dtuur

Thanks Niels, your support means a lot to me! I agree that the emotional connection people have with musicians is unique — which explains how strong the backlash is.

Hi guys, I'm excited to share the results of an experiment to promote self knowledge in Belgium: a 10 page report published on scribd & facebook, about a Flemish artist who died at age 52 last week, likely due to the consequences of heavy drinking, on the 14th birthday of his son. In interviews he had admitted he was "fundamentally unhappy", despite having achieved his childhood dream Description: In the report I tell the story the Luc De Vos' childhood, followed by some of the life choices he made as an adult. The second part of the report gives 7 reasons why I think he was unhappy and died young: not giving his mother responsibility, fatalism, living in a dream world, not pursuing therapy, having a child, expecting to die young, and betrayal by the outside world. On the last page, I recommend various sources for doing therapy and self work, including Stef's bomb in the brain & peaceful parenting series, Alice Miller, Gabor Maté, and IFS sources. Marketing: Published the report on scribd 5 days after his death, 2 days before the official funeral. Promoted with a facebook page, tweets, press release to 2 newspapers, and emails to 200 therapists. Results, 4 days after publication: - 7,500 people downloaded / read the report - facebook page reached 6,600 people - facebook page got 104 likes (very low!) - 5 positive emails back from psychologists - not picked up by mainstream media Luc De Vos sang in Dutch and was only popular in Flanders, with a population of 6 million. To put the outreach of the report in context, the US equivalent of 7,500 downloads in Flanders would be 375,000 downloads. Evaluation: I'm satisfied with the amount of people that have read the report. I expect the number to climb to 10,000 over the next days & weeks, which would be the US equivalent of 500k downloads. The backlash has been significant. A lot of people said calling the report "truth about" and publishing it just days after his death was sensationalistic and arrogant. After the "Truth About" facebook page was inundated with angry reactions and several people said they were reporting the page to Facebook, I decided to unpublish it for now. On the plus side, I've received several positive emails of people that said it really helped them think about the man's music and the meaning of his life. Lessons learned: - there definitely seems to be an audience for written 'truth about' reports - preparing for anger is definitely advisable - I think the emotional backlash of publishing right after the death of the person does not weigh against the benefit of more exposure to the message - promotion via social media is easy and requires only limited time - contacting press is futile For those interested to have a look, here is the report: https://www.scribd.com/doc/249165758/De-Waarheid-Over-Luc-De-Vos

Today I posted the text below on my facebook wall: Liberty Role Models: Beware the Veil of Admiration! — case in point: unschooling advocate Dayna Martin My first introduction to philosophy and libertarianism happened through sudbury and unschooling, so this is a challenge for me as it touches on my historical doorway to ideas that deeply impacted my entire life. Back in march, two people already voiced their personal concerns to me about Dayna as a role model, but I think didn't really process what they told me then. Now, after doing some research, quite a lot of additional concerning —and frankly, shocking—material turns up around her. I think the following links are important to share: http://sandradodd.com/problems/daynamartin/ http://unschoolingthegreenfamily.blogspot.com/2013/07/watching-unschooling-pieces-crumble.html http://www.jennifermcgrail.com/2013/10/its-not-personal-its-business-my-dealings-with-dayna-martin Without casting a final verdict, to me this is reason for serious concern. Of course I remain open to evidence to the contrary, but I think that especially people who choose to become public personalities should welcome reasonable criticism and scrutiny of their integrity. Which is is my intention with this post. And there's a broader reason for me to bring up the idea of scrutinizing role models. There are too many blogs, video's, podcasts, and books about morality & happiness for us to absorb in a hundred lifetimes. Therefore I wholly agree with the strategy of carefully considering the humans behind these ideas, mainly in search for results and consistency, BEFORE we invest our precious time into studying their work in detail. Life's too precious to waste on snake oil and dead ends. A number of people chimed in with comments about and personal experiences they've had with Dayna.

Right up there with DarwinsHamster's refutation of Arachno-Capitalism

Thanks Stoyan for your very heartfelt account of such a memorable day. Especially the last paragraph resonated with me: Throughout my life I was always cognizant of the fact that I was surrounded by dull people. However, I never came to realise that this exposure to dullness had managed to tint my vision in shades of grey. Meeting these lovely people in Amsterdam is what I needed to wipe the dullness off my lenses and see the world in all its vibrancy! Thank you so much and I hope you all found the energy to continue fighting your personal battles against falsehood! Feel free to share your experiences of the meetup in this thread! I look forward to making those moments a lot less surreal—the time is ripe for a more tight knit philosopher community in Europe.

Bump, I'm also really interested in this

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