Hi guys :)

I have something cool to show you. It's about the Garden of Eden (in the Bible). I think it is going to offend both Christians and atheists.

The story of the Garden of Eden isn't a lump of dung, in my eyes. Ok a bunch of it may be manure. But I think there is philosophy in it. It is a philosophical statement of utopia, of Israelite thought. It is not random, there is logic behind it. People think "Oh yeah it's religion so it's not philosophy. It must be a bunch of wishy-washy hooey."

Now I will not claim to be able to unravel all of its intricacies. The story is very difficult. (Probably because I am immature.) But I just wanted to point out some things. It will be fun!

1. Something most people don't know is that there was vegetarianism in Eden, not just for humans but for all the animals too (Genesis 1:29-30). In other words, the "lions" didn't eat sheep (and neither did Adam and Eve). This reveals that in Israelite thought, the ultimate state of mankind was one in which there was no violence. (You can see this late in Isaiah where he talks about the "wolf lying down with the lamb" in Isaiah 11:6.)
2. Adam and Eve were naked (in the beginning). I don't know exactly what this means. But I think nakedness is cool. LOL! But I think there is a connection to lust. (After all, the reason people wear clothes now is so that people don't stare at your boobs.) Before Adam and Eve covered their nakedness with fig leaves or whatever, there was no lust. And thus no adultery. Thus it was only in the fallen world that the Mosaic Commandment came "Thou shalt not commit adultery." Also Adam and Eve had no private property. This will please communists and those of similar ideology. They didn't have houses, tools, TVs... they just plucked fruit out of the trees all day. (Thus the commandments "Thou shalt not steal" and "Thou shalt not covet" were not necessary.) That brings me to another point. There was no work in Eden, no hard labour and sweating. The account states that it was only after they were thrown out of the Garden that they needed to suddenly start farming for their own food (Genesis 3:19). So in other words, in primitive Israelite philosophy there were the assertions that in the ultimate world, the utopia, there was no lust, no private property and no toil. Would you want to live in this world?
3. In other words, in a certain sense, in utopia rules and laws (commandments) will not be necessary. Perhaps this aligns with anarchist sympathies.

What an obscure story. Talking snakes. Later people like Isaiah had the vision that the world in the end would go back to the way it was in the beginning, like a hand going all the way back around itself and touching itself.

(Yeah about the talking snake, I'm sure that is a metaphor. A child's story with possibly an adult's message in mind.)

LOL! I gave myself 30 minutes to write all this, to stave off overthinking. I did it!

Disclaimer: I'm a new dad so I won't reply to comments but feel free to comment. I will love to read them and will upvote all of them.

TL;DR

**Life is a smoothie**

Read on to find out more! I don't want to spoil it!

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Hi guys 🙂

I was at Booster Juice the other day (it's a smoothie-making company) and I had a smoothie. For the umpteenth time. I got a big smoothie of course, because I'm a pig. And I like food, etc. But the weird thing was, the bigger the smoothie the less I liked it.

I got my smoothie and I took a big swig from it. It was amazing and my taste buds exploded. I was like, Ahhh, and I reclined back in my chair. Then I look at the glass and I'm like, Wow there's so much left. I get bored of the taste and I start chugging, wolfing it down while multitasking, reading a book or whatever. Then it's almost over, the smoothie is almost drained and I look at it and I'm like, shit it's almost gone, I better enjoy the rest of it really quick. But it's too late. All that gulping and I didn't even enjoy most of it, or I half-enjoyed it at least. I was multitasking for most of it and didn't really pay attention. I was like, I have a massive smoothie and it's going to last forever.

So now what I do is I get a small smoothie on purpose!! I know that I don't have long to drink, so I really pay attention. I really savour all of it. It's going to be gone soon. And the experience is amazing. Less is more?? It doesn't make any sense to me, because I'm like, Why am I not getting an enormous smoothie? Isn't bigger always better? If I love myself, doesn't that mean I should get more of what I really want?

It's the same thing with life. Humans live so darn long these days. I kinda wonder if it would be better if we only lived to be 35. That would be interesting. I would definitely live my life more deliberately, efficiently and go all out, enjoying my bucket list or whatever. Savour every moment, etc. Instead what happens is: we're born, everything's amazing and we're a kid, and everything's so new and there's sounds and sights and smells to experience, so many things to do... jumping, laughing, singing, dancing. But then you get older and it's same ole same ole... you do the same darn thing over and over. You're bored, like watching paint dry. The years fly by and suddenly you're decrepit and your joints creak and you can't move around easily anymore. Then you're like, @#$% where did my life go?? Did I do all those things I wanted to do?

When we say something, we speak without thinking. The words just come out one after another. You don't even know what you will say before you say it.

Whereas when we write, it is all about thinking. We think before we write, we think after we write.

*Is this connected to chatGPT's "next-token prediction"? I heard that chatGPT generates its next word from all the words that have come before it. Sounds like how we speak. I don't know much about this.

When we say something, what we say -- our ideas -- aren't linear. These ideas are linked... we talk and what we talk about makes us remember something else so we talk about that then it makes us remember something else so we talk about that. Like a wandering river. Yet our speech is cogent. We speak from the heart. An adventure with the people we love.

Whereas when we write, we write from the head. What is written is logical. We control, check, censor, constrain, change, cut.

*The brain is made up of 86 billion linked neurons. Made up of links. Just like speech?

Language evolved to be spoken. What does that mean for writing?

TL;DR

Carpe diem!

The message of the movie Dead Poets Society is for YOU to carpe diem!! :o

Your great-grandparents and great-great-grandparents are now fertilizing daffodils. But if you listen to them, listen to them really carefully, you can hear them whisper their legacy to you. Carpe… carpe... carpe diem. Seize the day!!

The human race is filled with passion. Poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for. Live deep and suck all the marrow out of life... put to rout all that is not life. Do not, when you come to die, discover that you have not lived! For the first time in your whole life, know what you want to do! And do it! Carpe diem!

(These are paraphrases from the movie.)

(Feel free to comment below. I'm a new dad so I won't reply to comments BUT I will read all of them and upvote them!)

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Hi guys and girls 🙂 I just love this movie. It's called Dead Poets Society. It set my heart on fire, I felt such a wave of passion. I know I will bomb this post because Dead Poets Society is awesome and I am not.

This movie is so beautiful and amazing, but I don't like to watch it because it crushes my heart at the end because Neil commits suicide. The central question is: is Mr. Keating (Robin Williams) responsible for the suicide of Neil? The draconian headmaster of the school, and Neil's father, both say a resounding yes. The students of Keating blamed Neil's father of course. I blame Neil's father too, but I think Keating also has some responsibility in the matter. What about you?

Is Keating's fiery spirit, his lunge into carpe diem, also wrong? Does it necessarily lead to disaster? My intuition is that the suicide in the movie was rather a incendiary bookend needed to shock and engage the audience of the movie, and not intended as a damnation of the romantic lifestyle.

What do you believe?

You know, I'm sure that the students in Keating's class, even though they were punished, spanked and expelled, still totally felt that carpe diem was worth it. They felt that they had truly begun to live. Maybe even Neil had no regrets about his suicide. When you're truly alive, you're not afraid to die.

That is the actual message of the film, embarrassingly to me. The message of the film to the audience is: carpe diem. Keating is looking out the screen at YOU. He is teaching YOU. You are in his classroom. What will you say? Will you choose to be truly alive, to fly, to scream, to make love, to cry, to shout from the mountaintops?

Will I carpe diem? No 😔... and I don't know why. I am very ashamed.

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WILL YOU CARPE DIEM?

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Hi guys and girls :)

I want to talk about something that I've tried to do for a long time. Learning to speak only in simple words. (I don't do that particularly on this subreddit do I? LOL.) My wife has a learning disability so words are a big barrier to her.

It's really cool to actually learn how to translate complicated sentences and ideas into simple language. It helps clarify your own thinking. I think I read someone once saying, that if you can't explain something in simple words, then you don't understand what you yourself are thinking.

It is not at all easy to do this. It is a worthwhile pursuit if you put time into it though. I feel kind of bad that "common" people can't understand what people in academia are talking about. It is complete gibberish to them. I think this is mostly because people in academia are lazy... or just enjoy being abstruse and convoluted. Anyways, that is harsh of me. But I just really think that alot of the really difficult books out there could have been written more simply. It takes more work, for sure. But it is an act of love to make yourself understood to as many people as possible.

Questions for you:

• How complicated is your speech? Your writing?
• Do you have an interest in making "dumb" people able to understand you?
• What does it feel like to translate what you say and write into simple words?

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Now I am going to attempt to turn into simple words what I wrote above hehehe:

Hi :)

For a long time I learned how to speak only in easy words so I can talk to my wife. She has a hard time with words. Now I can do it.

It's cool to learn how to turn hard words into easy words. It makes your thinking deeper. If you can't say something in easy words then you don't know what you are thinking.

It is not easy to do this. It's good to learn it though. I feel bad that most people don't know what "smart" people are talking about alot of the time. "Smart" people just don't feel like talking in easy words. But they can! Talking in easy words is hard for "smart" people but if they love the rest of us they will learn to do it.

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Thank you for your time. Feel free to comment below and have a fun discussion. I'm a new dad so I can't reply to comments BUT I will upvote and read all your comments!!

Hi guys! :)

I have a cool idea to broach with you. It is really obvious. But it blew my mind.

We often think of things, in philosophy, and in life often too, as being either TRUE or FALSE. There is a pretty sharp dichotomy: statements or propositions or whatever you want to call them (I forget the technical term) either have a truth-value or false-value. There is really nothing else. Or at least this is how it is considered. These are the fundamentals of logic.

But I think there are some really interesting other possibilities. Surely something can be BOTH true and false? Surely something can be NEITHER true nor false? I have seen this and felt this. And then another interesting one is where the answer is in the MIDDLE between true and false.

Let's illustrate this by using a very bad example (I say bad because I don't think these categories are meant to be super concrete):

• What is your gender?
  • Male or female?

This would be a false dichotomy. Other interesting answers could pop up (and are indeed popping up in our culture): BOTH male and female, NEITHER male nor female, somewhere in the MIDDLE, etc. I don't know how this works but I am sure there are people who would identify with such things.

You can apply this to other things. This is fun but I have a feeling I will get in trouble for saying such things: but people always think, I have to choose between being right-wing politically and left-wing politically. This is actually a false choice. It's frustrating when we know we don't like something and we want to get as far away from it as we can, so we go to the opposite extreme and call it home and hold our nose over this new home's own particular stink. But there's another choice: come to the middle, choose the centre. Balance is something subtle, it is easy to overlook. It is like a silent person standing in the middle of the street. It is easy to rush past Balance, or to not notice it.

Anyways all I am saying is really obvious. But it was not obvious for me for a long time hahaha. Another fun example: you're a kid and your dad holds out an orange in one hand and an apple in the other hand. He asks you, "Hey little guy, do you want an apple or an orange?" You can actually say, "I want BOTH!"

Last example: I majored in psychology so this one is relevant to me and intrigues me. It is very common in psychology to use questionnaires. The results of these questionnaires are then analyzed scientifically. For fun, we can imagine that someone is given a questionnaire that says:

• Are you happy?
  • (TRUE) or (FALSE)

There's an enormous amount of uncharted territory that is left behind, at least that I can think of, by restricting the answer only to TRUE/FALSE. You could wish you could circle: (I don't know), (I don't care), (I don't have time to think about this), (Both), (Neither of those words fits me), (Some of that and a little of that), (I don't like the question), etc... and then the fun one: leaving the question on the questionnaire blank and not circling either answer!!

Anyways, you get the idea. Enjoy! Hope that was helpful or interesting. I am a new dad so I won't reply to comments BUT feel free to comment and I will read them all and upvote them! :)

Hi guys :) how are you?

I have lots of things to say. But I don't know what you want to hear about. What interests you? (Let me know in the comments so I can make future posts... thanks!)

I don't exist. I know this. I feel this.

Strange? I know, but here is my argument: I have no inherent existence. I am always changing, always in flux. Like a river.

We always says "This or that person has this or that personality." We say that the personality is unchanging. That it is what makes a person a person. But I have no consistent personality. I am very different from when I was a child. I am very different now from when I was a teenager. I am even much different than from when I was a young adult. I am 33 now.

This is partly because I have bipolar. I am 2 people. Technically I am 3 people: a manic self, a depressed self, and a boring normal self. You might say, well, you are not really a different person when you are manic/depressed etc., but I experience dramatic personality shifts when these happen. Trust me. Weird... but true.

But this really goes beyond this. I am making changes that go beyond simply living with bipolar. I am always reinventing myself, pushing my limits, trying to change and become the best version of myself. Every 6 months, even every 3 months, I change and I do not recognize myself. I am brutally pushing myself every day to be a different person, a better person.

You have no inherent existence either. You are always changing, every year, every moment... even if you do not recognize this and look inward. If you meditate alot you will see this.

The Buddha said something like this. That the self is an illusion.

But the good news: I believe that there is an "I"... it is this strange mysterious witness-self that observes everything that happens within you, every feeling, every thought, sensation and experience. This "I" does not change.

Why this is relevant to this subreddit: this is about metaphysics...

Please feel free to leave comments... I'm a new dad so I won't reply to comments but I will read all of them and upvote them!

TL;DR

Happiness is a choice

There's so much out there.

When we focus on the good things in the world we feel good. When we focus on the bad things in the world we feel bad.

(Disclaimer: Happiness may be a choice. But that doesn't mean it's the only choice, or even the only valid choice. Or even that we *should* feel happy. Feelings just are. Feelings are just there, they're not right or wrong. If you're a guy in Palestine and your wife's been raped and your children killed by Israelis, then it is normal, natural, understandable... and maybe even super healthy... to feel utterly like crap, full of grief, and seized up with pain.)

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Hi guys :) how are you?

I want to make a new post but am not sure if it will be about sudden personality shifts using simple tricks, or if there's something else I want to contribute. The sudden shifts one is hard to talk about, but could be really valuable.

I do have some depressing philosophical dilemmas to bring up. But those are depressing, and I don't have solutions to them. So... I want to talk about optimism. Do you guys believe optimism is a choice? Like in the classic example, is the glass half full or half empty? If both are true, then why not just see it as half full and be happy? Is happiness a choice? This sort of relates to depressed people. Therapists like to say that depressed people cause their own depression. This annoys me, but it could be related to what I just brought up. Think about it in terms of the news. Why does the news just promote stories about war, conflict and deaths? Why not broadcast stories about peace, reconciliation and stories about babies being born or miraculously surviving birth complications? I would want to read that. It seems that it's a choice. The news is CHOOSING to focus on a subset out of all the possible stories in the world. How do people feel when they keep hearing stories about war, conflict and death? Makes me depressed. Also makes people angry or scared. Or maybe it makes them feel good?? Hearing about someone's misfortune can sort of make us feel better than them and bolster our own self-image. (Think about why people like to gossip. Complaining for hours about someone else makes us feel good. Likewise, sometimes people find that reading tons of Facebook posts about someone's ideal curated pictures, posts and life makes them feel bad about themselves. Etc.)

So back to the idea that maybe optimism is a choice. Think about yourself and ALL the experiences you have in your life. Which ones do you choose to focus on? Which ones do you choose to remember? There's alot in there. Who's to say that focusing on one subset rather than another is right or wrong? What we can be sure of is we can't focus on or attend to ALL of our myriad experiences. Many of them clash, after all. I also did an experiment lately where I asked myself "How am I?" and I got an answer right away; it was a certain unpleasant feeling and it was quite loud and large, and also a dead tired old feeling that I have heard from so many times. But then I waited, and a whole host of other feelings made themselves known when I kept repeating the question "How am I?" to myself. They were soft and quiet... but they were there! And one of them was super happiness. Why can I not choose to focus on and feed that little happy feeling? Surely I can.

How are you?

Hope that helps or at least was interesting. Thank you!

Disclaimer: I'm a new dad so I won't be replying to any comments on this post BUT I will read all your comments and upvote them!

TL;DR

Do you want to do good? Is doing good the most important thing in the world to you? If you do then you need to: have no family, no spouse, no kids, no job, no home. All these things bewitch you away from the good. Jesus realized this. This was his genius.

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Hi guys :) how are you?

I'm a new dad. Just had a baby in November. She is a sweet little girl and I love her so much. I had some things to say but I will keep it short (because of all the dad busyness). Disclaimer: I won't reply to anyone who comments on this post (because of all the dad busyness) BUT I will read all your comments and will upvote them!

One of the things I was going to talk about is the "secret of the saint." I think you will find this very interesting. I believe I can come to it from a unique, objective perspective because I'm not actually Christian. Which means I am not invested. Most people think Jesus is a lump of dung. But I think he was really onto to something. A genius. He introduced a new wedge into history, something never seen before. The saint. A new type of person, a new way of being. The cost for being a saint: no family, no wife, no kids, no job, no home... no life (literally, often). The benefits to society: enormous. Since the saint has no attachments or ties, he can focus 100% totally on doing good for the society. He/she can make ENORMOUS sacrifices for society, if necessary, much more easily and deeply than the regular person could ever hope to. Think about it this way: let's say someone puts a gun to your kid's head and says "Kill that person over there." Are you going to do it? Hell yes. What about the saint? The saint can do anything... he/she has no kids. Saints are celibate. The saint can sacrifice himself/herself freely, because him/her doing so has no crushing effect on anyone else. The saint can choose the good. We can even present a more weak watered-down (but more relevant) version of this: you work for this boss. He sucks and is awful to you. What do you do? You stick with it, because you need to provide for your family. There are hungry mouths at home. Whereas the saint has no wife or kids, so he/she sticks the finger to the boss (not literally, because he/she is a saint lol). Normal people conform. There is a reason for that.

It might seem that I am making all this up, so here are some paraphrases from the Bible:

• Jesus renounced his family (Matthew 12:48-50)
• Jesus had no wife or kids (no need for a Bible reference)
• Jesus was homeless (Matthew 8:20)

Another interesting thing is that the saint doesn't fear death. Thus his/her potential is nearly limitless. He/she can do the unthinkable.

If you guys think this is a lump of dung, then how do you explain Mother Teresa?

Thanks for reading.

Modern seniors are increasingly being left alone, left out, and left behind.

If anyone here has someone important to them with dementia, or they're worried about getting it themselves, or they want to learn about how modern contemporary lifestyles have greatly exacerbated dementia, I invite you to check out what I believe may well be the best video project I have put out yet.

I'm an Occupational Therapist of 12+ years and have a prior background in cognitive psychology at the undergrad and grad levels. This video project explores dementia from a cognitive anthropological perspective and then goes onto offer the same actionable cognitive, behavioral, environmental, and technological strategies for preventing, delaying, minimizing, and managing dementia. Approaches offered will help maximize orientation, independence, quality of life, activity, social connectedness, and safety of people dealing with dementia, as well as helping to reduce caregiver burden and train caregivers in how to help the RIGHT way.

This video project is intended for families dealing with dementia, clinicians and caregivers looking for ways to better help those dealing with dementia, and people interested in cognitive anthropology and the cognitive science of cognitive decline.

Questions are welcome, and feel free to share with anyone that you think would find this project helpful.

Part 1: an exploration into the lifestyle factors that have driven up rates and severity of dementia.
https://youtu.be/6KuHZ-sROfI

Part 2: Actionable cognitive, behavioral, and environmental strategies for preventing, mitigating, and managing dementia.
https://youtu.be/J_KP8eYX9N0

FULL VIDEO all-in-one: https://youtu.be/hu8NnXxha7o

Hi all, I'm excited to share what I genuinely believe to quite possibly be the best video I've put out yet.
I'm an Occupational Therapist of 12+ years w/ a prior background in academic psych at both the undergraduate and graduate levels.
In this video I provide what I believe to be a very compelling case that the rates and severity of dementia that are present today are in substantial part due to our departure from our small-scale, intensely interdependent, life-long, family-based tribal roots, which have been replaced by a hyper-individualist, hyper-mobile culture. NOTE that this is NOT some naive recitation of the mythical noble savage. Rather, it is an evolutionarily and cognitively grounded position.
In Part 2 (as well as the full version), which I'll be releasing very soon, I provide the best education that I can muster - and that I provide on at least a weekly basis - working with patients with dementia. I hope this project will be enjoyed and provide value, especially to those with loved ones struggling with dementia.https://youtu.be/6KuHZ-sROfI

Part 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iX93CXZCYrU

Part 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DVQF3czKMeg

Part 3: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ZVarJ_1gcQ

FIRST EPISODE OF "THE IMMIGRANT SHOW"

The Immigrant Show: Toxic topics without the toxicity.

​

The Immigrant Show is co-hosted by RonFromToronto (self-described center-right) and Rhino Nomad (self-described far left), a pair of Canadian-born immigrants of African descent to the United States. As discussed in this first episode, the two co-hosts initially got off to a hostile start but soon realized that they agreed on far more than was initially apparent. Their most important area of agreement was that inter-ideology understanding and discourse are often absolutely - and unnecessarily - terrible. The Immigrant Show is an attempt to discuss toxic topics in non-toxic ways, looking at them in good faith from perspectives from across the political/ideological landscape.

​

In this first episode, RFT and Nomad discuss the subject matter of their initial hostility: the work of self-described Black Feminist, “merwomanist”, and mermaid scholar, University of California Riverside Humanities Professor, Jalondra Davis. While the conversation often foregrounds Davis, the real focus is on ideological skew, low scholarly standards, and low practical utility in what RFT refers to as “activist disciplines”.

​

YouTube: https://youtu.be/s4SWesQpOuc

Apple Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ronfromtoronto/id1714182304

Spotify Podcast (audio only): https://open.spotify.com/show/4FfMP1MDK7kx3J3faRlov

15 years in the making, my latest video:

The Agricultural Revolution started what has been an accelerating trend of technological progress. Yet no matter how amazing our technologies become we continue to be saddled by existentially serious psychosocial problems: Depression, anxiety, suicide, substance abuse, personality disorders, anti-social behavior, polarization, corrupt and unrepresentative politicians, large-scale warfare, etc. All progress notwithstanding, many of these problems are getting worse, not better.

When discussing possible reasons/solutions for our ills, we rarely seem to take our evolutionary heritage into much account. As any evolutionary scientist will tell you, when you take organisms out of the environment to which their species is adapted, all bets are off as to their viability.

My guest today is Social & Evolutionary Psychologist, William von Hippel. While Bill is a Yale and UMichigan graduate, has held tenured professorships at multiple esteemed universities, and won The Society of Personality & Social Psychology Book Prize for his book "The Social Leap: The New Evolutionary Science of Who We Are, Where We Come From, and What Makes Us Happy", he is probably best known for his appearance on the Joe Rogan Experience discussing his book.

In this conversation Bill and I discuss many of the aforementioned psychosocial ills in reference to the profound mismatch between our highly individualistic, familially-disconnected modernity and our intensely inter-dependent tribal roots. We also discuss the evolution of language and higher-order cognition, the cognitive revolution, stigma surrounding evolutionary psychology, ideological polarization and censoriousness within academia, and - relatedly - why Bill left academia. Lastly, we discuss how religious community can serve as an antidote to many of the ills discussed, and the problem that there are so few non-religious community options for non-believers.

https://youtu.be/Cg76mYPW44Y

Hi guys :) I have something to say but I think I'm going to botch saying it.

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Way of Saying #1: Ekturvarsh

I'll try anyways. I've experienced that there are different ways of saying things. In other words, the same thing can be said in different ways, with different ways of saying things. Plus, and this is the important part, people don't understand different ways of saying things than their own. In other words, it's kind of like groups of people are speaking in different languages, even though they are all speaking English. Lol.

The stuff that I'm going to say is really obvious, so if you don't understand, that means I've screwed up.

I also made up random words for each way of saying. They mean nothing. Just for fun.

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Way of Saying #2: Nenu

There are different "ways of saying." WHY THIS IS IMPORTANT: people with their "way of saying" won't understand people who have a different "way of saying." It's like they speak different languages. What is your "way of saying"? What is the "way of saying" of the people you love? Can you learn to speak in their way?

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Way of Saying #3: Ben'uden-ta

[Translating a picture into words:]

I see a yellow sheet of light. The sheet is made of yellow light but also at the same time it is parchment.

There are little blue vertical lines speckling the yellow sheet. Dimly, there is writing on the sheet in an unknown language, maybe Hebrew.

[Interpretation: the yellow sheet of light means that what I am saying/seeing is good, exciting to me, and holy (to me). At the same time, since the sheet of light is also parchment, this means what I am saying/seeing is also crappy/not a big deal (parchment is crappy). The little blue lines mean that my whole post is wrong, but in a good way. They're saying: stop thinking about this, get up and go for a walk. The unknown writing means that I am grasping some mystery, but that it will be hard to get there. If I stare at it long enough, I will see it. The maybe Hebrew means that Ben'uden-ta is a sacred path to the divine for me.]

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Disclaimer:

• I don't really know any other ways of saying than these 3. You may know of more. If you do, let me know.
• Ektuvarsh is the one that comes easiest, and I think it is the most natural for most people. But if you spend alot of time in school, or you spend alot of time being criticized by other people then you switch to Nenu.
• **Technically speaking, Nenu CAN understand Ektuvarsh, and Ektuvarsh CAN understand Nenu, but they find the other way of speaking annoying or uncomfortable.
• I don't think hardly anyone knows how to speak Ben'uden-ta. Which sucks. Basically it's what happens when you boil metaphorical language down. Everyone knows what metaphorical/poetic language is. When you go all the way, the language collapses into an image. This image is rich in meaning. To say it again, Ben'uden-ta is preverbal.

I just realized something.

I remember when I was in Psychology (undergrad) I read that Jewish people have a much lower incidence of alcoholism even though they drink socially as part of their religious rituals (maybe even every Friday/Shabbat). For precisely that reason -- that they drink socially -- they are protected from alcoholism. I also read that a warning sign that separates an alcoholic from an alcohol user is that the alcoholic drinks by himself all alone in a room, for fun.

So I wondered what else was like that. Where doing something socially protected it, whereas doing it individually/by yourself was dangerous.

-People read books by themselves. This means that they are learning alone. Whereas a long time ago, before there were books, the only way to learn was from another person.

-People get their news from a newspaper/cellphone newsfeed nowadays. Whereas a long time ago, the only news spread by word of mouth and strangers from faraway lands were awaited eagerly.

-This is a personal example: I used to eat alot of junk food, alot of the time. It made me happy, took away my pain briefly. But it was a bad thing. BUT I think that if I do the same thing, in a social situation, like a family gathering or feast, then it suddenly becomes an ok/good thing. Does that makes sense? Long time ago people were very busy and there were no restaurants except for the rich and no corner stores where people could go and get 20 bags of chips. Long time ago, people had feasts on certain holidays. Eating sumptuous luxurious food only happened on special occasions. And everyone got to enjoy it.

This topic dovetails with people's concerns about the march and frenetic pace of technology and mass media. Are we really going forward, progressing as a species, or are we both going backwards and going forwards at the same time? Every new thing comes with a cost. People are spending a lot less time socializing, particularly face to face.

Does Reddit count? Does Reddit count as social learning? I hope so. I'm sure there's a reason why you're here to talk to another person instead of plopping on your bed and burying yourself in a book.

Can you think of other examples where doing something with other people makes that thing safe/controlled?

What do you think about all this?

There's two things I'd like to discuss in regards to ethics for atheists...

1. Value Theory
2. Normative Ethics

For the atheists here, what are your positions on these and why?

(I composed this in dot point form and refuse to alter it to perfect the flow)

Self censorship is in my opinion the major factor in mental health issues.

Social anxiety is basically a compulsion to act in a way that people will accept, regardless of whether your words and actions align with your thoughts. I.e. self censorship.

Now social anxiety brings about self censorship, and naturally self censorship also brings about social anxiety. Censoring yourself is extremely taxing, and people who feel the need to do it often necessarily become tired and eventually depressed.

Herein lies the issue with the modern world. We are told not to act in a certain way, not to think certain thoughts, and not to say certain things.

Those who obey are the most socially anxious and the most depressed people I see. They censor themselves in the hope that people will accept them, only to find that acceptance means nothing when they contemplate suicide daily and their shrink is a needless hole in their pocket.

When the external self happily acts in agreement with the internal self, there can be no social anxiety; social anxiety arises during moments of self censorship.

What should we value? What should we pursue?

EDIT: for clarification, by men I mean 'adult human males'. I'm particularly interested in us Americans though. I don't know enough about other cultures to talk about men elsewhere.

This video is the most recent in a series on ideological polarization and sometimes abysmal academic standards within the Humanities, using one English Professor as a case study. The series includes a detailed dissection of one of her papers, showing not only its many shortcomings but also how said shortcomings reflect broader problems in disciplines like hers (link to dissection in video description).

In the interest of balance and constructiveness, this episode and the one preceding it have been dedicated to being as charitable as possible to her paper. Probably TOO charitable, as most of the positives take the form of “she talked about something that mattered that often goes unthought of”. Which isn’t to say that she spoke of it at a level befitting professorship.
But nevertheless, this effort at charitability has allowed for the exploration of why we need a rigorous Humanities by way of exploring the single most important events in human history: the Agricultural Revolution. Much of what the professor and others on the left blame on capitalism and white supremacy (e.g., colonialism, slavery, environmental degradation, economic inequality) should be blamed either in part or in full on the Agricultural Revolution and its philosophically and religiously revolutionary intellectual underpinnings.As is discussed in the video, none of this is imply that capitalism has been all candies and rainbows. Like agriculture, it's a mixed bag.

As these videos are dealing with broad, complex issues, it is impossible to cover them from every angle (e.g., there is more than one way to implement capitalism). But if you think that I've missed something, feel free to let me know. It could possibly serve as the subject of a future video.

https://youtu.be/Nbn7Qvu2Ddc

relevant reading

Industrial Society and it's Future by Ted Kaczynski

Against Civilization: Readings and Reflections by John Zerzan

Walden by Henry David Thoreau

discussion

I think part of the appeal of primitivist beliefs is in it's irreconcilable differences with the modern world. People see that no modern system works to further the happiness of the vast majority of people, leading them to believe that the only solution is something so radically different that few alive today have ever experienced anything even remotely similar to it

There are definitely some nihilistic aspects to primitivism. People have so little faith that they would see the modern world burn in the hope that what remains would be better.

rant

My political beliefs have been strongly influenced by primitivism. I'm not quite that far gone, though some do border deranged.

I believe everyone should have the right to exit society whenever they choose, for however long they choose, without persecution.

I believe in laws like European free roam laws, and that all unused land should be free for all uses, save permanant constructions and needless damage to the environment.

Most deranged of all, I have no empathy for food animals. I would like to see as little farmland as possible, and so I would prefer farms to be as dense as possible. Vertically scalable as with battery chickens.

This rant is partially motivated by the government planning to make Mt Warning, a small mountain which I have climbed every year or two since I was 8, native title.

This change will effectively ban people from one of the most beautiful national parks in the country solely based on their race.

I think the government is financially motivated to close national parks in my area. North coast NSW gets a lot of rain, so walking tracks here need a complete reconstruction every few years.

Similarly Nightcap national park, and Protestors Falls have both been closed for over a year.

Trans discussion with Arcowhip: https://youtu.be/TZFGnNn0BAA

Education discussion with James: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iX93CXZCYrU , https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DVQF3czKMeg , https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ZVarJ_1gcQ

​

If you're interested in having a discussion message me or send an email to dialectictalks@gmail.com.

Why do all stories have conflict in them? Why do all games have conflict in them?

~ ~ ~

- The Lord of the Rings is about the conflict between the forces of Sauron and the forces of good. When this conflict is resolved, the story ends.

- Chess is a fight between 2 players.

Can there never be a story or game that is purely peaceful, a paradise?

~ ~ ~

(Do all stories and games have conflict because we as a species love violence, and can't do without it?)

(Or is it because life is suffering, and stories and games that don't reflect this don't feel realistic?)

What do you think?

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https://preview.redd.it/s285v338xn2b1.jpg?width=803&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=483d4aea92dd5b2f447465df6cc23eab76d2c637

It struck me recently that conversation is like a game.

The Rule is: everything is linked. When you say something, it needs to be linked to what was said before. In other words, Person 1 says something, and that makes Person 2 think of something and she says it, which makes Person 1 think of something and he says it, and so on.

Example: "How are you?" --> "Good I just finished shovelling the snow off my driveway." --> "I just did that too." --> "30 years ago it snowed up to the roofs of the houses." --> etc...

As you can see, the conversation game starts with "How are you?" or "What's up?" etc...

The goal of conversation is to have fun, just like in a real game. (What I've said so far mostly relates to what is called "small talk"... but I believe it can tell us something about all conversations.)

The problem is that, in theory, conversation is limitless -- an adventure where anything can happen -- but in practice, conversation revolves around a narrow range of subjects and is repetitive... boring... stagnant. As you can see from the example, the conversation game famously gets stuck on the weather or listing what you did this week.

How can we have deep conversations?

(Picture: I couldn't find a better picture... the eddies in the picture represent stuff that conversation gets stuck on.)

I always say to myself "I'm depressed" "I'm anxious" and "I need to work on that" but the reality is that my anger is bigger than my depression or anxiety... I just realized that.

I did not know I was angry!! It does not come up to consciousness. Because my anger is SO repressed.

(Because when I was a child my dad had a violent anger and hurt me badly... So at a young age I promised myself "I will never be like him"... So at a young age I started practicing not getting angry. "Anger is bad" was my mantra.)

Are you like that too?

~ ~ ~

Other questions:

Why is there no disorder for anger in the DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders)? There are anxiety disorders and depressive disorders. Are we saying that anger isn't a problem?

Does society have a problem with anger? Does society encourage the expression of anger?

Has anybody read up on the research behind supposed benefits of taking cold showers? I'm thinking about doing them, but first I gotta read some research out there. Before I started looking I figured to ask folks here and see if anyone's already got a head start.

Anybody have any good experiences with them?

The date is to-be-determined. I'll keep you guys posted/updated.

We're going to talk about the question, "what should men do in life?" and we're going to talk about exemplars for men, if there are any; hint: I'm probably going to mention Captain America.

The conversation will be with CyborgMystic.

Hey I hope everyone is doing well! I had the transgender discussion with Arcowhip and posted that. If anybody has any topics they'd like to see an event for please let me know! One person mentioned something in Australia last time I asked. Unfortunately I am so unfamiliar with that I wouldn't be able to have a discussion with anyone on it.

American politics, economics, philosophy, science, etc are all good areas for me.