domain:alexberenson.substack.com
ControlsFreak
1hr ago
Please just explain anything to do with Chesterton's fence. I don't understand, and I want to understand. Perhaps you can bring more information that I am missing about the period of time when this fence was erected, if it is information I am lacking.
SerialStateLineXer
1hr ago
1mg is a good dose, you cannot come off it ever btw, once you start.
Sure you can. You'll start losing hair again, but it's not like you become dependent on it.
ControlsFreak
1hr ago
After a nice sleep last night, I tried really interpreting my interlocutor's most-recent-at-the-time argument about Chesterton's fence, with as much charity as I could. I went on to produce what I thought was almost a quality contribution.
So let me ask you for some advice. I would like to be able to have a productive conversation with this person. I have tried to bring us back to productive conversations and put in effort on my side. What I've gotten in response is accusations of sophistry, that I don't know anything about anything relevant, and claims that if I even consider the questions asked, it will magically become clear to me. I suppose I will trust your read that those comments are actually me becoming more antagonistic, and I will have to review it in time to understand, but can you provide any advice for how I can bring such a conversation back into the realm of being productive? Or do I really just need to give up when this is the type of engagement I'm getting?
Crowstep
1hr ago
SerialStateLineXer
1hr ago
I've never failed a test before :(
Folamh3
1hr ago
But what would he sue them for? Fraud? What exactly is fraudulent about the scam?
You're correct that aspies, nerds or whatever tend to display more feminine traits. In terms of their interests, I would argue they're "hypermale" not just in terms of statistics but also in terms of their character. Men tend to be high-systematisers and interested in abstract systems, while women are more interested in interpersonal relationships. "Intensely interested in abstract systems but utterly lacking in social skills" is about as pithy a definition of "nerd" as you can get, whereas more typically "bro" males tend to be jacks-of-all-trades: they'll have a passing interest in abstract systems (e.g. have memorised Nomar Garciappara's on-base percentage or the acceleration on a '67 Ford Mustang), but without sacrificing the ability to "read the room" and charm people. Most of the stereotypically nerdy interests (systems-heavy video games, hard sci-fi, fantasy universes with elaborate magic systems, conlangs and extensive worldbuilding electrical engineering, tabletop gaming, computer programming, progressive/technical death metal, IDM, math rock) are about complex abstract systems first and human beings/interpersonal relationships a distant second, if at all. Even saying "nerds like video games" doesn't really sell the distinction I'm getting at: plenty of ordinary dudes will play a little Call of Duty to unwind in the evening, but it takes a certain kind of nerd to log thousands of hours in high-level grand strategy games from Paradox Interactive or learn the entire metagame for Starcraft II. The reason nerds don't have much of an interest in team sports isn't because they're more interested in traditionally feminine interests, but the same reason they don't like playing Call of Duty: they find these activities mechanically shallow and uninteresting from a systems perspective, and are usually not shy about expressing their contempt for the knuckle-dragging mouth-breathers who do derive enjoyment from these activities (the latter clause is "in character" and not what I personally believe, in case it wasn't obvious). Show me a nerdy dude or trans woman who's into knitting, astrology and murder podcasts, and then we can talk about how feminine their interests are.
I am once again asking you to have a little empathy for people you find disgusting
While trans issues are something of an obsession of mine, I usually steer clear of the whole AGP debate, partly because "Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people", and partly because some sense of compassion is indeed stopping me from piling on people who are having a hard enough time going through their life, but the charge of lack of empathy is valid.
Sorry, I just can't understand it, and not for lack of trying. Like you said, empathy for gay people is easy. Love, infatuation, and sexual attraction have largely been involuntary in my experience, so it's not hard to imagine that the target of these feelings ends up being another dude, through some twist of fate.
Dysphoria? Not seeing it. The idea of discomfort at being the wrong gender is alien to me. I'm quite comfortable in my male body, and if you put me in a woman's body tomorrow, I can't think of anything deeper to say about it than "it is what it is", and moving right along.
AGP? Sorry, but your attempts to explain it name it sound even weirder than just leaving it be as an unknown:
Let's say you develop an infatuation with a girl. You enjoy thinking about her. You want to spend time with her. Being near her is pleasant, and comforting, and a little exciting. You want her, just her, not instrumentally, not to do anything in particular, just her, for no reason and every reason. Holding her hand is electric. You just want be with her forever, to sweep her into your embrace, and damn it, why the f&!k are you getting a boner right now, you were having this pure and chaste and beautiful reverie and now you're thinking about sex.
So yeah, it's kinda like that.
Can't relate. That the feelings of infatuation and love end up intertwined with sexual desire is quite expected. Indeed, I'd say that is the very point for either of these feelings to lead to the other, and I'm as skeptical of "pure" infatuation as I am of raw animalistic lust, so I can't at all understand where the thought of "why the f&!k are you getting a boner right now" is coming from.
But actually you lost me right at the start, if there's anything valid to the analogy of infatuation, even the "pure" kind, that just sounds like a very advanced case of narcissism. These feelings are meant for others, not for yourself.
Like I said, far be it for me to add to your burdens, but asking that I understand where you're coming from feels like a tall order.
Throwaway05
1hr ago
You keep accusing me calling you stupid, I'm not. I'm saying you don't know what you are talking about...because you don't. These are not the same thing. Intelligence is not required to make a judgement on this, information is, and you haven't exhibited any evidence of training or knowledge that would address that absence.
Arguing in the way you are now may be evidence of lack of intelligence or character flaws...so don't do that.
Passion on a topic is not a substitute for information or understanding, I've given you a significant number of rabbit holes you could go down to educate yourself on considerations you seem unaware of, and you are resistant to doing that. I also simplified my argument to the bare bones premises and tellingly, you made no effort to engage with those.
Ultimately you've fallen into the same trap that the overwhelming majority of patients who bring up this kind of thing do you, you want to make your own decisions, damn the consequences, without awareness that consequences may even exist and when told "no, you must actually think about this" you become upset and sling mud.
It's fundamentally the same conversation I have every time a patient demands an antibiotic for a viral infection.
These conversations, for the record, are what establishes our stance - because most people become riotously upset when told they need to learn.
AlexanderTurok
1hr ago
I said "Griggs v. Duke Republicans" which are a subset of urban, educated, irreligious voters. RFK Jr., who supports reparations and throwing "climate deniers" in jail is not part of that. He's more a Dale Gribble voter:
https://www.richardhanania.com/p/the-rise-of-the-dale-gribble-voter
ares
1hr ago
I share much of your music taste, although over the past year I've been going down some weird musical rabbit holes that I'll spare you from. Some more "normal" stuff you might enjoy but haven't heard:
- Danger makes good music with dumb titles. The soundtrack to Haven is great.
- CloZee has a lot of great songs. Color of Your Soul and Evasion give you a good idea of what kind of music she makes.
- Why is the soundtrack to FIFA 18's single player campaign so good, and why does EA keep trying to remove it from the internet? I believe this is the third playlist I've had to find after others were removed.
- Phutureprimitive's Kinetik album has been one of my go-tos for listening while coding.
I see a Halo remix you enjoyed, and definitely recommend exploring all the video game songs you enjoyed. Gamechops will do whole albums of a game+genre, like Zelda and Chill. I often find that I like other work by artists I discovered from games, like C418 from Minecraft. And sometimes you find weird stuff that hits you right, like a Mariachi cover of F-Zero Mute City.
DradisPing
1hr ago
Not a lawyer, but criminal fraud laws are loose enough for them to be charged if the prosecutor really wanted to.
As a one off it's hard to imagine them getting charged with anything. Dean could probably sue if he found out, but he wanted to avoid court in the first place.
oats_son
1hr ago
I don't belong in this thread because I don't play Diablo 4, but my experience with speedrunners is that they spend a shit ton of time getting the techniques down. Like, an absolutely massive amount of time, probably talking thousands of hours. So either he's not as busy as he claims, or it's a ghostplayer. Also, it's a very rare busy person that uses his limited amount of time for gaming to play the exact same game that much for that long.
Amadan
I will be here longer than you
1hr ago
You are being increasingly antagonistic throughout this thread. If you find someone is aggravating you, take a breath and maybe take a break from the conversation instead of seeing how cleverly you can imply they are stupid and dishonest without breaking the rules.
justmotteingaround
1hr ago
This is fascinating. I would have remained blind to it otherwise, so thanks. I wonder how many other religious people feel this way. I have learned to put conscious effort into empathizing with people taking their religion as literally true. It explains so much, and has changed me for the better. However, I never considered that religious beliefs themselves would be, seem, feel, etc. like they were not a conscious choice.
For example, I prefer exclusively women over men when it comes to having sex. No argument exists which could convince me to sexually prefer men (any more than there is a convincing argument that I prefer eating poo over ice-cream). I'm just not wired to prefer those things. However, I could be convinced to become a Christian or Muslim or Flat Earther or 9/11 truther, or whatever. My non-theism remains a choice. Perhaps I'm misunderstanding something or this is all semantics, hinging on free will or something.
Are deeply held religious beliefs experienced the same way as be deeply held beliefs like murdering random people is wrong, or the Sun is driven by fusion, or the govt shouldn't tax unrealized gains, or the US is a great country, etc. How are religious beliefs experienced differently?
TwiceHuman
1hr ago
It is probably dangerous if you achieve higher control of yourself than average people can. Changing an emotion into another is fairly exotic, but changing the target of emotions is a common defense mechanism: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Displacement_(psychology) As far as I'm concerned, all alchemy is actually psychology, but projected into the real world. Embodying an emotion sounds like it could just be a result of attention directed towards an emotion, such that said emotion is the meditation object?
This is basically the process behind all serious meditative/psychedelic states, no? Meditative, probably yes. But in general, all religious, spiritual and sometimes traditional rituals are about achieving exotic states of mind, either ones of very high or very low excitement. I think this is because the brain is mallable (receptive to change) in these states. In "prometheus rising" they talk about how you can reprogram people with LSD, and you probably know about the trance state. You may also know that the brain accepts something as true the first moment you see it, and only judge it afterwards, which is why some advertisement tries to overstimulate you as it delivers its message. It's like these are methods of making our brain "let its guard down" so that we can influence it more, or alternatively ways of getting past the ego.
Am I right to assume that you've read this? https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/09/20/meditative-states-as-mental-feedback-loops/ I think the main take away is that feedback loops are unnatural, and that the brain tries to prevent them by default. Which is why you need a great concentration and ability to avoid distractions. When accelerating in a fast car or listening to music, I sometimes get chills (ASMR response), but it depends on how I tune my attention. I have to sort of "surf" on the stimuli. This likely generalizes to all senses and emotional responses (chills doing massages and the build-up of tension/anticipation doing important scenes in movies, etc). Does this not imply that feedback loops are the norm? Merely that with most peoples ability to concentrate, they only last a few seconds.
The link you sent sounds like a manic episode. heightened energy, racing thoughts, feeling that things are connected, higher and higher escalation. I sometimes feel like that on stimulants, and when I think about important things thoroughly until I have very strong beliefs (in other words, tidying up doubts and loose ends and other internal conflicts and inconsistencies. If you want to feel really great, spend a few hours doing this). I've often heard that Kundalini has strong effects, and that the "out of body" aspect is dangerous (makes some people go crazy). I think the positive effects come from focusing on your body, mainly the "chakra" areas, and creating feedback-loops on these sensations. By the way, the reason why "out of body" experiences is bad may be because our perception of yourself has a specific place in your head, say between the eyes and back a bit, and that it's dangerous to disconnect from this. You know how it feels like you're floating doing sleep paralysis? This is the brains model of the body, often called the spirit body by mystics, and it may be related to our sense of Proprioception. I don't know if you can accidentally mess up this sense, but it's possible. I personally experience discomfort at times because it feels like my "point of self" is slightly off center, maybe because the left and right side of my face have different sensitivities. Anyway, I've heard that some cultures place their "selves" in the heart rather than in the head, and some crazy book (I forgot which one) recommend shifting this area around as an exercise, so maybe it's not that dangerous as long as you don't move outside of your body, but this is guesswork on my part.
I'm not sure why just focusing on ones heart (or chakras, or kundalini) has strong positive effects, but our brains relation to the body is probably more important than we thought (hence Yoga and such). Books like "The body keeps the score" and some obscure books claim that discomfort and even trauma is basically located in the body and causes muscle stiffness and "blockades" in the "flow of energy" whatever that means.
And about consciousness, what people call "awake" is simply not living on autopilot. To have a consistent sense of self rather than periodic self-awareness with blurs in between, you make your sense of self the object of meditation and train yourself to maintain it at all times. I've read a book on this once as well, but I don't remember the name. Sometimes, meditating on something strengthens it, but sometimes it breaks it down (say a word over and over again and it will lose meaning). I'm not sure how meditation which strengthens the self and meditation which dissolves the self are different. The ways to reinforce things and destroy things seem eerly similar. Meditation makes some people more alert, more alive and more anchored in the moment, while it causes other people to disassociate, have no ego, and become apathetic or stoic. I wish I knew the tiny differences in approach which causes these wildly different outcomes.
Finally, I have a bonus insight for you. The strength of your senses is what makes you feel alive. Having dirty glasses, ears blocked by earwax, a loss of smell due to a cold, etc. always makes me feel like reality is less real. So it seems like sensory inputs is what ground us in reality (which may be why the numbening effects of dissociation makes reality feel like a game, movie or dream rather than reality). I hope these insights were useful! If you want, I will try to dig up the titles of some of the books I've read on this, though 40% of it is my own original ideas and guesses.
WhiningCoil
1hr ago
Awe man. I just got off my last ban for venting a bit too hard about my fervent hatred of trans activist. You gotta get me going again?
To reign it in as best I can, no part of my problems has to do with trans people per se. Although their disfigured bodies and alien voices squick me out as badly as the worst (or best?) body horror film. But for the most part, if they can leave me alone, I can leave them alone.
But they can't leave me alone. Maybe it's less them and more the activist. I don't know. I've seen a smattering of trans people who agree all the shit going on in schools with other people's kids is pure insanity. But, they tend to not get treated well by their own "community", however much validity appeals to that fictional construct even matter.
Back to not being left alone, they're pushing the trans experience on children in public schools at incredibly young ages. Compulsory exercises at young ages forcing them to question or ponder their gender identity. Graphic pornographic material in school libraries, including elementary and middle school. Secretly socially transitioning children. Forcing penises into young girls private spaces.
The horrors they wish to subject my young daughter to fill me with a wrath and a loathing that is beyond words. At least words I'm allowed to speak here. Get them the fuck out of public schools, leave my kids alone, and they may earn back my disregard. They've forever lost my respect.
In my limited experience their personalities seem to not just be male, but hyper male. Like take for instance the prevalence of trannies in the speedrunning community, it is hard to think of a more hypermasculine activity than speedrunning.
I have an acquaintance who came out as a trans woman a few years ago, and the irony of her situation has not escaped my attention. She claims to be a woman trapped in an "assigned male at birth" body, and yet the number of cis women I know personally who
- compose angsty math-rock
- have logged 1,000+ hours in League of Legends
- spend a great deal of time in Games Workshop
- consume so much pornography that they've actually had to confront the ethical dilemma of whether or not they should pay the "content creators" for it
are zero, zero, zero and zero, respectively. Likewise the recent micro-scene of bedroom black metal solo projects whose members identify as trans women (most famously Liturgy [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liturgy_(band)], but it seems every other band on this label meets that description exactly): does anything scream "socially awkward man with some autistic traits" more than starting a bedroom black metal solo project?
What you're describing is autistic traits, and many feminists have argued that autism is "extreme masculinity" (men tend to be high-systematising, and autistic men are almost totally systematising). I'm sure you're already aware that the correlation between autism and gender dysphoria is extremely strong and seems to becoming stronger with every year.
I have always suspected that I am in the "at-risk for AGP" demographic, even though I've never felt it myself.
I'm a man who several people have independently suggested might be somewhere on the autistic spectrum, high-systematising, bookish, socially awkward, didn't fit in at school (as a result of which I retreated into social media and anonymous online chatrooms), love video games enough to have done a master's in game design, listened to black metal obsessively as a teenager, passively interested in anime and manga as a teenager. If I'd been born ten or even five years later, dollars to donuts I'd be calling myself Lilith right now. (At least then my enormous ass would have been more of an asset in my dating life.) By the same token, had my aforementioned acquaintance been born five or ten years earlier, I think the chances of them coming out as trans at the age they did would have been somewhere around nil. Anyone who thinks social contagion plays no role in this phenomenon must be blind.
Amadan
I will be here longer than you
1hr ago
I agree with you in principal. As a straight man, I have the same inherent revulsion you do to the thought of men having sex, but as a non-religious person, I don't think it's wrong or immoral, just something that turns me off, and lots of people have sexual practices that turn me off. If you don't make me watch/participate, it's not my business.
And I try to have the same empathy for trans people. Yes, I have a strong disgust reaction to trans women. I think they mostly look hideous and freakish, but I also think it would be wrong to judge people because they are aesthetically unappealing to me. Part of the reason I think the "They don't pass" argument from TERFs and other anti-trans people is a losing one; how "pretty" and "feminine" trans women are really isn't the point. There are actual women who are ugly and gross-looking to me, but I wouldn't be so cruel as to degrade them and call them "not women" because of their unfortunate appearance.
The problem with trans women (and to a lesser extent, a lot of LGTBQ people nowadays) is that it's not enough for them to be allowed to live their lives in peace while we politely refrain from commenting on their appearance. Many of them literally want to "shove it in our faces." See all the dissatisfaction about Pride events, which LGTBQ folks mistaken claim is a homophobic backlash. In some cases it is - there are people who genuinely hate gays and all forms of gender non-conforming people. But I think are a lot like me; I am fine with you living your life and being happy about it, but why do I have to celebrate your sexual preferences and fetishes? Why are you looking around the room to see who stops clapping first?
I can have a lot more empathy for someone who is struggling but just wants to live their life and not be harassed and abused than I do for someone who decides that harassing and abusing other people for being insufficiently affirming is appropriate.
It's activists who have degraded our charity and tolerance. As I said in another comment, 20 years ago there were people who thought transsexuals were deviants and perverts, but they really were mostly left alone. Use the bathroom you prefer? Okay, whatever. Call yourself a woman/man, or even use weird pronouns? Okay, whatever. Some people will roll their eyes at you, but most people didn't want to make a big deal about it. Now, however, it is a big deal, always, and that makes it hard to be empathic to people who clearly are not empathetic to anyone else's reaction.
roche
1hr ago
I get you, but IMO this is a "High intelligence + High openness" result. There are some profoundly intelligent people like Schopenhauer who never second-guessed their axioms or sought out a higher authority or basis for them, and when questioned on what authority they're derived from, he and others always defer to Plato's forms or the "laws of nature" or whatever. And rather than infinite regress, they arrive at some bedrock idea like entelechy and say "Yep, this explains everything" and there is nothing before it. And to their defense is the Eleatic argument that something cannot come from nothing, and this is the most widely loved idea by philosophers because it spits in the face of infinite regress.
FiveHourMarathon
Listen to Pierre
1hr ago
Because of my father's auction habits, the family has around a dozen grandparent clocks of varying quality already.
The vacation thing isn't a bad idea but it isn't practical for us as a couple, my vacation punch card is booked between family and friends beach properties, visiting my godparents/aunts in Florida.
yofuckreddit
2hr ago
Dang it, I wish I could be more creative, because I love the idea of the chair and think the obvious choice is a great one.
A clock, already suggested, is a great option. My parents have disabled the grandfather clock they have that mine built. They found the ringing too annoying. I disagree, but be aware of the potential downside.
For my grandmother, we spent a fraction of the money on a vacation to some of her favorite places, and generated pictures and experiences from it that will stick around for a while. I assume you considered and discarded this, but wanted to throw it out there.
Primaprimaprima
Bigfoot is an interdimensional being
2hr ago
I don't mean masculine in some spiritual sense of idealized masculinity (masculinity of war, hunting, bravery, leadership etc) but in the empirical sense of percentage of partakers in the activity.
Right. But shouldn't we take special note of this distinction? When you look at this personality type that's "at risk" for AGP - nerds, aspies, autists, whatever you want to call it - isn't there something about it that's "in between" masculine and feminine? (Appropriate, given the topic at hand). In one sense you are correct that it's "hyper male" just in terms of sheer statistics. But at the same time, these men tend to display traits that are decidedly unmasculine - higher in neuroticism, more emotional in general, higher verbal ability, less physically aggressive, often averse to traditionally masculine interests like (physical) sports, etc.
ControlsFreak
2hr ago
You're not even trying.
Sorry that I'm sooooo stupid that after I have considered the answers to the question you've asked, I still find your position on my explanation of Chesterton's Fence unclear. You're gonna have to stoop down real low and actually explain what you're thinking in a way that is comprehensible to us normal 'little' people.
Great sure, some suggested avenues of exploration-
"How much has the number of drugs increased since then? How much has polypharmacy increased since then? How much has comorbidity increase since then? How much has personal behavior in response to healthcare changed since?"
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