human nature’s dark side
Really interesting. Human nature’s dark side helped us spread across the world:
After 100,000 years ago, however, dispersal into distant, risky and inhospitable areas became relatively more common compared with movements into already occupied regions. Most notably, the spread of modern human populations was not inhibited by biogeographical barriers. Populations moved into cold regions of Northern Europe, crossed significant deltas such as the Indus and the Ganges, deserts, tundra and jungle environment and even made significant sea crossings to reach Australia and the Pacific islands.
Dr Spikins argues that betrayals of trust resulting from moral disputes were a significant reason for such risky dispersals into apparently unwelcoming environments with a desire to avoid physical harm from disgruntled former friends and allies being a key motivation. Offenders and any allies within their social network would feel driven to get out of harm’s way.
Really got me thinking about stories like the Garden of Eden and the Tower of Babel. Though those stories probably are not be literally true they might have been analogies for things that happened much deeper in the past.
truth
For many in my generation a lie is simply an incongruity between actuality and what is presented verbally. Truth then just becomes when words and ideas match up with experienced reality. Daniel Masterson is an effective dating coach but more than that he is a truth teller. He had a (sadly now defunct) website that told men the 14 things they needed if they ever wanted to get laid. They were good practical things like good shoes, grooming, cloths, sociability, etc.. Someone on one of the AMA’s he was doing (an AMA is a sort of online interview on the social media site Reddit) called him Jesus. Because he told the truth.
It’s not a surprise that our generation has a tough time with religion. Religion gives you a definition of truth (basically what they say truth is) and forces you to work backwards from it, evidence be darned. It makes things even more unfair than they already are because while those who suffer the least can get through life on bad information fine, those who suffer more cannot. For example you are expected to romanticize suffering and pretend God is there with you (some people can play cognitive tricks and make this work but many cannot and those who cannot are guilted instead of helped). Belief in climate change is another issue, though there is nothing keeping a religious person from believing in human created climate change, the methodology of having things pushed in your brain via force and conditioning rather than rational inquiry makes you susceptible to accepting other comforting irrational ideas.
Extremism Post
In light of the tragic events that unfolded in Paris there was a Reddit Post on Islamic extremism:
The Easy Path: It might be surprising to non-Muslims, but in many ways, it can actually be more simple and easier for a dedicated Muslim to join one of these groups and fight. It can be much tougher for a passionate Muslim to envision living in a secular land with trials, tribulations and possible persecution for the next 30+ years, all while watching their Muslim brothers and sisters die. And the false idea of blowing yourself up and going straight to paradise sounds very easy. Many passionate Muslims are eager to die for the sake of God, but how many are willing to live for the sake of God?
I feel nothing
I feel the darkness growing stronger. As you cram light down my throat. – Pedro the Lion
I honestly think religion unfairly stigmatizes people who do not have a good relationship with their emotions. They guilt us for being bitter or hard hearted. I ask the question, “what am I supposed to feel?”. I’m supposed to do this dance where when you say a certain thing I’m supposed to feel a certain thing. I am supposed to feel bad about being sinful but that guilt is being drown out by shame from an overly pervasive culture that worships the dollar. I just don’t get sin. To me it’s almost a manufactured problem, like how cleaning product ads make us afraid of the bacteria on our counter tops with the aim to sell us Lysol. I guess I just don’t feel the kind of guilt I’m supposed to feel—the kind of guilt that would make me seek out religious solutions. I don’t feel anything when the story of Jesus’s death and resurrection is told—how he paid the price for all our sins. I know I’m supposed to because a lot of people can put on the emotional waterworks when confronted with that story and I was never able to, even at the point in my life when I was the most Christian. I’m supposed to feel that God loves me or God hates me. I normally feel the latter because of my depression. I think it’s putting an undue burden on sufferers of depression to force them to pretend “God” is there with them. At that state pining for an experience of God is like making someone drink salt water—as if guilting them for not feeling anything is going to help their depression at all.
The bitter irony is that at the end of the day Christians want to guilt me for feeling nothing, but I don’t even feel that guilt because I feel nothing.
losing parts of yourself
the parts of yourself you lose
are GONE forever
but often the moments of when you lost them
remain clear in your memory
Losing parts of yourself in a way is almost worse than death because, like disability, you have to suffer through what you are given. You are cognizant of less and less of you being there as your life wears on.
public transportation stigma
I went to Europe for two weeks to visit my brother. There were so much fewer obese people there and public transportation was so much better. As someone who cannot drive because of poor vision I appreciated that there wasn’t this stigma attached to not having a car and using public transportation there that there is here. I was pretty unaware of social pressure in junior high and high school but one thing I was aware of was the stigma of walking instead of having a ride or driving.
I think this stigma will abate though in the next 20 years as a lot of the younger generation can’t afford cars and walking, biking, and public transportation is becoming cool in some circles.
Sizing Someone Up
Great tool for sizing someone up. Breaks social class down to components. I’m high on the education level for having a B.S. but that’s about it.
This tool is great for those of us on the spectrum who may not be privy to social cues (I wasn’t in high school). Of specific interest is the first gauge of occupation prestige. A lot of my hunches were confirmed (like doctors being highest and blue collar things being lower).
Our Generation
Article on millennials and boomers and the pressure on our generation:
The boomer mentality goes like this: get a good education. Get a well-paying full-time job. Find a stable partner. Buy a house and a car. Preferably, have a child. Failing any stage of this process is a reflection of your self-worth and indicates a lack of moral fibre.
With regional variations, millennials have absorbed our parents’ world view. We consider these expectations reasonable, and we blame ourselves for not living up to them.
…
And never mind that the point of this ideology is to discipline young people’s behaviour through weaponised self-loathing. Instead of demanding better, we engage in futile competition over crumbs. Instead of questioning why life often feels meaningless, why we feel so alienated and inadequate, we turn these beliefs inward. Instead of using this shared experience to build solidarity with each other, we feel shame.
If all this is our own fault, what’s the point?
indistinguishable
To me, God is indistinguishable from mania. People generally don’t find God through reading arguments, they find God because they have a feeling of peace and warmth wash over them. I have definitely had that when I’m manic. I know it’s all chemicals. If we had a better understanding of the brain we might be able to induce these feelings on cue.
Leaning on Parts of Yourself
Pretend you are a creating a character for some kind of RPG video game. You have a fixed amount to spend on a set of character attributes (for example, speed, attack, shields). At this first level you don’t have too much to spend so you have to make sacrifices, your character has to forego speed and some shields. What you are left with is a character that you will have to live with. You will have to play to its strengths. Being slow you’ll have to try different approaches to attacking enemies, ones that feature your attack attribute.
It’s a lot like that with disabilities. The same way with stroke survivors where other parts of the brain take up the slack of the functions the damaged part was doing, those of us with disabilities must lean heavily on the parts of us that are still whole. It’s not much of a secret that those of us on the spectrum often have additional disabilities (gastrointestinal issues, anxiety/depression, epilepsy, and others). Multiple disabilities add up to more than the sum of their parts specifically because the wholeness you needed to lean on because of one of your disabilities isn’t there due to one of your other disabilities. I am in this category, because I am bipolar and on the spectrum I generally do the initiating in relationships but because of my visual impairment I cannot drive to support groups and the places of the people I am pursuing (I guess I’m more of a social moth than a social butterfly). I can’t even try churches because I don’t have the social acumen to negotiate rides to them. For others on the spectrum their social anxiety (often due to past bullying/ostracism) may be by far their worst impairment. These people are fine in familiar environments.
One thing I can unequivocally say is having multiple disabilities makes you a test case of how just your environment is. We are Oliver Twist, not the Marlboro Man.