Category: 📁 World Dreams

Theory - Reading and writing are fundamentally different and more important than listening and talking. We are unable to comprehend, use, dissect, debate, act on, or retain knowledge from listening and talking anywhere close to when we read and write ideas down.

Theory - Because the feelings of living things exist, these feelings of living things may matter and mean something.

• When we are harmed, injured, or attacked we can feel hurt
• When we are hugged, satisfied, or accepted we can feel good
• Living things have feelings and emotions which matter to them
• It matters to us if we feel suffering, misery, pleasure, or happiness
• Our life may matter and have meaning because we feel it has meaning
• Our life and feelings may matter and have meaning because they exist

May 6, 2025

This is a reply to an insightful and heartfelt video essay by xkcdHatGuy titled "Acting as the collective's psychologist for 25 minutes"

Thanks for another thoughtful video essay xkcdHatGuy. As far as your thoughts and feelings, I'm with you in many ways, and I would like to let your keen thoughts stand on their own. I feel for you and other people who feel the same way at times. So I won't go on about the parts I agree with and how astute and relatable your perceptions are here. I just really appreciate you taking the time to put together your ideas in general, and this was a fun one.

Regarding some of your thoughts, which I felt was partly about social norms, you might want to separately ponder on and ask yourself the following couple of questions. I was thinking about them and came up with them myself while listening to you. I'd be interested to hear any thoughts or answers you or others have to these questions or my thoughts on them, which I admit are likely complete nonsense and incorrect answers to the questions I bring up below.

1. Why? Why does the average person confine themselves to social norms?

Theory - Sex and the desire for physical affection is the most basic reason for following social norms and the basis for the grip that capitalism, materialism, and the economy holds upon individuals today.

I agree with you that a large majority of people seem to mainly just be trying to learn what is accepted by society and follow those rules, as opposed to living naturally or deciding for themselves how to live. As you said in regards to walking around at night, I do also get a sense that this feeling and tendency may even be amplified since the pandemic started. I wonder if this may also be partly due to some of the social issues that have continually been more prevalent in western society recently, including the treatment of minorities and women. We may be in a period where some people, and young people in particular, are staying secluded and learning inside and online a bit more than the previous few generations, instead of going out and partying to find their own boundaries and what they and others feel is acceptable within their group and society.

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Theory - Does an easier life mean lower intelligence? Is it possible that the easier that life gets for humans or any species, the more likely their intelligence is to decrease?

Dogs are not very smart compared to humans obviously. They are playful and friendly. This could come from the fact that their lives have become very easy. At least most of the dogs that I mostly see, which are pets, do not have to fight for their survival, or work to get food or shelter.

If my theory is correct, then it would be unlikely that dogs which are pets would improve their intelligence, but are basically getting less intelligent as they are currently evolving. They have no need to increase their intelligence. All of their needs are taken care of. Maybe an easier life generally means that a species or animal gets friendlier and less intelligent. A harder life overall could force a species or animal to become more intelligent to survive.

I would think humans currently have an easier life now than at any time in history. I believe we also have an easier life by far than any wild animals that we don't keep as pets or keep captive for our food or other reasons. Maybe us humans as a whole could have a tough time continuing to improve our intelligence because our lives have become easier. We are possibly becoming more playful and friendly like pet dogs.

I don't think our intelligence is decreasing right now overall compared to the history of the world. It is absolutely amazing what humans have accomplished and learned in the last 200 years. I think our intelligence has increased dramatically in that time. I wonder if that will continue and if the world will keep giving us new challenges to overcome to force us to increase our intelligence.

February 13, 2014