10/29/11 - Make a claim - Leaving Society / No Bad Memes

Saturday, October 29, 2011

Make a claim

Keeping true to the direction that I recently proposed, I am going to issue you a request: Make at least one claim in the comments section, and we will work together to understand whether it's logically sturdy. The claim can be about any facet of the world in which we live.

The only rule is that each claim can only be one sentence in length. Of course, with this rule in mind, you are allowed to post as many claims as you want.

Go!

Posted by Leaving Society at 1:18 PM 

26 comments:

AnonymousNovember 2, 2011 at 12:58 PM

Give it up. All the non-sycophant readers of your blog have either gotten bored or scared off. But hey, Logic willing, maybe the entire world will one day be as braindead, lifeless, empty and mechanical as your blog! No bad memes in a lifeless world! No bad spirits, vampires, and unicorns either, which are equally real.

zralytylenNovember 3, 2011 at 10:48 AM

Are you not able to deduce the correctness of assertions on your own? Simply start from axiomatics and then work your way towards the desired conclusions. Your ability to resolve any issue is limited only by your ability to make logical deductions.

AnonymousNovember 3, 2011 at 1:30 PM

He's trying to desperately hold onto the delusion that he has readers other than the occasional fellow anti-natalist idly reading a few entries and then getting bored.

zralytylenNovember 4, 2011 at 8:34 AM

In addition to that, it seems as though he also has a small contingent of trolls following his blog. The rationale behind such trolling is, however, a mystery even unto me.

AnonymousNovember 4, 2011 at 11:04 AM

I found his website, and for a time, I lived in his world.

And it. Is. HELL

You feel bad because of all the suffering in life so you try to feel better by talking to your mother. BUT WAIT! You're selfishly and illogically preferring your mother over all other sentient life! You irrational cockroach! And don't try taking a walk outside and enjoying nature, because mother nature is a bitch! All your individualism, entertainment, friendship, love, preferences, and compassion are BAD because you're following EMOTION instead of living in the cold steel cage created by LOGIC. You STUPID STUPID PERSON.

AnonymousNovember 4, 2011 at 11:10 AM

Not that I would believe anything he said if I didn't have a natural lack of a mental immune system. With all his condescending tone and his infuriatingly smug little rhetorical questions and his way of drawing too much mileage from trivial and obvious observations that he thinks are novel and insightful.

You know, I used to think that civilization needed improvement, but now? Fuck it. Once you reduce all human beings down to terribly impermanent shifting aggregates of various drives, ideas, and processes, I no longer have any reason to care about their suffering. Sorry I mean their NEGATIVE SENSATION which is such a wimpy, unemotional term that I can't bring myself to give a fuck about it. No amount of circular logic and calling me stupid is going to make me care about preventing negative sensation outside of my own little monkeysphere.

Reason is, and only ever ought to be, a slave of emotion.

AnonymousNovember 4, 2011 at 11:13 AM

So all this trolling constitutes a rejection. I am driven by absolute emotional need to reject all this pseudo-logical cold machinery from my mind. If reforming society means being torn apart from the inside by his insidious little ideas and spending every day fretting over whether I'm doing enough to benefit mankind as a whole and not being able to believe in either myself or my loved ones, it is not fucking worth it. Which is why his little island utopia is doomed to failure.

AnonymousNovember 4, 2011 at 11:21 AM

Hey, Leaving Society, do you know why barely anyone comments on your blog? It's because you're a cunt. You offer nothing, and you take everything. You suck at rhetoric, logic, philosophy, psychology, and life. You constantly call people stupid, disgusting, irrational, and selfish just for making their own life less of a living hell.

Tend your own goddamn garden and let others tend theirs. Delete this stupid blog. I cannot count all the hours of terrible, terrible suffering you caused me during the awful period where I believed what you were saying.

Fuck you.

Leaving SocietyNovember 4, 2011 at 8:37 PM

No idea what just happened here, but if it's in any way a microcosm of what the world's thinkers are like, then there is no hope. Destructiveness is a trait strong in most people, due to their faulty upbringing; take away their religions and governments and this whole thing would descend into turbulent retardation. Thanks, Anonymous (James?), for taking a big dump all over everything for absolutely no reason at all and proving that, even during a game, and especially where anonymity as an ideal is held in high esteem, people are unable to cooperate or be civil.

Leaving SocietyNovember 4, 2011 at 8:52 PM

"Give it up. All the non-sycophant readers of your blog have either gotten bored or scared off. But hey, Logic willing, maybe the entire world will one day be as braindead, lifeless, empty and mechanical as your blog! No bad memes in a lifeless world! No bad spirits, vampires, and unicorns either, which are equally real."

I won't "give it up," because I was never investing very much energy into this project to begin with. I have no delusions regarding the number of readers that I have, and am well aware that almost no one comes here. As I do not lose anything or suffer any consequences for posting on this blog, though, the only rational reason for me to discontinue it would be boredom. I find this fun to do, and while doing it in my head would be almost as fun, both giving up and continuing would in all probability generate the same result -- no positive change in the world -- so these two options are qualitatively neutral.

Leaving SocietyNovember 4, 2011 at 8:58 PM

"Are you not able to deduce the correctness of assertions on your own? Simply start from axiomatics and then work your way towards the desired conclusions. Your ability to resolve any issue is limited only by your ability to make logical deductions."

I'm perfectly capable of doing the above, but that's not the point. What I'm interested in, here, is what kinds of responses I will get. Will they be troll comments? Will they be extreme anger and unfounded accusations? Will they be viewpoints that I've encountered hundreds of times in the past? Will they be new but flimsy viewpoints? Will they be new but sturdy viewpoints? Further, once this has been established, can the posters of the responses be influenced? Can they influence me? Can we influence each other in mutually beneficial ways? In a nutshell, the purpose of this blog is to survey its frequenters and engage them in order to ascertain how they process information as it is presented to them. I do not care about what anyone believes, but I do care about what mental tools, tricks, and "equipment" they use to arrive at their beliefs. I know what I think about everything. What I don't know, and what I find entertaining to discover, is what others think about everything.

Leaving SocietyNovember 4, 2011 at 9:03 PM

"You feel bad because of all the suffering in life so you try to feel better by talking to your mother. BUT WAIT! You're selfishly and illogically preferring your mother over all other sentient life! You irrational cockroach! And don't try taking a walk outside and enjoying nature, because mother nature is a bitch! All your individualism, entertainment, friendship, love, preferences, and compassion are BAD because you're following EMOTION instead of living in the cold steel cage created by LOGIC. You STUPID STUPID PERSON."

There is a huge difference between:

I love my son. Don't you dare accuse him of being a thief! He's MY son.

...and:

I love my son. No, he's no more important than any other sentient creature to have ever existed, but this is how evolution has programmed me, and there's not much that I can do about it. It sucks, but as I cannot escape it and loving my son gives me joy (i.e., it ends suffering), then that's what I'm going to do.

We're all "guilty" of the latter, and there's nothing wrong with that. Can you please show me where've I've stated otherwise?

I'm probably the most emotionally intense person I've ever known. So what? I live, love, lust, hunger, and have trivial passions and hobbies just like everybody else. I can do nothing to make them go away, and I quite enjoy them, subjectively. That doesn't mean that I should construct a philosophy out of those things, or in any way endorse their perpetuation into the future onto non-consenting individuals, given the existence of risk.

Leaving SocietyNovember 4, 2011 at 9:13 PM

"Once you reduce all human beings down to terribly impermanent shifting aggregates of various drives, ideas, and processes, I no longer have any reason to care about their suffering."

I don't understand. What you're saying is very much the same as saying that granting all sentient creatures the superficial appearance of personal computers or lifeless robots would justify their unending torture at your hands. The sensations are what matter -- not how you've been raised to feel a living thing should be treated. Your above statement is rather disgusting, and no different in substance from stating that "reducing" all humans to their humanity would force you to stop caring about the enslavement of particular races and ethnicities. Hey, if we ignore all of the things that subjectively make American blacks so culturally interesting by declaring that their humanity is what's important (not their race), then why not enslave them, right? If none of the nuances matter, then why care about them at all? Slavery it is!

"...circular logic and calling me stupid"

I have made statements in the past such as "Love is stupid." Can you explain to me how pointing out the stupidity of a phenomenon or point of view in any way connotes something about the living thing who endorses it? I know plenty of good people who have stupid ideas; that doesn't mean that I think they're stupid or worthless.

Incidentally, this is just a general observation. I can't call any of your ideas stupid, for I haven't heard a single one of them yet.

Leaving SocietyNovember 4, 2011 at 9:37 PM

"Hey, Leaving Society, do you know why barely anyone comments on your blog? It's because you're a cunt. You offer nothing, and you take everything. You suck at rhetoric, logic, philosophy, psychology, and life."

Barely anyone comments on my blog because I do not possess enormous sums of money, am not friends with corporate advertisers, have not been the beneficiary of some fortuitous event, and started it from the ground up, without the backing of any preexisting foundation or organization. Let's not be so childishly hyperbolic.

"You constantly call people stupid, disgusting, irrational, and selfish just for making their own life less of a living hell."

As I stated on Jim Crawford's blog:

"If the world is not against you for now, and you can avoid suffocation, tumors, and financial instability, then by all means, find ways to cultivate your happiness; distract yourself and become a master of that art. No one ever said that being happy is bad; just the opposite is the case, in fact."

This VERY clearly is in opposition to your obfuscation of my stance. If you have any contrary evidence, then please present it or stop making baseless assertions. You cannot get away with it in any professional environment, so why should you be allowed to get away with it under the Internet's encouragement of lack of responsibility? I am convinced that you are either purposely misconstruing my arguments for the sake of letting off steam or are completely unable to understand them. Given that the latter possibility does not necessitate profane hostility and bizarre tirades, I am inclined toward the former. If this is all that you have to offer, then kindly go away.

"Tend your own goddamn garden and let others tend theirs. Delete this stupid blog. I cannot count all the hours of terrible, terrible suffering you caused me during the awful period where I believed what you were saying."

I have no idea what this means. All that I can say is that I would much rather suffer tremendously while saving others than drown in my misery and worry exclusively about it at the expense of everyone else. I will never change the world with this blog, and am plainly aware of this. However, wherever I can prevent someone from experiencing something against their consent -- even if it means I have to suffer in order to not impose myself on them -- I will do so. This does not entail that my life be miserable, of course; I enjoy life as much as the next person, and if you are somehow unable to separate your philosophy from your practical life (remember: we cannot help much of what we feel, and are better off enjoying life's pleasures than being nihilistic ascetics), then you will fail in this regard.

I can prevent the suffering of others where it would have otherwise been imposed on them by myself. I cannot, however, prevent the suffering of others where it is imposed on them by themselves. I am not forcing you to read my words. Dare you try to censor me? Why the knee-jerking, authoritarian rhetoric?

AnonymousNovember 4, 2011 at 9:45 PM

I'm sorry, I'm mentally ill, this was stupid of me, just delete my comments and get on with your blog.

AnonymousNovember 4, 2011 at 9:53 PM

You didn't deserve this kind of unprovoked attack. No one does. Just try to remember that the internet is a very public place and sometimes you influence people in ways you don't expect. You'll probably never encounter someone as fucked-up as me again, but it's something to keep in mind.

Leaving SocietyNovember 4, 2011 at 10:57 PM

We are all mentally ill. You're not alone. There is no such thing as a mental disorder, because that would imply that there is an order from which select "deviants" have, well, deviated. No such order exists.

I won't delete your comments. There is no practical benefit in doing so; as you pointed out, there aren't a lot of readers, here. I will, however, advise you to do whatever it is that you like to do in life and stop reading this blog so often. I will not advise you to ignore its content, but I think that you've gleaned all that you can from it already.

Leaving SocietyNovember 4, 2011 at 11:05 PM

Another thought: We should all be one another's psychiatrists. Let's promote social transparency and downgrade the role that secrets play in our lives.

sycophant readerNovember 5, 2011 at 2:38 AM

Long time reader, first time commenter on this blog.

I love reading your insight into the human condition and opinions on everything.

Unfortunately, english is not my native language so i don't have much to contribute to the conversation.

Just want to say thank you and please keep on blogging.

Leaving SocietyNovember 5, 2011 at 8:54 AM

You're welcome. There isn't a single grammatical flaw in your comment, so I think your English is fine.

I do intend to keep blogging, though I'm not a fan of unproductive redundancy, so I will probably only make a post every few months or so, now. Thanks for reading.

zralytylenNovember 5, 2011 at 9:14 AM

>I'm perfectly capable of doing the above [...]

You could use the axiomatic method to deduce everything that other people could think; there's no need to actually ask them, unless, as you suggested, for entertainment. Do you see life as a game? If any of the words you've written on this blog have any ultimate value to you, wouldn't you do whatever you could to implement those ideas in reality to the greatest extent possible?

Leaving SocietyNovember 5, 2011 at 9:22 AM

It's for entertainment, yes. I don't pretend that I will substantively influence planet Earth -- that, and the Socratic method could prove useful for recruitment purposes, if ever there really were some tangible social initiative worth pursuing.

For example, you could theoretically deduce all that any potential interviewer for a corporate position could say or do during an actual interview, but that doesn't mean that you shouldn't conduct job interviews; obviously, without conducting them, you'd never bring anyone on board.

I do see merit in implementing ideals to the greatest extent possible, but at the same time, I'm a big fan of probability math and risk versus reward simulations, so I'm never too gung ho about activism or the like.

Leaving SocietyNovember 5, 2011 at 9:38 AM

Another thing to note: The point of this kind of back-and-forth, question-and-answer process is not so much to change my positions on any particular topics; it's to check the overall approach used by the claim-makers.

If we both agree that no one should have children, that doesn't mean anything to me until I've figured out how your brain arrived at that position. Conversely, if you think that a particular race should be exterminated from the Earth, as unlikely as it is that you're right, if your methodology is sound, then I'll see how you arrived at that position and change mine.

This is important, because while your agreeing with me may be beneficial to me right now, what really matters is whether we'll be able to spontaneously and independently come to hold similar positions in the future regarding new concepts. I may be able to teach a dog a particular trick, but will that dog be capable of spontaneously creating his own tricks for the purpose of getting treats in the future?

Leaving SocietyNovember 5, 2011 at 9:40 AM

Note: I'm not the treat-giver in that metaphor! I promise that that wasn't condescending. We're all the dogs, and the natural world is the treat-giver that we have to master while we remain here.

Tim CooijmansNovember 6, 2011 at 6:30 PM

I have actually recently gone through something very similar to what the Anonymous former troll describes. Trying really hard to make things better can be counterproductive. I was too hard on myself for several months, and I had to take it down a notch. Still, I've been able to rid myself of some nasty habits during that time, so I consider it a net win. Now, I'm taking it easier again. As with everything, I will probably be going back and forth between being too hard on myself and being too easy on myself until I die.

This comment thread may be useful for other lurkers as well.

Leaving SocietyNovember 8, 2011 at 10:43 PM

James, if you don't mind, could you explain what, specifically, you take issue with in the fragments of my current worldview that I have periodically presented on this blog? So far, all that I've gleaned from your comments is that you think that I am promoting asceticism, or some kind of cold, lifeless world wherein we must suppress our emotions, or something of the like. Do you really think that this is my solution to the world's problem(s)? You can't change my mind if you don't address specific quotes of mine with specific counterarguments.

Furthermore, you seem to gloss over any post on this blog that has to do with something other than negative utilitarianism and the nature of sentience. Please keep in mind that this blog is called No Bad Memes for a reason: It's about refining our collective worldview via well-defined mental algorithms and lines of questioning -- not any particular idea, comfy or uncomfy. Analogously, favoring one website's content over another is well and good, but it's more important to discuss the search engine that generated both websites as search results. Can it be improved so that we can find a third site better than the current two? If we need a site on a completely separate topic in the future, regardless of the fact that the search engine got us a good site this time, will it be capable of getting us a good site next time?

Remember: I can never disagree with you; I can only disagree with information patterns presented to me by you, their local purveyor. No one owns any idea, no one should ever grow attached to any idea, and no one should reject or embrace any idea merely because of the illusion of a particularly reputable person being its progenitor.

Loon Mountain 3 and Maura Murray - part one

The following is basically an organized summation of some notes I have taken over the years about the theory that a group referred to the Loon Mountain 3 was responsible for the disappearance of Maura Murray. 

I feel like interest has been reignited on this theory given the recent findings of human remains on Loon Mountain. The problem is most of the forums on Maura have kind of scrubbed a lot of this info, and conversation has devolved into the Renner vs Larkin wars. If you know, you know. 

So basically how this theory would work would be like this:

She went there to meet people that she knew, which lead to some situation where she encounters these people. 

This would imply either the tandem driver idea or some sort of pick up. Of course there is the chance she either got there on foot or by hitch hiking.

Or, she does not know people and they either snatched her or offered a ride.

At this point you have some fucked up opportunity killing, accident, or an o.d. and dump.

However it happened, the theory works that thee people were shady and they did something intentionally to cause her disappearance. Either by killing her or dumping her out of some sort of mishap.

I've read it a few ways that this group is either 3 brothers, two brothers and someone else, or 3 unrelated people. But the commonality in the story is that they worked at Loon Mountain as snow makers and no one showed up to work the next day after the disappearance.

I'm not sure if I'm going to post the name or initials of the people at this time, since the remains are not confirmed to be her so I don't feel like it's right to put the names and things like that out here right now. I just want to build on what we know on the theory at this point.

8/27/11 - Let's have a Socratic dialogue

Saturday, August 27, 2011

Let's have a Socratic dialogue

"Socratic dialogue" is an unfortunate term for it, since nothing should ever be named after anyone (Occam's Razor is one of the most notoriously awful examples), but the practice is nevertheless quite sensible. Below, I have listed a few controversial or uncommon viewpoints for you to oppose in the comments section, if you so wish. Single a few out if you disagree with them and let's get an interrogation going until we discover, once and for all, whether the statements are truly sound; perhaps you can succeed in modifying them.

Without further ado:

Out of the government, the corporate world, and the media, the government is the most benign.

The average person is a larger problem than members of any "elite" group.

Americans are no dumber or more privileged than anyone in any other first world nation.

Feminism promotes social division and frivolity.

Courting sexual partners is a demonstration of prejudice.

All pleasurable states are nothing more than relief from previous unpleasurable states.

We should do away with money as soon as possible.

No one should have children for any available reason.

The "traditional family" model suffocates and depresses people -- or at least reduces their quality of life significantly.

There is no such thing as a mental disorder.

Anarchism is selfish and myopic.

Democracy is a terrible idea, and certainly did not originate with the emergence of the United States.

Ownership (property, copyright) creates a massive amount of waste while promoting attachment and conflict.

Attachment exacerbates suffering.

It is unlikely that there are other intelligent beings in the universe.

If life exists beyond the Earth, it must be absurdly uncommon.

Hurricanes, flus, earthquakes, school shooters, terrorists, stock market crashes, and debt are not going to get you.

We have replaced god with popular entertainment and the media.

Individualism is socially corrosive.

Capitalization, apostrophes, the multiplicity of punctuation marks, and synonyms should be done away with as soon as possible.

All words should be spelled phonetically.

Most books are a waste of time. The faster that you can glean information, the more efficient you are.

Quoting people is no different from wearing name brand clothing, showing off an expensive car, or increasing the size of your friends list on Facebook.

There should be one human language; any more than this is needlessly redundant.

Civilization will not collapse at any point over the next hundred years. In fact, it has never truly collapsed since its advent some 6-7,000 years ago.

The only state of perfection is nothingness.

Investing in [modification: Committing to] any idea is foolish, given that attempting to prove the reliability of one's senses via one's senses is illogical.

Marijuana will probably become the culprit of at least some lung cancer cases over the next hundred years.

Obesity, with few exceptions, is not especially unhealthy -- and is almost never life-threatening.

Loving your partner is the same, in principle, as favoring your race or nation over the others.

Cuddling with a puppy after eating a cow is contradictory behavior at its worst.

All competitive sports are a waste of money, resources, schooling, and brain space; furthermore, they promote social division and animosity.

We should strive to attack all ideas, no matter how good they seem. If we come to favor a particular viewpoint, it should be because, while attacking it, we found that it held up better than the opposing ideas -- which were also attacked.

Fast food is a convenient way to eat in modern society, and is usually better for you than a fatty slab of steak high in calories purchased at a fancy restaurant.

Organic foods are usually worse in quality, less delicious, and more susceptible to rot than other foods.

There is nothing particularly unacceptable about smoking cigarettes.

It is a bad idea to get high or drunk in any capacity, for such activities decrease one's judgment and physical reflexes.

Lyrics, image, philosophy, and politics have nothing to do with music.

Most people are unhappy due to their own poor decision-making skills, but rather than improve or seek guidance, they blame a group for their shortcomings -- usually the government, the corporations, the media, or their families.

We should intelligently (i.e. gradually, while maintaining a balanced ecosystem) spay and neuter all animals on Earth as soon as possible.

The Holocaust was not some brilliant conspiracy to exterminate a race of people, but rather, a poorly planned, feather-fluffing set of events aimed at merely deporting said race.

The United States's involvement in World War II was unjustified; similarly, the American Civil War and American Revolutionary War should have never happened.

We will be ruined by pleasure, meekness, and popular culture long before we are ruined by torture, statism, and Big Brother.

Failing any high school course -- or even most college courses -- will have no impact whatsoever on your economic well-being.

Those members of modern society who claim to believe in a god suffer from cognitive dissonance, and believe far more in television, work, and bar-hopping than that holy book which they have never once opened.

Washing your hands after going to the bathroom accomplishes absolutely nothing.

Charities accomplish nothing other than to generate profit for various entities while, in some circumstances, strengthening societies just enough to allow them to perpetuate their own suffering.

Exploring the planets and moons of our solar system is a tremendous waste of time and resources.

Most people speak in memorized, discrete blocks of thought patterns that are essentially platitudes. Rarely does anyone recite a "belief" from outside of his or her culture -- even if the belief is purported to be anti status quo.

We will not experience a major extinction event as a result of global warming.

Nature lovers are liars, for they despise plague, disease, insects (especially maggots!), suffocating heat, frostbite, intestinal worms, shredded animal carcasses, etc.

Most jobs exist only to help others do their jobs, or to produce more crap that we don't need.

Welfare and utility are not equivalent; consequently, the modern concept of a "job" is flawed.

Sexual orientation and desire for social bonds are largely conditioned.

The less people you know, the happier you'll be. The more wants and desires that have to be accommodated, the more that compromise becomes a necessity, and knowing less people means attending less funerals.

Posted by Leaving Society at 5:20 PM 

Labels: ideas, socratic dialogue

29 comments:

AnonymousSeptember 4, 2011 at 6:35 PM

I guess this is the end of me following your blog. Happy trails.

Leaving SocietySeptember 5, 2011 at 7:38 PM

Cool. Thanks for announcing it! It's always good to make a scene on our way out the door.

Leaving SocietySeptember 5, 2011 at 7:41 PM

Thanks for taking my blog off your list also. That'll show me for having a different point of view!

I'm keeping your forum on mine.

Tim CooijmansSeptember 6, 2011 at 5:02 AM

Well, I think that's too bad. I really would have liked to see you guys track down your fundamental disagreement.

AnonymousSeptember 6, 2011 at 6:49 AM

I think you misinterpret my withdrawal from your blog as aggressiveness, when it's actually wariness. I'm tired of taking blows from other antinatalist blogs and I am trying to dissociate from those who are my political opponents, so I can keep concentrating on the important issues of antinatalism instead of always fighting and spending a lot of my energy and being very anxious trying to figure out why you guys are doing this and what your agenda is.

I just don't want to be involved with this kind of discussion any more. I'm tired of it. I am going to keep talking about antinatalism. Those of you who want to take part in what I have to say, do so, otherwise I just have to dissociate. You guys can keep attacking and ranting against egalitarianism all you want without interference.

Also, the forum is a failure, so it doesn't really matter if you keep the link or not. I am too controversial and just not popular enough to get people to come.

Leaving SocietySeptember 6, 2011 at 10:35 PM

"...being very anxious trying to figure out why you guys are doing this and what your agenda is"

Doing what? What am I doing and why do you make it sound like it should stop? Am I forcing something on you? Am I not allowed to put forth ideas?

To answer your question: I'm doing it because it's my point of view. Why does anyone promote any idea, and why are mine, specifically, being outed? Why aren't you making connotations regarding why someone "is doing this" on other blogs? If I shut up and made a bunch of simplistic posts about how not having kids is good, would that make you "rejoin" my "side"?

I don't understand any of this. What are you dissociating from? I do not lead some secret group. I am not interested in censoring myself for the sake of pleasing people -- especially where their interests are so transparently political.

Leaving SocietySeptember 6, 2011 at 10:44 PM

If you really were exhausted from these exchanges, then you'd take a break, think about them some more, and find clarity. Instead, you're publicly announcing your alleged exhaustion: "We like your television show idea, but could you maybe replace the word 'gamble' with 'play'? We don't want the public to get the wrong idea about us, you see."

You're not interested in clarity; you're interested in showing me your dissatisfaction with my blog. The only purpose this could possibly serve is to "win" -- what, exactly, I have no idea.

AnonymousOctober 20, 2011 at 8:27 AM

"All pleasurable states are nothing more than relief from previous unpleasurable states."

That doesn't make any sense. Pleasurable states are triggered by the release of dopamine in the brain, not the cessation of pain. Furthermore, there are entirely different nerves involved in the reception of pain and pleasure. Relief from pain is part of the reason for satisfying desires, but it's not the ONLY reason.

AnonymousOctober 20, 2011 at 8:32 PM

question: don't all of your opinions come from assuming logic works? that we exist within an objective reality?

i mean it's pretty obvious to any intelligent being that we exist in a universe of limited perceptions and lack the ability to accurately perceive the universe as it actually is, which means that any sort of pure logic is inherently flawed cause nothing is for suresies?

Leaving SocietyOctober 20, 2011 at 9:17 PM

"That doesn't make any sense. Pleasurable states are triggered by the release of dopamine in the brain, not the cessation of pain. Furthermore, there are entirely different nerves involved in the reception of pain and pleasure. Relief from pain is part of the reason for satisfying desires, but it's not the ONLY reason."

Relief from pain is not the "reason" for satisfying desires; it is the cause of pleasure. This is an issue of causality rather than justification; in other words, why you enjoy what you enjoy is secondary to how the pleasure was induced. One can subjectively justify one's desires if one wishes -- so long as one does not harm another in the process. The point is merely that you cannot be sentient without experiencing discomfort or deprivation, for those things are why we make decisions in life. Any time that you do anything, it's because your previous state of existence was less preferable, causing you to feel deprived.

The intensity of this deprivation is another matter entirely, of course. If we could somehow design a world free from AIDS and panic attacks but keep stubbed toes, mild hunger, and itching, I'd be all for it.

Leaving SocietyOctober 20, 2011 at 9:22 PM

...but in the meantime, saying "Life needs to continue" is akin to saying "I'm okay with genocides and mass extinction events. Concentration camps and supervolcanic eruptions are obviously a current requirement of the life agenda, but I like sex and food. Screw the third world, the farm animals, and the ninety percent of baby birds that starve to death all across the world!"

It's a statement born of limited perspective, but what would you expect from a species originally designed for living in groups of fifty being trapped in a culture of self-aggrandizing mass media? Anyone who drives a car is unlikely to have any clue regarding what the last billion years on Earth were like.

Leaving SocietyOctober 20, 2011 at 9:27 PM

Follow-up thought:

1. There is no need for need.

2. If we introduce need into the environment, anyway, then we should at least preclude penalties for the need not being met.

3. If we can't even guarantee 2., then we should guarantee that all of the need is satisfied.

4. If we can't even guarantee 3., then we're doing the following:

5 needs introduced - 3 needs fulfilled = 2 needs unfulfilled

We're creating need out of cultural/genetic obligation, and then failing to fully satisfy it. Why create five hungry children with the foreknowledge that only three will get to eat? In an isolated scenario of this kind, would you really be okay with watching two children starve to death simply because filling the other three's bellies makes them smile? Insanity!

AnonymousOctober 21, 2011 at 8:14 AM

You didn't say "All pleasurable states are caused by relief from previous unpleasurable states", you said "All pleasurable states are nothing more than relief from previous unpleasurable states." These are two different statements.

AnonymousOctober 21, 2011 at 10:48 AM

Second, it's clearly possible to experience a pleasurable sensation without experiencing discomfort beforehand.

Let's say I'm laying in my bed reading a book, feeling perfectly comfortable, when someone breaks in and thrusts a spoonful of chocolate ice cream into my mouth and I like the taste of it. During the entire time I was laying in bed, was I secretly experiencing a feeling of discomfort from not eating chocolate ice cream that even I didn't know I had?

Tim CooijmansOctober 21, 2011 at 4:30 PM

For the record, I had a similar remark on this, but I accidentally posted it as a comment on the wrong post.

AnonymousOctober 21, 2011 at 5:51 PM

"One can subjectively justify one's desires if one wishes -- so long as one does not harm another in the process."

So to utilize your metaphor about the constantly-draining pool, it's okay to learn to enjoy constanly filling up and then having fun in your pool, but you shouldn't buy anyone else a house with a pool that drains constantly or steal someone else's water to fill your pool, and you should probably fix things so you don't suffer huge consequences when you don't fill your pool for a few days?

Leaving SocietyOctober 21, 2011 at 6:10 PM

"You didn't say "All pleasurable states are caused by relief from previous unpleasurable states", you said "All pleasurable states are nothing more than relief from previous unpleasurable states." These are two different statements."

I'm not so sure that they are. When I said that relief is the cause of pleasure, what I meant was that a two-step process occurs that we can call "relief"; the first step is when the brain realizes that the negative sensation has left, and the second is when the brain releases the pleasure response. This is true regardless of whether you're having an orgasm or you've just been pulled out of the water while drowning. Do we not experience "pleasure" when some horrible feeling is stopped? What is pleasurable about it other than that we have returned to a state of "not uncomfortable"?

To clarify, I'll reword my above statement to:

Relief from pain is not the "reason" for satisfying desires; however, the benefit of being relieved of pain is the cause of desire.

This is a pointless semantics argument, anyway. You are now aware of what the words implied, regardless of the accuracy of the syntax applied. If you wish to refine the wording of a statement, that's fine, but state as much rather than uphold the rewording as an argument against the actual point being made. Pleasure being a product of relief or being the definition of relief is a trivial debate and has nothing to do with the reality of sentience.

Leaving SocietyOctober 21, 2011 at 6:13 PM

"Let's say I'm laying in my bed reading a book, feeling perfectly comfortable, when someone breaks in and thrusts a spoonful of chocolate ice cream into my mouth and I like the taste of it. During the entire time I was laying in bed, was I secretly experiencing a feeling of discomfort from not eating chocolate ice cream that even I didn't know I had?"

Discomfort is relative, as our conscious experiences are continuous rather than discrete. You were not capable of processing the relative advantages of ice cream prior to having it shoved into your mouth, but retroactively, you were able to make the relative comparison and conclude that ice cream = better than not ice cream. Had you been aware of this at the time, then you would have had the initial desire to eat ice cream, and thus would have become disappointed were ice cream unavailable. This is a minor form of negative sensation, but it is negative sensation nevertheless, and therefore must be included in our perception of the fundamental nature of sentience.

Anyway, this thought experiment hardly holds any practical value, given that anyone having something shoved into their mouths is bound to get angry.

Leaving SocietyOctober 21, 2011 at 6:16 PM

"So to utilize your metaphor about the constantly-draining pool, it's okay to learn to enjoy constanly filling up and then having fun in your pool, but you shouldn't buy anyone else a house with a pool that drains constantly or steal someone else's water to fill your pool, and you should probably fix things so you don't suffer huge consequences when you don't fill your pool for a few days?"

Yes. The metaphor that you're referring to was mostly to illustrate the lack of need for life rather than the lack of good inherent in pleasure/relief.

AnonymousOctober 21, 2011 at 6:22 PM

Okay, thank you for clarifying, that was very enlightening.

Leaving SocietyOctober 21, 2011 at 6:59 PM

No problem. If you'd like to discuss any of this further, perhaps we can have a real Socratic dialogue!

AnonymousOctober 21, 2011 at 7:47 PM

Wait... Doesn't that mean that if anyone introduces me to a new pleasant sensation, they're actually harming me by creating a need I didn't have before? Although I suppose you could say that some new sensations are new ways to satisfy already-present needs. For instance, if someone taught me to play Solitaire, you could say that I was being given a new way to end and avoid boredom.

Leaving SocietyOctober 22, 2011 at 9:15 AM

"Although I suppose you could say that some new sensations are new ways to satisfy already-present needs. For instance, if someone taught me to play Solitaire, you could say that I was being given a new way to end and avoid boredom."

That's how I see it, yes. We are born with built-in, genetically driven needs, all varying in intensity and priority. You could argue that a heroin addiction, for instance, is an exception, but I don't think that anyone would claim that their having been introduced to a heroin addiction brought joy into their lives.

Generally speaking, the baser desires -- the desire to not be bored, the desire to explore, the desire for novelty, the desire for mental stimulation -- are so broad in definition that just about anything could satisfy them, contingent on one's cultural vantage point. Anything more obviously separate from these "built-in" desires is usually unwanted and frowned upon. Wonder why...

Leaving SocietyOctober 22, 2011 at 9:15 AM

Follow-up thought:

In a simulated environment with "hard" suffering thresholds, people would probably enjoy heroin and other addictions -- especially if they possessed the capability to switch off the desire whenever another desire (e.g. the desire for novelty) presented itself. I see nothing wrong with this; I just don't think it accomplishes anything. That doesn't mean that it necessarily must not exist.

AnonymousOctober 28, 2011 at 11:56 AM

By the way, how do you sync up the proposition that it's wrong to bring people into existence because no consent can be given with the proposition that the "you" who exists in the future is a different person than the "you" who exists now? Aren't you constantly bringing people into existence simply by continuing to live?

Leaving SocietyOctober 29, 2011 at 12:33 PM

The difference is that I would have to create suffering in order to end my future selves. Refraining from reproducing does not cause anyone to experience any degree of suffering -- at least nothing beyond a fairly paltry amount when weighed against the lifetime of suffering prevented.

In the scenario of reproduction, preventing my future selves from coming into existence would be analogous to a potential mother coming to the realization that having children is wrong, and then committing suicide: even if a great amount of suffering were prevented in such a scenario, there would be other ways of doing it without causing the amount of suffering endured during the suicide process. My life may get worse in the future, but I am currently presented with two options -- to suffer as I currently do or to suffer even more by contemplating suicide and then actually going through with it.

Again, this is about relative advantage, opportunity cost, and decision-making. Surely you must understand that being miserable all the time, constantly thinking about death, and then, say, slitting your wrists or taking a bunch of pills is far more horrible than what the average sentient being experiences. Why put yourself through it?

On the other hand, having never existed at all not only prevents future suffering, it doesn't require suffering in order to get to that point.

Leaving SocietyOctober 29, 2011 at 1:13 PM

Incidentally, I am presently marveling at how no one likes to make assertions of their own, even in a post encouraging the use of the Socratic method, and instead just bombards me with a bunch of questions.

nickMarch 1, 2012 at 1:11 PM

You probably noticed that people have only responded to one point here. My issues with this post are:

1. I don't like that a lot of the points you bring up here seem like things you believe, but don't want to risk seeming smart by saying you believe it, so you present it as a list of controversial ideas without putting your weight behind it. For example, your antinatalist points, or your ideas that good feelings are just the absence of bad feelings.

2. Most of your points seem to be things you thought of while walking around town and thinking about problems you can find with the things people say. You don't seem to follow this post: http://nobadmemes.blogspot.com/2011/08/pragmatic-approach-to-ideas.html If you really want to create your own philosophy from nothing, try to make a cohesive system that you can fit all your critical thoughts into.

This is a pretty rough criticism because I was directed towards your blog by the forum that gave you that big viewer spike recently and I haven't read that much of your blog.

Leaving SocietyMarch 17, 2012 at 2:34 PM

1. I don't like that a lot of the points you bring up here seem like things you believe, but don't want to risk seeming smart by saying you believe it, so you present it as a list of controversial ideas without putting your weight behind it. For example, your antinatalist points, or your ideas that good feelings are just the absence of bad feelings.

I don't understand the risk involved in "seeming smart." Care to elaborate?

I didn't put my weight behind this post because it was intended to be a fun, oversimplified way of getting people to talk and challenge their preconceptions. The experiment obviously failed, but that doesn't detract from the then-necessity of the experiment. I could have also included points about ice cream or video games that are not commonly held, because the end goal would have been the same -- to deconstruct and analyze the process of memetic selection as it is conducted on an "individual" basis by my peers. When I prioritize, I place process before both value and goals.

2. Most of your points seem to be things you thought of while walking around town and thinking about problems you can find with the things people say. You don't seem to follow this post: http://nobadmemes.blogspot.com/2011/08/pragmatic-approach-to-ideas.html If you really want to create your own philosophy from nothing, try to make a cohesive system that you can fit all your critical thoughts into.

Can you demonstrate how this post does not follow the guidelines laid out in the one that you linked to (perhaps by making a counterargument against one of the above points)?

I agree that this post is scattered. That was intentional. These points are not meant to exemplify my "memotype"; that's what this post is for. If you're looking for an overarching system, reference that link instead.

This post (the one that we're commenting on here) is an example of ideological exercise/practice -- practice that never got off the ground, unfortunately, but it was worth a shot. One can hardly call a group of musicians sitting around playing random melodies for a few seconds at a time a tight concert, because it's practice -- not a concert. When the scale of those who understand the nature of process, that which governs material reality, and how to apply logic to the processes of living action greatly increases and we're actually able to get the world's attention, only then will scattered exercises like this become obsolete.

8/21/11 - A pragmatic approach to ideas - Leaving Society / No Bad Memes

Sunday, August 21, 2011

A pragmatic approach to ideas

This has already been touched upon numerous times, but I'd like to once again stress that we should go about forming "opinions" by rigorously testing all ideas prior to implementation. The questions that we should be asking ourselves when initially considering an idea are:

1. Does the idea work?

2. If the idea works, does another one work more efficiently?

All ideas must be able to pass the test of falsifiability before being considered for implementation. If we can't see results from a test of the idea, then no one should hold an opinion regarding its practical validity.

Posted by Leaving Society at 3:15 PM 

Labels: decision-making, practical problem-solving, pragmatism

5 comments:

Francois TremblayAugust 21, 2011 at 4:40 PM

No... ideas should be held or rejected on the basis of WHETHER THEY ARE TRUE. An idea that "works" (what does "work" mean without any standards?) and is false will simply lead you to disaster.

The questions you need to be asking yourself are:

1. Is there evidence for this idea?

2. If there is, does another one have more evidence for it?

Reply

Leaving SocietyAugust 21, 2011 at 5:20 PM

Can you provide me an example of something that has been proven to be true?

The idea that an object's acceleration due to the Earth's gravity is approximately -- in arbitrarily concocted units of measurement -- 9.8 meters per second squared works, because we have tested it repeatedly to the point where we have empirical confidence in its workability; as a result, we can do things with the idea that would likely be impossible if it failed the tests. When someone contrarily states that the acceleration is far slower, we take them up on their claim by testing the claim -- throwing a ball into the air, say.

We should be doing the same for all ideas -- including ones pertaining to how to live, how to manage resources, what to value, etc. Does someone think that sports have some utility in society? If so, test their claim for validity; if the results are contra their claim, then it would be unwise to adopt it. Never let anyone make a claim and then walk away; always offer to test it.

Tests should be designed to demonstrate that things yield the predicted results; they should not be designed to prove that things are "true," as all truth claims are equally fallacious and, hence, worthless.

Leaving SocietyAugust 21, 2011 at 5:54 PM

I am not referring to the effects of an idea and their value in society; I am referring to whether the idea itself actually works when under scrutiny.

The inverse of an idea working is an idea being broken. If I claim that a box made of cardboard is durable enough to withstand the impact of a train and a test demonstrates otherwise, then my idea is broken -- not useful -- for it failed the test.

Ideas only work if they pass tests.

Francois TremblayAugust 24, 2011 at 3:00 PM

LS- I guess we're gonna have to agree to disagree. You're more of a skeptic bent, I presume. I don't believe in wasting my time with "testing" obvious nonsense. Either it's true or it's not.

Leaving SocietyAugust 24, 2011 at 10:14 PM

I disagree with your claims, here -- for which you have not provided a supporting argument. If you choose not to continue this discussion, I have no problem with that, but I'd just like to state that, even if you think that something is obvious, the person disputing its obviousness doesn't. It is extremely important that any such person be actively shown why he or she is wrong, and opting to instead beat him or her over the head with "You're wrong!" in words alone is only going to make the situation worse.

Given that such situations are ubiquitous in our society, my conclusion on this matter is that, by extension, handling things this way makes society worse as a whole.

8/21/11 - Avoiding optimism bia - Leaving Society / No Bad Memes

Sunday, August 21, 2011

Avoiding optimism bias

If a potential quality that you're contemplating is desirable to you, consider a potential quality of similar likelihood which is undesirable to you before deciding to chase the former quality.

For example:

1. The odds of winning the lottery are 1 in 20 million*. Yeah, those numbers are outrageous, but I'm going to play the lottery, anyway. You never know!

2. The odds of being struck by lightning are 1 in 20 million*. Phew, that's good to know. That's one less way of dying that I'll ever, ever have to worry about. It's basically a guarantee that it'll never happen to me.

Funny how we think about things differently depending on whether they benefit us -- even when the data are exactly the same in all instances! Regardless of what topics you're entertaining, always be sure to control for optimism bias during the decision-making process.

* These odds were fabricated for the purpose of the example.

Posted by Leaving Society at 1:46 PM 

Labels: anti-bias, bias, optimism bias

1 comment:

AnonymousNovember 3, 2011 at 5:58 PM

Heh, that's an interesting post.

Your good post to bad post ratio is now 1/3459732895732895738295783957398250738295732895701750891357198035729805728935

8/14/11 - One more utilitarian post for the road - Leaving Society / No Bad Memes

Sunday, August 14, 2011

One more utilitarian post for the road

Premise 1: An action was taken.

1. The action was imposed on a sentient being.

2. Therefore, the action was bad.

This conclusion is false. Not all bad actions are imposed on other sentient beings; some only affect the self. In this sense, they may not be "immoral," but they are nevertheless foolish. Likewise, not all imposed actions are bad, for reasons stated below.

Premise 2: An action was taken.

1. The action caused harm -- regardless of whether it violated a sentient being's will.

2. Therefore, the action was bad.

This conclusion is also false. Harm is inherently bad, but causing harm is not, for some harm leads to a reduction of harm overall.

Premise 3: An action was taken.

1. The action was imposed on a sentient being, and/or...

2. ...the action caused harm beyond being a mere violation of the being's will.

3. The action prevented a much worse kind of harm from emerging elsewhere.

4. Therefore, the action was good.

This conclusion is true.

Sometimes, you need to kill the killer, lest he continue with his deeds uninterrupted. 

Posted by Leaving Society at 7:17 PM 

Labels: negative utilitarianism, utilitarianism

No comments:

8/14/11 - The next phase: Meta-conversations - Leaving Society / No Bad Memes

Sunday, August 14, 2011

The next phase: Meta-conversations

Attracting people based on any particular present position is myopic. In retrospect, it may have been better for this blog to have stuck with detailing how to formulate ideals and make decisions than to have mentioned or endorsed any specific ideals or decisions. In the future, I would like to hold discussions regarding process management, premise formation, qualitative analysis, and logic; in short, I would rather discuss how to come to conclusions than give any of my readers any specific conclusions to revolve around and rally behind.

It may be the case that my conclusions -- tentative though they may indefinitely be -- are sound, but I am more interested in how a reader might have come to the same conclusions as myself than in the mere similarity of our positions. If, for example, your antinatalism leads you to choose vegetarianism, that does not entail that all vegetarians are antinatalists, or that congregating with vegetarians without any quality control is a sensible practice.

Note that I say all of the above not because I am interested in censorship or stifling important discussions, but rather, because there should be an order to this process, with specific ideals coming into play much later on after everyone has established that they utilize similar mental algorithms for processing information.

As a final thought on antinatalism, I will say the following (note the lack of generalizations below, as I am myself an antinatalist):

1. Many antinatalists are concerned solely with refraining from reproducing, and have either weak or nonexistent socio-political philosophies; in other words, they are often far wiser than most when it comes to being proactive (in at least the fundamental sense), but could use some improvement when it comes to being retroactive.

2. Many antinatalists view the world from an anthropocentric standpoint, meaning that they are solely concerned with the end of human reproduction. They may understand that animal suffering is bad, but they very often have no ambition to do anything about it beyond becoming vegetarian.

3. Many antinatalists view "the" problem as life itself (or, in more sensible cases, sentient life). The more accurate position to take, from my perspective, is that of "the" problem being a lack of intelligent management and regulation of the universe's energy processes -- or the mere existence of energy and work in the first place.

Furthermore, if sentience were distributed in discrete executable files to volunteering computers, such computers could call sentient processes for any given duration and turn them off on demand. In this scenario, a computer without any capacity to feel pain or pleasure could make calculations on a level of sophistication comparable to that of a human, and would only call conscious, sentient experience to the fore -- or "wake up," if you will -- when it felt like it would be fun or educational to do so; this would solve the problem of deprivation.

Of course, if such experiences, through repeated observation and testing, were demonstrated to be too risk-laden, then they would be phased out -- though, again, any conscious experience would be undertaken voluntarily, without impinging on any other conscious experiences or requiring anything other than self-contained information.

In summation:

Symptoms: Sentience; deprivation/desire/discomfort

Causes: Lack of intelligence; presence of existence

We either become gods and attain absolute, one-hundred-percent certainty that our ending the universe means that it's all over forever, or we volunteer to learn and explore, given that we cannot undo our births and that some of us suffer when contemplating death. Preventing future births, while a good thing, is no more credible as a rallying point than any other philosophical position, be it the unlikely existence of a deity or something as crass as rights-based activism. The discussion of how to properly use your brain is the only true rallying point -- for now.

Posted by Leaving Society at 6:38 PM 

Labels: antinatalism, ideation, memes, memetic selection, meta-analysis, meta-cognition, process management, qualitative analysis

1 comment:

AnonymousNovember 3, 2011 at 11:23 PM

Keep on acting as a reduction ad absurdum of about a hundred positions at once, buddy.

Edward Mordake : The Original Malignant

 So everyone’s been into the new movie malignant and once the reveal moments happen its legit Edward Mordake, sometimes Mordrake,  for the modern age, even though he did briefly appear on American Horror Story: Freakshow

So who was Edward Mordake? 

Well, he is still essentially a legend. It’s not clear if he ever did in fact exist, and the photo of him that makes rounds on the internet is not a really photo. Scary, and believable, but not real. 

He was born in the 19th century and had a face on the back of his head. And that face would terrorize him until he committed suicide at the age of 23. It would do all of the classic things that back of the head faces do - whispering bad thoughts, telling him to hurt people, freaking out everyone around him, etc. 

In line with malignant, the face on the back of his head was supposedly female. In the movie, Madison’s back of the dome evil twin was male. Little switch a roo there.

Origin 

The first known description of him was in an 1895 article published by the boston post. This post was authored by Charles Lotin Hildreth, who was a fiction writer. Hmm. That’s suspicious. That’s weird… Moving on. 

Here’s a little bit from Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine:

One of the weirdest, as well as the most melancholy stories of human deformity, is that of Edward Mordake, said to have been heir to one of the noblest peerages in England. He never claimed the title, however, and committed suicide in his twenty-third year. He lived in complete seclusion, refusing the visits even of the members of his own family. He was a young man of fine attainments, a profound scholar, and a musician of rare ability. His figure was remarkable for its grace, and his face – that is to say, his natural face – was that of an Antinous. But upon the back of his head was another face, that of a beautiful girl, "lovely as a dream, hideous as a devil." The female face was a mere mask, "occupying only a small portion of the posterior part of the skull, yet exhibiting every sign of intelligence, of a malignant sort, however." It would be seen to smile and sneer while Mordake was weeping. The eyes would follow the movements of the spectator, and the lips "would gibber without ceasing." No voice was audible, but Mordake avers that he was kept from his rest at night by the hateful whispers of his "devil twin", as he called it, "which never sleeps, but talks to me forever of such things as they only speak of in Hell. No imagination can conceive the dreadful temptations it sets before me. For some unforgiven wickedness of my forefathers, I am knit to this fiend – for a fiend it surely is. I beg and beseech you to crush it out of human semblance, even if I die for it." Such were the words of the hapless Mordake to Manvers and Treadwell, his physicians. In spite of careful watching, he managed to procure poison, whereof he died, leaving a letter requesting that the "demon face" might be destroyed before his burial, "lest it continues its dreadful whisperings in my grave." At his own request, he was interred in a waste place, without stone or legend to mark his grave.

Now this was done after the initial story from the fiction writer and the person they credited for the info was not named, just referred to  as a lay person.

So this guy probably didn’t exist, or if he did, the face on the back of his head is fake or not anywhere near the amount of freaky it’s supposed to be. Ye olde creepy pasta.

The Actual Condition

So there is such a thing as parasitic twins being connected by the head, and it is called Craniopagus parasiticus.

Parasitic twins in general happen when an embryo had plans to split into two to male two babies, but it doesn’t complete the action so you end up with one baby and then one parasitic fun bundle on the side. The difference between this and conjoined twins is both twins continue to develop despite being attached, while the parasitic type stops developing and just sort of hangs on.

Apparently only 10 cases of the condition have been examined and documented in research literature, with only 4 surviving birth.

So this is extremely rare and the chance of them making it to adult hood is low. So being influenced by the parasitic twin to go and kill people, or yourself is very very low. So you can stop checking the back of your head now for your buddy.

Just some thoughts…

It’s weird how the more I read into the Lanza writings the more and more I feel like I really relate to him. It’s borderline uncomfortable. But my interest in him as a person continues to grow. I’m considering doing a separate blog but I’m not decided on that yet. 

I need to really dig into the audio files that were ripped from the YouTube and actually transcribe those out and put them in the correct order. My copies don’t make it clear when and what. I would like to put them all in order in a timeline along with the blog posts. 

I would also want to weave in any other things we know of him as well as things that were going on in his life at the time to try to get a more consistent picture of those last few years. 

Over all I feel like he is the most complex school shooter because everything is so foggy and you can see the pieces but not quite how they all fit together. I continue to be disappointed that there’s not much interest in it. I think that is due to the victim choice and the taboo around it. 

Crossing Log : 10/02/2021

Hooray! It’s officially spooky season… even though I personally start my spooky season in September. 

I’m glad to get more time in October on animal crossing. I didn’t get a Nintendo switch or new horizons (which is why I bought the switch) so I didn’t get very much of the decor or goodies last year. 

I didn’t get to play yesterday due to work and when I did get home my new iPad mini 6 had arrived so I was busy messing with that. I’m working in the afternoon today so I’ll get to play a little bit. 

They had the spooky tree in the shop which was definitely one of the main things I was salty about not getting.

I need to go hunting for a new villager, agent s finally moved out. I’m still disliking most of my villagers. And I can’t get my damn rocks to do the little cuter rock garden thing.

I feel so behind at times cause I never really partake in the social features of gaming. As of now I have only added one friend on the switch and that’s it. We’ve been to each other’s islands a few times and I also always feel like shit when i go to her’s cause you can tell she comes with a plan. 

Currently questioning on what the point is of giving my villages shit. They basically give me the same Aran knit tank over and over…