Basman

Even babies can recognize when someone is attractive. It's largely genetic. Humans don't find other species sexually attractive, like horses or lions, even if they have good genes for that reason (outside of weird fetishes).

I don't understand this urge to relativize something which is fairly objective and obvious. And well documented. Even babies like attractive faces.

The most extreme version of this polarity is harems. A bunch of women who don't work a day in their life and who's only purpose is to be sex objects for some king, a peak status male. Literal bird cage shit. Granted, they where mostly slaves and didn't have a choice in the matter, but you could argue that proves the point of women not being valued for material survival. If they where it wouldn't make sense to lock them up. You'd make your sex slaves till the fields, fish and build houses in between cheek busting.

When Trump starts a pointless war you can atleast least vote him out. When Putin starts an insane war, nothing short of a miracle or old age will remove him from power. Power tends to corrupt and make people lose touch with reality. The best thing about democracy is arguably that it puts checks on power.

In my experience, when people talk of an intellectual gap in a relationship it's tends to be a justification for a general lack of passion and maybe other frustrations.

You'de be hard pressed to find a relationship that meets every need you have. The risk is that it won't necesarilly get better than this. Be careful chasing the dragon. Is it not possible to cultivate a love of philosophy in her over time? It could be a great experience to be part of that. Don't be too binary or hasty in your thinking.

I remember going out once and this girl with a hunchback was aggressively approaching guys, like going up and hugging their arm and shit, and they would just ignoring her awkwardly. They would freeze like in Jurassic Park. Brutal stuff. You have to feel sorry for someone like that.

This feels more like an over the top culture war thing than genuine politics. It's a complete non-starter.

My first impression is that I'm a little wary of readability with those numbers from a first time writer. A commercial editor would probably want to do a lot of slashing.

I could never subscribe to a religion myself but I could derive wisedom from it if nothing else. What's interesting about the bible is that you can see a lot of the ideas that have historically run western culture written out in plain text.

Religion is self-help in that it's a philosophy about improving one's circumstances in life, broadly speaking. The crux of the argument is not religious belief but how religion emphasizes ethics and having an adequate relationship to one's life on a fundamental level, as opposed to modern self-help which focuses on what one wants in life. Ethics and an adequate relationship to one's mortality can complement modern self-help beautifully. Modern self-help without ethics is something like a stockbroker or a pick-up devil, neither of which are really healthy things or contribute to the world in a good way. Having an adequate relationship to one's mortality would be to have a constructive relationship to circumstances outside of one's control, like war or disease. Modern self-help culture tends to make people feel entitled to getting out of life what they want, which is not always possible. Ethics and an adequate relationship to one's mortality can help boost your maturity and growth as a human being.

It's less about a faith specifically but how religion fundamentally focuses what not to do, as opposed what you want out of life, which is what modern self-help focuses on. Religion is "the stick" style of self-help whereas modern self-help is more like "the carrot". Of course religion as self-help is fairly outdated and doesn't make a lot of sense by modern standards because it's 2000 years old but that's kind of besides the point. It's essentially about ethics and having a healthy relationship with one's mortality, something which modern self-help doesn't necessarily adequately equip you with. Modern self-help without adequate ethics would be a pick-up devil for example. Remember that religion is responsible for much of the moral standards that we hold as given today. It's not obvious that murder is bad to uncivilized people.

Obviously, most self-help is success oriented. But the average person needs more success before they can start thinking about god, arguably.

It's less about the specific belief in god than it's about how religion mirrors self-help but in a "stick" way, as opposed to the "Carrot" way that characterizes modern self-help, IE. what not to do in life as opposed to getting what you want out of life. It essentially boils down to ethics and having an adequate sense of one's mortality in my opinion. Buddhism I would characterize as religious self-help that doesn't center a belief in god. Modern self-help has the advantage in that it's generally very clear and easy to follow, whereas antique material can be quiet obtuse. It's a mistake to compare apples to oranges though, as long as you are getting something out of the material.

Thou shalt not eat chicken and lick thy fingers on a sunday afternoon lest thou go to hell.