I feel like I'm trapped in biological determinism

[StylesGrant]

In some ways I am a hard line determinism when it comes to arguments about hard biological science, neurobiology, behavior, and medical concerns. 

 

And yet I know, that this is a poor attitude. Really even those who fail worst at psychology, self knowledge, self ownership, and rationality would realize I have a bad attitude. I've fought against myself, and veered away from meat and potato self psychological analysis more than I'd care to admit. And in some sense I don't try, because I realize I have serious health issues that affect my brain. So I have a determined depression, reduction in faculty, memory loss, erratic behavior, etc, etc. 

 

But I do think free will plays in. I think if you have a lack of coherence, you know, grasping your teeth into the thick of an analysis of the psychology of the situation. That really evades me. You need coherence. 

 

I feel like I need to keep it neutral, as devoid as politics and economics as I can. I sort of perpetually conflate my depression and the consequences with economic failure, so I have tremendously little patience with hard handed cultural and behavioral arguments. In that regard I am a relativist. So that's convoluted. But so it is.

 

I was at one point better at this,. . .in the past when my health was right. So yes, I really need to change my thoughts to something more supportive. 

[Blackfish64]

I had a major breakthrough this week, realizing that I am broken and cannot be fixed.  What wonderful news.  I can now move on and be done with a lot of things in my life.  

 

In the past, I thought that I could not change due to some weakness or lack of willingness on my part.  Wrong.  I have simply been trying to fix something in me that is beyond repair.  

 

Whew!  What a relief!  I'm clamping off the gushing leak and can move on and do something else with that part of my time now.  

 

What's the matter with your health?  Do mean physical or mental health, or both? 

[dsayers]

In some ways I am a hard line determinism when it comes to arguments about hard biological science, neurobiology, behavior, and medical concerns. 

 

The problem with rejecting free will based on biological autonomic processes is that consciousness is an emergent property. Our hearts beat because that's all those cells can do. The way our upper brain cells work is so diverse, I think it defies the determinist explanation.

 

I had a major breakthrough this week, realizing that I am broken and cannot be fixed.  What wonderful news.  I can now move on and be done with a lot of things in my life.  

 

I don't know what you could be talking about here. How did you arrive at that conclusion? If you were able to identify that your methodology was faulty, would you discard this conclusion? Assuming you're referring to mental items, nuero-elasticity and epigentics suggests that your conclusion cannot be accurate. Given the way that you've shared that you are abusive towards your wife, I think it would be very dangerous to tell yourself that you cannot help it.

[Kevin Beal]

I have absolutely no idea what you are saying, what it has to do with determinism or what you hope to gain some clarity on. You are using terms that I'm familiar with, but not in the same way that I use them, and you contradict yourself saying you are a determinist who believes in free will, but wants to be neutral. Your grammar is confusing, too.

 

What is this illness affecting your brain?

[Blackfish64]

When you are a broken person and cannot be fixed, as I am, the only thing left to do is patch things up as best one can and move on from there, bearing the scars and making the most of it along the way.  Now, it may sound derogatory to some, but that is not so.  There are those things which I can see which the 'unbroken' cannot and vice-verse.  I learn from them and they learn from me.  I think of it as the deaf or blind man who's other senses become strengthened and heightened and make up for the loss, so that, in a sense, he has not lost at all.  Happy, whole, healthy people cannot see in the dark and are scared of it.  Many broken people live in the dark and know there is nothing to fear, laughing at the scared and the weak and the stupid.  Whole people laugh at the broken people who are afraid of trust and love and light.  It's like the ongoing battle between western medicine and eastern medicine.  Everyone sees it as one way or the other. A few smart ones see that both schools of thought have a great deal to offer. 

 

The contradictions are amazing.  The evil and meanness in the world rarely comes from broken people who are willing to work with their limitations, but from whole, happy, healthy, good people who think they can do no wrong.

[Kevin Beal]

When you are a broken person and cannot be fixed, as I am, the only thing left to do is patch things up as best one can and move on from there, bearing the scars and making the most of it along the way.  Now, it may sound derogatory to some, but that is not so.  There are those things which I can see which the 'unbroken' cannot and vice-verse.

One thing that I have learned is that people who regard themselves as unfixable tend to rationalize their destructive behavior. The temptation being that because I cannot be fixed, I am less responsible for that brokenness. A person who is in a wheelchair cannot be expected to walk up stairs, and neither can an emotionally broken person be expected to live with virtue and demand of themselves and others mutually beneficial relationships, do win-win negotiation, etc.

 

Something must take the place of a broken true self. That thing is neurosis. In the case of a person who avoids responsibility, this inevitably means resenting people who show them it is possible to live a life of virtue, and twisting the truth to fit their own agenda. And they desperately want other people to reinforce that narcissistic bubble reality for them, so they invite other people to accept their own faulty premises with the lure of "you don't have to feel responsible, either".

 

When people tell me that they are unfixable, what I see is an alien goo of neurosis growing and glowing on them, emanating a pathogen that I don't want to be infected with. A disease which appeals to people's avoidances is a radioactive contagion I wouldn't even wear a hazmat suit around.

 

I don't doubt that you are broken, but it is not a virtue of yours. It's a wound, not a superpower.

 

Please stop inviting people to regard themselves as unfixable and broken. It is a kindness to spread the burden of responsibility, because it is a burden which makes you stronger. Because it is real.

[dsayers]

@blackfish: Still don't know what you're saying, nor do I recognize any attempt to answer the questions I've asked.

 

When people lose a sense, yes their other senses become heightened both because resources are freed up that would've been dedicated to interpreting the now missing sense and as a biological workaround to aide in survival amid a missing sense. Similarly, people who are abused can normalize, internalize, repress, etc as a workaround. However, unlike losing a sense, this strategy isn't permanent. Habit might make it difficult to overcome, but science has indicated it's not permanent.

 

Since you won't be forthcoming with the details, I can't say for sure. But it seems to me like you're choosing to take the easy way out and rationalizing it. I'm not faulting you for that. I am encouraging you to be honest at least with yourself about it.

[Blackfish64]

One thing that I have learned is that people who regard themselves as unfixable tend to rationalize their destructive behavior. The temptation being that because I cannot be fixed, I am less responsible for that brokenness. A person who is in a wheelchair cannot be expected to walk up stairs, and neither can an emotionally broken person be expected to live with virtue and demand of themselves and others mutually beneficial relationships, do win-win negotiation, etc.

 

Something must take the place of a broken true self. That thing is neurosis. In the case of a person who avoids responsibility, this inevitably means resenting people who show them it is possible to live a life of virtue, and twisting the truth to fit their own agenda. And they desperately want other people to reinforce that narcissistic bubble reality for them, so they invite other people to accept their own faulty premises with the lure of "you don't have to feel responsible, either".

 

When people tell me that they are unfixable, what I see is an alien goo of neurosis growing and glowing on them, emanating a pathogen that I don't want to be infected with. A disease which appeals to people's avoidances is a radioactive contagion I wouldn't even wear a hazmat suit around.

 

I don't doubt that you are broken, but it is not a virtue of yours. It's a wound, not a superpower.

 

Please stop inviting people to regard themselves as unfixable and broken. It is a kindness to spread the burden of responsibility, because it is a burden which makes you stronger. Because it is real.

 

 

I am none of what you describe.  What you are saying is true for some people however. 

 

"Something must take place of a broken true self" is the undeniable truth and reality.  You are suggesting that one of the things that can replace it is neurosis.  You are also suggesting that whatever replaces it is not and can never be the true self, but something else, some artificial slapping together of parts of the true self to come up with some artificial workable, acceptable solution.  Again, I would agree with you.

 

I do not in fact mean to suggest that nothing can be done, to have others make way for me, or for others to come along and be ill with me.  Those are your words, not mine.  

 

I don't engage in any consciously destructive behavior, unless of course it is in self defense.  If a robber tries to rob me, I will be more than happy to pull his shoulder out of the socket.  I will not greet him with a hug.  On the other hand, if a child who loves me wants to give me a hug, I will not greet him by separating his limbs from his body.   

 

Everyone has the capacity for error and destruction.  Everyone has the capacity to fail.  The proper thing to do is to put all of these things in their proper context.  People who are broken cannot do these things.  That is why we call them broken.

 

If I were truly broken and beyond repair, I certainly wouldn't be here reflecting and looking for potential answers to my problems.  I simply would not know or care. 

 

To suggest that happy, healthy, unbroken people are beyond question and have all the answers is also ludicrous.  In fact sometimes they know nothing at all.  Sometimes they have no frame of reference.  Just as the truly broken, wrecked individual does not seek answers or therapy, nor do the healthy.  Why would they?  There's nothing wrong with them.  Most of them simply take their health and their happiness for granted and figure that's the way life is.  Just as the broken think that a terrible life is just the way it is and take it for granted.  I think neither way.  I think that life just is.  And I happen to think that life is great, even though I am broken, and even though I can't really fix it, can't fix everything.  

 

The sad thing about a healthy person who takes his health and happiness for granted, has not the means nor the frame of reference nor the capacity to handle a tragedy when/if one strikes.  A broken person has had many tragedies, perhaps, and he goes into denial and lets those tragedies twist him and wreck him more, or he learns that tragedy can simply be a part of the life experience sometimes and it must be dealt with.  I've seen both the perfectly healthy and the broken fall apart at the slightest provocation.  I try to refrain from falling apart at any provocation.   

 

So, in a sense, I am pretty freakin' far from broken, and a lot better off than even a lot of healthy people who go to water over a hangnail.  In another sense, I can be a real mess at times, but even so, I don't take it out on others, I don't look to make others suffer for my misery.  I try to figure out what's going on with me, correct it, and move on.

 

There are also healthy people who exploit the broken people.  "Oh!  You poor dear, you're broken?  No problem!  I'm healthy and happy, so just come to my therapy sessions and get yourself fixed!  I'll show you how it's done!"  They fix nothing.  But that does not matter.  They still get paid, they would not say hello to you if they saw you in public with their circle of friends, and they hope you keep coming and writing out those checks.

 

It's the same for the martial arts instructors who know absolutely nothing about self-sefense/self-protection, but want and need for you to think they do.  It keeps their dojo going and keeps them in a BMW.  They tell you that you really can't know anything about self-protection until you've been in it for a few years.  And what if something should happen, say, I should get jumped out in the dark parking lot tonight on the way out of class, what advice would you have to give me on that very real possibility taking place, as it often does?  No answer.  Of course.  Because he has no answer.  It's not that he doesn't want to give it to you, it's that he just doesn't have it to give.  He's broken, too.  He's set himself up for failure.  And if you keep doing what he says, why, you'll fail, too, when/if the time comes.  All this nonsense and wasted time, when the real workable answer is actually simple and easy to obtain, and the goods are easy to acquire.

 

I once had a conversation with a man, a new friend, to whom I made the mistake of talking about my childhood.   I simply stated facts about what had happened to me.  He was disgusted, not with what had happened to me, but with me.  He would have none of it.  He stood up out of his chair and looked down at me, "You know, you people just make this shit up to get sympathy and to bully people into doing what you want.  You're a bully.  That's all you are.  You are incompetent and you can't compete with the rest of the world, so you try to drag eveyone else down into your garbage and bullshit, secretly hoping that everyone will slow down and make a path for you to get by easier than the rest of us.  That's all this is, bullying.  Well, I'm not going to stand for it and I'm not going to listen to it.  Good riddance."  While I don't agree with him, that's not in fact what I was trying to do with our time together, he does make a certain point.  Be careful who you talk to about this stuff.   

 

Then there are people who appear healthy and happy but aren't.  One of my favorite authors, Ayn Rand, was like this.  She died miserable, unhappy, unhealthy, never quite able to get it togeher in her personal life.  She could and would rationalize, philosophize, deny her way into and out of anything she desired.  Poor thing.  She spent a great deal of her adult life on drugs, denial, and smoking, utterly destroying her health.  She took on an affair with a man half her age and told her husband to sit down and shut up about it, which he did, then proceeded to drink himself to death in a closet.  While engaged in these personal and professional deceptions and denials, with her young partner in crime also engaged in his own personal deceptions, denials and recklessness, she loses him, denies it all, of course, and the rest is history.  

 

Yes, at least I am honest with myself.  As for the rest of the world, well, I do have my suspicions.  And they are well-founded.  This is not to say that there aren't truly good and wonderful people in the world, of course.  There are.  I know some of them and protect them fiercely.  They would do the same for me.  

 

As I said, I am rather happy and content to have finally learned that there are somethings I can't fix, can't have, can't do.  I have been wasting a lot of time trying to fix the unfixable.  I don't have to do it anymore.  I was beating a dead horse.  I can use that time and energy in doing something more productive and worth my precious while.                

[Kevin Beal]

FDR349 You Are Not Broken

http://media.freedomainradio.com/feed/FDR_349_You_Are_Not_Broken.mp3

[J. D. Stembal]

I am sad and confused.

 

I once had a conversation with a man, a new friend, to whom I made the mistake of talking about my childhood.   I simply stated facts about what had happened to me.  He was disgusted, not with what had happened to me, but with me.  He would have none of it.  He stood up out of his chair and looked down at me, "You know, you people just make this shit up to get sympathy and to bully people into doing what you want.  You're a bully.  That's all you are.  You are incompetent and you can't compete with the rest of the world, so you try to drag eveyone else down into your garbage and bullshit, secretly hoping that everyone will slow down and make a path for you to get by easier than the rest of us.  That's all this is, bullying.  Well, I'm not going to stand for it and I'm not going to listen to it.  Good riddance."  While I don't agree with him, that's not in fact what I was trying to do with our time together, he does make a certain point.  Be careful who you talk to about this stuff.       

 

Do you realize that this person was never your friend? The realization that you should be taking from this experience is to be careful who you consider a friend.

 

When you were telling this man about your childhood, did you crack jokes or laugh while doing it? Because, that is a form of passive-aggressive bullying.

[Blackfish64]

Listening to the "You Are Not Broken" podcast.  Thanks for the tip.

 

Yes, I realize he wasn't my friend.  But I also realize that he was one of the healthy people I mentioned above who has no frame of reference.  The idea that a parent could do terrible tings to a child, his own child, was just out of the question for him.  It was bullshit.  I must be lying, trying to set him up to put him in my pocket.  He never had anything like that in his life.  A lot of these therapists have no frame of reference, too.  They have been brought up in wealth and happiness, never suffered a day in their lives, and they think they have all the answers to the problems of the world.  It's just not so.  Stupid.  I can't trust people like these.

[Blackfish64]

FDR349 You Are Not Broken

http://media.freedomainradio.com/feed/FDR_349_You_Are_Not_Broken.mp3

 

 

I am liking this podcast for a lot of reasons.  One thought in particular that immediately comes to mind is of when I was around eight years old and Mom was pushing the whole Catholic thing down my throat.  I had no problem beliveing in god, and I did, but when it came to all that gibberish about Original Sin, religion, and etc., I jumped off the boat.  I handed the Bible Mom gave to me back to her and told her, "You know, if you were looking for a way to control a lot of people, this would be a good way to do it."  

 

Then I prayed to god, telling him that he could send me to hell, or whatever he wished, but I would never accept Original Sin in a million years.  I've never accepted this garbage.  

 

I didn't become a-theist until I was thirty three.  I became anti-theist a short while later.  

 

I came to the realization that nothing is wrong with me but thinking that something is wrong with me many years ago.  But it is a lot easier said than done.  I struggle with it sometimes.  When you have people around you who try to beat you back and tell you that you are wrong all the time, it bores the hell out of you eventually.  Then you have to fight your way back.  Welcome to the real world.  

 

This is what I mean when I say that I am broken.  Sometimes I can't help getting into situations that aren't good for me and it gets me down.  At work, for example, when you can't avoid some new asshole boss.  I try to reason with him, but he will have none of it.  Then I have to decide whether I wast to take him on, stand my ground, or go find a new job.  Or when you realize after many years that your wife is a narcissistic idiot, and I have to decide whether to walk away-or-based on the new knowledge of finding that she's an NPD, to tussle with the decision of staying with her and trying to work things out.  

 

Going through a lot of bullshit right now.  Broken.  Everything all messed up.  That's what I mean.  That's all it is.             

[StylesGrant]

Ok, lot of comments, lot to comment on, so. .

 

My grammar? I wrote hastily, fair enough. 

 

I actually like this kind of dialogue brought up a lot. It is the sort of thing that got me interested in Molyneux's videos initially. Historical analysis and psychology. Its tough though. . I got a crummy rating again. . .and that ties back into the subject. I hate evaluation, shame, criticism, etc 

 

I brought up the point about political and economic neutrality in the sense that I am trying to focus on rationally applying psychology to my character, my flaws, irresponsibility, incompetence, etc But its very easy to just apply hard line conservatism to people. The quote by the friend about 'you're a bully, you want an easy path at the expense of others, when I didn't get such' is a typical conservative approach. The other extreme is full moral relativism and full communism or bleeding heart liberalism, which I'm also trying to avoid. 

 

On one hand you have people who are vindictive from their own experiences and on the other those who want to totally deny responsibility. Personally I was raised by someone who was hyper vindictive, irresponsible, manipulative, critical, narcissistic, and prone to rationalize self-destructive behavior. I was raised in a very 'dirty south' environment. I'm not William Faulkner, but he's a good read. I like southern writers, because they are really good at pointing out how twisted the abusive nature and convolution of the southern conservative culture was.

 

There are certainly very deterministic aspects of reality that can be difficult to challenge, and yet I am for free will. It is confusing, as you say, because its a confusing thing to contend with and fight. I wake up, and I have to fight to believe in free will. But what exists in this life, are conditions within context and a moral agency or a sentient intention and reason to have character and choice. Often those conditions and context are quite unforgiving. Often people wont fight it. 

 

I don't think being broken is a super power either, but it is being different. It is reference in a world of many references. Cormac McCarthy has a line in The Councilor by a character who says 'that every man should make an economy for tragedy', in effect death is a part of life. Or it's also like Ivan Illich by Tolstoy. The character Ivan denies his own blindness to the suffering of others, his own unrighteousness, his own hypocrisy, his entire life- until it all goes to hell and he has to confront illness and death. I like to look at life as a constant life boat scenario. I want to know how people will act if they are confronted by extreme adversity. And yet it goes both ways.

 

I miss out on a great deal, because I don't have in effect, . . an economy for happiness. I just cannot even integrate or participate in building and retaining things built on love and solidarity. If you say some people deny that there are options for living a life of virtue or stability or goodness than that is certainly true. I am not one of them, but I will resist and argue as a partial relativist, skeptic, egoist, hedonist, cynic, and libertine that anyone has moral certainty on nuances in behavior, economy, and culture. I have dealt with those who say there are no ways to heal. I was raised by one. I raised in a culture full of them. The blue collar mentality can be quite toxic.

 

So let me explain my health. It's really simple at least at face value, and ruthlessly complicated to understand why. And that is mercury. Mercury has heavily affected my life. Not the insurance, not a car, not a stripper, but the damn poison. Its poison. I'm not going to get into the details of where the mercury came from, but it wasn't vaccines. I'm not going to get into the details on how I know its not something else. You'll have to accept the case of the argument in this situation, regardless if you disagree, at least for the sake of this topic. Its not Lyme's disease, but that's another great example. Most people who have Lyme's have mercury poisoning. Chicken Egg argument. And often Lyme's patients have personality defects of considerable nature, financial issues, etc. Those types are often burdens and wrecks who's illness defines them and creates a drag on other peoples lives who would of course readily tell them that they are incompetent, manipulative failures. Healthy people and American society in general are often quite brutal and stigmatic against the chronically ill, even though about a fourth of the country is chronically ill. Aids is certainly another good example.

 

Mercury affects epigenetics. It affects everything. It affects the mind the most. Nietzsche had mercury poisoning. His books are the mercurial personality at the ultimate expression. Its possible Rand had mercury poisoning. Al Capone had it. It affects judgment, behavior, morals, and especially creates a fatalistic, egoistic, disassociative, resigned sort of paradoxical tendency. It obviously does a great deal of physical harm to the rest of the body and metabolism. It obviously creates a fragmented forgetful mind, a chaotic one at that.

 

Can it be removed? Yes. Will the epigenetics change you to a different kind of person with a different personality? Yes. But it takes a long time. A really long time. At the least a year, two, to three and four. The removal process will make you seriously consider giving up.

 

I've been poisoned for so long, I don't even know who or what I am or would have been if I had ever had a chance for an economy of happiness. And I know that if I don't go through treatment, I will stay in a state that is, if not deterministic, heavily rigged to fail. Just like the people Molyneux seeks to council, if they do not change the underlying conditions, than the current predicament and series of decisions and actions will lead them to fail.  

 

What am I suppose to do in the in between? I am tired of saying 'I'm going to do this after I get better'. Its a faulty premise. And, to make matters worse, I can barely get a long with Molyneux because of his conservative angle. I am trying to strike a balance or moderation. I did respect his work at one point in large context. And in fact, I would probably agree with the first half of his database of things that I had sampled. Truth is, I've never listened to a large portion of his material. I've dabbled. And since the last 18 months or so, he has created a tremendous amount of material solely related to women and men's right's activism, which has attracted a bad crowd in my opinion. When I first listened to Molyneux, I did not realize just how conservative he is about women, poverty, markets, etc. It comes off as Calvinistic. Nietzsche himself said you can't dissolute the Christian morality from the Christian religion. . .you can't apply puritanism to libertarianism on scientific grounds. . only philosophical artifice. In science, we are just whorish monkeys- not something I relish or aspire to or necessarily defend, mind you. There's a very real reason most libertarians are religious and conservative. We're all largely influenced by Christianity whether we want to admit it or not. Now I am aware that libertarianism had an origin in secularism, deism, and liberal skepticism. I am aware that classical philosophy and classical liberalism and objectivism are indeed tied to secularism, but none the less, its a hybrid political phenomena. Those normative ethics took a long time to be crafted, and are quite tied to custom and religion. 

 

So to me, I feel put off by the moral certainty of the community, but I do need to focus on psychology and my behavior. I can't even defend Molyneux on a lot of things anymore in good conscience. The people who can't see a mid ground are a part of the problem as well. I am seriously hoping to find some libertarian/volyunteerist sources, that are quite similar to the discussion of religion, economics, psychology, childhood, parenting, essentially personal ethics and ethics in psychology outside Molyneux. So far, I've found School Sucks Project, and that's about it. If I have to choose between Miley Cyrus twerking on beetle juice and white trash mothers and honey boo boo and the full blown purposeful anti-feminism of those anti-social justice warrior sites who have desires for a 'strong masculine nation'. . .than I know the matter at hand is unethical. Its a pain too, it really is, because I am not with a woman, won't be, won't be having any children anytime soon, and it isn't relevant to my own personal behavioral concerns, whereas economics and self esteem and happiness and a desire for friendships are (Trust me, I have no friends). But with one mess comes another, and any community obsessed with shaming women is going to shame other people for other things, just like the religious crowd that I despise and avoid like bubonic plague. 

 

I have seen and known horrifically bad parents, and have little in the way of intention on having my own children or even pets. Of course I think they are immoral, terrible people. And yet, these people are always in a society full of moral shaming and sexism. From what I've seen, a lack of personal freedom for women is just as destructive as feminism and state socialism and other institutional hindrances. If I am dealing with people parroting Rush Limbaugh, than I know I am not going to be able to actively listen to any sort of critique on character that they have to give. As a whole, on a whole, I still think the modernity and liberalization and secularization of people has created a freer society. The shame, religion, self-repression, and stigmatic moral puritanism has been at the heart of all the disturbed people I have had the misfortune of being screwed over by. It created people who could not deal with moderation or subtlety or relative grey area or discretion nor rationally critique their own morality, but rather those that could only vacillate between irrational shame and rationalized self hatred. 

 

Its a very neoliberal notion to think that you might have to pay for the mistakes of someone's poor parenting or promiscuous tendencies, illness, poverty, or incompetence, citing its added cost to society, putting yourself on the cross as the tax payer or individual; yet, these people can't admit that that they're a part of an overall culture that systemically creates the conditions that drive peoples' failure to rationally assess their behavior. Health care is the perfect example. You shouldn't need to have universal health care that cost tax payers, because you shouldn't be sick, because you shouldn't have to pay for profiteering and manipulated and rigged crony markets protected by the state, you shouldn't have to have your health dictated to you insurance death panels, the prices shouldn't not be what they are, the denial of health care shouldn't be as it is, because the people have in so many cases been made sick by state crimes created by neoliberals who privatized the profit and socialized the cost of agriculture and nutrition, and so many countless markets, creating structural poverty, pollution, and lowering quality of life, strapping people into a state corporate puritanical culture, and then expecting you to want their drugs, which will make you even sicker and make you die sooner, whereby then the government will rob what they haven't from you yet, and to pay for it and calling a you welfare whore when you don't. 

[Kevin Beal]

I'm sorry about the mercury poisoning. I looked it up and it's worse than I remember. I wish you a speedy recovery.

 

And I get that you are put off by a lot of what you hear and see. But without reference to argument and evidence, we have no way of determining if it's the content which offends or the truth which offends your sensibilities.

 

Personally, I find rational and righteous moral certainty to be refreshing, liberating, wonderful. It's a state I strive to achieve (prematurely on occasion).

 

And I don't think it's true at all to say that Stef is conservative. He cites the work of liberals often, especially on matters of war. Liberals and conservatives both get things right some of the time, and it could be that one of the things conservatives get right is the effects of single motherhood and promiscuity and other gender issues you've seen Stef talk about.

 

It's not really a conservative or liberal moral issue if it's just the truth. That's a philosophical matter.

 

I was full blown communist prior to discovering libertarianism, Ron Paul and Stef. I would seriously have considered rioting at Fox News HQ, or Rush Limbaugh's place. Now I just care whether or not people are using rational methodologies for determining truth from falsehood, and sometimes that includes Rush.

[StylesGrant]

 

 

Something must take the place of a broken true self. That thing is neurosis. In the case of a person who avoids responsibility, this inevitably means resenting people who show them it is possible to live a life of virtue, and twisting the truth to fit their own agenda. And they desperately want other people to reinforce that narcissistic bubble reality for them, so they invite other people to accept their own faulty premises with the lure of "you don't have to feel responsible, either".

@Kevin Beal 

 

I misinterpreted this quote at first. But, I slept on it. I realize its a huge huge deal. I mean huge. Because if you think about it, that quote describes Nietzsche and a whole assortment of other famous neurotic people. And, it also describes much of the 'liberal' behavior that gets lambasted, but it also describes the pathological neurosis of war hawk conservatives. So it as you say ultimately about the methodological and evident conclusion of what is philosophical truth. 

 

I think there has to be at least an aspect of the subconscious that drives people to the truth. And I've barely dealt with the FDR community or stef's vids in the last year, but with some of the really poor judgment I've made since I feel this constant sense of dread that I walked away from basically ANY truth. I certainly stand by some of my hard assessments of the conservative anarchist concept, but I am realizing that I am in a quandary all aside. The thing is, that with mercury especially when you've had the complications I've had - mistreating and redistributing it around with more into the brain, which is all as bad as it sounds, you just about lose the ability to concentrate on large amounts of reading. Podcast and videos that involve call ins, forums, basically social interaction, sort of bypass all that and are a bit ADD proof.

 

I've been slamming away at all sorts of podcast every since I got sick about 3 and half years ago in college and its literally one of the only things that has developed me on a personal level - podcasts of various sorts of people. I mean I've just wrecked my life in so many other ways, but with that I've actually grown compared to people stuck in the 9 to 5 grind.

 

Stef kind of covers it all, offensive and otherwise, but more importantly, and this is where I am most apprehensive and doubtful- there are these forums which potentially, potentially very well may be the only place on the internet with people oriented towards personal psychology and behavior. I actually think that the time I've spent just debating politics in facebook forums has only pulled me deeper into avoidance of my issues and my own health.

 

It isn't that its ultimately wrong to debate politics or learn abstract economics, its just that in my situation I think that the slightest chance I am given to intellectualize and rationalize and apply politics or economics to a situation that really boils down to personal responsibility, will lead me to excuse making. And I mean this even in capitalistic terms. I can literally just bullshit about markets and history lessons all day just to avoid telling you why my personal relations are just utterly destroyed. I know the why, but not really the solutions beyond some sort of heavy change in character AND the mercury removal. . .I believe its possible, but its chicken and egg and bitter and slow. 

 

But I mean, here at least, this may be the only place outside of perhaps something like Addicts Anonymous or expensive therapy even comparable. I am suppose to use the mercury support group forum on yahoo and facebook and I don't. The people there said that it was crucial to stay in support, but that I was self sabotaging that. 

[StylesGrant]

For me, at least based on my understanding of anthropology, history, and science and not just ethics I come across more liberal about human sexuality than stef and obviously people outside the anarchist community. I feel like its a highly contextual argument. The truth may be that which does the least harm in this current environment and current culture, and that is certainly ultimately when children are involved the conservative stance. The area where I get fuzzy and heated with FDR is relationships not involving children. 

 

Obviously one of the things I have been fairly disproved on, are attempts to justify bad relationships or nonreciprocal ones. I gotten some pretty awful extremes tossed into the equation which has really bogged me down and slowed me ability to concentrate on this weak area in my life. I basically see the heavy onus on people to decide what's best for themselves in relationship behavior so long as it doesn't affect my immediate life. The argument for social purity or protecting the moral structure of society or reinforcing morals through shame. . .it is something that shuts the conversation down for me. But in reality, I can't really afford to let it get shut down. The thing is, that of course people are quite destructive in relations where there isn't due diligence and fairness and reciprocity. And ultimately if enough of society contains people who are that irresponsible and narcissistic and terrible at people skills it is going to affect the stability and wealth of society. 

 

But I feel like its very dangerous to paint with a broad brush, and so often social shame is just that. I would even argue, that over the last 5 years I have been tilting to the right on many things slowly. But I still know how brutal a christian shame driven culture can be, and haven't forgotten. Even other unreligious cultures are quite shame driven. Koreans. . .Kicking a kicked dog does not change the situation. 

 

And of course actually I do have a problem with a woman, but I feel like its mostly my own self destruction. And its a very gray area. I go to them, never the other way. Its just a hard stressed estranged friendship over a game and the internet basically. So there is no children, or sex, or money. . but its still bludgeoning my heart. But we were more sexually involved in the past. Its been like six months. Stef was part of the reason I stopped the majority of it and put it in its place. And now the person is actually in a much stabler situation with someone else, which is a huge improvement for her and her vices and issues. But this person begged me not to go completely. Its sort of like that scene in Good Will Hunting when Ben Affleck tells Matt Damon, that I hope I walk up to the door and your gone one day moved on with your life. I keep hoping she will tell me to go, put me in my place, just cut me off and disappear. Another women in the past did that, and my life got immensely better  for a couple years. Because I actually went and I buckled down and worked like a dog at my college degree and focused on improving myself.

 

But this person is making a point to be full of cordiality and politeness. But she has tremendous boundaries, I assure you. She wants a very impersonal, discreet relation. They can't handle stress or criticism or really even dinner conversations. She's a recovering addict as of the last year and a half, and still goes to AA meetings. When we met it started off as kind of this mutual understanding of the need for us to both get better and change our character. That's honestly what it was, and it was a real tear jerking process of getting to know the similar faults and history of abuse we shared. And part of the very reason she keeps me at a distance, is because of her intense fear of emotional destabilization and anything that could interfere with what the AA is pushing, essentially her taking her life into control and discipline. And that's kind of the whole point with FDR. It seems like the whole point is always 'abandon that person get away from that person' and 'take responsibility for your faults, self knowledge etc' but this person is trying hard to be nice to me when few other people ever have, to be there at least as a smile as a nonintrusive, nonjudgmental impartial upbeat bit of company. And I think about leaving a lot, because we go weeks without talking. But for once I'd like to hear stef or anarchist talk about how to actually save a friendship, assuming its worth saving. 

 

And I'm going to at least put in my terms why I don't agree with the reasoning that hard line traditionalist do. I can't live with an all or nothing attitude. I am not the alpha male or the beta male. There are just certain, or most things outside of platonic conditions that I do not want or need from this girl and I'm not going to give her things. I know she is beyond giving me emotional support and confidence. One of my huge points is that I have to look for all the things I can't have with this girl, in other people and places. I certainly need support and confidence and guidance from elsewhere. And there are a lot of other nuances in personality and intelligence that make me not want to get involved with her on a substantial level. But when we met the first five months or so, I honestly think she saved my life. I was so intensely cynical then, I thought friendship was impossible.

 

And again, if anything I think that's the flaw in conservatism, is that concept of total possession. Whereas, I think its about context and calling a spade a spade.

 

I mean, if I have a kid and a wife I am definitely not going to trust my wife spending tons of time with another guy, but you do have to have trust. In some sense shame does lead to coercion. Most modern men trust their wife around coworkers and etc. She has moral agency, and its on her basically. Whereas, Saudia Arabia has little moral agency, its hyper conservatism and jealousy and control over the woman. And I hate to tell you, but I've read some of the articles on these anti-social justice warrior sites, and its just brutal towards women who aren't in long term monogamous relations. I grew up in the South, THE SOUTH, old school. I've seen how the cops treat women and my mother, how men treated my mother growing up, how my own family treated her, they were certainly giving the Saudi's a run for their money. My mother was also a mercurial, drunk, guilty of many things, but not being a whore. She was with basically five men, in her entire life, and they were just the scum of the earth. They were all essentially socially conservative, and that didn't stop them from being scum.

 

Philosophy is culturally objectivism in many ways. Kind of one of the reasons I like Sam Harris so much for his consistency. But I guess the gender rights on both side of the aisle, just drove me a bit up the wall. My mother picked those men largely because she was raised Catholic, or in one case because she was rebelling against Catholicism. It was all the absence of secular ethics. The men were utterly culpable, they would have given an army of feminist a just cause. And it shouldn't be that way, of such extremes that lead to the justification of feminism and mra. My grandfather was married to my grandfather for over 40 years, and he was a hyper-abusive person. That's where a lot of the feminism comes from, old school terrible things. The root causes are obviously in both genders. 

 

So I know that's a bit of a meander, but my point is that I think the trend in liberalization means men and women are learning to be rational and secular enough to be able to be friends without ruining relationships and risking things, especially with women having so much more agency with birth control. Our evolutionary behavior involved brutalizing women out of paranoia because there was no birth control, so social customs had to be built on intense reactionary stances of absolute demands of chastity. I think that that intense absolute possessiveness is all that could work in an agrarian society, and largely today as well. But it was a lot different the vast history of our species. Well we obviously, can't go backwards. And as I've said, in this situation in these conditions, a more conservative approach to children and long term relations is needed. Especially because deep mental and emotional bonds are built on monogamy. But just such absolutism isn't ethically right or necessary. Obviously I don't agree with child support laws 100%, but I can tell you in the case of my brother his father just walked out and conservative anarchist have to make a case for me in a voluntary society where dead beat dads do not make promises they can't keep, which his did. It was a planned pregnancy. 

 

But I believe it is a liberalized modernized secularized society that allows men and women to be equals and to see each other as peers on a philosophical level, gender roles aside, on a level of empathy. And what I have for this girl that I mentioned is not totally hopeless beta male love, it is empathy about what we are and what we come from and towards her for being there when no one else was. I am close to just ending any attempt to talk to her. But it kills me that she is as friendly still, as I've said. I am not in a position to be ultra picky about friendships and acquaintances, and she's always reachable. It just seems, that with mercury, an easy excuse to cut someone out is always brewing, as it keeps you vindictive. If she's going to continue to be there, and to be civil, I want to try to keep a bridge of empathy and at least some connection. I've given her many a chance to tell me to go away, but I think she just wants the positive company. I've been a negative critical mean dude at times, and she didn't tell me to shove it.

 

She's forgiving in some instances. If there is any way I can hold onto a positive friendship with her, so long as she has that door open in a non manipulative sense, while I try to deal with these other issues and anarchism and personal psychology, than that's what I want. From my perspective, its easy to kill relationships, very easy, and I feel like the quote about living in your irresponsibility, hiding behind it and the truth that you can improve, is partly what I'm doing. There is a reason I have no one in my life, and it isn't the mercury its the behavior caused by the mercury and other negative factors, and that behavior is what is on display. This behavior is why I can't accept that there are rational reasons I cannot get people to reciprocate, reason, negotiate, or give me what I want as friends or anything else. I get stef. Some women are pretty bad. But if no women, and no friends, and no employers, and no family want to open up a line of communication and connection with you, it has to be you the individual.

[J. D. Stembal]

There is nothing rational about feminism. It is a movement designed to disrupt our pair bonding rituals at the expense of men.

 

The birth control pill allowed women to game the system and hold men subjugated by the uneasy threat of hypergamy. Why don't men have birth control pills yet in the 21st Century? It would totally disrupt the already disrupted balance in power between men and women on the sexual level.

 

Family law is one of the most lucrative and booming legal practices. It is not an accident that this has come to pass.

 

How do you get rid of dead beat dads in a voluntary society? Don't have children with them. It's that simple. (This is what the birth control is for, girls!) I have a sneaking suspicion that this concept of the dead beat dad is a man shaming tactic for those guys who feel like they were tricked by women who claimed to be on birth control, and refuse to pay child support by fleeing the state.

 

I've known a guy for years now that got his girlfriend pregnant at 20. He never talks about the mother of his son. I can't even remember her name, and I know I've asked him about her before. Every summer his son (now 14 or so) comes to visit with him. The details are a bit hazy now but when the mom got pregnant, she decided to drop out of school and move back in with her family (in another state). Obviously, if they were to have a shot at staying together as a family, he would have to move with her, which he wasn't willing to do while still in college.

 

It's going on 15 years and this guy is still paying child support for his son and supervising him for a couple months out of the year when school is out. No woman will settle down with him, and he has basically relegated himself to extreme serial dating with girls just out of college or in grad school. Every time something gets serious, the girl decides to break up with him.

 

The mother basically got a drop out of college free card and a legally guaranteed meal ticket for the next 18-20 years. What did the father get out of it? A son he barely sees, a steep monthly pussy tax, and no sane woman wants to stay with him.

[Blackfish64]

I was the proverbial deadbeat dad.  Stripped of my children, my money, my dignity, and just about everything else you can think of, then labeled as a deadbeat.  The money they extorted from me through the courts was never enough.  The women always ask for more, more, more.  It never ends.  

 

I fought it all at first.  I saw a couple of my friends fighting it, getting their asses handed to them by these lawyers (yes, their ex's lawyers -- and their own lawyers)... and then I realized, there is no way to beat these people.  There is no way to win.  They're out to get it all.  They're out to ruin men, to ruin anyone that gets in their way.  And they have the courts on their sides and can do whatever they want.  As an aside, happily that is beginning to change.  Men are winning all the time these days.  No longer will women get everything handed to them on a silver platter just because they were every bit as irresponsible as anyone else involved and squirted out an "illegitimate" child or two [italics theirs, not mine].  

 

I backed off and out 100%.  I paid what the courts ordered me to pay and nothing more and nothing less.  I no longer tried to take her to court and have them all sit there grinning at each other, laughing at me while I am pleading with the court to allow me more time with my own child.  

 

When she called and said, "Come on over and pick them up for the weekend, I have something I need to do."  As though it were some privilege she had decided to grant me, or some order she had decided to command me, or a crumb she decided to toss my way only for her being in a good mood for a change (of course she's pretending to be in a good mood-she wants something from me).

 

I just told her, "No, thanks.  Got other things to do.  Busy this weekend.  Got to work overtime to have enough money to pay my rent and my child support."

 

"You smart-ass son-of-a-bitch!  You'd better get your ass over here and pick up these kids, NOW!  Or I'll have you back in court next week!"

 

"Back in court?  For what?  You're already getting the maximum the law allows.  What's the court going to do for you?  Furthermore, if I come and get them, I would be breaking your precious court order.  That would be against the law.  That could get us both into big trouble." Said I, laughing, sarcastic. 

 

"Oh, fuck you!  I won't say anything.  I will let you take them and then you can take them to the shoe store this weekend and get them some new shoes.  Come and get them!"

 

"Let me?  You will let me take custody of my own children?  Let me buy them shoes?  I'm sorry, but that is a bit more than I am willing to tolerate.  I won't tolerate anyone talking to me like that.  Least of all you.  You need to learn to mind your manners.  You're not letting me do anything.  No, not at all, Darling.  You will stay exactly where you are this weekend and take good care of your self-imposed court order.  You will do as you have asked them to tell you to do.  As for me, it's poolside this weekend, checkin' out the babes after work. See you next weekend."

 

I know, it all sounds hard and mean a cruel to have to do that to yourself, to have to discipline yourself to say no to the sound of your own children, but that is how they use them against you. And when you don't do what these bitches like, you'll be guilted and shamed and wrecked for going against them, for going your own way.  Anyone who is independent and uncontrollable must be brought under complete control by any means necessary.  

 

You're going to be guilted and shamed anyway, and raped for all your worth, so you might as well make a new set of ground rules for yourself, no matter how much they hurt.

 

I turned a new twist on all of them.  Instead of fighting it, which is stupid because you can never ever win, I played it their way.  I did exactly what the court told me to do.  Nothing more, nothing less.  I asked for nothing.  I got nothing.   I fired my lawyer.  I saved all the money I would have paid him over the years and it went into an account for my children.  When they came of age, I gave them a pile of money to help them get started on their own life.  I played no mental games with them.  I said nothing bad about their mother in front of them.  They were welcome with me wherever I was, whatever I was doing.  If they wanted to go home, they were given a ride home.  If they wanted to spend this holiday with me or with their mother, it was their choice.  No questions asked.  

 

This all paid off in the long run.  Now that they are older and out on their own in life, they understand everything much better.  There are no hard feelings.  No one hates anyone.  

 

As for her, well, I recorded her a lot.  Now, that she's getting older, as we all do, she's got no friends and no one to turn to in her time of need or pleasure.  No one wants to be around her.  The children moved out and away as soon as they could.  I took all the nasty telephone and video recordings I had of her, of her attempted blackmailings, her threats, her nonsense, her bullshit, my police reports, and made copies and sent them all to her one day, after the court-ordered support had ended, and my youngest left her and moved to another state after his graduation from high school.  She was so embarassed and appalled that she never spoke to me again.  She had no idea. 

 

And that's just fine by me. 

 

She taught me everyting I needed to know about feminism in a nutshell.  It was a free education.  I used to be one of those guys who opened doors for ladies and always let them go first, and all that crap.  Now, I wouldn't give them the time of day even if they asked for it politely.  You want "equality", sisters?  You got it.

 

I know, it sounds like I have a chip on my shoulder.  Actually, I don't.  Far from it.  The wound is healed and the weight is lifted, thanks to me and my own efforts.  I paid attention, I learned, and I got the job done.  The pleasure is all mine.   

[StylesGrant]

 

 

How do you get rid of dead beat dads in a voluntary society? Don't have children with them. It's that simple. (This is what the birth control is for, girls!) I have a sneaking suspicion that this concept of the dead beat dad is a man shaming tactic for those guys who feel like they were tricked by women who claimed to be on birth control, and refuse to pay child support by fleeing the state.

 

I've known a guy for years now that got his girlfriend pregnant at 20. He never talks about the mother of his son. I can't even remember her name, and I know I've asked him about her before. Every summer his son (now 14 or so) comes to visit with him. The details are a bit hazy now but when the mom got pregnant, she decided to drop out of school and move back in with her family (in another state). Obviously, if they were to have a shot at staying together as a family, he would have to move with her, which he wasn't willing to do while still in college.

 

 

 

I was the proverbial deadbeat dad.  Stripped of my children, my money, my dignity, and just about everything else you can think of, then labeled as a deadbeat.  The money they extorted from me through the courts was never enough.  The women always ask for more, more, more.  It never ends.  

 

 

And  I suppose I've heard the worst of both sides of the debate. It is a dangerous world in a lot of ways. It's so discouraging and bleak. I just want to hear a success story. I just want to know its possible to be happy.

[Blackfish64]

And  I suppose I've heard the worst of both sides of the debate. It is a dangerous world in a lot of ways. It's so discouraging and bleak. I just want to hear a success story. I just want to know its possible to be happy.

 

 

The happiness is all up to you.  If you are looking for happiness outside of yourself, that is the reason you cannot find it.  Happiness is not a pursuit, rather happiness ensues.  You get it for going after what you want.  Initiative is life itself.  Take what you want and happiness will find you.   

 

There is nothing that can be done about the state of the world.  There is no good news to tell you.  There are no success stories to tell, save the one I just told you.  I didn't fight the system.  You cannot fight the system.  Try it and you will lose.  The only success you will find is by breaking off and going your own way.  The world will never be what you want it to be.  They will break the system to pieces eventually, and after this current system falls, the idiots and the idiots like them will follow along and build another one up just like it-and crash that one, too.  And so it goes, throughout the history of mankind.  That's really all there is to it.   

 

I won in my own way, I mastered the situation I was in by simply following their absolute nonsense to a perfect T.  It made my life easier.  There are always growing pains, of course, but eventually everyone got used it.  And we turned out extremely well, after all.

 

Life is a perfectly meaningless, useless pursuit.  You are creating your own meaning as you go along or you simply do not have any.  You can make whatever out of your life that you like.  Everyone else can do the same.      

 

Groups, collectives don't, cannot, think.  Only individuals can act and think.  Only you can act and think.  You can raise awareness and hope that others around you catch on to the fallacies all around them-but I wouldn't hang my hopes on it.  But, by all means, do it anyway.  It's so much better than what we've got.  So help spread the good news and the philosophy, of course.

 

Of course, you know better, I know better, we both know the world can be a better place, but the problem is that not everyone else knows it nor do they care.  You make the world better by making yourself right and better first, then by helping others do the same, one person at a time.  Nothing is more powerful than the individual.  One man with courage is a majority. 

 

The only good news is you getting what you want.  Go get what you want.

 

They can take all my money and property, and they will.  But there are some things they can never take from you. The only way they can get it is if you give it to them.  I give them nothing.  Absolutely nothing.