A question for you: not including food/beverages, what's something you don't experience the hedonic treadmill for - that is, even if you do it every single day, you still keep enjoying it just as much each time?
If you predict that something will happen by date X and it doesn't, then your prediction is false. If we were to use early/late then we'd actually need three categories "early", "late", and "we don't know because it still hasn't happened" which would be more confusing/less concise.
If you found this interesting, I'd appreciate a follow at @spencrgreenberg.bsky.social
And you can hear the entire detailed conversation about this topic (with Greg Lopez) on the Clearer Thinking podcast, here: podcast.clearerthinking.org/episode/267/...
4) As Greg Lopez describes it, Stoic growth is a 3 stage training loop:
1️⃣ Discipline of Desire – value only what’s “up to us.”
2️⃣ Discipline of Action – act intentionally & prosocially.
3️⃣ Discipline of Assent – have moment-to-moment vigilance.
3) Many people believe that Stoicism is about becoming immune to negative events. That's not the point of it, though! The goal is actually to be the best human being in terms of virtue and character.
2) The rival answers of what to optimize for:
• Cyrenaicism → momentary physical pleasure
• Epicureanism → stable mental pleasure by removing distress
• Pyrrhonism → ataraxia (mental tranquillity) through radical doubt
• Stoicism → virtue/character excellence
1) Telos = a single, overriding end worth building a life around.
These Greco-Roman schools start by insisting that something is "the thing for which you value for its own sake." They each proclaimed that there is a (different) single best thing to pursue.
I was surprised to learn that there were a number of competing theories to Stoicism during the time it flourished in Greece, and that each proposed a different "purpose of life" (or telos) to spend your life optimizing for:
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Here's what Musk says about his own predictions (see image).
And if you'd like to read our full report with our method, here it is: www.clearerthinking.org/post/how-goo...
We analyzed Elon Musk's predictions to see how accurate they have been (only including those that had an explicit or implicit time frame, and where that time has passed). Here are the results:
Link to participate in the study on hotly debated topics in academic psychology:
www.guidedtrack.com/programs/bek...
It covers topics like:
• effects of social media on teen mental health
• fraud in academic psychology
• the interpretation of controversial findings
Thank you!
A call to academic psychologists (and those who trained in related fields) - it would be fantastic if you'd participate in our study on controversial and hotly debated topics in psychology! We'd also really appreciate it if you'd share this as we need more participants: ⬇️
New podcast ep! Had fun talking US-China competition, military AI, and more with @spencrgreenberg.bsky.social:
podcast.clearerthinking.org/episode/251/...
Even spent a few min at the end on something I rarely get to ramble about: what I've learned about relating to humans from working with horses🐴
As the year comes to a close, you may find it useful to reflect on the past year or quarter, as well as what lies ahead.
We made a free tool to help you do so, called "Your Life Review":
programs.clearerthinking.org/your_quarter...
It lets you decide which areas of life you want to focus on.
And here's the meta-analysis that I mentioned which compared exposure therapy to other methods:
"Psychological approaches in the treatment of specific phobias: A meta-analysis"
bit.ly/405wFJQ
The process is tough but simple. If an acute fear is limiting your life or potential, Exposure Therapy is likely to help, as it helped me overcome my fear of approaching strangers.
If you found this helpful, I’d appreciate a follow. I'm new to bluesky! Me: bsky.app/profile/spen...
If real exposure is too hard or impossible, you can do “Imaginal Exposure,” vividly picturing the feared scenario until you feel genuine anxiety and ride it out.
Note that setbacks and flare-ups are normal—sometimes you need “refresher” exposures to stay on track.
Exposure Therapy is often easiest with specific triggers. However, it may not fully generalize to different triggers. Expect to repeat the process for each major fear and different situations. Vary your exposure to cover multiple scenarios.
A useful add-on is to track your “Subjective Units of Distress” (SUDS) from 0 to 100 before, during, and after each exposure. This helps you measure your progress and decide when to level up.
Step 4: Repeat the process! A single long exposure (like letting a harmless spider crawl on you for 2 hours) can work in some cases, but usually multiple exposures are needed. As one level in the fear hierarchy gets easier, move up your hierarchy to the next level.
Be sure to design your exposures so that they won’t harm others or be a major nuisance. You want to tackle your irrational fears, not create problems for other people.
Instead of using coping behaviors, Feel the fear fully. It won’t harm you. Running away tells your brain the danger is real or that fear itself is dangerous; staying put teaches it you’re actually safe.
Another key: avoid “safety behaviors.” If you have a phobia of flying and always research plane safety first, your brain thinks, “Planes are safe if I research,” not “Planes are safe.” You must teach your brain the right rule, and coping behaviors interfere with that.
You can also do “Flooding” by jumping straight to your worst fear, but it’s intense. If you bail out prematurely, it can backfire. Most people prefer gradual exposure for a higher chance of success.
If you bail early, you reinforce fear. But if you stay put when nothing awful happens, your anxiety typically falls. Your brain learns. It predicted doom, but doom never came. So, it starts to predict less doom.
Step 3: Expose yourself to the lowest item on that list first. Stay until anxiety drops (or until it ends), and don’t rely on coping behaviors—except possibly deep breathing or muscle relaxation to help you stay.
Step 2: Make a Fear Hierarchy. Rank fear scenarios from least scary to most. For a spider phobia, that might be (1) a plastic spider in the room, (2) photos, (3) videos, etc.
The goal is to eventually get your fear to be proportionate to the actual threat. Fear is useful if danger is real. But if it’s ruining your quality of life just so that you avoid minimal risk, Exposure can help you reclaim control.
Step 1: Understand the true risk. If you fear flying, look up accurate and representative accident stats. If you fear approaching strangers, ask friends how likely bad outcomes truly are. It won’t cure you, but it helps ensure your rational brain is aligned with the treatment.
If you do it on your own, there are four key steps:
1) Understand the true risk
2) Make a fear hierarchy
3) Expose yourself to safe things that scare you
4) Repeat, repeat, repeat
