domain:amphobian.info
Good stuff, thanks for the links.
that you can re-program yourself, that you can live in constant bliss or reach a higher level of consciousness?
Hereabouts. The more perception-related stuff like reality shifting and kasina meditation is like playing with fire. I do recall hearing that the Tibetans practice some kind of "emotional alchemy", where one emotion is changed into another, and that this is one of the most dangerous meditations on earth as if it backfires you can go insane or become a psychopathic murderer and the likes, but maybe that's hearsay. There is though a staple of Vajrayana, where you "become" the pure embodiment of some emotion or idea for a time, like a "demon of hatred", but this is just embracing a current emotion and letting it all out, which is what we all do during therapy. Pretty simple.
Living in constant bliss (which should be possible given that these mechanisms don't rely on dopamine or other neurotransmitters, but occur in the processing of sensations) probably just requires a strong concentration, then to focus on a pleasant experience in your body, and keep the focus such that a feedback-loop occurs.
This is basically the process behind all serious meditative/psychedelic states, no? Some kind of feedback loop. The dhyanas are triggered by noticing some pleasant tingles in the hands, and with your brain in a very plastic and vulnerable state, the observation of these tingles magnifies the sensation, and on repeat observations the feeling builds, up until you reach immense pleasure. And this is qualitatively different from a high state of samadhi, which is typically based on a cool feeling of the breath, and so manifests more as a profound relaxation.
But a feedback loop like that simply doesn't happen while sober, and it is evidently not something you can condition through meditation (with our current knowledge). But there is a whole bunch of crap related to kundalini awakening that seems potentially promising, but feels like digging through your weird old relative's house where everything's dirty and smells weird. Mainly I just don't have any good leads. Perhaps you do though.
coffee_enjoyer
☕️
35m ago
Eye surgery is beneficial but the elation post-surgery does not stay with a person throughout their entire life. The elation, or bliss, is experienced directly after the surgery and gradually diminishes in potency until mood returns to normal, as it does with sports winners and lottery winners. Just like we are not currently in a state of a elation because we have all been seriously sick with something at some point in our past. I’m not disputing that there could be some form of meditation that, when incorporated into a routine, momentarily results in elation as someone realizes its benefit (eg it aids in their adaption to life). But once this routine is settled, the elation disappears as the benefit is habitualized, even though the routine may still be valued as part of one’s lifestyle. (I can’t reply to the SSRI example because I have too many doubts on the efficacy and evidence regarding them).
What OP appears to be suggesting is that there could be a meditative technique that reliably results in bliss in the longterm, not just results in benefit. I think this is impossible and also wouldn’t be preferred if it were possible. The problem with heroin is that it will always result in a state that is exponentially more pleasurable than your default state — the mood enhancement isn’t transient, it’s always the result, yet at the same time the “default” mood plunges lower and lower. If you found meditative strategy that always resulted in bliss, the same thing would happen. But there are probably meditative practices that just result in a benefit.
roche
36m ago
Euphoria is the experience of an unusual amount of pleasure, and an experience which provides euphoria will eventually provide “mere pleasantness” when repeated. And if repeated long enough it will provide “mere baseline”.
Back in the day, senior monks used to spend all day in the dhyana states to the point of neglecting to instruct the younger monks. AFAIK the pleasure of the jhanas does not dimish.
Let’s suppose you could self-administer euphoria on command. This would be similar to heroin addiction. What would be your incentive to fulfill the hours of necessary daily tasks to maintain health, if you could summon euphoria at will? Once you exit that state of euphoria you would feel abysmal because now your body has to utilize so much energy and effort to, like, get groceries while in a state of displeasure.
Obviously if we were just seeking to replicate heroin or MDMA the whole idea would be stupid. The point here is that drugs like heroin and MDMA operate within a certain paradigm, they work by throwing a giant monkey wrench in the face of your sobriety, and so the way to healthy unique experiences is not by fucking with your sobriety through a medley of strange chemicals, but by changing the nature of your sobriety through meditation and other practices, which is already done in a number of ways by monks and tantrikas.
I don’t think you are treating these eastern spiritual claims with enough skepticism. The idea that a human can experience an eternally preferable state (a bliss) without the experience of a negative emotional state to refer back to is illogical.
It's an incredible claim, and for now I don't believe it either. However, there are two facts which make me hesitate here:
-
Meditative states can produce virtually any emotion or experience, with enough effort and time. Imagine it, and it will happen.
-
Effects from meditative states can and often do carry into sober existence.
Now, the logical link between these two facts and "You can achieve a lasting state of bliss in sobriety" does not exist. But the logical link of "Meditation (and psychedelic experiences in general) leave lasting impacts on your sobriety, and we don't know how" does. The anecdotes are endless. So I'm not pursuing something ridiculous like a state of meditative bliss out the gate, but rather inquiring where the line is drawn, to see on paper the maximum benefit we can derive from these practices, and hopefully to find the origin of their negative aspects like psychosis and the Long Dark Night of the Soul. This is important because current meditation traditions have no interest in that. They're dogmatists as I've mentioned, and their approach is to wait until a disaster happens and only then clean up the mess. Personally, I'm not confident a lasting bliss-like state may be achieved, because the nature of lasting meditative effects tend to be more perceptive like floaters, fuzzy borders, and high-visual clarity as opposed to concrete feelings. And yet, those absolutely do happen -- particularly from 'metta'.
There’s some higher order part of ourself that finds this repulsive and actually demands the necessity of pain in order to adapt to biological, external, and social reality.
Do you think about all that stuff in the 5~ seconds after you orgasm? Personally, I bask in the waves of bliss. I think you ought to read up on some of the meditative stuff ITT to see just how far out these states can get.
roche
1hr ago
A special kind of relativism, yeah. But...
If you think about anything long enough, you will find that there's no one true answer, no matter if the subject is morality, meaning, philosophy, or mathematics (incompleteness theorems).
Careful here. This train of logic contradicts relativism, because you're saying if anyone thinks long enough they'll arrive at the relativist position, whereas a true relativist knows this only applies to himself and the others "destined" for relativism, and it's wholly natural for Muslims and Christians to collide with the same ideas as you and bounce off into becoming even more fervent Muslims and Christians. For them there is no "choosing" in the process. It's simply the truth.
jkf
1hr ago
Well I wouldn't say that it's 'just' a fetish -- it's a fetish in addition to a bunch of social confusion and weird medical enablement.
What were all these people tormented to the point of suicide by their birth-bodies doing about it prior to the invention of current-day medical/hormonal interventions?
FirmWeird
Randomly Generated Reddit Username
1hr ago
I'm pretty sure the UN and the ICC did not say "the Israeli side is a blood-drenched, bronze-age state intent on ethnic purity and conquest via force of arms to reclaim the territory their god said was theirs." Though it is probably what a lot of people in those organizations think, given the hostility they have traditionally shown towards Israel.
Yes, I said that my view was based on those things, not that I was just directly quoting them, and I don't think any individual element of that description is inapplicable. Even pro-Israeli partisans admit they've killed tens of thousands of Palestinians, including women and children - “There are no schools in Gaza, as there are no children left.” was proudly chanted by them in public. I think that more than justifies the charge of "blood-drenched", and it puts in some work when it comes to justifying "bronze-age" as well. Netanyahu himself has referenced Amalek and what their god tells them to do to Amalek with regards to the current conflict, and I believe the Amalek-Israel dispute does actually date back to the bronze age. As for ethnic purity, Israel proudly advertises itself as a state for Jewish people and has laws which back that up - I can't think of any other nation that allows for DNA testing to determine whether or not you can immigrate. And as for conquest via force of arms to reclaim the territory their god said was theirs... I've been watching that happen on the news and social media for months now. I've already provided quotes from Israeli settlers planning on settling in the now-cleansed north of Gaza.
My point here is not that I think Israelis are the good guys and how dare you criticize them, but that the history there is a lot more complicated than your simplistic, straight-from-the-mouths-of-Hamas version of Israeli history.
I've based my views on quotes straight from the mouths of Likud officials, not Hamas. As I said, I'm not condemning the Israelis as evil (I don't think calling a state evil really has much meaning) - I'm just taking them at their word. I think that they're motivated by ethnonationalist impulses, and multiple Israelis have simply told me this to my face in other discussions. Until you face the reality of what Israel has done and is doing, you're not going to be able to have a meaningful conversation about it - that's what I meant by preferring conversations where the Israeli partisans just admit that Israel is actually doing what it proudly advertises itself as doing.
The moral valence only comes into play because in the modern era most nations saw an attempt at wiping out an inconvenient population and collectively decided that it must never be allowed to happen again, and that efforts at genocide are a collective stain upon humanity. I'm very partial to that belief and I'm not going to deny that I'm opposed to the genocide of the Palestinians, but at the same time...
I find conversations more productive when people are actually able to steelman their opponents as rational human beings acting out of motives other than pure malice or blind fanaticism
That's precisely what I'm doing. I can understand the logic behind their actions - I disagree with their reasoning, but I can understand why they believe the things they believe and do the things they do. An accurate depiction of what they're doing sounds like evil to the majority of humanity, but that's not a reason to mince words.
Edit: Just to clarify, I think that calling a state evil is indeed meaningless. But having a widespread and justified belief among the rest of humanity that what you're doing is evil is very different and much more consequential.
The male/female dynamic to me appears to very closely mirror the adult/child dynamic and I'm not sure why more people don't frame it this way.
Such a comparison is "saying the quiet part out loud", and so it's only said explicitly by /pol/acks who don't care about optics and only intend to maximally offend. It's rhetorical suicide in the same way that saying "we want women to have the right to kill babies" would be.
I can't express these thoughts in a more coherent manner right now, so here's an array of tenuously connected musings vaguely related to the subject of women's role in society. If this sucks, let me know.
- On the whole, the concrete utility that women provide to men is sex and reproduction, their biological prerogatives. This affords them a certain intrinsic privilege, but it must be disheartening to know that much or possibly all of your value to society is fundamentally animal in nature, divorced from your sapience. The golden goose is well cared for, but it is still caged.
- The most egalitarian societies have been those where women are economically productive. If every woman refused to go to work tomorrow, what would actually happen?
- Fertility rates seem to be bimodally distributed between <1.8 TFR liberalized societies and >3.0 TFR patriarchal societies. Much concern is had over sub-replacement fertility in the West, but is is possible to increase fertility up to "just" replacement levels?
roche
1hr ago
Hey guys, what's your experience with chronic sleep deprivation?
Like a huge fraction of the population, I don't get that healthy 8 hours of sleep on a consistent schedule every night, and consuming caffeine before bed certainly doesn't help. So a few weeks ago, I woke up after a 2 hour sleep with some incredible brain fog which was scary, but it soon went away. According to Matthew Walker, some effects are permanent. However, I happened across this Japanese gentleman the other day who had a stroke on a livestream. I'll quote part of his post below:
Due to trauma I still can't watch this video, but nowadays I'm on meds and doing well. After that stream, I went to the hospital and got a CT scan, and they said everything's fine, but afterwards I kept getting stuck on my words in weird ways (Like to be specific, I couldn't say "As always, thank you for your assistance" at work). So I went in for a second opinion at another hospital and got an MRI. Their diagnosis was a stroke. According to the doctor, the blood in my brain stopped moving by accident, yet began to move again immediately afterward, so there were ultimately no after-effects, and just by taking some meds I could return to my normal life.
Ultimately we spent 2 years doing tests, but could never determine the exact cause. However, I spent 10 years sleeping an average of 3 hours per night, so I can't help but imagine this is the cause.
And he still streams, too! Very energetic, quick-minded... not at all what you'd expect. Now, I write this because a man named Matt Walker comes up on the topic of sleep debt, and his stance is that long-term sleep debt cannot be recovered from. And I cannot help but feel this may be a form of health scaremongering. Obviously, don't treat your body and mind like shit, health is the #1 priority, you know the deal. But I'm increasingly skeptical of these health gurus online who seem to make a career from either promising you the world or scaring you into relying on their advice.
mrvanillasky
1hr ago
It's amazing lol, don't let my texting adventures deter you.
waffles
breakfast food
1hr ago
Weekly, I probably do about 2x45 minutes cardio and 2x30 minutes weights. Not a huge amount of time, but I've been consistent throughout most of my adult life. My schedule makes it such that I generally work out in the afternoons, but if it were my choice, I'd be working out first thing in the morning. My understanding, and this is more going off of vibes than a particular scientific study, is that it isn't so good to work out before bedtime, it gets your body all worked up rather than winding down for sleep.
TwiceHuman
1hr ago
where it changes depending on where we stand
Is this not just relativism? If you think about anything long enough, you will find that there's no one true answer, no matter if the subject is morality, meaning, philosophy, or mathematics (incompleteness theorems). Everything is fundamentally relative. And while there's no "one true" path, god or set of values, you must yet choose something, you can't just not have values, beliefs and direction. So you choose something arbitrary, knowing that it's not everything. Kathenotheism seems perfectly logical
Your conclusions so far sound about right, except I don't think that hyperventilation and LSD are harmless (You could develop HPPD for instance).
Everything else seems true. Human happiness is not zero-sum, this is trivial to conclude since it's possible to experience more suffering than happiness. This implies that the opposite is possible, and that our brains just prevent this because the negative bias helps with survival. In other words, you're trying to hack your own reward centers, and your brain made this difficult to do because it knows that it can be dangerous. If you try to lucid dream and your dream characters get angry with you, it's probably for the same reason.
What further path are you hoping for? That you can learn to control or influence reality with willpower, that you can shift into a better timeline/reality by adjusting your energy, that you can re-program yourself, that you can live in constant bliss or reach a higher level of consciousness?
Some say that deep meditation allows us to realize that we're one with everyone, meet "god" or some infinite source of energy (gateway process, etc), experience "non-duality" (this is just messing with the human perception which separates things), or to be able to contact anyone connected to the earths magnetic field.
Some say that beliefs can influence the world, that the world matches your level of energy/chakra/frequency/vibration, that you and the world are one (Hermetic principles), that the questions you ask decide what questions you get (John Wheeler), that human consciousness controls the wave function collapse (this direction unifies mysticism and science a bit), or that reality is agreement (that everything is a game. The EST seminars go in this direction a bit in their approach to enlightenment).
You can program yourself, hypnotize yourself and others, manipulate your own belief structures and other fun stuff. Every article on here is high-quality, and I recommend reading it because it contains a bunch of warnings that I don't want you to lose out on: https://cognitiveengineer.blogspot.com/2011/11/resources.html
Living in constant bliss (which should be possible given that these mechanisms don't rely on dopamine or other neurotransmitters, but occur in the processing of sensations) probably just requires a strong concentration, then to focus on a pleasant experience in your body, and keep the focus such that a feedback-loop occurs. When your focus is strong enough, it will feel like a hand grabbing the object of focus. This is likely the origin of the idea of telekinesis. In states of mania or otherwise inflated confidence, your willpower might also be so strong that it feels like you can do anything (and you may actually manage to do some things that in retrospec are impressive)
I've also read about egregores, divining, magic, the collective unconsciousness, synchronicities, demons, DMT creatures, oracles, the law of attraction, etc. And I can probably explain these logically and kill the fun. I could also give you reasons to believe in them, just to keep things a little interesting. Man, I should really spend my time better. Oh well.
consigning yourself to fate like this was more or less insane
"Trusting the universe" helps peace of mind. Not trying to control what you can't control saves a lot of cognitive energy, which is probably why it's recommended by so many spiritual people (to me, they're just a type of psychologists though). Anyway, I've written enough for now. Which parts interest you?
Amadan
I will be here longer than you
1hr ago
I'm basing my view of the Israeli side on direct quotes from high-ranking government officials and widely respected international legal bodies.
I'm pretty sure the UN and the ICC did not say "the Israeli side is a blood-drenched, bronze-age state intent on ethnic purity and conquest via force of arms to reclaim the territory their god said was theirs." Though it is probably what a lot of people in those organizations think, given the hostility they have traditionally shown towards Israel.
As I have said before, I don't particularly have affection for Israel, but to say the Israelis are the bloodthirsty medieval ones, living next to who they do, seems disingenuous.
Just to clarify, I didn't say they were evil.
Well, you might not have used the word "evil," but you all but called them worshippers of Khorne, so come on.
but you can't even begin to talk reasonably about the topic without being honest and admitting that Israel is trying to ethnically cleanse Gaza (as their government has repeatedly admitted, and as the UN has repeatedly accused them of).
While this is debatable (kind of like "genocide" - if you are going to invoke the UN and international bodies, then the precise and legalistic definition of words matters), sure, I will provisionally agree that that's what they are doing. And even say that I think what they are doing right now is pretty bad.
My point here is not that I think Israelis are the good guys and how dare you criticize them, but that the history there is a lot more complicated than your simplistic, straight-from-the-mouths-of-Hamas version of Israeli history. I find conversations more productive when people are actually able to steelman their opponents as rational human beings acting out of motives other than pure malice or blind fanaticism, and if that's all you can imagine as what motivates your enemies, then either your enemies really are monsters, or you are probably failing to understand them (or you are doing so deliberately because you hate them and it is more pleasurable to believe they are monsters).
FCfromSSC
Nuclear levels of sour
1hr ago
Doubtless. But I think a big part of how that happened is them being labeled "right wing" and cast out by their erstwhile compatriots on the left. From personal experience, being "thrown in the pit" invites a lot of reflection and re-evaluation about one's views.
The_Nybbler
Does not have a yacht
2hr ago
Cosby's conviction was overturned on self-incrimination grounds; he was induced to testify in a civil case by an agreement not to prosecute, and then that testimony was used against him. There was no such consideration in this case.
UwU
2hr ago
Here is what I actually think a reasonable framing of this question is: "can men with a cross dressing fetish involve non-consenting women in their crossdress-play?" In a reasonable society I think the answer to this question should be: no, obviously.
What question are we framing? Because if it's "Should transgender people be allowed to use gendered bathrooms of the opposite biological sex?" Then it's an unreasonable framing because trans people are not people with a cross dressing fetish.
hydroacetylene
2hr ago
I don't think it's because conservatives suddenly discovered they exist.
I agree with the general thrust of your argument- there were transgenders in the ‘90’s and while it wasn’t acceptable among cultural conservatives nobody cared that much- but trans issues got big all of a sudden partly because Chris Rufo was able to magnify some high profile cases of trans making progressives look bad and republicans won a governors race in a blue state out of it.
Ponder
2hr ago
Let’s suppose you could self-administer euphoria on command. This would be similar to heroin addiction. What would be your incentive to fulfill the hours of necessary daily tasks to maintain health, if you could summon euphoria at will?
I get the point you are making, but this reminds me of people that take SSRIs everyday and never plan to stop. The SSRI state is preferable to the non-SSRI state and people are still able to function normally in the SSRI state. In the SSRI state people have increased interest in basic human activity.
The SSRI example shows that there are altered states of consciousness that are preferable to the default state of consciousness, and that some people can experience altered states of consciousness with negligible/manageable side effects. Therefore, it makes sense that there could be other alerted states of consciousness that are permanently achievable with minimal side effects. They may require lots of effort/training to discover and maintain, but once they are learned a person could permanently remain in the altered state for as long as they desire. You always have the memory of the less desirable state so there is no need to leave the altered to state to experience a more painful state.
Another example is someone who receives eye surgery to achieve perfect vision. The altered state of perfect vision is strictly preferable to that person. There are no drawbacks to remaining in the preferred state after the surgery is complete.
hydroacetylene
2hr ago
legal processes to change their legal gender. They kill themselves at elevated rates when forced to conform to their biological gender. This is not just some kink.
They also kill themselves at elevated rates after transition.
Like, ‘it’s entirely a kink’ is legitimately a bad argument, but it doesn’t mean transgenderism is valid. We can just… not accommodate crazy delusional people.
I'm basing my view of the Israeli side on direct quotes from high-ranking government officials and widely respected international legal bodies. The United Nations and the ICC are both making this claim, and so is the Israeli government. https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2024-01-29/ty-article-magazine/.premium/the-people-of-israel-will-settle-gaza-netanyahu-ministers-urge-palestinians-expulsion/0000018d-5495-d1b6-aded-5fdd570c0000
'The People of Israel Will Settle Gaza': Netanyahu's Ministers at Far-right Conference Endorse Expulsion of Palestinians
''Voluntary' [emigration] is at times a situation you impose until they give their consent,' declared Netanyahu's communications minister on-stage, exposing the true message of the 'Conference for the Victory of Israel': The transfer, or expulsion, of Palestinians from Gaza
One of the sources that I linked in my post was a report by the UN stating that what Israel is doing is genocide. This morning the ICC issued arrest warrants for Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant for war crimes/crimes against humanity. IDF soldiers are killing themselves because they're unable to live with the memories of what they've done. Blood-drenched may sound hyperbolic, but how else can you describe reports of somebody bulldozing hundreds of people alive to the point that they're unable to eat meat anymore because it reminds them too much of what's inside people?
It's so bizarre you would suggest the Israeli side should just admit that they are evil and monstrous and start the conversation from there that I am genuinely not sure whether I missed the subtle irony you're conveying.
Just to clarify, I didn't say they were evil. I'm not interested in moral discussions like that, which is why I posited those alternative questions in my post. None of them revolved around the morality of what's happening, but you can't even begin to talk reasonably about the topic without being honest and admitting that Israel is trying to ethnically cleanse Gaza (as their government has repeatedly admitted, and as the UN has repeatedly accused them of).
dovetailing
2hr ago
I'm not going to deny that such people exist --- there's apparently a fetish for everything --- but I've never seen evidence that this is an appreciable fraction of the population in question. Do you have any?
dovetailing
3hr ago
I do not think that describing trans women as 'men with a cross dressing fetish' is very close to reality.
There is a small fraction of people who are genuinely very uncomfortable with their biological gender. They sometimes take hormones, get surgery and go through byzantine legal processes to change their legal gender. They kill themselves at elevated rates when forced to conform to their biological gender. This is not just some kink.
I've been arguing for something similar elsewhere in the thread so it's only fair that I push back gently on this too.
First, pedantic point, you mean "biological sex". The people who get suicidal are uncomfortable with their bodies. That aside:
A large fraction of MtFs have autogynephilia. Even before the recent (20 yrs) runup, it was most likely more than half; now, it's probably more like 90%. This is even when you include only the people who get some form of medical transition; if you include all the "dude shaves his legs and wears a skirt" crowd it's probably even higher (though at that point you probably just start getting general weirdos who aren't in the same clade as people who seek medical transition).
Do the AGP MtFs who seek medical transition and official name changes fit your description? Maybe! Depending on exactly how you cash out terms like "dysphoria" (or your "very uncomfortable"), possibly the vast majority of them! But also.... AGP has a sexual element. Almost nobody medically transitions because it gets them off to do so, that's completely crazy (and sometimes they get surgeries to remove their genitals or reconstruct them as pseudo-female-genitals, come on; and sometimes they find that cross-sex hormones prevent them from getting off and still continue to transition). But at the same time... if you've got AGP, then you do have an arousal response to the idea of being female, and for many AGPs, this is especially triggered by cross-dressing. So there's a sense in which a lot of MtFs... do, in fact, have a cross-dressing fetish, if you look at it that way. It's not why they're transitioning, in the sense that they wouldn't be doing it if it was just a fetish, but it's there. I've heard it becomes less... stimulating... once they've been doing it for a long time, though. It's complicated.
coffee_enjoyer
☕️
3hr ago
Are you trying to find the path to some sort of optimal equanamity or state of elation? I just want to make sure I understand the root interest.
the most pleasant sensation a human can experience […] can be sustained for hours […] and demand very little energy. These show up on brain scans.
I don’t think this is the case as described. I can believe that there is a euphoric experience that is obtained through meditation, and I’ve experienced something like that approximately twice, so maybe brain scans show a meditative euphoria. But claiming that the euphoric experience can be had without a “come down” period is the psychological equivalent of belief in a perpetual motion machine. Euphoria is the experience of an unusual amount of pleasure, and an experience which provides euphoria will eventually provide “mere pleasantness” when repeated. And if repeated long enough it will provide “mere baseline”. The experience of euphoria is relative to the experience of non-euphoria, so even without getting into neuroscience, how is it possible to continually experience euphoria without experiencing something less-preferred to relate it to?
Let’s suppose you could self-administer euphoria on command. This would be similar to heroin addiction. What would be your incentive to fulfill the hours of necessary daily tasks to maintain health, if you could summon euphoria at will? Once you exit that state of euphoria you would feel abysmal because now your body has to utilize so much energy and effort to, like, get groceries while in a state of displeasure. It’s questionable whether you would even continue to participate in society, as socializing is a requirement for the pursuit of contingent rewards which you apparently can summon in your mind whenever you want.
I don’t think you are treating these eastern spiritual claims with enough skepticism. The idea that a human can experience an eternally preferable state (a bliss) without the experience of a negative emotional state to refer back to is illogical. The idea that we can train our brain to treat endogenous opiate release differently is unfounded. And finally, the idea that this would be preferable to how we are designed is unevidenced. Re the last point: let’s say a new form of fentanyl was invented that lacked any come down. You could take it forever and experience bliss forever. (Suspend belief in neuroscience). Well, if you decide to enter into this bliss, you will immediately lack any interest in: basis human activity like walking and eating, learning any new information, socializing, morality. You would be in a permanent vegetative state. Is this actually preferable, even if it is bliss? Clearly no. There’s some higher order part of ourself that finds this repulsive and actually demands the necessity of pain in order to adapt to biological, external, and social reality.
If it’s the case that humans habituate to pleasures and pains and can never maintain a steady supply of pleasure, and that we have a higher “moral pleasure” which justifies (and requires) the existence of pain and painful experience in order to maximize our cognitive and physical adaption to physical reality, then the greatest path to an optimal emotional state isn’t meditative practices or stoic practices but a philosophy that promotes the most adaption (pleasure, pain and all).. That is, a philosophy that doesn’t try to maximize pleasure or reduce pain, but instead tries to maximize the things which we intuitively find right regardless of pleasure and pain. Even though pleasure cannot actually be pursued in such a way that we obtain it indefinitely, and all shortcuts fail, humans seem to be designed to find certain things right and preferable regardless of pleasure and pain (participating in reality is “more right” than seeing someone in an opium den, even if opium lacked a come-down in an imagined world; experiencing pain for loved ones is “right” despite its obvious pain; beautiful nature is “right”; a purposeful but painful life is “more right” than pleasure; etc).
Okay, so which moral system promotes “acknowledging we must experience pain in order to pursue a higher feeling of rightness which is pleasure-ambivalent, because that’s actually greater than the pursuit of pleasure”? My vote is Christianity right now, as the central figure is someone being tortured and dying for his purpose despite feeling forsaken. That’s a handy way to at least remember our underlying moral principle. Maybe there are some other ones.
I don't think it's an issue of just humiliation. A trans woman who is on estrogen for a substantial amount of time and has developed breasts or had bottom surgery is likely to be at risk of sexual assault if she is forced to use a men's bathroom or a men's locker room. There's also the risk of regular non-sexual assault by transphobic men against someone who has had the hormone profile of a cis woman for years and has the accompanying muscle mass. I agree that bathroom assault risk is pretty low for each individual use, but a trans woman in a space where 99% of the other people are cis men has two orders of magnitude more encounters with potential assailants than a cis woman in a woman's room where 1% of the users are a trans women.
I have a trans friend, she passes pretty well now but a thing I witnessed happen a couple times when we were hanging out in bars earlier in her transition was men hitting on her without realizing she was trans, realizing she was trans as the encounter went on, and getting aggressive once they figured that out. I would fear deeply for her safety if that encounter was playing out in private in a men's room and not in a crowded bar where she had friends around. To say she's forced to use men's restrooms is to force her to take on a substantial risk of assault (sexual or otherwise) to exist in public, and frankly for some people I think that's the point, to exclude trans people from public life.
More options
Context Copy link