MMX2010

So this will appear to be completely speculative and random, but it's actually a highly educated guess. Matt D., if the woman you're dating has regular ovulatory cycles, I'm betting that she becomes increasingly withdrawn and significantly less willing to have sex with you in the two days prior and two days after the day she ovulates. Am I right?

There are four points: (1) What a repetition compulsion is, how it perpetuates, how to break it, and how bad parenting causes it. (2) Why people love to complain about how horrible things are but fight hard enough to better themselves. (3) Why male self-censorship is ugly, and why women always know when you're going it. (4) Why introspection and journaling can have horrible downsides if done too much and too often. The key is the middle part: Doing Awesome is better than Feeling Horrible About Yourself is better than Doing The Mental Work of Change.

You shouldn't have to prove yourself to complete strangers, nor should you feel compelled to do so by Stefan's criticisms of women. Your husband loves you and your friends love you; that's all that really matters. I'm painting your post in a negative light for what it does not contain. NutriGirl points out that some of Stefan's podcasts make it very difficult for her to trust her emotions, particularly surrounding topics like "manipulation" and "money-grubbing tendencies". It doesn't take much brain power to deduce which of Stefan's podcasts are making her feel this way. They are the Estrogen Based Parasites show, the Wearing Make-Up Means You're Lying To Men rant, and the No Excuse For Female Evil rant. Does NurtiGirl deserve to experience the self-doubt that those podcasts trigger? Why or why not? Are Stefan's criticisms accurate or too excessive? And does Stefan bear responsibility for both the language he uses in his podcasts and the negative emotions they trigger in women? -------------------- Your post is being painted in a negative light, because you never empathized with NutriGirl by asking yourself the above questions. Look at your words here, "Hi Nutrigirl, thank you for sharing your experiences and concerns. What I personally find in therapy, is that things that used to bother me the most, the things I in my mind was defending against by saying "well thats not me at all," are the very things I have later came to recognize that I indeed have the capacity for. Im wondering if this might apply to you? As in you are not the type of a woman that Stef is talking about, but you have a capacity to be? The reason Im bringing this up is that by recognizing my capacity for abuse, I got o honestly work on it in therapy. In my therapist words "just because you have capacity for a bad behavior doesnt make you a bad person, it is only a part that you might want to address." Just a thought that came to my mind, I might be completely off here, by any means I am not saying that this is factual or that because A therefore B. There could be something different that is coming into play with you." Your words replace the very reasonable question, "Hey, NutriGirl, have you ever done the horrible behaviors that Stefan criticizes?" with the completely unreasonable question, "Hey, NutriGirl, do you have the capacity for doing the horrible behaviors that Stefan criticizes?" That you replace reasonable with unreasonable is why your posts are being portrayed in a negative light. That you prefer to keep NurtiGirl in a position of self-doubt and insecurity, rather than uplifting her out of it is why your posts are being portrayed in a negative light. You are not being taken out-of-context. You are not being strawmanned. You're being criticized for your post.

Complaining that I took you out of context is ironic, given that your post to NutriGirl doesn't address her problem at all. Her problem is that she has trouble trusting her feelings about her manipulative nature and her money-grubbing desires, because Stefan says completely ridiculous things like, "Wearing Make Up Means You're Lying To Men" and calls some women ridiculous names like "Estrogen Based Parasites". How do your experiences with therapy help her either address her self-doubts OR make Stefan's hyperbolic criticisms of women become more realistic?

If IQ is necessary but not sufficient to be interested in philosophical ideas, and if interest in philosophical ideas is necessary for virtuous behavior, then you, me and this entire community have a massive problem: the permanent imbalance in the ratio of the number of sufficiently high IQ men to the number of sufficiently high IQ women. Possible solutions include: (1) Stop asserting that IQ is correlated with (or causal to) virtuous behavior. (2) Accept that sex differences means that only men approach philosophy from a detached, impersonal perspective - (focusing on subjects like taxation, the state, anarchy, and so on). Then present philosophy to females in a female-centered way by focusing on subjects like her own childhood, everyone else's childhood, and peaceful parenting. Lo and behold, you'll have to interact with insufficiently high IQ women in order to introduce them to philosophy, rather than sitting around and waiting for Stefan's podcasts to become more popular. Shit testing is the core mechanism of hypergamy. Hypergamy is a woman's natural state of viewing the world. To combat shit testing is to combat hypergamy, and to combat hypergamy is to combat women's nature. To combat women's nature AND to leave women to discover philosophy without your help is to abandon women to the SJWs, cultural Marxists, feminists, entertainment industry, and unscrupulous-PUAs. MGTOW, therefore, is not a courageous stand for virtuous behavior, but rather an abandonment of women to the forces of darkness and moral corruption. It's a fantasy wherein you don't have to work to sufficiently understand women, but women will love you anyway. Not only does this support my argument against MGTOW, but it reframes what you called "manipulation" in a positive light. The McDonald's chick isn't naturally going to be interested in philosophy, so she needs someone to guide her into philosophy. And if a certain brand of flirtation can facilitate the introduction of philosophy, then it's better to flirt with her than to abandon her.

They evolve through their respective cultures. Evolution = Genetic Change + Environmental Change. It doesn't only mean Genetic Change.

If you were going to defend Slavik's post, you'd have to apply Slavik's logic to yourself. But if I applied Slavik's logic to you, I don't think you'd like it. Example #1 - Question, "Do you (or do you not) have the capacity to abuse a small child? How do you know either way?" I'm guessing you don't want to explore that topic, right? And if you don't, I don't blame you - because (as I said earlier) it doesn't matter whether you have the capacity to do a deed, it matters whether you have (or have not) done that deed. And for my money, as long as you're never in a position to do that nefarious deed, knowing whether or not you have the capacity to do that deed is insignificant. It would've been so much better for both NutriGirl and Slavik if Slavik had focused on the specific character traits NutriGirl was worried about (money grubbing and manipulation), rather than casually hinting that therapy has helped him discover certain capacities about himself.

Everyone who downvoted my comment above isn't married and has never been married. The most important thing about a married woman is her emotional state. When a wife is happy, the marriage is almost certainly happy. When she isn't, the marriage isn't. When Slavik says, "What I personally find in therapy, is that things that used to bother me the most, the things I in my mind was defending against by saying "well thats not me at all," are the very things I have later came to recognize that I indeed have the capacity for.", he's not focusing on the central question that's negatively influencing NutriGirl's mood, "Am I manipulative and money-grubbing as a woman?" By not focusing on the central question, he's not helping NutriGirl get to the bottom of that question. Worse, when he implies that therapy helped him realize that he "has the capacity" for certain negative behaviors, he's encouraging NutriGirl to focus on her "capacity" rather than on her actual behaviors. That Slavik cannot conduct himself in a way that helps NutriGirl is disappointing. That members of FDR downvote my criticism of him is also disappointing, but I wouldn't expect anything different from unmarried men who don't empathize with women.

Civilization is nothing more than preventing people from giving into their society-damaging desires.

It's interesting that you simultaneously know about the disparity in relative frequencies of high IQ men and high IQ women, and still espouse that IQ is necessary for being interested in philosophical ideas. If Stefan advises 1000 high IQ men to seek out and marry high IQ, virtuous women, he has automatically created a situation where a significant percentage of those men will fail through no fault of their own - meaning they will fail despite having followed Stefan's advise perfectly. Does Stefan's equating of high IQ with virtuous behavior, coupled with his encouragement to ostracize those who defend low-IQ women, actually cause great harm to his audience? Does a man's decision to go MGTOW after following Stefan's advice indicate that he was harmed by Stefan's advice? Does a high-IQ man's lack-of-romantic-success with low-IQ women stem from lack-of-empathy and inability to trigger her hypergamous desires? And is the question, "Should I attract a female with Virtue or Hypergamy?" a trap-question that's best answered as, "BOTH!"? The revolutionary idea that FDR attempts to bring to the world is that children are fully realized human beings, equally capable of moral thought and moral decision-making. The adult who tries to alter a child's natural moral drive to suit the culture's mandates is insane and morally corrupt. But the revolutionary idea that I attempt to bring to FDR is that low-IQ women are fully realized human beings, equally capable of moral thought and moral decision-making. The FDR member who tries to alter her natural moral drive to suit a one-size-fits-all perspective is lacking-in-empathy and deserves to fail with women. If you don't think women who shit test are virtuous, then you don't understand women's nature. If you don't understand women's nature, then you really want a Man With Boobs. Except you don't really want a Man With Boobs, you want a Frosty With Boobs. Did you notice how quickly and how strongly emotive Stefan was when he accused the high IQ chick of being "rude"? Did you notice how quickly and how strongly emotive Stefan was when he asserted that the McDonald's chick was "low-IQ", "desirous of dominance", and had "daddy issues"? Those rapid-fire assertions happen because he inserts his own experiences with his wife into every one of my flirting situations: "My wife wouldn't respond that way!", "My daughter wouldn't respond that way!" (Well, that's great Stefan, but not every woman is your wife and daughter, you know. And I thought you wanted us to spread philosophy to women-who-aren't-your-wife-and-daughter?) There's a crucial one-liner in an important article by The Last Psychiatrist, "Narcissus didn't love any one and so he fell in love with himself." Projecting your own best masculine qualities onto women, and then asserting that women would be more virtuous if they behaved that way, is a perfect example of not loving them and therefore falling in love with yourself. Stefan gets somewhat of a pass for this behavior because he's accomplished a lot and has a good marriage, but then he gets that pass removed because he's advising men to follow the same path despite the mathematical certainty that some men will fail through no fault of their own. You get no pass for that behavior because you haven't accomplished nearly as much as Stefan. It's amusing that you simultaneously agree that living with a virtuous man and learning to mimic his behaviors causes a woman to become more virtuous AND you lampoon my desire to flirt with low-IQ women.

And the relation between yourself and every serial killer ever caught is closer than the relation between human beings and bonobos. (See what I did there?) Sorry to be a sarcastic ass, but evolutionary studies must always be mitigated by considerations of the environment - NOT just limited to degrees of genetic relationship. Few, if any, humans live in the bonobo-environment. Few, if any, humans live in the ancestral tribal environment. Different environment = different adaptive sexual behaviors.

Finding out that you "have the capacity for something" isn't nearly the same thing as "finding out that you actually do that thing". Telling someone that they have the capacity for something isn't therapeutic and isn't helping them achieve self-knowledge.

You emotionally understand what's happening, but your interpretation is off, so your conclusion is harmful. J.D.'s workout program isn't an addiction, it's his way of taking his life ultra-seriously. I've never been an alcoholic, but I can emotionally understand the social isolation, the shameful withdrawal from encountering life's problems, and the inexorable sense that you're permanently damaged. So he's working out because he thinks he is shit, and wants to be far more worthy than shit. I commend him for that. But I don't recommend therapy because J.D. is already journaling and therapy will further strengthen his tendency to introspect, formulate a plan, and then act. That introspection prevents him from Reading The Girl in both dating and empathizing with his younger siblings. I'm not convinced, but I'm not saying your argument is wrong. It's well-spoken, but I don't agree with it. And I might change my mind in the future. If J.D. were to re-formulate his, "I'm shit because my parents were terrible to me!" Frame into an "I had a shitty childhood that still hurts today, but I can use that painful experience to uniquely minister to my younger siblings!" Frame, he'd develop a completely different plan of action. That plan, which will be both flawed and contain nuggets of wisdom, will "force" him to repeatedly engage with his younger siblings. Those repeated engagements will create empathy, the ability to read other people and give them what they want, which will lead to more real-world friendships. There is such a thing as too much introspection, and people who journal but have no friends are prone to the downsides of too much introspection: they dive into themselves too much and can't connect to other hurting people very well. I take J.D.'s avatar as both a joke and something very serious. It's a symbol of his commitment to bettering himself, but he'd be better served by realizing that he's already good enough to help his younger siblings...and then conducting himself accordingly. J.D., do you remember Read The Girl? If you cannot read a seven year old girl who is going through a similar childhood as you, then what girls can you read? Connecting with your younger sister should feel like Read The Girl on ultra-easy mode, but the benefits of doing so will be enormous. Stop thinking of yourself as worthless by proving your worth to her.

The bonobo environment only works for bonobos. Applying bonobo sexual behavior to human beings is silly. Applying Neolithic, hunter-gatherer sexual behavior to modern Americans is silly.

@Frosty - I've three crucial questions. (1) Are you asserting that high IQ is correlated with philosophical understanding, which is correlated with virtue? (2) Are you asserting that a virtuous woman doesn't shit test? (3) Are you asserting that, if a virtuous man married a frequently shit-testing woman AND if she became not nearly as shit-testy in the marriage due to his influence, then she'd become virtuous by default?

I get what you're saying, but you used big words rather than emotional words. And your facial expression (due to the sun, I think?) looks hostile and emotionally distant, like you're sneering.

Don't like the video very much. You used large words like "emotional bully", "not a good negotiator", and "can't be involved with this family because it's against my principles". Is your sister seven or seventy? I respect the decision to use the yard and beautiful weather as a backdrop, but that should've been your focus. Show how beautiful the weather is. Show how happy and peaceful the land is. Show yourself with friends, enjoying yourself. She didn't need a philosophically rigorous lecture. She needed hope, understanding, empathy, and encouragement - none of which can be found in a philosophical lecture that she wouldn't understand. I also know that you dove into your head to imagine what you were going to say, but that's the problem! Instead of Reading The Girl and empathizing with the girl, you read yourself, your own goals, and your "If I were a seven year old girl, what would I want to hear?" (But you're not, and have never been, a seven year old girl, so how would you know?) Worse, perhaps you didn't even ask yourself that question! If you didn't, wow. You were so heavily focused on your own needs and clearing your own conscience that you didn't even consider what she wants (and needs!) to hear. ------------------------------ I can easily say what you should've said. "Dear boy's name and girl's name. It's a beautiful day here where I live, and I've never been happier to be alive. But there's a sadness, too, because I think of you every day. Are you happy where you are? Are you sad? Do you think I don't miss you or don't care about you? I hope not, because I think of you both every day. I wish you could be happy the way I'm happy, and I wish you could be here with me. If you think I hate you, stop. I didn't leave because I hate you. And I didn't leave because of anything wrong that you did. I left because I needed to grow strong and be happy, just like you'll need to do someday. I can't see myself talking with mom and dad, because they're never really happy, are they? And it saddens me to know that you're living in that house. Know that I've never abandoned you, and that you can talk to me whenever you need to. This is my Skype address." Something like that, dude. Something empathetic and hopeful. And something focused on them, not you.

It's not a presumption. If you click on the members' list and scroll through about ten pages (ignoring the gender-neutral and non-gender-revealing names), you'll see that less than 10% of posters are identifiable as female. Furthermore, the NYC FDR Meet-Up Group has been in existence for over a year. And it had only one regularly-attending female member, and less than five "only showed up once or twice" members. This is out of over 80 people. So replace "presumption" with "excellent educated guess, based on limited-but-available evidence".

You don't have any positive obligations, but I always infer a person's skill-level, character, and empathy based on the positive obligations they refuse to take. There's a way to maximize contact between your younger siblings while minimizing the contact between your parents. There's a way to maximize that contact while maximally protecting yourself and maximally looking out for your siblings. But from the way you communicate, I get the impression that you're trying to maximally protect yourself by minimizing the contact you have between yourself and your siblings.

So "plenty" isn't even tied to a specific number of women on the board? Nor is it tied to a specific percentage of women either on the board or listening to Stefan's podcasts? If I choose to take you absolutely literally, your statement is true as long as two women are either posting on this board, or listening to FDR. Since that statement is so unhelpful, I don't choose to take you absolutely literally, which means I have to take you figuratively, which means you have to very concisely explain your figurative language. You're contradicting yourself. First you said, "What I mean by 'plenty' is that there are women participating on here to gain insight into the female perspective on various topics if needed." (To behave like this, women would indeed need to identify themselves as female.) But then you say, "my guess is that there is no point for women to advertise their "eggs". But there's no way you can provide objective evidence to support this speculation, because people are hiding their gender from you. Forgive me if I'm wrong, but I think you have very specific criticisms against certain things Stefan says that you believe are anti-female AND not based in any empirical reality. My advice is to call-in. Speculation that cannot possibly be supported with objective evidence isn't going to settle the issue. Nor is getting into arguments with men who've internalized and implemented specific elements of Stefan's advice that you perceive to be anti-female and non-empirical.

The overwhelming majority of transgendered individuals are not intersex.

When we discuss TLP's articles, you'll get to hear my thesis that all talk about "The Real Me" is Narcissistic and Confusing. The Real You will be who you present yourself as to your younger siblings, and that presentation will be constantly critiqued and maligned by your parents. If you think one video is the best you can do, then do it. But I'm warning you that one video won't be enough when your younger siblings are exposed to daily slandering of the video's intentions and meanings. You're basically expecting seven year olds to magically understand what's really going on, despite the fact that they're seven and despite the fact that you're severely limiting your communication with them. That expectation is irrational, and will not succeed.

You're welcome. TLP takes some time to get used to, because his writing style is very meandering. His oft-repeated inside joke is, "There's a word for that, but I don't know what it is." - (and the word is "narcissism" - since he writes about it all the time). The two most important articles (in my opinion) are "The Second Story of Echo and Narcissus" and "Amy Schumer Offers You A Look Inside Your Soul". Read him long enough and you'll see the degree with which people try to control other peoples' thoughts and perceptions. And if you find yourself doing such a thing, you'll realize that you can instantly free yourself from ever doing such a thing again. Instantaneous change is always possible.

Do you have access to the "Members List" portion of the forums? I do. And when I look up all of the new members (and ignore the gender-ambiguous names) for around seven pages, I'd estimate that less than 10% (or even less than 5%) of forum members are women. So when you speculate that "Plenty of women lurk on these forums.", what do you mean by "plenty" and what do you mean by "lurk"? (I suppose you could argue that tons of women do not register as members or register as non-gender-identifying names such as MacDav, noisy, unlimitself, It1961, far43, and Oniw17 - but that would make your assertion non-falsifiable by any form of physical evidence.) So I'm quite curious what you mean by "plenty" and "lurk"?

You have everything to gain by writing back. You have the emotional health and well-being of a seven-year old child. I've walled away my parents from my emotional landscape. We can talk about limited subjects, and I feel nothing. If they were to try and discuss the other forbidden topics (which is very unlikely, since they're cowardly), I can easily brush them off. This wall allows me to emotionally connect to my niece and (occasionally) discuss my childhood with my brother. So if I were to project my situation on to yours, I'd say, "First, you need a wall. Second, you need to read what the seven year old girl wants, and give it to her."