Kevin Beal

Here's an interesting article that references some primary sources and addresses the popular murder rate vs single motherhood graph that ostensibly disproves the claim that single motherhood is responsible for much of the violent crime out there: http://www.theatlantic.com/sexes/archive/2012/12/the-real-complex-connection-between-single-parent-families-and-crime/265860/ That specific source you wanted is (I think) not available online, but rather in a PDF on the author's hard drive, haha. The author apparently doesn't get that you can't just link to a file on your hard drive and expect people to be able to download it. That's in the 4th paragraph down starting with "Some academics and advocates..."

Wow! Very well written and well argued. Luckily, I wasn't born into a religious family and so I'm not so familiar with how christians are about that sort of thing. But the comparison you make between dissociation and atonement is very interesting, and I think quite right. The whole idea of heaven itself seems to me an out of body experience. To believe in such insane things must require at least some dissociation. Dissociation is, I think, a kind of self hypnotism and is great for not considering that which would expose past trauma for what it is. It makes perfect sense to me. Thanks for posting!

Yo Trane! I was totally assuming that your argument above was that UPB as a theory was false. Am I wrong about that? You didn't actually say either way. I am still very suspicious about your criticism of UPB though because you are saying some things that demonstrate that you don't in fact understand UPB. Things such as: and This to me suggests that you did not read or comprehend the theory. UPB is all about what your actions are, and when your actions and what you are saying don't jive, then that's a problem. And to the second point it's not the proposition "UPB is false" that is what the issue is here, it's the implication that one ought to believe things that are true. Am I missing something obvious here? You do realize that's kinda like what UPB is all about, right?

No problem! Here's a list of other podcasts by Stef on intellectuals:http://www.youtube.com/user/fdrpodcasts/search?query=intellectuals In these he makes the case for why intellectuals are often very destructive. Good stuff!

If there's some better way than UPB, then use that instead of using UPB to explain how UPB is wrong. Trane is not saying that UPB should be re-written because that's his preference, but because of a standard for correct behavior that is true regardless of his preferences. Something like "it is UPB to re-write a book when there are big errors in it". In fact the whole thing stinks of false moralizing. Someone familiar with UPB should be aware of when they are using UPB, especially when they are criticizing it. Otherwise I'm inclined not to believe that they know what the flip they are talking about.

The latest video is Traveling as a Couple. It's about a month old. There are plenty of other videos on Steven's channel though that aren't part of the series. There's some good stuff in there

I had the dream the night I created that other thread on masculinity so there's gotta be something to that

Yea. I love listening to him debate religious folk. He does have some things backwards though. A couple years ago he was arguing to everyone at an atheist conference that they should be buddhists and that determinism is true. That's just what I heard, I could be wrong. But it would pretty a pretty fatal flaw in any theory of morality since he says there is no choice possible. He also seems to believe in some sort of reincarnation. Supposedly he's a brilliant neurologist, idk, but those are some pretty big red flags as far as I'm concerned. /ad hom

Thanks meeri and Wesley! I'm glad I brought it up because you're guys's interpretations also make a lot of sense to me, and ring true. I'm making connections I probably never would have made if I hadn't posted it here and asked for feedback

Oh, I didn't even get the gendered part of that. I just figured she was calling him immature, a boy as compared to a young man or something like that. That's,... disturbing.

Yea, thanks! You know, it's funny. I actually like your interpretation a lot more than I do my own, haha. I am single actually and have been thinking a lot recently about what I would like in a love relationship and so your feedback there really resonated with me. I would love to incorporate philosophy more into my personal life, and I would like to do more with philosophy on the internet as well. I've thought about doing a Youtube channel where I talk about cool and important stuff, but I keep going back and forth on that one. So yea, great feedback

Haha. Cool. Anything about the structure of a post you want to recreate, you can press the "quote" button and turn on HTML mode (top left switch in the text editor) and see exactly what to type to do it. This goes for code blocks, lists, quotes, links, formatting, etc.

[quote] This is the quoted text you are referencing[/quote] The result: Is this not what you mean?

I wanted to share a short dream I had and my analysis of it. I would like to get any input you might have on it, and hopefully encourage others to do dream analysis, since it's something I'm finding increasingly important in my own self therapy. The dream I'm titling: Political Prisoner I'm meeting a woman who's just getting out of prison. I'm with someone else when I meet her and bring her back to her personal library. The library is dingy, dark and full of cobwebs with very tall ceilings, almost like a warehouse. A man is there sitting at a computer who is very happy to see her. He is her fiancè, a large hairy manly man w/ dark hair and blue eyes, and I identify with him. (At this point I like this couple very much). She explains to me that she has been researching something very important here in the library with her partner (the manly man) who was an anonymous celebrity hacker years ago. This research somehow led to her incarceration in a way she doesn't explain and I get the sense that she was a political prisoner. They both look very dedicated as she continues to explain that they are nearly finished with their research, at which point they are going to get married, reveal his true identity and share their research with the world. I'm filled with optimism and wake up. I think that this is an interesting dream because I can already see at least two very different interpretations. The library seems to be a sort of ancient unconscious part of myself, and research in that area would seem to me to be self work, therapy, etc. I am myself a large hairy guy who works as a programmer so it's no wonder I'd identify with the fiancè. And the hacker revealing his real name is (I think) me using my actual name on the internet now, on the boards, on YouTube, wherever, which was something I felt very ambivalent about. But the role of the political prisoner woman I'm less sure about. What is a political prisoner except someone who is punished / attacked for telling the truth? And to be a prisoner in my own unconscious smacks verily of suppression / repression. But why a woman? What is this repressed feminine part in my own life that would be coming up now? And why is the symbolism for my unconscious a library? Why is the purpose of the research never revealed? Why is the purpose of the research never revealed? I have a little bit of an amorphous goal in my own self therapy (and psychoanalysis). I ultimately want to be happy, less susceptible to anxieties / depression and have a stronger sense of self, my goals and how to achieve them. It can be difficult often to follow thru on goals (if I can feel confident I want to do them in the first place). I grew up not caring about what I would be when I got older. My older sister said I should be a firefighter so I just said to myself "ok, whatever, I'll be a firefighter". I rarely did my homework (unless I could finish it in class). For a lot of my youth I was very cynical, nihilistic and aimless. I had no real goals. A big goal I have is to have good goals. What is this repressed feminine part in my own life that would be coming up now? The one thing I could get myself interested in spending lots of time learning about was web development (and programming/scripting in particular). I worked my ass off to learn it well and a couple years ago I landed a great job with those skills. The other reason I got the job is that I was just really honest about how I am and what my limitations are (that is, after listening to Stef's podcasts on doing job interviews well). This trend toward being more genuine, connected, me, is something that happens more and more. And recently I had a little episode I'm not going to go into here where I was tempted to withdraw, to hide myself and wait it out. I had prepared for this sort of thing in therapy so instead I decided not to hide or compromise on my values even a tiny bit. I was taught in many ways not to reach out, be myself, to challenge others. I was myself a kind of political prisoner at home and at school, rejected for not conforming to the culture. But why a woman? What the feminine represents for me here is (I think) Jung's anima, a completeness of a yin and yang. That's why the couple is getting married and why there is a lot of optimism I feel. Also the feminine symbolizes (at least for me) compassion for myself, self care, and (as Jung says) it animates me. I do psychoanalysis with a Jungian psychoanalyst. A woman in fact who I greatly appreciate working with. And why is the symbolism for my unconscious a library? I think that the reason I imagined a library is that it's a collection of knowledge and stories. It has things I can take with me (i.e. books) back to my everyday life and place back at a later point. It's collected a lot of cobwebs in there because I really don't like reading in real life, but also because it's something that's been long neglected. And so for me accessing this library involves dreaming more and reflecting on my dreams, taking things with me and coming back to them later. And toward that goal I've recently been going back through old dreams I had and coming to new understandings about the symbols within and of my life in general. Something that I like that my therapist suggested was to ritualize my dreams in some way so that the symbolism sinks in more, and so toward that end, here's a picture I drew of a previous dream that I like.

I thought it was totally awesome I don't really have any feedback beyond that I think that you're totally right and that I appreciate you pointing that out.

What is wrong with acting like a boy? I'm 25 and I act like a boy sometimes. How is the little guy supposed to take that except to mean that he shouldn't be himself? That there is something wrong with who he is. I think it's entirely inappropriate on the part of the mother.

I wonder if actually, that's the point: to be harshly judged by women. I remember being attracted to the girls who were mean to me and rejected me. I notice that dynamic in lots of areas, like with cats for example. The cats who just want to get any kind of attention you will give them always put me off, but the cats who pretended like they couldn't care less have some sort of seductive quality and I try to win their affection, haha. It drives me a little bit crazy when gals I've been interested in would play hard to get, but I can totally see that dynamic working. It doesn't really do much for me anymore, but I see it in a lot of guys.

That reminds me, I'm curious what y'all think about the "manginas" or otherwise anti-masculine men. Personally, it makes me really sad. I know guys like this and I live in an area that is heavily mystical/new agey with a lot of guys who are vaguely feminist. That is how I saw myself for a long time, and it scares me that I was like that. The problem you see, is not that we have rulers, but that our rulers are men! If women ruled the world, there would be no war! etc Haha, and yuck.

You sure it wasn't it the podcast Friends Are No Substitute For Husbands that came out two days ago? It did change names on YouTube, so that could be a reason you are having a hard time finding it now. I heard that bit about intellectuals for the first time no more than a few days ago and I listen to almost every podcast the day it comes out nowadays. Oh, and welcome to the boards!

Yea, actually I've been thinking about the distinction you make between collectivism/tribalism concerning male disposability, and I found that to be very helpful in understanding it myself. That bridged a few gaps in my thinking. I also think I see what you mean about masculinity in a tribe. Still chewing on it though. I'm so used to thinking of men as a rock and an island. Keep it coming

That depends. I actually work as a web designer/developer and have worked at two different companies doing that. If the kinds of projects you get are business card/brochure type websites with maybe a few pages and no Javascript necessary then you can totally do that with a WYSIWYG editor (technical name for a "point-and-click" builder). I vaguely remember the goDaddy WYSIWYG editor being especially limited in what it can do though, as compared to something like Dreamweaver. Technically the editor creates HTML for you, so it's always going to be HTML based. Another option would be to use WordPress (or other similar service) and use any of the thousands of free templates out there. If you do that, you can use what they call "plugins" to do more complex things on a website (contact forms, slideshows etc). There are also a lot of little ways that you can modify things that only require a limited understanding of HTML/CSS. Things like adding your own graphics into the existing template. I started out on WYSIWYG editors, then moved to Wordpress and now I do everything in a code editor. I got a couple of odd jobs when I was WYSIWYG-ing it up, but I was in high school and wasn't really pursuing it. My first web job as an employee was working on Wordpress sites and that is a popular way that web designers in my area make a living. People even do eCommerce with it. So to answer your question, yes, but your options are going to be limited if you are just starting out. It's been my observation that many graphic designers are learning how to code. I dabble in graphic design, but am not as skilled as you or Phil by any means. I think that the two things actually compliment each other pretty well. General design principles have made me a better coder and vice versa. So if you are interested in web design, then I would definitely encourage you to look into it. A college course on it is an excellent start. P.S. If you haven't checked out Dribbble.com yet, it's both super awesome and a way that graphic designers sometimes find work.

That's really interesting. Could you speak more to that? Like, what are some examples of applying it collectively? Like conscripting men for war?

I appreciate you guys's responses. I was thinking about this topic again today at work and I remembered this study that was showing that there is actually a difference in male and female vision. Apparently men can pick up details better, smaller gradations of contrast while women see differences in color better (and the only known tetrachromats are women). How I like looking at it is that men are lasers and women flashlights. I think this metaphor works in a lot of ways. Maybe it's just me, but I find myself thinking about the tiniest details in an argument or comment someone made (sometimes at the expense of other larger details), but I think the flipside is a potential for precision and may explain why the best scientists and mathematicians are almost all men. Like the specialization Stef talks about in Reclaiming Masculinity pt1 (Drew's links above). The following section is full of broad generalizations that definitely don't apply in all cases, but just go with me for a sec. There are also other aspects to male biology that I think are relevant in making the case I'm going to make. So the Corpus Callosum which connects both hemispheres of the brain is smaller in men (at least right handed men) and it's also crucial in healing from psychological and brain trauma. Men also require more carbs and protein since our bodies are bigger. We carry less of a percentage of fat on our bodies. We die of almost all known diseases sooner. These resources are going elsewhere. There is, I will argue, something uniquely risky about being a man. These things were seemingly necessary for our nomadic caveman ancestors to brave all kinds of different environments and expend their resources toward (usually) one very singular goal: to bring back a saber tooth tiger for the village to eat. Women died in childbirth in huge numbers, need lots of resources when they are pregnant and taking care of children, are smaller than evil men etc so they have their own risks for sure, but there is a very different quality to these risks. Like Elliot talks about in the video linked above men's risks are more around going out, looking outward into the world. When you look at the jobs men and women have it seems there are men at the top, women in the middle and more men at the bottom. And this seems in line with the concept of the alphas, betas and omegas (and zetas!). In many ways it's a lot of pinning men against each other and coercion. This is a more tribal arrangement and not what it would look like in a free society (I would imagine). When I think of entrepreneurship and how it tends to be in the more free market sectors, there (at least in my experience) seems to be more comradery. Society itself wouldn't be here without men working together. It reminds me of the different evolutionary approaches to life that a baby boy is geared for out of the womb depending on whether or not there were a lot of stress hormones flooding through his developing fetus body. If the mother was stressed, his amygdala is larger and frontal cortices smaller, and he is more reactionary needing to take quick action in an environment of desperation and strife. (I don't remember the podcast, but Stef talks about this somewhere). In the same way I think a distinction can be made between a healthy and unhealthy masculinity, between men mindlessly at war and men pulling together to achieve great things. Bringing it back to risk, I don't think that virtue is possible without some level of risk. (Speaking truth to power for example is clearly a virtuous thing). Confirming my own experience of feeling masculine when I act in line with my values, when I act virtuously, I think it's fair to say that is in some respects a measure of the health of my own masculinity. My own solidity when facing the things that make me anxious or otherwise tense, my developing maturity, my mastery of my environment. These things not only make me more attractive to women (at least I hope so, haha), but also attractive to other men. Just anecdotally, this seems to be the case, to whatever degree I achieve that. I'm totally not gay, right, but I notice that I'm attracted to guys who take risks, work to master their environment and are virtuous. They bring value to their relationships, to the economy, to the progress of mankind. And I think it's totally underrated. On the flipside of all of this there seems to me to be a lot of anti-masculine propaganda, things that really are masculine virtues made out to be vices and things that are really not that great for men made out to be virtues. This idea of male disposability, I think, resonates with a lot of guys (including me) because it makes the risks men take and turns them into unchosen positive obligations put on men. And so part of me actually resists the idea that I should be risking things. I resent the idea that in order to have masculine virtue I'm supposed to be a war machine. I resent the idea that there are certain types of women out there who expect things of me because of my masculinity. There don't seem to be a whole lot of external incentives to achieve masculine virtue a lot of the time. And yet it's probably among the 3 most important things in the world. I hope that makes some sense. tl;dr = men are awesome

I'm just curious what all y'all think about masculinity, specifically how you'd define it. This is the dictionary definition for masculine: "having qualities or appearance traditionally associated with men, esp. strength and aggressiveness." There are some masculine virtues like courage, assertiveness etc that are also sometimes considered feminine virtues (among many other examples), and yet I totally feel more masculine when I am courageous and assertive. There are some male stereotypes that a lot of guys take to be how they measure their masculinity like in how split off from their feelings they are, or how they drunk they can get or in an obsession with sports statistics etc. But these things are not things that would give me that same sense of masculinity. Those things actually put me off. I also notice that I have a strong bias to say that the values I practice in my life make me masculine. And of course people project a model of masculinity that was their father or other male role model growing up. So, I'm curious. How do you determine what masculine means for yourself? Or if you are a woman, how do you see masculinity? Is it really as simple as muscles and body hair? I don't think so, but what do you think? Also these podcasts are really good: FDR 444 Anti-Masculinity pt1 FDR 445 Anti-Masculinity pt2

Also this podcast (Anti-Masculinity p1) by Stef is really good. It's probably the first time I'd heard anything like it. When listening to different people about masculinity I've been checking out a lot of the men's rights stuff out there. It's pretty hit and miss with men's rights stuff though, and that's really interesting to me just how much this topic of masculinity is so uncharted (or is it just me?). It's kind of cool to think about how I relate to my own masculinity because I kind of get the sense that most people don't really think about it as much as they just kind of accept the propaganda they've been fed about it. It would be awesome, I think, if the topic of masculinity were talked about more, either on the show or on the boards.