In the belly of the beast

I should add that while "They Live" is a nice diversion and contains a useful metaphor or two, these illusions are not imposed upon everyone by some inner circle or other conspiracy. We impose these illusions upon each other, and always have, barring a few precious islands of clarity brought to us since the Renaissance, and especially the Enlightenment. In other words, the state is merely a deadly symptom of this larger underlying pathology.

Glad I was of help. Along the same lines, you might find this podcast by Stefan helpful: Life Among the Suited Savages (start at 13:06/29:00) http://youtu.be/R7q5qmBaYN0?t=13m6s I read the e-mail following your message. The general concept of the "Consensus Trance" is often thought of as "The Matrix" by many FDR members, along with many other voluntarists and a segment of libertarians. Unfortunately, unplugging from these mass illusions is much more difficult than taking the red pill. A more apt metaphor than the red pill might be contained in the (otherwise cheesy) John Carpenter B-movie, "They Live", where the protagonists have to put on special sunglasses every time they want to see through all of the illusions contained in their social reality. In the same way, we must engage in the hard work of critical thinking, often with accompanying emotional discomfort and a feeling of isolation, in order to begin to see societies (not just governments) for what they truly are. http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_eArD6Ic8Vi8/TKfnbBrAU0I/AAAAAAAAAH8/colJiz9vHpA/s1600/screen-capture-7.jpg http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_eArD6Ic8Vi8/TKfnbTtWeBI/AAAAAAAAAIE/CeN4cySYZm0/s1600/screen-capture-11.jpg Now that I think about it, the aliens revealed by the glasses could be thought of as the sociopaths and other such human predators hidden amongst us.

Thanks for your timely reply. The guilt probably flows at least partly from an experience I had last year in tutoring an adult ESL student (as a volunteer). She made frequent and persistent passes at me, despite my multiple explicit refusals and her being married. Being socially isolated and depressed last year, I did not always reject those advances as immediately and as strongly as I should have (to be clear, nothing happened physically), and in hindsight I should have broken contact with this woman sooner than I actually did. A mild sense of guilt, disgust with myself, and some anxiety crops up when this enters my mind, alongside a distant feeling of sympathy for her husband. As for my friend's motivations, she was doing clinical rotations in various regional hospitals as a medical student, and so would appear to have a perfectly legitimate reason for losing contact, given the often brutal hours worked, the travel, and an assumed desire to devote what little free time that she had to her relationship. I ran into her recently in a hospital while accompanying a physician on the ward, which sparked her request for renewed contact. I agree with you about there being more "deeper" people in the world than we may think. I sense that many of my classmates are capable of this, if they were willing to do the work required to become honest and self-aware critical thinkers. The big question is how many would be open to doing this? How many would simply lash out like a cornered animal, and in so doing harm the person reaching out to them? If you ever have any questions about medical school that you think a med student could answer, please feel free to send me a private message. Is there a particular branch of medicine which grabs your interest at present?

A growing part of your mind is warning you that you are around highly irrational and corrupt people. Cults and religions are effective because they offer a simple, all-encompassing explanation of reality, alongside the illusion of virtue and community, and intergenerational indoctrination beginning in childhood (once a cult becomes established). Again, it appears as if you are being supplied with the illusion of community and acceptance amongst these women. That hostility you receive for your expressed skepticism is a clear sign of corruption.

This (self-described) sociopath's activities--Sunday school teacher, professor of law, and attorney, become a kind of joke for voluntarists, don't they? She has the unholy trinity of coercion covered here. Assuming this book isn't complete nonsense, isn't her "respectable", white-collar conformity and mundane life more useful as an example of the socialized sociopaths around us? Granted, it would be more entertaining if she was more accomplised or unusual in another way.

Two reasons immediatedly leap to mind for me: (1) It brings to mind phrases such as "we're all in this together", used to justify coercion (government or otherwise). (2) Capitalized nouns such as Oneness, Relatedness, Enlightenment, etc. are frequently employed in this manner by religions (especially in Buddhism, "God is within us" viewpoints, etc.), or in thinking that has all of the garb of religion, whether in pop-spitrituality/self-help/pseudo-psychology books or in "spiritual meditation". While this observation, taken in isolation, would merely be a "guilt by association" arguement, someone using vaguely defined terms such as "Oneness", "Connectedness", etc. as a way to justify a particular course of concrete action is almost certainly arguing nonsense, based on probability alone. Such terms therefore put my BS detector on high alert. That said, it's still best to listen to them until you can either logically justify or disavow your initial gut call that they are spewing baloney, of course, but that usually doesn't take too long.

Hello All! To give everyone a bit of backgorund, I found FDR about six months ago, initially drawn in by the political and economic topics, but over the last three or four months I've expanded to the sections on interpersonal psychology and relationships. At this point I've gone through about 200 podcasts and 2 books ("On Truth" and "UPB" [the latter currently in progress]), jumping around somewhat and mostly keeping to the monologues or expert interviews conducted by Stef. As you can see by my post count, I've mostly been a lurker this past half year. It's probably time to rectify this. I have two major questions to throw out for some honest feedback: (1) Is it ethical to be friends with members of the opposite sex, when one or both of you are in a relationship? I've been bothered by this over the past few months, given that I have a female friend in a relationship who wants to reconnect after a hectic period in both of our lives. We seem to get along very well, and she seems like she might actually be a genuine, empathetic person (or at least could easily develop into one). I don't really know her boyfriend very well (met him on two occasions for several hours each), but he appears to be kind man who treats her well. I worry about causing suspicions or somehow putting their relationship under unneccessary strain by reconnecting with this friend. It would also seem...somehow dishonest and sleazy on my part. As a more pragmatic consideration, I want to avoid becoming some awkward third wheel (I am currently single and fairly socially isolated), given that my female friend and I are in the same professional field in a fairly low population region. I found her very attractive when she was single (both in terms of personality and physically), but I've never acted on that and have come to peace with the fact that I never will. Am I feeling conflict and guilt over nothing, unncessarily tossing aside a potentially great friendship? Is this some kind of avoidance mechanism? (2) The second question centers around the dividing line between social paranoia and rational self-protection, but it will require a bit of personal background, especially since I have neglected to introduce myself to the FDR community. Some identifying information will be fudged a bit, but I will be as honest as I think safely possible. Six months ago I was an atheistic "conservative", basically your garden-variety conservative in economic and foreign policy areas (the usual nonsense in these areas, minus the religious nuttery). My conversion from quasi-conservatism to voluntarism was rapid after coming across "The Story of Your Enslavement", basically blowing through minarchism in a few weeks at most before enthuisiastically embracing anarcho-capitalism and signing up here as a paid subsriber. I suppose Gary Johnson deserves a bit of credit for serving as a short-lived ideological waystation at the tail end of the 2012 presidential election period. As some of you undoubtedly know firsthand, these major changes in our worldview and values often don't come at convenient times in our lives. For me, this came about in my late twenties-early thirties, in the middle of medical school, possibly the 2nd most statist institution in existence outside of the military and police. I was already quite miserable in medical school prior to this converstion, since I came into this institution with a strong interest in psychiatry, and very little pre-existing interest in the mechanics of the human body. It was an attitude of "This is the required pathway to pursue my interest. I'll probably end up enjoying many other areas of medicine in the meantime if I keep an open mind and work hard". A naive attitude, in retrospect, but founded on prior academic experiences beforehand. Unfortunately, by the end of my first year I couldn't care less about 90% of what we studied, and I came to hate the utterly sterile small blue-collar city and tiny undergrad commuter campus in which my med school resides. My work ethic, strong throughout my life, all but collapsed, and I fell into a long-lasting depression. This led to feelings of intense guilt and shame, and the added stress of constantly having to pretend you care and aren't depressed when attending a small medical school with extensive mandatory group learning, along with regularly reassuring your family on the telephone that "the work's going along" (honesty resulted in unrelenting "advice" on time management and hard work). To rub salt in the wounds, the medical school was about the only accessible option within this culturally sterile town/"city" for socializing with peers of similar education and life stage (the internet [Meetup.com, Facebook, other sites], wall postings on the campus, local newspapers, the regional "alternative weekly" all yielded next to nothing for adult interest groups outside of religion and team sports). Fortunately, this classroom based component is now over. I still worry about my social interactions next year in the hospital. I will have some limited choice in where to live, so I will be able to get out of my current town for a large part of the year (very pumped about this!). I sincerely hope that memorizing treatment algorithms and mundane details about the human body will be made easier in the knowledge that it is to provide better care/service to somebody's grandmother the next day, rather than simply to vomit forth memorized information on high stakes exams in a bulemic fashion. And beyond that, the fourth year allows students to study their areas of interest, anywhere in the country. Ah...such a nice picture. And then, at the end of it, a direct pay psychotherapy-heavy private practice in psychiatry. At least, that's the current dream. Ok, sorry if the details were a bit excessive. Hopefully it isn't ridiculously self-absorbed ramblings. I just needed to get some of this off my chest. Here is my question: Am I being irrational in not trusting any of my fellow medical students with anything more than the most trivial details of my life? Or are my anxiety and respressed anger correct: Am I in danger around most of these people? And is it a sign of a lack of my own empathy if I find myself constantly bored with any of their conversations I listen to? At least some of them are intelligent enough to have a conversation that extends beyond sports, Holloywood blockbusters, or cooking, but that is all I ever hear while automatically zoning in and out. As someone who was friendless and dateless before undergrad (outside of childhood "play dates"), it becomes hard not to blame yourself (reinforced by just about anyone you so much as hint this too). At the same time, it is also a potential trap to assume you are somehow "above it all" (small talk, etc.) and "deeper". Maybe most of them are just protecting themselves. Yet so many do it with smiles on their faces...

The Conformity Police: http://www.heise.de/tp/artikel/2/2248/1.html Some of the other articles on the site seem a tad questionable, but this one caught my interest. It seems pretty bleak. Hopefully we can use reason and authenticity to erode this terrible inheritance (assuming the article's thesis has some validity). Any thoughts?

I'm not surprised anymore when I hear stories like this occurring in English or other arts classes, but it's sad to see a professor of mathematics doing this. I'd have though they'd be the sanest and most rational among the professoriate, given their training and the personalities drawn to this area of studies.

Ex. "Ever wonder whether inflation is much higher than the officially reported figures?" (to the checkout cashier). "Do you think Social Security will collapse within the next generation or less?" "Would't it be cool to be a sentient machine capable of augmenting your own intelligence?" "I wonder if mechanical kidneys exist, and how their performance compares to dialysis?" (To be fair, this last question was posed to a small group of medical students.) Anyone ever do this on occasion for their own amusement, and gotten interesting results? So far it's mostly WTF looks and noncommital or generic replies in my own experience. Hope springs eternal however. Sometimes, when talking to regularly seen acquaintances, I want to just say: "Let's skip the whole 'feeling each other out' with boring small talk and dive right into the meat grinder! You don't seem like a human predator from what I've observed of your eye tracking and overall facial movements, so I'll start off with a completely tangential topic as a show of good faith..." But most of the time I return to the old "How was your weekend?" approach to things.