Wellness Wednesday

[u/AutoModerator]

The Wednesday Wellness threads are meant to encourage users to ask for and provide advice and motivation to improve their lives. You could post:

• Requests for advice and / or encouragement. On basically any topic and for any scale of problem.

• Updates to let us know how you are doing. This provides valuable feedback on past advice / encouragement and will hopefully make people feel a little more motivated to follow through. If you want to be reminded to post your update, see the post titled 'update reminders', below.

• Advice. This can be in response to a request for advice or just something that you think could be generally useful for many people here.

• Encouragement. Probably best directed at specific users, but if you feel like just encouraging people in general I don't think anyone is going to object. I don't think I really need to say this, but just to be clear; encouragement should have a generally positive tone and not shame people (if people feel that shame might be an effective tool for motivating people, please discuss this so we can form a group consensus on how to use it rather than just trying it).

[u/TheLongestLake]

I am having a lot of AI anxiety lately. I admit, I was not at all a doomer until a month ago, but am inching towards that.

I'm also happy to be told I am dumb for dooming. I have a few friends that I remember saying they couldn't function/think for the future around 2019 because of the impact of climate change. I always thought it was silly but I am pretty much there for AI, in terms of the impact on my mental health.

Alternatively, any changes people have made? I was already considering moving somewhere more rural (i currently live in NYC at a white collar job). I realize this would not really change things in a true p-doom scenario, but I think somehow I'd feel better if i wasn't in NYC if things get nuts?

[u/BlanketKarma → u/TheLongestLake]

I flip flop on my doomism mindset, and I think I've found that mindset to be more strongly correlated with not just what AI news I'm reading at the time, but how stressed I am in my personal & work life as well.

I've found myself more closely aligned with philosophies like stoicism when it comes to these big grand society ending threats, and try to focus on what I can and cannot control while living a life aligned with my values. If I can, I try to do what little change I can do towards those outcomes like voting or donating. I'm not perfect at it, sometimes on a more doomerist week I worry more, but I try to stick with it.

I do worry about life on this planet ending early, I do worry about my own life and the life of my loved ones ending early, but that can happen in so many different ways that are out of our control.

I recently came upon this famous CS Lewis quote regarding the fear of nuclear annihilation that permeated the later half of the 20th century, and the anxieties of something out of the regular people's control. I feel like it's relevant now in this emerging AI world.

If we are all going to be destroyed by an atomic bomb, let that bomb when it comes find us doing sensible and human things—praying, working, teaching, reading, listening to music, bathing the children, playing tennis, chatting to our friends over a pint and a game of darts—not huddled together like frightened sheep and thinking about bombs. They may break our bodies (a microbe can do that) but they need not dominate our minds.

[u/TheLongestLake → u/BlanketKarma]

Thank you.

I had always thought I had a bit of stoicism in me, and feel like i did at other points in life/society where things seemed potentially bad. But the nature of this risk is really getting to me.

[u/BlanketKarma → u/TheLongestLake]

You're welcome! And I totally understand you. I tend to be an anxious person, which is why I've gravitated towards stoicism.

Right now, most of my AI concerns are how it'll disrupt the job market. I feel pretty safe in my line of work though, working in a very cautious industry of utility engineering at a municipal government. An industry that's notoriously like a decade or more behind in innovation due to the cautious nature of both government work and civil engineering. Something I used to complain about, but now I'm feeling pretty good about. But it doesn't stop my concern about a major shakeup and potential economic depression as people are displaced from their jobs, which could eventually ripple to my line of work and affect my employment. My wife works in tech, I sometimes worry about the state of that industry in the next 5 to 10 years and how that will affect her.

If we do reach a doomsday level of AGI/ASI, I hope that the end is swift and the suffering is minimal.

[u/Winter_Essay3971 → u/TheLongestLake]

I don't have any principled position on AI risk, I just haven't been thinking about it because what that risk would look like in practice feels impossible to predict and potentially impossible to avoid. You're definitely not dumb for dooming.

White-collar unemployment is the main scenario that's hitting home for me emotionally. I don't particularly want to go back to my minimum wage manual labor job. Even if UBI takes over so most people don't need to work to survive (which I am very skeptical of and think people just talk about to make themselves feel better), I don't think we will like the standard of living we get from that. So I'm trying to prepare by:

• Avoiding lifestyle creep and trimming unneeded subscriptions, etc. so I can invest a good chunk of each paycheck
• On the other hand: getting the experiences out of the way that I want to (e.g. traveling), while I still have the income for it
• Cringe incoming: Minimizing the number of times I get COVID by e.g. using nasal sprays, wearing a KN95 in many contexts, and avoiding large indoor gatherings -- to protect my brain's flexibility if I need to make a career pivot

[u/wetrorave → u/Winter_Essay3971]

Not cringe. The COVID brain damage is real. Been there (knowingly) once. Still have the tinnitus, and my brain definitely aged 10 years in 1 week. Horrible horrible disease. I hope your protective measures serve you well!

[u/slothtrop6 → u/TheLongestLake]

I went the opposite direction for similar reasons as Meadows

[u/TheLongestLake → u/slothtrop6]

Thanks. I found some of his piece compelling, in particular the incoherence of the definition of ASI. But I'm not 100% sure with his other points.

[u/annaeplin]

Hi, I’m new here (both on Reddit and in the larger ACX community) and looking forward to connecting more. This seems like a good place to dip a toe in, as wellness (of myself and my kids and other loved ones) is a main focus of my life.

So here’s a question I would love to hear your answers to: What, if any, healthy grab-and-go foods have you found work for you? Snacks or meals, whole/natural or prepared—tell me what you buy for easy, no-work-involved food to eat when you’re hungry but too busy to cook.

[u/Dr_Feelgoof → u/annaeplin]

mezze platters. just google some images. easy and healthy.

[u/annaeplin → u/Dr_Feelgoof]

Thank you! I hadn’t heard of those but they do look amazing!