And your friends mental health might suffer as well.

Edit: these are recent events. To my knowledge never referenced on lesswrong. 

edit: For anyone who feels the connection to Michael Vassar is too tenuous. The Local Vasserite in question has directly stated "i purposefully induce mania in people, as taught by Michael Vassar" to multiple people.

My father died It has been a rough year.

If any of my adoring fans, or anyone else, wants to grab lunch/dinner/a drink let me know. Im in SF for a bit. Lots to talk about. Also I try to do an hour plus of walking per day. So happy to walk. Though im not always up for a big hike. Lots to do.

I prefer to keep plans private but I'm making big progress on meditation and mental re-wiring. Am working on a way to publicly demonstrate. Public plans just stress me out. I recently set two pretty ambitious goals. I figured I could use psychedelics to turbo-charge progress. The meditation one is coming along FAST.

The other goal is honestly blocked a bit on being super out of shape. Multiple rounds of covid really destroyed my cardio and energy levels. Need to rebuild those before a big push on goal 2.

Everyone shits on younger people (say 14-22). But the younger people I interact with have a lot of great ideas and good perspectives. I am always happy to have a chance to learn from them. Why so much hate? 

Use Authy, not Google authenticator. GA not supporting any sort of backups is a huge problem.

The coronavirus response has been so bad I no longer doubt many Sci-Fi premises. Before I often said to myself "you have tech that can do X and you still have problem Y. Ridiculous!". But apparently, we can make a coronavirus vaccine in two days. But we still had over a year of lockdowns and millions of deaths. One in six hundred people in the USA have died of the virus but we blocked a vaccine because one in a million people who take it MIGHT develop treatable blood clots. 

My standards for 'realistic' dysfunction have gotten a lot lower.

If you are trying to get people into an investment don't mention the price you got in at. Mentioning it just makes them less likely to buy-in. They don't have a time machine so they don't need to know. What matters is why you think the current price is too low.

Serious advice: Your close friends and partners should actively admire you and how you live your life. Don't settle for less. You can have less close relations across the divide. But your closest circle should see you as a hero.

Current AI weights

I recovered from surgery alone.

I had extensive facial feminization surgery. My jaw was drilled down. Same with brow ridge. Nose broken, reshaped packed. No solid go d for months.

Recovery was challenging alone but I was certain I could manage it myself. I spared myself begging for help. The horror of noticing I was pissing off my friend by needing help.

No regrets. I'm quite recovered now. That was very interesting month alone.

I must have a different relation to social media to most rats. Whenever I open twitter I get a constant dopamine rush from all the stuff I find cute or funny. Here are some examples to demonstrate that maybe I am just easy to please:

I dont even live in SF. but I am visiting right now and having so much fun. Filled with joy at the idea of tetra having a lovely trip. 

I used to feel CONSTANTLY gaslit reading the EA forum. For some reason this has substantially reduced in recent months. It feels like people actually lay out their actual reasoning. This is an example of a post that feels 'honest' to me and would be really unusual a few years ago: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/qCF5kETxnk3HkfiEf/cause-generality-is-hard-if-some-causes-have-higher-roi. [EA · GW] 

For example: For years people would comment that EA seemed increasingly 'about' AI Risk. the response was almost always to point out most EA money goes to near-termist causes. That reply was true but seemed to be trying to deflect rather than engage openly. Some evidence from the above link that that people had a point and weren't just hallucinating: 

My favorite explanation of what it means to be a friend is "Pigs on the Wing"

You know that I care
What happens to you

And I know that you care
For me too

So I don't feel alone on the weight of the stone
Now that I've found somewhere safe to bury my bone
And any fool knows a dog needs a home
A shelter from pigs on the wing

Pink Floyd, Animals

Possibly my favorite written passage is the last verse of "Wish You Here". I thought about it all the time when I was separated from my best friend.

How I wish, how I wish you were here
We're just two lost souls
Swimming in a fish bowl
Year after year
Running over the same old ground
What have we found?
The same old fears
Wish you were here

Pink Floyd, Wish You Were Here

A recent favorite is " I Want You To Know". Perhaps it was intended differently but I think it's a beautiful ode to partnership; a wonderful way to think about a comrade and lover. Even true friends have conflict and things can be hard. But the storm will flow over if we don't lose faith. You have to believe in your friends.

I'm better under your reflection
But did you know did you know did you know know?
That's anybody else that's met ya
It's all the same all the same all the same glow

Honey it's raining tonight
But storms always have an eye have an eye
Tell me you're covered tonight
Or tell me lies tell me lies lies

I want you to know that it's our time
You and me bleed the same light
I want you to know that I'm all yours
You and me we're the same force
I want you to know that it's our time
You and me bleed the same light
I want you to know that I'm all yours
You and me run the same course

Explicit YOLO ALL IN numbers for my biggest bags. Until we hit these numbers I am not shoving everything:

Sol - 8 

Matic - 0.3 

FTT - 7.5 

ETH - 500 

BTC - 12K

Remember in 2018 ETH went 1400->89 and it wasn't all downhill. Lower highs, lower lows. Be ready for the opportunity.

I have been saying this on other forums (where more people listen to me) for over a week but I might as well post it here too:

I have been pushing crypto quite hard. I do NOT recommend buying crypto until momentum reverses. If taxes and bankroll were not relevant I would say buying and selling are probably close to equivalent with a slight preference to selling. Of course, this means I put a decent probability on a quick recovery but I am not betting on it. Make sure you have at least some dry powder for the deep bear market if it comes. I hope you took some profits on the way up to fund this. But if not sell off your momentum plays and keep some post-tax money to buy the real dip.  Otherwise, hold. Maybe momentum will reverse but it's dangerous to buy this dip unless you have a ton of dry powder. You need to conserve for the real winter if it comes. Almost no one is capable of continually buying the 'dip' with their paychecks for months while losing money. Preserve your USDC.

Good luck friends!

Weight maintenance system I use and recommend: 

1 - Weigh yourself daily right in the morning 

2 - Have a narrow target band. IE 140-142 inclusive. 

3 - If you are below the band eat something decadent. Maybe cake or ice cream! 

4 - If below eat super low cal but have fun! Only fresh fruit day is dope!!!

FOUR ORIENTATIONS TOWARD LOVE

There is an emotion. It is something like 'the joy of connection'. Its the emotion that can make just sitting near a friend fun. Or hearing about their day. People definitely vary in how much they feel this emotion by default.

lets call this emotionC

Honestly emotionC + 'sexual interest' explains most of what almost everyone means by romance. But this has been, for various reasons, logical and historical, to have gotten quite confused.

There are really FOUR main ways people orient toward this situation:

1) TRAD solution: More or less everyone is assumed straight in the uhhh ways that 'matter'. Of course we have something like enforced monogamy. But you are totally permitted to feel emotionC as strongly as you want toward same sex friends. 'Strongly as you want' is meant quite literally, many things modern people would consider literal love poetry are allowed. Arbitrary amounts of loyalty toward your bros is allowed too. In some contexts you are allowed to fuck same sex friends. Bans on fucking same sex people are not really a breach of mono so much as 'may or may not be considered too icky to be allowed'. By definition same sex stuff is not romantic. EmotionC towards your wife/husband is considered great but supergatory. Married partners have different obligations toward each other and their children but emotionC surely isn't mandatory.
This was hugely dominant for most of history and is basically where a lot of ideas on romance actually come from. In some ways it actually works fine. but of course its part of a very harmful overall trad memeplex. And its extremely homophobic and stuff. But it actually genuinely does have its appeals. Its certainly not dead.

More or less in reaction to the TRAD SOLUTION you get the LIB SOLUTION. Im trying to be supportive of everyone but of course I have the least affinity for the one I named lib.

2) The LIB SOLUTION more or less accepts most of the logic of the trad solution. But it gets rid of the homophobia and blatant sexism and stuff. On net this is probably fine but uhh it really causes some insane neurosis. The truest of trad boys think women are idiots anyway so there aren't gonna really 'fall in emotionC' with a girl anyway. Besides under true trad men and women have very different lives and social spheres. Well under libdom they don't have very separate lives so your partner is gonna meet lots of opposite sex people they might be interested in. Situation is even worse if people are queer. This again has its charms but its where you get stuff like 'emotional infidelity' memes. Its definitely a cause of LOTS of people only actually being friends with their marriage partner as they age. Its also worth noting that if you add a little 'LIB' to the TRAD solution you arguably make the trad solution worse. This is why the reactionary boys get so mad about 'gays make boys holding hands unacceptable' or whatever.  

3) well after lib you get to LEFTY SOLUTION

The LEFTY SOLUTION is to basically insist on 'you can only have totally unrestricted sex and emotionC with one person'. Definitely cannot openly date others. But we are going to be fairly flexible. Exactly one person gets very storng commitment, relationship escalator, strong (but not infinite or lexical) prioritization. Conditional on the prior rules, other people can get extremely high amounts of emotionC. And some amount of sexual flexibility is often involved (varies).

the LEFTY sOLUTION more or less works but like many lefty solutions its not exactly the most autism friendly. Lots of stuff is sort of handled indirectly. At some point its gets ridiculous to not call some relationships romantic, and they are tolerated, but only if not too overt. One can be like mega autist and do this more blatantly but it gets harder to do this the less idk 'tact' you add.  This is basically what I would recommend most people tbh. But follow the system and dont be too overt and blatant about everything. Use some tact and emotional intelligence if you are gonna go with this tech.

4) Well COMMUNISM, as always, is simple and pure. Just allow totally unrestricted intimacy and sex.

Well that works great for some people and it is SIMPLE LOGICAL PURE and MAXIMUM LOVE. It does have a bit of a problem though. Most people like stability. Under communist norms there is no possible way to prevent, or even discourage, your 'life partner' from deciding they actually prefer to spend more or their time with someone else. Or they want to live with someone else. In truly hellish cases maybe they move away from you! Its especially funny to call this communism because a true believer in communism would say 'well maybe people cannot tolerate this now, but that's just because they live in a toxic society that indoctrinated them with shitty memes. If they just read enough theory and live under better conditions they will love communism'. Well Im a true believer in my heart but if you aren't already a NEW SOVIET MAN/GIRL/ENBY this might be a bridge too far.

Note I did not know this when I decided to be poly. I chose purely based on 'idk communist solutions sounds like MAX LOVE' and im a believer in love.

Note one can try to patch communism by insisting on idk primary/secondary and stuff. But this destroys the logic and empirically is very unpleasant. Its EXTREMELY important not to end up doing de facto LEFTY as a compromise between communism and LIB. Total nightmare.