Wuzzums

Book recommendation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nature_via_Nurture:_Genes,_Experience,_%26_What_Makes_Us_Human

This sounds more like an attack on appearance in general rather than gender. Government does what government does...

Why not? If they're male yet have a female gender (or vice-versa) how can they possibly be suspicious when the photo ID matches their appearance?

Climate change is a fact, it happens several times over the course of a year since the Earth first came into being. What Stefan is referring to is the propaganda associated with it, i.e. the whole planet is changing and it's our fault and we have to fix it through climate change study grants. Come to think of it, this climate change snake oil shtick only mostly affects young people. They're too young to remember when "climate change" was called "the new ice age", then "the green house effect", then "global warming", then "global cooling" and now finally "climate change". The only progress which was made in the field is in regards to branding. I often find that cynical humor helps. For instance, you find sports dull and the other people don't. You could chime in your opinion about sports through a joke like "You've seen a match, you've seen them all, it's just different people winning". Or someone's hates some team, you could ask what color are their jerseys and then go "Yeah, I dislike green as much as you do, they should all die". Or they play some online video game and they talk about strategies and you could go "Oh, that game is easy, I figured out the winning strategy in a fraction of a second: not playing". This way you're making them aware of your perspective without them feeling like you're attacking them. And if they do have empathy, they will attempt to find some common ground with you.

Regarding the second video. It's so shameful how the patriarchy is treating women. They're caught in a deadly net of violence and rape mainly because the patriarchy knows that women simply cannot not: use an isolated ATM, leave drinks unattended, travel alone, engage in conversations with a stranger, smile at strangers, and so on... I personally cannot swim. That is why society needs to change and ban the access to large bodies of water. It's only fair. Regarding the whole "women doing x action alone" pattern, comedian Sean Lock nails it:

Honesty counts as progress, right? http://manservants.co/

Talk about subsidized public schooling and it has lowered the standards of education and teaching. I don't guarantee a passing grade, though.

There's no actual definition of alpha male or female. It's an erroneously used biology term that was once used to describe wolf packs. As to how people use the term in conversations, the alpha is the male (or female) that has most of the desired traits by the female population.

This reminds me of one of my favorite lines from Catch-22 which sums up the main character's motivation: "live forever or die in the attempt." I'm ok with eternal life if, like you said, it's voluntary and I also have the choice of opting out whenever I want. There's this great movie that deals with the very idea of immortality, how life everlasting can be achieved and how it might affect such a person on a psychological level. It's called The Man From Earth, and you can see the whole movie on youtube here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d86yxqCNZss

There's also the possibility that it's her friend that's doing all the manipulation. Knew a girl like this in college, with no will of her own and had a friend which on several occasions declared that a true friend supports your decisions no matter what even if they're bad. A lack of will however can be fixed through self knowledge.

Great analogy that I think deserves a share.

But compared to what? It's the benefits from accepting the truth vs. the benefits of conforming. For me the former has one every single time and I see nothing of worth in the people that go for the latter.

Speaking only for myself: Yes, yes I do know everything. But in all seriousness, the question can be boiled down to the basics: Can believing a lie benefit me more than believing the truth? No, it can't. In his scenario there is only one outcome. I don't know it's a lie. I value the lie of valuing the truth above all else (otherwise the demons will get me). Valuing truth will lead me to the truth that the demons don't exist. If I believe the lie then I won't believe in the demons, and if I don't believe the lie then I don't believe in the demons. Catch-22. Furthermore teaching the value of truth through religion is self-defeating. Religion is defined through faith, and faith is the absence of evidence. And an absence of evidence is tantamount to an absence of truth. Therefore Sam cannot logically teach truth through religion. Unless he's a hypocrite.

With the caveat that I'm not a parent, I would take both instances into account and put accent on why the fight began in the first place rather than who started what. I would find with the kids in either instance a way to resolve the conflict without the need of starting a fight.

Kickstarter is full of gaming projects to the point where the community will ignore anything that is not at least 70% complete. Check out this failed kickstarter project. A lot of effort was put in the scam and the makers could've gotten away with it too if it wasn't for their ridiculous funding request. This guy nails it: Another thing I noticed is that the projects that get funded are the projects that will be completed regardless. People usually ask for extra funding, not the whole funding necessary for the project to be completed in the first place. So my advice is to never rely on an uncertainty. Don't gamble everything on the kickstarter.

Speaking of Photoshop: Gym Photoshop

I read a lot of Stephen King, a couple of books by Clive Barker, Neil Gaiman, everything I could find by Kazuo Ishiguro, "Kafka On The Shore" by Haruki Murakami, "Price and Prejudice and Zombies" and "Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter", most by George Orwell except "Animal Farm", classics by Dickens and Poe and so on, the Harry Potter series, a bunch of short stories by Asimov, half of "Dune", and so on and so forth. My favorite book of all time is Catch-22. It's the book that gave me the "aha!" moment and made me realize what the world was and no amount of Orwell and Rand manage to stir me like Catch-22 did. The fact that I love some fiction novel does not imply I love all fiction novels. The fact that I find most fiction dull does not mean I find all fiction dull. Your second point is a strawman. I never once used the words "mainstream" or "commercial". I never said that all fiction is devoid of educational value. This is the last time I'll repeat my point: if some novels make you smarter it does not mean that all novels make you smarter. I think I understand where your opposition to me comes from. You compared Jimi Hendrix and One Direction based on enjoyment whereas I compared Twilight and [enter educational novel here] based on the quality of information inside. Dude, I never read the books, but I enjoyed the Twilight movies a whole lot. For me they fall under the "so bad it's good" purview. Why does something have to have educational value in order to be enjoyable? It can have both, sure, but that's not what we're talking about here. OP said he was not interested in reading and he could barely go through a fiction novel yet he could read educational books. I wanted to make the distinction between reading fiction and non-fiction and I said that I myself find fiction very hard to read too. If OP does not find reading fiction interesting then it might be the case that non-fiction is the way to go. I also wanted to point out that even if you don't read a novel in your whole life, you're not missing out on much (if any) information you can't find in non-fiction books.

Yes I can compare novels and tv shows together. Not all novels, but a lot of them are written in such a way as if they're describing a tv show which is why I feel they're wasting my time. And here I'm not even taking into account whether the story is good or bad. There are more proper formats out there for overly descriptive writers than the novel format. I disagree completely when you said novels have a ton of educational value. It's simply not true: Novels have a ton of educational value. Twilight is a novel. Twilight has a ton of educational value. You can learn a lot about empathy, interpersonal relationships, self knowledge, the nuances of different types of occupations, love, hate, joy, frustration, life, the world, society, etc. It's kind of like saying: Painting requires a lot of skill. is a painting required lots of skill The fact that the written format provides the best information out there that will make you smarter does not mean it's the written format that makes you smarter per se. It's the information. What phrases like "reading makes you smarter" do is to clump Ayn Rand and Stephanie Meyer together. Hopefully this is the first and only phrase ever written where those two names are in such close proximity to each other.

Is it all types of books you dislike? You mentioned you could go through history books so maybe it's not you that's lacking, it's the subject matter you choose to read. There's the possibility that the books you start are just plain dull. Speaking for myself I find fiction very hard to read. I usually can't stomach it. Whenever the writer uses the medium as a means to describe a visual image I immediately give up on it. They can just draw me a picture rather than waste my time through countless paragraphs. Non-fiction educational books are far more engaging and entertaining for me. These are the sort of books people refer to when they say "reading makes you smarter". Most novels are text based cheap tv-shows, and nobody became a genius by watching tv-shows. However there are books that merge the two together. The adult version of teaching a child lessons through hand-puppets. Among these types of books I count The Fountainhead, Catch-22, Candide, etc. These are novels I really like. You mentioned you planned on listening to Atlas Shrugged and I will advise you against it. Strictly on a novel basis, that book needs to be edited badly. It's comprised of the same story retold for about 4 or 5 times so if you give up on it, like I did, I wouldn't blame you. The Fountainhead doesn't suffer from that. Even if it was written prior, The Fountainhead seems to be the finished piece with Atlas Shrugged being just the initial 4-5 drafts.

I don't go outside that much.

Saying what was on your mind would have been a waste of energy, I believe. I don't think they would have even acknowledged you. Kinda like a computer when you write in a command it doesn't understand. It won't do anything, it will continue with what it was doing previous like nothing happened. And that's part of the horror.