All you need to know about hitting the gym

Hopefully this will make most fitness videos on Youtube seem a bit redundant. Just don’t expect any sources, as we want to keep this article as slim as possible.

Before beginning your gym journey we need to make sure to know why we train the way we train and assemble our workout accordingly.

So, your body consists of muscles that push things away from you and muscles that pull things towards you.

Your chest muscles are working heavily when pushing somebody away from you, while your back muscles are doing most of the work, when you pulling on a rope for example.
As our body is composed to do both things, we want to train our body accordingly.

Every muscle group should be used.

In the most basic form this looks like this:

-Squat/Leg Press (Pushing Leg movement)
-Deadlifts (Pulling Leg movement)
-Benchpress/Dips (Pressing Upper body movement)
-(Machine)Row (Pulling Upper body movement)
-Shoulder Press/Incline Benchpress (Pressing upper body movement)
-Pull Up (Pulling upper body movement)
+ some accessory work like triceps, biceps, calves, core exercises etc.

This plan already covers 90% of your body.

Sticking to this plan with some variations already is a nice idea.
If you can’t perform a certain exercise due to injury or similar, try to find an alternative!

Got pain when doing benchpress? Try dips maybe!

But before you start your journey, with a plan like this it is a good idea to start with plan, that is maybe not as complete, yet safer for the beginning.

Since many compound movements such as the squat or the deadlift can be difficult to learn.

And since most people struggle over the even more basic things it is often better to start with a training, which is more machine focused and which helps you to build a basic foundation muscle and coordination wise.

A standard regimen could look like this:

-Leg press

-Machine bench press

-Machine Rows

-Dumbbell Military Press (sitting)

-Machine Pull downs

-Hyperextensions

The most basic questions should be answered below:

How many sets, how fast and how often?
There are many different opinions on these topics. Some prefer one set, others many more.
But for beginners it’s usually good to perform 2-3 sets per exercise with 8-12 repetitions.
If you can do more than 12 repetitions, increase the weight.

How much pause in between sets?

60-120 seconds of pause is a good estimate, you might want to increase that to 180 seconds for the squat or the deadlift, since they are extremely exhausting.

The time used for each repetition is called cadence and often is written out like this:
1-1-1, which means 1 second for the positive and 1 second for the static and 1 second for the negative part of the movement.

In our case we want to do something like 2-1-2.
This helps a lot for getting a good mind muscle connection, meaning a good feel for the exercise performed.

How often should we train?
Again, a lot of different opinions, yet it seems common consensus, that if your muscles are still sore, you should pause.

How often should we pause?

Breaks in between a workout cycle can help tremendously. Try to skip weight training for a whole week for every 8-12 weeks of training. This helps to fully recover and avoid overtraining.

This boils down to train every muscle 1-3 times per week.
So doing a full body workout could theoretically be done 3 times a week, although in practice we will end up with something like 2 times per week.

Shouldn't I be doing some Push/Pull/Legs etc. Splits, why bother with whole body workouts?

In the first 12 months (rough estimate) it is certainly not a bad idea to stick to the basics and keep a more whole body approach. After a while you can try to use different systems as well and experiment a bit, although for 90-95% a whole body workout might be one of the best solutions.

But (insert famous bodybuilder here) says I should do A, B and C to accomplish my goals!

Not a question but keep in mind, you are not a bodybuilder on a lot of performance enhancing drugs and you as such you have to approach things differently.

Stick to the basics and stay consistent at what you do. Also don't worry about the 1% of extra performance you might get for additional 25 minutes of work, when you are reading this, you are probably not a world class athlete that should worry about such things.

Your workouts should be fun and compatible with your lifestyle, there are more important things than a sweaty gym after all.

Btw, here are some examples of different workout plans:

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Alternating workout:

Day A:

-Squats 3 sets á 6-8 reps

-Barbell Rows  3 sets á 8-12 reps

-Benchpress 3 sets á 8-12 reps

-Pull Ups 3 sets á 8-12 reps

-Shoulder Press (Dumbell)3 sets á 8-12 reps

-Bicep curls 3 sets á 8-12 reps

-Planks 3 sets á 8-12 reps

Day B:

-Deadlift 3 sets á 6-10 reps

-Calve Raises 3 sets á 8-12 reps

-Incline Benchpress 3 sets á 8-12 reps

-Pull Up 3 sets á 8-12 reps

-Dips 3 sets á 8-12 reps

-Machine Rows 3 sets á 8-12 reps

-Tricep kickbacks 3 sets á 8-12 reps

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Very basic workout:

-Leg press 3 sets á 8-12 reps

-Machine Rows 3 sets á 8-12 reps

-Push-Ups 3 sets á 10-15 reps

-Pull down machine 3 sets á 8-12 reps

-Shoulder Press (Dumbell) 3 sets á 8-12 reps

-Planks 3 sets á 8-12 reps

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Push/Pull Split:

Push Day:

-Squats 4 sets á 6-8 reps

-Calve Raises 3 sets á 8-12 reps

-Benchpress 3 sets á 8-12 reps

-Shoulder Press (Dumbell)3 sets á 8-12 reps

-Triceps kickbacks 3 sets á 8-12 reps

Day Pull:

-Deadlift 4 sets á 6-10 reps

-Pull Up 3 sets á 8-12 reps

-Machine Rows 3 sets á 8-12 reps

-Biceps curls 3 sets á 8-12 reps

-Leg raises 3 sets á 8-12 reps

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Training is only half the race. The most sophisticated programs don't lead nowhere, if you aren't able to allow your body to recover. Therefore a rough sketch on what to do and what to avoid:

Nutrition:

Search for common consensus in the scientific circles when it comes to nutrition.

But often it is really about the things you avoid/you don't do that help you getting along.

Most of it is common sense but since there is a lot of misinformation around a rough guide helps a lot:

-avoid processed food

-avoid alcohol

-avoid smoking

-moderate protein intake (1 gram to 2 grams of protein per kg of body weight)

-around 1 gram of fat per kg of body weight

-prefer complex carbs dayround and fast carbs before or after being physically active

-drink 1.5 to 2.5 litres of water/tea per day

-stick to the "right" fats: like tuna, seeds, nuts, avocados 

-cut down on the "bad" fats: meat, milk products, eggs

-avoid sugars, this includes things like soda

-don't be afraid of fats, they are needed to dissolve E,D,K and A vitamins.

-vegetables are your friend

-up to three portions of fruits per day are your friend as well

-avoid heavily salted meals

Personal recommendation: Try to use food trackers like the Cronometer for a month or so, to analyze your eating style. Often it shows interesting things you would otherwise overlook, like minerals or vitamins that may fall short in your diet.

Sleep:

Get your quality sleep! For most people this means: roughly 6-9 hours.

-Don't overeat before you go to sleep!

-Don't go hungry in bed!

-Read a book in your bed instead of checking your smartphone, your brain might interpret the screen as sunlight and therefore releases hormones, which make falling asleep harder

-keep your window opened if possible, fresh air improves sleep dramatically

-get rid of your overweight as this causes things like sleep apnoe

Additional stuff:

-Good form is very important, either video record your movements with your phone or get a dedicated workout partner.

-A watch might be helpful to get the pause times right.

-A metal playlist helps a lot focusing on your training and lets you ignore the generic, annoying radio shit that's most likely running in the background of your local gym

-noting down progress can help

-blood checks once every year help you identify missing nutrients (iron, b12 and vitamin D deficiencies are quite common).

-Focus on yourself and ignore the other gym rats unless its valid advise

-Ask trainers to show you movements, which you might struggle with, you pay them after all

Post Growth Economy Party: An Attempt for a program

Post-Growth Economies are characterized by stopping economic growth or even shrinking an existing one. Here, I try to build a program that a potential political party could incorporate or build upon.

Here are various recommendations:

1. Cancellation of subsidies and tax advantages for diesel and petrol.
2. Maximum working hours limited to 30 per week with exceptions.
3. Maximum income per household or person.
4. Maximum wealth per household or person.
5. Public canteens are required to only serve vegetarian or vegan meals or, at the very least, have mandatory vegan/vegetarian days.
6. Drugs should be completely legalized and mostly produced by federal bodies within the country (shorter delivery lanes result in less CO²).
7. Product warranties must last at least 5 years.
8. The possession of SUVs is illegal unless needed for work.
9. Cancellation of fracking.
10. Cancellation of all subsidies for meat, fish, and dairy products.
11. Complete monetary CO² compensation for flights is mandatory.
12. Fission power is a bridge technology until fusion power is available.
13. Fusion power should receive more funding.
14. Increased energy taxation.
15. Largely unmanning the military force (drones are very fuel-efficient).
16. Ban on high-frequency trading.
17. Pressuring countries with large CO² excesses to reduce their emissions.
18. 5% of the GDP dedicated to CO² reduction and ecosystem protection.
19. Tax-free home modernization to reduce heating costs.
20. Severe penalties for speeding, tied to personal income.
21. Doubling the number of national holidays.
22. Holidays falling on weekends should be moved to the next working day.
23. Maximum of one gun per person.
24. Fat tax for products containing more than 50% fat.
25. Sugar tax for products containing more than 10% sugar.
26. Speed limit of 80 mph.
27. Botany, should be mandatory in schools.
28. Overhaul of the education system. Climate change, ecosystems and sustainability need to be incorporated. Education on Religions is limited to scientific facts and only a small part of political education.
    
29. Ban on web cookies.
30. Ban on push notifications (web).
31. Ban on online tracking.
    
32. Products must be 100% recyclable with exceptions.
33. 50% tax increase on alcohol and tobacco.
34. Ban on electric chairs.
35. The death penalty if applied must be CO² neutral.
36. Death penalty for certain crimes like mass murder, genocide etc.
    
37. Organic products should be tax-free.
38. A BMI of over 35 leads to a personal tax increase.
39. Ban on fireworks.
40. Car taxation is based on the power required to drive 100 km. The higher the value, the higher the tax.
41. Car sharing results in lower overall taxes for your car.
42. Caring for your parents is subsidized by the state.
43. Lower taxes for people without a motorized vehicle.
44. 5% of the national land area needs to stay protected.
    
45. The more people in a household, the lower the individual taxation.
46. Replace welfare systems with universal income.
47. 50% inheritance tax for amounts over $1,000,000.
48. Zoos aren’t allowed to keep certain species (e.g., polar bears in warm regions, SeaWorld).
49. Tax exemption of $10,000 per year.
50. Public transportation must be CO² neutral and free.
51. Companies making more than 0.5% of the national GDP must be split up.
52. Every federal or state politician must disclose their income to the public.
53. Patents and copyrights expire 10 years after the creator's death.
54. Shutdown programs for air pollution situations (e.g., driving restrictions in highly polluted cities).
55. Granting asylum for refugees caused by climate change is mandatory.
56. Legalization of medically assisted suicide.
57. Tax exemption for people without children.
58. Abortion is legal and free until at least the second month of pregnancy.
59. Public buildings must be equipped with solar collectors.
60. Public healthcare costs are tied to personal income without exceptions.
61. Strong shift towards using tax money for rail instead of roads.
    

To be continued...

Edit: amongst other things 0.1% of GDP spending for the military isn´t appropriate anymore and probably never was but thanks to Putin 2-4% of GDP spending on the military seems very reasonable and with dictators like Xi Jinping the future looks even more bleak. The sad reality is, that we won´t be able to care for our future if we are dead or living in a dictatorship.

Beware of the fitness fraud!

When browsing trough Youtube and you are at least somewhat interested in sports, chances are high you
will encounter fairly muscular people telling you how to eat/train/sleep to look like them.
At least that is the premise.

In truth they will try to sell you products and use their drugged up body in videos as a marketing tool.
Often enough people actually buy their overpriced crap, which is sad, since nothing of what is presented
by those people is of any use.

Let us dismantle the whole fitness influence hustle then:

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Misconception #1: They look good, so they know a lot about the sport!

Truth: Most fitness influencers use performance enhancing drugs to look like that.
If they admit taking drugs they downplay the role of steroids dramatically. In fact people who just use modest amounts of testosterone will outperform any natural athlete with little to no training at all.
https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/nejm199607043350101

Therefore, those influencers don’t even have to have great knowledge nor skill to achieve their looks.
Most are just ruthless/dumb enough to jump on gear.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Misconception #2: But their workout/meal plans are said to be good.

Truth: When it comes to workout schedules you can’t really mess things up, if you know the basics.
A good workout plan always uses these routines with some slight variations:

SquatLeg Press (Pushing Leg movement)
Deadlifts (Pulling Leg movement)
Benchpress/Dips (Pressing Upper body movement)
Row (Pulling Upper body movement)
Shoulder Press/Incline Benchpress (Pressing upper body movement)
Pull Up (Pulling upper body movement)
+ some accessory work like triceps, biceps, core exercises
No need to buy some fancy program!

Funny anecdote: There once was a case, when one of those fitness gurus (he was full of steroids of course) was facing trouble because he stole a workout plan from another influencer and sold them as his own.

I don’t know who is to pity more: the guy who didn’t even put the effort into his „product“ to design it on his own or the person accusing him of stealing, after all it’s a rat fighting a rat + there are only so many exercises, of course programs will look very similar to each other if you do it correctly.

When it comes to dieting it’s even more frustrating. Almost all dieting plans are rather unrealistic to maintain. One YouTubes personalities cookbook was so bad, that the low fat approach led to women experiencing health issues when following the guru's eating plan.

The human body needs about 1-2g of protein per kg of bodyweight and about 1g of fat per kg of bodyweight, fill the rest of the needed calories with carbs and your diet will most likely look quite healthy.
Especially if you add in some fruits and vegetables and leave out sweets, alcohol highly processed food etc. -things that are common knowledge.

Recipes are all over the internet, so again no need to buy any stupid cookbook for inflated prices from those fitness influencers.

Another funny anecdote: Once a woman, I knew told people on how she bought this cookbook and training protocol from this popular YouTuber and in fact she lost some weight for about 3 weeks, then she got even fatter with each day. Oh and the recipes were really good, it just contained fish, eggs and chicken but mostly fish. What genius does it need to discover, that fish is a good source of protein?

As a bonus people started to recognize the fish smell on her, since that was almost 90% of what she ate.

Bonus: Another person bought a different protocol and he had quite the portfolio to choose from:
When he signed into the gurus website a bunch of pictures with roided men appeared and he was asked to click on the persons body he wants to achieve and it spit out the training protocol which would ultimately lead to that specific body type.

If this would be any honest it should give you the steroids protocol.
What can be done?
Just don’t look at them and thumbs down or sign „no interest“!
Spread the word and motivate people to understand the basics of nutrition and exercise.

Especially focus on good form on your exercises.
Pay attention to the basics and not to YT.
And don’t pay for shit marketed on YT.

Minimalism: One set training study design is often faulty

 When it comes to to weight training the most iconic recommendation is: 

-Do 3 sets of each exercise with breaks of 60-120 seconds in between with repetitions anywhere from 8-12 per set!-

This is mostly based on a strange mixture of “Broscience” and the studies of Richard A. Berger.

Those studies he performed gave us a lot of information on which training style to use for specific goals.

Since time is money it astounds me to how little we really understand in order to trigger muscle growth and in this case, those studies have failed to some degree.

Most of the time those studies compared regular one set training to regular three set training in a way that the test subjects did everything the same and only the set number varied.

Surprise, surprise: 3 sets were the better solution in strength and muscle gains.

Problem is: in practice single set training in the form of HIT or ECT is used until failure (and often with very slow cadences).

What is really interesting however is: whether HIT/ECT produces similar results to the regular volume approach with three sets.

Because of monetary limitations it is often not possible to perform a study that looks at the hypertrophy results, as this is usually done viá body scans, which are rather expensive.

As a result most studies looked at the strength comparisons between those two training philosophies.

The problem lies within the fact that strength does not necessarily correlate to muscle mass.

There are neural adaptations on the central nervous system and acquiring the skill to perform an exercise in an improved manner, which leads to a higher weight being lifted.

A good example is a compound movement such as the Deadlift. Perfecting the Deadlift from a movement standpoint often takes a long time.

The central nervous system also has to learn the skill to activate the most amount of muscle cells for each part of the lift as well.

As a result the strength gains in the Deadlift viá those adaptations will be far greater than the strength gains caused by an increase of muscle mass.

This also explains why three set training showed greater promise in many of those studies:

Repetition creates masters. 

It can not be ruled out that the improved strength in many exercises in the three sets studies is mainly because of such adaptations.

Another factor is that even when studies consider the slow repetitions in the HIT/ECT protocol, this even worsens a comparison to other training systems in terms of strength since participants will be more adjusted to the slower cadence and then have to adjust to cadence in which the other group has performed their strength tests.

Therefore strength gains are a bad instrument in measuring the effect of those rivaling training systems.

So how can be determined which training is effective in causing hypertrophy?

First off it is needed to set the correct question to be answered in each study and therefore design it that way.

Open questions are:

Which training shows greater hypertrophy results?

Which training system builds the most muscles in the least amount of time?

Careful study design is crucial but not hard.

Here is one example on how it could look like:

20 men get assigned to two groups. The HIT and the volume group with both groups being as similar in composition as possible, meaning mostly comparable age, height, training experience etc.

The HIT group does only one set until positive (or even negative) failure and every time the participant moves the weight more than 8 times the weight gets increased, the volume group does every set  for 8-12 repetitions three times with the general 60-80% load of the 1 RM and the weight gets increased, when a person is able to lift the weight more often than 12 times each set.

Both groups use the same exercise protocol.

At the beginning of the study the muscle mass gets measured and after the study again with some break between training and measurement to exclude “pump” effects of any sort.

Muscle mass gets determined by body scans such as DEXA.

After the study it also needs to determine how strong the effect size is, meaning which training resulted in the greatest hypertrophy per time invested.

This could lead to some interesting insights in parameters, which increase hypertrophy such as cadence, volume, workload etc.

Too much time has been wasted in the past to settle those easy questions and both systems were often compared by people with a bias towards one or the other.

There are studies, that as I wrote earlier, compared doing only one set with doing three sets and just that, by comparing strength improvements.

Another study concluded HIT to be more effective than volume orientated training, yet the HIT group had more men in its group, leading to greater overall hypertrophy. 

The colorado experiment most likely had an involvement in steroids and worst of all: The list goes on and on.

It is time to end this debate after several decades!

 

Just a thought: Advanced Biofeedback and brainhacking

 Biofeedback is a scientific method used to directly influence bodily functions such as the heartbeat or muscle tension.

In its easiest form one is wired to an EKG showing your pulse and the person connected tries to influence the heart rate by its own thoughts.

Since a few years we are able to read out a person's imagined pictures viá advanced algorithms, hence we now have possibilities to look into one's mind with more and more precision and therefore we can look at it as a form of interface.

With such an interface we now have a full setup for testing a lot of scenarios and even manipulating our own brain.

Now our whole setup looks as follows:

Input (sounds, words, pictures etc.) -> test subject (human/animal) -> brain monitor aka output/debug interface (complex algorithm +  EEG).

To understand how we can harness this setup, we need to look at how the more complex systems work in current tests:

A test subject is strapped to an highly advanced EEG, that allows to show which neurons in your brain are firing.

Now the test subject has to look at certain pictures. In the next step the person is asked to imagine the picture as good as he or she can.

Now the EEG shows the affected neurons when the person recalls the picture of the red hammer for example.

This signature then gets saved onto a file and the whole process gets repeated with as many different pictures as possible.

As a result, there are now many more brain activity pictures linked to the pictures that had been presented to that person.

So a red hammer can be linked to brain activity encoded as RxH

While the red button is encoded to RxB for example.

If this data set gets applied to a special self learning algorithm, the program tries to form pictures according to the brain data shown.

This means when the person imagines a red hammer the AI is able to draw a picture from that.

Usually these pictures are a bit blurry but now it is possible to roughly see what a person imagines, even when it is a picture that is not in the program's data set yet, it tries to create a picture on its own according to the neuronal pattern.

So far so good, but what else can be done besides looking into one's brain?

Well, building a fully automatic feedback loop.

One such system could look like this:

Input (sounds, words, pictures etc.) -> test subject (human/animal) -> brain monitor aka output/debug interface (complex algorithm +  EEG) -> computer input -> human interface aka monitor, speakers etc.

This means, the brain activity gets transmitted back to the computer.

The computer for example gets the goal to generate the brain pattern of pleasure (like the test subjects brain reaction to a good joke).

The computer then proceeds to create output viá pictures on a screen or composing a song that stimulates the person's mind to such a degree that the brain pattern ultimately occurs.

This could be achieved by using existing stock material or, even more interesting: by sophisticated learning algorithms, that generate the output themselves.

In such an experiment the AI might be able to instantly generate certain feelings and we possibly could find a way to design our first sophisticated brain interfaces, installing knowledge into our brains or at the very least get a more precise idea on how our minds work.

Some Art: Immersion 1

Normally art does not require its artist to explain it. But where a classic gallery or no general background is given, any available information helps the visitor to form a better picture.

Altough the visitor should not feel limited to the presented details on the following work, it maybe helps to find a potential pathway to it.

Of course I encourage everyone to take other paths to it as well.

This small gallery is an exercise in minimalism dealing with antinatalism, efilism, VHEMT, atheism and transhumanism + some bits of dark humour and some exploration into the fields of reductionism.

 a_day_without

 a_start

 barbwire_and_minecraft

 brick_lard

 city_in_moonlight

 doggo

 fallin

 gary

 i_am_the_hammer

 its_never_aliens

 pavement_1

 pavement_2

 perfect_place

 playing_god

skull

the_lord

 usa

 withered_rose

 yarn

 self_portrait

*All art displayed here is licensed under CC0.

Just a thought: On negative utilitarianism and the benevolent world-exploder

Classic Utilitarianism tries to maximize overall joy in the world.

Semi-contrary negative utilitarianism aims for minimizing overall suffering.

In its ultimate conclusion negative utilitarianism ends up humanely destroying all (sentient) life in the Universe, because then there is no more suffering and no more potential for anything to suffer.

This concept is called the “benevolent world-exploder” or sometimes just the “red button”.

While a somewhat bleak outlook, some thought had been invested into this idea as this concept is often discussed among antinatalists and EFILists.

One of the areas of interest is, how much suffering is acceptable for the ones dying by the life ending event in the process of ending all suffering once and for all.

In the best case scenario this process is instantaneous.

To put it more scientific, the world-exploder needs to be a bubble expanding with the speed of light and without ever stopping.

Only then it can be assured nobody suffers by this very process, as the ultimate speed limit of perception (and all information) and therefore pain, is ultimately the speed of light.

Meaning nobody could even see the all destroying bubble nor feel any pain or hardship by it.

It would be the most humane way to put life to sleep, as everything would be dead before it could perceive it in any way.

Just a thought: Multi stage non rocket space flight

 This is somewhat of a continuation of the article on vacuum balloons I wrote some time back.

When contemplating non rocket space flight, there is really not much to find, because it is exceptionally hard to do so. But maybe it is so hard to do, because many writers focus on one method exclusively, like only using a space gun or just using the Lofstrom Loop.

But even chemical rockets use several different stages -one for each task. This approach should at least be considered in the non rocket space launches as well.

As I wrote last time, vacuum balloons are not yet there, that we can use them in lower earth atmosphere but maybe much higher or on different planets maybe.

My approach, although also flawed, might be an interesting one in its theory.

The first stage should only consider big helium or hydrogen weather balloons. This should be enough to lift the potential cargo into the last bits of real atmosphere. Then the vacuum balloon should be used. By using a pump to suck every bit of gas (i.e. hydrogen or helium) out of the vacuum balloons as well and let those do the job of further lifting the cargo up. The same time the weather balloons and the pump should dispatch. Here it should be noted that carrying such a pump up might just be impossible because most pumps need a lot of energy and are quite heavy.

The next and final step would be to use a simple ion drive, that is potentially using solar panels to ionize the leftover particles of the earth atmosphere to accelerate the cargo to higher speeds.

Of course the vacuum balloons should get dispatched at this point too.

Some problems in my approach are:

-building a pump lightweight enough to be just a minor annoyance when using the weather balloons.

-Solar panels are quite bad in regards to energy per units of mass. Additionally their power might not be enough to power the ion drive.

-Being that high up in the atmosphere may not leave enough particles for such an primitive ion drive to work. Using a regular ion drive might be an option, were it not for the increased weight of the fuel.

-The trust of the ion drive might not even be enough to keep the cargo at the right speed.

-This approach seems to prefer lightweight probes instead of heavy equipment or even people.

Just a Thought: Reincarnation in transhumanistic societies

When listening to futurists you will stumble upon the concept of a so-called dyson sphere.

A sun encompassing megastructure, where all the sun's energy is used to power a civilization.

Playing this game a bit further would mean, such a civilization most likely will end up as a digital one.

Harvesting a stars energy to emulate many billions of worlds (see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matrioshka_brain).

If just a tiny fractions of this enormous energy would be used to re-emulate our life, it could be quite likely,

that at some point this structure would end up with an entity, that would feel like you and have the same story to tell.

In such a case, would it not be possible to die in this presence, only to become reborn right after that many centuries later in such a virtual world?

Depending on the amount of such simulations, a lot of variations could be possible as well.

Whether this is still you however, is a debate people had thousands of years ago (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_of_Theseus)

Although I personally don't think, reincarnation is real (or any other such fairytale), it still is an interesting

thought experiment.

Upcycling is a bet into the future

Upcycling is the process of getting a second or third use of an item. Instead of throwing your tin can into the garbage you might use it as a pencil holder for example.

The general notion of upcycling however often gets overlooked. While the recycling process for a tin can might work pretty well in some countries, it still consumes a lot of energy to do so.

This leads to situations in the so called cyclic economy, that the process of recycling goods can be more energy intensive than actually producing a new unit of the same sort.

Upcycling usually does not prevent an item from arriving in a recycling facility eventually but instead puts the recycling date further into the future.

The hope lies within, that in the upcoming years, energy and the recycling process is greener, cheaper and more efficient.

Although current renewables become ever cheaper, it is still debatable whether it will ever be cheaper than nuclear power sources for example.

(https://www.irena.org/newsroom/pressreleases/2019/May/Falling-Renewable-Power-Costs-Open-Door-to-Greater-Climate-Ambition

and

https://www.instituteforenergyresearch.org/renewable/electric-generating-costs-a-primer).

If the energy gets more scarce usually the price rises and this is a very real concern as there are limits on how much solar panels, batteries, wind turbines etc. you can build and the energy consumption is rising with break neck speed.

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_energy_consumption)

Critics often point out that there is a limit on how much energy we will use, but while this limit might not be too far away from its current state in the developed world, the developing world still has enormous hunger for cheap energy.

Forecasts see a growth of 48% for energy consumption from 2012 to 2040 for the developing countries as their living standards improve.

(https://www.coloradocountrylife.coop/developing-countries-standard-of-living-increasing-energy-use/)

Therefore it seems unlikely that the global energy consumption will decrease in the future.

As a result it is not a safe bet to assume that energy will be cheaper and greener, since the fastest growing energy sectors were coal, gas and oil. Combined with the fact that those sources become ever more scarce, they will hardly get less pricey either.

So it could actually be better to recycle now, than later.

However there are products that do not need a recycling or upcycling process at all, as they dissolve over time in nature. No more energy is needed to get rid of them as they just disappear after their usage.

Insect hotels and birdhouses are good examples, as they just decay over time and furthermore are produced mostly of compostable material that one finds in great abundance anyways, such as stone or wood.

An extreme example although not as uncontroversial are old ships, which sometimes get disposed of in the ocean, where they serve as a new riff on the ground, becoming a new home for a wide variety of animals, plants and microorganisms.

Sadly products which fulfill the criteria of full biodegradability are rare and sometimes it doesn’t make sense to do so.

Even better than creating various things out fo the old stuff however, is to keep things in their original use for as long as possible, such as clothes.

Not every bit of “trash” needs upcycling.

A second hand shop can be an alternative.

Trying to avoid garbage in general and thinking twice whether an item really is needed still is the most powerful tool in order to fight the devastating effects of our lifestyle.

Resource consumption after all, is the hands of all of us.

Minimalism: Hacks for the modern student

This list will make your life in school/university a lot easier:

Replace your homework notebooks by plain papers!

Homework notebooks are quite expensive and a lot of space on the pages is left empty. Also they take up a lot of space in your bag and make it unnecessarily heavy.

Instead take a plain piece of paper and fold it 5 times in half, you end up with 64 spaces for noting down your to do’s!

Use pencils!

While you have to sharpen your pencil from time to time, they do not cause plastic waste and can not bleach over time. Also it is easy to erase mistakes. Much to the contrast of a fountain pen.

Plus they last a very long time.

Write small and use the backside!

This saves you a lot of paper and allows for easier access. It is much easier to keep yourself focused on one sheet of paper while learning instead of switching between pages.

Also try to use checked paper and try to write small enough, that you only fill out one checkfield per letter.

This technique allows you to only use a checked paper notepad, which also cuts costs and weight.

Only use a folder and a notepad!

Simplicity at its finest: Use one notepad where you get your empty pages from and put them into your folder. Make sure to get marker pages to show you the different subjects for easy and fast access.

You can still save on weight by putting empty pages directly into your binder and get rid of the rest of your notepad as well!

Get rid of your pencil bag!

Size down your pencil bag to the absolute minimum! In my case this left me with a calculator, two pencils, two coloured pencils, one set square and a 2in1 sharpener with an eraser attatched.

Put that stuff together with your homework paper into an easily accessible compartment of your bag (usually one of the smallest ones). 

Clean your bag!

Over time some trash will accumulate in your bag. Make sure to get rid of advertisements, old tests and love letters from your annoying classmate!

This helps finding stuff and reduces the weight of your bag by a lot!

Use your waiting times!

Sometimes you have to wait for the train or an hour gets dropped. Use this time while you are there and do your homework, learn or prepare the learning process by taking notes for later on learning. This is far more productive than playing cards or using your phone!

Create social media groups for your class!

This makes it much easier to share information and can create a better social environment!

Reminding each other on important subjects and helping each other helps a lot and having a nice chat with your classmates when not in school can improve social relationships with the other pupils.

BYOF -Bring your own food!

The advantages are clear:

-cheaper

-more choices

-canteen food is often of bad quality and expensive

-no stress for getting your food from the canteen or the next fast food restaurant

-the weight of your bag decreases with every meal consumed

Always get your water!

Drinking water is important to stay healthy and mentally fit during tests and such.

Try to keep just enough water with you to keep your daily needs covered. Usually you will need about 0.125 to 0.15 litres per hour.

You can also fill your water bottles in school if you do not want to carry too much weight around!

Liquid meals for important exams.

Do not waste time during important exams and solve your nutritional needs by using liquid meals.

Get a big calendar!

Get one of those big calendars where you see the whole year at once and mark the date for each test and exam. Put it on one of the walls in your home close to the table place where you are learning. This helps organize your learning process immensely.

Also it helps to keep other useful information there, just like birthdays and so on. As you are more or less forced to take a look at it everyday, you are able to identify conflicting dates and deadlines. Furthermore it helps to plan other things as well, such as holidays or when to start working for a certain project and so on.

Example of a nice calendar

Do not waste time with subjects that suck!

If possible, only put the minimal amount of work into the necessary evils. Better focus on important subjects which are important for passing or get you a headstart in life.

When it takes you 1 hour to pass an exam with a bad grade, why should you invest 10 hours for getting a perfect score if the subject is as unimportant as art?

Better invest your time in more important things!

Another strategy can be not to do your homework when you can allow for it!

The 80:20 rule also applies in school. 20% of your effort is responsible for 80% of the success.

Resource management is what makes a good pupil after all. If it takes you your whole free time to be the number one everywhere you did not gain anything. If you follow this path your life long, you probably will not live a happy life. Some things just need your time, like for example family.

Making choices and setting priorities is something you will gain from, your whole life!