Forestluv

Empathy in the animal world. Notice how there is both intra-species empathy and trans-species empathy. My favorites come at 3:31 and 5:10. I’m amazed at how the dog intuitively knew the fish needed water and desperately tried to save them. I could feel the quiet sadness in the dog. As well, I love the primate who lovingly admires the creature she just saved.

To me, this is a naive and patriarchal view. It is a man saying “I have needs. If you don’t sacrifice yourself to fulfill my needs I may commit rape, theft and murder. Yes, you have a difficult job sacrificing yourself to satisfy my needs. And you take all the punches you receive without judging me or retaliating. You accept all the abuse you receive to serve my needs. You are a good girl who knows her place. And for that you godlike”. It doesn’t sound like you are aware of the twisted world of prostitution and the minds of many men who use them. This isn’t just about a sexually frustrated male that would like to relieve his urges in a respectful sexual encounter. There are power and abuse dynamics as well. There are demented mental games. There are societal conditionings about what it means to be a man that the man carries. There are married men that can have plenty of sex from their wife that seek prostitutes which becomes toxic to his wife and children. Many men that frequent prostitutes aren’t just relieving a little horniness with a fun sex escapade. Rather, they need psychological therapy. As well, the realm of prostitution can condition men to have distorted views of women and hinder them from developing healthy relationships with women. As well, there can tremendous physical and mental harm inflicted upon the women. Often, the industry allows men to prey upon the most vulnerable women in society. As well, participating in realms of prostitution can have toxic effects on men and increase their tendency to rape, theft and murder. The realm of prostitution involves rape, theft and murder. It involves rough neighborhoods. I’m not saying prostitution is completely evil and immoral. Yet to leave out the dark aspects is either naive or selectively biased. What you suggest as simple sexual urges that can be relieved through prostitution are often deeper problems that need therapy. As well, why should women bear the brunt of a man that cannot manage his sexual urges? Perhaps he can be trained to relieve himself through enhanced masturbation or virtual sex. Perhaps he may need to go on medication to lower high testosterone levels. To me, assuming extreme sexual urges of a man is the norm and a woman should sacrifice herself to satisfy those urges is a hyper partriarchal view. It is waaay too shifted toward the man’s perspective and callous to the welfare of the women. I find it interesting when men try to explain the role that women should play as sexual servants to men in society. Men explaining to women what sexual roles they should play to satisfy men’s sexual urges. Imagine what it would be like if women controlled the narrative and told men what their sexual role is to be in society. Perhaps women would get to dictate that men suffer with their sexual urges and they are mocked and humiliated for it. Perhaps this gives some women a sense of empowerment. And then the women tell the maltreated men that they are “good boys” for accepting their subordinate role without judging women that abuse them. And for this, the men are “godlike”.

I’m trying to envision green level prostitution. I imagine she would be empowered. Like it’s a date situation and she can decide if she wants to proceed with the guy for money or not. She isn’t forced into it. Yet I can’t imagine a woman voluntarily going into a career of prostitution. Young women might aspire to be an actress, artist, scientist etc. yet a prostitute?

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Of course yo do. And you are free to invite Uncle Larry to your wedding. Yet don’t be surprised when other people ask Uncle Larry to leave their wedding.

You are not seeing different contexts. If Uncle Larry shows up drunk to a wedding, urinates in the punchbowl and starts fights - there will be consequences. He won’t be allowed to play the victim and try to justify his behavior by saying “It’s just my personality and opinions”. People at the wedding won’t put up with that behavior. There comes a point in which Uncle Larry will get kicked out of the wedding. Of course it is acceptable behavior from Uncle Larry’s perspective. People often use “it’s just my opinion” or “it’s just my personality” as a shield against accountability and consequences. Another common shield is “I was just joking”.

Becoming aware of some new stuff is amazingly cool and intriguing, other stuff can be disturbing. I spent a few months involved with polyamory communities. Some of what I learned and experienced was intriguing and fascinating. Other stuff was like “wtf. people are actually into that? How could someone get off on that?”. Sometimes I need to tell myself to be careful because I can’t ‘unsee’ certain things.

It gets even more mind bending: there are things happening that you can’t imagine right now. And if you can imagine something, it’s probably either happened, is happening and/or will happen. I’ve had some bizarre imaginations to find out it’s actually a thing some people are into. And I’ve had bizarre imaginations arise in my mind and then I realize “This has actually happened and someone somewhere has been into this”. . . And it could be happening somewhere right now. And it gets into even more mindfuckery of what is real, what is imagined and what are happenings.

Wow!! I’m really impressed with this channel. The producer describes his mission as educating and raising awareness of problems in America. The people in the videos seem authentic and they get to express their story without it getting contextualized to fit a particular agenda. For those that want to get a taste of “what it’s like” from another experiential perspective, this channel is awesome. This producer has some seriously good inter-personal skills. It takes a lot of trust for people to feel comfortable talking so openly about these types of taboo behaviors in front of a camera. I’ve had these types of open conversations with people in private or a small group setting, yet it was confidential. Getting people to agree to having it filmed and uploaded to YT is a whole nother dynamic.

Think about what a 100% censorship-free forum would look like. With zero regulation, you would allow people to coordinate and commit hideous crimes. Just because it can difficult to draw lines in grey areas, doesn’t mean that lines shouldn’t be drawn. . . .The answer to the question “Where do we draw the line?” is. . . somewhere. We draw the line somewhere. We have discussions about where to draw lines, rather than if lines should be drawn. If a parent allows their child to eat a candy bar, they don’t throw up their hands and say “Where do we draw the line?” and allow the child to inject black tar heroin. A line gets drawn somewhere.

A good example of America’s descent into fascism is Trump’s secret police force in Portland, Oregon https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/trump-secret-police-portland/

If you are not two, how can God (1) tell you (2a) that you are the Devil (2b)? If you are not two, does not Devil = God = Me? Is this not all One God that is You?

It’s a good sign to see the vaccine induced 4X the antibody levels as regular person infected with the Coronavirus. Yet the other question is the length of immunity. If the vaccine only offers six months immunity, it’s not very effective. Yet it could provide temporary immunity and give time to develop an more effective vaccine. Once concern is that they won’t be able to develop vaccine that offers long-term immunity.

I agree, yet I think as things expand, there needs to be experienced, mature, skilled facilitators to do it right. Psychedelic retreat centers will likely be under greater scrutiny and have a smaller window of error. In addition to people that have psychedelic experience, I think there should also be some clinical professionals with expertise in psychedelic therapy. Like some experts from the Johns Hopkins trials.

I wish you luck. Yet disrespecting and breaking a forum rule isn’t a good sign. I would choose your facilitators well.

A 5-Meo retreat center is a wonderful intention. Yet not following forum guidelines is not a good indicator for being able to pull off your plan. If you can’t bypass your way around mods on a forum how will you be able to bypass legal authorities? Perhaps ask @upstream for some advice. . .

Here are a few ideas and questions from a fellow empath: “I can quickly feel and gain wordless understanding of animals since a young age, especially if I’m physically around that animal. I've had a few experiences of dream premonitions towards pets I had a connection with, defying time and distance”. This is not my ability. I wish I could do it. I can tangentially relate to wordless understanding of humans. On rare occasions, wordless understanding of inanimate objects, plants or animals. Yet it’s rare for me. You mentioned dreams. I love the idea of integrating empathic resonance with dreams. I got into lucid dreaming for a while and it changed my relationship with what is real and what is imagined. Occasionally, I go into what seems like lucid dream states while awake. Many of my empathic experiences are sorta like lucid dream states in which rational thought of what is real and what is imagined dissolve. If someone nearby called my name to say hi, it would take me a minute to “snap out of it”, wake up and get re-centered with my baseline identity. It would sorta be like waking up from a half asleep state. Ime, working with lucid dreaming (asleep and awake) is super helpful for letting go and allowing empathic resonance to appear. “For awhile I’ve been aware of how people ‘humanise’ animals, see that animal through a human lens. So if someone came up to a...bird, for instance, they may talk to it too loudly, like a dog, and be oblivious to when it feels scared, happy, angry, etc. They might laugh at it and say ‘oh it’s doing something naughty/angry! How cute!’ when really it’s not that at all. (that also might have less to do with empathy, and more just lack experience of observing a certain animal)“ I think you are digging into something deeper than simply observing an animal. This is an area I’ve tried to develop empathic resonance with, yet have made little progress. As you say, part of the issue is my human lens. I know this and I have a hard time dissolving it. Substances can dissolve it, yet I can’t do it on my own. I would consider this a trans-human realm, since it is transcendent to one’s own human attachment / identity. Another cool thing: “The second empathic thing that I experience is getting a strong vibe every time I go to a new place-Sure it could just be the overall atmosphere, but I feel like a lot of it is the tangled up feelings of people there from the past and present. Especially when I move into a previously owned apartment.” For sure. This is another empathic realm. I think it’s called geometric empathy. Again, not my strong suit. I get weak senses of knowing from physical places. I wish I could do it better. I have had a couple very strong forms of empathic knowing of place in which time and space broke down. One time was small medieval cathedral in Florence Italy. I arrived after all the tourists left. The lighting was low and there was a vibe. Zero tourist energy. It was like 700 years of essence appearing. I felt a calling to walk down into this small lower level that had a few pews an alter and some religious symbols. I sat in a pew and knew something was going to happen. Then the angelic chanting filled the cathedral and a group of monks entered the worship area and chanted for about 30min. It was like time and space dissolved. They never once looked at me and it was like I wasn’t there. . . And finally, something in my wheelhouse. . . “Is it possible for highly empathic people to sense feelings that they themselves have never experienced before? If a person has never experienced depression in their life, is it possible for them to ‘feel’ depression radiating off another person? Sometimes I think, usually, no. Like if someone experiencing anxiety for the first time = imagining the color green for the first time, they cannot imagine the color green until they have seen it. But maybe if someone who has seen the colors blue (sadness) and yellow (fear) can imagine mixing those colors together and get a faint idea/vibe/guess at what anxiety is like, from their limited emotional experience, paired with imagination. “ We can for sure we can experience / feel new things. When we were young, we had lots of first feelings. When we get older, we have less new feelings. Experiences are new combinations of previous feeling we have had in new circumstances. I’ve been in situations with people in which I sense something I’ve never felt / experienced before, yet it doesn’t necessarily seem to match up with what they are feeling / experiencing. Memories that come to mind is traveling in foreign countries, deep into foreign cultures and villages. There are probably a lot of universal human emotions were share, like vulnerability. Yet I’ve also encountered some new stuff from people way out there that seem very different than who I’ve met. For example, deep in the jungles of Belize or up in the mountains of Peru. There have been times I’ve felt dialed in with someone with a new feeling / experience. Yet I didn’t try to verify it by asking the person about it. There was a language issue and it just didn’t flow with the encounter. This is why I usually say “knowing what it’s like” rather than “knowing what it is”. There is a knowing ‘what it’s like’ and this can easily be verified by talking with someone who knows what it’s like from their own experience. Another question: ”what about physical feelings? Can an empathetic person physically feel someone elses pain, not just emotionally feel their pain? Or is outside of the regular definition/experiences of empathy? “ This can get into nuances of what counts as a physical, emotional or mental feeling. We could keep it simple and say experiencing the pain of someone else’s broken bone. I can see someone having that ability, yet it’s not something I’ve ever had and not something I’ve heard much about. I have heard a bit about some empathic healers being able to feel someone’s pain, yet it’s not something I have experience with or have explored.

In articles published in science journals, there is a section called “Materials and Methods”. Yet for many science experiments involve expensive reagents and equipment.

Independent replication is a feature, not a requirement, of a scientific study. I’ve published plenty of scientific papers that have not been independently replicated. It doesn’t need to be independently replicated to be science. The important thing in science is it can be independently replicated. I wrote clear instructions in the Materials and Methods about how to do the experiments. Researchers can independently conduct the experiments if they like. If they the same results are replicated, that strengthens the data. Yet it is not a requirement to be science. In the context of Graves, it is super easy to independently do his study. We can ask 1,000 freshman students to write and essay on “What is a mature individual”. And ask them to write another essay for the same question every four years. Then we can map their progress and see if it matches Graves’ results and empirically supports the SD model.

Some insights into recognizing and developing empathic abilities (written by a reluctant empath that never signed up for this). . . The area of empathic abilities hasn’t been a conscious thing for me until recently (about 4 years ago). Throughout my life, only one person has noticed an empathic ability in me. About 10 years ago, I was at my sister’s house and people were talking about abilities and my sister said that I was super empathic. I humbly brushed it aside and she exclaimed “What??!! You totally are. When someone enters the room, your energetics totally change. You don’t know that??!!”. . . I didn’t take it seriously. Looking back, I can see how in relationships, I would ‘feel’ the other person and would always try to have harmony. If they didn’t feel better, I couldn’t feel better. This led to a some unhealthy dynamics in which I couldn’t set up personal boundaries and would take responsibility for other people’s feelings. These are some garden variety empathy dynamics. Perhaps around the 25th percentile. Fairly low level. I never once thought I was different than others in this area or had some special ability like sensing stuff other people can’t. I’ve heard a few people say that if you have some paranormal ability, you had it since childhood. This may be true for many, yet not for me. However, many emotions were suppressed or misrepresented in my home. For example, as I child I may have sensed my mother was upset and ask her what is wrong. She may have responded “I’m not upset! I’m fine! Why would you think I’m upset!”. There were a lot of repressed and misexpressed feelings that may have led to confusion. Anyway, my breakthrough was only a few years ago at about 45 years of age. I started experimenting with psychedelics and they rocketed me into hyper-empathic realms. Similarly with edible cannabis. At first, it was very foreign and uncomfortable. No one knew what I was talking about and for the first time, I started feeling different. About two years ago, I met an empath who never used drugs. She could do it sober and encouraged me to try to develop abilities sober, which I have to some extent. One recurring feeling I would have is “Is this an empathic thing?”, “Does this count?”. Yet there is no empathic handbook for empathic wizards. There is no school of empathic magic in which certified empathic wizards validate a developing empath’s abilities. . . And I’m not talking about basic online stuff about how empathy is important for a manager to be effective. “Managers need to know the needs of their employees” kinda stuff. No. I’m talking about empathic wizardry that is like a new sense. Like you are sitting in a crowded restaurant and empathic energetics are like a siren going off and everyone is acting like they can’t sense it. And you sit there thinking “wtf is happening? Can no else sense this?”. So for anyone who gets glimpses of what seems like empathic abilities, yes it’s a thing. We are in the dark ages of empathy and very little is known. These are not the abilities people were allowed to express throughout history. The high level stuff scares normies. High level empaths in history have had to face consequences from normies around them getting creeped out because the empath can sense stuff they cannot. How many forms of animals can an average person describe? Maybe 100? How many forms of empathy can people describe? Most people have a vague idea of empathy as feeling other people’s feelings. Or being compassionate. This is a super low resolution. Imagine being able to clearly describe 20 forms of empathy with details. That about how many I’ve come across or have seen in others. I don’t have them all. I have certain ones better than others. My strongest empathic ability is being able to imagine “what it’s like” from the realm of “what it’s like”. And this can be subdivided. There are other abilities that occasionally arise and are like secondary abilities. As well, sometimes I can see other people’s abilities, yet I know I don’t have it (and often wish I had it). I imagine there will be hundreds of empathic areas to explore, similar to how there are hundreds of intellectual spaces to explore and how there are hundreds of food recipes to explore. Also, one empathic ability is recognizing other empaths. You can sense it. It is like speaking a foreign language. When you speak the language, you can tell when others are speaking the language and those who can’t. Have confidence in this ability. It is an important guide to help you develop your abilities. And. . . Can someone be high level brilliant in one area and lack high level empathic abilities? Yes. Someone can be a high level English speaker and not speak Vietnamese. We live in a culture in which intellectuals rule and control the narrative. Be aware that high level intellectuals can be brilliant in some areas, yet lack empathic abilities. Again, I’m not taking about generic empathy. I’m talking about high level stuff. For for many empaths, they concede those with higher level intellectual abilities than themselves. This is particularly obvious in the SD model. Notice how intellectuals want to define what “yellow” is. They want it pure meta intellectual modeling in which empathy is reduced to an intellectual idea of what empathy is. This is super common with intellectual men. You may have noticed on the forum that I am no longer putting up with it and I speak a lot about “integrated yellow”. As well, I’m introducing concepts of “experiential knowing”. Non-empaths often reduce empathy to some fuzzy idea about feelings, that is subordinate to intellect. Yet high level empathic abilities and not just feelings. It encompasses much more, which is why I often use the term “experiential knowing” and “experiential bias”. As well, there is the realm of “meta empathy” that in SD, is on par with meta intellect that sucks up most of the air in the room. And for empaths who have wondered. . . Leo is at an extremely high level in some areas of cognition, yet not in empathic abilities. He has standard empathy. I can tell by the way he relates to certain people outside his experiential range. For example, women and minorities. This does not mean he doesn’t care about others outside his experiential range. He does. He does not mean he cannot imagine what it would be like for another person. He can, yet it is from the position of his experiential zone. He doesn’t jump into other experiential zones. He has had flashes, like he has a good idea what it would be like to be insane, due to entering insanity zones while tripping. Yet to me, this simply expands his own personal experiential zone. It doesn’t mean he can jump experiential zones. Part of this may be lack of interest, he loves the cognitive stuff as an INTP. Yet it also may be due to abilities. To me, it seems like a simple ability to do, yet I’m seeing more and more that for others they can’t do it. I think part of it is being attached and identified to one’s own story, experience and identity. When I was able to let go of my experiential identity, whole new worlds opened up. If I am not limited to my experiential identity, it opens the door to any experiential identity to enter. And at times it’s seemed crazy. Like having multiple personalities. For anyone that goes deep into another experience to the point it seems like it’s you, one good perspective is seeing it as a dream character you are waking up from. This is particularly helpful for disturbing empathic appearances. For example, I don’t have PTSD, yet I’ve empathically experienced a PTSD episode for something that never happened to me, yet it was happening during the experience. I know what’s it’s like to re-experience trauma. Not through memory. Through the experience re-happening. Spiraling down and not being able to make it stop and then you’re donzo. You can’t make it stop just like you couldn’t make the initial traumatic episode stop. The best way to get re-grounded back to baseline, so there isn’t a new pattern or identity set is to treat it as waking up from a dream. This way, the experiential knowing can be embodied, without the noise and anxiety of freaking out that I may have PTSD. And it reduces the chance of a seed pattern to get planted (in which the episode become re-occurring). I don’t think I’ve ever had the same empathic appearance occur twice. For me, this is good because one of my most common appearances is the experiences of vulnerable people undergoing distress. There are also many fun, joyful and intriguing empathic realms. These are the ones I want to explore more. Perhaps I should set an intention, start inquiries or communicate more with empaths in these realms. LoA kinda stuff. Oh, that reminds me. . . . Some empaths can go into an imaginative zone with a command from another. For example, a healer may tell you to imagine pure cool water running down your back. Or a golden orb radiating in your chakra. I don’t have that ability. Zero. Nothing. Nada. It doesn’t work like that for me. Rather, it just appears out of nowhere. Or there may be a trigger in the environment. For example, I may be hiking and be in the proper mental space. A crow lands near me and squawks at me and I know it’s spirit. It is communicating to me as a spirit being. And I don’t even believe that type of stuff. Yet there it is happening. Then I know the relationship American Indians had to spirit animals. However, if someone said to me “I am going to call a crow over and if it squawks at you I want you to sense it’s animal spirit that is communicating with you”. That might work for other empaths, yet not me. That would just be another crow squawking at me.

Today, a forum member sent me a message about how there can be “mismatches” with some people. For example, someone can be amazingly talented in one area, yet amazingly untalented in another area. Here is a story of one of my mismatches - an area in which I am amazingly untalented. . . It was Christmas morning with my extended family. At times, several people are simultaneously ripping open presents. Others times, there is a ‘special gift’ and one of my parents will make an announcement for everyone to stop so we can all watch the reaction of the person opening the ‘special gift’. For example, my Dad gave my mom the special gift of a nutcracker statue hand-made from some famous artist in Scandinavia. Everyone paused to watch the surprised look on my Mom’s face. Well. . .last Christmas, I got one of these “special gifts”. Everyone stopped opening to watch me and the video camera goes on. I’m totally not into this type of attention, yet it’s important within family dynamics to play along and I am all about harmony, so I play along. . . I open it and it’s some type of weird wooden box. I have no idea what it is. . . Keep in mind that the ‘money shot’ for these ‘special gifts’ is the immediate reaction. It’s only ok to say curiously react “Ooohhh, what is it?”, when it is supposed to be a mysterious “Ohhh, what is it?” gift. If it’s an obvious surprise gift like my Mom’s Nutcracker, you need to be super surprised and excited. If my Mom looked at the Nutcracker and reacted “Uuhhh, what is it?” It would be a super downer and everyone is disappointed with the reaction. If you f-up the ‘special gift’ reaction badly enough, people in my family can actually get upset. As well, timing is important. For it to come across genuine, there needs to be an immediate reaction when you see what it is. If my mom waited 10 seconds before saying “It’s beautiful! I love it!”. It comes across as in-genuine. A major downer with disappointment and upset. I get the the gift and I’m hoping for a no-brained like an iPhone. . . Yet here I am with this strange wooden box thing with hooks and metal rings and I don’t know wtf it is. For all I know, this is a priceless piece of handmade art from a famous Argentinian artist. And I only have about 2 seconds to decide wether to go the mysterious “Ooohhh, what is it?” route or the surprise “I love it!” route. . . . So I go the surprised, I love it route. I joyfully exclaim “What a beautiful piece of abstract art. I love it! This will go perfect in my office at work. Thanks so much Mom and Dad!!”. Silence and strange looks. Dang, I made the wrong choice. . . After about 5 seconds of awkward silence, my sister says “It’s a puzzle. The gift is inside. You need to figure out how to solve the puzzle to open it”. I have some talents in some areas. Yet not in this area. I can go sky high intelligence along some lines, yet along this line I am at ground-level stupidity. Seriously, I’m totally stupid in this type of thing. . . Then my mom says “He is so brilliant! He has a PhD in molecular biology! Watch how quickly he will solve it!!”. I literally look like a monkey poking the parts around. I have no idea how to solve it. And not because of the pressure. I do not have this type of physical manipulation skills. After a few minutes, my Mom gets restless and says “C’mon honey, stop screwing around with us. Just solve it.”. I look over to my sister with powerlessness and she comes over to help me solve the box puzzle. Needless to say, my performance qualifies as a “downer”.

Locked by request of OP.

One thing Graves did was to ask incoming freshman students to write an essay on “What is a mature individual?”. (Some examples are available on line). These essays revealed the worldviews of students and Graves categorized them according to the color hierarchy of his model. He also used the essays to create his model. My understanding is that he followed up with the students evolution for years and that students evolved up the spiral, yet not down the spiral. In the field of psychological science, this would be considered empirical data. Even though there is some qualitative aspects in categorizing grey areas, it still has an “objective” quality since Graves gave specific characteristics of each stage. As well, many fields of science have a mix of semi-quantitative, semi-qualitative mixes while scoring. For example, one student entering college might write “A mature individual is someone that obeys the rules of god and serves god. Someone that understands a person chooses to live a moral life or chooses to live an immoral life”. . . Five years later, the same student may respond “A mature individual is a person who is true to themself. They set goals for themself and strive for personal achievement without harming anyone else”. This would be a clear example of evolution up the spiral from blue to orange. Now imagine having a sample size of 1,000 people in which 68% of people evolved up the spiral, 30% of people were stagnant and only 2% of people de-evolved down the spiral. This would be empirical evidence supporting the SD model. Yet I don’t know the details of Grave’s studies, such as the specific sample size and experimental design.

This is context dependent. You just told me that free speech under certain conditions has more negatives than positives. For example, supposed someone online wrote a “creative story” about a man that kidnapped children and got away with it. The author says that “This is just creative writing of a fictional story. I am not teaching people how to kidnap children. I am not saying it’s ok to kidnap children and I do not encourage people to kidnap children”. . . However, this can be used as a “freedom of speech shield”. Imagine that this guy actually got off fantasizing about kidnapping children and molesting them. He has never done it, yet he fantasizes about it all the time. His “creative story” is so detailed about how to kidnap children and get away with it, it is essentially a manual for people who actually want to kidnap children. The author may claim “this is not my intention”, yet that is the impact. Kidnappers use this as their manual and kidnapping increase 10X within a community. Children are suffering and the police are having a hard time catching the kidnappers, because of the author’s online postings. The kidnappers they do catch follow the guy online and have print-outs of the “creative story” about how to kidnap children. This is a grey area of what “freedom of speech” is and what “legal” is. These issues are not black and white. That is a hyper-simplistic binary mindset. These are not black and white definitions. Study some law or watch some court proceedings. These definitions are not always either / or. Often, there are clear cut cases, other times there are grey areas and interpretations. Just look at how many 5-4 Supreme Court decisions there are. There are debates within grey areas of what definitions mean. You don’t get it both ways. Claiming nuances are “cut and dry” is a way to avoid dealing within those nuances. This takes effort and can be uncomfortable. For the example of the online poster who writes “creative stories” about a man that kidnaps children and his “creative stories” include lots of details about how to kidnap children and get away with it. Where exactly is the “cut and dry” line you would draw?

That is the spectrum I am pointing to. It is not a binary decision between “good” vs “bad”. It is a spectral decisions of “what is worse”. Those are the grey areas of drawing lines. When we enter a grey area, it is not cut and dry. We need to consider pros and cons from different perspectives. We can see that side A has some pros and cons. We can also see that side B has some pros and cons. We can weigh all of that together and say “When we consider all the good and bad on each side, it seems side A is worse”. Yet this is very different than a binary construct in which “side A is bad” and “side B is good”.