yuyin > Recent Status Updates

very sciencey.. i liked some parts/found interesting but mostly trying to finish it and start mindsight borrowed from carmen

i think my left brain is overdeveloped that's why i need to rationalise everything. can u imagine what my left hand will reveal without the interference of my left brain?!

aquarian utopia! language (n large scale cooperation) by way of gossip! reality governed by universal and immutable principles (of justice, such as equality or hierarchy) = imagined order! (yet the only place where principles exist is in the imagination of sapiens, n the myths they invent n tell one another. these principles have no objective validity) i love history

"sailed thru the world guided only by the dim lights of impulse & habit, confident that his course would throw up no obstacles so large that they could not be plowed over with sheer force of momentum" this is abt me. halfway thru. it's very readable. not sure what i think abt it yet

temptation for any intelligent person & esp perfectionists such as the ancients to try to murder the primitive, emotive, appetitive self/ dangerous to ignore the existence of the irrational/ the more cultivated a person is, the more intelligent, the more repressed, then the more he needs some method of channeling the promitive impulses he's worked so hard to subdue

might have came into this with too high expectations..

reading part on curiosity now reminds me of shithead (*levitt voice* shuh-TEED) h**** ugh why is everyone's writing except mine so unnecessarily complicated?? not liking this

"emotion is the enemy of rational argument" AGREE!! haven't been reading much cos parents sent me to work :-) (i get most of my reading done in public transport) initially felt dubner's writing was unnecessarily convoluted- such is the decline of my comprehension skills after simple straightforward sentences a la ariely & harari... getting into it now (80% of the book later) wanna check out superfreak too

so much like predictably irrational, same israeli day care with the $3 late penalty but while ariely explained it using social vs market norms, levitt explains it using economic vs moral incentives. "economics is at root the study of incentives: how people get what they want/need, esp when other people want/need the same thing. we all learn to respond to incentives, -ve &+ve, from the outset of life"

going to type out a paragraph on the history "zero" (which has previously been established as my favourite mathematical proof) right after this. loving it, great throwback to 2012/3. i miss uni!!!!!!!! already recommended to my boss as he walked past and asked "what's this"

took this from my boss' shelf because i love mathematical proofs and equations.. and also because i saw "super humans" when i flipped through it. thought if i could distill all (my) (complex) emotions into discrete simple elements i can control n conquer them n finally achieve my robot dreams. unforch this book isn't turning out how i expected it to be....

boss wanted me to read this instead of homo deus so here i am. hope to finish tomorrow so i can pass to peter

i like how he talks abt how everything is fake/ is intersubjective stories we tell ourselves- god is not real, corporations are not real, religions and spiritual (journeys) are very different: one demands order/is basically a DEAL shaping your behaviour, the other one challenges it. very strong statements & ideas broken down into reasonable bite-sized explanations that somehow makes them convincing

trying to finish it this weekend when i dogsit, fucking sleepy. apparently my boss doesnt remember my obsession with robots so hes paying me a high compliment by saying he thinks im the only person who can understand it. author is declarative n hilarious, creative n presumptuous but not in an off putting way.. readable. 2.5-3 stars for now

i think why my boss thinks i will like this book is because he knows of my extreme pathological laziness that manifests as an intense frenetic desire to mate with non-organic material n achieve godliness basically my robot dream home

epicurus n bentham maintained that nature gave dominion over man to two masters- pleasure n pain. its what I ALSO SAY. when reading victor e frankl's man's search for meaning n he said its pursuit of meaning that gives our life purpose i said no its pursuit of pleasure!! n in that line absence of pain!!!! yes i found my true fathers

love it so relevant hope i finish this weekend

easy read but idk.. giving me sum feelins. mortal saliency n existential crisis more like. probably bears multiple readings like instructions from the source that grace gave me, the kind where u can turn to any pg n it's a new story/lesson. realised its a childhood sweetheart's recommendation.. sweet. will finish it today n hopefully write a review if im not too lazy

i keep drifting off when i read this, obviously a fake intellectual. reading the last lecture now to break it up a bit

plus last words bcuz im physically unable to read any book without first flipping to the back. obviously cried all over the place which is JUST the right morning perk me up we all need!

woo i love it i think author is less provocative than kishore whom my boss LOVES. both r singapore indians from nus lky school of public policy, is it an indian thing (good political writing)

"Velázquez had not invented such effects, many would have witnessed them before him, but few had had the energy or talent to capture them and turn them into communicable experience." i found my purpose! (feeling kinda like harry in azoth where he cramped 7 yrs of potions in 5 mths through sheer bullheadedness n willpower....) me is bluffing my way thru this too

ive seen this in book stores. wouldn't normally buy poetry (siken was a coerced present from my wife for my 19th(?) bd) anyway this too is a gift! for my 27th:) i think gifter only picked it as a gag gift but i love it for the principle of it

reading so slowly nowadays:( fighting a sinus infection and accidentally fell back into my drarry wormhole the last two weekends so no books! will i ever love anything as i have loved drarry for the past 16 years (starting from Eclipse!! memorable - ok i just googled the author and as it turns out they write STAR TREK as well but ship mckirk UGH WHY)

wanted to finish this before this evening's fireside chat with author but unfortunately my slowass is unwilling to cooperate.. anyway. it's quite good or perhaps j very timely cuz ppl ard me have been talking abt Purpose/ following ur bliss