Ben Mann Monthly November 2019: birthday, ecstatic dance, genome, Procreate, How to Change Your Mind

Purpose

• An index for my memory

• A menu of topics for my next conversation with you

• A faster way to share what I’m excited about without the barrier of writing a complete blog entry on it

• A skimmable way to spread content I found valuable

Photos

Experiments and experiences

• Authentic relating experiment
  For my birthday this year I wanted to give my friends a gift, so I designed an evening of face painting, a guided meditation, games to help people open up and connect, ecstatic dance, and a massage train. I asked guests to come on time or not at all and declared that no substances would be consumed. Some guests found it too ambitious, but others said it was the best party they'd ever attended. Things I'd change for next time: Meditation: eliminate the loving-kindness portion, more time in visualization Games: fewer group transitions, use a bell instead of shouting, no easy games like rock paper scissor champion, no full-group games Dance: better sound track, be more careful of injury during movement warmups

• Procreate
  I bought iPad Pros and pencils for my brother and mom. Over Thanksgiving we all learned to use Procreate. Our original goal was to collaborate on a manga together, but instead we all drew separately. Still, it was fun learning with them and seeing each other progress. I'm sure it'll be the first of many drawing collaborations. I found the app delightful to use both in the physics of the medium and the ability to zoom, undo, and layer.

• Ecstatic dance
  Hosted a 6-person ecstatic party. Using Ed's soundtrack, had a great time! We had some excellent ciphers, each of us taking turns leading and the others yes-and-ing. Afterwards we improvised a pancake recipe.

• Beginner urban @ City Dance
  I'd never heard of urban before, but it was sort of like hip hop. The class challenged me, but the teacher slowed things down enough for me to hold on to most of the moves. The most helpful thing was "lazy mode" where you try to move as little as possible while still doing the move. It helped me focus on just the most important aspects, almost like the principle eigenvectors in PCA 😂. My classmates were very encouraging!

• Color genomics
  Through Project Baseline I got Color for free. They seem to think I'm low risk on everything except 92% bad for coronary heart disease, which increases my risk by 2.2X. They don't release the SNPs or the genome, which is pretty annoying. I'd probably be upset if it weren't free.

Life updates

• SSRI post research

• Visited family in Boston for Thanksgiving

Content

5 point Likert ratings for “I would recommend this content to a friend”, sorted

• How to Change Your Mind 4/5

  • Before reading, I knew there was a psychedelic winter of sorts, but I never knew why. Apparently people like Timothy Leary made it too obviously an instrument of the anti-establishment counter culture to be safely ignored and the government and press squashed it

  • The main usage of psychedelics (which means "to manifest the mind") is to shake up the rote patterns of behavior and thought. If you have a mental block or a habit to change, it could help you. It's unclear if it can create lasting change alone aside from kicking it off.

  • Pollan's descriptions of his trips were excellent.

• Exhalation 4/5

  • Another excellent anthology by Ted Chiang, this one mainly exploring issues of free will, agency, moral culpability, the Fermi paradox, the path to AGI, and the nature of consciousness.

  • I won't spoil the stories here, but my favorites were "The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate" and "The Truth of Fact, the Truth of Feeling." Let's discuss!

  • Easter egg: the Audible version contains author notes, in which Ted describes his inspiration

• Mental Mountains 3/5

  • Discusses Coherence Therapy from Unlocking the Emotional Brain

  • How do people update their minds based on evidence in the world? Maybe when this process is out of whack, it causes symptoms like social anxiety. Maybe we can use psychedelics to reprogram ourselves.

• Samsara 3/5

  • A cute exploration of what it'd look like if the whole world were enlightened except for one dude

  • Best quote: "Twenty years I had kept up my meditation practice, the four hours of anger-greed-lust-selfhood meditation I’d established"

• Book Review: The Body Keeps The Score 3/5

  • I had read other book reviews of this book, but Scott takes a critical eye where others seem to lap it up. Before I thought I might want to read this book, but now I definitely don't.

  • Most damning: author is actively ignorant of genetic basis of psychiatric conditions and only suggests weird alternative treatments

  • On the plus side, PTSD is definitely a thing and I like the heuristic "you feel numb and detached from your body"

• ...And I Show You How Deep the Rabbit Hole Goes 3/5

  • An original look at what you'd actually do with various super powers. Twist ending!

• The antibiotic course has had its day 3/5

  • Antibiotic course lengths are pretty arbitrary and you might actually be making antibiotic resistance worse by finishing the course long after you feel better. Apparently the full course theory has never been supported by clinical evidence but it's too hard to explain to lay people, so it persists.

• Ad Astra 2/5

  • A slow, hopeless space epic full of Brad Pitt almost dying over and over, suppressed emotions, and daddy issues

  • Slightly redeemed by cinematography