Muninn
"Dick Laurent is dead."
Burnt out, over the hill autistic IT nerd and longtime SSC lurker
User ID: 3219
Muninn
"Dick Laurent is dead."
1d ago
Haha, I didn't think about it that way but you're absolutely right!
Srlsy, tho, it's a pretty straightforward fantasy setting that has some development and big battle stuff and some stuff I think of as setting things right. At $5 a pop, I've enjoyed them more than enough, though my usual caveats of being a cheap date on Kindle still apply.
Muninn
"Dick Laurent is dead."
2d ago
*Imperial Wizard 5: Seeds of Corruption (Arcane Awakening) by J Parsons.
Muninn
"Dick Laurent is dead."
2d ago
I'd be somewhat interested in other men's experiences of this.
Since you're asking, my personal experience was that puberty was smooth in many, but not all areas. WRT my own sexual awakening specifically, yeah, it was pretty smooth on-ramp, and no, it never got to be a consuming fire, but it was a fire that (while abstract) wasn't quite as simple as taking deep breaths and focusing on something else, for me, either. More like I was really eager to find the one and live happily ever after, including lots of hot sex. In retrospect, I feel like I obviously bought into the Hollywood movie version of sex and love way too hard.
It has previously been argued that autism-spectrum conditions can be understood as resulting from a predictive-processing mechanism in which an inflexibly high weight is given to sensory-prediction errors that results in overfitting their predictive models to the world. Deficits in executive functioning, theory of mind, and central coherence are all argued to flow naturally from this core underlying mechanism.
Am I the only one reading this passage and thinking, "what the actual fuck?!" Because my understanding is that the defining neurological characteristic of autism is that the corpus callosum of autistic people does not primarily pass traffic directly back and forth between the brain hemispheres as it does in a typical person but rather it primarily passes sensory inputs to the brain. The autistic brain compensates for this somewhat like the internet, which is to say that it develops a significant amount additional neural connections that essentially travel around the hemispheres and facilitate communication between the left brain and the right brain. Taken together, between the much greater amount of sensory processing that an autistic brain does and the greater isolation of each brain hemisphere, the autistic person experiences reality in a profoundly different way than not just a typical brain, but another autistic brain as well! Thus, blaming the autistic brain's predictive-processing mechanisms and calling them the core underlying mechanism of autism reads to me like wet streets cause rain.
Muninn
"Dick Laurent is dead."
8d ago
I love that book! Still my favorite read of all time, and one I've been intending to re-read for, fuck, over a decade now. It was a remarkably profound book when I first read it, and significantly more so for its time. Like you, I didn't agree with every idea LeGuin entertained in the novel either, but between the extensive world-building and the evolution of the relationship between the main characters I quickly went from almost bouncing off of it the first time I read it due largely to said world-building at the beginning to completely enthralled.
Muninn
"Dick Laurent is dead."
9d ago
Death of the Ideal: Godclads Book 2 by OstensibleMammal. Still like Cyber Dreams overall, but by book 4 some of the plot devices were becoming repetitive and one of the major plot threads felt majorly "off" to me so I'm putting that series down for a while.
Muninn
"Dick Laurent is dead."
13d ago
Yeah, thanks, I was all, "how could anyone who is opinionated about which sorts of fancy espresso machines are good refuse to drink from an AeroPress?!" Then my brain kicked back in.
Muninn
"Dick Laurent is dead."
14d ago
Whaaa....? My head just exploded.
ETA: Is she possibly looking for some sort of frothed milk beverage with espresso in it? Because that's the only way I can make sense of those two sentences together.
Muninn
"Dick Laurent is dead."
14d ago
Desert Storm was a short war, but special bunker busters were developed and dropped in combat within a month.
I have it on Very Good Authority that the primary reason that this is so is because the DoD cut out all of the typical red tape involved in developing said munitions.
Muninn
"Dick Laurent is dead."
15d ago
Dan Carlin constantly quotes some historian talking about ancient texts, and it goes something like "We cannot believe ancient history, but we have no choice but to believe ancient history."
I know I'm dating myself here, but one of my history professors kicked off the semester by brandishing a Weekly World News and proclaiming it to be equivalent to about 95% of recorded history. Needless to say, I was greatly entertained that semester!
Muninn
"Dick Laurent is dead."
16d ago
I'd say that the TV series was limited by what was possible at the time, more than anything else. More specifically, I don't know how much better the source material could have been treated for a modestly budgeted SyFy series. I think that Netflix or Prime could potentially do a much better job with it these days but, of course, they'd be just as likely to screw it all up for Reasons if they tried, alas.
I'll be interested to hear what you think of the series if/when you return to it. FWIW, while I know that Butcher himself has said something to the effect that the first four books are completely skippable, it was the third book that set the hook for me as a reader. Where the first two felt to me like they were more mid-level urban fantasy fare that weren't necessarily too serious, shit got real in Grave Peril, and IMO it hasn't stopped since. While there are plenty of folks that have been upset by this twist or that turn in the overall series, I'm not one of them. There have been many deeply touching moments in the series for me, more than any other that I've yet read, and some of them are made that much better by being brought to fruition over the span of several or even many books. Even the seemingly-slightest rhetorical flourishes can be pregnant with foreshadowing, and I personally think that Butcher has just gotten better and better as a writer as he's cranked them out, with Ghost Story being my personal favorite.
Muninn
"Dick Laurent is dead."
16d ago
Fortune's Envoy (Cyber Dreams book 3) by Plum Parrot. I started the first one after finishing Daring and I'm still way into it!
I was just talking about WoT a few weeks back and while the series as a whole was kinda uneven for me (tl;dr I loved the first four and last three books, it's 5-12 5-11 that could be so-so) I still have to say it's an excellent series overall. I think @SubstantialFrivolity is dead on in observing that the wait for the next book was a significant factor in making the slog through the slower-paced books more difficult for me personally as well. More generally, with a story of such epic scope, there's almost bound to be some characters that you're eager to read more of, others that are irritating and/or frustrating, some plot threads that you find really satisfying, and other plot threads that are b-o-o-ring to the point of tears. But even with everything we fans have to complain about, it's still a hell of an epic tale at the end of the day. I'd encourage you to stick with it a bit longer (although certainly pull the ripcord if it's not grabbed you by the end of the first book at the latest) and see whether or not it picks up for you.
Muninn
"Dick Laurent is dead."
22d ago
I know a lot of people like The Culture series, would you advise me to persevere or try another book or just look elsewhere entirely?
If you're not feeling the overall vibe of Banks' work then I'd encourage you to go ahead and drop him from your list. Life's too short to read stuff that's only kinda appealing and all that. While Banks' novels, be they Culture novels or not, build different worlds and, to an extent, explore different ideas, they all tend to have the same sorts of edges to them, and if that's not engaging you, then you're really not missing anything by letting them go. FWIW, I've read quite a few of his books, and they're not bad by any objective stretch, but at the same time I have several more that I may not ever read because I've lost the desire to engage in his work myself. I'll probably read one in the not-too-distant future, perhaps just because of this comment, but still, there never seems to be a heart to any of his books that I've read.
Muninn
"Dick Laurent is dead."
23d ago
Daring (Pax Arcana Book 2), by Elliott James.
@Titanium Butterfly, City was quite thought-provoking! Not at all surprising coming from Simak, and I'm really glad that someone has dedicated themselves to getting his stuff published. I've probably read at least one book that was directly influenced by it--don't remember the exact name of it, maybe Manta's Gift, but it was by Timothy Zahn.
Muninn
"Dick Laurent is dead."
24d ago
I think we see this along broadly similar lines, and I would add that the reason I spot more often in men is simply because most of my knowledge comes from them. The only FTM gender dysphoria case I know of is firmly in the first category according to her therapist, and I trust that judgment. More broadly, there's a decent amount of teens that identify as trans and the overall "vibe" that I get from the therapeutic standpoint is that these teens are largely trying out gender (and sexual) identities that are subject to change, as teenagers do in general with their identity.
To dig into MTF a little more specifically, firstly I'm not seeing anything in your description of the MTFs that you know that shouts BPD to me either, and my expectation is that MTF plus BPD is no more than a significant minority. That significant minority is definitely a Thing in my book, though, and what makes them stick out like sore thumbs to me is the DRAMA. Mostly, this seems to present as the individual almost always reporting that relationship failures and poor interpersonal dynamics are because people can't accept the MTF identity of the individual. Said individual never questions the role of their own behavior and treatment of others. There's a particular incident that sticks out in my mind here where a MTF teenaged client's MTF parent hijacked the kid's session and spent it all ranting about their own struggles loudly enough that I could hear it from a room away. The self-centeredness, lack of empathy, and splitting seemed to me to be dripping from just about every sentence. The session was supposed to be about how to help your struggling kid, for crying out loud! Occasionally, the reason for the relationship failures, poor interpersonal dynamics, etc., is seen by the MTF individual as more generally due to envy, jealousy, and other negative emotions that others have, as in, "I'm the hottest of the hot girls and they're just jealous and out to get me!" Either way, it's classic cluster B and to me matches BPD behavior in particular.
If you've got more thoughts, I'm more than happy to continue the conversation too. I think I've mentioned before that my wife is a therapist and some of this is based upon her experience. She is an idealist and is all about the needs of her clients, but even she privately confides in me that she worries about the social contagion aspect herself and cannot speak with this even with her cohort of fellow therapists.
Muninn
"Dick Laurent is dead."
25d ago
I was deliberately vague because my answer has CW implications but I suppose putting it in spoiler tags is a decent compromise:
Muninn
"Dick Laurent is dead."
25d ago
Three word rejoinder: sunk cost fallacy.
Words fail to convey how deeply black-pilling this particular subject has been for me. Not only is cutting entitlements generally unpopular in the abstract, cutting SS specifically would, I think, be generally seen as a massive breach of the American social contract, given that it is commonly represented not as an entitlement but as a retirement fund for the elderly. I've spoken with a lot of people over my decades about the inevitability of Social Security's demise, and even run into a few that understand that it's always been a massive Ponzi scheme, but the vast majority of them have a level of emotional investment in getting their fair share of SS that precludes any productive dialogue or planning to avoid the inevitable shortfalls. The common refrain that I've heard when talking to people is that the FICA taxes they've paid are, "their money," making me a pedantic asshole if I point out that no, what you've paid is a tax and what you'll receive if you live to retirement age is an entitlement, and moreover, there have been several Supreme Court cases that reaffirm the actual underlying legal reality of SS. I have actually heard the, "it's my money," refrain even from the very person (whom I admire greatly) that introduced me to ancap philosophy and is generally anti-government!
So while I'd agree that what you're proposing isn't unreasonable, I don't think that reason has a thing to do with it.
Muninn
"Dick Laurent is dead."
25d ago
The borderline between neurosis and psychosis is the one that I learned and I personally think it's a better fit overall, though "borderline functioning" does fit a lot of BPDs as well. Thinking about it a little more, most of the higher functioning BPDs that I know of have/had some outside support that contributed to their stability, though the drama in their lives was also more manageable and lower stakes as well. Either way, I suspect there are always the go-to delusions that are close at hand, and that level of functioning probably correlates pretty closely to the BPD's level of investment/preoccupation with their personal delusions. Similarly, IME the higher functioning BPDs seem to have more of a core personality, although even in the higher-functioning BPDs that I've known, I have seen them take radical departures from their default personas, which can be pretty wild when a middle-aged person comes off like a teenager that started hanging out with a different crowd!
As for attachment dynamics, that makes a lot of sense, although I would also say that basic gender and hormonal differences play a large part there; I flirted with Behavioralism as a teenager (as one does) but time, newer research, and personal experience have all led me to firmly disbelieve that humans are little blank slates at birth. Sorry, Skinner! And yeah, I also think that there is a significant subset of men that are BPD and misdiagnosed for various reasons, one of which seems blindingly obvious to me, but only on the BPD side. APDs, almost all male, for sure.
Muninn
"Dick Laurent is dead."
26d ago
So it potentially helps Elon to some extent, to make a more dramatic break from Trump with big WWF promos cut from both of them. It depends on how the media plays it, but this could be the same kind of whiplash that erases a fair amount of elon derangement among democrats and lets him slip out of washington with a bit more independent posture intact.
Hmm, this brings to mind the old chestnut about how Howard Hughes used to denounce all of his former executives when they left his employ. If I remember the story correctly, this was a deliberate ploy on Hughes' part. Said employee would then sue Hughes for defamation and Hughes would settle, thereby giving his former employee a large sum of cash that was, thanks to the court involvement, free of taxation.
Muninn
"Dick Laurent is dead."
26d ago
Again, I agree on all counts! I actually didn't know that borderline referred to borderline psychosis either, in fact. Initially, I took it to mean that BPD meant that the individual didn't have much of a personality of their own and adapted the personality of their friends a la Single White Female because that was my sister's behavior. And not only do I agree that there's waaaaaaaaaaay too much equivalence between mood swings and bipolar in general, I'd also add that I've heard people at work say that they deliberately diagnosed a BPD client with bipolar to get them access to services that they would otherwise be ineligible to receive because personality disorder.
On the final front, I can't help but wonder if the environmental chaos that surrounds the BPD individual plus the individual genetics just make it that much easier for BPD to emerge from the witches' brew of the home. I know, for instance, that my mother would often go back to her ur-trauma of losing her father at a tender young age, compounded by her mother quickly marrying another man to re-make the family, and I do ultimately believe that there's a lot of truth there in her specific case. Likewise, when my sister and I were young (she would have been 4), mom was in a serious car accident and almost died, so that or perhaps going through with a planned move to another state on the heels of that could have done it for her. Regardless, I can only speculate.
Yeah, I completely agree, although I think that the "borderline" aspect of BPD conveys important information, namely that the sufferer's emotional distortions can be indistinguishable from psychosis.
And on the genetic front in particular, the evidence from my n=1 family is damn sobering. Maternal grandmother? Check. Maternal aunt that share's my mother's father? Also check. Sister? Check? Her first daughter? Also check. That's 66% of the daughters from mom's immediate family, with the non-BPD aunt having a different father, and 50% of my sister's daughters, with the younger one also having a different father. And none of the men in my immediate family have fathered a daughter.
Muninn
"Dick Laurent is dead."
26d ago
heard legends of people doing stuff like playing bloody knuckles or sack tap, but never have known anyone personally who did that.
IDK if it's age, or peer group, or what, but inflicting pain on each other for teh lulz was a definite part of my childhood and adolescent experience. Bloody knuckles, hot hands, "Indian" burns, and the like were all a part of my experience as a child. And by the time I was a Senior in HS, I had friends that would literally sneak up behind another unsuspecting friend, reach between the legs of the target, grab the target's scrotum and yank it backwards while pushing the target forward and down with their other hand, and then laugh like hell at the results. No one was safe! For bonus points, one of these friends managed to pull of a newly-invented variant of this on me at work just as the CEO walked in, which was funny to me both then and now.
Muninn
"Dick Laurent is dead."
26d ago
But I also can't help but feel a real sadness in my heart for people whose internal life is so utterly dichotomous and disintegrated that anything resembling this appears like appropriate behavior for them. I can't imagine the internal anguish this must reflect. That's really what distinguishes BPD from APD: psychopaths will hurt and manipulate you to get what they want from you, and feel nothing, while borderlines will hurt and manipulate you as a part of hurting and manipulating themselves, and feel everything.
It doesn't make their behavior and the damage they do any more justifiable, but I just imagine borderlines as bundles of suffering so radiant in their suffering that the rest of the world gets sucked into their black hole of anguish, a kind of anti-divinity. It's no wonder people are so attracted to what is essentially a dark god! The pervasive feeling of being around a borderline is much like being around a prophet -- everything is extreme, the world is transcendent, and wrong is evil. If you are appreciated by them, you're given a rare gift, a precious pearl of great price. (This is the male equivalent to the "I can fix the abusive husband" meme.)
Yeah, I have to agree with the general sentiment that you have the essence of BPD there. My own mental shorthand has been that BPD really epitomizes the proverbial lead role in a cage, but I really like the way you've described it! I'm convinced that my mother is high-functioning BPD and radiant suffering has been my mother's MO for as long as I can remember. And the pearl of great price... also yes. Jeff Foxworthy's old quip, "when mom ain't happy, ain't nobody happy," hit home for my entire family and on the other side, when mom was pleased with us and willing to show it, it was sunshine. The distortions that I've internalized from my childhood are still so prevalent that I still struggle with them frequently. I mean, except for all of these crazy off-the-chain examples mom wasn't that bad! But when I really step back and think about that a little more deeply, I realize that it's really just that mom was usually able to escape or at least mitigate the consequences of her actions.
And FWIW, yeah, I've been drawn to a certain level of intensity in my own relationships as well. While I haven't been attracted to BPD women per se, I'm pretty sure all of my serious partners have had BPD mothers, up to and including my MIL.
Me too, and I even like to cook but during my last period of being apart from my wife, I maybe cooked for myself 40-50% of the time, tops. Other times I might have gotten preoccupied with
doomscrolling The Mottesomething or another or I might just not have had the time or bandwidth to actually cook. On those times I was either eating out or throwing frozen food in the Ninja to bake or air fry.More options
Context Copy link