urquan
The end desire of the system is Kubernetes for human beings
No bio...
User ID: 226
I've thought about this before -- free will, even if it didn't exist, is not something that you can act like it doesn't exist. At the very least, it's kind of trippy, you have to act like you believe there's free will even if you don't believe there's free will, it's baked into the pie. The very principle of "acting" requires, in some sense, a "belief" in free will.
I'm not actually sure what "acting like free will doesn't exist" even looks like -- you could sit on the floor and do nothing, I guess, but that is an action that requires a "choice" you "make" to do it. The concept is just an aspect of everything we do. It's even more fundamental than breathing -- you can stop breathing (and suffocate), but in doing so you're taking an action that you could choose not to do! It's impossible to choose not to act like you have free will, since by doing so you've acted like you have free will.
It's rather the opposite of Descartes' old claim, that thinking proves the mind's existence, in a way beyond even radical doubt: acting proves free will's existence, but in a way that not only doesn't silence doubt but even invites it by its total immediacy and inalienable connection to our existence. It is so automatic as to be unremarkable, and thus it becomes so incomprehensible that it becomes impossible not to remark on it. In other words, it's impossible to act like you don't have free will, but it's easy to think you don't have free will. And the unbridgeable gap between act and thought demands an explanation. Thus free will debates are a massive playing field in philosophy.
I act, therefore I have free will. Or not.
urquan
The end desire of the system is Kubernetes for human beings
4mo ago
For us right-wing urbanists, a massive crackdown on vagrancy and crime - this making transit more appealing to rich people by removing all the visibly
poor/dysfunctional people - is a necessary precondition to the fulfillment of our vision.
See, I'd love this, and I'd love making urban life safer and more beautiful. It's not really my cup of tea, but I would love to have it as an option.
But my opposition to the anti-car people comes from a political realism. I don't think the PMC culture that runs cities will ever crack down on dysfunction. Given that, I want to protect the rural/suburban car-based life that affords me separation from the crime and dysfunction of the city with everything I've got. Realistically, the options for Americans aren't "safe suburbs with car culture" vs. "safe cities with walking and public transit," they're "safe suburbs with car culture" vs. "unsafe cities with muggings where you walk and schizophrenic tweakers shouting on the train." When urbanists say my way of life needs to be destroyed and everyone should become a city-dweller -- without fixing the dysfunction of the cities -- I treat them like people carelessly, maybe even maliciously, trying to lead me into physical insecurity, and act accordingly.
I wish right-wing urbanists every bit of luck, and should it come to me to aid them in concrete ways I will do so. But I'm not going to hold my breath that America's cities become anything more than crime-infested, hollowed-out lands of despair, with the potential exception of Manhattan, which is probably America's only actual good urban neighborhood by international standards.
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urquan
The end desire of the system is Kubernetes for human beings
15d ago
I might humbly suggest that if a person's biggest fear about being stuck in a forest is being catcalled or labeled a lesbian, their priorities are way out of whack. I think @SlowBoy's obviously correct that the bear doesn't really exist to these trend-chasers, they're not actually thinking about staring down a bear. It feels like we're dealing with very sheltered, not-worldly-wise people who have no concept of what danger is like. Sorry to reference The Book Movie Series Which Must Not Be Named, but I'm reminded of a quotation from Sorcerer's Stone:
"Now, if you two don't mind, I’m going to bed before either of you come up with another clever idea to get us killed or worse… expelled!"
And, of course, the relevant reply:
"She needs to sort out her priorities!"
I didn't love FarNearEverywhere's comment at first, but after reading through it, I think she's right. The elements that cause the dating market to be so asymmetric are legion, and not reducible to "women are less horny." If you wanted to somehow genetically engineer things so straight relationships look more like gay ones, you would have to alter the biology of women so throughly that the human species would be unrecognizable.
The solution to dating asymmetry is, and has always been, and indeed was, monogamy as an enforced social ideal, and norms and values that cultivate satisficing and not perfectionism when it comes to settling down. That doesn't mean pushing people to settle with an abusive alcoholic, but it does mean encouraging people to settle down with a homely, but kind and nurturing partner instead of chasing after hotness or status. It also means holding people to their vows, and leading people to see re-investment in their relationship rather than divorce as the solution to cooling off romance or non-abusive problems in a relationship. These are the conditions under which actual love can flourish, and furthermore I think they make both men and women much happier than the current situation, on net. The women get commitment and the men get regular sex.
That goes for men as well as women. Find your 5/10 sweetheart and marry them, damn it.
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urquan
The end desire of the system is Kubernetes for human beings
3mo ago
This sounds correct to me, as I'm a younger right-winger and those are points of agreement for me with the left wing. I think with health care, with social order, with institutional trust, with dating and relationships, I think young lefties and righties both see the same problems. They just often disagree profoundly on how to fix them.
Though I do wonder how much the NSA weighs on your average zoomer normie, who seems to treat spying by the government and corporations as a fact of nature because they've grown up surrounded by it.
urquan
The end desire of the system is Kubernetes for human beings
4mo ago
It became a tribal signifier here in a way it didn’t there. I also think our higher number of Asians made it more salient here.
But really, I think this is toxoplasmosis in action. It was controversial here, so people feel more strongly in both directions even years out.
Are people in Seattle this mentally ill?
Everyone I see with a mask in my red tribe area seems like a neurotic young woman or is an older lady from a Democratic constituency. It seems like a female thing around here. The men who do it are either Asian or seem just as neurotic as the women. My gut feeling is that really strong neuroses are an American thing more than a European thing.
Official advice from public health orgs is still “wear a mask if covid is going around!” and I’m guessing the older Democrats are taking it to heart. The young ones, I think, are just painfully shy and like that it covers their face. Plus it makes them feel like a Good Person (TM).
urquan
The end desire of the system is Kubernetes for human beings
4mo ago
As a counterpoint, the store chain with the big Grinch merchandise deal is, well, Hobby Lobby, and I wouldn't say the clientele of Hobby Lobby is young blue tribers. Also, my girlfriend loves the Grinch, has for a long time, and she's from about as red tribe a background as possible; she grew up watching the Jim Carrey Grinch as a big tradition with her rural red tribe family and they all love that version of the story.
I think he's seen as a negative figure, but I also think there's a thing where people like to think of him after his big transformation; he's still a cranky grump, but he's more open to Christmas. They're not idealizing his pre-heart-growth stage, they like the grumpy guy who loves Christmas.
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urquan
The end desire of the system is Kubernetes for human beings
15d ago
"Strange" can also mean "unknown," as in "stranger." In context, I think that's the meaning of the word as SlowBoy's using it. I don't think he's saying the man and bear are weird.
urquan
The end desire of the system is Kubernetes for human beings
2mo ago
People complaining that it is hard not to say things in an online forum where they don't need to even participate is a bit mind-boggling to me.
I don’t know that this describes Hlynka. But neuroticism is a hell of a drug. I work to keep myself under control, but there’s definitely an undercurrent of subconscious screaming and threat detection that can get activated by online forums.
When young lefties talk about hate speech being violence and trying to purge the commons of hated speakers, I get it. I don’t like it, I don’t agree with it, I think it’s wrong, but I understand on a deep level the underlying psychological impulses that motivate it.
I think following that logic makes the problem worse, and forms a catastrophization cycle that reinforces and strengthens their distress. But I can totally see how “these terrible ideas cause me so much pain, we need to get rid of them” is a train of thought people go through.
And there is pain. I know, when I see ideas that particularly get my gourd, ideas that threaten, if taken seriously, to damage values I hold dear — I know those things can easily make me freak out, become despondent, vindictive, to lash out like a cornered tiger.
This isn’t something I can easily describe to someone not familiar with serious anxiety, not because it’s some secret knowledge or something I’m “special” for feeling, but just because the feelings are so profoundly out of place that I think many people would find it shocking anyone could react in such a way.
I think this describes some of the “I can’t help but post on this forum I hate” phenomenon. People love hate-reading and hate-posting. It’s not helpful, it’s not healthy, but it is gut-level rewarding because of the great salience of threatening ideas.
But encountering a threat, however overblown, makes anyone want to eliminate it. And thus we get censorship, and long screeds whose text rhymes with “fuck you.”
The difference between me and the cancellers, I guess, is I know my emotional response to these things isn’t helpful, and it isn’t anybody else’s problem. It’s mine. And it’s my responsibility to deal with it, and to respond to the world in an intelligent manner. To be slow to speak and quick to listen.
I know I’m an unusual case. Sometimes I like to talk like I’m typical of the zoomers because of my experience of mental illness. But if I’m truthful, I’m not. My neuroticism is way higher than the average even for my generation.
I also… and this contradicts everything I’m saying here, but I don’t think of my struggles as an identity. But I talk to some people who seem like they view themselves as a Certified Generalized Anxiety Disorder Experiencer (TM) and not a person who struggles with anxiety. I’m not a person-first language advocate (I think language games are silly) but I do think there’s a mindset difference there.
I do think we’re doing things that lower the sanity waterline, lowering all boats. And social media is ground zero of this as far as I’m concerned. I’m not sure that exposure to random strangers’ ideas is actually helpful for people who struggle with calibrating their threat detector. I also believe that facing difficult situations is the only good way to calibrate. I just think there’s a balance to be struck between engaging in things that are scary but useful and being a masochist who tries to argue with people you believe deeply in your heart are wrong, and evil.
All I’m saying is, maybe Hlynka was higher in neuroticism than he let on. At the very least, some fraction of “involuntary” posters is explained by what I described.
I truly do not understand how such a person navigates their day to day life.
If we’re talking about the neurotic ones, often not very well.
This is an interesting analysis of the dissident right, but keep in mind that this poll wasn't created by or for the dissident right -- the authors of it have never heard of them and would hate them if they had.
There's the mainstream right, that wants low taxes, libertarian policy, and military might. That's the "GOP Establishment," or as their enemies call them, "RINOs." There's the nationalist right, that wants more manufacturing and less foreign wars. That's the "Trumpist" right, or as their enemies call them, "MAGA Republicans." Then, and only then, there's the dissident right, that wants actual racism. That's the extremely-online version that doesn't exist among conservatives in person. Maybe at those weird right-wing parties in New York, but if you think "people at New York parties" are representative of the right, I'm prepared to offer you a sweetheart deal for the Brooklyn Bridge. I disagree with him on how far he takes it, but I agree with @HlynkaCG totally that the identitarian right in this sense is more of a sect of dissident blue tribers than anything truly red tribe. And I say this as a born and raised red triber from Jesusland (and, if I'm being honest, a pretty hardcore nationalist rightist despite my misgivings about Trump personally).
This poll was created by the mainstream right, with occasional nods to concerns of the nationalist right. The dissident right isn't even on their radar.
Well, they never were "part" of the UK, they were a collection of separate colonies in the Empire and then a Dominion.
And they're still loyal to the crown, it's just that all the imperial dominions that liked Elizabeth just pinkie-promised each other it wasn't the British monarch ruling them any more, it was the monarch of Canada, or Australia, etc. Except they all so happen to be the same monarch.
Personal union isn't so uncommon historically, but I still find the situation where all the countries have to agree to change the line of succession or affirm a new monarch to be a bit clunky and silly. Honestly, that's probably my take on constitutional monarchy itself, though I go back and forth between thinking it's kind of a neat thing to have a symbolic figurehead people can unite behind, and thinking it's insane and inhuman that Charles has all this power on paper but in practice he's damn near a slave-by-birth to the prime ministers of the countries he supposedly rules. I somewhat respect Edward for having the gumption to just say 'no,' and nope out, but that admiration is tempered by the part where he probably tried to get the Nazis to reinstate him if they conquered the UK. I kind of like the Sweden thing where they rewrote the constitution to remove the king from governance while maintaining him as a cultural figure.
urquan
The end desire of the system is Kubernetes for human beings
5mo ago
Hello all, how are you? I hope you all have been doing well.
I haven't been doing so great. I have personal contacts and a support system, but I think this community is one of the few places where my actual feelings will be understood, and my thoughts appreciated.
I'm struggling with finding psychotherapy that's effective for my combination of depression and anxiety, which I've dealt with since I was a child. I had my first recognizable depressive episode in the first grade, not kidding, so this is something that's obviously deep-rooted and temperamental in nature. In that sense, I'm not looking for "insight therapy" where I'm supposed to suddenly figure out what's causing my problems, but for skills-based therapy that can provide discrete and specific interventions I can rely on when my distress or my anhedonia get the better of me. Even solutions-focused brief therapy sounds better than insight therapy at this point.
I actually have a pretty good handle on my emotions and their causes -- counselors in the past have said I have a lot of insight into my problems. The issue isn't that I don't understand them, or are alienated from the true causes, but that I don't know what to do about the negative behaviors I have already identified I have. I'm not really coming into psychotherapy looking for a diagnosis, but a treatment.
I'd like to illustrate my problems with psychotherapy by talking about my most recent, and current, attempt at seeing a shrink.
The most concerning sign of my worsening depression is my attitude towards other people has gotten pretty harsh -- I'm quick to get angry, make snap judgments, even be tempted to be rude -- which is outside of the norm for me. I see this problem as more of a symptom than an underlying issue; I feel more pessimistic and irritable, so I'm eager to lash out. My real problem, I think, is that I don't have as much patience for others as I used to, because I feel on edge all the time.
Unfortunately, I think my new therapist saw this as a bigger part of my problems than it is, and we ended up going down a rabbit hole of "let's explore your feelings of annoyance to see what they tell you about your hidden emotions," and "your negative judgments of other people must be reflective of too much self-criticism." I didn't get any value out of this.
Another issue for me is that psychotherapists are all-in on "unconditional positive regard." This often feels to me like therapists pledging never to actually criticize the problems of the clients who are coming in for a critical eye on their problems.
My current therapist likes to bill himself on being "shame-free," but I'm coming to believe that the optimal amount of shame for personal growth, even in a therapeutic relationship, is not zero. While I don't think a therapist should be mean to their clients, I do think some level of fatherly Jordan-Peterson-style, "get yourself together, man, make something of yourself, you're better than this!" would be incredibly helpful and motivating.
One particular incident stands out -- I was talking about how I got in a social media rabbit hole of drama-reading that made me angry (a common thing for me, as themotte knows), and how I knew I shouldn't do it but did it anyway. He was quick to jump in and suggest "taking the shouldn't out of it," which instantly rubbed me the wrong way and made me feel like my convictions weren't being respected. He seemed surprised when I expressed a strong resolve to just... not use social media, because I see it as harmful to me. Has he never had a client who resolved to avoid things that are bad for them?
It's not that I feel my "shouldn'ts" in this area are imposed on me, or act as a source of guilt... I just recognize that this thing isn't something I like, it's not compatible with my value system, and I don't want to do it any more. I worry this particular therapist has made "avoiding negative judgments" so integral to his therapeutic approach that even when a client comes with an earnest sense that a particular behavior is wrong for them, he still feels the need to taboo their sense of resolution as maladaptive.
I do wonder if this is just a personality difference between men and women, where the average man is motivated more by rising to the challenge of fulfilling expectations and the average woman is motivated more by knowing people care about her and will support her regardless. This is one of the strong reasons why I wonder if the severe over-representation of women in psychology is really distorting the practice, so much so that even men are tailoring their treatment of male clients to the average woman's preferences and needs. When someone a while ago talked on here about "lefty mental health," think that was part of what they were talking about.
So, I feel like my current bout of therapy isn't working. We're not clicking. I've never actually had this happen before, despite trying therapy several times in my life -- I've always just kind of gone along with things, not thinking too much about what I'm looking to get out of therapy other than someone to listen. Now that I've thought critically about what I want to gain from treatment, I'm more judicious about what I need in a therapist. So I don't think this particular guy has the expertise or the right frame of mind to offer skills-based therapy, and is just generally a bad fit for me.
But I'm kind of stuck. As I've said, I've tried psychotherapy several times in my life, and it's made little difference in the overall trend of my mental health. In an earlier attempt at therapy, the only actual unit of value was the advice to use deep, slow breathing as a quick antidote to anxiety (something something parasympathetic nervous system), which to this day can legitimately feel like taking some sort of dissociative drug in terms of how chilled out it can make me.
If therapy has anything to offer me, I don't think it consists of therapeutic theories or piercing insight, but would offer more practical steps to counter negative self-talk and reduce bad thought/behavior spirals. The problem I have is not that I don't understand my problem and don't understand when my thoughts and behaviors are unhelpful, it's that, in the moment, I either feel egosyntonically aligned with the unhelpful things, or I feel situationally powerless to counter it. What I need is a therapist who recognizes that, and can provide direct and practical advice.
But increasingly I just feel like psychotherapy is a dead-end, and what I actually need is to finally get my GP to refer me to a psychiatrist, who might be willing to try one of the fancier anti-depressants that sometimes help people with treatment-resistant anxiety and depression. I've bounced between a few SSRIs and SNRIs in my life, but haven't seen much difference other than the fucked-up sex drive.
Hell, shock my brain at this point, I just don't want to feel on edge any more.
Any thoughts? Please be gentle.
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