AREA ZONE

First of all

You should probably know the “first world problems” meme before reading on.

What is this?

A list of all subreddits of the nthworldproblems type, ordered and briefly described.

Why is it interesting?

As a case-study of what happens when humans try to out-meta each other. As a collection of communal worldbuilding activities.

This list is really long. Are you okay?

I am not. Friends and family have noticed a distinct change in me. My disposition towards humanity has soured. I have scars that will never heal.

How many are there/Did you miss any?

I don’t know, and probably. They multiply quickly. I’ve cataloged upwards of 150.

Without further ado:

Keep reading

Endosynesthesia: where colors invoke the experience of other colors, feelings are associated with different feelings

(renamed from metasynesthesia courtesy of @The_Lagrangian and others.)

The idea here is that a stimulus from one sensory/conceptual category triggers the experience of a separate stimulus from the same category. This differs from ordinary synesthesia, where triggers cross categories.

More simply:

Synesthesia = colors –> letters, music –> taste, etc.

Endosynesthesia = colors –> colors, letters –> letters, taste –> taste…

We could quibble about what exactly constitutes a discrete sensory/conceptual category. Synesthesia is really weird about this; inducers can be things like “days of the week”, concurrents can be things like personality. People can associate letters with colors without associating letter-like scribbles with colors. Ideasthesia is an interesting term I don’t see used much, which is more geared towards concepts and the possibility of a semantic link between the inducer and concurrent. (ex: a suspiciously high number of people thinking that ‘G’ is green.)

To simplify things, I’ll be using colors in all of my examples, but keep in mind that any of this could apply to categories like touch, emotion, texture, sound, and anything else you can think of.

So: the interesting problem that endosynesthesia poses is whether a concurrent can function as an inducer.

My instinctual reaction is “No, that’s dumb,” followed by “Oh myy god, what if–”

It’s probably worth distinguishing between projective and associative synesthesia. The former implies that if you see the letter G and it triggers green, you actually see something green, be it the letter itself or a floating shape in space. By contrast, associative synesthesia would just inspire a strong sense that G is green, it’s just green, you know, it feels green, the way harmonica sounds purple, …why are you looking at me like I’m crazy?

We’re going to concern ourselves with projective endosynesthesia.

A man sees something green, which makes him see purple. Normally, purple things make him see blue…

So, does your synesthesia resolve into a stable loop, or are you just feeling everything all the time?

Here are a few possible outcomes:

1. Seizure
   green –> red –> blue –> purple –> yellow –> orange –> black –> turquoise –> crimson –> aquamarine –> olive –> mauve –> grey –> brown –> sunglow –> heliotrope –> indigo –> … ∞
   You might as well be blind. Depending on whether this all happens simultaneously or you cycle through color to color, you’re either trapped in a neverending rainbow tube or seeing all the colors all the time, and presumably frothing at the mouth.
2. Stable loop
   red –> blue –> purple –> red + repeat
   This isn’t so bad. If you know your loops well enough, this might be like mild color-blindness, where all components of that loop would give an indistinguishable redbluepurple kind of impression.
3. Decreasing intensities
   BLUE!!! –> PURPLE –> green –> …
   The intensity of each color decreases at a set rate, eventually fading away so much that it fails to trigger the next one. Thus the intensity of the concurrent color is always lower than that of the inducing one.
4. RAM limit
   Your brain is an ally and wants to prevent you from shorting out. Through some unknown mechanism, is limits you to something like, eh, four colors. The limitation may be based on intensity and not iteration, in which case this is very similar to #3.
5. All roads lead to X
   yellow –> purple –> orange –> red –> red –> red
   blue –> green –> red –> red –> red
   literally anything –> red.
   I expect this would be problematic, and interfere with traffic light interpretation.
6. oh no. Seizure 2.0
   @fretzl:
   neither, all of my feelings evoke feelings of “immense horror” except immense horror, which evokes “even immenser horror,” etc.
7. Some combination of the previous.

I find 3 and 4 the most plausible. Since endosynesthesia isn’t and will never be a thing, this opinion is completely vapid and worthless.

“Don’t feel bad, your style of thought is well-suited to X.” (where X is typically incorrect, you hate X, & Y is much more important)

There are things in the world that are important and good. There are also a lot of other things.

Separate from that which is good, important, is a corpus of activities that tend to produce and/or maintain the G/I.

Separate from this corpus is, presumably, some kind of infrastructure necessary for humans to coordinate these activities, many tiny acts that indirectly sustain those who directly sustain the G/I. This level is opaque, difficult to perceive, difficult to quantify…

Often, it feels as though you’re completely cut off from that system.

Most people agree that some art is good. A few can even explain why.

@ctrlcreep​ so humans do you feel like this because I often feel like this about art & scattered dreamscape thought vs., like, math & depth?

I’m not bad at math. I don’t know whether I’d be bad at depth, if it was what I applied myself to. I value these things very highly, I don’t apparently lack any necessary inherent talent, I punish myself for not pursuing them with guilt and self-doubt, and proceed to thoroughly ignore them in favor of art, daydreaming, writing.

A few potential explanations:

1. I am kidding myself about being capable of math/depth/etc.
2. This preference for math and depth is externally imposed and is creating predictable psychological stresses.
3. …somebody once told me, “You have a telos,”

We’re back where we started. When I am feeling sad about my apparent separation from the G/I, I find myself saying things like “I hate art,”, “Art is a useless waste of time,” and most famously, “Drawing is exactly the same as microwaving kittens.” That last statement is probably false; but still, drawing isn’t building bridges.

Wise people know that you can’t ignore motivation. You’re not going to dedicate 10,000 hours to something you hate, but you’re also unlikely to spend that much time doing anything you aren’t intensely, inexplicably obsessed with. Want to become a genius? Follow your star.

But sometimes that star is bullshit and wrong. What do you do when the things you love to do fail to align with the things you know are important and correct?

(The correct answer is: spend 10,000 hours developing an incredibly honed metaskill of preference-changing.)

@ctrlcreepif you feel like this, what do you feel like this about (the dialogue may be internal) (I am collecting data / sorrows)

I regret that some of my commentary may have skewed responses towards expressing an art/science type split. My personal struggle is less right brain/left brain bunk, and more [urge to create beauty + questioning utility of beauty], or [urge to explore the limits of what’s possible vs. urge to expand the limits of what’s possible]. 

Who determines what art is made? My overwhelming intuition is “the people who make the paints and the brushes”.

@incantamina:

i am well suited to math and logic but would really like to be creative, good with writing, words, etc

@SweetNAwful:

I feel I’m mentally suited more towards business / marketing but I’d rather be good at creative endeavours.

@ProofOfLogic:

I’m really envious of your thought style but have developed mine for “math & depth”

The grass is always greener, huh.

Well, this makes sense: because I tweet a lot of creative fluff, I’m followed by people who enjoy and value creative fluff. In turn, I follow perhaps more math and logic people than you’d expect.

Side note: There are a lot of mindspaces. I have never in my life imagined what it would be like to be seeped in “business/marketing” – pretty cool.

So anyways, these people are all wrong. I have thought a lot, have looked upon my works and spat, thinking, “This should be a spaceship or something.” Despite my best efforts, it never is.

Bill has never won a game of minesweeper. Every time he comes close, as near as one final square to be clicked, he’s focusing, “Don’t mess this up, Bill. This is your chance. You’re nearly there.” His hand spasms, it all blows up.

Why are you locking yourself out of everything that is G/I? Have you tried not doing that?

Look, I’m just trying to convey the pain of having highly dissonant preference/values systems.

@ProofOfLogic:

& maybe I could develop both, but still it’s more valuable for me to get further math & depth as I’m still largely inadequate

Specialization is a necessity. 10,000 hours is arbitrary, but it does a good job of representing the correct thing, a massive investment of time and effort. Everything that isn’t the one thing you want to be good at is opportunity cost. You’re fucked. Choose, or be mediocre.

You don’t get to choose, though. These kinds of calculations become apparent long after your formative years, long after the calcification of habits and preference.

The things you are good at are easy and vacuous. The things others are good at are hard and full of value.

Maybe art is valuable, if only as pellets of motivation and fuel for those pursuing higher things. Mosquitoes are an irreplaceable part of the ecosystem. It’s the circle of life, man. All the creatures are vital. More saliently: We don’t all get to be the apex predator.

You want to interact directly with G/I? No. Sorry. Try rationalizing that you’re part of its support system.

There are things in the world that are important and good. It’s probably impossible to know whether you’re in contact with them.

TL;DR: inferiority complex and everything is terrible. all hail STEM