MysterionMuffles

Anyone else get to listen to this yet? I found it quite enjoyable and eye opening. It's been a while since I've listened to a solo cast, especially one that hit me with some revelations. I've been noticing in almost every super hero movie, an audience just HAS to be present for some part of the battle between hero vs villain. I always found it to be an insult to my senses to have to HAVE that audience there react to what's going on in the action. To that I just say "well thanks but I already know how to root for!" So it was cool for Stef to touch upon that aspect of TV where writer's can inject their views through attractive people and have ugly people contest their views. I found that propaganda in the movie This is 40 where a middle aged, rich and attractive couple do all sorts of horrible things that they just get away with. They try to perform sexual acts with each other with the kids at home, and get all angry when the kids interrupt with their problems. They yell at their kids, relinquish their privelages, even one scene the mother yells and threatens another kid who was teasing her kid on Facebook. Even though her kid already warded him off on her own. And the mother of the boy who got yelled at, she was this overweight woman who had a talk with the girl's parents and the principal--and my GOD was it full of disservice to the average looking parent. That woman loses her temper because the star couple act all non-chalant about their behaviour and gas light her to make it look like she made up the whole story about her son being threatened. AH I can go on and on. I just really hated that movie for it's complete disregard of true family ethics and for children. I might do a full review on it one day if I so chose. In relation to the podcast Stef also talked about Two and a Half Men. I cannot believe I never noticed it before. All I ever noticed was that the brothers were dysfunctional due to having a narcissistic mother, but the whole idea of Charlie being the good looking, innocent about his flaws kinda guy is propaganda against his brother Alan who tries do the right thing for women, but relenquishes too much of his power in doing so, thus ends up getting shat on by everyone. Quite the eye opener for me how 98% of the time, entertainment is a disservice to the average looker as well as the averagely intelligent people. Much like in the brief talk about The Big Bang Theory. I would argue that the characters have grown over the years only in so far as their relationships with each of their respective girlfriends. Save for Raj who only just now is able to talk with women without being drunk. I guess Stef hasn't watched the show in a while to know that the cast has added Amy and Bernadette into the mix, so the sexual deviant Howard is married to Bernadette, has moved out of his mother's place, and isn't the creepy nerd he once was. Despite of all the changes, he's still Howard and it's cool to see the sexual deviancy taken away, yet there's still more to him than that. Though whether or not those changes have been in the personal aspects of the lives of the nerds, I can totally agree with the idea how they are inmeshed by the state in terms of their jobs. There was one episode where they DID try to do something with the free market, in which the nerds helped Penny in making stylish hair clips, and Leonard created a website for the business. He didn't put a capacity on orders or a reasonable shipping timeframe so they ended up having to make 1000 of those hair clips in one day, and they basically ended up bombing it when another 1000 was ordered as soon as they finished the first batch. I always found it odd that they strived for tenure positions at the universities they work at, and even more odd that I didn't notice how scorned Penny and all the other average of intelligence characters are for being in non-tenure jobs. Even Stuart, who is an entrepeneur. He's not one of the main nerds, but a nerd nonetheless who owns his own comic book store. He's portrayed as completely lonely and insecure, as well as very desparate. Does anybody watch this show and know what happened with his character? I could've sworn he was suave before in being able to score a date with Penny before Leonard ever could. Then all of a sudden, each time they show him, they've made him more and more pathetic over time. Anyways that's my $20 thoughts on that podcast. I have more, but you can already tell it gave me plenty to think about. I would say 2 cents but once again the walls of text never cease to escape me.

I really liked that episode, but for most people they wouldn't guage the value of unschooling philosophy and the touchy bondingness that Dayna brought to the other family because ya know...the average viewer is a sociopath I didn't enjoy the idea that Dayna let that crazy woman into the lives of his children. Devon and Tiff I understand, they were old enough to know what was going on, but for the younger kids whose names escape me, that was some serious trauma to experience all for the sake of unschooling getting some media attention. I hope she apologized to them profusely and made up for that since. Other than that, it was very indicative of two great different extremes. What I got out of it was that the Avery family really did need a whole ton of freedom in their househould, but it's just too bad none of Dayna's work there remained after the swap. It was sad to see Naja's artwork get taken off the walls and Rory (was that the son's name?) probably not having his friends over again. It's sad the only good thing the Avery mother (sorry if I get the names wrong lol) took with her was Joe's breakfast smoothie. The only dysfunction, if you could call it that, in the Martin family is the lack of children helping out with the chores. It's alright if Dayna doesn't mind doing all the cleaning, but the smallest improvement they could adapt is having the kids help out with the cleaning. Other than that, I was scared for them with that other mother in their lives. Jeez... took the words right out of my mouth...or...hands since we're typing here? Lol anyway. Yeah that was egregious that Mother Avery got offended by a curse that wasn't even directed by her. Horrible display of her lack of will since the Martin kids didn't even get to go to school for the first time. She totally failed to get that to happen due to being so abrasive. I also loved how Dayna got Andre to open up a bit telling him that he was choosing cruelty over love with his own children. It was nice to see him loosen up throughout the episode and become more...human with his kids. As for the kids being unable to read, the one that couldn't read the word "only" figured out how to read recently. I follow Dayna on Facebook, she said Tiffany finally picked up a book and it was the One Direction biography. YUCK! but hey, it got her to finally read fully!

That's why I said especially IF you know she's using physical force as well. Otherwise it's just yelling etc etc...

They could compete to see who can collect the most. It's only an abstraction to say one owns them all without physically having them i their possession. Not sure if anyone mentioned this yet, but free market is solely kept alive from competition because competition ensures quality. So if two guys were to come across the same piece of land and both want to own it, they can agree to at least "share" the resoruces and use them the way each individual wants to. They would then negotiate that whoever makes better use to those resources and sells more gets to have full ownership. The other guy will have to relocate, up his game, or let him self be bought out as an employee of the winning party. If you play video games, take a look at what would have happened to next generation consoles if Xbox One would stay the same as it was first announced. Nintendo Wii-U as great as it may be, doesn't seem to add up to Playstation or Xbox so let's leave it out of the equation. Nintendo always does its own thing would directly competing with Sony and Microsoft. Anyways. So! When Xbox One was first announced, they basically wanted to put a stop to used game sales by selling game discs that only have a one time use by INSTALLING the game onto the console, and then that's it. You can't lend your games to your friends anymore, you can't sell it back to the store so they can sell it as used. Since game companies only make money off sales on the original purches, and not from used game sales, Microsoft was actually gonna screw over the game STORES that sold used games to also stay in business. You can see how counter intuitive that would be. Putting game stores out of business would mean new games might not get a chance to see the light of day because their supplies won't be able to supply them. With that tomfoolery set, Playstation 3 would win by default because games would stay the same. Discs you can pop in and play, sell to stores when you're done with them if you wanted, or to lend to friends who can easily play them no problem. No stinginess on the installation crap, but anyways. Could you imagine what would happen to the quality of PS3? I know game developers would still compete with each other and that would make the games have quality insurance, but what of the console of PS3 itself? It would have monopoly over the video game market and they would tend to try less and less to improve because they have no one else to compete with. Sure they want to keep their customers satisfied but I doubt they would be trying hard to implement any new features like they would if Microsoft was still a valid opponent. You have to take in account that in our current system with the many different markets set in place, competitors already use the same resources to outdo each other.

Oh good call I forgot to account for story writers on the board who also infuse aspects of themselves into their characters. That does sound like a good anime character. Is there not any characters in anime you think that fits that mould even in the slightest? I would like to write off anime as having really immature stupid characters but I know that's not always true. Kenichi comes to mind for me. Have you watched that? I don't know about him sensing evil right away but he did empathize with a lot of his opponents. He's basically this scrawny martial arts novice who learns different styles along the way, and fighting dudes of even more different styles than what he learns. Each opponent he would defeat, he would earn their respect for being that small underdog who manages to take them down, and so they would open up to him about their traumatic experiences that caused them to join a gang that terrorizes his city. They would actually then become ALLIES to help take down the gang provided that opponent has the self knowledge and dignity to look at their ways objectively.

Thanks for your insights Neo! Even though my biggest age gap was 3 years I did feel like she looked up to me. So that weird father and daughter dynamiv you mentioned was quite disturbing but also very revealing of what voids her and I were trying to fill.

I should start journalling more when I am joyful. I think I did a bit of it last month when I challenged my sef to journal for 31 days straight. I dunno, but I feel like I always have so much more to say when it comes to frustrations. Does that make me a pessimist? And is my lack of an attitude for gratitude what keeps me in a rut, or do I require far more than that? Ah sorry I dont even know if those are meant to be rhetorical. I like your integrity idea Tony, good way to keep track on how you've been doing. I don't reread til many years later. I should start doing so though.

Then I would argue back that they can't claim for me not to care about the poor if that's my worldview. It is in fact them who absolve themselves the responsibility of giving to the poor by voting someone in and not at all because they care. It might be a wild assertion to pull this card out especially if it's early in the debate, but I would say that when people talk about politics and social justice, they're only really talking about themselves. When they say "people" they just mean themselves and are unafraid of being honest in expressing their own individual concerns, or lacktherof, for the poor. But I feel like that's falling under ad hominem territory. Care to help me refute that claim that "people know they themselves won't help the poor--" in a way that isn't a definition of character/personal attack?

As a fiction writer who's read a handful of writing guides and took some writing courses in college, along with the primary project of self knowledge, something has always intrigued me about fiction. The idea of identifying with characters whose personal dramas reflect our own in either implicit or explicit ways. I understand that there's a danger of hero worship, but this is sort of different. For me, I used to be all about action and gore, but even when I was consciously chasing after that stuff, I would always get bored. For the longest of times, I wasn't aware that most of the movies, shows, or books I've enjoyed were so enjoyable because I found my self relating to the characters. I became more aware of that as I grew older, especially when I graduated from high school and even more especially when I learned about characterization that is meant to reflect aspects of the self. I don't know what I wanted to ask you guys in particular, just wondering what your thoughts are on that. It seems to me that the media people consume says a lot about their personalities and why they are drawn to it. People who watch The Big Bang Theory are usually nerds, the people who watch action films are macho-bravado kinda dudes. Not all the time of course, and much like the Breakfast Club, within all of us inhabits a variety of archetypes (hence the Mecosystem or Internal Family System), but there are some archetypical characteristics we enbody more strongly, and that causes us to connect with fictional characters that resemble them. So to watch a movie, show, or read a book, I view that as basically having a drama play out in your mind. Yes it's an external experience, but at the internal level, all those characters represent different centres of your psyche that are at war with each other and the outcome of each story basically gives you an open ended answer as to how all these different aspects of you will play out in your decision making. I have more thoughts on this but that's as much as I can verbalize right now. What are your thoughts on this line of thinking? For me thinking this way has helped my self knowledge, provided that the writing of the media has been written well to realistically portray how certain types of people WOULD behave in the situations they're put in. Just for extra fun, you can click the spoiler below to see why I decided to finally mention this topic.

Wow that was very interesting and does sound familiar. Love how you emphasized the abrasiveness of that part. It was clear to me who was who for the most part, but near the end it seemed to have lost some steam. Understandable though it is tough to monologue (sorta dialogue) for a half hour. I would suggest being conscious of the tonality of your voice like you were near the beginning and middle, where the critic had a slightly higher pitch while you yourself of course spoke at a bit of a lower tone. Not too big of a difference, but also the fact that your inner-critic and self near the end started to sound more like, not in content, but in voice...perhaps...is the union of the IFS? I dunno. Overall though, thanks for more insights! It inspires me to do more of those IFS dialogues again like I did a lot of last month.

Yeah because it's more to their pace and catered to their interests. I would go so far as UNSCHOOL if and when I have kids. In a stateless society, I still think schools would be important, but they shouldn't be age segregated and forced to learn a variety of subjects they could care less for. It should be like college/university but earlier in life since kids know what they want to do with their time at a younger age than 18, the age you graduate and feel like life is a huge hassle. I would probably make it so that you give the variety of subjects and whatever they succeed most in, they get evaluated if they're good at it because they just are, or if they have a passion for it, and then customize their education around that subject. And of course it should a whole lot less test based and writing by answering questions it should be more focussed on exploration. But then that just makes it circle back to unschooling anyway lol

I would safely assume that business owners are rational people capable of negotiations. He can't deny an opportunity to be bought out for a huge sum if he's had his share in the tea business. Otherwise, there's always options. In the case he wants to say no to co-operating the lumberjack should have to respect his decision or learn how to increase his incentives to hand the land over to him. If there's a discrepancy and it gets ugly...well damn, they are some seriously dysfunctional people who have no place in the world of business lol. There is so much land around and the lumberjack can easily look for new faces of land for his logging, or in the meantime the tea man can look for a relocation assuming of course he can find another forest with the same tea leaves or better.

Oh I see, maybe I've misunderstood your question. Did you want to know how land ownership would work in a stateless society, or how does the NAP and self ownership apply in our current system? If it's the latter, then a simple "it doesn't," would be my answer, and that's the problem. The tea man can tell the lumberjack to FO but then that'd be his own problem. I don't know why he would if he's a reasonable business man. Help me understand if you're not intentionally assuming that all property owners are just dicks, because to me in that scenario you put forth, you predicate on the idea that land ownership also adds asshole qualities to the owners lol.

You barely addressed what I said about negotiation possibilities...

Welcome to the boards, Nicolas. That's gonna be really tough to live with man...I would suggest calling CPS, especially if you know she's using physical force as well. Otherwise if it's just yelling, I really don't know what I would do...it's tough. Good for you stepping in when you could.

tasmlab that is hilarious...people just nodding along into submission of jargon. Good strategy by the way. I believe it was you who educated your parents and your wife's parents successfully? I thought they were onboard with Atheism? Unless I'm thinking of someone else. Also...you did not appreciate the deep personal things people brought up? Did you not appreciate their vulnerability?

...and what about my argument?

It resonates so well. I felt like I wasted too many years of my life not even learning anything or exploring the world, unless we went on field trips or I had interest in the content being taught in school. Only in the case of English class aka Language Arts ;P did I find school interesting. I loved reading, I loved answering questions about what I've read, and I truly did love writing essays on them as well writing my own short stories. I would be a much happier camper if my school life was dedicated to 8 hours a day writing for creative means, and not for social sciences, religion, actual science (before we were "old enough" to do expiraments) and all this other crap that just didn't apply to me. I spent two extra years in high school because for the first two years, I just didn't want to be there, so I found every possible reason to stay home. If skipping wasn't enough, I'd get into spats with teachers who I found abrasive just to get suspended. Not a good plan, especially when I got to my senior years and everyone I entered high school with were leaving. My goal was to NOT be there, so I decided to play within the system and start going to summer school every year and tried to catch up as best as I can. I was really fortunate to have found a program in my school which allowed me to get more than the standard 8 credits I would get in a year. (Four classes for a semester, and each year was divided into two semesters in my school). I was able to get 12 in one year as opposed to coming another extra semester to complete high school. Even when I DID graduate though, I had no interest in going to anymore school til a few laters, but I've opened up enough here and just leave the rest of my life details at that lol. But anyways, yeah I felt totally unprepared for life afterwards, and to some degree I still do 6 years later. At least in the past 6 years though, I've spent my time unschooling without really knowing it by diving into philosophy, studying writing through writing guides I simply got from my nearby bookstore, and I did take a one year program of creative writing in college and that ONE YEAR...was plenty times more worth my time than the years I wasted in high school. I liked the bit about stumbling on videos on Youtube. When I found FDR through a Facebook share, that's how my "awakening" happened when I began to delve deeper into understanding this messed up and disorganized world. Thanks for the share and welcome to the boards! I really realy loved this article.

Boris M, welcome to the boards. You raise some very good and challenging questions! I only have kindergarten level understanding of economics, so excuse me if my answers don't bear any validity. I would agree that the first come first serve principle is what gives them the right to exercise labour upon the land, and if they can find a good use for it why not? How long will it take til someone else comes along and discovers this piece of land's existence? Even if they are the first to find it though, it doesn't mean that they will strip all of its resources for whatever they want to produce. So if someone else comes along and has interest in the land, by then it should be marked with a sign with the original owner that it is under their private property, but that doesn't mean the newcomers can't negotiate split ownership. Say the first owner found a huge forest of trees that contain tea leaves, and that's all he wants to extract from that land. He owns the property for a while and does his tea business, but then a lumberjack comes along and wants to use the trees for lumber. Assuming he doesn't start clear cutting due to being unable to see the ownership sign, or is just a complete asshole--he would contact the tea man and work out an agreement. They can negotiate if the lumberjack chops down trees, but then how will the tea man deal with the loss of resources? He can't possibly use every tree unless he has a huge team on his side that extracts all the leaves they can. I would imagine they would work out an agreement that the teaman must take every possible leaf from the trees he will allow the lumberjack to cut down. Or a certain row of them. Or at a certain season where the leaves are non-existent, with the agreement that they must also hire someone else to help plant new trees if it seems like the logging may require more than what actually exists at the forest. Again I only have kindergarten knowledge on business or economics, but that would be my guess. As for having monopoly on the land, you can always divide the land if someone else wants to use different aspects of it, and hey maybe they can help build each other's business? The logger can help hire contractors to build the teaman a little tea shop, the tea man can...invite the lumberjacks in for some tea and biscuits on breaks? Who knows? LOL see really kindergarten stuff And there's always the choice to relinquish ownership when you have no use for it anymore, and to look for more land in the meantime right?

Yeah I know what you mean. I was up late the night I saw this thread reading all the comics I can, but then I kept randomming to ones that didn't go anywhere. At least I can be thankful for giving me a reason to call it quits and call it a night lol.

Black Mirror is a psychological thriller/sci-fi series from the UK. In Twilight Zone fashion, each episode thrusts you into a world of its own where it dramatizes technology's influence on us as human beings. There's only been two seasons so far, with only three episodes each, but I found them extremely thought provoking and skin crawling creepy that I wish there were more. At least 10, if not 20 episodes a season would be great! Anyways, examples of episodes: There's one episode, called The Entire History of You, where they focus on this device that allows you to record every single moment of your life and at ANY time, you can rewatch them in your mind or on any clear surface so that you can always have an objective perspective on your memories. It's a little gain implanted in your hippocampus region of the brain, and you can control it with a little remote the size and almost the same shape as USB flash drive. The central human drama that complicates this device's usefulness is that of a man who suspects his wife of cheating on him based on how she behaved at a dinner party. He is able to catch subtle cues in which she dismissed him as useless to the scene, while being incredibly charmed by one of the party guests. To highlight how each episode is different from the last, there's another one called White Elephant where this woman wakes up tied to a chair, with a scatter of pills around her on the floor, and TV in front of her is projecting the image of a pixelated White Elephant logo. When she escapes the house she finds herself in, with no recollection of how she got there and what she was doing, a crowd of people start coming out of their houses. In her confusion her only instinct is to try and ask people for help, but they're too preoccupied with recording a video of her on each of their cell phones, while guys with guns start chasing her around trying to kill her. As great as those episodes were, the very last one I decided to watch tripped me out THE MOST!!! It's called Fifteen Million Merits. For me to describe the concept behind it, I would feel compelled to spoil the story and give away all the metaphors about our current culture, even though it is sent in a bleak and distant future. All I will say is that it's a great social commentary on our consumerist culture and talent show based society. I will have to admit to one critique on the show as a whole, and this only happens for me, but I always find the first act of every episode to be kind of boring. In hindsight, they do set up the episode quite well, but that shouldn't stop you from when the 2nd act of any episode fully immerses you into its world and begins to gnaw away at your sanity with what goes on in them. I will share my take on all the metaphors presented in this episode if anyone is interested. For now though, I hope this is enough to pull you guys in. Hope you enjoy! I am also glad to hear that many of you have liked Being Erica since I reccommended that. It gives me tremendous pleasure to know that what I share is valuable. Thank you thank you thank you!

What do you mean by protecting some people from nature? How does the government protect people from nature, especially at the expense of other people -- without limitation? I feel discombobulated by this question. I'm sure there's a valid question in there, but it seems like a vague string of words to put together.

Oh THAT was the site. I remember you shared it once Robin, gotta bookmark it this time. These are hilarious!

The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle. I don't know if it counts, but it was something that got me started on the right track. A new way of thinking...or not per se...got me on this journey.

LOL yeah I guess the passive aggressive route with it's quick and snappiness will suffice. These kinds of people seem like the type to reject any valid argument. I get that being optimistic makes for a good life, especially if put into proper use. But I feel like there are some "optimists" out there that adapt the mindset as a way to create self denial. So heh I dunno...I've come across too many irrationals who comment to anti-spanking articles today. If that author has any validity to his words and can be applied to internet folk, it truly is a waste of time and energy blaming online strangers for being stupid.