DaVinci

Looking back I think I should have been more clear that I was asking about my own reaction in comparison to that of all the people I saw gloating. I was unsure if anyone else had a similar experience to me. To answer your questions, no I'm not asking for permission to feel guilt, or for forgiveness.

It's all good. I've been trying to avoid saying "I feel..." type statements, so I appreciate the correction.

Fair enough. Perhaps saying I'm not obligated to treat people better than they treat me would have been more accurate.

There are absolutely some dangerous ideologies on the left that need to be squashed without hesitation. However, I think there are people who voted left who are very damaged, and I'm not sure gloating (not necessarily celebrating) serves any purpose. It only fuels their non-sense. There wouldn't even be a reason to gloat if there wasn't so much media crap leading up to the election. I think most of the gloating is mainly a reaction to how marginalized the Trump supporters have felt. If we were truly free, it wouldn't even be a problem. Less gloating and more even tempered response could help sway the more reasonable Clinton supporters to switch sides. I mean, you know they are just going to try this again in four years, right? They aren't going to suddenly give up on calling Trump a racist, mysogynist, etc.

I think to a certain extent those who are outsiders are often times more apt to be critical thinkers just by the very nature of being shoved to the outside and having to look back in. The only analogy I can make is it is like being shoved into Earth's orbit and seeing the entire planet spinning by as opposed to someone just standing in one spot on the Earth. An observer from space will therefore notice patterns impossible for people on the ground to see. If that person radios back down to Earth and says, "hey, the uh, river is flooding 10 miles upstream from point A" and no on the ground responds back and even ignores the observer (and they know that they are being ignored because they can see the person from space ignoring them) and that person in space has to watch people, and houses, etc get flooded it's frustrating. I think that is why the Trump archetype works. He disrupts the system on the ground which the observer knows is purposefully ignoring them.

I see people crying and breaking down in tears and I don't feel angry towards them, or like gloating, but I do feel bad. It must be rough to feel enough pain to be at the point of crying. I know I shouldn't feel empathy for people who haven't shown me any, but I also don't think there is anything to be gained from attacking them. Anyone else feeling this way?

I think you have some good points, but if your desire is to not have people be divided, then don't we all need to get on the same page? All the time we spend here debating could be better spent elsewhere, right?

Very nice, sir. I'm sorry that you've lost friends over this. I know from my own experience talking to people in the pat six months how many times I've been called retarded, a child, stupid, crazy, a racist, uneducated, etc.

Sorry, I forgot to say I have watched those videos, it's just been a while since I've seen them. I'll go check them out again. I think I will be more selective about my battles, but then what do I do about the way I learn? As I mentioned before I don't learn in a passive way where I just read a statistics book and get it. I have to have something to work through in order to grasp the principles.

What is art? Baby, don't hurt me... don't hurt me... no more!

I'm convinced that both him and his wife deliberately say and do outrageous crap to keep their names in the news. The real question is does he believe what he says.

I don't think I always have to match a word count. I'm not trying to one up people with word count. I think part of my frustration is how carefully I consider my posts, and how quickly much lengthier responses come. That's frustrating to me. As I mentioned before I don't pick up information as quickly as other people do. I have to spend more time on average getting to the same place as my peers. So if someone comes back with a response that is going to require that much more time to consider I feel frustration because I know that the way I learn is a long process. If the response to me is something like the " how will we build roads without the government", well, I've heard that so many times before I'm used to responding to it and that isn't very frustrating, but by contrast when someone has responded with a bunch of modus ponens equations or something like that I feel frustrated because I wonder if I now have to go be an expert on modus ponens before I respond. I don't even know what that is beyond an incredibly simple understanding. I'm frustrated because of my lack of knowledge, and also because my lack of knowledge is coupled with an inability to determine if what is being said to me is even a response to what I'm saying at all. As if someone is suddenly speaking to me in a foreign language that I only know a few words of. Does that answer your questions?

So what is the difference between someone who links to a lengthy article, and someone who writes a page long response? I think you agree that language can be used to be manipulative, right? Isn't a sophist someone who uses philosophy to try and convince people of the opposite of the truth? When I see a page long response to a few sentences of mine, and then another page long response to a few sentences of mine on top of that, I know I'm not going to be able to respond to every single thing they are saying without a massive effort on my part, because as I mentioned before, it takes me much longer to achieve the same results as other people. Depending on the subject a single paragraph post might take me an hour to type out as I try to be thoughtful about it. That can be frustrating to me if I think that the person who I'm talking to is much better at sophistry than I am at philosophy, if that makes sense. Which, I think, is why I call some of these responses a "wall of text". I'm not trying to intentionally be minimizing of them. Is it minimizing to call a response I think is lengthy for the sake of being sophistic a wall of text? If so then I won't do it anymore. I don't have a desire to minimize anyone.

Thanks for the replies everyone.

Thanks for the response. I know I'm ganged up on because I'll respond to a topic or message and then come back later to find two or more people (sometimes three, sometimes four, or more) quoting my posts or responding to me. Then when I respond to those people, however many it may be, I often see that the number of people who are responding to only my posts starts to grow and all other people who might be responding to the topic or thread have their posts completely ignored for responses in favor of mine. It almost always gets to the point where a given thread or topic is me debating everyone left. In terms of FB I almost never see anyone like my posts, but the people who I am debating with are generally backing each other up with talking points, liking each others posts, and giving each other "high fives" for good points made. So I end up debating multiple people with no help from anyone, no one backing me up, no one who might share similar views, etc. Also there are many conversations that usually end with people calling me names, or accusing me of behavior that I'm not engaged in, or something like that when I've been nothing but respectful the entire time. Maybe this doesn't mean I'm being ganged up on, because I don't have to respond to people online if I don't want to, but then what do I call it? It's frustrating. I suppose I should just say that instead. For your second question I don't "feel" I'm correcting others. I'm not trying to stop people from liking strawberry ice cream because I feel they are wrong or something like that. It's more... fundamental than that? Maybe I'm completely misguided, but I try to do what Stef does, I suppose to not as good results as him, but still I try. I try and point out how a particular news source might be omitting info, or I will point out statistical data that refutes a point, or something like that. Yeah, some of what I talk about in a given topic is my opinion, or just my thoughts on a subject, but I'm not trying to force any of my opinions on anyone. Edit: Sorry, I forgot the last one: No, I don't feel obligated. I do it more for myself as I have a hard time absorbing stuff unless I have a problem to work through. In other words I can't just read a statistics book and know statistics. I have to have some problems and opposition in order to help me strengthen my understanding of a subject. I don't passively learn I guess? But I find myself frustrated that I don't seem to know some subjects well enough to be able to get out the responses I do faster, while some people I debate with seem to have these pre-prepared responses for exactly what I said ready to copy and paste in response. Does that answer your questions?

I find myself in online debates spending multiple hours writing careful responses to someone only to have someone respond with a massive wall of text quoting every sentence I said individually like 15 minutes later. Why am I not capable of writing well thought out responses that fast? I know no one can really answer that for me, but I'm curious to hear what others think. Does this happen to anyone else? Also, how can I ever convince anyone with a rational argument when it is so easy for people to just throw up a wall of text around everything I say so quickly? Even people who might be reading the thread might be swayed by me if not for the fact that I look like I can't answer what someone appears to be asking me. It doesn't help that I almost always find myself ganged up on in online debates. I should probably not engage in these debates at all, but then should I just avoid trying to correct others online?

Actually many women find an unshaven man more desirable than a clean shaven or fully bearded man.

What is an act of fantasy? Voting? Also, how do you know nobody's life is on the line? Even in the flag pole scenario death isn't the only possible outcome from the fall. Physics, gravity, friction, momentum, etc could create an outcome of severe injury, but not death, right? Isn't the person hanging upside down trying to prevent all potential injuries up to and including death?

Interesting conversation. I could be in over my head here, but it seems to me that voting in this election could been seen as the flag pole scenario where you have to break a window to not fall to your death.

I think in terms of Japanese "Neet" culture it's not dissimilar from what is happening in the west. People want their lives to be more than just "go to work cause that's what your parents did". I'd rather sit at home and play video games than go to a job and I'm not Japanese. I think it is being fueled by a push back against blind authority more so than it is that they don't want to work hard.

He's clearly being manipulative. I don't see any reason why you would have to lie about having been in a past relationship. It's not exactly weird. The fact that he broke up with this other person so soon and considers talking about that relationship "TMI" might mean you are being used as a rebound. He's clearly not over this person. It doesn't help that he is saying things like "I wouldn't want to know about your history either" What a bunch of nonsense. First, why wouldn't he care about your past? Then what is he doing trying to get to know you? Why is he talking about a long term relationship with you without finding out who you are before right now. So I don't buy that. Him saying he doesn't want to know about your history is him effectively minimizing you. He is trying to establish a "standard" of behavior that you are deviating from so that you look like the bad guy for questioning his past when he isn't questioning yours. I'm very sorry that things have turned out like this, but yeah, it's good that you have seen the red flags this soon. I know it's hard to date in the modern world, but I would advise against dating people through the phone or Skype. It just can't replace being with someone for real. There must be people in your area you can go out and meet, right?

I watched the debate too, and yeah it was typical Trump, but I don't think he can suddenly become this eloquent master speaker who pauses politely to let duckies cross the road. In other words he can't really let up on being Trump because then what is he doing? Playing the politics game by their ridiculous rules?

I'm late to the party but I'll throw in my two cents. Do what gets you a job. Because that person you didn't tell the entire truth to to get a job probably doesn't care if you can't afford to eat, or pay your electricity bill, etc. I'm not saying lie all the time, or once you get the job act in whatever manner you want, but we don't live in a world where people get jobs based on working hard. Most people who have good jobs know someone at the place where they now work, and their skills only justify the favoritism after the fact. It's a ridiculous system and you should treat it the way it treats you.

Thanks for sharing this! Ultimately I would say the goal of therapy is to not need a therapist, but I think I should amend that to "not need a therapist as much". There are still plenty of reasons to have a therapist even after lots of work with one.

No, that's cool. I didn't think you were being snarky. I think it is similar for visual art. There is a rule of visual art that says that weight should be put at the bottom of the piece and not at the top. When you think about it, that's very similar to the way we view the world. The heavy ground is at the bottom of our vision and the light airy sky is at the top. Or the idea of focal points. A good composition has a focal point. Is this because people have a tendency to find focal points in real life and so they look for focal points in art? So it leads me to question how much of this stuff is being informed by our biology and how much we are choosing to like, and why. Because like you say some people push boundaries on what is liked or acceptable, and some people like things that go against what would be the more biologically based idea of "correct".