I see myself, and is often described by others, as a logical person and high in the openness trait. I am in university and have the last 2 years done some various amateur litterature review reasearch on different topics, especially on health and nutrition.
On many topics i find my research agreeing with conventional wisdom, such as for:
Sleeping hygiene
Alcohol consumption
Drugs like heroin and methamphetamine
Benefits of training
Dangers of obesity
But on a worrying fast increasing list i find my reasearch contradict common wisdom in huge ways:
Psychedelics are not addictive and can probably be helpful in many cases. (I think acceptance for this is rapidly increasing)
I don't have any problem trusting data and research more than authorities and common wisdom. But when friends and family significantly express their concern for my well being it makes feel like i am one of those conspiracy theorists that believe every stupid thing they find online. It may be that I am not having a strong enough prior, before updating it with new evidence.
Imagine what it was like for those of us who were talking about transhumanism, AI alignment, morphological freedom, cryonics, nootropics, keto diets, kettlebells, etc., in 2010, not 2023.
Welcome to the bleeding edge. It's not an easy life.
The most important thing to do is to learn to trust your research and the truth over what the tribe says. This can be very hard. I eventually sold most of my bitcoin after all my friends and family spent the summer of 2012 or so screaming at me that it was a bubble, a scam, etc., which seemed confirmed when the price crashed from $35 down to $5 -- don't make that mistake.
Learn to isolate yourself from people that are reliably harmful. Don't be a crab in the bucket. Get out of the bucket. Deal with helping out the people you care about later.
I see myself, and is often described by others, as a logical person and high in the openness trait. I am in university and have the last 2 years done some various amateur litterature review reasearch on different topics, especially on health and nutrition.
On many topics i find my research agreeing with conventional wisdom, such as for:
But on a worrying fast increasing list i find my reasearch contradict common wisdom in huge ways:
I don't have any problem trusting data and research more than authorities and common wisdom. But when friends and family significantly express their concern for my well being it makes feel like i am one of those conspiracy theorists that believe every stupid thing they find online. It may be that I am not having a strong enough prior, before updating it with new evidence.