Toxic positivity is just as bad as toxic negativity.

Cynicism seems to fall under toxic negativity, in that it presumes negative intent before even finding out if it's true.

I think the article suggests being willing to find out, and take a stand towards choosing to influence your immediate circle to be allies, comrades, amongst fellow "soldiers in the trenches together," rather than just assuming everyone's in it for themselves and therefore there's no point in giving effort to be human towards one another.

I do like what the author says at the end, that even if our influence may seem tiny and insignificant, that it has impact if we notice.

I do think cynicism can be cancerous. I don't equate cynicism with a realistic assessment of an actually bad situation (which is where toxic positivity will want to bypass, brush it under the rug, stick their head in the sand, etc.).

I'm gonna start using "shitlit" from hereon out.

And also, there are people I respect who said they read 100+ books a year, and that you should, too. But while others in my circles were eager to jump on the train, for me, I thought it would be performative, and be about having read said 100+ books than digesting any of it. And what more, I recall that I best retain info via reading if I have skin in the game, rather than feeling like reading makes me appear more approvable to others.

All that is to say, it's good to hear from someone who reads a ton that a lot of your reading is kinda junk stuff (even if 150+ books a year is still a crazy metric – and as a tangent, people who ride bikes a ton say that a lot of their miles they rack up are junk miles, so I'm sure there's an equivalent of shitlit in any pursuit/ hobby/ interest/ endeavor).

Super Senior. Super Senior II. Hyper Senior II Turbo. Super Senior: Ultra Instinct.

Just call the emotions what they are, accept them in the form of not dressing them up and putting some spin on them to make people feel better about themselves (and ultimately dance around the actual emotion, via forms of denial, bypassing, etc.). And once you accept them for the simple, unadorned, and sometimes unflattering things that they are, you can then process them, and decide via understanding the root causes, contexts, and triggers, to then map out decision trees for how to respond to those feelings and emotions as the best course of action.

And like you mentioned, if you don't address the actual emotions and try to pretty them up, you're gonna leak out the actual emotions sideways, and cause unnecessary strain to those around you, and ultimately place your burden of being responsible for your emotions on others, and most likely throw up a big stink (in the form of projection, more denial, more bypassing, etc.).

Emotional intelligence, self-awareness, and responsibility are very difficult but necessary things, and they often times are unflattering. But like also many other things, there's no shortcuts to learning how to manage and deal with them in real situations with real stakes.

I don't think all bosses are like this, but the ones who express these views in critical junctures that reveal their character and world views as such, I think it's safe to say that they indeed are intellectually and developmentally blunted (of the emotional intelligence, interpersonal relationship, and leadership dynamics variety) in a manner that can cause legitimate harm to anyone under their authority and has to take orders from them.

(Honestly, HFCS prob has wreaked legit havoc via the "death by 1000 papercuts" method.)

Safety in numbers is a thing, but when it comes to art & design & aesthetics, it utterly kills courage, and things are done out of fear of rejection or disapproval, which makes the end product feel bland, uninspired, forgettable, and will be dated in a few years. Might as well just explore what is interesting to you and not worry about public reception. But then that's tied into many other things like fear of rejection, fear of sticking out, fear of failure, etc., that may need to be unearthed and explored in oneself – which is utterly worthwhile and necessary to do, and by staving it off you only do yourself and others a massive disservice and continue to operate in fear.

But yeah I'm making blanket statements that needs context, etc.

The adherence to this technique needs to be total and absolute, but the situation has to call for an ever-escalating frequency of interruptions from family, work, the government, neighbors, etc.

We need some sketch comedians to get on this!

But rather than try to hype it up like fighting game tournaments, have it be somewhat milder in aesthetics and tone, for the type of crowd it might draw. Like "Best in Show" or "Great British Bake Off" or what have you.

I feel like it's not just the companies, but consumers/ audiences don't want to pay for most internet services unless it's something like infrastructure services where it somehow viscerally seems "sensible" and "right" to do so.

Might not be exactly this, but it makes me feel similar to why people hate advertising. Which I believe is, people don't like feeling lied-to, and everyone knows that marketers are trying to get in your head to manipulate you into manufacturing desire or stoking insecurity, all for the purposes of getting you to buy their products.

I think people like organic word-of-mouth, but on the flipside, hate when they find out that someone was a paid shill to posture as an average consumer, but are an industry plant to trick and deceive us all lol.

But to your point about why it feels icky and unsettling for publications & media companies to just straight-up use AI to write articles... seems kinda similar. Many of us are already skeptical that journalists & reporters are being censored and manipulated into writing with an agenda. But these types of AI-generated articles feels a few degrees more dehumanizing and Machiavellian. Like, the humanity aspect can all be aped so well, that we can just manipulate the masses and assuage their needs for a sense of connection without having any souls behind it whatsoever, because the masses are viewed as a bunch of manipulable "things" to simply extract things from (like attention).

I don't like it either, and for me it seems like it's those reasons. It feels so... gross and heartless.

"You can't use a coping mechanism to heal from an issue/ wound/ trauma. It's basically just replacing one addiction for another."

I'm paraphrasing. But I agree with that statement (which isn't to say that healing is an easy or simple process).

I've seen folks mention that it's about "the future" in a hand-wavy, abstract, nebulous sense. But their actions demonstrate profiteering, opportunism, and the greater-fool theory in action. Basically, for me, it seemed like all the ideology was intellectual cover (aka rationalizing) for plain ole greed, so they don't have to admit to themselves and others that it has nothing to do with the betterment of humanity and the future, and they just want to get rich quickly. To call it greed would be somewhat unbecoming, and the ideological arguments sounded good enough to assuage any psychological conflicts in oneself.

Might not be a generous interpretation, but if the ideology were indeed at the core of it, I feel like other areas of their lives would reflect said ideologies.

For the record, greed was at the core of my own interest in crypto when I was looking into it, so I could be projecting. Or it could be that said people and myself both experienced this as the driving force behind our interest in crypto as laymen.

The SP404mkii sounds like a powerhouse and amazing value in comparison to the EP-133 now lol.

But I'm def not anywhere near being able to take advantage of either to their full capacity.

Thank you again.