Jirh

@Bobby_2021 Syria is shifting from being in a humiliating war state with Israel to a humiliating peace state. Like you said, being near Israel is a curse.

I would like to hear an explanation for Iran's interest in fighting Israel. I don't buy the idea of "resistance" or that this is a religious war even if it has some religious element to it. There are probably some political and economical reasons that most people are not aware of, including the ones that hate Iran. One of these reasons could be oil trade, and another could be the pilgrimage in Kuddus city (Jerusalem), which is important for the Shiite. Does anyone have a deeper insight into this?

@Etherial Cat Pretty accurate summary of the dating dilemma. But if we're speaking strictly from a sexual attraction lens, some girls find bad behavior to be sexually attractive and nice behavior to be simply boring or in some cases off-putting. I mean on the surface, at least, and from an instinctual point of view. This, in my opinion, seems like the equivalent of the Madonna-Whore complex, hence the reply. Bad and more generally socially unacceptable behavior seems to entice and excite some people, whether women or men, while conformity seems to have an opposite effect. This could be stemming from psychological wounds, or it might just be normal. Not everyone is the same and not everyone is compatible, like you said.

Dopamine Nation

Probably obvious, but I would say it's the attraction to the toxic bad boy and the inability to be attracted to the stable loving man aka the nice guy.

At no point in time something was ever yours (or anyone's) in the first place.

Unexpectedly, one of the biggest potential problems in the near future will be the newly freed prisoners. It's estimated that Sidnaya prison alone had nearly 300000 prisoners inside, and they were all freed unconditionally. Obviously, many of them were captured unjustly for political reasons, but also a big portion are dangerous criminals. This demographic change will likely destabilize the country further. So I wonder what precautions the new government is taking, if any. One of the biggest challenges in ruling is that you want to allow the most amount of freedom with the least amount of chaos. Syria under Assad was very strict and oppressive, however, there was order. The question now is how much freedom can the new government allow without sacrificing too much order?

@zurew When I say intuition, I don't mean a theoretical possibility. A theoretical possibility is more intellectual, such as the possibilities you've mentioned. That's not at all what I'm pointing to. I'm pointing to something rather simple and more basic than imagined, and in that light, logic or the intellect kind of stands in the way. The intellect is used to think in ways that hinder one's ability to see other possibilities that can be sitting right in front of you. So, when I say intuition, I don't mean a hypothetical outlandish theory that is theoretically possible (regardless of likelihood). Rather, I mean what comes to you directly in your own lived experience, your hunch, gut feeling, or your first impressions (primitive understanding so to speak). For example, what is your first intuition about the shape of the earth? The honest answer is flat earth. Now, whether that's factually correct or not, and how useful or helpful it is for navigating through life, is a different matter. The point is not to fantasize or create alien models of what reality might be. The point is the opposite of that. In other words, your direct lived experience. How do you feel as a first-person or a conscious living agent through this thing called life? Do you experience the earth as a round thing? Or as a "flat" surface? (I'm using quotations here to note that it's not technically flat even in direct experience, but just to simplify our conversation). All I'm saying is that if you apply the same thinking to solipsism, you might find out something of value in there, regardless of how technically/absolutely true or how useful or helpful it might be.

Assad's regime was mostly a realist. The opposition is divided into two main groups, one is racist and extremist religious jihadist, and the other is naïve and gullible optimists who think they've overthrown the tyrant and don't know the new potential tyrant in sight. There's also a minority of the opposition that is smart and realist, hopefully these will be able to control the jihadist and satisfy the promises they've made to the Syrian people. This minority is represented by a handful of people that turned against Assad's regime early on in the early days of the uprising. Assad was very difficult to manipulate by western actors, and by extension he was also difficult to negotiate with, whether with inner or outer actors. This new change will introduce a very different dynamic in how the area will be ruled or "dealt with". We cannot predict what is going to happen, hopefully for the better. But we should be extremely cautious about Israeli and Turkish expansions into Syrian lands. And also about the existence of Hezbollah and American bases in there. All of these issues need to be addressed and resolved by the international community or at least by close regional states like the gulf states. Trump doesn't care about the area except for the Israeli cause. He will definitely support Israel to further establish dominance in the middle east, and with Iran's proxies weakened and out of the pictures, this should be easy and met with minor resistance. However, if he went too far and let Israel take a lot of land, then things might get ugly again.

@zurew I wholeheartedly agree with what you said. And I would argue that it is mostly innocent confusion rather than intended obfuscation that's happening on the other side. And while I think you're absolutely right, and agree with the entirety of your line of reasoning, as it's absolutely sound and correct, I still feel like there's something missing there. I feel that you hold an intellectual space that is not particularly curious for all possibilities, without attaching to one particular possibility, which is good, but when everything is equally possible, such that it nullifies the essence of what each possibility might contain and bring about in actual experience through intuition, then something feels off for me. Notice that I'm not advocating for solipsism or otherwise any other particular view. Rather, I'm saying there is a deep value in entertaining each possibility on its own, even if it's not 100% logically consistent, and to be more frank and perhaps extreme, I would say even if it's not logically coherent at all. Are you okay with that level of extreme?

@zurew It is both right and wrong at the same time to hold the view you're holding. From a logical perspective, your questions are valid, yet from a non-logical, and more intuitive perspective, they are not. The ability to see this paradox and tightrope it is required here. From my understanding, it seems the others here don't see the logical perspective, or don't acknowledge its validity, and you're doing the same in the opposite way.

Well, have you considered that maybe you, right now, in the middle of what seems and surely feels like a crisis, are actually the most sane, right, and least deluded of all? Like, at least shouldn't that be the case given your intentions and sincerity and efforts? It's only fair. I mean maybe nobody really knows anything, and we're all just big pretenders, though admittedly some with bigger mouths than others. Maybe this state of seeming confusion that you're in, is what any honest person should be in. Well, let me tell you, that many people have been there. And as it turns out, it's just a phase, and about time until you come out from the other side. So don't worry or fret about it. Maybe it's not required to know. Like maybe all you need to do right now is to drop the desire to "know" and learn to live in peace and harmony with uncertainty, as if you even know what "knowledge" is or if it even exists. Maybe knowledge is the biggest delusion of all. And hey, maybe it's okay to live without knowing every little thing, or let's be extreme and say maybe it's perfectly okay to live without really "knowing" anything at all. Forget about this pretender species (homo sapiens) and look at everything else. Does a tree "know" anything? Does an ant "know" anything? I would go directly at the head of the snake and question knowledge itself. What is it? Like really what is it on the deepest existential level? Forget all that you have learnt, and start from scratch. The answer and cure is there. You can do it. Good luck!

@Exystem Amen brother. What a refreshing read after the 60 pages long abuse of natural intelligence. Humaneness is so subtle and unique, it cannot be replicated. And I fell in love as it shined through your well crafted post. Now that's what I call something else. Thank you.