The Hidden Costs Of Abstraction

Conceptual loyalties are alluringly dangerous

The online discursive space is dominated by Jungian intuitives. This is not just because intuitives are the ones who like to spend hours writing posts titled “My Manifesto On Why Cabbages Are Better Than Corn: A Virtue Ethical Defense Of My Mixed Irish-Iroquois Heritage”; it is also because sensory archetypes simply do not get the payoff from engaging in such abstract masturbations. If you want a clear example of such masturbation, look no further than the back-and-forth comments on this post, whose topic is about why utilitarianism is bad, and that was written in response to a post claiming slave morality is good.

Forget the nuclear arms race, the machine singularity, global warming, or cratering fertility rates: the biggest menace to the Earth and mankind has always been brash, cerebral, and autistic young guys who have way too much free time, and whose frail physical constitutions push them to fuel their limited testosterone toward constructing 3000-word dialectics on the efficacy of sex-worker-endorsed experimental toothpaste.

Now, I don’t want to spend all of my time railing on intuitives given that (1) I am one myself –why else would I be a Substakoor?; (2) the majority of my friends are intuitives¹; (3) intuitives are the ones who define and describe creative ways for humanity to reflect on its existential condition²; and most importantly (4) without intuitives, all kind of insane-but-interesting research that reveal the secrets of the universe – such as the co-evolution of corkscrew-shaped genitals in ducks – would never get performed.

However, I do want to go on a short riff of the hidden costs that come from living so deeply in the land of abstraction. Let me give you an example – and I’ll make it about myself. I have to be willing to make myself a punching bag, after all, not just the other nerds.

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I have developed a master to-do list that I always keep as a handy reference. This to-do list is roughly organized according to Eisenhower’s framework of prioritization, with an additional two or three categories adapted to my specific contexts³. I am rather militant about not letting this task list expand beyond 10 items, because after that point, it just becomes a gloried way to beat myself over the head with guilt.

Right now, I am in the middle of writing a rather spicy article that touches on various themes including aristocratic orientation, racial dominance, and the ability to forge common policy goals. In the height of the 2010s culture wars, this type of article would almost certainly be cancelable; it almost surely still is now, except that the power of cancellation has greatly waned in the era of Elon’s ascendance to Twitter’s iron throne⁴.

The task of finishing this article sits at the #1 position in both importance and urgency. For many days in a row, I have convinced myself that I should not work on any other creative projects because I need to make sure I save enough time and energy to give this article the attention it deserves. And, that if I get too distracted, it will not reach the quality that it is supposed to. As a result, I spent a bunch of time yesterday afternoon doing nothing besides sitting on the couch. I had a bunch of ideas about Other Cool Things™, but they were not related to my Big Article™, and therefore needed to be relegated to the ‘not important’ stack.

Elongating one’s time preference, delaying gratification, and deferring impulses are all helpful practices; but, at some point, one has to verify that what they are deferring toward is not interfering with the immediate sensory reality; especially concerning those in-the-moment things that don’t conflict with long-term goals; and may even support those goals. Turns out writing a post of ‘lesser importance’ like this one can get you into the mood to ‘keep writing’ which supports the intention of ‘writing a long, meaningful thing’, i.e., a Big Article™.

I had convinced myself that I should restrict a vital expressive flow within my system to protect a large payload that may not exist. Intuitives are much more skilled at constructing these sorts of ridiculous loyalties to future or non-existent abstractions in a way that their sensory counterparts are just not capable of. I realize that I am using abstractions to point out the failure of abstractions, and that itself is part of the trap.

At the end of the day, a post like this is ultimately a reminder to myself: the human mind is very convinced that the only reality is conceptual. This is a big lie, and it is important to learn how to stop paying undue energetic costs for upholding this lie.

1. I just spent two hours yesterday discussing elite theory with a bunch of nutjobs.

2. I must give credit where credit is due: the SJs and SPs are the technicians and bureaucrats who keep the world running in such a way that allows me to enjoy a phenomenal standard of living within which I can publish my cognitive ramblings. I have a special soft spot for SPs, in particular, because their physical spontaneity and tendency toward mechanical improvisation are of unparalleled value in an era of such technological complexity.

3. For example, errands that are cyclical such as buying groceries and doing laundry have their own section, and I only look at that section every five or six days.

4. I will never call it X.