Watching TV is not an intellectual activity in any real sense. Most TV stimulates the senses and evokes emotions in the viewer through storylines and such. This is obviously very different from studying mathematics seriously.
I think that the advice is well suited to your situation. I suspect that you don't realize this because you spend so much time isolating yourself from people to study math.
I think it's great that so many people here are extremely intellegent, but one can hardly expect to relate very well to most people when one spends most of their time studying extremely obscure subjects alone while they sit down and barely move. That's pretty much the antithesis of what normal people enjoy.
Balance intellectual activities with specifically non-intellectual activities that are not based around the passive consumption of media. Actually get out into the world, move your body in new ways, interact with a variety of people, seek novel experiences, travel around to new places far away and try to find new aspects of the area where you live. Basically just do the opposite of limiting your physical mobility and emotional expressiveness in order to focus on logical thinking about intangible intellectual subjects.
How has this aquired negative points? This is the single best piece of advice in the whole woebegone thread.
A very good suggestion!
For those who don't know, Alexander Shulgin is one of the foremost figures in psychedelic drugs in the last century.
He discovered over 200 new psychedelic compounds himself and tested them on himself, his wife and a group of friends.
He worked at Dow and invented a "green" pesticide that allowed him to retire comfortably to work on his personal interests.
While he did not actually discover MDMA, it was due to his efforts that the drug was introduced to psychotherapists in the 70s and 80s.
Some of his books are banned in Australia.
He's a true hacker - although the HN crowd might not agree.
This is probably the best all round training article on LW.
Still, I wonder if most people here would/could do even this. Perhaps a video tutorial that explains how to build a tire weight sled and shows someone dragging it would be more accessible. Sled dragging is basically walking on steroids, and as it seems the typical LWer has almost no athletic or movement base whatsoever, walking is a good place to start.
Perhaps even EY could improve his physical health and work capacity with sled dragging, despite his absolutely absurd claim that he is unable to adapt to exercise.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tG1CchZaa0s
This explains how to build a sled.
Indeed they do. However the dose they use in the psilocybin research equates to a much greater dose of mushrooms than the "average"(I'll assume 3.5 grams of dry P. cubensis) dose goldfishlaser speaks of.
The whole point with psychedelic drugs is that one must take a high, overwhelming dose in order to experience the full gamut of experiential states possible.
I have an excellent cognitive psychology book published by OUP called The Antipodes of the Mind:
http://www.amazon.com/Antipodes-Mind-Phenomenology-Ayahuasca-Experience/dp/0199252939
The book takes an empirical, phenomenological approach. The author has gathered data from around 2,500 experiences with the plant based tea Ayahuasca(in effects it is rather like mushrooms yet typically stronger). He himself has taken the brew well over 100 times. This data is then analyzed in various ways: semantic content of visions, progression and stages of the experience, structural topology of visions, and so on. Please take a moment to browse the table of contents in the amazon online book preview to get a feel for both the academic seriousness of this book as well as the quite fascinating contents. Best of all, the author, Benny Shanon, includes numerical tables and a whole appendix devoted to explaining his research methodology.
To learn how to trip more safely and more productively I highly recommend this book: http://www.amazon.com/Psychedelic-Explorers-Guide-Therapeutic-Journeys/dp/1594774021
I have no idea what "role play control" is. The whole mindset of "tricks" to "control" yourself is generally counterproductive for tripping. Instead one should do their best to ensure a good set and setting, have a sitter and then "let go" and make themselves open to the experience.
I'm pushing my bodyweight up and increasing strength. On July 22nd 2012 I was back squatting 90 kilos for 3 sets of 5. Last week I was able to squat 297lbs(134.7kg) for a single. I've also pushed my deadlift up to 130k for a single. In this time my bodyweight has increased from 150lbs to 167lbs.
My goals for Halloween are to deadlift 400lbs and squat 315lbs. I'd like to get up to a bodyweight of around 200lbs at 5'8" as a long term goal but that will probably take much longer than till Halloween.
Why?
What I will be working on come Fall semester: Intro to Abstract Algebra 501, Advanced Calculus 407 and spanish 101
Why?
This is one of the most informative posts I've ever seen on less wrong. I've always found it strange that the one technology that rationalists seem to shy away from is the technology of the sacred - that is, entheogenic plants and chemicals.
Those all sound like some pretty awesome activities!
My question to you, with respect, is this: why not just reduce the amount of hours per day you spend on serious, solitary intellectual work and fill the balance with externally oriented, social activities till you find a maintainable balance of sociability vs. studying?
Maybe I'm misinterpreting you, but it seems you're essentially saying that when you (temporarily) hyper focus on solitary, intellectual activities you (temporarily) encounter more difficulty in conversations. This doesn't surprise me and it seems evident that the only real solution is to find the right balance for you and accept the inherent trade offs.