Tyler Alterman @TylerAlterman Twitter profile

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Tyler Alterman

13 days

So after 5yrs of work, I finally launched my novel today as a weekly serial! And now…there are 191 subscribers holy smokes 🫨 Psychofauna is a crazy blend of sci-fi & fantasy set in 2025, when everyone wakes up telepathic. A few very maladjusted…

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Tyler Alterman

@TylerAlterman

9 months

When did you first discover the malleability of social reality? For me, it was when I did my Eagle Scout project (building a boardwalk). I was advised to call up lumberyards and ask for wood for free. I did and the lumberyards were just like "OK"

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Tyler Alterman

@TylerAlterman

9 months

I also called up a cinderblock place to donate cinderblocks and they were also like "OK" Altogether these places donated thousands of dollars of free stuff to me, a 17-year-old

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Tyler Alterman

@TylerAlterman

2 months

This brought me from “yeah maybe I should go see the eclipse” to “omg I would be insane to miss this.” That is a PHOTO of the last one my friends

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@TylerAlterman

2 years

This meme instantaneously changed my relationship to all abstract art

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@TylerAlterman

5 months

This feels like a dumb question but…why aren’t there more viruses that *improve* humans? Wouldn’t such viruses be selected for over time, since ppl would be actively trying to contract the virus? Like “I heard bloopovirus improves digestion & skin, I’m gonna go try to get it” ?

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Tyler Alterman

@TylerAlterman

9 months

@arabelladevine Yeah I did the same for a place that made cinderblocks and they donated over $1000 worth

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Tyler Alterman

@TylerAlterman

2 years

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Tyler Alterman

@TylerAlterman

6 months

How I feel

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Tyler Alterman

@TylerAlterman

9 months

I’m confused about how this is my most viral tweet ever. Anyone have a good theory of why?

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Tyler Alterman

@TylerAlterman

2 months

Why do ppl commit to major decisions before testing them first??? • Moving to LA: have u spent more than a couple weeks there? • Getting PhD: Have you talked to PhD students in ur speciality? Have u shadowed one? • Having baby: Have u babysat a baby? Have u even held one?

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Tyler Alterman

@TylerAlterman

2 years

Besides sex, what’s a theme that recurs quite often in your dreams?

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Tyler Alterman

@TylerAlterman

2 months

Wild that people take on high-paying careers to afford a life of massages, luxury apts, and fancy food that then just primarily become a way to treat the emotional damage of the high-paying career

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Tyler Alterman

@TylerAlterman

28 days

We benefit from the attachment trauma of separating millions of dogs from their mothers. Man’s best friend is anxiously attached

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Tyler Alterman

@TylerAlterman

5 months

TIL that artists are fighting AI using their work through a "data poisoning" tool called Nightshade. If their art gets scraped into a training set, it causes the model to start breaking. So cyberpunk

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Tyler Alterman

@TylerAlterman

6 months

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Tyler Alterman

@TylerAlterman

9 months

Poetic justice

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Tyler Alterman

@TylerAlterman

3 months

I wrote & analyzed a 20-person list of anyone I've seen go sustainedly super-saiyan (i.e., anyone who's become radically more capable of creating what they want to see in the world). 18/20 all did the same thing. Can you guess what it was? Hint – it wasn't a: • transformative…

Tyler Alterman

@TylerAlterman

3 months

Did you or anyone you know become radically more powerful at some point in life? How did that happen?

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@TylerAlterman

2 months

Kinda horrifying that the best way to keep your kid occupied when you’re an overworked nuclear family without childcare support is to give the kid an iPad full of apps that will ruin their dopaminergic system for life. Like “quiet down, sonny, here’s some hard drugs”

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Tyler Alterman

@TylerAlterman

6 months

I still think about this tweet

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Tyler Alterman

@TylerAlterman

10 days

Remember Stumbleupon? Is there anything out there like Stumbleupon that will just show me weird, creative websites if I click a button?

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Tyler Alterman

@TylerAlterman

29 days

Explain to me like I’m a baby yet in a realpolitik way why Israel is so important to US strategic interests

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Tyler Alterman

@TylerAlterman

5 months

What do you assume about a straight guy who has 90% female friends

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@TylerAlterman

1 year

STOP “DATING” STOP “NETWORKING” STOP “LOOKING FOR FRIENDS” JUST LITERALLY GO PLACES WHERE PPL INTERACT & SEE WHO YOU VIBE WITH REGARDLESS OF WHAT CATEGORY THEY FIT IN

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@TylerAlterman

11 months

“You can just do stuff” sometimes feels like cursed knowledge I could just start a poetry group. I could learn coding & make games. I could make a charity & find a party w rich ppl & ask every one of them to donate $10k until one says yes. I could take a nap in the afternoon

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Tyler Alterman

@TylerAlterman

10 months

Movie aliens are always trying to either harm or help us. I’d like to see more movies where their goals are completely perplexing to us

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Tyler Alterman

@TylerAlterman

23 days

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Tyler Alterman

@TylerAlterman

2 years

If your interior design isn’t such that someone tripping on psychedelics would feel comfortable in your home, then - on a subtle level - it might not be comfortable for you either

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Tyler Alterman

@TylerAlterman

2 years

My dad has long been going on about how he has a “pet hawk.” I was like “yeah OK.” But today I watched him go outside and throw a piece of food into the sky that was caught mid-air by a large swooping bird

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Tyler Alterman

@TylerAlterman

7 months

When I was a camp counselor I just gave the bullies leadership positions and they became the best behaved kids of all. They just needed someone to value their power and direct it toward better ends

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Tyler Alterman

@TylerAlterman

1 year

There’s a wide variety of masculine archetypes: bard, prince, cowboy, king, adventurer, mage, sage, visionary, craftsman. So why are so many men stuck in bro-y or stoic mode?

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Tyler Alterman

@TylerAlterman

2 months

I’m neither an AI doomer nor an AI boomer, but I notice that the doomers have all sorts of thoughtful arguments & earnest vibes while the boomers are like, “haha you can’t stop technology, and AI will just be good, don’t worry”

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Tyler Alterman

@TylerAlterman

1 year

“Where would a man even meet a woman these days? At events that invite interaction Eg partner dance crafting (eg pottery) bookclubs meditation sangha jogging clubs church/shabbat climbing martial arts authentic relating choir sport leagues (eg soccer, quidditch) What else?

Tyler Alterman

@TylerAlterman

1 year

I know a surprising amount of straight men who are good people and quite physically attractive but too shy to go out and meet women. What’s going on here???

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Tyler Alterman

@TylerAlterman

2 years

My gender theory of shopping is that men don’t like it bc contemporary men’s clothing is designed to b boring

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Tyler Alterman

@TylerAlterman

4 months

lol bottom guy smugly dissociating captures a lot of “mindfulness” culture

Mindful Living

@MaraWisp

6 months

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Tyler Alterman

@TylerAlterman

2 years

Hot take: ppl who grow up naturally competent or charismatic in the way (current) society likes end up getting “used” by the “system” Weirdos - who the system rejects early on - have a better chance of living on their own terms as adults

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Tyler Alterman

@TylerAlterman

5 months

Amazing how often agency is just a problem of knowledge. There was a time when I’d just never asked: “You mean I can just [create a festival / start my own support group / learn fundraising / learn how to socialize / found a magazine / run a class / go to a new place w no plan]?”

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Tyler Alterman

@TylerAlterman

4 months

Once again I failed to act on the primacy of my gut feeling about someone and the result has been disastrous

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Tyler Alterman

@TylerAlterman

7 months

My insanely talented friends are undervalued by modern institutions and scattered all over the world. So I dreamt of building a "campus" where friends could live & work near each other That's finally happening with the launch of Fractal University 🏵️ 1/

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Tyler Alterman

@TylerAlterman

9 months

So get this: my lover’s friend is a Colombian doctor. As part of her program, drs are sent to remote areas where medical care is sparse. She went to work w indigenous ppl in the Amazon When she arrived, there was a culture of shamans who treated people mostly through prayer 1/

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Tyler Alterman

@TylerAlterman

2 years

My favorite poem is actually a spell written by the ancient Egyptians: "Becoming a Light in the Darkness" (trans. Normandi Ellis) --- Out of nothing I return to the white sea foam. I have made an end of things. This is my last concern.

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Tyler Alterman

@TylerAlterman

1 year

Hot take on why adults become boring: Natural selection operates in the mind. Mental content that can survive & multiply takes over more and more territory. Eventually an adult’s inner world is terraformed by just a few fixed ideas & emotional patterns

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Tyler Alterman

@TylerAlterman

2 months

What is a journaling prompt with the power of potentially taking people from low agency to high agency? eg “What would you work on if you had no fear?

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Tyler Alterman

@TylerAlterman

1 year

@kevinf567 mfs need hobbies anyway

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Tyler Alterman

@TylerAlterman

4 months

1/ My gf's great grandpa was a prominent politician in Colombia who fell in love with a 14yo. The girl's parents obviously disapproved (too young) and tried to keep them apart. Meanwhile they wrote wildly passionate love letters to one another and came up with a secret plan...

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Tyler Alterman

@TylerAlterman

2 years

Black Mirror but every episode a different future paradise

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Tyler Alterman

@TylerAlterman

7 months

Part of adulthood for me has been deciding that it’s more important to be honest than it is to get laid, be popular, or win at work

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@TylerAlterman

2 months

My generation has started seeing endless therapists & healers & coaches to make their lives better. Does it actually work???I'm skeptical in most cases. Seems often actively harmful – making ppl more navel-gazey. What I *actually* see making lives radically better is adding a…

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Tyler Alterman

@TylerAlterman

2 years

Has anyone tried the “no screens 1-2 hours before bed” thing and noticed a subjective improvement?

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Tyler Alterman

@TylerAlterman

2 months

Why isn’t it deeply uncool to be addicted to your phone?

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Tyler Alterman

@TylerAlterman

3 years

Photo of rare Asperatus clouds over Scotland from the Cloud Appreciation Society

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Tyler Alterman

@TylerAlterman

5 months

It's true, you can stop clenching your entire body like a fist in winter and just let yourself be cold and I guarantee you that you'll be happier

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@qorprate

5 months

at some point in my childhood in cold upstate new york, i remember having the thought "i just need to let the cold into my bones". then, the cold stopped feeling like an imposition, i stopped suffering. this thought stuck with me over the years.

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Tyler Alterman

@TylerAlterman

4 months

When ppl r rude to me in the wild, I compulsively mess w them. Not necessarily in a mean way, more in a playfully disorienting way. Usually they hate it. Like, if a bouncer yells “STEP BACK” I might do it cha-cha style w flirty eye contact. Feels juvenile. Should I get over this?

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Tyler Alterman

@TylerAlterman

4 years

Art Nouveau: that one time the humans succeeded at utopian aesthetics, and then forgot about it

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@TylerAlterman

1 year

On the basis of watching rich people in fancy hotels, lounges, restaurants, 1st class, etc, I concluded that rich ppl tend to be very unhappy. But since I’ve met rich ppl who r perfectly happy. I now conclude that the unhappy demographic is actually [rich ppl who seek luxury]

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Tyler Alterman

@TylerAlterman

2 years

1/ In the mid-2010s my metaphysics nearly broke. A Bay Area VC friend introduced me & other nerds to an “energy healer.” Reaction: yeah, ok. “Energy” did not have a place in our scientific ontologies.

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Tyler Alterman

@TylerAlterman

1 year

The trick is to design events that help ppl meet or deepen relationships…but without making the event *about* meeting or deepening relationships

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Tyler Alterman

@TylerAlterman

5 months

This is the key to good writing, acting, and storytelling generally. The audience doesn’t need to actually care about whatever the character care about. We’re just hungry to witness care

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@nosilverv

5 months

Said it before: people care a lot about caring. No one gives a fuck about trains, but holy shit does everyone give a fuck about the fact that this guy gives a fuck.

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Tyler Alterman

@TylerAlterman

1 year

I know a surprising amount of straight men who are good people and quite physically attractive but too shy to go out and meet women. What’s going on here???

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Tyler Alterman

@TylerAlterman

14 days

Why does “how would you design a city so that more people fall in love?” feel like an absurd question? It shouldn’t be

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@soundrotator

15 days

I wonder if you could design a city so that more people would fall in love

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@TylerAlterman

5 months

@iryelin Can we make more of those?

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Tyler Alterman

@TylerAlterman

2 years

What are chill activities to do at home as a couple that aren’t sex or media consumption?

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Tyler Alterman

@TylerAlterman

2 years

Why do we treat children like tiny dunces instead of gurus who might teach us about what qualities of being we’ve forgotten?

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Tyler Alterman

@TylerAlterman

4 years

Imagine a new airport in an architectural style other than "Apple store": gothic, art nouveau, baroque, Moorish. It would be shocking. Isn't that interesting?

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@TylerAlterman

2 years

Sometimes I go to modern art museums and I wonder “Who is this for?”

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Tyler Alterman

@TylerAlterman

1 year

I spent years fooling myself into believing I could read people What I was actually reading was the outward display – highly patterned expressions of culture & trauma. Underneath that, ppl are beautifully unpredictable We can tune into those layers underneath at any time

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Tyler Alterman

@TylerAlterman

2 years

In the past I evaluated ideologies/worldviews/religions by their claims. Now I focus more on what sort of people they produce. Do adherents become more wholesome? More wise? More beautiful? More enjoyable to be around?

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Tyler Alterman

@TylerAlterman

11 months

This feels like a metaphor for something important

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Tyler Alterman

@TylerAlterman

7 months

1st dates should not involve talking. It should be a 20 minute hug, then leave. If you don’t vibe w someone on a basic mammalian level level you’re ngmi

Uncle Chu

@datchughuy

7 months

What opinion about Dating will have you like this?

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Tyler Alterman

@TylerAlterman

2 years

mfs confused about why we adults have problems w consent when everyone spent their first ~18 yrs in training to accept that our consent doesn’t matter

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Tyler Alterman

@TylerAlterman

7 months

Maybe this is obvious, but ppl hold their faces in a certain way to stabilize their personalities and mental states, so you can learn a lot about the psychological health of your town/city/workplace just by walking around and looking at faces

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Tyler Alterman

@TylerAlterman

1 year

Here’s a really simple tip a teacher gave me which blew my mind at the time. According to him, outside of the West meditation is often seen as something that you do with your *body* rather than something that you do with your mind. His advice to me was “meditate with your body.”

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Tyler Alterman

@TylerAlterman

1 year

Humans from the future approach you: “Wait, you guys mix romance with child-rearing? Romance is volatile, like fire. Kids need stability. Wtf r u thinking?” How do you respond?

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Tyler Alterman

@TylerAlterman

2 years

Wait, why are there so many people who don’t dream about sex

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Tyler Alterman

@TylerAlterman

5 months

@arabelladevine Also the way you move in itself can make you hot, positive feedback loop

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Tyler Alterman

@TylerAlterman

4 years

Silicon Valley self-quarantine list: • Healing crystals, for emergencies • Mealsquares, complete nutrition • Ayahuasca, 1mo supply • Burner costume, for Mad Max scenarios • Crypto wallet, for hedging • VR headset, for live empathy experiences with Wuhan

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Tyler Alterman

@TylerAlterman

6 months

Has here anyone transitioned from an unhealthy optimizey grindset to a more soulful way of working, one that’s just as productive?

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Tyler Alterman

@TylerAlterman

4 years

1/ 2020 will see the dawn of the metatribe. Here is an ethnography.

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Tyler Alterman

@TylerAlterman

2 years

1/ When I was ~14, I made a shift from "loser" to "acceptable" by middle school standards. I did it by unknowingly making smth like a charisma-chatbot to do my talking for me

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Tyler Alterman

@TylerAlterman

3 months

Did you or anyone you know become radically more powerful at some point in life? How did that happen?

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Tyler Alterman

@TylerAlterman

1 year

Once at a zoo, a crowd formed around me while I made long eye contact with a gorilla. This set off a series of animal-bonding episodes (incl 1 w a goat today) that were as surprising to me as to onlookers It began w me trying a certain thing when in contact w animals… 1/n

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Tyler Alterman

@TylerAlterman

2 months

Here is my galaxy-brained take on @Aella_Girl (hi Aella). Even if you despise her wild activities, you should celebrate her role: divergence in public. We survive as a species based on adaptation. That requires ppl behaving contrary to the norm. Public divergence (that doesn’t…

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Tyler Alterman

@TylerAlterman

10 months

Hot take: white ppl were able to take over the world bc white elites developed cultures that numbed their emotions enough to make it so they could synthesize well with machines & machine-like social structures (corporations, large-scale bureaucracy, etc)

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Tyler Alterman

@TylerAlterman

2 years

7/ Hypothesis 2 reminds me of Feynman’s story of discovering that his sense of smell had much greater sensitivity than anyone would have guessed

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@TylerAlterman

7 months

Despite earth’s magnetic field being *extremely weak*, many animals have evolved to sense it Why have no animals been discovered to sense the EM fields of each other’s brains, which are comparatively stronger (by many orders of magnitude) than the magnetic field of the earth?

Tyler Alterman

@TylerAlterman

7 months

It seems like we recently discovered the possibility of a new human sense – magnetoreception – and no one is talking about it???

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Tyler Alterman

@TylerAlterman

8 months

Hey just wanna brag for a second: bc she’s in her “u can just do things” era, my lady spontaneously invited 10 dancers & a cinematographer to improvise in this massive fish warehouse in the navy yard Then the next day she put on a 1500 person gala for architects inside it

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@TylerAlterman

3 years

@AnneSelke A Rwandan guy talking about how some Rwandans treat depression

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@TylerAlterman

2 years

So many fiction writers seem eager to have us connect with their despair, listlessness, rage, or cynicism. Who are the ones who seem to be saying, “Connect with my joy?”

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Tyler Alterman

@TylerAlterman

6 months

Slanic salt mine in Romania. Has me thinking about how many awe-inducing places like this exist in the world that I still haven’t heard of and may never hear of

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@TylerAlterman

1 year

This morning I realized that Im physically attractive. I already “knew” this, but my whole childhood I was bullied & made 2 feel disgusting. Girls at school knew my loser-status & weren’t into me. When ones outside of school liked me, I figured they hadnt noticed my grossness yet

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@TylerAlterman

4 months

@bijibiji2023 But cherries are a very intellectual fruit

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Tyler Alterman

@TylerAlterman

5 months

This quote I heard in an audiobook keeps ringing through my head: “How alive are you willing to be?” Such specific phrasing

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Tyler Alterman

@TylerAlterman

10 months

We used to carve creatures, gods, and people into building facades *everywhere* for thousands of years…until last century when we mostly just stopped. Now it would be seen as extravagant to cover a building in little beings. Why did our tastes change so quickly?

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@TylerAlterman

2 years

It is with a heavy heart that I must confess: I neither have ADHD nor autism

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@TylerAlterman

4 months

9/ ...It is his final love letter to his wife, unfinished. He died while writing it.

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@TylerAlterman

4 months

This year I will take more seriously the idea that “we become more like the things we pay attention to” I won’t stop trying to metabolize the dark parts of the world, but I will spend more time looking at smiles in the street, letting my eyes linger on beautiful scenes, etc

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@TylerAlterman

5 months

@messybirkin Woah I forgot that (c) existed but now I remember how commonly I’d end up in that situation in high school. Friend zone ragdoll ouch

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Tyler Alterman

@TylerAlterman

2 years

6/ It’s forced me to conclude that either there’s some spooky social interaction medium we don’t understand (“energy”) OR ppl are *much* more sensitive to barely perceptible fluctuations in others’ microexpressions, body posture, tone, temperature, scent, etc than supposed

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Tyler Alterman

@TylerAlterman

4 years

1/ At some point it's time to stop playing optionality games and cash in

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Tyler Alterman

@TylerAlterman

10 months

Once, after midnight, I turned around to see the subway doors close with my phone AND wallet sitting in the subway The next day I got a FB message from a stranger named Jose. He met me in Union Sq, gave me all my stuff, and wouldn't accept payment He renewed my faith in humans

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