Kevin Beal

There are a lot of things that can contribute to night terrors, including: Sleep deprivation and extreme tiredness Stress Fever (in children) Sleeping in unfamiliar surroundings Lights or noise An overfull bladder obstructive sleep apnea Restless legs syndrome Migraines Head injuries Some medications If it was really common, that would seem to be to be stress related. You are the only one who could know for sure. Not being able to read other people's positive emotions is not very specific. I have that experience too sometimes and I score very high on reading emotions on faces. People like to mask over the feelings they have inside with other expressions. You can't completely hide the actual feelings though, so you get some combination of happy and sad (for example) which can be confusing. Or do you mean that you literally have to work out that because this person has a smile, their eyebrows are curving more downward out to the sides and their eyes are wider, therefore after taking mental note of these characteristics, I know that the person is happy? In which case, that sounds like aspergers or autism of some kind. The cause of which is unknown, to my knowledge.

It's ironic that when you attempted to not disappoint him, that's what ended up happening. And it was probably even more disappointing than if you had said "no" the begin with. I have done that sort of thing a ton of times so I really sympathize with you. And I don't know your relationship with your brother beyond what you've written here and could be totally wrong about everything, but I wonder if actually the fragility is made worse by him seeing you like a father figure. I think that it's fair enough to say that the opposite of fragility includes some measure of realism, and seeing things as they really are, without pretension. If you are avoiding saying that you don't want to go to a party, it's likely true that even more uncomfortable truths are even harder to speak aloud. There must be a lot of things you've never said, despite thinking it. To be fragile is to lack self esteem, to lack a sense that we are capable human beings who can achieve the things we want if only we try hard at it. We are responsible for that self image, but certainly there are factors which make it more or less difficult. Imagine a guy who's gone blind. In his blind state, he misses things like boogers hanging from his nose, his fly is undone, and even though he can't see anything, some pretty ladies mistakenly believe he is ogling their breasts on the bus. He very much wants to be taken seriously and be well liked. You could let him know that his fly is undone and he's got stalactites hanging off his face, and he scared away some women, or you could say nothing and let him think that he's cool. If you tell him he will be embarrassed, and feel in that moment like his is not being taken seriously and is not cool, but at least he can better learn to take precautions like that in the future, thereby increasing his chances to be taken seriously and be cool. We are all a little blind. We only see ourselves from the inside, not the way that others see us. I really think that if you want to help your brother, you should be more honest with him. Don't let him walk around with boogers hanging out. And in that sense, I think that guilt is not entirely unearned. I think that's healthy guilt, in this case. You are not a murderer, it's not immoral, but I don't think that's something that you want on your conscience. Something I've noticed is that when it comes to my fear of disappointing other people, is that it's never ever ever as bad as I think it will be when I just come out and honestly say my piece. Like with this post. It's critical, but I'm guessing you appreciate it on some level. How do you feel about it? You can handle it, right? I think that your brother can too.

Yea, like Patrick said, I think the only way to do it is by either having two subscriptions equal the new amount or cancelling the first one and creating a new larger one.

I've had the same experience. Even when they accept the truth of what I'm saying, they'll talk later as if the conversation never happened. My first taste of anti-feminist material was this documentary you linked. It's well done and really put a lot of things into perspective for me. Here's my favorite segment from the series:

Haha. I only know the show from a half dozen or so video clips. The impression that I get is that they are a bunch of cackling hens trying very hard to make reality bend to their whim by establishing consensus about a bunch of issues I couldn't care less about. Buzzwords, taking offense and sound bites they can parrot all bouncing off each other until some kind of balance is reached in some manner I don't understand. I can't follow anything because they love to talk over each other, usually by repeating something they already said, or by taking offense. Both options completely empty of any rational content. I heard this theory about the play preferences of boys and girls; I don't know if it's true, but it goes that boys think about their toys mechanically, and girls think about their dolls operating in different social situations and how to manipulate in order to get what they want. Not that manipulation is always bad. I think it can be a good thing, but the sort of dialog that I've seen is stuff like: girl as doll (G): "I really think you should go to the movies because it will be fun, and you want to have fun don't you?" other doll (D): "well, I do want to have fun, so, okay, I'll go to the movies with you" D: "I don't want to eat my vegetables" G: "I really think you should eat your veggies" D: "but I don't want to" G: "vegetables make you healthy, and without them you won't be healthy. If you get sick, you'll be really sad" D: "okay. I guess I should eat my vegetables" There are obviously exceptions. My niece didn't seem to care much for dolls when she was little. But I wonder if a certain kind of female personality really finds forming consensus through non-rational means entertaining, and that this type of woman likes shows like The View. (Entertaining like I find rational debate entertaining). If she could have a power like that, that means having control in social situations, which clearly has value. Personally, I can't stand it and I find it exhausting to watch, and I suspect that may be because of some largely inherent difference between the genders. I appreciate that there are a lot of women who find it as painful as I do, but this show is incredibly popular, and it's not a male audience.

I seem to be the main target, for some reason. Every post of yours I read (directed to other people) seems to make some kind of reference to me. I guess that means I got under your skin. But at least you didn't let it ruin your frame. That's kinda impressive, in a strange way. I don't know what you are going for. Whatever it is,... I think it's kinda sad. I can just imagine you rationalizing this all as self sacrifice, for something more important than yourself. Maybe to maintain "frame" or whatever. It seems really important to you for some reason; to spend so many hours to maintaining it. That's got to take a whole lot of mental energy. It's got to be exhausting. I don't envy that. I'm grateful though, that you've made the effort, insofar as it's got me to think about a lot of things, like the saltiness the fella mentioned. I guess that means you got under my skin. You sure are persistent. That's not a bad quality. I have no doubt you'll continue to,... frame, I guess. I hope you find what you're looking for. Take care David.

Oh yea!? Challenge accepted! I'll show you who the good programmer is!

Alright. Who are the wise guys upvoting the posts in this thread without giving feedback?! Sing it brotha! We've got to bring an end to this upvoting issue. There are far too many upvotes floating around. I'll go one step farther, it's not a travesty, it's freaking apocalyptic!

Begging the question is when you make a circular argument where the premises rely on the conclusion already being true. Offering up a possibility is not begging the question. It's not even an argument. There is no logical content, it's just a possibility. It's really funny though, because from the name alone "begging the question", if you hadn't ever learned what the fallacy actually was, it would appear that offering an alternate explanation was an example of it. It's like thinking that a circular argument is literally about circles. Lol.

I completely agree. Upvotes confuse the hell out of me. What am I to make of it? It's a real problem. During the span of a couple weeks over a few threads, I got like 50 upvotes one time. The power to affect a reputation score that dramatically is surely a sign that there is too much unchecked power in this mob rule of an online community.

Just curious. I saw that you've been participating in one of the threads mentioned. Did you find that the debate was as helpful, interesting and productive as you had originally perceived?

Clearconscience, do you have a clear conscience? I'm not trying to trick you or imply anything. I'm genuinely curious about your answer. I wouldn't say that my own is clear. It seems like an interesting name.

I'm assuming it's this one: http://www.fdrpodcasts.com/#/2927/an-atheist-apologizes-to-christians-call-in-show-march-4th-2015 There's also: http://www.fdrpodcasts.com/#/476/the-myth-of-nice-christians

But we're talking about communication. I perfectly understand that NVC doesn't condemn thoughts. I don't believe that anything I said would indicate that I'm referring to thoughts. Does that clear it up for you? Just assume that I'm talking about communication. That is the context.

You yourself claimed that NVC said particular actions were violent communication. You made this claim multiple times. 1. Violent communication is violent. 2. Saying that something is violent is a moral judgment. 3. Moral judgments are violent communication, according to your own account of NVC. -> hence the argument you allege is fallacious, but which I've demonstrated directly follows from premises we both accept.

I don't think that "NVC is a subset of all possible non-violent interactions" actually avoids the logical problem Stef raised. If not X in order to be not Violence, then X is violence. "X is violence" is implied here because non-violence vs violence is a true dichotomy. "Don't wear Payless shoes if you want to avoid being uncool like that dummy over there" (double negative). This clearly implies that wearing Payless shoes not cool. Insofar as NVC claims to be non-violent, and says "thou shalt not" (in order to be NVC), it is contradicting itself in the way I described above (reproduced here): 1. NVC says Moral judgment is violence 2. Saying that something is violent is a moral judgment 3. NVC says that certain types of communication are violent 4. NVC is passing moral judgment 5. NVC is violent according to it's own standard "Don't pass moral judgments in order to be non-violent" necessarily implies that that passing moral judgments is violent.

I've heard Stef say that the worst part of physical abuse is the emotional abuse that must necessarily be present in doing that. Hitting someone is humiliating, for example. The two are not mutually exclusive, obviously.

Right. I remember that, but it wasn't because he made "I challenge Stef" videos, right? The suggestion being that it was petty a thing to do, because it would suggest banning for having disagreements. It would be pretty weird to ban someone for that while regularly inviting people onto the show to discuss disagreements with positive incentives (i.e. getting in front of the line). While it wasn't directly addressed to Stef or any particular argument he made, I made a video challenging his definition of "existence" and I wasn't banned. And I'm sure I wouldn't be banned if it was addressed directly at him.

And I said that another, mutually exclusive approach has proven effective. Your experience is more true than mine, somehow? Passive aggressive much? And I was simply talking about using the word "need" here and the clear implication. You yourself say that many people make this same mistake, which is exactly my point. Using the word "need" to describe two opposite things is a challenge, if not a very bad idea. Note that I never said that NVC says I'm obliged to cause in you a subjective state called "belonging". You made that up. No no no. That's not what I said. You're twisting it all around. I tried very hard to represent your statements the way you said them. The definition of violent is now changing. Now it includes intent, as in, you have to intend to cause psychological harm. But judgments, moral arguments, etc can be made without any intention to cause psychological harm, so you have to abandon your previous definition, or this one. It can't be both. You very quite literally and explicitly said that moral judgment is violence (premise 1) (I quoted you). So, what? Are you just completely wrong about NVC? Why should I trust you that NVC doesn't say that when you yourself are saying that you are wrong about NVC? That doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

Who was banned for that?

If there's a non-sequitor, it's not an argument. It's at least two parts of an argument. "I have a belly ache" and "therefore Obama is great" can take the appearance of an argument, but if no logical implication tying the two statements is there, no actual argument is there. I would highly recommend that people do read the threads in question and see them in context. "I don't understand why X was down voted" is not really any kind of argument that it was unjustly down voted. Read it in context, and then maybe you will understand it. Some things only make sense in context. People who are sophisticated albeit compromised human beings use context and subtext, rather than overtly prejudicial statements. Regardless, you will find plenty of both kinds if you read the threads. That becomes the actual focus of the "debate" toward the end. Saying "I don't understand" means you didn't really read those posts. You can disagree, obviously, but "I don't understand" is kind of annoying to someone who gets the context and isn't only seeing the story about the interaction, after the fact. 140+ downvotes in a short time? That would be a humungous defensively irrational reaction to mere difference of opinion or uncouth delivery... Or maybe there's more to it than the story about it.

What good debate?

Oh, I see. What about it should we discuss? MMX in particular, TheFuzz, what we should do in the event that someone gets down votes for not being liked? I would just hate to see it implicitly established that something is the case prior to there being any analysis or discussion. "MMX is simply down voted because people don't like him or agree with him" is a claim which I don't think is true, personally. I've pointed out a lot of things that I've seen that I believe would warrant such a vote, and you may disagree with me, but certainly there is a disagreement. (I've also upvoted a ton of his posts, just for the record). Sometimes all we see is the framing someone does after the fact and not the actual interaction being framed. It's hard to imagine, for example, that you read many of his posts in the recent thread (on account of them being so lengthy). But then again, maybe I'm all wrong. People are free to read it themselves and draw their own conclusions.

Why? And Are you prevented from doing that? Can you not contact him yourself and make the sort of cases you wanted to see made? How important is it to you really? Did you try?

What's the "etc"? I think that's a pretty important. You are stating that people are using the feature incorrectly, so help people to know what the appropriate usage is. So far we have "don't simply down vote because you disagree" and "do down vote if they use abusive language". I guess I would probably agree with these statements, but I'm not sure why. We're all adults here, philosophically inclined and hopefully principled adults. If we can't handle figuring this out amongst each other, I'm not sure where that leaves us when it comes to doing anything else productively together. If we have to institute something as a matter of policy, I don't think that speaks very well of us as a community. It's not like whatever dysfunction is being implied (e.x. disagreement as basis for vote) goes away. The personalities involved do not change. All you do is shield yourself from seeing it directly. And that's if we accept that down voting is the real issue concerning dysfunctional personalities or aspects to personalities when it comes to using the boards software (which I'm prepared to argue is not true). So many times I've seen a user with a negative reputation and I wonder why, then I read some more of their posts and then it becomes very clear: because their assholes. I don't know about positive reputations, but I've certainly found negative reputations very useful in determining what kind of person I'm seeing. And assholes don't always use abusive language. The really smart ones don't, in fact. A lot of you weren't around before the current boards software (with the voting feature), but there were plenty of people who were assholes who stuck around a long time finding new people to annoy and drag into endless debates. Those types get down voted now and go off and annoy people in some other corner of the internet. I think that's a wonderful thing. Ostracism isn't a bad thing. I say we down vote assholes. It's not about board guidelines. You should get banned (after being warned) for violating the guidelines. That's my opinion, and anyone is free to disagree (I won't down vote you for it).