Basman

To expand on concepts in sci-fi that are inherently fantastical, the force in Star Wars is a great example of such. The force is mystical and is more allegorical from a story telling perspective. The force shouldn't be explained because being mysterious makes it more interesting.

When you write a story it is more important that the rules of the world you are building are internally consistent rather than true to life. Every sci-fi story has at least one element that is inherently fantastical to a certain degree. Scientific minutia can be interesting but it is ultimately tertiary in the grand scheme of things. You don't have to explain everything.

Fighting is a consequence of conflict. Conflict happens as a result of finitude. When opposing parties want different things with the same thing but that thing is too finite to fulfill both parties desires, conflicts ensues. Resources are an obvious example. In the Savanna, competition among predators is fierce due to there being so many of them at the same time which has lead to an emphasis on the ability for animals to brawl each other as opposed to simply catching prey. Many predators have evolved to quickly gulp down their prey (often while it is still alive) to minimize the risk of having their kill stolen. The cheetah is an example of a predator that is losing out in this competition because it is too small to fight back against kill stealers. Even vulture bully cheetahs. In contrast, the male lions primary task is to bully and kill the competition. They will seek out the young of competitor species in order to kill them. Lions are very successful species compared to cheetahs. A clear example of survival and conflict going hand in hand. If catching prey was easy and opportunities to eat where less finite, survival would be less fierce and there would be less violence among the animals comparatively.

I've heard him described as an "id" for boys. Someone who is buff, says what ever he wants, gets lots of women, drives fast cars, rich, etc. Being unabashedly obnoxious and gratuitous is attractive on a primal level to many guys. He offers himself as a father figure of sorts which draws in the "losers" who like a role model and belonging.

Dry chicken is the result of overcooking and letting all of the moisture escape. Under cooking is the opposite extreme and bad for you because of salmonella. A well cooked, juice chicken will always be delicious. I think it has more to do with how much you eat. Dense food is easier to overeat because it takes a while before you start feeling full and vegans tend to eat less on average.

Ain't no way You mix bread in with your cooked veggies and eggs? It'll get soggy!

I used to be vegetarian for 1-2ish years. I kinda got fed up with the basic diet plan of meat+whatever that is normal here in the west. I'm overall happy to have had the experience as it enriched my pallet. Though I eventually stopped caring about abiding by a strict diet and just ate what I liked, the experience expanded my horizon as I discovered food can be very delicious without meat. One of my favorite dishes is vegetarian, paneer korma. Vegetable based food often have very round and mellow tastes with interesting textures. Though they require a lot of saute and spices to bring home the flavor. When I used to be vegetarian many people would challenge me over it, expecting me to be insufferable about it. I never cared about animals in that way and I think lauding morals over others makes you a pompous cu**. Bro, how dry do you want your chicken? it looks like bread.

Women have never been just "receivers" of anything in human history. Women in traditional roles provide a more innately social resource as opposed to a physical one. That's the difference. You can completely disregard traditional gender roles when planning your career. Just focus on your life purpose, the kind of impact you want to have, etc.

I only ever stumbled on gore when browsing social media during the early 2010s. You'll eventually stumble onto something, then you can't look away. The imagery is haunting, even after all this years I can still remember vivid details. My life hasn't been improved in the slightest from that stuff. I think it is really just a rush to people and its gross to make other peoples suffering your entertainment.

Page count: 448 Published: 2018 Disappointingly, 12 Rules isn't 400 pages of self-help advice but more like a part essay on Jordan Peterson's philosophical/political worldview and part self-help advice. The book isn't written succinctly and to the point like a conventional self-help book with clear objectives, instead you get pages of anecdotes, personal stories, Christian mythology and musings on political trends like Feminism, 20th century totalitarianism and lobsters. It reads a bit like a JP stream-of-conscious. You'll have 40 pages of anecdotes on Adam and Eve and the juxtaposition between state and individual for a chapter about "straightening your back". When Peterson wants to, his advice can be brilliant. Certain chapters like Rule 6 (set your house in perfect order before you criticize others), that are shorter and more to the point where very effective at teaching me their relevant principles. Especially when Peterson used personal stories to cement a point, as opposed to Christian mythology or abstract political theory. The principles in his book can improve your life if you can internalize them, and I have learned things that improved mine, but I think the lack of clarity and its boring writing makes it a tough read. There is good cream in there but its caked in-between layers of chaff. It can feel like the self-help aspect is just a pretext to talk about something else. 7/10

You are anxious about your life purpose because you are overthinking the "how" question. Acting your vision is much more important than trying to plan it. If you want to play chess. Just play more chess. It doesn't have to be life changing chess. If your lucky, it might come but that isn't as important as just playing chess, no? You can't perfectly predict how things unfold. Therefor just focus on the act of your purpose and see how things go. You don't have to be rich and famous for it to be worth it to pursue your passion.

At the closing of every year, I like to fill out one these, a Year Compass. I've been doing it since 2019 and it is been good to both reflect on how the year went and what I want the next year to be about and what goals I'd like to maintain. It'll also look good over years and decades, as I'll accumulate basically a log of my life. This year I felt like I matured a bit and became a more mature and even keeled person. Less in my head. Though I didn't accomplish much in terms of concrete things, I've made good progress on Leo's Life Purpose Course after a long time of deliberation. I've discovered that making art is very important to me and I've been practicing a lot. Here are some 2024 goals of mine: Fully finish at least one drawing per week Get a gym membership and exercise weekly Finish the Life Purpose Course Meditate daily What are some of your 2024 goals?

Hikikomori are on average more likely to be autistic. It signals an inability to cope with the pressure to conform to Japanese norms as well as the prevalence of technology that allows such a lifestyle. Hikikomori are probably always traumatized. I believe it is kind of like homelessness, in that when you lose your social connections and slip off the radar nobody notices you and the problem festers.

If the point was highlighting that the assumption of long-term human survival is inherently erroneous than I missed that. Your post read more like fiction than an essay, But what people do you think assume such, that humanity will be preserved eternally? Most people I know barely think of tomorrow let alone hundreds of years into the future.

Not buying into the idea that bio-mechanical creatures will overrun the world without a shred of evidence doesn't make me presupposed.

Humans have been altering the environment since the stone age. What is happening now that is just a continuation of that. There's nothing mystical about it. It is just happening at an accelerating pace due to urbanization and industrialization. Many species can't keep up with and adapt to the changes in time. OP is down a rabbit hole imagining a technological fantasy.

Incel ideology is a mind virus. It is a meme that spreads misery instead of humor. It preys on insecurity and makes you believe that you are helpless. Giving away your power is what make being an Incel both tragic and pathetic at the same time. If we wish to "cure" Incels, they have to be decoupled from their ideology that makes them believe that they can't meaningfully change their lives. The problem with that is that their ideology gives them comfort and belonging. Being helpless is convenient and easy and I believe many Incels simply aren't interested in putting in the effort to create lasting change. They must want to change first. One problem I see with modern culture is that it is often not safe for men to discuss their issues without being ridiculed or have their issues minimized (by comparing them to women's issues for example). These "pill" and Incel forums (redpill, MGTOW, men's rights, etc.) do represent spaces where men can discuss their issues and have them taken seriously but they follow with a lot of toxic baggage. There is a culture of "damned if you do, damned if you don't" for men's emotional issues. I remember reading a thread about a guy who seemed to express what appeared to me as sexual trauma over having had unwitting sex with a trans women, where they didn't find out that fact until after having had sex. The OP wasn't really taken seriously, being asked if they where "insecure" and told that they shouldn't feel the way they did. And that was a thread on this very forum, a place where we are meant to better ourselves as a human beings. It shows just how implicit certain expectations we have of men that aren't reflective of the reality we live in. If there is one thing we can do to help insecure and lonely men then it is to listen.

Not sure what you mean? Probably because it is hard. Physically strenuous activities rarely become addicting. Exercise does lift your mood though, so could say that you become "depressed" when you don't exercise. The Nofap community is rife with confirmation bias. Reddit, as a social media platform, filters out posts that don't follow the general online culture so you'll never see posts that say "nofap doesn't work" for example. That is a huge selection bias that makes it less than reputable. The Reddit page gives the appearance of unison, but only because it isn't even possible to go against the grain. It is an echo chamber and an ideological cult. The problem with researching porn is that it often relies on self-reporting and assumptions. Political, religious, moral and business interests can introduce self-bias to research. There isn't definitive conclusive evidence that porn is bad as far as I can see. In my own opinion, if you have porn-related issues, it is more often than not a symptom of something else.

Social media is a suppressant. It is when you are bored, feeling fidgety or anxious (like at a party) that you reach out for your phone. Exercise releases endorphins, which is primarily what makes it pleasurable from a chemical perspective. There are few activities that are as direct and simple a way towards self-improvement and promoting health. Morals (like religion) is a better predictor of porn-related issues than porn-use itself. If you think porn and masturbation is moral, you are more likely going to think that you are dysregulated when you do use it. That and/or you just don't have a lot going on in your life and attribute your unhappiness to porn. I get the impression that there is a growing cottage industry of porn demonetization on social media. Not that porn has no faults, but it sensationalizes issues that are ostensibly moral first and foremost. In my experience it draws a lot of people who are ignorant and don't know that dopamine isn't a pleasure chemical or think not masturbating will magically solve their issues.

Plants have a clear survival agenda. Of course because they are living organisms. I'm not sure about the sun having a survival agenda as it is simply a burning ball of gas. It is more like a natural phenomena rather than something trying to survive. Plants are always in competition for sunlight. I don't remember the exact term for it but I learned once in school that forests follow a cycle of evolving into gradually more "dominant" tree species. In Scandinavia, the "apex tree" are coniferous trees (evergreens) because of how they blot out the sun for other tree species down below and change the composition of the ground. An open field, if left untended, will eventually be overgrown by shrubbery, then leafy trees and eventually coniferous (in that general order). It is all ordered around what plants can dominate the best spots for sunlight, which the tallest and bushiest trees will do best. A pretty clear example of a survival bias in the plant kingdom. If you are on a hike and you see birch trees in the woods, it is a good sign of an opening or of a bog because of how trees order themselves.

Nuclear's bad PR is a serious obstacle to overcome if you want to build plants. It is a lot harder to build nuclear energy if general sentiment is against it, which exacerbates the lack of intent to put in the long-term investment it takes to build plants. If you are for nuclear you have to argue for it more than with other energy sectors.

I find Nazism fascinating because to understand it you have to separate actual National Socialism from the way "Nazism" (the term) has a taken a life of its own nowadays. It has kind of just become a slur and no one cares to understand the true historical context of the ideology. Actual Nazism is very unique to a specific time in history.

This whole discussion around spoilers just seems kinda overblown to me. People don't like having their favorite media spoiled. It is not that deep. I see more people and "articles" complaining about spoiler culture rather than people complaining about spoilers. The problem is more with social media as it is inherently about the propagation of information while spoiler culture is the opposite. You can't freely use social media and be completely safe from spoilers at the same time. But it it also not much to ask for some basic courtesy.

Really interesting take on the "Doom Clone" game. There hasn't been much exploration of 1st person shooters using 2D vectors outside of some of the recent "Boomer Shooter" games. I think there is a lot of potential for unique and interesting artstyles. I wish the AAA space was more original and creative like this. One look at the trailer and you can immediately grasp its identity. And it is unique and different so there is a reason to look forward to it if you like it. Nowadays AAA games are so homogeneous. It is rare I ever get excited for anything.

This is a great definition. I don't think shame is inherently bad. It serves an important function of helping you integrate with you community. If you for example make a tasteless joke during a funeral then you should feel ashamed. The pain is letting you know you failed as a person and that you need to learn and do better. Of course it can be maladaptive if you are ashamed of things you shouldn't be ashamed of. Maybe you lack good role models who could show you the way in your life.