JASKN

My blood boils over easily, if I'm not mentally vigilant. The strategy to counter that's worked for me most is remembering that boiled blood has generated little value for me in past life instances, and that the most probable outcome to getting boiled is self-misery and that's it.

Is America really over-the-top evil? Think about the people you interact with on a daily basis. Would you classify the majority as evil? What line needs to be crossed for a person to be "evil"? Humans are complicated and are always changing. In a reality where most around you truly are evil, such as an ISIS camp, or in prison, I can see a realistic desire to stop dealing with it all, for good. No prospects, little to look forward to now or ever. Is that daily living in America? NO, it isn't. America is essentially a free country, still, with all its regulations and government intrusions. I can still get on the internet and badmouth any branch of the government. The American judicial system still offers the best recourse against humans who don't respect my rights. The American people are still work harder than the rest of the world. American business es are still world-class innovators. America's freedom-focused intellectuals still outnumber the rest of the world. Here's a phrase that comes in handy when pondering life: "What's the alternative?" In a world of mixed humans (which will always be the world, as David noted) where Atlas Shrugged exists only as an illustrative construct, you can choose to focus on evil and live a mad or sad life, or you can choose to focus on every positive thing you can find or create, and live the best possible life before you're dead. There's no point in focusing on negativity past identifying it as something to move beyond.

Why can't you do both? Software can't be taking up all of your time. Why not do other things after you're finished with the regular job? Why not keep your full time job, and do the other interests part time, at least for now? You may find out you're not really all that interested in writing symphonies with the majority of your time. You may find out a solid stream of income is worth more to you than you'd thought. Setting company goals is someone's full time job somewhere, and you might discover you don't really like having that responsibility, even while still appreciating the goals/purpose being set. You'll wind up discovering loads of facets to your other interests you didn't even know existed, along with how you like those facets, and the interests will inevitably become different things to you entirely than how you think about them now - maybe better, maybe worse. Fidgeting with those interests part time can show you those facets without you needing to devote time (and possible heartache) to worrying about a livelihood. In my opinion, a life "plunge" is only good when you have some realistic idea of a good outcome, whatever that means to you. But, that's from a guy who has never done a plunge and never intends to. I like the try-before-you-buy method. But definitely try. What's the point of living if you don't do the living? If you think a plunge is for you, do it. There's truth to "if it don't kill you..."

The premise of the thread could be faulty. Is wisdom implicitly beyond its audience, only to be recognized with later life experience? I had an old computer in high school with a DOS touch typing program that would let you practice on tried and true sayings. At 14 years, I recognized them as ancient wisdom, because they sounded dated and odd to me, and because I figured they wouldn't have been included without reason. I remember 3 (I tried and failed finding this program online to get the other sayings): When in Rome, do as the Romans do. Don’t let perfect be the enemy of the good. A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds. For years I thought that they must be mostly nonsense, or half-truths since proven wrong, (ironically) like Bible Parables. Then over time, one by one they became real.

The real step backwards is that people don't understand or don't care about the true meaning of rights, they care more about their feelings, which is the real reason gay became OK so quickly. It's a positive that the trend continues away from thinking of gays as a societal blight, but it doesn't really have to do with rights, the progress or regression of.

Thread closed for violating the forum's rule against personal attacks toward other forum members.

World-famous drag queen Rupaul has repeatedly described his profession as that of a court jester, "never taking the world too seriously." So, I guess he's at least as intellectual as you.

In my teens, I put on a know-it-all front, but in fact I didn't verify much of anything at all for myself. This carried on until I found this forum, with its many exemplar users who didn't take any answer without some solid reasoning behind it, and a painful process of de-rationalization began after my sad mental habits just couldn't stand up any longer. The habits were deep, though, and for a while it seemed like I didn't really know anything about anything, because I realized I had really verified almost nothing. I'd thought it was good general advice, not just for younger me, but maybe I wasn't so typical and this is very obvious to most people from the beginning. Growing up, I did not focus primarily on my own desires, instead focusing first (or only) on what I "should" do. Then, for a long time I treated people poorly, generally. Maybe the first was due to religion and the second was a personal backlash, but I'm not a psychologist. The way I summed up this advice applies more in my 20s, since I wouldn't have heard or understood any version of it when the issues were at their worst. I see versions of these two problems in a lot of people now - confusion about why life isn't working out, when surface investigation reveals motives that don't start from within; confusion as to why things aren't working out, and then big surprise they have no consideration at all about the other person's perspective or objectives.

Just move on when it’s boring or when you’re stuck. Change what you can, accept what you can’t. Failures are inherent, but success is very likely over the long haul and makes trying worth it. It’s truly in your power to change things. Try, try again. Don’t take on debt without an honest plan to pay it back. Avoid. Uncontrolled debt is a life sandbag. People don't change unless they want to, and even then it's a process requiring diligence. Love evolves, not necessarily into something worse. The fairytale is only part of the truth. Dwelling on negatives punishes you first and worst. Are things really what they seem? You’d better find out. It’s all about you, really. But, it’s not just you. Worry is a negative default of an idle mind. Take a walk, it's not that serious, someday you'll be dead. An advice list will change depending on your target person or audience. These are the top tips 33-year-old me thinks would have most helped 18-year-old me (and up to 33, I guess). Youthful naivety prevents full understanding, and with blissful ignorance, so I tried to phrase it in a way that might have gotten my younger self thinking and thinking back again after some experience, or in a way to which I would have been receptive, especially since I was prone to rationalism. I suppose this list would work without the influence of Rand, but I found Rand right around that age... so, she's baked in by now. I wonder how a list like this might be different 10 years from now, as it won't be geared toward a flailing know-nothing who hasn't established mental habits of systematized truth gathering. Some other tips weren't as important to my younger self without first learning something about the other tips on the list, and they arose naturally afterward based on life experience. Life doesn't seem like a catch-up game anymore. What are your 10?

Who's arguing this? I'm arguing that the "context" is idiotic, doesn't matter to me, and that I choose to ignore it. I wrote earlier that the best way to change crap culture is to act like it doesn't exist - ignore those morons to their faces. The people who make the culture crap are going to be followers of the people who change it by accepting and acting on new ideas.

So, there’s nothing we can do. A nazi decides “its ok to be white” means one thing to him, and we’re obligated to accept that meaning into our own brains. This really makes life so much easier... Now, I don’t have to figure anything out myself. I can just use some guy’s hateful screams instead.

I don’t give a crap what Neonazis think or do to further whatever goals they may have, and likewise I don’t give a crap about people who believe those ideas or help to further those goals. Why would I accept or care about some idiotic new meaning given to normal English phrases by this group? What is the standard for accepting their “context”/meaning over common understanding? Is it a majority group of the US population? Isn’t this implicitly siding with “groupthink”?

Self-induced doublethink?

I don't think of "group" as identifying anything other than "non-individual." "Group" is only used because more than one person is required to create a big enough buzz to influence passive acceptance.

Those are good questions. "Groupthink" is just a version of what Rand termed "blanking out." If we could figure out how to get people to stop doing that, the world would be even more amazing than it already is. ...kind of. It still needs to be checked in some (or many) ways against what you already know from your own experiences and thinking. If you find a source of information with a great track record, you still only know the conclusions which you can prove to yourself. In fact, you had to prove to yourself the reasons the source has had a great record.

For this same reason sexual harassment and sexual assault shouldn't be uttered in the same breath.

I use groupthink to mean: Passive acceptance of the loudest, longest, or most socially acceptable ideas with little to no consideration nor care about the actual truth, independent of whether discovering the truth would be easy; Lack of consideration with no care. It doesn't matter from whom the ideas stem, the key is that they fall on deaf ears. Effort to convince with new ideas is futile, because the groupthinker is not interested in consideration.

It doesn't matter how it sounds, what matters is whether I provided reasoning. When you're trying to make sense of anything, whether it's a news story or whatever, do you rest on mental shortcuts? Or, do you take those shortcuts for what they are, and actively update your thoughts when new information is found? Especially when you suspect you don't have the full story, you're not writing things off as concluded, right? A person who does otherwise is a non-thinking idiot to the extent they are instead fine with those fuzzy "conclusions." Even if they're "nice," "hardworking," or "non-racist" - they may be civilized, but it's not really their doing, is it? They're not active participants in their own lives, the groupthink will determine things for them instead. Thinking individuals shouldn't waste their time on groupthinkers.

The meme doesn’t necessarily suggest pride. The way to change the “context” of a majority/loudest groupthink is to completely ignore it, cutting it off at its legs with indifference. Imagine if the majority did this instead, would anyone still feel the need to care about the “context”? I suppose it really depends on your purpose. If you’re concerned with changing the minds of non-thinking idiots, I guess it would make sense to care about groupthink. But I doubt your caring is going to make a difference.

Was it truly a sacrifice, and if so could it truly have been a measurement of pride?

I suppose it could be psychologized back the other way, too. I don't feel my mind has been infected, so you assuming that it has been infected only speaks to your own psychology about this issue... no?

"It's OK to be white" is what flashes through my mind when halfwit protesters scream that all white people are somehow guilty of anything and it gets ongoing attention from media organizations. It's not something I would think otherwise. And no, "the protesters" are not "black people." It's any screaming idiot.

How is it possible to "take pride" in skin color?

Why must anyone respond to any nonsense at all?

So, my mind is made up for me by merely existing... in this country? Or, perhaps I don’t have to accept any “context,” no matter how obnoxious.