Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
Disabled Alaskan Monarchist doomer
User ID: 2666
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
5hr ago
because I didn't get that in the original post.
Sure; I suppose it's just that I've posted here often enough about my situation — disabled, unemployable, living entirely off government handouts — that I took a certain familiarity with it for granted.
maybe you need to look at MMM or ERE to get help in how to navigate with poor income.
Not doable with Social Security's restrictions on savings: I'm not allowed to have total financial assets exceeding $2000.
What is your actual income level?
Not counting the rent subsidy or what Medicaid pays for my prescriptions, and just the money I (or rather, my representative payee) receive from the Federal and Alaskan governments? Approximately $1300/mo.
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
1d ago
Is there such a thing as "distributed emotional blackmail," and if so, is there an established term for it?
I mean, instead of Alice saying to Bob, "You need to do X for me; because think of how it'll hurt my feelings if you don't; you owe it to me," or something like that, Alice instead says "You need to do X for Carol; because think of how it'll hurt her feelings if you don't; you owe it to her."
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
1d ago
Since you are in for winters in a temperate/snowy place, why not suffer for 1 month (or 1 week minimum) in some sunny tropical place, just taking in the sun. No other goal, no need for tourism, no need to do something or achieve something. Complete free, unorganized, wandering. Pick a simple (cheap) B&B kind of place and go out all day - come back in night - sleep - repeat (go in to the markets, beach, anything).
I get that most people on the motte are upper-class enough not to really understand what "poor" means, but what part of "I'm dirt poor" is not getting through?
I can't afford any of this. After rent, utilities, and food, I have maybe $100 left for everything else. Soap and hygiene. Cleaning products. Foil/plastic wrap/etc. Toilet paper. Facial tissue. Laundry. Clothing. Transportation.
(And it looks like I'll be screwed by 2026, if not earlier, because when the rent subsidy goes? I'm homeless.)
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
3d ago
Regarding the future years, float with the current. You are not going to reach anywhere in the end
There is no fun. I enjoy nothing. My existence is suffering, whether I struggle or I "float with the current." My suffering will only end with my death. The only reason to keep living and not kill myself is if there's some purpose to be achieved in doing so.
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
3d ago
Okay, here’s the part you might not like. The only free version of this that I personally know of is church.
Yeah, people keep recommending that to me, despite my being a lifelong atheist who's never attended before. Though mostly from different reasons than what you seem to be pushing. Because I don't see the point of just sitting and neither listening to the sermons nor interacting with anyone.
You don’t want a megachurch
I don't think we have any big enough in Anchorage to fit that description
I would say you want to ID every church in a distance you think is achievable in winter time, then go check them all out.
I've kind of looked at them, and none seem like good fits.
Find one that has about 75-100 people in the pews
That sounds bigger than most of the churches around here, from what I've seen.
Bring an audiobook or something, put in an earbud
Isn't this both rude, and get in the way of the point of going, which is to meet and interact with new people? Because I don't see any point to just being around a bunch of people.
and just get used to being around a number of other people
You say that like I have a problem with "being around a number of other people."
If anyone says anything to you, just make the usual mouth noises
Having never attended a church, and being an unbeliever, I have no idea what those are.
Please don’t join a cult.
That rules out the closest church, because it's part of a Mexican cult. The "no whites allowed" Samoan church moved elsewhere. So that just leaves the black Baptist church that advertises local Democrat politicians, or the Lutheran church with the woman pastor whose LinkedIn page has the usual rainbow flags.
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
5d ago
It's about what the State is trying to encourage/discourage. Think about the example I gave; see if you can come up with an idea for what it is that they're trying to do.
Speak fucking plainly. No, I'm not going to guess "what it is that they were trying to do" (note the past tense). You tell me exactly what you think the early 21st Century American government (with no-fault divorce, and civil rights and anti-discrimination law for LGB) was "trying to encourage/discourage"; why it's legitimate for them to encourage/discourage; how not legalizing gay marriage both works toward the end goal of that encouragement/discouragement, and is a constitutionally and legally valid means (because in American constitutional law, the US government is limited in the means it may use to secure even good and valid ends, with a number of judicial "tests" and levels of restriction depending on the importance of the ends and the nature of the means) of doing so.
Your continued mix of obtuseness, vaguery, and missing-the-point in this thread have been so frustrating, they've got me defending a position and argument I don't even believe myself here. There's a reason the sorts of arguments you're vaguely-gesturing-toward-but-not-actually-making lost the fight.
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
5d ago
If I may ask, how is it that you are able to find these older posts you link to so readily? (Or, more specifically, that Reddit post? I've always found it a pain to search.)
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
5d ago
This does not make their arguments somehow more "valid" in a political context than people of faith.
According to much 1st Amendment jurisprudence, and the popular understanding thereof, it absolutely does.
If that were the case, we'd have a weird situation where everyone would be in a rush to prove how atheist they are while also borrowing heavily from moral theology. It's actually kind of comical to think about - "Look at how excellent my purely rational reasoning is. DON'T LOOK AT THE GOD SHAPED HOLE"
As I see it, this perfectly describes the post-Puritan offshoot that is Wokism the Ideology That Will Not Let Itself Be Named, and how it rose to prominence. America, as a predominantly-Protestant country, developed a legal tradition of treating "religion" as being defined first and foremost by one's beliefs about God(s) and the supernatural, and in the doctrines derived therefrom; and so developed "antibodies" against religious "establishment" along these lines. Thus, the first dogmatic, crusading faith to ditch all that, make all their metaphysical priors as implicit and unspoken as possible, (yes, even with the glaring "God-shaped hole") was able to to get it's moral doctrines established without tripping the metaphorical immune response (like a virus mutating to shed a critical antigen), and become our unofficial official religion.
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
5d ago
Marriage originated in a time when it was virtually impossible for medical science to tell ahead of time that someone was infertile.
Yes, but that just means that definition is obsolete — as science and medicine evolve, the law must evolve with them, no?
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
5d ago
This "if" is precisely what my example points out is not true. The entire premise of the argument is simply false.
Well then, if the line between who should be allowed to marry isn't about who can produce children, then what is it about? What is the difference that justifies, in purely secular, non-religious terms, treating gay couples differently than straight ones?
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
5d ago
reinforces the norm that you should marry someone of the opposite sex and encourages conformity to traditional morals
And the gay marriage proponents argue that the norm you posit is bad and discriminatory; that it is contrary to civil rights law, equality, and anti-discrimination; that it is nothing but anti-gay bigotry. They argue that the "traditional morals" you speak of outdated, and motivated purely by religious sentiment — which, again, makes it a violation of the 1st Amendment to enshrine into law. That, contra illiberal communist regimes, liberal Progressivism says we should erode these norms because what reason do you have that we should even want to "encourage conformity to traditional morals," if not some flavor of "because God says so"?
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
5d ago
Do you live in a rural, suburban, or urban area?
Depends on how you draw the line between suburban or urban. Because I live in Anchorage, which is the largest city in Alaska, but which is also rather geographically spread out compared to towns in the Lower 48, and thus, by the density-based definition used by the federal government, this entire city — save the very core of downtown and a few blocks in our poorest neighborhood — are considered "suburban." Though, my area has also seen rising crime for the past couple of decades. Apparently, the local Walmart — where I get my prescriptions filled and do most of my grocery shopping — has the worst loss rates from shoplifting. Not the worst in the city, or the worst in the state, the worst period. It's probably going to close soon (I understand our state government is currently in talks with Walmart to try to prevent this), which will make my life harder.
So, probably best to go with "urban."
Do you have reasonable capability to transport yourself around your area? I.E., rural = vehicle, suburban = bike, urban = public transpo or your two feet?
I have a yearly bus pass (takes most of my PFD), and I walk when I can (but much of the winter that's not really doable), or take a cab when I must. Plus, now that summer's over and he's not out of town working on the retirement home, I can sometimes get rides from my Dad.
Do you hang out with people? If yes, small, medium, or large groups?
Does having dinner with my parents and one of my two brothers (who lives with them) a couple of times a month count? How about being invited to see a movie by a friend a couple times a year (when he needs a break from the house and five kids)?
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
5d ago
Jesus, what is this, the sexual code for robots?
Seriously, though, I'd argue that it's just the inevitable conclusion of the "consent model of sexual ethics" (particularly in combination with the natural human instinct to protect women in particular), and of Western society's attitude on these issues for the last century or so. (People talk a lot about the "sexual revolution" of the 1960s, and forget the possibly bigger one in the 1920s.)
Personally, I hope Blue Tribe liberals keep embracing and promoting these norms as thoroughly and widely as they can.
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
5d ago
Look north - Canada
I got that; I just thought @ThisIsSin must be referring to some specific public figure there. Now that you point it out, I suppose he's saying that you could get away with making these arguments in Canada, and at least get Alberta voting for you, if not anywhere else.
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
5d ago
It's not just that he can afford takeout;
This year, I was working late
tells us he has a job, and
I told my wife
tells us he has a wife.
I've got several unfinished essays looking like they're about to turn into chapters of a book/manifesto laying out my views. With titles like "Society is Not a Van der Waals Gas" (on liberalism having faulty anthropology), "You are not Avalokiteśvara" (on concentric loyalties and telescopic philanthropy), and "Evolution is Not a Creation Myth" (on how most people who "believe in evolution" don't even understand it, treat it as something that doesn't apply to modern humans, have "Creationist-adjacent" views on central planning and "high modernism," and implicitly accept the Creationist position that telos inherently implies a conscious, telic "purpose-giver").
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
5d ago
As mentioned below, there are actually laws saying that some people couldn't marry unless they could show that they were infertile. Your entire frame of reference simply does not make sense, and you need a pretty significant perspective change.
It's not my perspective — as you'd note if you'd read the part I'd linked — it's just the most common counter-argument the pro-gay-marriage side presents.
Your entire frame of reference simply does not make sense
What doesn't make sense about it? If you are saying the line between who can marry and who cannot, which puts gay couples on the "cannot" side, is drawn on the grounds of who can produce children and who cannot — that you're barring gay couples because they're non-reproducing rather than because they're gay — then the line has to be drawn between (straight) couples who can reproduce and couples, straight or gay, who cannot.
People made the "privacy" argument you made here, back when the debate was live. The first answer was that age is just as legible to the government "in terms of intrusiveness to privacy" as sex, and yet we let 70-year-old straight couples get married, despite being just as clearly not about producing children as in the case of gay couples.
(My reply to this is my linked argument about teleology, and "inherent" versus "accidental" characteristics in regard to such teleological orientations.)
The other is the argument (a much better one, IMO) that differences in the intrusiveness to enforce a rule between groups do not justify enforcing the rule unequally. Just because it's easier to enforce a ban against gay couples marrying than it is against infertile straight couples without massive state intrusion does not, under modern anti-discrimination law, make it acceptable or non-discriminatory to enforce it in a discriminatory matter, let alone set down such discriminatory enforcement in the law itself. If the rule is "too intrusive to enforce" against a particular group, then it can't be enforced, or a rule, at all.
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
5d ago
This year, I was working late, and for various personal crisis reasons I didn't really want to do anything major, so I told my wife I wanted to get a little high and get a big takeout order of boneless wings and watch an old horror movie.
I can't begin to describe how bad this bit of humble-bragging on your part makes me feel.
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
5d ago
I was going to reply with all my various objections and nitpicks about these suggestions (like mentioning how I go for regular walks, or my landlords' noise rules, or our anti-panhandling laws), but why bother?
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
5d ago
get a pet, take care of the pet
I can't even afford to take care of myself, really. Over half my income goes to rent + utilities; food is about 75%-80% of what's left. I wash my underwear in my bathroom sink and hang it to dry to save on laundry costs.
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
5d ago
Take twenty minutes, sit somewhere without pressing distractions, and focus on the moment.
This sounds like meditation, which I've been informed is a very bad idea for schizophrenics like myself.
Push all of your worries and expectations out of your mind
I have no idea how.
and just take reality in. The physical sensations, the sights, the sounds, the internal experience of being you.
"The internal experience of being me" comes with a lot of angst, and the potential return of the hallucinations despite the meds that currently suppress them.
I think you will find existence itself, moment to moment, quite pleasant.
I haven't before.
I just want you to know that there's a very pleasant base-level reality that exists on a much deeper level than your goals and self-conceptions, and visiting it, even staying for a few months, is perfectly fine.
I think you're wrong. "Base-level reality" is horrible.
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
5d ago
Would you truly say, upon introspection, that you have literally zero joy every single day?
Take depression, add the anhedonia that is one of the "negative" symptoms of schizophrenia on top of that, and bundle it with being an utter failure at life.
You seem like a decent guy
That's not something I hear very often, particularly on an online forum where my political views are known.
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
5d ago
Charitably, the interviewer may have been thinking of the notion that some divine commandments as more law than morality - i.e. "arbitrary" rules that Christians must obey to show obedience to the Lord, but which a moral philosopher could not conclude ought to be forbidden from first principles if God had not specifically forbidden them.
Can I just say that I, as an atheist, have always found this view ridiculous? Particularly when Christians use it as a reason to react with confusion or hostility when I, an atheist, agree with them on an issue (such as, say, masturbation).
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
5d ago
I think that the division might be better described, not as 'religious' vs. 'secular' so much as 'metaphysical' vs. 'material'. Material assertions can be settled empirically¹, whereas metaphysical debates are often predicated on diverging axioms, and thus, if placed as support for state policy, tend to lead to bloodshed
Except that pretty much all of our "culture war" issues are more "metaphysical" than they are "material" — and are equally so on both sides.
The existence of "inalienable human rights" is not a material question. Unlike your radioactivity example, there's no Geiger counter for detecting the presence or absence of, say "the universal right to free speech."
While they may not be as explicit as in the case of the anti-gay-marriage side, the pro-gay-marriage side is just as grounded in metaphysical commitments. On the question of "is there a universal human right to free speech?" both the answers, "yes" and "no", are metaphysical commitments. And if no positions based on metaphysical commitment cannot be "placed as support for state policy," then the state must reject both answers — and what does that even look like?
It's impossible for any state to be truly neutral on metaphysical commitments; the attempt appears to mean that victory goes to whoever can keep there metaphysics as implicit and hidden as possible. And again, that means those whose metaphysics aren't explicitly grounded in theological beliefs (often, it seems to me, because they aren't grounded in anything) get to win over those who are. Which, again, equates to religious versus "secular."
The state is still picking sides on metaphysics, it's just picking the side that pretends not to have any.
If you know of any other secular arguments for the proposition that the state ought to distinguish between 'two men' and 'one man whose testicles have been disconnected and one woman who ran out of eggs ten years ago', I am willing to consider them.
I posted an argument, by toy analogy, a year ago here. The tl;dr is that "hat teleology can constitute a valid "joint" upon which reality may be "cleaved," particularly when it comes to law" even in an imperfect, entropic universe.
Thanks, that does sound better. (And it may come in handy with my new therapist in the future.)
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