Solid Tao imo.

I pretty much agree with all of this, so my point is why are we trying to change how people feel? Their own perceived sense of happiness will remain about the same.

I have trouble with the premise that the world is a pretty crappy place in its present form.

Yeah, sure, D*n*ld Tr*mp, hurricanes bowling through the Caribbean and the Gulf Coast, Nazis marching in the streets, shooters mowing down concertgoers with automatic weapons, war, plague, famine and death, etc.

At the same time, there is driving out east to Yosemite, and going up to Tuolumne Meadows, and then over Tioga Pass down to Mono Lake and heading south on US 395 through the Owens Valley.

Or there is NGC 1672.

The world is ****ing amazing and wonderful and beautiful. So are people, most people.

Because when taken to the extremes, the scale looks like this:

manic --------------------------------------------------------depressive

When taken to either extreme, it can lead to people hurting themselves or others. I put a lot of ------ in between because I think there's a lot of wiggle room in the ----normal---- section in the middle.

Some of us mood swing much worse than others within this scale. Some people mood swing so hard that they fly off the scale never to be seen again.

Lowering the number of people that swing off the chart must be a good thing imo. This is just good for everyone because (impervious to depression) isn't a thing I've heard of in my lifetime.

tried to find Jimi playing manic depression on youtube but couldn't find the original. Oh well. Here's some Jimi anyways.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n9g6ngaWNAE

and some SRV:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uVI7I-WDGx4

oh my a gem:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xI9M525IxHo

I think equilibria shift over time, and in part it can be intentionally changed.

Like I think it's super bad for liberals to spend so much time obsessing over Trump. We're less than 20% of the way through his presidency and possibly less than 10%, people are destroying their mental health by spending all their emotional energy so quickly, and you can really see it taking its toll on some people.

On the flip side, you can do what Alan and Bob suggest, find something that you like and keep doing that. It can be Yosemite or volunteering or poker or whatever. I suspect a big part of religious happiness comes from people getting together regularly and reminding each other of what they like. It's not unlike the chipstack threads on 2p2. I don't know about you guys but whenever I hit a downswing I'd pull up my first five rack win and even though it was $2 chips it brings a smile to my face.

After all these years, I've lost most of my trophies that I got when I was a kid, but the one I have left is on my bookshelf at the moment. It's a 1992-93 youth basketball sportsmanship award. They gave out one per team and my coach picked me. I always thought that it should've gone to my classmate and teammate, who later died saving his friends from a fire in the middle of the night. Was a great guy to have on your side. I took home a championship trophy that night as well, but I don't know where that one is.

As a general principle, I believe that the closer people live to what is true about the universe, the better off they are. So insofar as it is good that people's feelings are in line with reality, I think it's better.

For example, there are people who feel helpless even if they're not and this causes them to not take proactive steps towards "better" outcomes than they're experiencing (learned helplessness). Since those feelings are (oftentimes) incongruous with reality, I think they ought to be changed.

I personally don't put as high of a value on "happiness" as I think might be inferred from my participation in this conversation. My sense of happiness is that it ebbs and flows with circumstances.

But I do believe that there's a richer sense of contentment that can be cultivated and is much more steady than happiness. In fact, I would not be surprised at all if it were the case that the modern American emotion of happiness is something quite distinct from happiness from previous times and places (for example, "the pursuit of happiness" invokes a difference sense of "happiness" than what we imagine when we think of a "happy" person).

We have put a high emphasis on how we feel (to the point of validating virtually all feelings, even if grounded in fiction), at the expense of emphasizing how we perceive the world around us and how we think about it.

This goes beyond the present administration and present issues. The "present form" is calling out towards a larger theological concept that's probably not worth getting into at this particular moment because it's a distraction.

If we take a step back and look over the broad expanse of history, I think it becomes quite clear that evil is more natural than good when we consider how humans relate to other humans.

* Children are naturally inclined towards selfishness.
* Human psychology tends towards division (in-group/out-group).
* Relationships naturally tend toward conflict.
* Trust is easy to break and hard to form.

All of these are observations that I think support the idea that humans are naturally more bad than good. When I look around at the world, I see pockets of good in the midst of a sea of evil. I do not see pockets of evil in the midst of a sea of good. Evil is the constant, and it's a surprise when we see good overcome it.

I don't think it's evil that you're seeing, I think it's selfishness. And if you consider that selfishness is pretty much required for basic survival in ancient times, this is not surprising.

I think it's fair to label as evil a universe where selfishness is required for survival.

Played some 4-8 today which, at Talking Stick, is like playing hopscotch in a minefield bec it's standard for players to limp the top of their ranges like A-Q and 10-10+. Then I got lucky:

Bunch of limpers, I toss in $2 w/ the A-8o in the SB bec it would be stupid not to but I know that I have to be able to get away from it.

Flop: A-2-2. I bet, get one caller, one of the women dealers.

Turn: A. I bet, she calls.

River: A. This is 99% the BBJ which is at $17.5K. I check bec I've heard horror stories about huge mistakes players make in this spot and don't want to see that happen for $8.

I show, she shows J-J, I get the small end for $4,375, YAY! I got lucky she decided that my flop bet was me getting funky but it all worked out.

Plus the dealer was super happy. I tipped $300 to the dealer, $100 to the floor but the woman had to tip way more than that and he knew it.

chill, hopefully you don't mind, but we've played some and I want to say that I had no idea you are suffering so much bec you don't show it. I've always taken you to be the happy type. I hope things work out for you somehow.

The thing is, I'm certainly not constantly suffering. I still try to make the best of my circumstances. It's just that in my internal calculations the bad things in my life have always outweighed the good, so my life has not been worth living. Probably most people don't bother to make the calculation.

Plus I've never won even $1 in any BBJ, dammit! Congratulations.

ITT Howard doesn't bet the nuts

He thought we said he wasn't supposed to donk quads, so he was going for the check-raise.

Another victim of fancy-play syndrome. Howard, what will you do without the extra $8?

Someone folded what would've been a jackpot hand in spread limit bec the other guy bet thinking that if the other guy was going to win $$$$$ he wanted his share. Screw the $8, that's what I say.

-----------

chill, I suffer from a deep existential crisis and I don't show it either, I think. You have more company than you know. If you pass this way again and want to talk a bit over coffee I'm available.

ITT AlwaysFolding was just kidding and would have done the same exact thing.

I knew that! What about my spectacular pf call of $2 w/ a weak Ace? Would you have been able to pull the trigger on that one?

I would have raised tbh

edit because I'm a fish

edit2 an aggro-fish with no respect for money

edit3 an aggro-fish with no respect for money that likes to introduce chaos into the game

Chaos it would be. They hate pf raisers.

Here's a good one, though: Someone who just sat in went 7 bets pre, called 8, called all the way down to be shown the AA, he had KK.

So this is very funny; I was just playing 8/16 O8 at the Orleans, and the Omaha table next door hit the jackpot, so I'll get a room share. My first time getting anything from a BBJ! Guy next to me says he's guessing it will be a little over $200; will report back later, we have to wait awhile.

I don't consider selfishness to be a non-evil trait. I think it's an evil trait and leads to evil behaviors.

I didn't say anything about being surprised by the existence of selfishness. It's quite the opposite. I'm acknowledging its prevalence in the world as part of the evidence that evil is more natural than good.

I need to get back out there to play O8 again. I miss the split pot games. (Stud-8 is still my favorite game.) I miss poker in general.