DaVinci

I think I might be offended if someone offered me $1 to do a job I knew was worth $10 to do. If someone can't respect that you have skills worth a certain level that is kind of offensive.

I don't think Adam was disagreeing that RW had outrageous alimony payments, and isn't Stef also just speculating about what happened with RW? It makes me think of a line from the Truman Show. "You never had a camera in my head". There is no way we can know 100% what he was thinking when he put a belt around his neck. This could very well be a case of auto-erotic asphyxiation given that reports stated that he was found partially clothed.

I can appreciate the formality of it as I find a lot of stuff online comes across as a very informal private conversation that got put on You Tube by accident. It bugs me to hear people talk and wonder what it is they are even talking about. So the fact that he is clear, concise, and to the point is appreciated.

I actually kind of suspected what Adam was talking about when I heard reports that he was found partially clothed, but I suspect that we will never know for sure. Either way it doesn't change the fact that he died, or that it is sad that he died.

I understand how you feel, but it is better to have no friends than fake friends. I know my old circle of friends thought I was a jerk, and I used to think that maybe they were right about me because I recognized that I did act a little aggressive around them, but then when I removed myself from the equation and found that they all still acted in the same horrible ways towards each other I realized it wasn't me after all. My aggressiveness was just me lashing out to defend myself against being treated like crap. So perhaps if you feel anxiety about your family then you should consider that there really is no relationship there, and while being alone during the holidays would suck it would probably be preferable to dealing with people who don't really care about you.

As usual a lot of the You Tube comments are ridiculous.

I can't think of too many other villains who want "chaos" as much as the Joker. Most villains are usually just taking the idea of order to the extreme. I think a lot of fictional villains of the past 60 years are being influenced by Hitler and other leaders of totalitarian type governments.

It sounds like this person is arguing for nihilism. It also seems like their argument is a bit implosive. I'm sure someone else here can say something more meaningful about it than me. My analysis is a bit limited.

Usually the 'bad guys' say stuff like this though. They want to tear down order and have everything be "anarchy". This is how you end up with characters like the Joker trying to cause trouble for everyone and why people find the idea of no rulers to be chaotic.

I agree with this post. The only thing I would add, and I know this is an 'out there' idea, but you could always live in a storage facility. I've actually put a lot of thought into the idea before because I almost lost everything a few years ago myself.

I remember years ago when my hair was long (as seen in my pic, lol) I would comb (no pun intended) through profiles on this one dating site and see a ton of women who would list under the 'turn-offs' category "No long hair". I was always upset by this as most of those same women said they wanted a man who was 'kind', 'understanding', 'smart', and 'funny' and I didn't understand how they were going to find those things in someone who was too busy being a big steroid meat head to be anything close to smart or kind or funny.

Texture is one of those things that doesn't always translate well to photography so if texture is very important and you want people to focus on that above almost anything else then you might want to exaggerate it for the camera. Otherwise looks good. I just want to see more now.

Did I just read an ad? lol

I think the goal of therapy is in large part to be able to self analyze outside the sphere of the therapist, so as long as you are at least attempting to analyze your own thoughts I don't think you are in any real danger even if your ability to process what you are feeling is not perfect. I think the fact that you are even asking us these questions shows that you are not in danger of not processing them. Someone who doesn't try and process their own thoughts probably wouldn't be on FDR. That's my two cents anyways.

I wouldn't think that feeling sadness or grief in this way is dangerous. In fact I would say it might even be healthy.

I'll add my two cents. I think you might be able to get the kind of job you want without a college degree if you have a decent skill set to offset your lack of a degree. Even if you decide to go to college my recommendation is to learn to network from day one. Get the phones number, email, etc of everyone you meet who might help you to get a job after graduating. Getting a job is really more about who you know and not what degree or skills you have.

Both 1 and 3 deal with accepting/correcting scientific knowledge. Number 2 is a little more easily handled as attacks on character are basically irrelevant. Number 4 is also dealing with science as it asks where in biology does the feeling arise. Number five is about establishing what are characteristics of masculine and feminine. I think the most interesting things on that list are the last two. Mainly because there are parallels between the way children "feel they are not their gender" and the way children "feel they are attracted to the same sex". How much scientific research had to happen before homosexuality was seen as be something more than a delusion or a disease? How does the scientific research into transgenderism compare? My question about number 5 is isn't there already a specific set of biological characteristics that are masculine and feminine?

I remember back a few years ago when the economy nose dived people were talking about going back to the barter system and someone mentioned that if you want to be on the barter system that you better find out who you can trust because one day someone you have never seen before will come to the door and want to trade with you and when you agree they will arrest you for breaking some ridiculous law.

When you say that coercion is not sufficient to prove that gender is a social contract do you mean that it is "necessary but not sufficient"? If it is not enough to prove that it is a social construct then what would be enough proof to convince you that it is? Aren't you arguing that there is no scientific proof behind the claim that transgenderism is biological? If it is not biological and it is not a social construct then what is it?

I wasn't implying what you went over in #1. As for #2, I'm not trying to prove that anyone has an irrational hatred of transgendered people, just that children are having their behavior modified by threats of future punishment for not conforming with a specific set of parameters. I'd like to hear you elaborate on your last paragraph a little more. What specifically are these flattering qualities that are raising the perceived value of women?

I'm right there with you. I've been running into this problem a lot recently where someone will claim that government is not force because of the reasons you listed. I've found the "against me" argument somewhat effective, but often times the discussion ends at that point as the person with the leftist views decides that "you don't get it." So I am open to listening to ideas on how to work through this issue.

Not a surprise. This was bound to happen. I'm honestly surprised they haven't just completely shut this down like that Von Notthaus(?) guy.

My initial thoughts here are that a child, who we understand is not in a voluntary relationship with their parents, might have parents who actively attempt to alter the way they are expressing themselves through threats or force. So a boy who wants to play with dolls, or a girl who wants to play 'war' might be threatened with future violence or punishment for deviating from a set of expectations.

I'm fascinated by this topic, but only understand a little bit of it. I wish I had unbounded time to research it.

The trick for me has been to try and de-normalize the things that were done to me. I've read before that humans evolved to be dependent on their parents and our brains developed to follow their orders. This makes sense as a child could not survive on their own for long without parents to give them food, shelter, clothing etc, so following orders meant survival. The problem is that this unquestioning adherence to parents, and I suppose parental figures, continues long after you are capable of being dependent, and so we end up continuing this behavior of being loyal to our parents and the way they treat us because our brains have been programmed to think "Well, I have to do what they say if I want to survive". I think this is why when we look back at our childhood and really examine it, it is easy to slip into thinking "They did that because they were trying to take care of me" or "I'm alive, so I can't really complain" or something that sounds similar to that. That brain programming from youth is kicking in. Of course when you are trying to examine the roots of some of the issues in your life this programming is now working at a cross purpose from that examination. It's like someone is covering up evidence and saying "That didn't happen the way you suspect it might have." The solution to this for me has been to try and de-normalize my parents behavior. To look at the choices they made outside of the idea that they were helping me to survive, or they were "doing their best". So I will think about a specific instance they did that bothered me, but at the time I couldn't explain why it bothered me, and I will re-examine it and discover that what they were doing was really what was best for them. They were doing things for selfish reasons that came at my expense. I think it also helps that when you find something from your childhood like that to come here and talk about it. It is always helpful when someone else is able to acknowledge what happened to you.