vibes mechanic, social process designer, breadcrumb dropper
š Joined: 6/14/2011
šļø Archived: 9/20/2024
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Richard D. Bartlett@RichDecibels
my favourite people have a near pathological aversion to bullshit. they'd rather burn every bridge, become unemployable, divorce their family, destroy their reputation rather than participate in socially convenient delusion
maybe you're lonely because you're fundamentally broken or maybe it's because we spent the last 70 years dismantling social structures that took centuries to develop and we haven't replaced them with anything yet
I made a dumb joke and she laughed like this spilling all that beauty into the room like copper coins dropped from a pocket and for the thousandth time I thought let's never stop doing this https://t.co/fmVHjCZdTi
ohhhhhh! if you learned early on āwhen I flow thru life intuitively I frequently get sanctioned, humiliated or ostracisedā then it would be an adaptive choice to retreat into analytical modes of relating to others aka ācannot vibeā
America probably solves climate change the same way it won WWII: showing up inexplicably late, then finally retooling its entire industrial capacity for total annihilation and unleashing potentially apocalyptic tech in the process
if you, a girl, live in a house with a boy and you want him to tidy up more: donāt teach him how to build a boat, teach him a love of the sea. he lacks your aesthetic sensitivity, and you can patch that hole without risking condescension. train his pleasure receptors
oh shit what if religions evolved to be a single source of truth that can be understood literally by the naive and metaphorically by the esoteric and therefore create solidarity across a great diversity of perspectives
allow me to indulge for a second about one beautiful word in the tv show The Bear: "heard"
"heard" is used by kitchen workers to improve coordination. it's like "message received". reduces miscommunication.
- "burger and fries for table 7"
- "heard!"
but in the show they exapt it, out of the kitchen and into their interpersonal relationships. I share something heavy and you say "heard"
"heard." period. no ritualised performance of empathic listening. no defensiveness. no advice. just a decisive "heard"
it's solid af
lol when they said "you are the company you keep" I thought they meant "the people you hang out with have a big influence on you" not "your companions literally set the limits of who you can become"
as a teenager you look at your parents world like, "you guys are idiots. the government is dumb. the economy is dumb. jobs are so dumb"
as an adult you learn that teenage impulse was mostly true, but you just underestimated how hard it is to make any improvements on that system
@mechanical_monk when Nati & I do this it means "hi, welcome to a shared experience of the present moment, you're present, I'm present, and we're mutually aware of each other being present"
it acknowledges that we just crossed a threshold into intimacy
seems like 80% of everyday creepy male behaviour mostly boils down to vibe blindness, making a pass at someone you're attracted to after drastically misreading (or not even attempting to read!) how she might be thinking or feeling in that moment. skill issue honestly
@OneEyedAlpaca I met a client once and immediately had the most intense crush of my life, like tripping high on drugs, ready to blow my life away on a whim, called my homie to ask for advice and it went something like this... that was the last time I had a relationship-threatening crush
I drew this diagram to illustrate a lot of related insights about agency, hosting, community-building, collaborative leadership & social change
come with me now, the thread is long and full of bangers⦠https://t.co/hX3lV9xylT
if you take a bunch of those people and say āhere is a space which is much more tolerant of divergent social behaviour, you are less likely to be punished for being yourself intuitivelyā they can rapidly discover things like āholy shit I can vibeā and āI am loved & loveableā
starting to think it might be extremely counterproductive to build a model of the self and of psychological healing on a foundation of "all the ways my parents let me down"
hypothetically speaking if your parents massively failed to meet your emotional needs growing up it would be a pretty smart strategy to transfer your family loyalty to a supernatural parent in the sky who never dies and always cares for you
there's this pop therapy trope where people discover "I was already Enough!" as if simply existing makes you worthy of love. do people actually believe this? I find it so hollow and unconvincing
ok not to sound dramatic but I used to be kinda dumb and now I'm smarter than like 80% of people and I know when & how it happened & I think the same method would work for most people
I am learning that sometimes when people say "I'm intimidated by you" they mean "I think highly of you and I'm nervous about making a good impression" instead of "you are acting in an intimidating way and should be different" š¤Æ
there's an emotional profile I've seen numerous people navigate but never adequately named, the unbelievably painful hangover that comes after a particular kind of peak experience:
1. lonely dissociated nerd has no life satisfaction, no feelings, no great friends, not engaged at work, lives in a constant state of shutdown for self-protection
2. by some luck they wander into a festival, burn, vibecamp, retreat etc, have the feeling of "I have found my tribe" for the first time in their adult life. extremely high peak experience, re-enchanted with the world, feels that anything is possible
3. returning to everyday life, they soon realise they're incapable of creating the changes required to sustain those good feelings. now they're confronted with the same sorrow & loneliness they've dealt with for years but now WITHOUT the protective forcefield of dissociation
4. extremely bitter brutal agonising dark night of the soul
5.... if that doesn't kill them, then after months or years of trial and error they land on an upward spiral, gradually reorienting their life towards meaningful work, belonging, openness, care for self and others etc, eventually they mature into an exceptionally kind and caring community pillar
image an alien culture with a strict taboo on sincerity so if you wanted to signal intimacy you had to deliver a sick burn precisely calibrated to be painful enough to let your friend know you know them well but not so much to make them hate you wouldnt that be weird
interesting to think about major quality of life improvements. surprising list, like:
- loving wife
- meaningful work
- quit gluten
- psychedelics
- noise cancelling headphones
- good friends
whatās yours
here, have a mass produced microtargeted identity, here's 100,000 people with the exact same values, beliefs, triggers and psychological baggage as you. yummy yummy why don't you enjoy this cozy monocrop community why are you still feeling isolated??
spoiler alert: the feeling of cringe does not originate in you, it arises in the tribal body. cringe is the tribal policeman threatening punishment if you don't realign your behaviour with the expectations of the tribe
Iāve been intensely depressed the last couple weeks. feels like the clouds are parting for a second so I want to write about it, see if that helps shake it off. hiding seems to be a key part of the depressive mechanism
if you're going to advocate for unguarded open-hearted intimate contact with the present moment please let me know you also understand the survival value of living with guards up, dissociated, tightly controlled by the grip of self discipline
the "heroic dose" is misnamed. sobriety is the heroic choice. visit the present moment without armor, unmediated, in direct contact with your desire & pain. writhe under the touch of the animal currents of aliveness. meet reality without a prophylactic.
just published a newsletter that's been 6 months in the making: a big hot list of web3 people & projects with real social impact potential
if you're into coops, self-managing orgs, or mutual aid then I think it's time to pay attention to web3
https://t.co/lsqLOwBKDq
speaking as a specialist in non hierarchical organising, it is very confusing to discover in me a growing respect for hierarchy and understanding of the role it plays in nearly all groups of people
a recipe for changing yourself:
(dont use this for brainwashing/cults ok)
many of the traits you perceive to be "your personality" or "your limitations" are not "inside of you" they are your relation to specific social norms
norms are enforced by shame
shame is anticipation of social sanction
appreciation is anti-shame medicine
norms are context dependent
social contexts are malleable
we can make a social context where you can break the norm you usually strive to uphold, and instead of being shamed, you are appreciated precisely for that behaviour
after just a couple of tries, if we invalidate your hypothesis that you will be punished if you break the norm, you become highly malleable
I feel like many more people could benefit from developing awesome spreadsheet skills, but most people don't know what they're good for
so I'm going to document some of the nice things I do in Google Sheets in case anyone wants to pick up some tips
well let us celebrate we live in a golden age of sculpture! every store filled to the brim with realistic sculptures that look almost exactly like a functional object
groups have extraordinary capacity for coordination with entirely implicit norms, but as soon as you start adding explicit structure, thereās a mental bug that will activate in some people where they suddenly find ambiguity 100% intolerable and demand everything be 100% defined
if you're grappling with a problem, and you seem to get stuck when you're trying to deal with it on your own, and you only make progress when you have the right people around, instead of beating yourself up about this,, have you considered,,, you may be a mammal
listen, this is not a call to retvrn. 1950s USA had stable social structures, but it was a fragile stability built on subjugation & marginalisation, belonging built on sameness
we need to build new structures for belonging that are not predicated on conformity
cycling thru Berlin today, beautiful day, I notice myself surreptitiously checking out the babes and I think, why am I being subtle? where did I learn I should pretend to not be admiring babes when babes are out in such numbers? so I switched my vibe, stopped hiding, allowed myself to be seen looking and within moments I found myself making contact with people, nothing major, just friendly eye contact and smiles, like hey dude I see you looking and it's fine, it's good, I like it. I felt like the street switched from private to public. like I switched from northern europe to southern europe norms in an instant and suddenly the social world opened up as much more friendly, much more inviting, much less private than I had been treating it. all this is to say I wonder how much loneliness and social frustration could be resolved just by changing how you look. I dunno, maybe I just like looking at babes š¤
I can't keep up with all the comments but I offer you all fistbumps and/or forehead kisses
if you're in a depressive period I hope you find some inspiration in one of these comments
I'm going to curate a thread of my favourite educators on youtube
probably mostly various types of engineering, music, science & DIY stuff
everyone on this list produces exceptional material
if I'm honest it's pretty hard to distinguish my desire to sleep with someone I'm attracted to from my desire to establish my place in the pecking order
years ago my friend told me about Ring Theory, it helped me to be better at taking care of people in crisis
I've never heard it discussed since then, so I'll write up my understanding here bc I think it could be useful
increasingly trippy instructions for a meditation on the self...
Seeing Like a Superorganism
On the surface, @micro_solid is a community-building framework, an engineerās attempt to invent a cure for loneliness. But beneath the waterline, there's a deeper project.
If Iām honest, I am trying to change how you think about your self.
I want you to see your self as a superorganism. And I want you to see the superorganisms that you are part of. I want the perceived boundaries of your self to leak.
I want you to see how your agency is not a tidy black box contained inside the envelope of your skin, but distributed in a network, intra-penetrating with other people. I want you to feel the incorporeal beings steering your choices, and I want you to learn that you can steer their choices too.
Itās common knowledge that a person is made of organs, organs are made of tissues, tissues made of cells, cells made of molecules, right? The simple individualistic humanist frame treats the person as the seat of agency, the atomic unit of moral responsibility and choice-making.
I want you to see the limits of this model. Agency exists at micro- and macro-scales, the āpersonā is just one step on the ladder.
To my knowledge, nobody argues this better than developmental biologist Michael Levin.
Levinās āmulti-scale competency architectureā describes the problem-solving competencies at each layer of the biological system, from cells to tissues to organs. Each layer is uniquely adapted to solving problems within its domain. Your brain is not a micromanaging boss directing the chemical interactions of each cell in your body; each layer is mostly self-managing and able to solve novel challenges. You are not born with a blueprint documenting all the paths of your circulatory system: your blood vessels have goals and creativity and they figure it out for themselves.
Just as a we can see the distinct layers of ācellā, ātissueā and āorganā at the micro-scales, I want you to see the distinct layers at the macro-scale. I want you to see that a group of 5 people is a distinct superorganism with distinct competencies. A group of 150 people is another species of superorganism, it can do other things.
You may be thinking to yourself, what the fuck are you talking about Rich? I canāt explain it, you have to see for yourself. Maybe I can give you some instructions to help you see like a superorganism.
People-Watching Games
Sit for a coffee. Notice the people walking across the plaza. Maybe thereās 100 people, but theyāre clustered into 20 small groups. Imagine a physical envelope around each cluster (include their wheelchairs, dogs, kids etc). Watch the invisible springs holding the cluster together. Feel the surface tension of the bubble. Notice that each bubble maintains its own integrity and avoids crossing into the territory of every other cluster. They slide around each other like amoebae. Occasionally you get lucky and two bubbles combine, forming a bigger, slower, louder unit.
Can you see it? Can you see the stretchy-springy-flexy macrobeings walking-riding-rolling through the square, each person a limb?
Feeling the spirit of the group
In a room with 20 people, how does the group change when you drink a strong coffee? Notice how a laugh propagates across the superorganism. Notice how each of its limbs trips on the same awkward piece of furniture in the hallway.
How does it react to changes in music style and volume? What is the impact of different lighting levels? How does the group spirit change when you have a rough oval of 20 seats, or 5 clusters of 4? How does the group spirit react to empty space? to soft textures? to aromas?
Cultivating scale-sensitivity
Look for patterns: what is the biggest group that can hold a single conversation, with everyone engaged, and no formal structure, no facilitator, agenda, whiteboard? Is it bigger than 3? smaller than 10? How big is it?
How does a festival of 3000 feel different from 30,000? Are the strangers equally anonymous at each scale? How big is your mental address book? How many individuals can you recognise? How many tribes?
Questions for extra credit
Once you know how to see a group as a singular macrobeing, you can notice groups of groups in the same way. Fractal insight generator go brrrrrrrr. How many groups of groups did you see in the plaza?
What's a good name for the group-of-group-of-group-of-groups that contains all beings?
Can you stretch the time domain? Can you learn to see a family as one coherent creature persisting over centuries, a single spirit installed temporarily in individuals?
Can you see it?
you get stuck in inaction when you're trying to satisfy multiple competing values simultaneously
I've been practicing a specific move to get people unstuck in this situation...
I think a lot of nerd problems are caused by us trying to use our 100,000 year old human symbolic reasoning brain to do tasks that are better suited to our 220,000,000 year old mammal intuitive vibing brain
Twitter Is A Dating App For Making Friends
here's some ideas about how to have fun on twitter dot com
(this is the thread I will send to people on their first day here)
@jim_rutt hyper tolerant, brainy but not strictly materialist, autist adjacent, hobby psychologist/psychonauts, extremely online sweethearts who decided that twitter is actually a great place to make friends
today Iām thinking about āHow To Be a Vibe Mechanicā - a practical guide to making awesome groups
I want to name what does an excellent host/facilitator/group process designer is paying attention to
first thoughts...
my whole shtick: your behaviour is constrained to a surprising degree by the people around you so if you wanna change you mostly have to change who you're spending time with (or how)
pessimists be like boo hoo I'm scared of the future after plugging myself into depressing news 24 hours a day waaaah I'm a giant baby who amputated my own sense of local agency for some reason why did capitalism do this nooooooo ššš
are NPCs real?
when I meet someone new and I ask "what you been up to lately?" and there answer is incredibly dull I am confused, are they having a dull life, or do they lack practice in narrating their inner experience, or is it just a relational mismatch between us
if you're trying to practice new relational skills but you're surrounded by immature people you'll keep getting negative feedback even if you're doing all the right things
OK so firstly you don't need to feel ashamed about your phone addiction. a major share of the world's intellectual, computational and financial resources are dedicated to tugging on your brainstem. your screen fixation is not a moral failing...
What if 'OK Boomer' is not just a funny meme but a glimpse into the collective rage and terror of having so few worthy elders at a time of unprecedented demands on our civilisation.
How are we supposed to grow out of this mess without role models we can respect?
sure sex is cool but have you ever booted up all the motivation and mental context for a complex project and kept it booted up for days without interruption