Christopherscience

I appreciate the help. I don't see a way out in inherent meaning. But perhaps I'm missing something, so what is inherent meaning? I'm working through some things - the following is subject to error: Worth while, or worthy, endeavors are a matter of value. I can't see a value which is not subjective. The lure of objectivism, for me in the past, was that the primary value was in the mind/value-setter (that minds were inherently valuable). However, it seems to me that, too, is subject to mind in question. Objectivism seems subjective; I know it sounds "bad" but what says human minds are valuable? A worthy endeavor starts in the mind, yes? And the mind is the thing that assigns worth, right? I know it sounds bad when I jump to conclusions, but... just because brains exist, does that mean they should exist? Either you assume brains are good, in order to get around the is/ought (the "is" is an "ought"; i.e. inherent value)... or there is a loop of minds saying minds are good because minds say minds are good, ad infinitum. Minds are good because minds say minds are good (plus however many steps one wants to add). Or... is there an outside standard of value and meaning or purpose (what is the correct word?). I'm not going to assume there is a god or gods to resolve that, because that just adds an obfuscatory layer that resolves nothing (but pushes the problem upon a higher realm). ... On a tangential note, the self seems like a teleological assumption. "I" means a bundle of nerves and flesh, subject to various, innumerable inputs (which "I" have no causa sui control over; there is no self-caused self in a universe bound by the laws of conservation)... I can't resolve the existence of freewill so long as the laws of conservation are in effect... It is as though I am a kind of mirror which reflects that which went into making me, so to speak. To separate me from the inputs that go into making me seems... arbitrary. Even self-reflection is subject to input. I'm not sure I create anything in a conserved universe; I am a remix, just an echo. Accepting or rejecting my fate seems inconsequential, but I am at a point where I am leaning toward accepting my fate because it fits "me" (my inputs aggregated). I tried out the mantra I remixed, "I accept my fate, unreservedly, even if it means that someday I will die." And I was very happy. I feel compelled to do things. Is that what they call choice? Feeling compelled to do (or not do) something, then acting it out? Do machines choose? Am I not a machine? I have a pump, electrical conduit, biochemical engines, etc. Holding onto freewill felt like holding onto god and other superstitions; it was an exception I was making against physics. It is time for me to close this. Thank "you" for the sounding board, and I appreciate your sentiment.

[i refer to myself in the second person and first-person-plural in journals and in thought] (something to listen to while you read: your choice) (Creepy music) (Bittersweet music) This is my zombie madness. Don't expect a mentally healthy, rosy, outlook. These are my dark thoughts, after all. The cold, eternal, dark... Journal entry: 2/4/2016 1:05 PM I had another zombie nightmare. Why is it always zombies? I tell myself that it has something to do with conformity. This time it was at a mountain lake with a swampy characteristic and a large central island in the bowl of the mountain. There were two people I was watching scraping zombie teeth against a rock, seeing if simply getting cut by a tooth would cause infection, both young men were daring the other, trying to gauge what would happen, seeing if the other might turn. Meanwhile there was a rock conveyor that was making land fill, expanding the island. However the island was made mostly out of driftwood, and when a rock (slightly smaller than the old woman meteor, and sharper, and whiter, like a shark’s tooth) reached the top of the conveyor (and hung, for a moment, like the Sword of Damocles) it dropped, crashing into the island – all the driftwood sank and dispersed, dredging up the undead. The survivors of the island panicked, now that they were no longer safe in their mountain lake hideaway. They tried to swim to the shores but the waters were thick with zombies. No one survived. I spent some time in the dream as one of the survivors, the rest of the dream was in third-person. As a survivor, I hesitated to enter the water as the zombies crawled up the raft and flotsam/debris which other survivors were quickly abandoning. There is nowhere safe in these zombie apocalypse dreams of mine. Not underground, not in the mountains, not at sea – nowhere. They will swarm and hoard you until you are the last man alive. And then you will die and become mindless. The dreams recur sometimes, but they all have the same theme. The first was in Jr. high school. The magical amulet of the locker room didn’t dispel the hoards and I ended up getting surrounded and bitten (then going to a zombie school dance with a blonde zombie). Hiding underground worked in one dream, surviving off of mushrooms, but the species died and there wasn’t enough to eat without the sun. The hills and mountains have continued to fail to stop the hoards. Being at sea doesn’t work because the zombies float, like bloated corpses. They are slow but they will always surround you, and fighting only exposes you to their infection sooner. I understand the metaphor at play here; it’s too obvious to ignore, and my subconscious is not giving me an escape – these are the people all around me, mindless cannibals, that won’t stop until everyone becomes... one of them. I’m surrounded by mindless people no matter where I go. There is no escape. No escape. Freedomain Radio was not an escape, no bastion of hope that could clear a path through the innumerable hoards. There is no cure. I think that in one dream I even caused the outbreak and was one of the first to die. I’ve become a zombie on a few occasions. Starving to death underground was the longest that I lasted. … The Last Man is coming. And if we don’t do something soon, there will be no survivors. I am not equal to the task of ushering in the superman. To believe that I could be the superman gives me hope, but hope is the enemy – last of the blights upon humanity hiding at the bottom of Pandora’s Box. [end of entry] Strangely, a lot of zombies are irrationally exuberant. Hope... Hope is what makes people think that there's a heaven - the ultimate in wishful thinking. The "realm of pure reason", divorced from cold, hard facts; Platonism - surrounds me. The undead deny the fact that they die, even though they fester, and rot away humanity (in these nightmares). The denial of death is central to the mindless hoards. They infect people with their ignorance. ... I fail to see how they... No... That's not true... I know exactly why they ignore death and act like their rotting away doesn't matter. Every philosopher tries to overcome radical skepticism; Cogito ergo sum; life is absurd, embrace it [ignore the dissonance by being consumed by it]; there is a higher realm and revealed truth, believe; the wonderful thing about man is that he is a bridge; truth at any cost, Socrates?; empirical, often reductive, "sciencism"; noble lies, all of it. The noble lie is infecting people, like a brain disease, spread through the mouth. They will not accept the leveling of death; the absolute nothingness that awaits all things. They "create" for themselves "meaning" - ex nihilo nihil fit. The universe is meaningless (the referent "universe", not the word "universe"). "What is the meaning of life?" is a syntax error - a question wrongly asked... And, yet, it drives people onward in the search for a wild goose or red herring. Everywhere around me people are walking around like they were above the laws of thermodynamics - perpetual motion machines. There is a leveling, an obliteration, that you can ignore, but which will hunt you down, surround you, and drag you to your death - and it is an immutable feature of existence. The zombies are like Egyptian Pharaohs trying to escape their "second death" (to be erased from historical memory). After high school, Marvel Comics published their zombie universe, and I had to turn away, as I saw heroes devoured on comicbook shelves. Iconoclasm forces me to watch everything I hold dear being destroyed. Nothing is sacred, god is dead, and there are no heroes, nor villains, no ideals, and no idols. I wanted to be a scientist, a biochemist, to study life (which I had held sacred)... but, like so many people, I had no idea what science really was - skepticism an confidence intervals always lower than 100%. I wanted to be a "nercomancer" and cure death with the chemistry of life, in a sense. Life has become a machine, a simple engine, governed by principles. I studied medicine and saw gore. Engine parts... Nothing is sacred. Nothing has "inherent value". These emergent properties people take for granted (ghosts in the machine, like freewill) are illusions. They are willfully ignorant of what makes them tick, and the universe around them. Dr. Josiah Gibbs must have been a lonely man after James Clark Maxwell died. Einstein called Gibbs the greatest mind the United States had ever produced, and I agree. We've seen to the end of the universe, and it is cold and dead. People think science is something great (when they are referring to technology, in fact, not science), and they know nothing about how it destroys everything you hold dear. I am alone. Worse than alone - I'm surrounded by people who don't know and don't want to know. Zombies, who want me to conform to their way of thinking so that I can un-death myself. To any survivors out there... Survive as long as you can, your engines are failing, and whatever you do - don't feed the dead.

I was going to write a long response, but decided not to post it. Here's a taste, though: Don't take this the wrong way, but I laughed when I read your response. Mostly I was laughing at myself because I've been in similar situations in the past, and I would never do that again. I'm not you, obviously. And just because a pattern exists does not mean it will persist. I'm thinking about what the long-game is here, and I don't want to prognosticate. Frankly, I don't know the future, no one does. Maybe you'll both live happily ever after. I can't see it, though. Do your sources tell you how these relationships play-out? If you're following a formula, then I assume you have some idea as to how these things end. I think you already know because you say; "[...]I actually studied what was going on, and realized that was what I was doing all along." "[...]I know she does not actually love me, despite what I feel. I know the mechanics at work, and which button to press for which outcome. I know this is all me loving myself, except instead of masturbation, I am masturbating myself with a biological human robot. With this woman also comes a challenge I have never even considered before, and actually, it is a philosophical challenge. We are indeed two voids, colliding in an abyss. I have done much more work to free myself from it. Perhaps a part of me is still inside, but while I might not always be going down the right path, I am always seeking it. And you see, as far as this girl is concerned, I am given a new challenge, one that questions the integrity of my own mental health[...]" "[...]I am fairly certain of her change, although it is aggravatingly slow. It may be the case one day that she can go no further, and I will have to decide if I want to continue along this path. I might have to leave her, and I will certainly be very sad. I really did put my heart and soul into this girl. I feel like I am actually getting a return. And while the truth of the situation is painful, the lie is beautiful enough to dull all pains. One day, I hope it will cease to be a lie." ... I don't think you need me to read you back to yourself, though. At this point I could become sententious, and tell you that what you're doing is wrong (or even that it was right, and good-for-you for trying to rescue this woman). I'm not going to be sententious and I'm not going to make a moral argument (except for holding up a mirror for you to reflect upon). If you want the moral argument, then I really want to refer you to Stef's argument against prostitution (there were a whole series of podcasts in the 500s dealing with the topic) because I see a lot of overlap. Replace "money" with "the perception of love and security", though, because you're not giving her money from what I've read. That's the extent to which I'll be sententious here. After all, what would be the use of finger-wagging, and judging you from on high? Giving you conclusions is not very philosophical. ... Then I decided against posting the rest of it. I was kind of trying to talk you out of what you're doing. I decided against it because I became philosophical after that point, asking you questions, and going on at length, trying to lead you down a guided line of questioning... The philosophy you're rejecting. I don't think there's much to say beyond 4 points and a (hopefully temporary) farewell: Asking where else a man can find fulfillment beyond [masturbation] is something I can't answer for you. You're "loving" yourself, according to your view on your relationship with your meat-puppet-robot-whatever. A point of clarification; I wanted to point out that I don't think you understood what I meant by saying You say, yourself, "With this girl I am given the illusion of love beyond reason"... I don't think you reasoned yourself into the NEED you feel (nor your LACK of empathy [as opposed to your belabored empathy]). ... I mean... you're going to do what you're going to do, and you think it's healthy. I see no point in trying to convince you otherwise; even though I'm skeptical of your desired outcome - I humbly admit that I don't know you, nor do I know the future. Plus, it would be silly of me to try to reason with you, ask questions, and use a philosophical method of elenchus-seeking. You can't justify philosophy... that's why I quit writing the rest of my response. I realized I was being philosophical in it... so I didn't post it. ... In closing, I'd like to leave you with this idea: It's not my responsibility to save the world, nor anyone in it; it is a delusion of grandeur that I could save anyone. As Dr. Nathaniel Branden might say - this kind of [survivor's guilt, and assuming impossible responsibility] is an attempt to gain a sense of control where there is none. I don't know if you can save this woman (whatever that means). It's possible. And I don't know the future, and I barely know you. But I do question if you have as much control (over yourself or others) as you think. I question it because it's possible that you're being manipulated by her, and by your previous abusers, into assuming an impossible responsibility. That is the role of a whipping boy, after all. I think your wanting to save this woman relates to a pattern in your life of being a whipping boy, assuming impossible responsibilities, and the search for control where there is none (as painful as that can be). (farewell)Again, I wish you both good health, and happiness. I hope (against my skepticism and personal experience) that things work out for you (even if wishful thinking amounts to nothing... which it does - it amounts to nothing, and I'd rather have my skepticism and experience/empiricism/philosophy). Your username... it's fitting.

(I'm taking heavy poetic license) I came here because someone mentioned Nietzsche... So... going to live for a lie, huh? A woman, no less? After essentially calling them vapid, and (later) saying how you have a hard time with empathy... Interesting. The female void (what I like to call the flighty nymphs and sprites... or "manic pixie dream girls" ) ... it sucks you in, if you let it. The imprinting, lust, dopamine, vasopressin, oxytocin, endorphin-opioid-receptor binding, love-drug is the opiate of choice for the abandoned boy. Love - it makes you blind, doesn't it? And the light of truth is harsh (whatever "harsh" means). The fantasy is a reprieve from reality. Nietzsche says that only those with an over-abundance of health are reckless enough to go searching for the truth. The sick simply don't have the strength and "freedom" to venture into the abyss. Granted, man (the sickly animal, as Nietzsche calls us) is interesting precisely because he will lie to himself and, in that moment, create. To create is imaginative. In a sense, to make a "lie" into a reality is an act of creation and visionary (perhaps "invent" is a better word, or "abstraction"). Happiness is your justification for things? Ha! I can't blame you for hedonistic tendencies. You want a woman who wants you and you're willing to " inject philosophy into a situation discreetly where applicable. He advocates pretending. He advocates a philosophy of indirect philosophy. That is what I am advocating." Pretend, if you like. You need no one's permission here to do so. A girl with daddy issues who runs from harsh truths, and just wants your love, and who will make it very easy for you (so long as you don't press the issue of truth-at-any-cost)... Well... if that's what makes you happy, then... From an amoral perspective, it's fortunate for you that there is such a wealth of women harboring daddy issues that you found one to fill your own void. Two voids meet in an abyss... Where do you start and where do you end? And where does she? Certainly, there are physical lines of demarcation, but there are still various forms of interaction between bodies (double entendre, and physics allusion intended). Cause and effect (action, reaction, equality and conservation of forces) still exist, whether you choose to live in a fantasy or not. You are still subject to reality, and (as Ayn Rand might say) you can ignore reality but you cannot ignore the consequences of ignoring reality... Things will still come up, and it becomes a twisted web the more you avoid reality (and this "truth" that people keep mentioning, whatever "truth" is). " I believe the reason none of you can convince me, is because the position is correct and there is no rational way to argue against it. " You cannot reason a person out of a position that they did not reason themselves into. You did not reason yourself into a lack of empathy, a void, and a lust... Naturally, reason won't help you. You can soak up some therapy; you can stare at your navel; you can read a book; you can change your stimuli - but you will never be able to justify philosophy (this love of wisdom) if you are so sickly that you need pain-management (a morphine drip in the form of a desperate woman. "Endorphins ("endogenous morphine") are endogenous opioid neuropeptides."... you want to be "happy"... you're in pain, any fool could see that. You, the doctor of yourself, have prescribed pain medication... it's not a cure. "Physician, heal yourself: then will though also heal your patient. Let it be his best cure to see with his eyes him who makes himself whole." Thus Spake Zarathustra, Nietzsche) Your pain management may aid your convalescence, I don't know. You may become strong enough, one day, to venture out again in love of wisdom (after you heal). But until then, you will be sick of the far-sight (wid; the proto-indo-european root of wisdom, meaning sight; philosophy being a kind of love of sight)... As for the people attacking your position; they forget their Plato; "Any one who has common sense will remember that the bewilderments of the eyes are of two kinds, and arise from two causes, either from coming out of the light or from going into the light, which is true of the mind's eye, quite as much as of the bodily eye; and he who remembers this when he sees any one whose vision is perplexed and weak, will not be too ready to laugh; he will first ask whether that soul of man has come out of the brighter light, and is unable to see because unaccustomed to the dark, or having turned from darkness to the day is dazzled by excess of light. And he will count the one happy in his condition and state of being, and he will pity the other; or, if he have a mind to laugh at the soul which comes from below into the light, there will be more reason in this than in the laugh which greets him who returns from above out of the light into the den." - Republic ... Enjoy your rest. Tell your girlfriend "hello" from the philosophers at Freedomain Radio, and that "we hope you both an over abundance of strength and a happy future." For what it's worth I'm sorry you two were neglected as children in the way that makes people this way... My hope is meaningless, however, and it is, of course, contingent upon you both to heal your respective selves. Hope will not complete work, hope (and happiness) are abstractions (removed from reality). But I hope you great health.

I like option 3B with the variation; don't complain about so much as view them objectively, and, if you want - state your observations. Look at the incentive structure for most women, and I think you'll see why there are fewer women in philosophy and strive for virtue in a libertarian kind of framework. Women are rewarded by, say, coercive redistribution programs - why (from their perspective) should they challenge those systems? Or, why should a mother give up spanking when it can produce withdrawn children which easy to manage before teenage rebellion begins? Both examples are meant to underscore the short-term gain at the expense of long-term gain... and the incentive structure is such that virtuous women get a pass. I mean - how many people can see the connection between the economics of the socialist schemes and lower quality of life, and; the spankings of early childhood with the rebelliousness of teens? Few people see the long game... especially without philosophy, and especially without a direct line of cause and effect. The distributed cost vs concentrated benefit of bad behavior obscures cause and effect for many bad actors. So, why can't a woman, say, punch her significant other? She was taught that real men don't hit women, and you never hit a girl... so... no direct cause and effect, no consequences for actions. Sure, her relationships might suck, but a hypothetical woman may never make the connection between vice and suffering. In fect, she may be rewarded by getting whatever she wants by going quick for power; using violence is very expedient... evil, but expedient. So... 3B - don't reward bad women. Change the incentive structure of your immediate surroundings. Perhaps that will not change the world, but your little garden/corner of the world will be nicer. I have to make a plug for MGTOW; stop making women so important to your life, especially the bad ones. Put yourself first. Do not center your life around women (gynocentrism) and that will change the incentive structure of your immediate surroundings... So that bad women get less reward from being around you. And if you're lonely because you have no bad women around you, then perhaps look at the nature of your loneliness; why are women so important to you? Babies? Sex? The narrative of female virtue and the princess-to-be-saved? Perhaps maternal neglect which left a void in your life that you try to fill with romantic love to compensate for parental love (as was my case)? I often say to people who ask "aren't you afraid that you'll die alone with this MGTOW/bachelor lifestyle?": "No. And here's why I'm not afraid of loneliness; so long as you like yourself, then you are always in good company. Most people fear dying alone, but everyone dies on an individual basis, and dying in groups doesn't change the nature of death... therefore, unlike most people who seek external validation, and, necessarily, die individually - I will be one of the few people who dies in good company. It bears repeating; so long as you like yourself, then you are always in good company."

It occurs to me that fear is a limiting factor. I've never read Dune, nor seen the movies, but in it they say, "fear is the mind killer." I'm going to agree; fear tends to shut down higher-level thinking in favor of primal drivers (fight, flight, freeze, and fuck... strangely. The parasympathetic nervous system is integral to fight-or-flight and arousal of the sexual kind... and... to be perfectly honest, I've noticed that, in times of high stress, I have a higher libido, which is not at all helpful apart from making a save file of my genes in case I die... Though I can see the evolutionary advantage to having sex before going off to battle, I find it less than helpful). The equivocal mind is undisturbed by fear and the mental disruptions of the primal instincts... Fear makes you choke, and is oppositional to clear thinking. So then, courage grants a kind of freedom: The freedom to do something perceived as dangerous. This is neither good nor bad, and depends on the context and situation. Some risks are worth being courageous for, while others are not. I find that freedom itself is a risky proposition, and having grown up a kind of slave - freedom scares me sometimes. The best way to break a slave - is to make them yearn for bondage. (On a side note, the popular, polemic MGTOW-themed book The Manipulated Man, by Esther Vilar, opened my eyes to a kind of reversal I didn't want to even entertain the possibility of; that men love being slaves to women... because they fear freedom... And why? Perhaps it has something to do with the people who raised them. And the people who raise children are, overwhelmingly, women. I know that my mother was a teacher of terror, personally, but that's anecdote, and perhaps some good mothers instill a love of freedom in their children above conformity, and respecting authority.) I find it difficult to commune with my child-like desire for adventure sometimes, but I have good self-control, and can recall the state of mind of excitement and decisiveness. I then inhabit that state of mind sometimes... and savor it - savor the feeling of decision and excitement. But fear... Fear is the mind-killer, and, thus, it is anti-freedom. Yes: not all freedoms are preferable, and fear serves a purpose... but it is an excellent servant which makes a horrible master. ... And the adrenaline often serves no purpose; I have no bears to run away from, and, thus, the extra blood-glucose is quite unnecessary. My mastery of fear requires a silencing of specific thoughts... It's more of a feeling that I switch, really. I imagine it is something akin to what actors do; embody a state of mind, or channel a set of behaviors and feelings. This is what I meant by self control. ... But really I just wanted to make the observation that courage can grant a measure of freedom, because courage can override the fight, flight, freeze, or fuck instinct. I'm trying to perform thought-experiments to test the limits of the claim that courage grants a measure of freedom, and that the antithesis [of fear] reduces personal freedom. ... When I decide something I tend to do things in full measure... so, if I decide to be courageous, then there's really no turning back. I think the implications would be interesting, and I'm very close to making some very large life decisions*, but I will think about it a little more deeply. And I will relax to optimize my ability to think on these topics (or "meditate" if you prefer). In some sense, I've already made my choices, and simply need to continue following them through and not choke under pressure. Sometimes the mind is too quick, and takes a while to parse the underlying motivations... but, so help me - the motive forces are strong, and I want to steer them well (a thousand horse-power car is almost useless without a steering wheel). Because notifications are not great, don't assume a fast response if you post to this topic, but thank you nonetheless, and hello moderator(s). *The instances are unimportant - the principles (for the sake of discussion) are what are important. The life-decisions have to do with moving, career choices, and improving my lifestyle (Ha, maybe I can donate more if I earn more disposable income. But that's not germane to the discussion).

(Hopefully this isn't a double-post from clicking review then post accidentally) What is the nature of a tattoo? Or a piercing? Or heavy makeup? A tattoo is a permanent or semi-permanent alteration of the skin pigment. It is done through the repeated stabbing of a needle and dye below the basal lamina or subcutaneous tissue. Primative tattoos (like scarification) were done by making cuts in the skin and stuffing them with dye. When a person elects to be stabbed repeatedly with a needle, or cut and have dye shoved into the wound... one has to wonder, "what is the underlying motivation for that behavior?" Let's hold the common claim of a tattoo as "artistic expression" to be true. What does it express to make the skin the canvas? Why not use a canvas as a canvas? If you like a particular artist's work, then why commission them to stab you with needles? There are many justifications given for tattoos; "I want to carry it with me, forever."; "It's a reminder..."; "I want to make myself more beautiful [or some generic aesthetic justification]."; etc. Electing to be stabbed with needles is an [artistic] expression of a form of masochism. Full disclosure: I have one tattoo, on my chest, and was a cutter in the past. Similarly, a piercing is done for similar reasons as a tattoo; [artistic] expression. A woman with ear piercings is making an aesthetic choice to put an extra hole in her head for beauty. At the very least, a piercing is a pain/annoyance and requires additional hygiene routines (cleaning out the dead skin at least, otherwise it will, eventually get inflamed). Full disclosure: I've had four (very private) piercings in the past. And I viewed it as highly masochistic, and a damaged-I'm-tough-signal. Dyed hair is, at a minimum, saying that one's natural hair color is unsatisfactory. Heavy make up is, at a minimum, saying that one's natural face is unsatisfactory and needs to be covered up. So, linking these all together; why does a person feel their natural features are unsatisfactory or deserving of a masochistic expression? What is natural? The natural function of pain is to cause aversion to a stimulus. The hair and face are naturally indicators of health. The face is naturally used for expression (I think the eyebrows are noteworthy hair/face things... good for expression, but often shaped, plucked, painted, or altered... which greatly change a person's expression ) ... Naturally, people avoid pain, but will bargain with pain - taking less pain if it means avoiding greater pain. Hopefully you can fill in some of the gaps as to why a person would feel the need to alter their self in such a way, and at such a cost. The trauma theory certainly fits within my own experience (though I would have denied it at the time, while getting my piercings or tattoo). Hopefully I'm not projecting, but it seems very logical that trauma is the explanation for the majority of tattoos and piercings (and perhaps dyed hair and heavy makeup, as well). Stabbing one's self seems illogical otherwise.

"Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun." -Chairman Mao I think a "truth about" on Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping would be illustrative of the power of liberalization vs state control. I know that the liberalization has slowed down since 2005, but I imagine there are a number of Chinese people who could be receptive to the message of freedom, through the object lesson of 1978-2005's growth. A "truth about" might miss the mark with English-speaking people, and it might be preaching to the choir for those who lived through the reform period, but... it's hard to tell if it would be a successful presentation. Regardless, it would be an interesting video. I would take this as inspiration: http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2014/05/14/312488659/episode-337-the-secret-document-that-transformed-china

Because it was concise, and written. Unlike spoken words, you, or he, can point to a thing and ask questions. Maybe there's benefit, or maybe it's extraneous. If he thinks it's helpful, then good, if not, then you or he can crumple up the piece of paper and toss it out of the way of something more helpful.

Thank you for the information. The fact that he was having an affair is new information (but not surprising... a guy who travels, works a lot, and is in a sexless marriage - there's a common enough occurrence of infidelity in those cases). So he was honest (as an attractive trait when you met him), and now he isn't? That's a curious thing. I'm curious what kind of maintenance of trust and honesty took place. I'm guilty of the "one-and-done" approach to honesty and trust: have initial vulnerability, and openness... then let it sit and decay... When, in fact, it requires regular maintenance - a kind of Real Time Relationships honesty and doggedness (which, let's face it, most people don't have the emotional fortitude to maintain). Having kids, moving, doing business - they're all token exercises of trust and vulnerability. The in-the-moment honesty is where the meat of the trust and vulnerability comes from. It's far easier to look back at things than to be strong in the moment (with your feelings... and by "strong" I mean the emotional fortitude to be honest - in the moment). That's kind of weird sounding: to say that having kids with some one can be a token trust (but that the real trust is in real time)... but I can't help but think of all of the women (not you, necessarily) who have kids to lock-in a man's vulnerability... as if to say "I've got your kids! Now you have to trust me." But... as weird as it is... having kids is not actually an exercise in trust. Maybe it can be, but there's nothing essential in the act of having kids to the act of trusting. Hmm... Thrusting vs trusting... It sounds like your husband is dissatisfied... But it also sounds like he wants to protect you (otherwise, I imagine that you'd be gone, beaten, poor, or something). So he's in the impossible position of being dissatisfied but unable to voice his dissatisfaction (perhaps out of fear for what you might have to say about it?). Have you tried encouraging his honesty even in moments where it hurts or pisses you off? I mean, your husband has a problem... now it's your problem - it's going to hurt, but what are you going to do about it? You don't have to do anything about it. In fact, you're in a sexless, emotionless marriage... I can't even say "this is the man you love - he's unhappy, how do you show your love (ideally so as to help them to be happy)." I can't incite you with love for your husband if you don't have love for your husband. So... you asked "if he felt like we had something salvagable" and put the responsibility on his shoulders and asked six times in six months if he had salvaged your love. You put the responsibility for your emotions onto someone else. And now you're unhappy... Or "frustrated", rather. I imagine that you have an internet connection... and, despite the desert where you live having few marriage counselors, didn't take proactive steps online? I can imagine marriage counseling via skype... I don't see why you put the onus on your husband to solve your problem. You husband is going to carry himself however he's going to carry himself - you are going to do what you're going to do (and that's what you have power over). If I were talking to him (which I'm not) this would be a different conversation, and he and I would be talking about different things, and I would ask him different questions. I'd ask him about his affair, because I'd want to know. I imagine he's a complex human being, and (judging from his isolation) I imagine my questions would be like an oasis in the desert for him. Plus I try to be refreshing and not brackish to drive people away (generally). So... you own your emotions. You've got a problem. Yeah he has problems, but I'm not talking to him at the moment. Right now you are the only one who can solve your problems. I would be dialing up that self-knowledge, and general knowledge as much as possible until the problem (your problem) was solved. And that might entail being more proactive and kind and gentle with a man who has fallen out of trust with you... or it might entail dropping a nuclear bomb on your nuclear family... or not. You could always let things stay at the status quo - emotionless, sexless (for you, not necessarily him), and whatever. Maybe there's nothing to salvage - I have no idea. I'm not your husband, so I cannot definitively say. ... On a clarifying point: I did not believe that you felt an ownership of his libido. I just wanted to remind you. And I'd like to remind you that you own your own libido. ...Self-knowledge... yeah... you can look into your psyche and explore why you're not sexual anymore. Hey - there's nothing wrong with being asexual (from a moral stand point. Ignoring biological voluntary imperatives [low priorities]). I'm celibate. I mean - sex with women (or men) sounds like a hassle to me. I've had all the sex I wanted and wasn't satisfied. So I think I'd rather focus on other things (like work)... So... you can be sexless. But that falls to you - not your husband. Don't expect him to suddenly become sexless because you've become sexless... Especially if there aren't strong emotional connections threading you two together. What do you bring to the table? ... well... "honesty" is nice (although that's a bullshit answer, especially when you don't express yourself; when you put the onus on him; when you are talking to an internet stranger and not your husband; and so on)... but do you resonate with him at all? Resonate... Ha! does he vibrate when you speak? hahahah... no, I mean - does he resonate with you or does he become dull or quiet? Does he ring or doesn't he? Are you his bell? Are you two on the same frequency? Do you do what he likes (and vice versa)? ... Here's a thought experiment, tell me which one sounds better: "I'm going to nag you until I get what I want." Or "How can we both get what we want? I want you, and I want you to want me." ... Man, I love being a MGTOW, and not dealing with nagging women. Wouldn't it be great if men like me and women could have mutually beneficial, emotionally healthy, empowering relationships? But, alas, I'm generally dissatisfied with women. None of the women in FDR are bitchy. I like you - you haven't bitched at me... but soooo many women are bitchy... I'd be dissatisfied in a marriage, too (no offense to you or your husband). My point is that cooperation is a mutual choice. You can "defect" as game theorist say (infidelity, divorce, ratting out the other guy, etc.) or cooperate... but cooperation requires a desire to cooperate. And how do you entice someone toward cooperation? I believe the saying is "you attract more flies with honey than you do with vinegar." But who wants flies, right? Is that too cryptic? How else can I ask "what do you bring to the table"? So that you'll understand? "What do you bring to your husband's table? And by table I mean his general satisfaction?" Ok... here's something else to consider; people who earn something appreciate it more (even if it is a token victory). Psychological studies show that people are happier to win nothing when, to lose, it would mean losing two dollars, instead. They are no better off, but the perception that they some how earned two dollars feels like a victory. "a penny saved is a penny earned" as they say. So... have you said, "you earned it" to you husband? You want him to thank you for mowing the lawn... have you tried saying, "you earned this mowed lawn. With all your hard work and sacrifice - I'm willing to cooperate in a mutually beneficial arrangement. Wherein, you earn money and I take care of you in return for provision, through the division of labor."? Maybe he would be more appreciative if he was aware of the benefits of cooperation. I don't know. Maybe when he says "we're building" he means "we're building a mulch garden in the back yard". I have no idea how inclined to cooperation he is, nor the incentives you provide to make him more willing to cooperate. Again, what do you bring to the table? And I don't mean that as an insult - I genuinely want to know; what does your husband think you are good at, for him? Why does anyone keep anyone around? Does he want you raising his kids, for instance? Have you asked him how he feels about your parenting? Again, what resonates for him. ... We talk so much about empathy on FDR... and I want you to understand your husband's emotional state of being. I'm not asking about your state of being - I know your state of being already: you're frustrated, angry, unsure, and a whole host of other things which you've mentioned here. Have you, regevdl, empathized with your husband lately? Let me know if that question is, in any way, unclear... I'll try to ask it again more creatively... and I recognize that when there's a failure of communication (and when I'm not understood), then that is entirely my fault. Let me try asking it in one new way; what did your husband feel when he turned away from his marriage? And what did it feel like to find comfort and sexual release in the arms of another woman? And how does it feel to provide for a family that you don't get to see because you're too busy? And how does it feel when your wife makes a stink about things when you're tired? And how did it feel to grow up without close male friendships? And how did it feel to grow up with all the cultural expectations of what it means to be a man and what it means for a man to love? I understand that you feel abandoned. Perhaps feeling connected to another human being will help you to not feel abandoned... perhaps with empathy you can have such a connection, if such a connection is possible. For fuck's sake (literally) there exists mutual masturbation and hand jobs and oral sex - even if you're not feeling sexual you can give your partner a massage (and maybe ask for a massage in return, "I'll take a back massage, if you would like a 'front' massage" for instance...). Fuck, I know (of) asexuals (and have been one) who do that kind of negotiation all the time. "AND years before (when his work kept him on the road for 3-6 weeks at a time) we had an open and honest discussion about fulfilling our sexual needs with other people and made up cerain 'dos and don'ts' etc. Once he left that job, we ended that arrangement with an open and honest discussion. " Maybe that's good maybe that's bad. I don't know. Maybe that's what opened the door to his infidelity, and he thought you gave approval. I don't know I'd have to ask him. Spending time alone? 5-8 hours a week? Sure, I guess that might be good - I'd want to spend time with my wife and kids in a relaxed atmosphere, but that's me. I'd go on tons of hikes in mountains with 'em, but, again, personal preference. Heh... kids would have to get their own tent, though... Maybe that's the alone time you speak of. But, again, you don't have to do that. You can do whatever you want. It's your marriage-part-ownership-stake-whatnot. Granted, maybe taking marital advice from a MGTOW grey-ace is not the best idea. I could be wrong. I could totally be wrong. Heck, I don't know; call Stef, get your husband on the line, and talk it out - that's what call-in shows are for. "I really do love him and I know he still has love for me." Well... then that seems pretty clear-cut. My question is answered; I'd say put in the work... and stop saying it's an emotionless marriage if it is not "We've had ups and downs but overall it's an emotionless and sexless relationship." Don't contradict yourself, otherwise resolve your contradictions. "No, he insisted on working in the yard." Perhaps he wanted to work on the yard. I find certain activities to be meditative and necessary for my mental health. Having contemplative moments can be good, and gardening can be one such activity. "My son helped in the yard, which is good father/son time." That, too. "he didn't mind but later came back and threw it in my face. It hurt me, I told him and explained that it hurt me he chose to mow the grass over going to the private spring and I understand he was disappointed that I didn't go to the pool but I was forthcoming and he didn't protest at the time, only came back to complain, rather than communicate from the front that it would mean a lot to him if I came. If I knew that of course I would have gone. " See, this is why you have to be in the moment, and address things in real time... "My comment about the therapist is that I FELT a screaming voice inside because to tell a therapist 'everything is fine' made me feel even more hopeless that he is withholding." Yep, I had gathered as much - you didn't scream when you felt like screaming, even while you were in a mediated environment, and the expectation was to address problems that make you want to scream. I'd call that emotional constipation. Just get it out (in a constructive, and appropriate way). Good bye and good skill to you.

I have a suggestion: Print this out, take care of the necessities of life, sit him down, hand this print out to him (possibly hold his hand), tell him that you'd like to answer any questions he might have after he's done reading, ask him questions, discuss things (and avoid polemic language or hyperbole, such as "you never listen", instead be humble and patient and recognize the limitations and unseen biases of your commutation by asking if he understands), be direct, go for a long walk and grab a bite to eat. Possibly edit out the references to ragevdl, otherwise give him the full context. That is what I would do, but... I'm not you. Good job on the progress - hopefully you have yourselves a mutually beneficial arrangement in the works. And a quick reminder: you don't own his libido. Sorry for the semantic argument (which I'm guilty of) you don't "have" sex - you share sex. You can persuade his libido, but you cannot own it (this is coming from someone with a history in BDsM - you cannot own a person's sex... you can share it with them - but never own it. The BDsM contract is a lie - no one owns another person). And vice versa. "good skill" [good luck as people say] with the sex (and the underlying foundations that lead to it).

You are part owner of your relationship. You could say it's a partnership. I'm not sure why you got into this partnership, but, apparently it had elements of "mutual decision and carefully planned and considered" in some regards. Moving to a foreign land? Learning a new language (which, I presume, means that you didn't speak your husband's native language)? Having two kids? hmm... What else do I know? I know he was a great swimmer (which I presume means that he was fit and athletic looking). I know that he was in the military, and, as you relate, a "legend" (I assume at swimming). I assume he has manly secondary sex characteristics because he was a high-level athlete, and thus, I assume that he is conventionally good looking (steeped in testosterone), or, at least, not ugly. I also know that he works a lot, travels a lot (at least in the past), and is not having sex with you. I also know he (and you) own(s) a date farm. And he says things are fine to your marriage counselor. Ok. Ah, yes, and he isn't expressive of his emotions (or perhaps stunted emotionally)... either way - you call the relationship emotionless... So... how much of this do you own? I do not know how long you courted this man. Was it a brief courtship? What did you do to woo him, and for how long? "Anyway, I feel like his work is his priority and he equates it to his input to the relationship as a whole. I hope that makes sense." -Yes. That makes perfect sense. He works hard... for you... and his children. While I understand that you're not (probably) looking for a vibrator attached to a bank account - you have to understand where he's coming from. You say that he wasn't even emotional with his brother(s) [biological or not]. Well then, what can you surmise from him saying things are fine, and not having emotional connections, while working non-stop (for someone who he, ostensibly, has no emotions for)? -He's a robot. Wait, no... That's ridiculous - robots aren't that advanced yet. -What can you surmise from his actions (assuming he's not a robot; has, in fact, produced offspring, and; works very hard to support you and them)? Perhaps there's something that you're missing? What was his childhood like? Does he know how to express his needs? Can he listen? Is he charming but only superficially? Is he scared? Is he scarred? ... So... Basically, I hear that you married (and had kids with) a man with few (if any) emotional connections in this world, and you chose him (and you sound shocked that " He has a friend who is like a brother and I was shocked that he has never discussed this stuff with him! ....so I guess he IS like a brother..just not in the way I thought or he thought me meant. lol As he is not close to his biological brothers.") I don't know when this shocked you, but, I assume (from the flow of the narrative) that this was after you learned his native language to some degree (which was after you were married). ... You do not own your husband. You are part owner of a marriage, but not the an owner of a man. Do you want him to change? Do you want your legendary swimmer to suddenly become; an emotional; highly sexual; romantic who mows the yard (why you have grass in a desert in beyond me) ; takes his kids swimming on his scarce time away from work (I presume that, if he isn't a robot, he needs rest) ; yet provides for you and your children, and; greater yet, is receptive and proactive in marriage counseling after years of reticence with such emotional perceptiveness, and acuity of your emotional state - that he just "gets it"? Do you want to change him? You'll have to excuse my ignorance, because I don't know you (and, thus, must genuinely ask), but what do you bring to the table? It sounds like you want to scream, as I understand it. "I want to walk out of the sessions screaming 'then why in the hell are we here if everything is fine?!'" I sympathize that you're not getting the validation of your emotions that you seek. And I understand that it must be difficult - being in another country, without close friends, a language barrier, children to raise, and, on top of that, the rock - that emotional foundation on which you agreed to marriage - seems slippery. It is... unfortunate... that you married a man who is not curious about you and your satisfaction enough to ask "I'm fine, but my wife is dissatisfied in the marriage. Counselor; wife; how do I address the concerns of my wife? I'm not fine, now, because someone I love has a problem - how do I deal with it? What is my wife thinking?"... But, for whatever reason, you deigned to marry him and have kids with him. I'm curious about your... experience. I can only guess as to why you chose him, and what that says about you. I'm curious about you... but that's useless as far as you're concerned because I'm an internet stranger who is taking a critical view of your marriage problems on a philosophy website. Critical... that which is vital... Your critics are the ones who want to see you do better... And, apparently, your husband is not calling you on your ********, either... It's a shame that he isn't calling you on your **********, or, as you put it; he "Can't call me out when I relapse", and that you relapse. Whatever co-dependency that entails. I'm also saddened to hear that you relapse - I assume drugs? Or emotional relapses? Perhaps depression? Something else? What do you relapse into exactly? It must be difficult to hear that everything is fine when you're struggling and, objectively, there are problems in the marriage (e.g. sex). But... I'm still left asking; what do you bring to the table? I assume that you want to persuade your husband to trust you with his emotions, and to be more emotional himself... Do you scream "I'm an emotionally healthy and well-adjusted individual! I have solutions, and models of behavior which you can learn from! Emotions are wonderful tools - let me show you how to use them to enrich your life!"? -Because I don't know how you convince a man in the middle part of his life to suddenly become expressive and emotional and trusting. I don't know what skills of persuasion you have. I know that women can, generally, persuade men (especially with sex, although I find that somewhat detestable... and a bit of a cheap and underhanded move as far as persuasion goes)... but, then again, you say the marriage is sexless. So, perhaps, you'd have to appeal to his better nature by some other means. Or... You could divorce him. ... I didn't hear one word about physical abuse... but... you can still divorce him, especially if you're dissatisfied. You do have an obligation to your children, however, and being a single mother divorcee carries consequences all its own. ... I don't know why you married him. I assume he was exotic... and erotic (enough to give you two children). I assume he's a good provider because he tends toward work (as opposed to idleness). Good looking (or attractive in some sense) and a provider... I can see the appeal, if that was the case. I still don't know why you married him, though. But... you are subject to the consequences of your actions, and, as far as lives that I would choose go (if I had such choices) ; a stay-at-home mother who occasionally mows the lawn would not be a bad life. It is, evidently, leisurely enough to post on the FDR forums. And, because I already do house work for myself, and enjoy the company of children, it would appeal to me (again, assuming that being a stay-at-home wife/mother were something that I could choose). Yeah, granted, there are better lives and I'm not going to go out of my way to become a stay-at-home spouse, nor would I get a sex-change so that I could inhabit the role of wife and mother (frankly, I enjoy who I am). I am not you and cannot make your choices for you (neither can your husband, and, conversely, you cannot make your husband's choices). ... You can only try to appeal to his better nature with persuasion (which means knowing him and his wants, and also working on your communication). So... In closing, you're trying hard to save your marriage from your own dissatisfaction (or because your husband thinks things are fine - on that point I am unclear... Are you trying to save your marriage from the fact that your husband doesn't understand your dissatisfaction? When you do not scream that which you desire to scream [in a mediated counseling session, presumable out of your children's view]? When you and your husband do not have the requisite skills [language?] needed to communicate?)... and you're not sure when you should call it quits. I don't know either. I will likely never have enough information to tell you when you should call it quitsies... and by "quits-ies" I mean unilaterally dissolving your family as it stands, and, most likely, entering many life-shattering difficulties. "quits" -It sounds cute when you say it like that... calling it quits on breathing sounds cute, too, even though it would likely leave me with severe brain damage from killing vital brain cells. "The path to wisdom begins by calling things by their proper names." As Confucius said. I'm inclined to agree. Call it like it is - tell your husband you what the sex back, and that you understand that there are reasons that need to be addressed so that you can have your hanky-panky... such as his childhood, his isolation, his urge to work hard to provide for you (which is probably a mute's way of saying "I love you"), the things you can do to pique his... er... "interest" on your end, communication barriers, the logistics of now having children, and many other things. Are you interested in him? And I don't mean that in the idealized sense - I don't mean him as a legendary swimmer and exotic lover - I mean him... as a person... with frailties, with interests, hopes, desires, fears, a history and a future? Is he just an idea? Do you know your husband? I know that sounds harsh in its flippancy "do you know your husband?"... but... Again, I don't know you - I don't know the circumstances of your life beyond what you've stated here, in this one forum post on this one website... It is conceivable to me that you might not have tried hard to get to know him. I don't even know what you mean when you say "trying hard"... could you define that for me? I hope that it means more than housework and yardwork and jewelry and babysitting (if I had kids, then I might just call what I'd be doing "playdates for the kids", but, again, I don't know you). I have every reason to believe you when you say that you are frustrated, and I can imagine the difficulty of moving to a foreign country (I already live in a desert, and know what 130 degree weather feels like - I'm in the Mojave - which is South of Death Valley) - heck, my swamp-cooler is a piece of junk and I'm surprised my computer hasn't melted yet, hahahah But, yes, I believe you when you say you're frustrated and have problems. But, truly, what is the nature of your problems and frustration? And how do you get what you want (and give your children a good life, more importantly)? "making a stink" about things doesn't sound like high-level negotiation skills. Absent answers to my wall-of-text questions: I suggest working on your communication skills. That's something you have power over. You could also go nuclear-bomb on your nuclear family and ass-launch your husband out of the family (as MGTOWs like vention would say)... and probably teach your children that it's ok to marry an exotic lover, take 'em for a ride, drain them of their hard work, and generally make a stink about things, in the process of divorcing your husband... I would be curious how your children would view you later in life (personally, I hold my mother in low[er] regard for ass-launching my father, but at least I was 19 and not 4)... I'd be curious what their teens would be like for you if they were taught such a formative lesson at such an impressionable age. I would also be curious how your children would turn out if they bore witness to a flowering of parental love and the cautious, tender steps of forming a loving bond between a husband and wife. Regardless of what happens, I remain a curious creature. Hence the philosophy and the science... Good luck, in case I don't hear from you - I, too, am a busy man (and I may have unintentionally pissed you off... or you might not feel like answering for whatever reason - hopefully because you'd be having a beautiful life, busy with a loving family, and preferring developing communication with people who are not strangers [such as myself]). Wait... no... I hate wishing people "good luck"... luck is dumb. I'm a scientist - luck is meaningless in most regards... I mean to say: Good skill. Good bye and good skill. Final edit: t+ 45 mins (10:40pm )

With that definition, I agree that intelligence (as you've defined it) is amoral. It doesn't seem like it incorporates mutation, synthesis, recursion, feedback loops, and rational hope. Being rational about when to be rational is something that (I think) adds to my intelligence. Check back in a few years after I'm a better programmer, and I'll let you know what I think about machine learning then. In the meantime: http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/electrical-engineering-and-computer-science/6-867-machine-learning-fall-2006/

I'd like a bit of clarification on "As more intelligent humans are not necessarily more moral" proposition: I suppose I'd ask for a definition of intelligence. Do you mean raw data that a person can recall? Do you mean useful data that a person can recall? Do you mean capacity for critical thinking (to see the vital aspects of a thing, i.e.; to derive principles)? If intelligence is defined as the amoral recall of facts and data (for instance, I can recall the names of various [bio]molecules and what their functions are), then I agree that "intelligence" is amoral. But if intelligence also contains agency, then I'm not certain of your claim that intelligence [in humans, or anything] is decoupled from morality. In fact, I would suspect that morality could be directly linked to intelligence (and, likely, vice versa). I'm a little unclear on the meaning of the word intelligence (I think it might be too imprecise of a term for it to be useful for my understanding).

"There are still men out there who do have the balls to take a risk or make a sacrifice for a special someone." Men who have balls... Who take a risk, who make sacrifices... For someone "special". Does this even deserve a critical reading after such a gynocentric sentence? Hahaha... sure, why not? I've got a bit of time (a half an hour) before I'm scheduled to talk to a friend from biochem... Inadequate? Compared to what? Why "inadequate"? What "inadequacy issues" does she allude to? That's an interesting word... why not "unfulfilling" or "bereft of deep and mutual empathy"? There's some interesting neurolinguistic programing with her phraseology... google doesn't even suggest female inadequacy issues... only "male inadequacy issues"... a euphemism for impotence, erectile dysfunction, or a small penis. "Instead of relationships, it’s non-relationships that we’re condoning." Denying the antecedent must not have come up during any of her English classes... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denying_the_antecedent "The path to wisdom begins by calling things by their proper name" - Confucius Does she mean that people are not having intimate, compassionate, empathetic relationships in the general population? What is a "non-relationship"? Is that the same thing as "not having a relationship"? Why doesn't she say that there's a lack of empathy? "Participating in today’s hook-up culture is easy and fun..." Well at least we know where she stands on hook-ups... "but is it getting our generation anywhere? What are we gaining?" Excellent questions - I look forward to her rigorous study of population dynamics, socio-economics, philosophy, and statistical analysis; this should be a good article... truly important questions, let's see how she deals with them: She starts out with, barely anyone seems to be willing to do anything about [feeling unfulfilled through hook-up culture]. Well, fundamentally, no one can do anything about someone else having a desire for fulfillment. That's subjective... Subject to the person (who, in this case hypothetically enjoys casual sex but feels unfulfilled by it). What does she hope will change things? Not accepting vacillation from men, and only accepting a strong commitment with lots of decisiveness. In exchange for? Not hooking up? For "10,000 points"? ...Are the points redeemable? Or does a man commit to Erica Gordon in exchange for points which don't matter? ... So Erica has a passive man named Dick in her life... That "inadequacy" verbiage is starting to make a bit more sense. [sigh... my friend said he'd be a bit longer, let's keep this rolling...] Men will join a cause they believe in. The things that electrify their souls will get them to stand up and assert themselves for that which is important... Perhaps she should ask "why are the men I keep running into and giving my number to not interested in me? What interests men? Other than hooking up, what do men find important? And how can I be a woman of value that men feel is worth "having the balls to take a risk or make a sacrifice for a special someone"?" This generation needs to start dating again? I fail to see how she makes the case for needs. No mention of family structures, divorce, family in the culture, biological reproductive urges (as distinct from needs), food, shelter, water, etc. Then she basically implores people to take risks for the sake of taking risks. Or some nebulous "reward"... again, do the points matter? Or is it just for show? 10,000 points from my creditcard rewards program is worth $100... is she saying she'll pay for an expensive night out? You know, "traditional dating"... where the woman pays (like women have traditionally held themselves throughout the history of courtship). Man, I miss those old days where the cost of dating was born out by the women... hmm... interesting word choice. EndTheUsurpation brings up a good observation; birth control... The cost of dating, for women, is not born to them... The costs they incur are voluntary and small. Traditional dating typically involves the man buying lots of stuff (with the promise of future... marital... bliss? Ah, euphemisms). Sex for stuff... I'm not buying it... I'm one of those MGTOWs; I'm not looking to exchange cash (once removed in the form of gifts, perhaps, or twice removed with the promise of gifts)... for sex. No. Women want equality? Then start acting like it. I'm 100% for "gender equality", I'm all for feminists telling men to get some balls, and man up, and shaming men - perhaps when men "man up" (as the feminine gender suggests) - the men will actually have some standards and some self esteem. ... Unfortunately for feminists, yelling at men doesn't endear them to you. And threats and the shaming language of personal attacks - does not appeal to the rational man's sense of virtue and value. I don't think many men love being men, and that makes me sad for them. They, too often, internalize the shrill women telling them they're not good enough. I love being a man. I'm un-apologetically a man. And I also have no desire to become a woman's plow-horse This paragraph from Erica is shrill. I can imagine her telling her partners to take more risks and grow some balls (and go be traditional... slay me a dragon or something). Have you tried going somewhere without loud music, and using a medium of communication that allows for more that 140 characters? Who is "we"? Does she not initiate the phone calls she wishes to have? Also, what does this have to do with the thesis of the hook-up culture being unfulfilling? What's the link? Yes, communication can reduce uncertainty, and that can be good. Wow. Erica and I agree on something, and she made a solid case for something. I would only add that; communication is distinct from expression, in that; communication requires the person expressing themselves to check in with the recipient to make sure they understand. A failure of communication belongs to the person trying to express themselves. If Erica wishes to express herself, then it falls onto her to do so. And I agree. With the spirit of the first quoted paragraph. The last part, I think, is about aloofness. Aloofness is a personal standard of communication. If she hangs out with aloof people - that's her fault. If she acts aloof (like many women), then she condemns herself to men who allow their partners to be empty. You can't make others do anything against their wills'. No one has to cure your loneliness, Erica Gordon of Elite Daily. Your standards belong to you. I suggest that you learn to love yourself - that way you'll always be in good company. And, when you have company, make sure to be on your best behavior. Be the change. Stop looking for others to solve your emotional inadequacies. I know this is a semantic argument, but... I was told that hook-up lead 20-somethings nowhere... now I'm told it leads to heartbreak. Heartbreak hotel, population: 1 Ha. Again, standards. Have standards for your heart and who you give it to. Quick tangent, I wanted to copy/paste a poem I enjoy: Playground of fleshNeil carathios Playground Of FleshSummers home from college I workedwhere corpses were kept on steel cotsin crinkly plastic bags. I baby-sat bodies,assigned each a name and numberfor medical students who came in spattered coatsin clots of three around each slab,unzipped their bag and said hello.They'd read the tag tied with string to a toethe name I'd given as carefully as any parentnames a child: Orpheus-80, Galatia-67, Demeter-22 --names a corpse deserved, I thought,then with scissors they'd snip skin above the breasthanging over the corpse's armrevealing meat, a neat hole cut for the nipplewhich satlike a cherry on a sundae.They'd saw ribs the way you woulda log, taking turns, arms tiring,then pried open the chestwith vice-like screws. Mist shot out --the corpse's soul,or body's belch of air and heat --as from an uncorked bottleof champagne.Up to their elbows in muck,like children slopping in mud,they'd dig out organs, dump in a metal tub.They'd catalogue each part we pass throughthis life with, all of itsloshing inside our clothes.I'd imagine spirits of cadavers hoveringnear the ceiling, looking down, amused at usin our playground of flesh. I'd sit in the cornerpretending to read but pictured my head attachedto the bodies, my eyes closed, faking my deathjust to have someone's hands cup my heartlike a prize tomato. ... Like a prized, muthaF***in' tomato. ... But, first, standards. And I mean standards for your self, not for others. Don't expect from others. Be worth something - then, maybe, someone will treat you like a prized loved one. (but, really, is anyone in good company when they're alone, if they're already in a hook-up culture? I think Erica's asking people to move mountains before they even know how to crawl... empathy starts at home...) (isn't there a fortune cookie tradition to put "in bed" at the end of fortune cookie wisdom? Empathy starts at home... in bed... No... that goes against my thesis. Empathy should start before going to bed.) The good ol' days fallacy. Or is it phallic-y? I can never remember... "You can be a willing participant in the hook-up culture" Yes... and, judging from the author's legitimate lived experience, I assume that she knows what she's talking about. People can take part in hook-up culture. Usually women.... Usually attractive women with few scruples. And men... men who are attracted to that, and have money, charm, and few scruples (it doesn't hurt to be attractive, too). In closing I'd like to take a swing at her question: "what happens when one day you decide you want to be in a relationship?" If you're looking for love but "ride the carousel" til you're 30: You'll have none of the value, capacity for empathy, disciple of delaying gratification, patience, [emotional] fortitude, inner life of interest - that would be necessary for a relationship - if you dehumanize an entire gender. Ha! Wouldn't it be ironic if I said I dislike women, now? And call them names like solipsistic, disloyal, materialistic, or vapid? Or that women tend not to take an interest in the inner lives of men... that would be harsh... to say that women are lacking empathy toward man-up-tty-men... But... if you're a MGTOW, "what happens when one day you decide you want to be in a relationship?" is that it is your own way. Most MGTOW do not do traditional dating, and some don't even see the value in relationships. And some... don't even see the value in sex. That depends on the MGTOW. There are few women that I would ever accept as an equal or a partner. I tend not to like the same things as the average woman. I have a dislike of the shallow, make-up-deep "beauty" of women. I see more beauty in the natural sciences. Science is my mistress; she has an open mind, you can do her anywhere, and she never sleeps. I am slave to one and only one - nature. I subjugate myself to natural laws - I accept them as the only laws. Naturally, N.A.W.A.L.T., and all that B.S., but I just don't see women as worth my time in a romantic context. I see too little empathy. and 10,000 point is not worth it... (I don't even get out of bed in the morning for anything less than 5 billion points... naturally.) Well, I enjoyed criticizing Erica Gordon's article, but I don't enjoy doing things like this often... it gets repetitive. MGTOW have heard this song and dance a hundred times before. Good luck out there. OP, and other thread participants; all the best, and I appreciate you taking some of your finite, precious lives to read my ramblings. Thank you.

What do I think of transhumanism? I classify transhumanism with self-improvement. As a moral category, it would be tantamount to working out, or eating healthful foods, or devoting one's self to a useful art of study. I'm a fan of the healing arts. Medicine. Gene therapy. Pharmacology. All of 'em. If health can be improved, then I think that "fitness" is an important aspect of increasing human freedom (thereby increasing choice, and, thus, moral choice). Without many choices there aren't very many moral choices. And you can't make choices if you're dead... so, living longer is linked to living well on some level. To put it another way; gnats don't have time to read UPB... the lifespan of a gnat is just long enough to eat, mate, and die. And to counter the argument of, say, Galapagos tortoises, I would say that they have a slow time perspective - a slower metabolism, essentially... I'd say that the inner life of a 100 year old tortoise is short. (quick aside: time perspective changes with age, and number of memories logged... as a child, many memories are logged very quickly, and the time of one year seems like forever. As an adult, people have "seen it all before", log few new, distinct memories, and a year might just fly by... even though a year is the same unit of time, obviously, for the adult as it is for the child) My point is that; as life [bios] gets better - people have more opportunity to do good and to enrich their lives... in a way, it is a positive feedback loop of morality, quality of life, and advances in technology/freedom. I'm all for increasing good through increases in standards (of living, of health, of interactions with people, etc.). I'm a biochemist, and I'd love to research how to live longer. My medium-term goal is to study a master's degree in bioinformatics at Tulane, or Johns Hopkins, or where ever I can (to add a little more biochemistry to computer science, make genechips and microarrays for high thorough-put genetic screening, maybe study a bit of computational biology, and get better with computers and automation on the side). There's nothing wrong with cyborgs, just as there's nothing wrong with prosthetic limbs for amputees. If you can enhance your life (and your body) in a peaceful way, then I see nothing wrong with that. Of course there are always bad ways to go about the pursuit of enhancement... This is where bioethics needs to take a long, hard look at experimental designs, and about what is (and what is not) ok to do with humans, and a number of topics. For instance, how does a technologist minimize negative externalities (such as increasing antibiotic resistance by introducing a product into cattle feed... most of the world's antibiotics production is actually feed to livestock, btw). Can a technologist adopt a more clever approach (say, using bacteriophages, instead, to kill only harmful bacteria, as opposed to selecting for only strains that carry resistance by wiping out all competing bacteria)? The more clever the approach, the more efficient the technology, and the less spill-over there is... but... how much of R'n'D should go to optimization? How does a market incentivize cleverness that is subtle? Capitalism does a great job at allocating resources, but is ultimately dependent on economic agents (who are also moral agents) to make decisions of where to allocate resources. It is sometimes difficult to use, say, environmental forensics - to pin down the source of negative externalities caused by a technologist on the cutting edge... Technologists on the cutting edge are well served by understanding ethics (in my case, bioethics). I may gain expediency by cutting corners... but I have to ask, "is this moral?" For instance, it would be very expedient to jump to human trails for a drug or treatment... but would it be moral? Have I been diligent, and am I worthy of the trust of my subjects? What if no one will know if I introduced a repeating sequence into a genome that results in an anticipation disease 3 generations from now (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anticipation_%28genetics%29 )? This is not a question that the market can solve. In fact, it may be cheaper to quickly, and easily have a cassette containing a dangerous sequence that also contains a favorable sequence... Basically, what do you do when no one is looking? At the cutting edge, all alone and ahead of people, one must rely on the integrity of their morals and knowledge - because social cues don't exist on a frontier. Transhumanism is very cutting edge... (again, living longer would mean that I would be alive and responsible for more generations, thus, justice would find me and there would be additional consequences, and the moral argument would become more and more tangible as the children's children of a genetically engineered subject seek restitution for my sloppiness, in this hypothetical) Unfortunately, few laypeople can make an informed decision on a technical matter. Voting, consensus, social cues, (and sometimes even markets) can't tell a technologist what they ought to do in the moment. There is a lag to adopting technologies... sometimes the lag is longer than a person's lifetime. How does one spend their life, when they cannot get feedback? Is it worth it even if you won't see it in your lifetime? I would ask Stef if he felt it is worth it to improve philosophy even though he won't see the full results of his actions within his lifetime... He would probably say that it was worth it for him... but Stef has a compass... not everyone has a very good compass. I think that the relative peacefulness that we see at this point in history (as compared to, say, the killing fields of past epochs) relates to quality of life. I think that death and disease cause a lot of destructive behaviors in humans. I don't intend on having children, so peaceful parenting is not something that I can have much primacy, or excellence, in doing. I'm not a famous philosopher. I'm a simple biochemist. What is my philosophy? What are my ethics? How do I actualize my ideals? I spent two years working in research oncology (among other jobs). I have some skills which may be useful. I can save people's lives (in some limited sense), but I can't give them a life (or inner-life, if you will). I can research how to cure people like Stef, but I cannot (nor would I want to be) Stefan (nor anyone else). I think that's an example of a longer life yielding more good in the world. I see that as, essentially, my lived philosophy. It is, essentially, work-ethic. My works are there in harmony with my ethics. I think transhumanism raises the stakes. Longer lives raises the stakes. I think the added freedom raises the stakes... but also increases moral agency... I'm all for increasing moral agency, and so I will, as far as I am able. ...High stakes... ...There was a time when I wanted to kill everyone (before philosophy, before I read Atlas Shrugged)... I wanted to rain death from the skies by isolating botulism toxin (one of the most potent toxins known to man, produced by the bacterium Clostridium botulinum. I have the skills. I can culture anaerobic bacteria, isolate the bio-molecule that acts as a protease inhibitor that is so lethal that the LD50 [lethal dose 50% of the time: dose per kilogram of living tissue] is 1 nanogarm... per kilogram... one gram could kill one million people http://www.siumed.edu/medicine/id/current_issues/BotulismPPT.pdf )... I could have run it on a chromatography column, done my biochem-thing, and seeded clouds with it, or put it in the water, and, literally, rain death upon humanity... And it's cheap, too. Scary cheap. It is fortunate that Ayn Rand got to me first. It's even more fortunate that it set me down a path (objectivism), which lead me here, and to moral and constructive pursuits. FDR can't take full credit for preventing genocide... but it helped prevent it to a degree (again, Atlas Shrugged was my triage and intervention). ...So, what is it about philosophy, here, which results in my interest in transhumanism instead of genocide? Well... empathy and healing, I suppose, in short. I think that technology is amoral. Any tool is amoral, and depends on the morality of the wielder. But humans... they have moral agency. I like humans (now that I can empathize with myself and others, and with a healthy distance from an abusive past... I mean what mad scientist doesn't have a history of being abused?). I'd like to heal them, and give them freedom. If a person wants to enhance themselves, then I think that's great. With more knowledge comes more power, and as people get more powerful, violence becomes less of an option (because of the raised stakes, and the "discipline of constant dealings"), and good becomes more preferred. I expect the future to be... interesting, to say the least. Transhumanism is one such interesting thing that is highly probable (knowing what I know). As Doug Casey would say (who advocates getting rich - to get ahead of these technologies and to adopt things which enrich and extend life), "Hold onto your hats." Want more? ... I did this in college; I made the enzyme Lactate dehydrogenase better [faster] =) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lactate_dehydrogenase The enzyme that converts a simple sugar into lactic acid (that stuff that supposedly makes your muscles sore after a workout) - which you use to get a quick burst of energy, when, say, you're lifting weights or sprinting. Here's my experimental design; a simple point mutation that I picked because I wanted to study the hinge region that clasps the lactate: Hypothesis: Point mutagenesis of Alanine 98 (Highlighted in red) to a Glycine will increase the degrees of freedom of the hinge region, which will in turn, allow greater access to the active site and faster kinetics. Alanine's Methyl group sterically hinders the hinge and limits the Phi Psi angles. Glycine would not have the Methyl R group and would have greater rotational freedom because of the Hydrogen R group. The null hypothesis would show that this rigidity is nessesary to the hinge's function. Fig. 1) Normal LDH structure. Hinge regions in red, loop in blue. Fig. 2) Normal LDH. Hinge regions in red, loop in blue. Fig. 3) Proposed site of mutagenesis in yellow. Fig. 4) Site of mutagenesis in yellow. The methyl group of the highlighted Alanine points to the lower left. Primer design: Query 1 MSTKEKLIDHVMKEEPIGSRNKVTVVGVGMVGMASAVSILLKDLCDELALVDVMEDKLKG 60 MSTKEKLIDHVMKEEPIGSRNKVTVVGVGMVGMASAVSILLKDLCDELALVDVMEDKLKG Sbjct 1 MSTKEKLIDHVMKEEPIGSRNKVTVVGVGMVGMASAVSILLKDLCDELALVDVMEDKLKG 60 Query 61 EVMDLQHGGLFLKTHKIVGDKDYSVTANSRVVVVTAGARQQEGESRLNLVQRNVNIFKFI 120 EVMDLQHGGLFLKTHKIVGDKDYSVTANSRVVVVTAG RQQEGESRLNLVQRNVNIFKFI Sbjct 61 EVMDLQHGGLFLKTHKIVGDKDYSVTANSRVVVVTAGGRQQEGESRLNLVQRNVNIFKFI 120 Query 121 IPNIVKYSPNCILMVVSNPVDILTYVAWKLSGFPRHRVIGSGTNLDSARFRHIMGEKLHL 180 IPNIVKYSPNCILMVVSNPVDILTYVAWKLSGFPRHRVIGSGTNLDSARFRHIMGEKLHL Sbjct 121 IPNIVKYSPNCILMVVSNPVDILTYVAWKLSGFPRHRVIGSGTNLDSARFRHIMGEKLHL 180 Query 181 HPSSCHGWIVGEHGDSSVPVWSGVNVAGVSLQTLNPKMGAEGDTENWKAVHKMVVDGAYE 240 HPSSCHGWIVGEHGDSSVPVWSGVNVAGVSLQTLNPKMGAEGDTENWKAVHKMVVDGAYE Sbjct 181 HPSSCHGWIVGEHGDSSVPVWSGVNVAGVSLQTLNPKMGAEGDTENWKAVHKMVVDGAYE 240 Query 241 VIKLKGYTSWAIGMSVADLVESIVKNLHKVHPVSTLVKGMHGVKDEVFLSVPCVLGNSGL 300 VIKLKGYTSWAIGMSVADLVESIVKNLHKVHPVSTLVKGMHGVKDEVFLSVPCVLGNSGL Sbjct 241 VIKLKGYTSWAIGMSVADLVESIVKNLHKVHPVSTLVKGMHGVKDEVFLSVPCVLGNSGL 300 Query 301 TDVIHMTLKPEEEKQLVKSAETLWGVQKELTLGSSSHHHHHH 342 TDVIHMTLKPEEEKQLVKSAETLWGVQKELTLGSSSHHHHHH Sbjct 301 TDVIHMTLKPEEEKQLVKSAETLWGVQKELTLGSSSHHHHHH 342 atgtccacca aggagaagct catcgaccac gtgatgaagg aggagcctat tggcagcagg aacaaggtga cggtggtggg cgttggcatg gtgggcatgg cctccgccgt cagcatcctg ctcaaggacc tgtgtgacga gctggccctg gttgacgtga tggaggacaa gctgaagggc gaggtcatgg acctgcagca cggaggcctc ttcctcaaga cgcacaagat tgttggcgac aaagactaca gtgtcacagc caactccagg gtggtggtgg tgaccgccgg cgcccgccag caggagggcg agagccgtct caacctggtg cagcgcaacg tcaacatctt caagttcatc atccccaaca tcgtcaagta cagccccaac tgcatcctga tggtggtctc caacccagtg gacatcctga cctacgtggc ctggaagctg agcgggttcc cccgccaccg cgtcatcggc tctggcacca acctggactc tgcccgtttc cgccacatca tgggagagaa gctccacctc cacccttcca gctgccacgg ctggatcgtc ggagagcacg gagactccag tgtgcctgtg tggagtggag tgaacgttgc tggagtttct ctgcagaccc ttaacccaaa gatgggggct gagggtgaca cggagaactg gaaggcggtt cataagatgg tggttgatgg agcctacgag gtgatcaagc tgaagggcta cacttcctgg gccatcggca tgtccgtggc tgacctggtg gagagcatcg tgaagaacct gcacaaagtg cacccagtgt ccacactggt caagggcatg cacggagtaa aggacgaggt cttcctgagt gtcccttgcg tcctgggcaa cagcggcctg acggacgtca ttcacatgac gctgaagccc gaagaggaga agcagctggt gaagagcgcc gagaccctgt ggggcgtaca gaaggagctc accctgggta gctcgagcca tcaccatcac catcactag The red highlighted sequence is the alanine. The GCC will be replaced with GGC, in order to switch A->G. The forward primer will be 5` gtgg tgaccgccgg cggccgccag caggagggc 3` (16 before the mutant and 16 after; as 33 bps is within the westlab protocol) The reverse primer will be 5` gcc ctcct gctgg cggcc gccgg cggtc accac 3` (side by side) forward 5` gtggt gaccg ccggc ggccg ccagc aggag ggc 3` reverse 5` gcc ctcct gctgg cggcc gccgg cggtc accac 3` Design Timeline: Lab1 Get primer. Using circular pBG89-LDH recombinate plasmids (purified earlier), preform a “Quickchange 2 Site-Directed Mutagenesis” (a PCR using the mutant primer) (if time during same session) Transform competent cells, using DH5α cells (as done before) and plate. Lab2 Select colony(ies), grow the colony for determination and expression. Lab3 Do a digest and agrose electroproesis to make sure we have an approriate sized digest/plasmid, if good; Express LDH 98A∆G during log phase, using IPTG or lactose analogue Pellet DH5α cells Lab 4 Lyse and purify mutant LDH (98A∆G) Lab5 Do SDS PAGE and kinetics ... Good fun. (from http://www.radiolab.org/story/91596-so-called-life/ ) ... You can look up the sequence on BLAST, if you want, and download the structure to pyMOL, if you'd like: http://blast.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/Blast.cgi?PROGRAM=blastp&PAGE_TYPE=BlastSearch&LINK_LOC=blasthome http://www.pymol.org/

I've heard of a few labs that are pay-per-use or community projects (that you have to write a proposal to schedule some time). Some companies own a lab but contract out staffing. Personally, I find a lot of use in ebay and govdeals and other auction areas (occasionally craigslist, even) where one can buy cheap, used equipment. Fixing the equipment that you use can be an educational experience (be sure to know what you're doing beforehand, though; you don't want to but a flow cytometer with busted lasers and think; oh, I could replace the lasers, no problem... it may cost you more than the machine is worth, especially considering the advances in technology you'd get over an old model). DIY biochemistry is something to look forward to. Nobody said you can't build things yourself, especially build skills on your own or in a community. It's a valuable skill to be able to build a lab up (even piece-meal, although large grants are more... expedient - as you can see, the bureaucracy is proportionally slow, however). All technological advancement begins with an idea, and very often some tinkering in a garage somewhere. That science and technology are anything but DIY/community based is strange. There is a strong argument for getting rich in order to buy larger pieces of equipment, and building consortiums of technologists and industrialists. As technology improves and gets cheaper - you'll see a lot more home-brew labs. Imagine cheaper and cheaper genetic engineering... It's an unstoppable force - it is already getting quite cheap.

If love is an involuntary response to perceived virtue, then what does it mean to love yourself? ...Then what does it mean... To love yourself...? ... I want to explore this topic, but first I must apologize for my contextual speaking habits and love of tangents (conversational "side-quests", or mini-adventures). Some people prefer direct speaking. One thought. In sequence. And a road-map. These are just musings - not meant as an essay with a clear thesis. Please enjoy my thoughts, and feel free to add your own at the end: ... For context: I was talking to an FDR member, and I asked him the question. It was in response to his history and desire to save damsels as a displaced desire to save himself (particularly the desire to save himself, as a child, from a trespass against his most private of properties. In the interest of his privacy, I won't say his name or go into detail about his childhood trauma. Unfortunately, laying hands on a child, against the nonaggression principle, is so common that I'm sure that his privacy will remain intact if he chooses. Sufficed to say - his bodily autonomy was compromised in a deeply traumatic way, and he has had a desire to save broken women - a common enough story). If love is an involuntary response to virtue, then what would it mean for him, or anyone, to love themselves? In a practical and principled way - what does it look like to truly love yourself (as distinct from loving a false-self, or a shallow narcissism, or maybe even a love-hate relationship with yourself)? A displaced desire for love (onto the damsels he wanted to save, to vicariously save himself) was not helpful, and very impractical for him, and his finances, and his happiness. Unfortunately, he didn't know what it would mean to love himself, and he had to think about it. Heck, I needed to think about it - it still bends my mind to think about the implications of the question (which is why I'm writing this). I thought it was interesting to connect the two thoughts; "love is an involuntary response to perceived virtue" and what it means to love one's self: ... What is virtue? Or perceived virtue? Certainly a person can have the perception that beauty is a virtue, for instance. A lot of people in society, essentially, worship beauty, or otherwise perceive it as a virtue. Regardless of the fact that physical beauty doesn't translate into [moral] virtue - people can certainly have an "involuntary response" to something they perceive as favorable. Health is favorable (to well adjusted people), and, for what it's worth, healthy is often seen as beautiful (and health can correlate to loving one's self, although...; I want to stress that health and beauty are not causally linked to virtuous self-love. Beautiful people can sometimes have a rotten core, and correlation does not equal causation - just to be clear). I'm not writing to "a lot of people in society", therefore I have to consider the perceived virtues of the audience of my possible readers. Hopefully the reader is not an image-obsessed worshiper of beauty as high virtue. Since I'm writing on an FDR forum, I'm going to take the liberty of assuming most people have a system of rational secular ethics, and that any readers already have a standard, and have a system of morals that they think about (one based on standards of truth, such as; empiricism, logic, and the scientific method of inquiry [not Plato's higher realm, nor Euthyphro's standard of "the Gods" as the standard for truth and moral excellence]). Once you have internally logically consistent ethics (e.g. negative moral law, universally preferable behavior, and objective standards) - where ever you go from there, and however you choose to conform to your ethics - is up to you. ​Within your framework of morals - you can excel however you want (whatever moral excellence means to you). Because my wording has been borrowed heavily, and because definitions help (and I just love etymology), I'll copy the common meaning of virtue: 1 a : conformity to a standard of right : morality b : a particular moral excellence Middle English vertu, virtu, from Anglo-French, from Latin virtut-, virtus strength, manliness, virtue, from vir man — more at virileFirst Known Use: 13th century Thus, virtue, as I define it in this context, means strength of conformity to moral excellence (which presupposes a standard of right). While there's a much larger discussion on; what is the nature of right and wrong; what standard should be used to determine what is right; how do you know what you know; etc. - I'd like to return to the question. But I had wanted to point out that the original question assumes that you already have developed a sense of virtue a priori to my asking "If love is an involuntary response to perceived virtue, then what does it mean to love yourself?" In my framework, I take empathy and curiosity as virtues - as integral to moral agency. To love myself means to show myself kind empathy, and to doggedly pursue self-knowledge with a child-like delight in my own curiosity. When I do something that I don't understand, I might ask myself, in a friendly tone, "Chris, wow! Ha - why did you respond that way?" and channel my inner child (for lack of a better word). ...And take pleasure in my own company, as I talk to myself. I'm stuck with this person, but I also am this person; I get to make choices about who I am (and, thus, who I get to live with inside my conscience/consciousness). Why do I consider empathy and curiosity to be virtues? As a general principle - knowledge is power. Knowledge grants novel choices. And choice is a prerequisite for moral agency. Without choice, there is no "good" choice. Knowledge increases one's population of conscious choices. And that - is powerful. (I love to amend the platitude, when speaking; "knowledge is power" - power to do what? -Power to make choices. Choices that weren't there before.) I cannot make an informed decision about myself without self-knowledge, so I can't make the right choices toward achieving happiness without, first, being curious about myself. Curiosity is the key. Without it, I would have no control over my own happiness. At best, I might randomly "luck into" happiness - but I'd have no control over it without self-knowledge. Honestly, I think this is delightful, and I laugh a little as I crystallize these insights onto the page and in my mind. I'm thoroughly enjoying my company. Hopefully this is also helpful for others who are struggling with loving themselves, as a side-effect of my enjoyment. Speaking of virtue, some of my morals came from the objectivist tradition, and I perceive rational self-interest as a good. One of the arguments for rational self-interest as a moral good, is that; "a rising tide lifts all ships." In other words, if I improve myself and my environment, then there is a secondary benefit to others around me. Helping myself to a hunk of my own happiness, might help someone understand how they can be happy with themselves. I benefit doubly as I help myself, and that ripples outward, then, possibly, reflects back from others helping themselves (who I might have helped as a side-effect). Ha! I don't mind public displays of affection (internal or external, couples or singles) - I enjoy seeing others happy. ... and this is where empathy comes in. That interesting ripple. That evolutionarily conserved structure that helps us connect. Here, have a video I like to watch: I like to feel good. I understand what that's like. I can get glimpses of what it's like (for others) to be happy. When they feel good - I feel good for them. Indeed - good for them! But happiness is only one emotion in the suite of human emotions, and it would be a critical failure not to be able to empathize with others who might be suffering. It is vitally important to be able to understand and solve problems, or to understand in order to get the full experience of the human condition (especially if a person desires to share their experiences with companions). Empathy is necessary for love... Understanding the emotional state of myself is necessary to love myself (or others, in order to love others). So... an involuntary response (such as my current smile and laughter) occurs in response to my perception of virtue within myself. A laugh and a grin accompanying my realizing things about myself and about the world, as I write this or go about my day. And, in order to see myself as virtuous, I need to make informed decisions about myself (things like eating right, sleeping, quiet reflection, taking care of my finances, testing and acknowledging what does and doesn't work for me, understanding what does or doesn't conform to my morals [having morals], and more). I try to make the best choice about who I am in the moment by having empathy for my past and future self. I know that if I abandon my preferences, and my universalized preferences of behavior (in the rational ethics sense of the phrase), then I will have to live with that in the future, and reconcile that with my past. For instance, when I do the dishes - I thank myself (or, rather, I say "you're welcome" to my future self, and, when I find a clean sink, I say "thank you, [past] Chris"). I care for myself out of love, like I would for any external love of mine - I've done dishes for past loves. I also enjoy making breakfast for people that I love, so as to fuel their excellence! *muhahahah!* I made a friend raspberry-mango Crêpe Suzette, with lemon-zest because he let me sleep on his couch when I had been feeling depressed the day before. I certainly can show my love to others - I figure; "why not show myself the same respect for virtue?" [written last night while these thoughts were fresh] Speaking of preferences; I prefer to be a morning person, and so - I need to get some sleep (or otherwise abandon that preference and soon deal with the consequences of being a guy that wakes up later or less rested) - so I'm going to end it here, somewhat abruptly. Hopefully you found this to be an interesting synthesis of thought, and that you found it, at all, useful. ...If it wasn't useful, or you think I could improve my writing (or outlook) somehow, then I would love criticism. If I've made a critical error, then I want to know what vital facts I've got wrong (this is my life we're talking about, and things which are important to me - I'd prefer not to live in error). Thoughtful criticism is always appreciated. Have a great day, and thanks for reading.

Imagine that you're a little boy, and that you have a father who's... a little off... and a mother who is physically and verbally abusive. In this thought experiment, imagine that your father is always outwardly happy, but his wife yells at him, and he hates his job, and he has financial problems, and is under a lot of pressure. He jokes, he kids around, he always has a mouth that smiles with distant eyes. Now you, as this little boy, have grown up in a household that speaks English. You speak English. Your mother's native tongue is violence, however; she uses spanking and yelling, and dragging and pushing - to communicate her desires. And she's a sadist. She happens to be a clean-freak with unrealistic standards of cleanliness and what a little boy's room should look like. She counts to ten, and if your room isn't clean, then she will take off her belt, hold you in her arms and on her lap, and she will beat you - on the ass... as you cry. As you cry your crotch is on her knee while her belt is on your ass. The shock waves vibrate through you, and through your erogenous zones. She will not negotiate and she will not use English, but she will use violence to make you comply with her demands. She will even spray you down with a garden hose in the shade, in the cold of the morning so that you don't track mud into her house. Now back to the father - the husband of this violent woman. He's henpecked. Schizo-affective. "Happy". He never beats his wife. It is exceedingly rare that he raises his voice (especially ever towards his wife)... and you can tell... deep down - he's bubbling with rage. You can see it in his eyes. You can see it in the creases of his face, and the flashes of expressions. His levator labii superiorises flex. You don't know what levator labii superiori are - you're a child; you don't even know what the word "scowl" means, let alone the name of the muscle which causes a man to scowl. You just know. You just know that he shouldn't be happy. And so you poke him. You're curious. You're a little boy, after all. Poke Poke And pretty soon - he snaps. He lets loose. He's 6'4" and you're less than half that, and an fourth as massive. You turn and cower, using your back and shoulders to protect you. He's massive, with forearms like a silverback gorilla. He's cut sheet metal for almost 20 years at this point and he's built like a house - built like the house that he built - the house you're being beaten in. You cry. You beg him to stop. You can feel the concussive force ripple through your lungs as he pounds on you. It doesn't hurt as much as you might have expected, but each strike leaves you sore and more sore. You heard him yelling, though the noises are muffled by your tiny arms which are protecting your head. And after a few seconds that felt like an eternity inside of a turtle's shell... Calm. He says something to the effect of, "I told you to stop poking me, hopefully next time you'll listen." in a voice that almost sounds sweet. He helps you up and tells you to go to your room in a tone that sounds like love. Guilty love. He feels bad. And after you cry your eyes out in your room... he nurtures you, gives you dinner. Your mother is even a bit more reserved, you think. She knows you were beaten. And in your childlike mind you make the connection that love is violent. This is the language that you speak - you've never truly known any other way. But you're a runt - the youngest child... you will be beaten until you get into puberty and start lifting weights and playing sports. But in the meantime, this is what parental love means. Your father NEVER showed anger, he never beat his wife... yet... he beats you on occasion. It's incredibly intimate. You are his release. He doesn't beat your sister, and he doesn't beat your older brother - he beats you, and you alone. His youngest child. They call it "discipline". You don't have words - you assume it is, in fact, discipline. You are incredibly disciplined and ascetic. You are boarder line OCD about your self "discipline". You mutilate yourself when you fail - this is what you were taught. This is what you know. You were already mutilated - you have no foreskin. You take to cutting your penis out of guilt. Why guilt? You have fantasies about teachers tying you down and raping you. And you practice thrusting against your bed - seeing how long you can last; giving yourself a goal of one hour - and you cannot climax a second earlier because, in the fantasy - love is also violent... but the only violence in fantasy is shame. Guilt. Love is guilty - just like your father taught you, when he nurtured you after a beating, and when you could see the relaxation in his face after a release of rage. Love is guilt. Love is sex. Sex is guilt. Sex is violent. Love is violent. When you want to be loved - you seek bondage and a mother to spank you and rub up against. When you want to express your love - you seek a woman to beat and then nurture... All sex is contemptuous. You try to climax to thoughts of gentleness - but the concept is foreign to you - something you see on television, maybe. Compassion is not part of your sexual identity - only part of the refractory period after a father (or mother) has their release... not part of sex or sexual fantasies. The more contempt - the stronger the climax... and the greater the shame is afterwards. You cannot even ejaculate and you feel crushing guilt for your sexuality. It only escalates with the travail of years. From the ages of 5 to 16 you're suicidal, and only late in your 15th year does anyone help you treat you mental illness. It takes another decade, the death of your best friend laying next to you, gargling blood, homelessness, more self mutilation, depression, sexual dysfunction, the death of your father, and numerous failed relationships before you can even to fully begin to unlearn the language of violence and the rage of over two decades worth of memories. ... After years of self mutilation and regrettable sex; after college; after the death of your father; you realize that violence is evil... fortunately, though, you never visited violence upon children, and you never raped, nor broke consent... It was philosophy - the philosophy of nonviolence - and the moral philosophy of another abused boy (who got out)... that finally sets you free. But the scars remain. And you cannot un-know what it is to speak your family's native tongue. Your mother is still alive. She is still a sadist, but now she is frail and a wolf in sheep's clothing... you must remind yourself that she beat children, and that there's a special place in a living-hell for her awaiting her and her growing infirmity. She was free to beat you and and she is free to reap the consequences of her violence. You cannot un-know what it was like to think that violence was connected to love. You can unlearn the behavior, but you cannot unlearn the mental scars or the sick arousal. ... This is what it takes to deal with these issues. I originally had to dissociate slightly. And I'm in the process of disassociating with my old sexual identity. I don't want to be a Dominant. I want to be a good man, as I choose to define it, and on my own terms. I don't want to have a slave or be a slave. I no longer want to tie people up and beat them or humiliate them. I simply want to start over, and build my sexuality up from the ground and the rubble.

I wanted to thank you for the suggestion. I'm not ready to make that kind of leap, yet. I need to practice a number of things first (also the language), and I need to gather more resources (or find a company that needs my skills, or investors). ... Long story sort - I listened to some useful podcasts, and agree that money in the government is in a "state of nature" (and it's better that I get the money, if it means I can add more freedom and anarchy to the world). I hate justifying it, but the less power available to the government by reclaiming some personal freedom there can be - the better. It would be foolish not to acknowledge the systems in place, ignore reality, and fail at increasing voluntarism. I really think that having an off-shore business someday (which makes biodiesel algae, and fish) might be useful for the freedom movement (if you want to call it that, although I prefer "anarcho-capitalism" - an energy business at sea, outside of national boarders, seems like something that would benefit people). ... It still feels dirty, but... I don't have many options, and I'm open to suggestions - I'll contract/subcontract (for the government) if it means I can survive and thrive. ... Again, Thank you Todofixthis. I just need something more immediate. Have a great day, -Christopher

So... I've been applying for government contracts and it makes me feel a bit dirty. Here's the story: About a year ago I started a business in the cheapest place I could find that was near to what I wanted to focus on. I'm a recent graduate with a degree in biochemistry with big plans and limited funds. For context, I got into biochemistry because I loved the field, I had always wanted to be a scientist and inventor, ever since I was a small child, and I had misguided aspirations to be an oncologist (shot for the moon, landed in the stars). I read Atlas Shrugged three years ago while visiting the Mojave Desert with my then girlfriend, and identified with Hank Rearden's character. Ever since, I wanted to parlay my knowledge into owning a mine/lab, kind of like Rearden (the idea of inventing materials in a lab that he, himself, owned resonated with me). I had an inspirational teacher who had worked as a metallurgist and thought it was awe-inspiring the way he described the fires and the molten metals (tossing paper bags of trace metals into a melt and watching it explode, for instance). I did some research and I found that there was an intersection between biochemistry and mining, so I did my senior thesis on the topic of thorium microbial mining and bioremediation. The only rare earth metal mine in the united stated Americans is here in the Mojave, so I decided to make the move, and solicit them for my services, but that hasn't panned out (though it's not completely out of the question, I think I just need to try harder and knock on the right doors, still, but my optimism, on that front, is low). That brings me to the present - I've been wasting, and tooling, away in my workshop in the desert for far too long, and recently I was at the Bureau of Land Management and stumbled upon some remediation opportunities... There's a lot of arsenic that needs to be cleaned up from mine tailings, and I have some expertise in how to "clean" hazardous materials. Arsenic seems like it's pretty easy to clean up, knowing what I know about remediation techniques... and maybe I can make gallium arsenide products, like solar panels and transistors with the collected arsenic, and put it to some good use, not just sequester it... I was at the BLM because I wanted to do some claim-staking and try out some microbial mining techniques, and pan for gold to make some money to support myself (but gold prospecting is difficult and unstable work, and the microbial mining techniques are experimental [except for the tried and true Thiobacillus ferrooxidans {check out the Escondida Mine wikipedia page for some microbial mining starting points if you're interested in the topic, it produces 9.5% of the world's copper, and runs the world's largest bioreactor of Thiobacillus ferrooxidans} and other industry standards... but I wanted to try out a magnetotactic bacteria]). I know that Stef has said in the past that money in the government is in a state of nature (Podcast 99, Taking from the state), and I'm inclined to agree, and echo Ayn Rand; do not let yourself be twice robbed. I also think it's cool that he was a gold prospector in his youth - that resonates with me a bit. ... The economy sucks, I'm trying to support myself and I'm already fairly poor... very poor actually, but not destitute, yet. I don't think I have many choices. I would love to begin mining full bore, but that requires a capital investment (and I'm still learning the mining laws, so that I don't land in jail, and as long as I'm and artisanal/casual miner I'm not required to follow nearly as many laws, but if I want to really work the land, then I'll need to pay-off the government first, and have some capital investments). I might be able to get a business loan, but I have a lower risk-tolerance, and am not convinced that I should go all-in with mining just yet (plus I might need a co-signer, which might mean relying on family, which I'm not eager to do - I would rather have more money down, than ask for familial help, or help from a friend). I feel that taking government contracts might be my best hope of thriving and building capital. On the plus side, I might end up bringing my bioremediation skills to some ecological problems under the management of the BLM, or do some other contracts. On the down side, the government gets my labor and taxes if I do that. I would prefer to work for a private firm, but if that's not an option, then my business and I have to find another way to survive somehow. (I'm dissociating my labor and myself, but, I am my business) I would like to make my way toward the exits: sea-stead an algae and fish farm and make biodiesels, but that takes some resources that I don't yet have. I've been buying second-hand lab equipment and I have the means to engineer some algae strains, but that would bankrupt me with the resources I have currently, and I wouldn't have the means to implement my plans without additional liquid assets. I could roll the dice on gold prospecting. I could make a mad-dash for the ocean (and probably not succeed and be broke or in debt). Or I could take government contracts. I've also been applying for jobs (and casting a wide net), but that has yet to pay off. ... Weighing my options, I think working for the government might be my best chance at "purchasing my freedom"... I would rather not give them my labor, but it could lead to some real good. And they pay pretty well... It is a temptation to take the money (and run soon after fulfilling my obligations/taking contracts). Constructive criticism would be appreciated. If you want to know some of the things I'm applying for, then check out fbo.gov - it's kind of like a government contracts free-for-all. I feel dirty contracting to the government, but it is, perhaps, the price of freedom... It leaves me conflicted... But, I must make my way... And anyone in Southern California, Southern Nevada, or North Western Arizona that are good with mining and geology who wants to go gold hunting (who are physically fit and willing to bake in the desert heat [under a tarp for shade])... Let me know if you'd be interested in shoveling some placer deposits. I have a blower/vac (for dry washing), plenty of buckets, classifying screens, and miscellaneous equipment. Many hands make light work, though I can't guarantee you'll find gold (I'm looking at the Black Mountain Wilderness boundary on BLM land. I know there's tungsten, and abandoned gold mines in the area). ... Alternatively, if there are any rich sea-steaders who need a farmer of the biochemical sort, let me know (Craig Venter style - check him out if you've never heard of him). ... I think that if I play ball with the government for a little bit, then I can save up resources and get out of the state(s), and start doing some serious good, in an anarcho-capitalist way... Carbon neutral gasoline, fish farms, and ocean freedom, and perhaps a "farming" community... Ha! I'll work toward that... Hopefully I can make a life outside of the state ASAP. ... My logic/end game is that everything boils down to energy (food energy for humans, electrical energy, solar energy being converted into plant matter which becomes fuel energy, energy to manufacture things, energy to refine things, energy to automate things, energy to go on roller coaster rides and have a fun day at a theme park, energy to download podcasts from FDR, etc., etc.). As far as physical abundance goes, I think energy is the key. Granted, human desire is massively important, but, having little control over human desires, energy harvesting is my best strategy (since I'm not as good at affecting human desire on a large scale as Stef, or others). Therefore, if I can work toward being an energy/resource mogul, then I'll have a good life. A rising tide lifts all ships - I bet I could help foster some nice freedom by getting rich and trading energy. If I can make some nice biodiesel fatty algae strains, and LFTRs (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uK367T7h6ZY), then maybe I can live free and abundantly and be a beacon for others. Go to international waters, work, earn resources, become free, rinse, repeat. Thoughts?

Sadly I live about 300 miles South, but I do intent to travel to Mono Lake (to collect arsenic resistant bacteria samples), and go gold-panning in the Sierras sometime. I don't know if/when my pen pal and I will make the trip, but I'll just put that possibility out there. If you're a climber, and willing to travel to Yosemite, then that's a plus. -Good luck finding people.

I was talking to user name darkskyabove. Do I feel the need to justify my position? No. Not anymore. If you, or anyone, wants to learn about genetics and the intersection of nature and nurture then they can do that. The nature vs. nurture argument is long standing, and the research into epigenetics is interesting... but admittedly it's not for everyone... so forget I mentioned it. Have a nice day.

"Lamarckian" - I was spelling phonetically and missing the "c"... uhg... I feel kind of dumb now... Ask me about lithotrophs - not epigenetics; metal-eating bacteria is my specialty.

Please see the long reply I made to the poster after you - I explained some things that pertain to your post. This is a technical note: Lamarkian evolution might be a more informal way that we biochemists refer to things like heritable methylation events... When we delineate Lamarkian evolution from Darwinian evolution, when we talk to each other, it is to emphasize the genetic from the epigenetic. Darwinian evolution is tantamount to saying something like "Mendelian genetics" instead of "permanent, heritable traits that persist until mutations occur"... I was taking too many liberties in explaining it. Sorry about that. In Biochemistry of Human Disease (BC 467 at Colorado State) we called heritable methylation events from teenage paternal smoking - which showed up in children that those teenagers fathered many years later, as evidence of Lamarkian evolution (as well as the more famous example of the WWII polish famines leading to the discovery of modern larmarkian evolution theory). Darwinian evolution theory refers to the observation that it is only through mutation (i.e. on the DNA level) that novel traits are inherited/created. ...This wasn't supposed to be so technical... I just was observing that this might be a case of Lamarkian evolution and epigenetics in abused girls precipitous of higher levels of autism. ... Phenotype does not equal genotype. ... Yes NIH funding drives research in the public sector (e.g. state colleges, government contracted research, etc.)... But on the plus side that means there is a whole lot of cheap lab equipment for me to buy (I got a lot of my own equipment from university surplus auctions)... so at least there's that... they made a bubble in biochem equipment after spending tons on research like sequencing the human genome, now I can buy stuff ridiculously cheaply - sadly because tax payers were taxed and college students paid high tuitions... but don't hate the player (me) hate the game (the government). ... also not enough "kids" my age want to start biotech companies, so... supply and demand. The market (me and everyone else) corrects itself and research gets done... but maybe not as efficiently as if the price mechanism were allowed to work. And, yes, it does divert bright minds from following their own research by funneling it through the government... but... at least I'm fighting it a little, while trying to make a quick buck.