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by elendilm 37 days ago
Many of the greatest achievements in science & engineering were accomplished during wartime under intense stress or obsession - not a relaxed parasympathetic state.

That alone should make us skeptical of simplistic claims that calmer physiological states are inherently "more optimal" for complex cognition.
1 comments
PaulHoule 37 days ago
My take about athletic performance is that it is good to be relaxed up until the moment you need to act. Even when I play Beat Saber multiplayer I think it is a mistake to be waving your arms around at the beginning or during pauses because fatigue builds up through the level. Eustress is phasic rather than tonic.

Even outside wartime great accomplishments come through obsession though, but I would say that the people who “make it” in academia are the ones who are kinda sanguine about the family business as opposed to the driven outsiders.

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oliculipolicula 37 days ago
Schwarzschild (not a fambizman) seemed unusually calm

https://archive.ph/ZaXx7

>The moon crossed the sky so quickly, it seemed time itself had sped up. My soldiers readied their arms and waited for the order to attack, but the phenomenon was so strange and unsettling, they thought it a bad omen, and I could see the fear in their eyes.

Modern reenactment would be Asano Tadanobu during the eclipse scene in The Mongol (or during the whole movie, really)

(Remember that he volunteered for war

They also made Napoleon highstrung all the time, that the most accurate portrayal might be the one without gravitas people don't care about , the one with John Malkovich.

Some will argue sleepy Napoleon is also accurate, but how about the Japanese AI taking the opp to indulge in some loving cultural appropriation (glorified fanbiz). BC Asano has shown us he too can comedy. )

Psychopaths (any inappropriately calm people) might be necessary for advancement but not for reasons or traits that are easy to obtain (or fake)

Unless (but not sufficiently) one _chooses_ to go against one's own grain

>Only a vision of the whole, like that of a saint, a madman, or a mystic, will permit us to decipher the true organizing principles of the universe

Most terrifying (ie awe-inspiring) should be a madman who can fake that he cares about anything at all, including other people?

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