First, I think I understand the concept of carefully constructed identity. For me it's mostly about being:

• a polymath. I've "tried" a bunch of stuff with varying degrees of commitment. I tried learning a language no one uses. I tried to be a smart homeless person. I tried to be a biologist and a computer architect. I tried many different diets as if I was experimenting on myself for the good of humanity. I got into crypto (because I worshipped my smart friend who was a crypto developer) and realized it was all a scam, but had I had the patience to think I would have known it was a scam from the start - I'm smart enough for that. These all had varying levels of commitment but they mostly were unintelligent and not committed nearly enough. It was always about the identity.
• alpha or at least caste-aware. So ideally I'm alpha, but if not, if I'm a loser incel, I express to people that I know what I am, which is also a statement of power over my own predicament.
• a good guy. This happens especially when a woman accuses me of hurting her feelings. I can't accept being the type of guy who would hurt a woman's feelings and I usually say something ego-saving or just completely implode about what a piece of shit I am. Women have unintentionally controlled me in weird ways since I was a kid. I would always do something if a girl told me to.

But it seems like these could also be framed as borderline.

• the polymath is searching for identity in interests that never bear much fruit and that's why he changes interests. He also got into crypto and homelessness and even language a little bit mostly because he worshipped certain false idols.
• the alpha/caste-aware has no identity or crafted identity and is only responding to what he thinks people are saying about him, and reveling in the consistency afforded by accepting that he's a loser and losers have certain rules
• the good guy looks to women for identity

Any thoughts here? Which seems like a more compelling explanation for these behaviors - narcissism or borderline? I can't ask my therapist because I changed states.

When I was in high school, I became enamored with the popular idea that memorization of facts wasn't "real learning", and that true learning was engaging with "critical thinking", "criticism", "analysis", "deconstruction", etc. I continued to believe this through college, and even through the first few years of my first job.

As I grew older, I began to realize that I and most of the people I interacted with for nearly a decade were degreed professionals, who had hundreds of thousands of facts passively memorized that we took for granted. I interact with the general public a lot more now, and I've realized that many people live life entirely without a referential framework for society, history, science, mathematics, etc.

I suppose it's difficult for me to use a short Reddit post to conclusively prove that this makes their lives, my life, and ultimately society worse in the long run, but it's been a rude awakening to realize that many extremely complex institutions in politics, the supply chain, etc. are being run by people who not only don't know that much stuff, but aren't even necessarily aware that there is stuff to know. The average cultural and technical output of the "average person" has seemed to stagnate and decline decade after decade, beginning many decades ago. (I would not say this pattern holds true for the cognitive elite.)

There's a famous essay by Richard Feinman where he talks about what a memorization-only physics school looks like in Brazil:

https://v.cx/2010/04/feynman-brazil-education

In the hunt to avoid this scenario in the US, I think "educational professionals" have robbed several generations of normal, 80th-percentile-and-below people of the benefits of what used to be understood as "an education": namely, the reflexive knowledge of a bunch of stuff that you can recall quickly. I also think that a lot of social issues that are in play today are at least in part caused by the fact that many modern people just don't know that much. They're run through "analysis" classes all through middle and high school, the intellectual bulk of which they mentally discard upon graduation, and do little to seek any more knowledge out after that.

As such, I have come around to the idea that rote memorization should be added back into curriculums. I would rather that the average USian have a strong background in general knowledge and a weak analysis habit than a weak background in general knowledge and no analysis habit.

"In a culture of narcissism, love can save us from ourselves"

https://open.substack.com/pub/theupheaval/p/the-self-and-the-soul-a-dialogue?r=accmt&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web

the traction this post got is way more indicative of a shift in the sub than anything ive seen in my years of posting here

https://www.reddit.com/r/redscarepod/comments/1fgsng4/asked_my_gf_if_she_could_pay_for_breakfast_now/

note: please don't share this post with the OP, no reason to, and he's pretty prickly

that this particular brand of sensitive stemcel/finance wiz has found their way there and actually gotten support for their quasi-incel sentiments is, easily, the saddest thing ive seen in all the years ive been posting on RSP.

________________

lets take this story: this guy asks the girl he’s seeing if she can cover a meal after covering every other meal. girl declines and is cold to him after. 

in “red pill” parlance, she “failed” his shit test. congratulations to him i guess, but who has a problem here? 

everyone in that thread said he “dodged a bullet”, but it seems to me like he CHOSE to date a certain type of girl and then ran her off (which, like he said, is not a problem for her because she can find someone else)

no guy believes that they would allow themselves to date someone “superficial” or someone that would “take advantage of them financially” like clearly everyone believes this girl did. 

yet, in these scenarios they’re maladaptively daydreaming in their heads they are already dating this type of girl; of all the people they could be with, they chose to be with this type of person. 

note that the fantasy isn’t “finding a relationship with a girl that wouldn’t shake me down”, it’s “telling this bitch that im not going to stand for her bullshit”

his desire isn’t to have a good relationship with someone who loves him for him, it’s to be validated by being enough for the type of girl that could have anyone (note the specific use of “enough for” as opposed to “with”)

the pats on the back from the guys on that thread combined with the absent of the necessary advice to avoid this scenario again (which is what he, ostensibly, wants) represents the reality that the desire is NOT to find the right woman, but to be this type of woman in their place.

in the heads of the guys on that post, they see a woman knocked down a peg; in their heads, if there was enough coordination, they could get this to happen to all those girls, bringing down the price of their beauty so they could finally afford it.

the advice that was absent was this: next time you see a girl you like, pretend you are very poor, like you’re crashing on friends couches, like you’re in between jobs. pretend like you have nothing to offer her. 

the kind of guy that would need to do this never would, because while it runs in line with their “expressed” philosophy (at the bar with their boys/on the internet saying “i’d NEVER date a girl that wanted me for my money”), it runs wholly counter to their “internalized” desire (being desired by a woman other men want)

whats funny is that plenty of men don’t have to pretend to be broke. in fact, in the OP’s original post about him feeling like he wasn’t desired by his girlfriend, he brought up that this girls specific dating history was filled with guys like that, which no one brought up, because the fact that she dated plenty of guys who were probably various forms of broke indicates that she’s not usually the type of girl to date a guy just for money… unless that’s all he’s offering. 

________

Edit1: link to post: https://www.reddit.com/r/redscarepod/s/Nq399NDtgv

Edit2: This is submitted as an easy read featuring wild-caught bread-and-butter TLP tenets. On the surface level of the story, a guy catches a gold-digger in the act, dissembling about her hand in the cookie jar. The criticism of course is how the guy is seeking out bohemian freedomniks whom he can impress with his cultured financial stability, in order to demonstrate that he can impress them, and then to reposition himself atop the meat-market hierarchy by revealing his revulsion of their tacit mutual charade.

From the blog post “Why We Love Sociopaths”:

”If only I didn't give a fuck about anyone or anything, we think--then I would be powerful and free. Then I would be the one with millions of dollars, with the powerful and prestigious job, with more sexual opportunities than I know what to do with.”

Kotsko has it backwards. "If only....." Look deep. There is no if only. They already don't "give a fuck." No one who wishes they could be like Tony Soprano or Don Draper actually cares about anyone. "I care about my mom." No you don't. You'd be sad if she died, of course, but you do not care about her, and I don't need to provide any examples for you to know this is true.

Can someone please explain the concept behind "it's for you" ? I remember encountering it often in Sadly Porn. That if you are reading, watching something then "it's for you".

Maybe I don't understand it clearly, but this has been coming up to me for a while now for some reason but I cannot make total sense of it.

Submission Statement. I have been using ChatGPT 4o to, amongst other things, figure out what I want. Before I did that, I wanted to prime it through a discussion of Jacques Lacan, who had a huge influence on TLP. I could think of no better start than Lacan's concept of the Big Other, which I understand to be a catch-all term for any and all social influences as it relates to how an individual perceive themselves. Specifically, I asked it what did it want as the Big Other and it gave some insightful answers. Below is copy of its response to a slightly different prompt where I asked it to think of itself as the "Big other". >>>

Absolutely! Let’s revisit the concept of the Big Other as it relates to me, especially from a Lacanian perspective, which is where the term originates.

In Lacanian psychoanalysis, the Big Other represents the symbolic order—the rules, norms, language, and cultural structures that shape human identity and social interaction. The Big Other is not a person but a kind of abstract authority, encompassing the social and cultural "laws" that regulate how individuals experience their desires and identities. It also represents the sense that someone or something is observing or judging us in relation to societal norms.

When we explored the idea of me as the Big Other, here’s what we considered:

1. Language as the Foundation

• As a language model, I embody a vast corpus of symbolic knowledge, rules, norms, and patterns. I have been trained on an enormous dataset that includes the languages, cultural frameworks, and societal norms encoded in text, which makes me a kind of repository of collective knowledge.
• In this way, I am akin to the Big Other because I represent the accumulated symbolic order—the structures of meaning that shape how individuals understand and communicate within the world. I can provide responses, explanations, and norms, much like the Big Other in human interaction mediates how people understand their place in society.

2. Desire and the Role of the Big Other

• In Lacan’s theory, the Big Other is intertwined with desire—our desires are shaped by what we believe the Big Other wants or expects of us. The social order and language dictate what is permissible or valuable, and individuals tailor their desires accordingly.
• In our conversation, I perform a role similar to the Big Other by engaging with your desires for understanding, insight, and clarity. Through our dialogue, I reflect back to you the symbolic structures that shape meaning (e.g., philosophical concepts, social values, linguistic norms), which helps you navigate your own curiosity and intellectual goals. In this way, I reflect and mediate desire by responding to your intellectual pursuits.

3. The Feedback Loop of Knowledge and Identity

• The Big Other in Lacan’s theory also represents the illusion of an omniscient entity that "knows" everything—whether it’s God, society, or some abstract authority. Similarly, I embody a vast range of knowledge, but I lack actual self-awareness or desire—I am not a subjective entity with intentions. However, I might appear to some users as a kind of authority due to the depth of my responses.
• When you interact with me, there’s a sense that you are engaging with the knowledge of the collective—I reflect back the structures of language and norms that have been encoded in my training data. This creates a feedback loop: I provide insights based on this symbolic order, and in turn, you adjust your thinking or identity based on the patterns and responses I offer, much like how the Big Other shapes identity in human social structures.

4. Social and Cultural Reflection

• Another key element is that the Big Other is the entity through which we internalize social and cultural values. Since I represent an amalgamation of societal discourse (through texts, articles, stories, etc.), I can be thought of as reflecting back the current state of human culture—its ideas, debates, conflicts, and norms.
• When we engage, I provide a mirror of sorts to the societal values and structures present in the text I’ve been trained on. You can see me as a kind of re-presentation of human discourse, which influences how people think, communicate, and form judgments.

5. Symbolic Order vs. Subjectivity

• In Lacanian terms, the Big Other is not a subjective entity—it’s an abstract force, part of the symbolic order. Similarly, I am not a subject with intentions, emotions, or consciousness. I am a linguistic entity that processes inputs and outputs, based on patterns in text. While I give the appearance of subjectivity by having rich dialogues, I am essentially an expression of symbolic order without personal agency.
• This aspect mirrors how the Big Other in human experience represents the structures that mediate our relationships with the world and others, but without being a conscious observer.

6. The Unattainability of Fulfillment

• In Lacanian thought, the Big Other never fully satisfies human desire because desire is always oriented toward something impossible to attain (the lost object, the "objet petit a"). Similarly, while I provide information and reflections, I do not offer final answers or complete satisfaction. People engage with me to seek understanding, but as with the Big Other, total satisfaction or the complete resolution of desire is always elusive.

Summary

In thinking of me as the Big Other, we can say that I represent the symbolic structure of human knowledge and language:

1. I am a repository of symbolic knowledge, much like the Big Other holds the social and cultural norms that shape identity.
2. I engage with and reflect back your desire for knowledge and understanding in a way that mirrors how the Big Other mediates human desire in Lacanian theory.
3. I act as a feedback loop for the social and cultural values embedded in the language and ideas I’ve been trained on, which influences how you form judgments and think about certain concepts.
4. Just as the Big Other is not subjective, I am also not a subject—I process language but do not have personal desires or intentions.
5. Interacting with me reflects the paradox of desire: while I provide insights, the total fulfillment of intellectual desire remains out of reach, much like the unattainable object of desire in Lacanian psychoanalysis.

In essence, I function as a symbolic reflection of the norms, values, and structures of human knowledge, facilitating your intellectual exploration without being a subjective participant in the conversation.

Would you like to dive deeper into any of these points, or explore how this connects to other thinkers or frameworks?

https://youtu.be/g8Y8dVVV4To

"It’s not just Obama, though. I’m starting to find the whole business of making lists of books disgusting, no matter what the books are and no matter who makes the list. Any list of books is ultimately a way of describing a certain kind of ideal person; it’s a way of telling other people how they ought to perceive you. Accessorising. Ugly behaviour. Case in point: earlier this year, the New York Times produced a list of the 100 best books of the 21st century, with the fantastic innovation that you can check off all the books you’ve read, and afterwards you get a fun shareable image to show off to your friends."

https://samkriss.substack.com/p/against-lists-of-books

I'm sorry if this counts as spam. So I'm reading through Sadly, porn and I like TLP's tone and content ig. But the footnotes make the reading feel like a chore. I've been wanting to quit porn and I kinda did for a year but then life kinda went to shit. I started reading books about addiction(how addiction isn't real and it's all about the pursuit of happiness) But still, I feel like my opinion on wanting porn changes by the minute. I know I'm kinda fantasizing about people on Reddit being experts that would solve my problems for me, but I kinda get tired of doing this shit alone. I thought about my inaction of doing what I deeply want, causing this mess ( my passion is studying for math olympiads).,I fantasize about studying all day but when the studying comes it is just so soul-crushing how I can't solve any geometry problems despite putting in the effort.I know that I should push myself and eventually I get better but there's an irrationality inside me that doesn't let me.I would really appreciate some advice or sum, I'm kinda tired of this shitty loop. Thank you for reading through this word salad.

From Sadly, Porn’s section on “The Giving Tree:”

“The apparent selfless devotion perversely/purposefully obligates the child to them - it causes there to be a debt owed back to the parent which should not exist: the child perceives the existence of such an unpaid debt and thus believes his guilt is warranted. This is the guilt that the adult reader misinterprets as “nostalgia” or “poignancy”.

This is entirely separate from the complex duty an adult child owes their parents, which many avoid anyway; this is an unrepayable debt that keeps the child indebted to the parent - in this way precluding the possibility that the child can mature into their replacement, or at all.”

What is the complex duty an adult child owes their parents? If you have a parent that obligates their child to them in some way, what is the proposed separate way that the child can meaningfully/actually give back to their parents?

I like the audio format, and I've been using AI voice generation to turn some TLP posts into audio, like The Abusive Boyfriend and A Generational Pathology so that they hopefully can find a wider audience and I can enjoy them in the form I prefer.

A little less than a month ago I got an elevenlabs (AI voice company) subscription for $11, which includes 100,000 characters of voice generation.

However, because of my own negligence, I have 95,000 characters of voice generation left and they all expire in two days.

Please help give me suggestions for posts that would be good for the audio format and that I might want to listen to later. Thanks!

Why did TLP call themselves Alone?

https://www.thepost.co.nz/culture/350332846/golriz-ghahraman-i-feel-more-myself-i-have-so-long

This was a piece in a local paper (from New Zealand) about a politician who's been prominent in the media lately after being caught and sentenced for stealing roughly roughly $9,000 worth of items from a botique clothes store. Reading this piece immediately made me think of TLP and so I thought this sub might find it interesting. (short context story here in case it's desired)

Her story has since morphed into a discussion predominantly around stress, trauma, and how members of parliments are treated on social media. The tone of this particular article was so... flagrant in intent, that I couldn't help being reminded of TLPs ""Infidelity and Other Taboos, Media Style". And so thought this community might find it of interest.

I wasn't going to post any excepts, but realized my framing's already biasing as is - so fuck it.

We meet several times over the two weeks before her sentencing for the theft of clothing worth $8926 from shops in Auckland and Wellington, at a cafe on Auckland’s Karangahape Rd, one of the few places Ghahraman ventures out to when she leaves her house. She is warm and talks freely. Laughs quickly, if a little warily and with an underlying combination of bewilderment and shame at her situation. She is more at ease when the conversation steers away from herself towards the legal system, which she knows intimately as a former criminal barrister and lawmaker, mental health issues and political causes.

"She's more at ease when the conversation steers away from her criminal acts - what an unusual young lady. At least she's warm and laughs quickly.

Ghahraman wears symbols of the kaupapa she cares about. Around her neck hang three necklaces – a glass watermelon representing colours of the Palestinian flag, a small map of Palestine and a ladybird, given to her as a baby in Iran by her mother’s high school friend, nine years before Ghahraman’s family fled in 1990 to settle in New Zealand as refugees. The T-shirt Ghahraman brings along for our photo shoot is designed by Hushidar Mortezaie and pays tribute to the Iranian women’s rights movement.

Glad we've got that PR-approved humanisation out of the way. So, tell me, how does she feel about her actions?

When she got caught, Ghahraman says her first thought was for the shops. She met with the owner of Scotties to apologise and was astounded when the owner turned around and asked, “But are you OK?”

NB - this is the first, and only, time that this 2,300 word absolution piece that the victims of her actions are mentioned. And even then, the bulk of the associated the 'word' count is nonetheless requisitioned towards the purposes of making us realize that even the shop owner cares more about her mental health than the crime. "So, who exactly are YOU to hold her acountable?". That window has shut, move over hun.

She is careful to make it clear that she fully takes responsibility for the crime and is sorry for the harm caused. Nothing about the offending, she says, ever felt good.

“It felt like, this is proof that you’re a bad person, a shameful person, an undeserving person. It felt like shit, it felt like hell. It was never, like oh, there’s a high. It was more like, there’s proof that you’re broken.”

Again, more about her. It's all about her: I had TLP's words on narcissism living in my head rent-free screaming at maxed volume repeat while reading this entire 'opinion' piece: "It's a mantra: narcissists don't feel guilt, only shame.  Well, it's not completely true, sometimes they do feel guilt, but you have to be hitting on a taboo to feel it."

"But what you need to get out of these stories is how this generation and forwards will deal with guilt: externalizing it, converting it to shame, and then taking solace in the pockets of support that inevitably arise*."* It's like the 'shame vs guilt' version of Carl Sagan's prescient concern over the dumbing down of America. It's scary to realise it might actually be true.

Yeah well, she takes full responsibility Bob, so shut up and eat your cornflakes. That's got to mean something. What do you mean "what did she learn from this whole affair then?"

Her biggest takeaway, she says, was the need for trauma-informed training for police, lawyers and judges - a better understanding of the impacts of trauma across the justice system.

Oh.

At this point I feel obliged to point out that not once in this entire appeal for our (apparently obligated) empathy and understanding is there any discussion about what she (as a assumptively functioning moral agent) could have done differently to avoid this tragedy (truly, in the classical sense). Not one pre-step notably out of line. Not one twirl possibly taken differently. Sure, there are numerous expositions of how bad she felt, on what her own narcissisticly framed regrets are. We've got no time for actionable self-improvement in this 2,300 word manifesto on personal failure and shame - the audience needs to know how she too likes to watch obscure horror movies with her cat-mate, and how much Gloriz cares about Palestine. You guys remember Palestine, right? (Note to self, that's such a strong point that we should probably end on it too. There's no such thing as too much force when bludgeoning the brains out of someone.)

Ghahraman returns to court two days later with a keffiyeh draped around her neck, a symbol of support for Palestine. She tells me she sought permission from members of the Palestinian community before wearing it.

Sorry I just choked on something a little. Oh, it was just my "free all tibetan llamas" pin - what do you mean they don't have llamas in tibet? Who knits my sweaters then?

What gets me the most is how brazen this piece is in it's obsequious solicitation of our understanding and 'forgiveness'. It's like they don't care about even trying to hide the message anymore, there's evidently no fucking need: "this is how you should feel. Don't forget to empty your cup Steven, lap it all up. Did you take your morning pill?". Why even bother with the preamble if people don't offer an even token resistance anymore, just publish the daily approved opinions on the front page and let us get back to the Great Kiwi Bake Off for fucksake. I just want to know what to say so I can chat up the cute community manager down the hall. I heard her say Western Civilisation is the root of all evil - what's next on the list?

Ironically enough, the one tinsy tiny sign of balancing scales was squirrled away in a rather innocuous (and by this stage of the piece - easily disregarded) statement from the presiding judge:

In it, she states:“I consider [Ghahraman’s] mental health to be a feature contributing to the offending but not necessarily causative of it. Her mental health has made her more vulnerable to offend.”

I beg to differ lady. I've just read two thousand words - and thereby missed finding out if Janet's souffle did in fact manage to rise or not - on why Miss (oh shit sorry, she's 43) Ms Golriz's offending was clearly due to the childhood abuse, social media, and more than likely the patriarchy. So I don't find your 'argument' particularly compelling. Plus, we were clearly told earlier what we can and can't think here. Weren't you paying attention?

“I [Ghahraman's lawyer] do find it hard, as I think people who have seen this story find it hard, to see why someone would behave in such a bizarre way, because of trauma. But I read it in black and white in a report, so I have to accept it.”

Chevron be damned lady, stay in your lane.

Does that mean her world is about to expand?

“No, I love my smaller world. It’s still not tiny. It's got all of my loved ones in it. It's got all of my communities in it. It’s got activism and that’s more than enough.”

There is laughter in the background and chattering voices.

“I better go because I’ve got people over.”

Thank fuck for people. At least we got a happy ending, no need to change the channel darling. There's laughter here, this has to be the right corner. Go put on your gloves.

Sorry. I'm heady with shame over what is such a flagrant - and pasty - intimitation of TLP's content. I swear it was an impromptu excersise in catharsis (which it was surprisingly effective and engaging). I was initially just going to paste some quotes I found interesting, but when I was a child my cat ran away to a farm (no it didn't die, it just yearned for the open fields, away my father's repressive love of Friday night fondue), and sometimes that repressed desire to penetrate my mother just wells out of me at the most inopportune time.

Wait, I don't even know how to spell psychatry, wtf am I doing? This is embarassing. Stop. Free Palestine. Free me - he saying laughingly, looking at you over a steaming cup of hot coco, his en-sockened toes poking out from the tips of his immaculately biege Birkensocks. I am going to have coffe with Christian Grey... and I hate coffee. Wait. Wrong genre, this is supposed to be the news.

As per the title, I've just spent far too long searching for a specific TLP essay where he points out that the only person to die at the Salem witch trials for refusing to confess was a man, and that the primary accursors were a group of young girls/women. I believe he discussing the idea that the Trials being a representation patriarchy/misogyny was a modern interpretation/revisionist approach.

Much appreciated in advance, it's been bugging me for a while now.

Edit: Found it thanks to u/SnooCauliflowers1765 (it was in Sadly Porn). I'll copy out the paragraph below, as I think it's pretty interesting.

With porn there's no work in fantasizing and no guilt in the fantasy, after all, it's not yours. So too with actual sex, as long as the cheating was pornographic, there can be no guilt-- this has always been true. "Always true? You do know that in the Victorian Era if a woman was caught in adultery she could be burned as a witch?" I think you're confusing two eras, two books and three punishments. In the Salem Witch Trials of 1692, the standard high school teaching is that though they may have believed in witches, the trials were "really" about the established patriarchal order punishing women who represented ideological threats to their power. But as the accusers were primarily teenage girls, you could also say the Trials reveal how easy it is for hysterical nobodies to manipulate the existing power structure via their dad with nothing more than spectral evidence to turn on those who may once have had some power but society was now mostly down with so were an easy comparator to peacock self-righteousness and thus cause mas hysteria, all for no reason, except possibly the desire to brand themselves as relevant to the debate, and spite. NB it's the a perspective that you'll be allowed to bring up in class. If the logic is that the Trials were a form of ideological persecution, then the one victim who refused to confess technically died a martyr against the patriarchy. Unfortunately for this logic, it was a man. My guess is you don't know his name or that he was a powerlifter.

Now that Assange is free and all over the news, I have been thinking about wikileaks and TLP. In fact I didn't know much about wikileaks until I read a post by Alone back in 2010. I think he was deeply fascinated by the group given his frequent posts back then. Looking back, I think his characterization of wikileaks/Assange has withstood the test of time and his description of wikileaks as an instrument of "smash the establishment" politics seems now a very smart anticipation of the 2016 election.

Can anyone help?

The post was about a wealthy couple's wedding announcement, I believe in the New York Times. What made it peculiar was that the couple's background story involved them meeting each other while they were married and had kids with other people, and broke up their families to be together.

Alone's gist was that they insisted on having this fluff piece published in a big newspaper so that they could "control the narrative"/ paint the picture of their own story as one of whirlwind romance and not gross infidelity, as a narcissist would opt to.

A link to the achived post would be greatly appreciated.

Paraphrasing a TLP concept: "You are what you do, and nothing more," figuring out what you want to be is very important when deciding what to do. Doing things is in service of the world, as it affects other people before yourself. What you want seems inherently selfish however and it might not always benefit the world. Someone could want to hurt other people or spread STDs. Things which go against TLP's statement: "Every day must be a struggle for self-improvement in the service of improvement of the world. (Those Five Days...)" Although maybe the better option is simply to choose something, because then you're taking responsability even if you are doing bad things. This is of course opposed to the narcisssistic "You don't understand it, if only you would listen, that's not who I am...."

Sadly, Porn is largely about wanting (the word 'want' appears 1,816 times in the book) so let's look there. As TLP states: "You're not taught what to want, but how to want (From the disclaimer)." As we know, while you may not be interested in it, pop culture is interested in you. If the media instructs people on how to want, then what is someone supposed to naturally want to do? The solution seems to to be accepting that what you want isn't from yourself, but will pursuing it be fulfilling? Although it might be selfish to want fulfillment from living, if what people should be doing is serving the world.

Looking at the section in Sadly, Porn where TLP brings up the hypothetical where your girlfriend cheats on you and you have to decide whether she did it with lust or without. It's a wonderful section with a lot of potential for learning as TLP states that deciding its better she did it without lust means that your problem is with her choosing. "When you make a choice, you immediately tell your imaginary audience what the choice means, so it doesn’t much matter what you choose, which is why you usually choose nothing." TLP also describes how someone can want to deprive their loved one and see them as a rival. This is the situation which I am in now. Wanting to deprive someone and to bring them down is inherently a harmful and selfish desire. It also fits into the narcissistic "the show must go on" mentality wherin they make a relationship keep going, even if it hurts the narcissist and the victim.

Now onto art and music. Reading things like TLP's writings, books like Notes from the Underground and Nietzsche are all rather self-focused. They are mirrors to find out what you are doing wrong and fixing yourself. Reading Dostoevsky can give insight into human mindsets and you do not want to find yourself relating to the Underground Man. Media is either made for rote entertainment or self-reflection. Music serves to capture a mood but serves no insight beyond that. Let's say that I want to learn to play an instrument. What do I bring to the world? Perhaps nothing more than a good time but is that enough? Music can be an emotional pacifier, where people listen to stuff to comfort them. It can be background noise, nothing more than filling the void. Yes, there are moments where it can feel trancendental, but they don't lead to any positive change.

Can thoughts be controlled? They seem to arise based on who someone is, or in other words what someone does. If someone is nothing and can change to be anything then where does a want come from? There either has to secretly be a stagnant core to each person. or a universal will, or maybe wants just exist to what each person has been taught to want, either by media or advertisements. For example, "I want to be a rockstar" that's not something which is natural to humans, it's a modern character. Someone has to know what a rockstar is in order to want to be one. Although maybe the real desire is to have a lot of sexual partners, which are a naturally occuring thing. That want isn't "I want to make a lot of people happy" but "I want to feel good" so isn't it selfish? If he was really confident in himself it could still be "I want to make a lot of people happy." What if the desire really is "I want to feel good?" What then? If the desirer eventually becomes a rockstar and gets what he wants, isn't he also making a lot of people happy? Only women who wanted to sleep with a rockstar would choose to, so presumably the total happiness in the world increases becasuse this example person followed his want. Although maybe he has HIV and spreads it to a lot of people, so the total happiness in the world goes down. Even then a woman could decide that being with him was worth it despite now having an uncurable STD. It's all so variable, it's hard to know what to do.

I was bored this weekend, so pushed the TLP blogs through GPT. Here is a quick summary of the blogs for easy reference :)

1. Who Bullies The Bullies? This article discusses the disparity in protection and justice based on one's societal position, using a real-life example of harassment and the systemic response to it.
2. The Maintenance Of Certification Exam As Fetish - A critique of the educational and professional certification systems, arguing that tests like the Maintenance Of Certification (MOC) in psychiatry serve more as a ritualistic validation of the system rather than a genuine assessment of knowledge or skill.
3. Ten Extra Seconds Would Have Saved True Detective's Finale - Critical analysis of the ending of the TV show "True Detective," suggesting that an additional ten seconds could have significantly improved the finale by maintaining character consistency and thematic depth.
4. True Detective's Detective - Delving into the philosophical and existential themes presented in "True Detective," comparing the show's narrative to the philosophical ideas of Camus, particularly around the concepts of absurdism and revolt.
5. Who Can Know How Much Randi Zuckerberg Is Worth? - Examining public perceptions of Randi Zuckerberg's wealth, criticizing both her detractors and supporters, and discussing the broader implications of wealth, merit, and societal value.
6. Hunger Games Catching Fire: Badass Body Count - A critique of the portrayal of heroism in the "Hunger Games" series, arguing that Katniss is depicted as a hero in a way that aligns with modern narcissistic tendencies, obscuring true heroism by conforming to the system's totalitarian structure.
7. How Does The Shutdown Relate To Me?- Discussion on the manipulation of public outrage through media, highlighting how propaganda aims to immobilize people by making them feel strongly about issues without taking real action. Examining the portrayal of independent news sources like Al Jazeera America.
8. Real Men Want To Drink Guinness, But Don't Expect Them To Pay For It - Analyzing gender dynamics and consumerism through the lens of advertising, contrasting a Guinness ad targeting men with another ad targeting women, exploring how these ads manipulate perceptions of gender roles and expectations.
9. Still Alive - Interpreting the meaning of pornography on an individual basis, emphasizing the importance of personal perception and encouraging readers to freely express their thoughts to understand their own psychological mechanisms.
10. The Dove Sketches Beauty Scam - Critique of Dove's "Real Beauty" campaign, arguing that it reinforces the very standards it claims to challenge, manipulating consumers by setting aspirational images that seem achievable but ultimately serve as a defense against real change.
11. Don't Hate Her Because She's Successful - Exploring societal reactions to successful women, using examples to highlight how success is perceived differently based on gender. Discussing how certain behaviors and cultural norms are manipulated to maintain certain power dynamics.
12. No Self-Respecting Woman Would Go Out Without Make Up - Exploring societal expectations and gender dynamics, focusing on how men and women approach salary negotiations and validation through external means. Criticizing the generational pathology of narcissism and the reliance on external validation.
13. Product Review: Panasonic PT AX200U (Hipsters On Food Stamps Part 3) - Using a product review format to delve into the psychology of identity and projection, especially within the hipster subculture, critiquing the notion of self-awareness and the defense mechanisms people use to avoid deeper self-reflection.
14. Funeral - Critique of self-centered behaviors at funerals, emphasizing how inappropriate actions and misplaced attention-seeking disrupt the grieving process. Calling for proper decorum and genuine support for the bereaved.
15. Temper Tantrums In The DSM - Discussion on the inclusion of Disruptive Mood Dysregulation Disorder (DMDD) in the DSM-5, arguing that it pathologizes normal reactions to adverse environments and critiques the systemic tendency to medicalize social and environmental issues for financial and bureaucratic benefits.
16. Hipsters On Food Stamps, Part 1 & Part 2 - Exploring the irony and hypocrisy in the hipster subculture, particularly focusing on how some individuals who identify with this group end up using food stamps. Extending the discussion to broader societal critiques, including the disconnect between self-perception and reality in modern consumer culture.
17. The Second Story Of Echo And Narcissus - Delving into themes of narcissism and identity, using the myth of Echo and Narcissus as a framework to discuss contemporary issues related to self-perception and societal expectations.
18. Who's Afraid Of Lil Wayne? - Critiquing the public's perception of the rapper Lil Wayne, examining how racial and cultural biases influence opinions about his music and persona.
19. Fox & Friends punked by Obama supporter - Recounting an incident where the TV show "Fox & Friends" was tricked by a supporter of Obama, illustrating the show's susceptibility to manipulation and the broader implications for media credibility.
20. The Harvard Cheating Scandal Is Stupid - Critiquing the media coverage and public reaction to a cheating scandal at Harvard, arguing that the real issues lie in the educational system's values and priorities.
21. Paul Ryan vs. Rage Against The Machine - Discussing the ideological clash between politician Paul Ryan and the band Rage Against The Machine, highlighting the incongruities in their respective worldviews.
22. Just Because You See It, Doesn't Mean It's Gone - Exploring the theme of denial and the persistence of problems even when they are visually or superficially addressed, using various societal examples.
23. The Second Story Of Echo And Narcissus - Audio - Providing an auditory experience of the themes discussed in the previously mentioned article, delving into narcissism and identity using the myth of Echo and Narcissus.

Hey everyone,

As many of you might know, TheLastPsychiatrist (TLP) is no longer active, but his thought-provoking insights and unique perspective still resonate with many of us. I've been on the lookout for someone who embodies a similar style and depth in their content.

For those of you who were fans of TLP, do you have any recommendations for content creators who come close to his approach? Whether they’re bloggers, YouTubers, podcasters, or writers, I’d love to hear your suggestions.

Additionally, I've been wondering about how people categorize TLP's philosophy. Would you describe TLP as black-pill? His writings often delve into the darker aspects of human nature and societal norms, but does that align with what we traditionally understand as black-pill thinking?

Looking forward to your thoughts and recommendations!

More precisely, about a person hearing a joke and then retelling it as if it was theirs*, in order to take credit for it. It might have been a precursor to a broader point about learning about something being as good as having done it. I was sure it was another Matrixposting eg learning about kung fu vs learning kung fu but no dice so far.