Okay!
On 11/16/2017 at 7:41 PM, epistemologue said:
/t/25235
here you agreed with my characterization of you as a “positive utilitarian”, despite having just said I don’t anymore think that position is correct 
I can’t seem to find where I said that I no longer thought that position correct.
Maybe I’d just changed my mind (and forgotten even to mention that to anybody) but maybe not. Without the other post I can’t tell what error (if any) I’ve committed!
I’ll try digging for it again, though, when I have a few spare minutes.
On 11/16/2017 at 11:23 PM, Easy Truth said:
I notice you put likes and thanks on posts, is that being too talkative??
Why do you suspect that you are talkative?
Firstly, “too much” of something implies some goal (which is the thing’s purpose and which dictates its standard of “too much” or “too little”, etc). For the purpose of writing my own philosophical ideas, to be read by people who’ve voluntarily read Ayn Rand (recall the sheer size of Atlas Shrugged), I don’t think I’m too talkative. For the purpose of combing through my previous ideas, finding all the wrong ones and finding the most essential wrongs among those (since that’s the shortest route to what I really want to know), I’ve been far too talkative for one person to audit. @Nicky (whose posts seldom exceed a single paragraph apiece) could probably audit himself all by himself, if he wished to, but I can’t. I’m not beating myself up about it (I never imagined I would be trying to do this when I wrote any of the things I’ve posted before) but it is a fact.
Secondly, I never actually said “too talkative”; just “talkative”.
Thirdly, what makes me think I am talkative? My user history.
It’s not necessarily a bad thing, in the usual context; it just makes my current goal a hard one to reach by myself.
On 11/17/2017 at 3:36 AM, softwareNerd said:
Life is a process of learning. At least, it ought to be.
Imagine this… imagine I read through all my posts over the last 12 years and find I’ve been fairly consistent. Imagine I find some that are a bit embarrassing, but nothing that makes me go “I was a total moron there" or "I would laugh at me for posting that today”.
What would that show: that I’ve not learned much in 12 years!
Yes, and life is a process of motion - but I’d like to know that I’m moving in the right direction! I have some very good reasons to think that I haven’t been (that, in fact, I’ve been moving in all the wrong directions) and I’m not beating myself up about that, either - I can’t change the past. What I am doing is trying to learn from it.
My dad used to say: “don’t tell me you’re sorry for it; just don’t do it”. I’ve apologized for many of the things I’ve posted in the last few weeks, as I should’ve, but I can’t stop doing the things I’m apologizing for until I understand their nature and causes.
And that is specifically what I made this thread for: to help me gain a better picture of what I’ve been doing wrong and how to start doing it right.
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I’m not so interested in reading your old posts, but if you put up some fresh ones here, I’ll nit-pick them until my fingers turn blue.
I will! 
I start work in a few more hours, here, but I already have a list of ‘likely suspects’ in the back of my head, which I’ll start linking to the next time I’m able (probably this afternoon).
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my efforts would benefit enormously if I had more examples of good -but moreso bad- reasoning.
On 11/17/2017 at 11:04 AM, MisterSwig said:
Why did you phrase that last bit the way you did? You seem to want more examples of bad reasoning than good, yet in your thesis statement you subordinated your greater desire to the lesser.
Well, in this particular case I think the examples of bad reasoning would be much more helpful.
You’re all welcome to let me know how awesome any of my conclusions are (I certainly won’t stop you) but I really don’t have any trouble with accepting or being proud of that. That’s just my default response to my own ideas; even ones I’ve since discarded -such as Satanism- I still feel vaguely fond of (like previously-favorite toys which I happen to have outgrown). It’s the opposite that I’m struggling with; realizing when my objectively amazing brain 
happens to produce garbage, and then treating the garbage for what it is.
I know that positivity and optimism are a big part of Objectivism, though, so it didn’t feel right to post it in the order in which I’d originally typed it. So I swapped them around at the last minute.
On 11/17/2017 at 6:50 AM, StrictlyLogical said:
My suggestion is to try to identify which of the above and other strategies for thinking you currently use, and try to practice diligently some of the others.
I’m not sure. I’ve noticed a few common symptoms but I don’t know what they’d point to (if anything).
Firstly, I don’t tend to have too much trouble with abstract principles, as such; the majority of the difficulties arise when I try to remember, off the top of my head, how they’re integrated into my whole worldview, or to apply them to some concrete.
For example, I know that productiveness is the virtue of rearranging the material of your background to suit yourself. That’s very clear in my mind, as are several of its connections to other concepts and principles (such as the fact that all “creation” as such means a new rearrangement of old materials). However, some of its connections are hit-or-miss (such as the relation of independence to productiveness - “your life is yours to live, which means your life is your own responsibility” -Yaron Brook); some days it’s there and some days it simply isn’t.
Similarly, sometimes I can properly apply the virtue of “productiveness” to a given situation, and sometimes I can’t. For example, take someone who tries to get a raise by flattering a boss they despise (like Peter Keating); some days I’ll be able to see how that’s not actually productive at all, and some days (like right now) I can’t. I know it’s the wrong answer but for the life of me I can’t remember why.
Secondly, although at times I’ll ramble on and on about something irrelevant (which seems pretty common among even the best of us), sometimes -particularly when I’m trying to stay on track- I’ll do something much worse, without realizing it: I’ll start saying things that aren’t true.
It’s not lying. I believe what I’m saying, in the moment that I say it, but if I remember it the next day I have to wonder where in the Hell I managed to pull THAT out of. It’s not a conscious action and I usually don’t even notice when I’m doing it (although in the past two weeks I actually have, and have managed to correct it on-the-spot, a couple of times); one minute I’m discussing some idea or some state of reality and the next I’m describing -with fully righteous conviction- something that’s completely in my own head. It’s something I remember doing all the time, when I was little, but since I really got into Objectivism this is the first time I’ve noticed doing it again.
And it only ever happens when I’m talking to someone. When I’m thinking about something, by myself, it just doesn’t happen (not ever, in any slightest way); if I’m talking to someone then I can start doing it hours and hours before I know what I’ve been doing.
Because of that I suspect that it’s the result of learning to lie too frequently, for too long (which is why I mentioned dealing with “normal people” or “envious morons” - I’ve spent many years simply trying to deceive them into leaving me the Hell alone) but that doesn’t tell me the identity of the flawed cognition I’m struggling with, nor (what’s REALLY important to me, here) how to retrain my self out of doing it.
God. This was one of my favorite songs when I was a kid; hearing it now, I can’t stop thinking about Robert Stadler. But I didn’t bring this here for moral support but for the fastest possible cure, which I’d only retard by any omission.
When I think of why I started consciously learning to lie I think of this song.
Commentary of almost any kind is also welcome. I’m not even opposed to speculations about the psychological causes of any given post (Hell, you might be right)! 
