Emerald

"When you are proactive about building a good life for yourself and doing spiritual work, you need other people less and less to complete you. To the extent that your life is not well put together, the loss of people in your life will lead to huge catastrophe and deep suffering -- because you use these people as emotional crutches to avoid doing serious work. If you take this work deep enough, you will not need anyone for your happiness." The reason why I bring this up to you is because of what you'd said... and the message this might send to people. This is especially true for young people who may simply take you at your word and not investigate deeper. It gives the sense that developing social connection is optional, when it is a basic human need. Sure. Certain hardcore spiritual practitioners might become ascetic and forego their human needs for connection and sex... perhaps they may even forego their needs for food and water to a certain extent. And certainly, there is still the capacity to feel happy and fulfilled if a person dedicates their entire life to mastering the ascetic way of life. But by and large, this is terrible advice to give to the average person as they may starve themselves of their own needs and face negative consequences as a result. Most people cannot be fulfilled without their basic human needs being met. So, if they decide that they don't need socialization because "God needs nothing", this just leaves them in a holding pattern in the bottom layers of Maslow's Hierarchy and keeps them from reaching towards the higher levels of self-actualization. Also, with regard to your "emotional tampon" idea... I read what you wrote as a reflection of a personal aversion to intimacy and a subsequent rationalization where you regard that avoidance of intimacy as a symptom of your own higher conscious development so as to avoid the underlying issues with intimacy. Just some food for thought...

It's not an assumption that everyone is like me. In fact, I've been quite a loner for most of my life. But it is a fact that human beings need social interaction. We are a social species. That is the nature of our species. We've evolved that way over hundreds of thousands of years to live in cooperative societies with a strong social fabric. And without that, we face the consequences of being out of our natural element. But if you're used to being out of your element or have experienced negative things in regard to social cohesion, then you may have repressed the aspect of yourself that feels that need.

We can learn to adapt to situations where our needs aren't met if we can adopt a narrative that we don't need those things. But make no mistake, if you haven't had friends for many years, it's taking its toll. Needs are needs. If you don't meet them, there are consequences. You've just adapted to them and learned to selectively focus towards the positive elements of solitude.

Just popping in to say that sex during pregnancy is totally normal and healthy... in case you were under the impression that sex during pregnancy is unsafe.

We don't need to survive. But if you want to survive, you need food and water to do so. Edit: Likewise, we don't need to have our emotional and social needs met. But if you want to thrive, you need healthy and fulfilling social relationships.

It may be true that God needs nothing. (Yet again... in another facet of the infinite gem, it may also be true that God needs everything). But that doesn't mean we stop eating and drinking. We need that to survive... even if God doesn't need to eat, drink, or survive. And it also doesn't mean that we isolate ourselves. Social connection is a human psychological need in the same way that food and water is a human physical need. And when we deny those needs, we suffer the physical and psychological consequences. Maybe Ascetics give up all of that. But it's really not a good idea for the vast majority of people to spiritually bypass human emotional needs. It's wise to be mindful, before giving people advice that minces the absolute paradigm with the relative paradigm and diminishes the realities of the relative paradigm, that there are very real consequences for foregoing our human needs.

You can't disagree with something that is a fact. You can only disagree with opinions. I could say that I disagree that the sky is blue and say that it's green instead. But it doesn't matter if I disagree or not, if it isn't an opinion that I'm disagreeing with. The fact of the matter is that the teacher is the number one root cause of unruly behavior in the classroom. And that's just demonstrably true. The same is true of societal leaders, whether you want to recognize that fact or not.

When a man is financially secure because he has worked hard and smart for his money, it is a very attractive thing. It can denote solidity of character. But if a man just inherited his wealth and never did anything to work for it, it's the opposite of attractive... unless he has cultivated a similar solidity of character and work ethic. Now, if a man is in poverty and he works very hard, there is still solidity of character. It's just that he's employed with someone who pays starvation wages. If this is the case, I may admire the man. But because I've dealt with financial hardship before, I might be hesitant to get involved with him as that will have a direct impact on my quality of life. But what it really boils down to is character and circumstance. Basically, does he have mature and responsible qualities and do his life's circumstances reflect that. Stability of character and circumstance is attractive, and instability of character and circumstance is repellent.

Number one, you didn't address the issue in a meaningful way. You gave ZERO solutions to the problems I mentioned. Also, teachers are 100% responsible if a riot breaks out in their classroom. You would realize this if you've ever been in responsible for any type of crowd control or had any form of responsibility for managing the collective... which social media companies have AND world leaders like Trump have. I was a full time teacher and also substitute teacher for many years. Trust me. If a riot breaks out in a classroom, the teacher is the first place to look. And it is the first place the school administration will look... mostly because they all have been teachers before and know that the teacher is always at the crux of unruly classroom behavior. Individual students are also responsible for the riot in terms of consequences. But the teacher is the main person who's responsible because the teacher is steering the ship and setting the boundaries. So, it means that the teacher isn't doing their job as a moderator of student behavior and allowed things to escalate to the point of riot without intervening. And this is something that you'd know if you'd ever been a teacher before... or in any position of crowd control.

@The Don I've read through the thread and it seems like you're in favor of completely unmoderated social media channels. Full stop. So, my question to you is, 'Without the ability to moderate, how then do social media companies address the very real danger of demagogues and hate groups spreading propaganda that (either directly or indirectly) directs the masses towards acts of violence, hate crimes, insurrection, authoritarianism, and genocide?' This is a very real issue. It isn't just "Words are just words. Get over it snowflake." There are some very real issues with the way large masses of people can be manipulated by the words of influential people. And this has bore out in history time and again. And it isn't just, "Well, then they should face the consequences of their own individual actions." At that point, the damage would already be done and a momentum towards terrible things already started. It must be understood that, if a riot breaks out in a classroom, the teacher IS 100% at fault... even if they didn't make the students riot or tell the students to riot directly. The same is true of those exercising their free speech who end up stoking these societal flames... especially since they know exactly what they're doing. Words put ideas in people's minds. And crafty individuals can (and always have) used their platforms to stoke the flames of hatred and oppression. Now, we have social media channels, where everyone has a platform that can be used to proliferate propaganda and radicalize people towards terrible things. So, how do you propose that we address the problem of propaganda and indirect encouragement of crimes, if not through the moderation of misinformation and propaganda on social media platforms? Also... "just let it happen" is not a valid answer to the question as it doesn't address any of the VERY SERIOUS issues that I mentioned above. How do you maintain your view on 'free speech absolutism', while also addressing these issues in a meaningful way?

Brilliant! That's the way to win the war of optics. The left needs to get better at that.

I do know people that want to abolish the police. To me, it shows a lot of ignorance to how the Criminal Justice System functions and where the corruption actually is. Getting rid of the police is like trying to uproot a tree by getting rid of some of the leaves. The CJS has far more corruption than just the police. It's a whole leviathan of corruption. So, abolishing the police won't do much good to get rid of the corruption. Cops are mere peons of the institution. Abolishing the private prison industry, on the other hand would get rid of so much corruption and would de-incentivize mass incarceration and over-policing. It would also de-incentivize the drug war and other forms of legislations that criminalize non-violent "crimes". And it would de-incentivize mandatory minimum sentences. Also, I wouldn't be surprised if the private prison industry has some hand in keeping certain neighborhoods poor and desperate. They need people to commit crimes to live in their prisons so that they can get more taxpayer money. So, poor and crime riddled neighborhood are in their financial interests. But yes, it is not such good optics to say, "defund the police". It guarantees most people will be scared off of something that's actually very reasonable. The left needs to improve its rhetoric.

To be clear, defunding the police makes total sense, as there is too much money going into policing things that don't need to be policed. So, it just means cutting down on over-policing. In fact, quite a lot of CARES act funds were given to police departments, even though they were supposed to be for Covid relief. It's the same argument as cutting the military budget. It's over-inflated, so we should cut it and reallocate those funds to other things. But the private prison industry, won't stand for cutting down on policing because incarceration is good business for them. The more beds they fill in the penitentiary, the more tax payer dollars go into the private prison owner's pocket. The military industrial complex also won't stand for the cutting down on the military budget. As long as they can keep buying off politicians who keep us in perpetual warfare, they can keep making "defense" materials... and keep getting access to the giant pot of taxpayer dollars. Honestly, they could bury all the planes they make... it doesn't matter. The owners of the industry make a ton of money from taxpayers and the politicians get a cut of it. That's all they care about. The perpetual offensive warfare is mostly to make the average person okay with so much of their money going to "defense".

Yeah, there's definitely many factors that have coalesced into this new territory of fuckery. And the media corporations gobble it up, because polarization leads to fanaticism and fanaticism leads to money in their pockets and a very engaged audience.

That's a good point. That is totally true. But I sense that the reason why that works so well, is because people end up finding their main means of connection and meeting their emotional needs through internet echo chambers... in the same way that connection motivates people toward joining cults. So, it essentially takes the cult phenomenon online where people come together to collectively project their pain and trauma onto some boogeyman. And this bonds people and meets that need... the feeling of banding together as a team to fight an enemy. And Trump is the perfect leader to individuals who get sucked into these echo chambers, making them feel validated and giving them a seal of institutional legitimacy.

It's really hard to figure out how to wake people up to their own brainwashing. I think the crux of it is that we have to figure out what motivated them emotionally to project onto Trump in this way, where he is their savior and leader. This is what makes people susceptible to cults... unmet emotional needs and unconscious trauma... isolation and loneliness. So, it really has to be dealt with at the emotional under layers of what made these people so ripe for radicalization and weaponization by a demagogue and ego-maniac like Trump.

No. Radicalization is when people buck the status quo. What is radical is always defined in relation to the status quo. So, when people are radicalized, they are turning against the status quo... either toward the left or the right. Whether toward the challenging of power structures or toward deeper levels of nationalism and authoritarianism.

I'm trying to get you to realize what you're doing. And now you're morphing your original message to something more socially acceptable because you've gotten so much criticism. But I want you to look at your original message and let yourself see the deflection, denial, and false equivalency in it. But you will not. Your mind is already rewriting your meaning into something that sounds better.

Just keep going with the cognitive dissonance and denial then. Your firewall of unconscious seem impenetrable. Get your ego up out of the situation if you want to see things clearly.

Again, you're deflecting. The "other side" has not stormed the capitol building. It is them who has stormed the capitol building. And stop making this about the "hate for the right". That's just more deflection. It's about a bunch of Fascists storming the capitol building. Not leftists. Not people that hate Trump. Not the "other" guy. Deflection is a coping mechanism that allows people to deny or diminish what is true. And that's what you're doing. Stop doing the "two sides" fallacy. It's a false equivalency.

I read your message very clearly. You were trying to obfuscate responsibility from the extremists who broke into the capitol onto the left as a group. I'm not demonizing you. I'm telling you to look at the mental gymnastics your'e doing to defend actual Fascists. You're fooling yourself into minimizing the seriousness of this and doing "What-about-isms" with leftists. Take personal responsibility for the things you identify with. And if you're going to criticize vandalism on the left that happens during BLM protests... then you should also condemn right wing extremists when they storm a capitol building and kill people. Otherwise, it's just selective outrage.

They broke in. They've killed one woman so far.

If someone alleges voter fraud, then the burden of proof is on them to prove it so. The burden of proof is not on someone who doesn't believe in voter fraud to prove that it isn't true. These people are not defending Democracy. Trump lost and he knows it. And it wasn't even a surprise that he lost. He had a really terrible response the pandemic. And his campaign strategy was a lot weaker this time. Plus, he couldn't convince the people he duped into thinking he'd "bring the jobs back" last time. People realize when you don't deliver on your campaign promises. So, because there is not proof of voter fraud, these protestors are staging an authoritarian coup against the remaining shreds of Democracy in our government. They are trying to overturn the will of the people to make sure that their guy stays in office. And that's the real reason they're doing it.

Look at how loyal you stay to "your team", even as they form a Fascist coup against the government. Notice how your rules are different for "your team" than they are for the "other team". If you want to identify with the right, take some personal responsibility and be even-handed. Stop blaming "the left" for the problems with far right extremists. Stop bending your mind in loops of cognitive dissonance to be an apologist for literal Fascists. Think for yourself and actually be principled in your stances. If you're going to denounce rioting on the left... also denounce it when your team does it. Stop making the things that you identify with the exception. Become aware. Your unwavering allegiance to "your team" is just your allegiance to your own ego in disguise.

Rape definitely doesn't have anything to do with what someone wears. It can be motivated by pure selfishness, in the sense that they want to have sex with someone and they have no regard for that person otherwise. So, they can see that person as a mere vehicle for their own desire. Or it can be motivated by a kind of "revenge" or desire for power over someone else, where the rapist can feel like they're overcoming some internal feeling of powerlessness and subjugation by making their victim feel powerless and subjugated. For example, a man who feels unworthy and powerless and feels rejected by women as a whole group, might rape a woman to feel like he's exacting revenge against all women by making that individual woman feel unworthy, powerless, and desecrated to the point of being rejection-worthy.