Consensus-ism summary

• 2025-11-04
• For kind of like “field reports”, it’s probably worth reading:
  • “Consensus-ism (part 1)” → Substack post
  • “Consensus-ism part 2” → Substack post

0. The core claim

In any moment, you have access to all the information you need in order to make "the next right action"

• Things (actions, thoughts, ideas) can feel one of two ways:

  1. Obvious, straightforward, transparently correct (Consonance (AKA consensus))
  2. Grind-y, off, bad (Dissonance)

• If something feels transparently correct (that is, if there is consensus), go ahead and do it, until a feeling of off-ness appears, at which point, pause and reassess

• If something feels grind-y and off, then it’s not the right thing to do - pause and reassess

• This is uhh, kind of the whole thing?

• Make decisions where:

  1. You know you’re making the right decision in that moment
  2. You’re doing what feels best

• AKA, be in a Flow state, more and more reliably

1. You have access to all the data you need always

• Layer 1 (perceptions, ultimate reality)

2. But we habitually distrust layer 1

• People are accustomed to making themselves do things that feel grind-y and off
• People think they have to do things that are grind-y and off. “If I only do things that feel good, then won’t I just like, play video-games all the time?”
• That is, people are used to distrusting and disregarding Layer 1, and instead following their thoughts and abstractions from Layer 2
  • Distrusting our sense data

Core false beliefs

• The core false belief → “Something I’m feeling is bad to feel”
• And then as a result, “I don’t know what to do”
• This leads to suffering, due to:
  • Confusion and feeling bad
  • Getting stuck
  • Tension and avoidance

3. What goes wrong when you distrust your sense data

• You create suffering, basically!
  • Second Dart feelings
• So, you think you need to reply to an email right now
• However, it feels bad to do; there’s resistance in your body, a feeling of grind-y off-ness
• You fight yourself, you feel tense and unhappy, you feel like you’re at war with yourself
• Eventually you maybe force yourself to write the email, or maybe you procrastinate for another few days
• Stuckness
  • I don’t know what to do
  • Confusion and feeling bad
  • Getting stuck
  • Tension and avoidance

4. Alternative approach

• When you recognise that:
  • All feelings are good
  • Feelings are signal
  • Feelings don’t contain false info
  • One unitary preference (no parts)
• Notice “huh, the idea of replying to my emails right now feels bad”
• “I guess it’s not time to reply to my emails”
• “Let me just pause and see if anything else feels good to do”
• Then, maybe remaining paused for a while feels good, just resting and doing nothing. And then maybe you have a genuine desire to go make a cup of coffee, or to go outside, or maybe the pause gives you enough time to realise that answering the email wouldn’t be so bad, etc
• You will always have the info to make the next best action

Therefore, Flow state

• The idea, really, is to be in a flow state where you honour your experience
• If something feels bad, that’s perfect unfakeable signal that that thing is indeed bad to do right now, and there’s no need to force yourself to do it
• It something feels transparently correct, then that’s perfect unfakeable signal that that thing is the correct thing to engage with right now

5. This is a much nicer way to live

• Happiness and productivity

6. Common pushbacks

• What if what I want to do is be lazy?
• What if it starts to feel bad?
• What about unknown unknowns?

Appendix

• Importance of dialogue