Waiting for Margot: Ep. 10 "Monopoly"

Here is the tenth episode of Waiting for Margot, "Monopoly".

Synopsis:

A board game draws out a board game-loving stranger, from the land of church.

Waiting for Margot: Ep. 7 "Returning"

Here is the seventh episode of Waiting for Margot, "Returning".

Synopsis:

The three of you return from camping in the camp shuttle, talking to strangers as you go.

Waiting for Margot: Ep. 9 "Selling"

Here is the ninth episode of Waiting for Margot, "Selling".

Synopsis:

A chance encounter with an ex-philosopher drives you and Brian to consider the meaning of "realistic".

Waiting for Margot: Ep. 8 "Shopping"

Here is the eighth episode of Waiting for Margot, "Shopping".

Synopsis:

The three of you deal with apathy and then you and Julia go shopping at a thrift store.

Waiting for Margot: Ep. 6 "Camping"

Here is the sixth episode of Waiting for Margot, "Camping".

Synopsis:

You go to ride a bus to nowhere, and happen to meet someone on her own journey...

Waiting for Margot: Ep. 5 "Angela"

Here is the fifth episode of Waiting for Margot, "Angela".

Synopsis:

You go to ride a bus to nowhere, and happen to meet someone on her own journey...

Waiting for Margot: Ep. 4 "Brian"

Here is the fourth episode of Waiting for Margot, "Brian".

Synopsis:

A regular rainy day at the cafe, until something happens on earth...

Waiting for Margot: Ep. 3 "Robert"

Here is the third episode of Waiting for Margot, "Robert".

Synopsis:

You (Beth) spend the day with Robert, your ex, running away from Death the Inevitable at Anderson Reservoir.

Waiting for Margot: Ep. 2 "Jackson"

Here is the second episode of Waiting for Margot, "Jackson".

Synopsis:

Julia is on a first date with Jackson. Meaning and human happiness react -- chemistry. A different element cuts in.

Waiting for Margot: Introduction, Ep. 1 "Pilot"

In 2019, I wrote a kind of sitcom script called Waiting for Margot. It has taken me all this time to edit it and decide to release it. At first it was ahead of its time in my life, but now it's somewhat a thing of the past, something to look back at.

It touches on many of the issues of this blog and in this year in which I don't have many blog posts to offer, this can be somewhat like a continuation of this blog.

The series overall (in script form) can be followed at 10v24.net/margot.

The first episode, released today, is "Pilot", the pilot episode.

Synopsis:

You (Beth) meet someone named Julia whom you may or may not already know, at your favorite cafe, Mitzi's. Your friend Brian appears and reveals that he is waiting for Margot.

2022 to 2023

Review of 2022:

In the first few months of 2022, I wrote some posts related to the Bible commentary project I have wanted to work on (which I did work on toward the end of 2021). Starting in March and April, I moved toward the main work of the year, which was a set of book reviews, and other posts, related to culture, family, nationhood, politics, the "exilic-familial", etc. I finished all that at the end of September. Then, I didn't do much writing for the rest of the year. I was trying to figure out what to do next. I did restart, but then stopped again, the Bible commentary project. I also wrote some movie reviews, but stopped doing that.

I found myself somewhat losing interest in effective altruism. Maybe wanting to get some distance after 10 years under the influence of it, and about 2.5 years of more intensive study of it. Also the big publicity push for What We Owe the Future made me feel like EA's real work was coming to a close (being deeply in touch with reality however it could turn out to be) and it was headed toward cashing in its chips. I don't think EA will miss my occasional posts on the EA Forum, so I don't feel committed to them. I never felt like I really belonged (or really didn't belong) to the EA movement, but it seems like I could turn my attention elsewhere since there isn't definitely a place for me in it. Perhaps in the future things will change and it might make sense for me to pay attention to them more.

I moved toward and away from Twitter during 2022, and got very close to deleting my account, but I want to leave up my old tweets, especially those related to Establishedness and Loving God.

Comparison of expectations with reality

I predicted that I would keep working on the cross book, MSLN book, and Bible commentary, and I did not do so very much. I predicted that I would not write blog posts, but that I did.

I predicted that I wouldn't interact with the Christian humanists much, and that proved true. I mentioned making contact with EACH (Effective Altruism for Christians) and said that I might interact with them in 2022, but I mostly didn't.

I had a mixed record in the quality of my predictions. These predictions don't matter too much, practically speaking, but it is interesting to ask why I was correct and incorrect in the way I was.

Possibly I was able to predict my (non-)experience with the Christian humanists because a) I had no real connection with any person in the scene and b) I did not really love the scene. If you decide to ignore something, and you succeed, then you forget about it unless something outside you (your desires, memories, mental ties; or someone else drawing you in) brings it back to your attention. If I were asked about a) and b), could I have understood at the time last year that those obtained, or could that only be seen in hindsight? I'm not sure, but I think it's possible I would have seen those things if I had thought to ask.

In that case, maybe in the future, if I am evaluating some social element of my life, I can predict that if a) I am not really into it deeply and b) I have no real social tie with anyone in it, I will probably not think about it and won't get back into it if I choose to ignore it. However, it's always possible that like in the case of the Christian humanists, maybe I would have gotten really interested in, let's say, the topic of Christianity and politics, and then found my way back to the scene -- so I could still find my way back even if a) and b) hold. But I guess if they do hold, then it's possible I will forget about the social element in question, and by default I will avoid it for some time just because of my decision to ignore it. But if they don't hold, then I probably shouldn't assume I'll stay away.

Maybe this is a useful thought to come out of studying past predictions? Maybe somewhat interesting.

I failed in predicting about what kind of writing I would do (book vs. blog). I think I was anchoring too much to how I felt at the time and what I was working on at the time. Should I learn from this not to do that? I think then I might not trust my instincts as much. I might stop sensing my intuitions in the first place, since I would know that they weren't that reliable in the long run.

A connection to the intuitive side of me is valuable, and I think worth protecting at some cost. So maybe as a trade-off, I will be somewhat bad at predicting my future, so that I can live in my current moment fully. I think I'm more likely to get social pressure toward representing myself and my future correctly. But I sometimes think that our society is too wise and does not care enough, and doesn't see with its own two eyes. It corrects itself toward accurate predictions rather than toward caring about what really matters. (Maybe there is a way to correct society toward caring?)

Why should I engage in predictions about my life? Maybe to get better at predicting, or update my model of the world? I think the impulse for me is more (in this moment) to have something to say about the future. Not to control it, as a plan or promise might, but just to relate to it. I guess I could list my hopes for the coming year instead of, or in addition to, my predictions. But hopes are heavy and loaded things. A prediction, especially one which is decorative rather than functional, is a lighter thing, simply a way to say words, have a somewhat casual relationship with the future.

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In terms of what was retrospectively surprising, the most notable thing to me was my new interest in Indonesia. I had no idea that I would become interested in it at the beginning of the year, and it has been a fairly significant interest.

Preview of 2023

In 2023, I can think of a few possible things to work on.

Songwriting: I wrote a lot of songs, some with words, over the past 2.5 years, as a side project or hobby, and am close to recording a demo of an album (or it may well be the final version). I have a lot more material I could finish writing and recording, and I think it likely enough that I will continue to have new ideas.

Similarly with poetry.

I will probably write some blog posts, occasionally.

I hope to release an old book I've alluded to here on the blog.

You Don't Have to Profit if You Don't Want To

Let's say you have a single-family house with extra space on your lot. You could build another little house on your property and rent to some tenants. In San Diego, people are doing this. The market rate for an apartment is high. You could make money this way.

But what if you don't want to make money? You don't have to make money if you don't want to. At least, you don't have to make money over what it takes to make it sustainable for you to provide this housing.

If you want this housing to pay for itself, it should provide for its own construction costs. It could take you a decade to pay off the construction costs, renting at market rate. But after that, it's like if you've paid off your mortgage on your house. You just have to pay property tax, maintenance, and utilities.

Dealing with tenants is sometimes stressful, and maybe you have to price that in for it to be sustainable for you to provide this housing.

And there might be other factors to consider that I'm not aware of, and I guess in some cases they may force you to rent at market price, or not rent at all.

But once you take care of all the factors you have to, in order to sustainably rent your property, you can charge as little additional as you want. So you don't have to profit if you don't want to. You can just pay yourself for your costs and your work.

"Aletheism" and "Omnism" as alternatives to "Altruism"

This is something I first posted to the Effective Altruism Forum.

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(I wrote this before the FTX scandal, so it was not intended as part of the following discourse.)

I don't think it makes sense to replace the word "altruism" in the name of the "effective altruism" movement, but I can think of a couple of reframings of "what it is people who call themselves 'altruists' tend to be and be pursuing" which might be interesting or even useful to think about. These reframings can be discussed through the thought experiment of "what other words could be used besides 'altruism'?".

Omnism

"Altruism" could be seen as "an ethical orientation toward beings other than yourself". (Caring about other beings, acting for the sake of other beings, etc.) If we want an alternative to "altruism" but still want our ethical orientation to end up including beings other than ourselves, we can use the term "omnism", for "an ethical orientation toward all, or the whole of, morally significant beings". ("Omnism" from "omni", meaning "all".)

One potentially useful difference between "omnism" and "altruism" is that if you care about all morally significant beings, you care about yourself, because you are a morally significant being. This is something an "other-oriented" altruist might miss.

Another potentially useful difference is that omnists might remember more often to think not of specific small-scale interventions with certain "others", but also of collectives, systems, or the overall collective or system (the whole). I can see why a small-scale mindset is practically useful, but it could be good to bias yourself against that to some extent.

If I adopt the identity of omnism instead of altruism, I feel balanced and interrelated, plus some hard-to-express feeling from how the word "holism" or "holistic" is loaded in our culture or in my personal cultural experience.

Aletheism

Altruism and omnism are both about an orientation toward well-being, and potentially "engineering reality" to produce well-being. (Maybe that could be called "welfarism"? (Maybe not the best term).)

"Aletheism", by contrast, could be seen as "an ethical orientation toward the truth, knowing it and speaking it". ("Aletheism" from "aletheia", meaning "truth"[1].) But, this can include the goals of altruism/omnism if we understand that to really understand moral truths, we must act. For instance, if you really understand that something should not be, you must act against it if you can. That which should not be inherently calls out to be changed into that which should be.

One potentially useful difference between "aletheism" and what I guess could be called "welfarism" is that aletheists are biased against manipulation, misrepresentation, self-delusion and premature epistemic optimization.

When I try on the "aletheist" identity instead of the "altruist", I feel a clarity, honesty, and lack of controllingness, as well as perhaps some hard-to-express feeling from how the word "truth" is loaded in our culture, or in my personal cultural experience. As an aletheist, I follow reality without an agenda, and because moral truth is part of reality, I try to do the right thing. (That may make aletheism sound like a clear winner over "welfarism", but maybe "welfarism" is more "muscular", competitive, and effective, at least in the short-term. My preference/bias is with aletheism, for what it's worth.)

[1] I chose this term ["aletheism"] not with ancient Greek or Heideggerian resonances in mind, but because it's the modern Greek for "truth" according to https://translate.google.com/?sl=en&tl=el&text=truth&op=translate