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- Past hour
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I have recently stumbled into this topic when exploring mythology. I started with hero archetypes, then villains, and then monsters. As I followed the origin of monster stories, I came to the medieval ages to find what on the surface looked like blatant insanity. Upon closer inspection, I started to realize that the apparent insanity wasn't as obvious as it first appeared. It has raised some interesting philosophical questions in terms of what we consider obvious and why. A few of the monsters I started exploring were vampires and werewolves. I understood that the witch trials already had a bad reputation, but I learned that in addition to that there were also werewolf trials, pig trials, and beetle trials. Firstly, the vampire panics were explainable by ignorance concerning the decomposition process of the body. The process resulted in the appearance of nails and teeth continuing to grow, bloating which looked like feasting, and blood appearing in the mouth as a consequence of decomposition. Sometimes the bodies would appear fresher than expected, which appears to be the origin of vampire stories of blood sucking monsters. Furthermore, the mental state of the people during this time period is explainable by food poisoning. Ergotism didn't have an understood cause. However, the fungal infection on rye often caused people to develop vivid hallucinations and delusions. This would explain the outsized fear of supernatural entities causing mass suffering if there was no way of confirming the existence of germs during that time period. The most interesting part in my opinion were the pig trials. Animals were believed to have held moral standing to face human judgment for breaking the law. It sounds obviously crazy, but I started looking more concretely. The most difficult pig defense trials involved a pig entering a cottage due to hearing the sound of a crying infant. The infant was kept in a cradle near snout level. The pig would then eat the baby while the parents were doing long labor elsewhere. Pigs were often able to do this because cottages often didn't have doors and pigs commonly roamed freely. Pigs killing children happened frequently enough that it was considered as normal as babies dying from disease. This creates a weird contradiction in terms of how we determine if an animal has moral agency or not if we cannot experience what it is like to be an animal. This question isn't as easily answered from my point of view, although there might be a known explanation I haven't seen yet. Personally, I can see why someone would think that my cat has the capacity for willful moral agency because she jumps on the counter only at night when nobody is looking, but jumps down immediately and runs upon being discovered and therefore stopped doing it during the day. The pig trials start to almost seem reasonable given the need for legal documentation of the cause of death, separating it from a death caused by human action. This would include issues such as killing a dangerous animal, similar to contemporary euthanasia for dangerous animals. It would include penalties for the owner if this animal has repeatedly shown violent behavior. It starts to look like the only crazy thing is the added layer of moral judgment to the pig with much of the behavior otherwise mirroring what we would expect for a dangerous animal that needs to be put down. The part that threw me off though was when I read about how confessions were extracted from animals. The idea was that a pig would publicly have its limbs mutilated. If the pig squirmed or squealed, then that counted as a confession and therefore met the gold standard of proof of guilt for that time. Much of the pig trials seemed almost reasonable until I looked at how confessions from animal defendants were extracted and interpreted. I also have a hypothesis regarding shadow figures and sleep paralysis that I intend to explore later. I had nightmares with shadow figures myself and I am connecting to demon stories. It included the incubus and the succubus as sex demons who raped people while they were sleeping. This corresponds to my nightmares of being sexually assaulted by shadow figures during sleep paralysis, and this phenomenon is probably linked to real sexual abuse perpetrated by humans in many cases resulting in nightmares from PTSD. Shadow figures appear to represent a persons deep insecurities, hence they might also be satanic figures trying to harvest your soul. I believe I may have found an intersection between modern understanding of trauma, sleep disorders, and mythology which explains why ancient people would have attributed the phenomenon to actual demons. The advantage of blaming a demon is that the demon cannot be punished in the same way as a human who could therefore shift blame to things like demons who deceived a child. This would therefore allow the child molester to avoid accountability by gaslighting children into believing that it was an actual nightmare with a well known demon to explain it rather than the human actually being responsible for molesting the child. This sounds like something a child predator would realistically do in these circumstances. If you are interested in exploring apparent insanity in medieval reasoning, are you able to find things that almost seem reasonable given the circumstances? How do we know animals don't have moral agency in their actions? How would you explain phenomenon if you didn't know germ theory? These seems like a rich topic in terms of how we know what we know and why people believe crazy things. -
Yeah this is so true I tell my mates this all the time but they are so locked into the manosphere shit that they can't be helped.
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James123 replied to machinegun's topic in Spirituality, Consciousness, Awakening, Mysticism, Meditation, God
Enlightenment kills the God, you, and enlightenment itself. You serious right? -
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What If Things Never Got Better? What if things never got better? What if the cost of a median house or the cost of oil/gas never got better? But, instead of us succumbing to this, we build systems around this material reality and those systems actually end up better for us in the long run. The suburban house, the nuclear family living under one roof, the typical middle class lifestyle that we imagine, is not something that has already been around. It’s something that has come up in the last 80 years post WW2. That’s not the only way to live. The main reason why highways were built to and from cities was so that in the event of a nuclear war, we can move supplies around efficiently. After WW2, we didn’t “go back to normal” and get rid of the highways. Instead, we used that as existing infrastructure to make the suburbs which were created as a mid point between rural and urban living but also because of racism and redlining. That’s how things work in the High. New instructions and ways of life are built from the by product of the Crisis. They aren’t perfect and the rationale gets called into action in the Awakening (think Civil Rights movement in this situation). I watched a few financial channels and I’m seeing that the previous financial benefits of owning a suburban house is dwindling these days because of how expensive houses are and because of property tax. A few decades ago, buying a house was a good idea because it locked in your mortgage payment and it was cheaper in the long run as opposed to renting. It was also much easier to buy a house back then where you could save up for a few years and get a down payment. Now, if we’re going off of cost alone and we ignore the American Dream propaganda we have been fed, it makes more sense in major cities now to rent an apartment and take the difference you would have spent on a mortgage and other hidden costs associated with home ownership and put it in the stock market, it will yield higher returns. I also think of Amsterdam and how in the 60s and 70s, people were much more likely to buy cars. Then, because of the 1970s oil crisis, gas became incredibly expensive. And it never went down to where using a car was sustainable again. Instead, the city moved around that and people built more bike and pedestrian friendly infrastructure. Now, fast forward a few decades, I don’t think people are seeing the oil crisis of the 70s as a major hit to people’s quality of life. If anything, I think the new system that was built as a result of the crisis is yielding better results. We can look to today as an example as well. While we never went fully “back to normal” since COVID, some really good things came out of it. People get to work from home now meaning they have more flexibility with where they live, their work life balance, and taking care of kids. While there isn’t a mass physical infrastructure change, to take away one’s commute and give them extra hours of their day back is a huge change to someone’s life infrastructure. And what I’m thinking as far as world building goes is what if housing prices and gas prices never went down and that was actually a good thing. What if this incentivizes people to be in apartments more, thus creating more of a demand for nicer walkable areas. What if instead of all the property taxes from the city core going out to subsidize the suburbs, we reinvest that money towards schools, hospitals, and other major building projects in the city. There is a reason why a lot of major building constructions dwindled after WW2. I mean a lot of the fancy, traditional looking architecture that give a city life was built around the post war period or before that. That is before suburbs became a big thing. It’s because all the money was going out to maintain the suburbs. What if gas prices never went down, people have to use public transport and biking more, and that increases the demand for public transport, better infrastructure, and more denser neighborhoods. What if this is the push we need to invest in green energy and phase out oil and gas. Yes, the American Dream and traditional institutions established 80 years ago are crumbling. And it’s scary because as of now, we just see the negatives and the hit to our quality of life. But what if this is our chance to create a better dream instead of going back to the old and trying to patch up a dying paradigm? But that requires creativity and being able to think outside the box of how the ideal life is a heterosexual marriage with 2.5 kids in a suburban home with two or more cars. Yes, we want to solve the problems of today when envisioning the future. But, we don’t want to do it in a way where we “go back to normal.” We want to create better overall systems that adapt to a changing world, not just fight it to preserve old paradigms. And something that I find so beautiful and also so tragic about the 2020s is that we have the solutions to a lot of these problems. We can solve the climate crisis with our current green energy technology. We can put more money towards schools and our healthcare system because we have the money. We know what policies need to be implemented to create a better quality of life for people. The problem isn’t finding solutions. The problem is implementing said solutions across the backdrop of corporate interests and cultural talking points that are used to cause people to vote against their best interests. That’s why I don’t think that 2076 is going to be this hyper futuristic place. I don’t think more technology alone is going to solve our problems because if that was the case, we wouldn’t be in this situation. If anything, more technology without the proper regulations and protections does more harm than good. Look at the way that companies like DoorDash, Airbnb, and Uber are harming the economy, harming the consumers, and harming the workers. Yes the conveniences are nice, but they aren’t a net positive without the proper guard rails.
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As the most attractive member of the forum, I have watched the video and have to say I agree with everything orion says here.
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looksmaxxers would be considered homosexual in the 90s and they would probably be right.
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With all the social media toxic manosphere ideologies, definitely the 90s. There's just too much bullshit online and no direct experience of women.
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Yawning
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Who understands women more, the average man today, or the average man in the 90s?
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It brings out the worst traits in people. All the wrong behaviour is rewarded if the intention is to build something of substance with another being with maturity, respect and gracious connection. The platform removes the context in which human qualities become visible. You are very correct that it corrupts men's understanding of the nature of women. You end up in a terrible cognitive echo chamber where confirmation bias destroys truth. Dating apps create conditions where confirmation bias thrives because people receive highly selective feedback and then generalise from it. I wouldn't say there is NO success in online dating unless one is good looking, but the odds are against you if you do not have that "look" to initiate a swipe right decision.
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SING IT ((ヽ(๑╹◡╹๑)ﾉ))♬
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Online dating apps definitely screwed everything up, though. There is no success in online dating unless you are good-looking. This corrupts men's understanding of women.
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enchanted replied to TheGod's topic in Spirituality, Consciousness, Awakening, Mysticism, Meditation, God
Stop mediation and all spiritual stuff. Ensure you so these every day: Lots of Excersize, very balanced diet, strict sleep schedule. You will get back in the dream that way. -
For me it’s magic mushroom, I take a low dose and sit somewhere at the beach. There is other ways without psychedelic of course like meditation but psychedelics they force me to put awareness to the HERE NOW. It reminds me to not be too hard on myself and enjoy life. I can’t suggest psychedelics to anyone cuz idk people’s mental health record but if you are a well balanced human being then you can give it a go. Mix it with meditation and you’re good, more answers will come along the way.
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One suggestion I'd add to my other. Do lots of practical things that also test your cognition. Me being in medical school, its an interesting blend of both. But in medical practice, deception has a price that can actually be weighed. This is the benefit of the physical world, we can pontificate on the existence of our foot and how it meets the road all we want but until we actually do it we merely have at most, the confidence that we can. Here's the catch though despite that confidence, you've been imagining the idea of running your entire life from zero orbit so your bones and muscles have never truly developed the ability, you've only seen films on how its possible without the medical knowledge on how you can regress from having the physical capacity to. That's a little what it was like when I ran from Ho Chi Minh City to Phnom Penh. I was at the time, out of shape but had the memories of my more athletic days that gave me the confidence that I could. I decided on a whim at 8pm at night in the muggy heat knowing that I didn't want to begin in the blistering heat in the morning, and just started running with my military like boots and backpack. I had to run mostly at night due to the heat with wild dogs at my heel the whole way through, especially through Cambodia which was beautiful by the way as I met many natives that would spontaneously invite me in for lunch and dinner, even singing karaoke during the day with a group at one stage in the middle of no where. I made it through, but the physical toll made it a constant test of self-deception more than physical endurance. Because its the endurance more than anything else that is asking the question to the brain, can you do it? That's a very difficult question that needs to be managed with both confidence which can overinflated, and the removal of deception, which can cause personal doubt. This is also while I still persisted after having being hit by a motorbike head-on at night at one stage with blood pouring down my forehead and a nasty bloody gash on my leg that required stitches for both. Not to mention the extensive bruising over my stomach, thighs, arms and legs. And I had to limp to the hospital, which lucky for me, was less than a kilometre away. I thought I was done, I thought I'd seriously damaged my leg, but I was starting again the next day thanks to the kind doctor at the time that didn't even want to charge me money. So I came out stronger physically, but my mental growth got the better end of the deal when it comes to facing falsity, deception and the like head on. Be the rubber that hits the road, don't just dream it is the lesson there. It's this reason that from now on, concerning any say journal entries that I make, they will be inspired essays, because they impose a structure my mind is forced to comply and grow within, not merely just ideate wherever my mind wishes to travel at the time. And that's if I choose to share the essays, as it may be better for my personal growth not to share in some ways, there are pro's and cons. With falsity around every corner ready to catch you as soon as you think you no longer need a judgement that weighs, prices, correlates, breaks and generates through razors designed to trim through pain points. This is my way of not only measuring my recovery overtime from my seizures (epilepsy), but also converting the desire to extend my abstract understanding of where being meets the world through tested limits. And don't give a second chance at life or opportunity like a video game.
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cetus replied to machinegun's topic in Spirituality, Consciousness, Awakening, Mysticism, Meditation, God
You nailed it. -
This is a bad take. Yes, online dating apps are playing a larger role, which are visually driven. But that does not mean the chief thing women desire from modern men is now their looks.
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Academic trap, huh?
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Great question.
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Epistemology is so important because you get to know that you can know the deepest questions and how to. That's preliminary.
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I bet this you irl
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They'll quickly transcend it.
