commie

No answer regarding the use of the fash word "degenerate"? It's not clear what you're replying to (did I say anything about porn? or are you saying that watching porn is like having sex?) but that study (or at least your recollection of it) sounds like BS since rates of assault, murder and so forth fell in many countries incl. the USA in that timeframe.

Liberals are constantly finding new ways to disappoint us, don't they? Making free contraception and other reproductive services widely available would also reduce the number of abortions. Is that another idea you like? How about sterilizing Christians? That would work as well.

Such questions are usually answered with the anthropic principle. Look it up if you don't know what I'm talking about. It's a somewhat unsatisfying but sensible answer. A more interesting question I think would be: how is it we can understand these laws? Another famous one is: how is it math works so well in this regard?

We all are, to some extent (which is not to say you don't have a problem or that it can't be fixed). I can't say I have very happy memories from my childhood. For one thing, I was supposed to put up with men obsessed with showing off their manliness. Maybe that's why I feel life is awesome and magical. :-)

Cost is a thing if you want to become independent from their money or simply become free from it. Because while that money could buy you things, it could also create trouble for you if you dwell among the less privileged. All young people could be targeted by predators but you have an extra problem: anyone who knows about this money (everyone here for instance) could harm you in trying to get a piece or simply harm you out of spite because they hate what you stand for. If you keep behaving as if this money is there for you, you won't even need to open your mouth to draw on target on your back.

Regardless of your motives, it happens to be substantially more prudent financially than renting... unless of course if there's a place far away from your current home where you think you stand a much better chance of securing an income. If you only want to be away from your parents for a while, surely there are cheaper ways to do that than renting. Other than the cost of the pro (if it's not covered by insurance, social security or something), the concern is evidently that you might use the prospect of the pro's help as an excuse to procrastinate. But surely you could start getting busy right now, and get in touch with a pro as well.

Why would you want "a single piece of evidence"? There are pieces of evidence pointing in all directions FFS! Anyone with a clue knows they work... as long as you do not expect magic or a simple solution. Once politics comes into play, it's as if people left half of their faculties at the door or something.

Living with your parents is fine. And in some circumstances it is the responsible choice. There's a reason multi-generational households used to be (and still are in some parts) the norm. The toxic masculinity in this thread is stifling. If someone is living with their parents because they have personal issues, leaving won't fix them. The change might be helpful but that's by no means a given. Leaving might help if the relationship between child and parent is problematic however.

It's very different from sleep. I used this experience to explain death from a materialist perspective in a deleted thread. The weirdest thing is that it feels like I remember quite well what was happening right before I passed out. Less interesting: I had lingering effects of the drug for a long time after I woke up (a welcome distraction from being tied to a bed with tubes connecting your body to various devices). Maybe the dose was excessive.

In that case, surely you could be less vague than "countless", "permanent damage" and so forth. And it'd have been quicker to cite publications than to write what you've just typed. If you want people to be informed, be informative!

This perverse way of invoking slavery reminds me of nothing so much as Fire Eater discourse. :-( Well, that escalated quickly. On a different note, the interview with that KKK fellow was interesting.

If you don't count, there's no way you can tell if the risk is worth it and all you're doing is dressing up your prejudices, puritanical or otherwise. If you had done your research (as you said one should), you'd know how risky this very common drug class really is. Or you could simply trust the pros. But distrusting the pros on the basis on prejudice rather than data? That rarely turns out well.

If you call it ego when someone doesn't want to have sex with whoever wants to have sex with them and stamp that out somehow, it does sound very much like normalized rape.

Are you some kind of Freudian? I don't mean to insult you, only to relate your words to other things I've heard in order to make some sense of them. Are you imagining normalized rape?

If it was essential, then prostitution would also be essential (as long as it is remains the only way for many to have sex). In what way do you figure sex is essential in the first place? What would efficiency look like in this regard?

How would I know if I experience what you call sexual "urges"? I'm asking because I'm struggling to see the connection with murder and stuff. Like, would you assault people if you were drunk and horny or something? When businesses were required to close because of the epidemic, prostitutes weren't exempt. IIRC, they weren't even on the intermediate list but considered no more essential than nail salons and such. So it's certainly not just me!

It was elaborate but when you say "it's energy after all", it sounds like you expect that to make sense while that's what I think requires explanation (all I know is the Joules type of energy). I was hoping for something less abstract than "pathologically" and more lurid since you talked about murder. My perspective is simply not to assume causes without evidence. It seems prostitution has become less common (or is it only less spoken of?) while murders have become less common as well but that doesn't mean there's any causal relationship there. More to the point perhaps, I'm perplexed by the notion that sex is an "essential need", except of course for the purpose of reproduction (which isn't what prostitutes provide).

Could you elaborate? Is that your own theory or someone else's? Got any data? Pardon my morbid curiosity.

Why would I watch the video? It's simply Roubini on AJ, right? Do tell if there's something else worth watching in it. Is Roubini saying anything new for instance?

Benzos are fine if it's for a temporary situation, like if you're only going to take them a few days. The main point of seeing a doctor is of course not to get a dealer but to rule out what they call "organic" problems. These are sometimes only as temporary as the beating of your heart.

Roubini is generally worth listening to. But can you expect AJ to provide a useful context to what he says? More to the point, have you examined the reason why you are attracted to this video or indeed this topic? Are you honestly trying to inform yourself about economics (what books have you read) or are you looking for validation of your beliefs or for something to legitimize of your feelings?

The symptoms you are describing are no joke. Please discuss them with a doctor. But regardless of what problem you might or might not have, I think you should find other ways to calm down. Simple mindfulness techniques have helped me when my body was acting up but I'm of course not claiming that's the best or only way. What I do claim however is that life isn't about meaning, or about death.

"Secular rational" people aren't secular or rational at all. They're just answering survey questions according to their cultural and political biases. India scores about as high as the USA on that scale for instance so your certainty is obviously unwarranted. You're deluding yourself when you're inhaling "purely syllogistic grounds".

Such a survey isn't about what I'd call "conscious" in the first place but let's not quibble over semantics. That's got two axis, right? Are you only talking about "secular-rational". If you have a dataset that covers countries with varied and varying birthrates over a few generations, there might be evidence for or against causation in there. Maybe someone has already done the work. After eyeballing the data I found, it doesn't look so promising actually. But maybe you have data which looks like it might actually be useful?