MysterionMuffles

Cool I'm gonna try and check those out when I have my reading list cleared a bit.

Their dignity. Inanimate objects are still paid by their parents, but what stays with them at all times if their dignity, and asserting ownership it through threat and punishment, I think that's where the line is crossed. But did you mean specifically physical objects?

Yeah 3 simple things I've learned from Stef's call in conversations that have vastly improved my own interactions: Ask and listen. Express gratitude for openness. Express sympathy for distress. Before I used to like talking at people, and I would be giving (I think) valid advice, but a lot of it was unwarranted or unrelated to their situation. I didn't take the time to ask and listen first to truly understand what they were going through. And worse, I would just take their vulnerability as a narcissistic queue for me to bask in feeling needed. If they also had things to complain about, I would tell them it's not worth worrying about in this faux optimistic kind of way instead of simply letting them know I am sorry for the way they feel or what they are going through. Nowadays, I can still rant my mouth off with philosophical insight, but I only do that once I've let the other person exhaust every possible angle they perceive their problems at. I help them to identify (IFS style) the competing feelings that are warring in their hearts. When people open up to me now, I am more receptive to the hint that they just want to be listened, so I listen, probe questions that either get them to continue, recoil, or feel closure. Or well I feel like, the conversations don't end until I give my own thoughts on it, but if I just continue to ask away, they have no problem continuing until they feel they've exhausted the story to the point that they just want some perspective on it. OH and another thing I am a fan of when Stef has debates with people is his ability to express growing disinterest in continuing the conversation, as well as the assertiveness without aggression. I used to yell at people and make even bigger points when I'm arguing about something, but if people aren't paying attention or following a line of thinking that is crucial to the conversation, I simply point that out and express my anxiety about it. Either the conversation ends to expose these people as heartless uncaring individuals, or they apologize, turn off their phones, stop looking at the TV or magazine, or whatever--and just give me their undivided attention. "Hey this is important to me, can you please listen?" Is so much better than "stop ignoring me! Listen or else [insert emotional ultimatum]."

It was infuriating to watch the video of him beating her. I hate how people in the comments are like "GOOD she deserved it for stealing music over the internet." Yeah that's why he did it, because he found out she was torrenting music she was going to buy any way when it released over seas. It's sad that she still has a relationship with her mother, especially after how she watched it happen and even contributed. It was too long ago so Judge Williams basically got away with it. I think he got a month or a year paid suspension, like wtf? No justice man. NO JUSTICE!!!

I am proud of you, Joel, that is a huge step forward and is something really hard to admit to oneself. Feeling inadequate and filling that void with activities designed to be an attempt to mask that only makes those activities less joyful. Maybe you CAN achieve these things such as health, skill, and intelligence, but that goal must be more secondary than the blissful joy of being in the moment of those activities. Only then can those goals even be achieved. Being too focussed on an end result pretty much makes you miss out on the process that gets you there. For instance, when I play guitar, I've always had trouble creating riffs that are in 4/4 timing, and I've been criticized often that I'm hard to keep up with. I felt shame in that, like I was inadequate of a musician, until of course I discovered mathrock where the timing is meant to be unique. However, there are times where I still try too hard to make my riffs complex and unfollowable just so it's something only I can play to my self, to kind of...shield my self from the feeling of rejection I used to get when I fronted a band. I've now turned to playing bass in a band with simpler music, and I can keep up better having a limit on how many notes I can play before it just becomes a low and deep noisiness, and of course to simplify my technique since my hands are more suited for a guitar. I keep my complex mathy stuff to my self for fun and just contribute to a band with an instrument I'm less versatile in as to humble my self, that yes I can do some crazy stuff on guitar. But much like the over complicated music out there, it may be over reaching and it's more about technique than the music even speaking to you. Sorry for making it about me, but that's just how I related to it. I do enjoy your posts as they are filled with great insights I can reciporcate because I've been where you are to some degree. And yeah I get what you mean about those self defeating mentalities that confirm themselves. Because you're so busy trying to prove yourself wrong, that you end up proving your self right. Err did that make sense? I guess you're busy trying to prove your negative self wrong, that you end up proving it right because your positive self is buried beneath the self induced stress in feeling that you may never get to let the positive self have prevelance over your psyche unless prompted by external desires and goals.

Wow Pepin thanks for that alternate perspective. I didn't see it that way, of course it runs deeper. There's always a surface message that IS deep no doubt, but here's to the awesome capacity of a philosopher to go even deeper. Yeah the thing with Stan, I thought when he was going up to Wendy in that scene, that he was gonna share how jaded he feels in playing a part in the shallowness game, except he has an emotional desparation TO play into that game and get her to update her image. Still that ending...just heartbreaking. She betrayed her principles in order to conform and feel accepted. Kinda sad.

I don't think they'll even be speaking the same language. God her voice is so annoying and she looks like an alien.

From his first point, I would just argue that if the Bible was so divine, why would God allow such evil things to end up on the page? If he has the power to intervene and show up at will, and men are so fallible, how could he simply not have editted the Bible back in the ancient days so they wouldn't get so mistranslated and misconstrued? However I think you still a pretty good job. "True "GOD" based faith will bring more than I can even claim to understand." Oh the irony in that statement....where do I even begin? Well I won't get too ahead of my self and just read the rest of your convo. Omg...he believes in a God that used science to create the world. Ok so God is not magical anymore? Rather he works with test tubes and...I dunno man. I'm barely skimming through your conversation and I can already see that this person wasn't even worth giving the time or day to. I don't usually create my post as I read along, but I'm just getting easily bothered by this guy lol. He's basically sticking to the original sin thing, and moving goal posts by saying he's not meant to be fully understood by people. It's just muddled up in confusion this whole thing. I cannot imagine how much trauma this guy had to receive to be so irrational. Though I do love the question you asked instead of pointing these flaws out. I feel like I would've shamed him (something he'd probably used to anyway) for being such an idiot LOL! Good stuff keeping it Socratic! His second message just wreaks of how indoctrinated he is. It does start out that he wants to respect other cultures, but feeling lost amongst them when he was outside of his own is not embracing or respecting them, rather than feeling unease that his cultural biases were being challenged. Again I liked your question after that little speech of his, however I would also go so far as to ask: by which basis do you determine truth from falsehood? And if he just appeals to a Bible or priest he has already admitted are imperfect, then he's already lost the debate. What a strawman argument...putting words in your mouth. Or well, hands since this is text chatting. Flawed people including himself since he is included in that category of people never knowing the full truth or how to fully be good. If he already believes in the second coming of Christ....again, I would've dipped from the conversation. But I do know how tempting it is to argue against it because at times it just seems so easy. I will now refrain from commenting on anything else in detail as it seems to me that this person simply dodged all of your questions with more indirect bs. I would say, good stuff on this, you kept it curious and very simple...well as simple as you could manage with someone who just complicated things more and more. I think asking about people's childhoods like you did, makes it a whole lot simpler as you were getting simpler answers from him. You cut the Occam's Razor deep into this one. I always feel uncomfortable that Stef "resorts" to the childhood history line of questioning, but honestly, it's such a valid approach and tends to simplify all these abstractions people love to bury their true feelings with. Good job on this! This bothers me so much though...it's an admission to blind faith already. I would argue a life of curiousity beats this tenfold. It's not a waste to believe in something if you are willing to turn around and say you could be wrong, it would be a HUMBLE thing to do. Humility being a virtue taught by Christianity, it would be something to practice instead of arrogantly believing you are right without evidence. The world is an ever changing place, and to have the humility that knowledge is updatable means you can have all the belief and trust you want in something until otherwise proven incorrect.

Cool! That really caught my eye as I was not aware we had this function.

*cough*RebeccaBlack*cough*JustinBeiber*cough*

I had a feeling your Facebook status had something to do with my thread lol. Strange habits, independant thought patterns, irregular bodily functions. Like I have a friend who I didn't know had a decade long chronic illness, and I guess I found that weird in the most respectful way possible. There was this other friend I had who I thought was just a straight shooter alpha male who turned out to have his own array of vulnerabilities I didn't expect from someone of his stature and social class. Now that I think of it, it is also hard to define weird if my examples don't suffice. The least I can say is that I don't consider weird as a negative thing. I also have this other friend who got into a car accident and injured his spine, and I didn't notice till he mentioned it, but he often twitches and has these tics, basically strange bodily movements that he does in order to realign his spine and neck at times.

Yeah novels do = fiction, but I am surprised by this being fantasy books. And that they would have those kinds of themes aside from collect the crystal and vanquish evil. Yeah I know not all fantasy books are that generic, I read a pretty good Dungeons and Dragons based trilogy that had depth lol. Thanks for the suggestions, love for people to keep em coming.

Yeah definitely. They love to bitch and moan about how they get rejected or end up with abusive women without ever taking a look at themselves. NOT in that self defeatist way that they usually do, but with clear conscious honesty and a willingness to improve their ways. Thankfully Ted Mosby has...EVER SO SLOWLY!

Is there any objective basis for what constitutes as a "normal" person? Or is normal just subjective based on the circle of people you're used to? It has been my experience that everyone appears to be "normal," but if I spend enough time to get to know them, I recognize weird stuff about them. Stuff that they are either unconscious of, or stuff that they share with me that makes me recognize their weirdness. Not that there's anything wrong with weird, just a thought!

I still think simply allowing the names to pop up on the up or down votes to appear at the bottom of people's posts. I like how on Youtube, I can see the names of people upvote my comments so it's not just an arbitrary number that makes me feel awesome. It's an arbitrary number coupled with people's names that makes me feel awesome!

Sorry for the late reply Diaz, but I dunno, I saw her random drunken episodes to be problematic, but more for comedic effect than anything deep to explore. I think they did address Adam's mother's drinking problems because that was more detremental to her and her family than Erica's once in a while drunken hazes. I think she's only gotten drunk twice right? The only one that comes to mind is where she hugs that ice penis during the Gay Pride Parade lol, and one other time I'm sure happened but can't remember what her drunkness got her to do. I forgot how much I missed this show btw WILL watch again next year. And for those of you who finished it, if you could come back to this thread and tell me what you thought that'd be great. I've been given some critiques in the chat by some telling me that it wasn't deep enough and didn't touch upon childhood trauma like it should have. I dunno, maybe there's more.

I don't think it's that big of a deal, but I do find it odd that when I've posted a few threads, there are people who end up on the "following this thread" list who haven't been active for quite some time. For instance I just posted this thread: http://board.freedomainradio.com/topic/38115-novels-that-challenge-the-default-virtue-of-family/#entry348823 in Reviews and Recommendations, and as soon as it was first posted, there were already 7 people following it. Now of course I wouldn't mind, in fact I would prefer if people followed my threads, but it seems like a strange glitch, as I visitted some of their profiles to learn that they haven't even been active for quite some time. So there's no possible way they could've read my thread as it was made in like a milisecond and decide to follow it.

Does anybody know of novels/movies that challenge the default virtue of family? Instead of just making reccommendations as I love to do for you guys, I want to know if there are more than the ones I'm about to tell you guys about that you know of. I've only watched the movie for Precious and later found out it's based on a book, but this story is really emotionally rivetting, very moving, but also quite disturbing. It's about an overweight black teen who gets pregnant and has to learn how to survive in the ghetto amidst her unplanned motherhood. For those of you who don't care for spoilers and still like watching or reading despite of having that knowledge: I don't mind minor spoilers, I'll still watch or read to see how it gets there, but if there's something big(like Fight Club's plot twist), I would prefer to let it be a surprise. Then there's Island Girl, which you can read an excerpt here if you'd like, written by my own college professor. I think I must have read this book about 2-3 times by now. It's about a self proclaimed juniour-senior named Ruby, who is diagnosed with early onset alzeihmer's, and lives in a house that her grandparents built on Ward's Island off the coast of Toronto. She has two daughters named Liz and Grace. Grace lives with Ruby, has a mild retardation and is also under arrest, while Liz is an alcoholic who used to be a lawyer and also lives on her own in downtown Toronto. Basically, Ruby is afraid that once her mind goes, she fears that Grace would be unable to keep the family home that doubles as their family business (they run a salon together), and her deepest desire is that Liz sobers up and comes home to take care of her and take over the owneship over the house. This is the first book I read that challenged the default virtue of family because although Ruby is stricken with a horrible disease, she hasn't been a very good mother, so Liz is reluctant to really give a shit. It's a fascinating read, it's written in all three of their perspectives, their voices are very distinct, and each of their own sublots provide a ton of variety to the story. Having this multiciplicty of perspectives to see the story through makes for a heightened sense of empathy as you begin to understand each woman's motivations and how if the others only knew how one of them felt and thought, things would just work out for the better. Not to mention it is also hilarious at times despite the amount of feels it'll provide lol. I highly suggest you order it or download the e-book. I believe there needs to be more novels like this that are written in such a clever and genuine style that PUNCHES YOU IN THE SOUL!!! Anyways, got any of your own recommendations? I feel like FDR is a goldmine of sharing stuff, I've certainly become a big fan of a few things people have recommended to me like the work of John Bradshaw or a variety of podcast series based on writing.

What is troubling about the fantasy aspect if the Bronies AND little girls know the difference between reality and fantasy?

Forgot to mention that I'm the exception. I used to read them out loud when it came to opening presents with the family. We go person by person. This is why I write personal messages now instead of something pre-written in a card.

Cards are worthless, no one even reads them. Some of them have nice messages in them. As for pictures of their own friends and family as cards, I've never seen that happen in my circle of people. I'm really sorry you had to go through that, Magnus.

Did anybody catch the season finale last night? It was about how photoshop was causing self image issues amongst girls. At the beginning of the episode, cheerleaders are rehearsing their routine and at the end of it they each announce their names. When it comes to the fat and ugly girl Lisa Burger, she says her name with a complete lack of confidence, and then Wendy Testaburger (wow they love burgers for female last names I wonder why lol) defends her from the other girls who are upset that she ruined the flow. Wendy encourages Lisa to have more confidence and suggests that she should ask Butters out on a date. It was a pretty cute scene that this awkward fat girl with crooked teeth and glasses, and pants raised up to her chest nervously asking out a boy. He kindly declines and says he's thankful for her interest, but then has to add "I'm sorry but you're too fat for me." When Wendy finds out about this incident, she snaps at him, and goes on this rampage basically trying to get people to see the fallacy of being shallow. Especially since Butters said he'd prefer a woman to be uber hot and takes care of her self like Kim Kardashian (who they rip on for the rest of the episode for being a hobbit photoshopped to look good). So Wendy takes the liberty of showing Butters how photoshop just creates a fantasy, and photoshops Lisa Burger right in front of him, showing how attractive she CAN look with photoshop magic, and all of a sudden, Butters wants to ask her out and fall in love with her. Another boy ends up dating Lisa, and with Lisa on his arm, Clyde goes around the school hallways showing the boys the photoshopped image of her on his phone instead of the real her, which I thought was hilarious especially that she didn't mind. Because hey, she's gotten attention now right? Anyways, Wendy gets pissed off and accidentally rants out loud about how the boys only revere Lisa now because of that fake image of her, and yells out that in reality she's fat and ugly. Lisa is in earshot during Wendy's rant and basically for the rest of the episode, Wendy is accused of simply being jealous and having her own self image issues, even though she's like the biggest feminist in the school. I thought it was an interesting episode, especially since they kept most of the action in the school. I like the up close and personal episodes of South Park, as opposed to the grander scale ones. They're simpler to digest and relate to and this one was a great break after all the Black Friday madness, which is also worthy of discussion in terms of how consumerism has consumed the American consumer as to have such violent mobs break into malls for Black Friday. But this episode in particular about female self image...I'm just really moved by it. Photoshop HAS ruined self confidence in women even though the women who are photoshopped aren't initially all that attractive until the work is done onto them. I know there are some who are already beautiful despite the blemishes and photoshop turns them into an unrecognizable alien, but for the norm of photoshopped women, they're usually over worked on. Also, the fact that Wendy was getting shat on everywhere she went as being jealous, it speaks volumes as to how any woman who wants to speak out against photoshop, she is instantly labelled as jealous or full of herself. And I think that is designed to enable the continual degrading process of breaking a female's natural confidence.

Protest the Hero has some philosophical stuff about State, Religion and Sexuality. Particularly their debut album Kezia. It's a concept album that basically plays out like a movie for your ears. The songs are written in the perspectives of three characters: The Priest, the Prison Guard, and Kezia, a woman who is sentenced to death by firing squad for being a prostitute in a society that hyper sexualizes women. The Priest is responsible for giving her final rights before the execution and the Prison Guard is one of the five men participating in the firing squad. Each character has 3 songs that outline their backstories, their developments as people due to the circumstances, and each final song takes place right before Kezia's execution. Then finally the 10th and final song on the album is just the band's commentary of the drama that has just played out. I highly suggest that you read along with the lyrics while listening to this fantastic album. Mainly because the singer is hard to understand sometimes (sings too fast or screams) lol. Or that could just be me with bad ears I dunno. Plus I've just always enjoyed reading along with meaningful lyrics so I can memorize them and also be more in the moment with the music. http://www.plyrics.com/p/protestthehero.html Most noticable lyrics for me by the Prison Guard: There's a hole in my heart but it just makes me unholy Crucified that night and I walked away with alter-egos Like the prison priest who preaches his dead and buried gospel With my faith in ruins my duty still breathes strong I'm a parrot in a cage just singing prayers to belong to a textbook of my crying, lying, dying history; a textbook of my crying, lying, dying history It's awesome you brought that up. You should check out my self knowledge thread: Identifying With the Music You Listen To.

I know this is pretty much an intellectual property related topic, but what do you guys think of streaming shows and movies for free? I have my reservations about download music for free and would much rather buy their albums especially if they're just starting out, but for tv shows and movies, I could really care less. I go to town with streaming lol. TV DVD's are too costly, though I don't mind getting the occasional Blu-Ray especially if it's for a 3D animated cartoon. You can still steal that stuff off the internet fine, but I just like the security of ensured functionality you know? The piracy laws these days, seriously... I always think of it this way: if TV stations and production companies didn't want their shit to be streamed for free online, they would post the stuff online themselves and find different ways to get funding. I would love for a freemium kind of service like FDR where you can watch all the free shows and movies you want, but it's up to the hardcore subcribers to chip in on sustaining the business, while of course the companies find their own ways to stay funded. Then they can also be rewarded with extras that wouldn't be available to the freeloading vermin! Likewise with movies. No matter how pissed off they get that people stream their movies for free, there will always be people who enjoy the theatre experience and would gladly pay for it. I guess I relate that to music now, like I posted a while back about that. It is better to support directly by paying, but for musicians, they get most of their money from performances anyway. As for movies, they get most of their sales from theatre goers as opposed to DVD/Blu-Ray sales...even though those will last a life time afterwards. Your thoughts?

They have Brony charities and the fact that the show is about peace, love and tolerance, the fandom is a safe place where they can express empathy for each other. The likes of which they most likely couldn't get as young boys. Such as it was explained in Stef's podcast: How a Man's Heart is Murdered. I might make a video on this one day to give my full theory as to what drives the fandom beyond the typical remark from a popular essay on it, that "these men are just sick of the cynicism and the state of the world since 9/11" or something to that effect. The fandom IS how they learn about themselves, recognizing that they have all these feelings and vulnerabilities, and desire to be loving that they may not have been able to recognize amongst the plethora of tesosterone filled boy cartoons from back in the day. For some, the going against the grain thing is their conscious desire. To REALLY stand out...even though they may end up standing out like sore thumbs at times. Trust me, I do get embarassed and ashamed of some Bronies out there. Particularly one of them in the documentary where this guy lives in a very redneck populated area, and chose to deck his car out with MLP art on the windows. It actually looked really nice, but even I think that was taking his love for it too far and was kind of inviting the death threats he got from local rednecks. On the other hand there's a cute couple in the documentary that would have never met if it wasn't for their mutual love for MLP and a nearby meet up. They are inspired to carve out their own wooden MLP toys to paint and sell at conventions. It just has many sides to it. Most of them really are the most awkward type of dudes who would typically be picked on, and as a straight male, I can say there are also some Bronies who are physically attractive and pretty normal for the most part, like without any hint of neuortic tendancies or anything like that. I dunno, I would argue, any woman who wouldn't want to date a guy for simply being into MLP is a woman that is too heavily indoctrinated to want to love in the first place. Why would a guy want to go for such a close minded, unempathetic woman in the first place? If it were the case that they get along just fine except for that one aspect of him, then it'd be his choice to either choose love or escape. For me, if I dated a woman who was concerned that I watch this show, I would understand why and actually give HER a chance if she wasn't extremely judgemental about it, but rather curious. I'd share with her that I have no desire to collect the toys or deck out my car with its art and be overly proud of my fascination with the show, and what it really comes down to is that to me it's just like any other show I watch. It's something that speaks to me. If she can't see that, no harm no foul. I won't give up the show, but I'm not too entrenched in the fandom to make that a deal breaker as if her distaste in something I like will tarnish any other aspects about us.