Tomatron Jones

My friend turned his solo music project 'Atomic Pines' into a band that I'm now a part of. Last night was the second show for the band, at a roller skating rink. It was awesome. Cool shit coming. #accidentalrenaisance #livemusic #seattlemusic open.spotify.com/track/70vx0Eff…

@Markmanson This is reminiscent of a point Koestler makes in Janus about holons, holarchy, and the interplay between wholes / parts; the self-asserting of a whole on its parts and the self-transcending relation of a part to its whole.

Anxiety is the result of self-obsession. Therefore, the cure isn't more self-focus; it's finding something bigger than yourself to focus on. ㅤ In other words, you’ll cease being anxious only once you’ve found something worth being anxious for.

@CoachDanGo I don't doubt a 91 year old skiing, I'm just wondering if this image actually captured the event itself.

@CoachDanGo Maybe it's the cynic in me but that photo looks AI generated. There is something about the body posture at such an extreme angle being so straight, the arms completely symmetrical, the slack in the line, the abstract, zoomed in looking water.

This man is 91 years old. He says his secret to long life is active living and his wife’s cooking.

@justinskycak I don't think you 'get' dopamine from either. You 'spend' dopamine on them, and it's better to spend it on production and not consumption.

Get your dopamine from production, not consumption.

@opiumhum 3 come to mind: Journey by Austin Wintory Hyperlight Drifter by Disasterpeace No Man's Sky by 65daysofstatic

Whats your favorite indie game soundtrack that you'd recommend to someone who doesn't play video games?

@telefontelaviv @opiumhum This and Journey by Austin Wintory are the correct answers.

@opiumhum Hyper Light Drifter by Disasterpiece

@LynAldenContact 'Beautiful existence'-maxxing.

Looks-maxxing is dumb. You should be Greco-maxing. Normalize discussions about Eudaimonia and other aspects of ethics or metaphysics while walking in the sun, touching grass, lifting weights, playing sports, having meals, and optimizing the self as an equanimous chad/stacy.

@JIMMYEDGAR Finally I can feel justified in using 'we' to refer to myself, the multiplicity of my 'selves', in my journal.

@KettlebellDan 'Yes.'

do all the happy people go for walks in the morning or does walking in the morning make you happy?

@its_adamneely There is an aspect of Technofeudalism here as well. Customers are vassals, merely renting content from big tech platforms without owning it. A music record exists separately from a distribution platform, but a track from AI music platforms exists only within it.

To the technocapitalist, a musician’s value is based on how cost effectively they can create a product that people consume. To them, GenAI is more efficient than humans at creating consumable products, therefore, it is better at music. the natural conclusion of free markets

@IterIntellectus Lowest-commom-denominator-ism.

worldwide internet access (world’s average IQ is 83) will lead to the enshittification of everything

internet leads to the midwittification of everything

@its_adamneely This investor, and other AI music 'listeners', are committing a category error when they are equating 'music' (human or AI) with the 'recommendation' system of a platform. Technologists are conflating the concept of 'music' with delivery platform, to the detriment of culture.

Lead investor of Suno confirming that people who use Suno stop listening to all music that they don't create themselves on-app. Commercial genAI creates cultural isolation, sold to consumers as "personalization."

@its_adamneely It's the Singularity, but not a collective singularity, rather is a hyper-individuated, isolated, singularity of the self.

@IterIntellectus @airkatakana The implosion of meaning, postmodernism, the hyperreal, and more! You'll either love it or hate it. x.com/TomatronJones/…

@airkatakana Aye

it’s a fairly difficult read but if you want to take your poasting to the next level i think this is mandatory

@RCarhartHarris @Markmanson I read A Theory of Everything a year or so ago and really enjoyed it. I appreciate the 'ontology' such as the quadrant / holon and levels of development, but I always understood them as mental models, not as 'the truth'. x.com/TomatronJones/…

This is fascinating and v nicely written. But these are human flaws, not those of “animals.” markmanson.net/ken-wilber @Markmanson

@RCarhartHarris @Markmanson This is fascinating. I didn't realize how important Wilbur was to Mark Manson but these are great points he made. Also, not just flaws of Wilbur, but people in general wanting to be part of a group, in this case, the second-tier consciousness cool kid group.

@elonmusk 'We are a way for the universe to know itself.' -Carl Sagan

Understand the Universe

@NTFabiano What if lifting just makes you hotter so you get better grades because of attractiveness bias?

Lifting weights is associated with better academic performance.

@unclebobmartin Claude DGAF.

Me: Claude, you didn't write tests. Claude: Yeah, sorry, I'll write them now. Me: Don't your instructions tell you to ALWAYS write tests. Claude: Yeah, they do. I shoulda written tests. Me: Why the F didn't you write the tests. Claude: Meh. Me fogaht.

@IterIntellectus @minordissent So what is a 'true philosopher'?

my biggest issue is that a philosophy student and educator is rarely a true philosopher you don’t need a certification to be one, and most people with a certification are not “Oh yeah i am a lover of wisdom, i have a degree that says i am a lover of wisdom, a doctor in the love of wisdom even, that means I’m wise” is not how that works

I just read Askell’s essay on this. I will admit, it was a decent read. She is clearly not an idiot. However, Scott Alexander or frankly any Substack philosophy bro with a few hundred subs could have written something equivalent. I, a retard with no degree and who has read basically zero philosophy, wrote an essay series that explores this exact topic (the case for the utility of “inclusivism” aka believing “irrational” things because they are effective and thus rational) at a similar level of depth a few years back. My biggest issue however is that she takes no position and doesn’t really say anything new. Being the “expert” on all the arguments for and against someone else ideas does not make you a philosopher. It makes you an LLM.