We're also born without language, and we learn it. It is part of being a human, the psychosocial reality of being human, to have religion, to have a guiding philosophy. If you waved a magic wand, destroyed all religions that currently exist in the world, new ones would spontaneously come into being to fill the void. Atheists would also exist, and have always existed. These states of reality will never change. You need to make peace with this fact, and use this fact, rather than exert so much energy trying to deny that which will never change about human social reality.
There always was religion, and always will be. It's a psychosocial phenomenon that is never going away. So you can sit in your Ivory Tower and cast scorn on it, or USE it to actually promote the future of mankind in outer space.
“Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful.”
-Seneca
Stop warring with what you cannot change, accept it, and use it for something positive. And yes, it is useful, as there is a lot of grunt work needed to get us into space, and not all the grunts are Einstein. They need religion to guide them. So do you want to guide them or feed your ego by pissing on them? Seneca's quote is correct, although I really wouldn't call people wise who can't see what is part of life, and prioritize a sense of smug superiority over what it takes to make something work.
People are always inventing religions. Most die, but the new (in the span of history) cults Scientology and Mormonism seem to be doing a good business, in the USA at least, other religions elsewhere. Since all religion does is answer the unanswerable questions of life, such as the purpose of it, just found a new religion where the answer to the meaning of life is to get the fuck off this planet. Maybe not using those exact words, I'm sure some more mystic and transcendental and pompous word choices can be arranged.
What motivated people is not cold rational analysis. Motivation is emotional. So just translate the valid motivation into the wacky language of religion.
and for you older folk, you will find Starcraft to be quite an enjoyable strategy game, perhaps while listening to General Ripper discuss anti-Communist strategy
don't ruin the plot of the next dan brown book/ the next nicholas cage national treasure movie
this sort of speculation does not belong in the halls of science. it belongs rightly in the realm of populist lowest common denominator pulp fiction with paranoid conspiracy theories studded throughout
us guys, we're really silly and stupid compared to this complex level of prolonged social violence that women play on
what i am saying is a clear acknowledgement that women are superior to us in ways that us silly stupid men can't even understand. we're used to making our dumb little points as violently and as hard as needed, but then everything else is large and confusing and silent and beyond our grasp. but not beyond the grasp of the sustained and complex way that women are used to operating
of course, psychologically, women, and men, have a feminine and a masculine side. so men can tap the feminine side of their psychology, just as much as women will sometimes come to blows: it is not their preferred way of dealing with things, but they are capable of doing it. likewise, men do not prefer to deal with social violence in the feminine mode, but we are capable of it
it's not about misogyny, that's not in my words. it is about the fact that there is soft power (feminine) and hard power (masculine) and the notion that male violence is innately worse is a falsehood
example: you can come into a village swinging your sword: masculine warfare. but the feminine way is to just poison the well. do you really believe the masculine way is worse?
men are not more violent than women, we are just violent in different ways. and in some ways, female social violence, soft power, is far more potent, far more vicious, and far more damaging, over a much longer length of time
you would see worse conflicts, lasting longer periods of time
the lie is that women are less violent. the male mode of conflict is physical sudden severe and swift, and then over, and everybody moves on. the female mode of conflict is longer term social violence: sabotage, character assassination, propaganda campaigns, name calling. of course it isn't physical violence, but it is still violence
if you compare physical violence amongst boys in elementary school, the boys are off the charts compared to the girls. but if you compare social violence amongst girls in elementary school, the girls are off the charts, to a greater degree than the physical violence the boys exhibit
the lie is that women are less violent than men. men are more physically violent, but their violence is short, strong, stupid, and over quickly, and then everyone is friends again. the female mode of violence is longstanding, complicated, highly vicious, and scorched earth: permanently psychologically scarring
women are off the charts when it comes to social violence. if women were in power you would see psychological warfare like you've never seen, and it would last a long, long time, and teh game would be played for serious detrimental effects. it would be soft power, economic and cultural, but played out to such a vicious extreme that the other country would be bereft of all confidence, culture, economy, or any other sort of ability to function as a normal society
Suicide is not chemical. Believing it is, is of course, a self-reinforcing fatalistic sense of helplessness and lack of control. The belief fits perfectly with the psychological condition.
That's interesting! You're saying the chemistry is complete BS.
Someone: mod parent up: A lot of people posting here seem to believe depression is all chemical and hopeless (a nice fatalistic, self-reinforcing helplessness belief). The above info needs to get out there.
I'm not saying it's professional advice. I do think it is honest sincere friendly advice.
At the very least, it's an interesting thought experiment, something that might give someone pause, to see the possibility of themselves outside of the situation in life that is depressing them.
Bernie Madoff's son committed suicide. That's situational: if his father had been an honest man, or his lie had not unwound the way it did and when it did, Bernie Madoff's son would still be alive, certainly. So there is certainly many situational suicides, it's not all chemistry.
A lot of people posting here seem to be starting with the chemical view of depression, and stop there, as if that is the only valid way to look at depression and suicide. That even my thought experiment won't help, so despondent and helpless the suicidal person is. But, as a psychotherapist, I am certain you can at least appreciate the situational depressive who wants to commit suicide, as opposed to the chemical depressive. Of course, the situation and the chemistry overlap and reinforce each other. Which is cause? Which is effect? Does the depressive even know, after time?
Is it nature or nurture? Of course, it's both. And so my thought experiment I will defend as having real value. At least to get a suicidal person a new frame of reference, whether they actually carry out the great escape: new life, or not.
And I make no pretense to know what it is like to want to commit suicide.
But I've always wanted to say to someone who was considering taking their life: why not just take your "life" instead?
And what I mean by that is, your situation in life. It obviously is not working, so abandon it. Take a plane to a far flung location on the globe, without any money or means of support, change your name, dissolve all ties to your previous existence, preemptively sabotage any way anyone could trace you, and live off trash or stolen mangoes from a tree, until something better comes along.
And become another person. Someone who might be happy someday.
Effectively "kill" yourself: all the identities you have with your current existence, the sum of all your relationships that aren't working, the job that fills you with nothing but misery, all of the reality around you that cages you about how you think about yourself. "Kill" all of the signifiers about who you currently are and how you think about your place in life.
And maybe the challenge and novelty of that will put you in a new frame of mind. And then you can be happy someday.
Of course, I know, the fear is you carry the seed of your depression around inside you, and even in a new life, the despondency will return. But I think, for many people, it is a combination of nature and nurture, and you, who you are, had your life gone another path, you might not be so depressed. We all are depressed at times, we all carry the seed of depression, and major depression too, were the situations in our life and how we come to think about ourselves had evolved a different way. So write a new story. Yes, you carry a seed of it inside you. We all do, and we aren't committing suicide because our seed never grew. So cut down the tree your seed has grown into, and move to new soil where the seed can't grow.
So restart the story. A lot of people talk about reinventing themselves, in ways they consider major, but are really minor. Consider the most radical reinvention possible, instead of suicide.
right, i understand that. it's called social darwinism. and what i'm telling you, out of an abundance of intellectual charity, is no one is going to want to live in such a society, because it doesn't reflect their values, and pretty much goes against basic human decency. oh i know you will happily live (or rather, die) in such a brutal society, but that's because you're a fringe asshole whose opinion will never prevail
i think you've done too many drugs. the word "ignorant" is clearly in the post i responded to
the most destructive force in the entire history of human existence is not war, disease, authoritarian government... it is substance abuse
as for my opinion of certain drugs, it is based on a distinct understanding of inebriation and addiction: highly addictive, not inebriating: ok (nicotine). highly inebriating, not addictive: ok (lsd). middling addictiveness and inebriation: ok (alcohol, marijuana). highly addictive and highly inebriating: not ok (heroin, cocaine, meth). why? because that is the combination that renders you unable to hold a job and a relationship. meaning you cost society. meaning i have an economic interest in preventing the creation of more of you. by limiting the substance that renders you useless
legalizing that stuff would destroy more lives than the cartels do
access does matter. of course you can still get these drugs, but it is more difficult than if it were legal, which is the whole point. casual exposure to very addictive drugs at certain ages destroys entire lives. if you reduce the casual exposure, then you justify the money spent on the war on drugs in the savings you make in terms of destroyed lives. the prohibition example only works for drugs that aren't highly addictive and highly inebriating at the same time. for such drugs, the war drugs will simply go on forever. it's a simple maintenance cost of civilization. arguments for the legalization of all drugs seem to utterly ignore what the drugs do themselves to human lives. i am for the legalization of marijuana, mushrooms, lsd: nonaddictive or low addiction. nicotine should be legal too: highly addictive, but not inebriating. its the combination of high inebriation and high addiction: the heroin, coke, and meth, that renders people unable to hold jobs or carry on with relationships. then i have to pay for such people, as they can no longer house or feed themselves, or in terms of higher crime in my neighborhood. no, i'd rather just go after the substance that turns people into useless zombies in the first place
Slashdot Mirror
We're also born without language, and we learn it. It is part of being a human, the psychosocial reality of being human, to have religion, to have a guiding philosophy. If you waved a magic wand, destroyed all religions that currently exist in the world, new ones would spontaneously come into being to fill the void. Atheists would also exist, and have always existed. These states of reality will never change. You need to make peace with this fact, and use this fact, rather than exert so much energy trying to deny that which will never change about human social reality.
You've given a proper smackdown, I'm not be facetious: if slashdot is for science nerds, then this is the we should understand this topic. Thank you
There always was religion, and always will be. It's a psychosocial phenomenon that is never going away. So you can sit in your Ivory Tower and cast scorn on it, or USE it to actually promote the future of mankind in outer space.
“Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful.”
-Seneca
Stop warring with what you cannot change, accept it, and use it for something positive. And yes, it is useful, as there is a lot of grunt work needed to get us into space, and not all the grunts are Einstein. They need religion to guide them. So do you want to guide them or feed your ego by pissing on them? Seneca's quote is correct, although I really wouldn't call people wise who can't see what is part of life, and prioritize a sense of smug superiority over what it takes to make something work.
People are always inventing religions. Most die, but the new (in the span of history) cults Scientology and Mormonism seem to be doing a good business, in the USA at least, other religions elsewhere. Since all religion does is answer the unanswerable questions of life, such as the purpose of it, just found a new religion where the answer to the meaning of life is to get the fuck off this planet. Maybe not using those exact words, I'm sure some more mystic and transcendental and pompous word choices can be arranged.
What motivated people is not cold rational analysis. Motivation is emotional. So just translate the valid motivation into the wacky language of religion.
intergenerational cultural references
"precious bodily fluids" is something someone in their 60s would get
"zerg rush! kekekekekekeke" is something someone in their 20s would get
for those of you who have never seen dr. strangelove (and it should be required viewing for any geek culture nerd, or just plain kubrick film buff):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1KvgtEnABY
and for you older folk, you will find Starcraft to be quite an enjoyable strategy game, perhaps while listening to General Ripper discuss anti-Communist strategy
and this is the obligatory xkcd cartoon to bring the geek fantasy life back to earth:
http://xkcd.com/538/
don't ruin the plot of the next dan brown book/ the next nicholas cage national treasure movie
this sort of speculation does not belong in the halls of science. it belongs rightly in the realm of populist lowest common denominator pulp fiction with paranoid conspiracy theories studded throughout
rather i'm in awe of this female power
us guys, we're really silly and stupid compared to this complex level of prolonged social violence that women play on
what i am saying is a clear acknowledgement that women are superior to us in ways that us silly stupid men can't even understand. we're used to making our dumb little points as violently and as hard as needed, but then everything else is large and confusing and silent and beyond our grasp. but not beyond the grasp of the sustained and complex way that women are used to operating
of course, psychologically, women, and men, have a feminine and a masculine side. so men can tap the feminine side of their psychology, just as much as women will sometimes come to blows: it is not their preferred way of dealing with things, but they are capable of doing it. likewise, men do not prefer to deal with social violence in the feminine mode, but we are capable of it
it's not about misogyny, that's not in my words. it is about the fact that there is soft power (feminine) and hard power (masculine) and the notion that male violence is innately worse is a falsehood
example: you can come into a village swinging your sword: masculine warfare. but the feminine way is to just poison the well. do you really believe the masculine way is worse?
men are not more violent than women, we are just violent in different ways. and in some ways, female social violence, soft power, is far more potent, far more vicious, and far more damaging, over a much longer length of time
you would see worse conflicts, lasting longer periods of time
the lie is that women are less violent. the male mode of conflict is physical sudden severe and swift, and then over, and everybody moves on. the female mode of conflict is longer term social violence: sabotage, character assassination, propaganda campaigns, name calling. of course it isn't physical violence, but it is still violence
if you compare physical violence amongst boys in elementary school, the boys are off the charts compared to the girls. but if you compare social violence amongst girls in elementary school, the girls are off the charts, to a greater degree than the physical violence the boys exhibit
the lie is that women are less violent than men. men are more physically violent, but their violence is short, strong, stupid, and over quickly, and then everyone is friends again. the female mode of violence is longstanding, complicated, highly vicious, and scorched earth: permanently psychologically scarring
women are off the charts when it comes to social violence. if women were in power you would see psychological warfare like you've never seen, and it would last a long, long time, and teh game would be played for serious detrimental effects. it would be soft power, economic and cultural, but played out to such a vicious extreme that the other country would be bereft of all confidence, culture, economy, or any other sort of ability to function as a normal society
That's right, bacon."
More appealing answer.
in soviet software land, software programs you!
No I mean all time, not just the last few comments
does slashdot offer a SELECT COMMENTS FROM ARCHIVE WHERE UID=xxx type service?
i've been posting here for awhile, and i am a narcissist
from the 5th century BC to the 16th century AD
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Wall_of_China
it's being built to keep out marauding mongols, duh
Suicide is not chemical. Believing it is, is of course, a self-reinforcing fatalistic sense of helplessness and lack of control. The belief fits perfectly with the psychological condition.
That's interesting! You're saying the chemistry is complete BS.
Someone: mod parent up: A lot of people posting here seem to believe depression is all chemical and hopeless (a nice fatalistic, self-reinforcing helplessness belief). The above info needs to get out there.
I'm not saying it's professional advice. I do think it is honest sincere friendly advice.
At the very least, it's an interesting thought experiment, something that might give someone pause, to see the possibility of themselves outside of the situation in life that is depressing them.
Bernie Madoff's son committed suicide. That's situational: if his father had been an honest man, or his lie had not unwound the way it did and when it did, Bernie Madoff's son would still be alive, certainly. So there is certainly many situational suicides, it's not all chemistry.
A lot of people posting here seem to be starting with the chemical view of depression, and stop there, as if that is the only valid way to look at depression and suicide. That even my thought experiment won't help, so despondent and helpless the suicidal person is. But, as a psychotherapist, I am certain you can at least appreciate the situational depressive who wants to commit suicide, as opposed to the chemical depressive. Of course, the situation and the chemistry overlap and reinforce each other. Which is cause? Which is effect? Does the depressive even know, after time?
Is it nature or nurture? Of course, it's both. And so my thought experiment I will defend as having real value. At least to get a suicidal person a new frame of reference, whether they actually carry out the great escape: new life, or not.
And I make no pretense to know what it is like to want to commit suicide.
But I've always wanted to say to someone who was considering taking their life: why not just take your "life" instead?
And what I mean by that is, your situation in life. It obviously is not working, so abandon it. Take a plane to a far flung location on the globe, without any money or means of support, change your name, dissolve all ties to your previous existence, preemptively sabotage any way anyone could trace you, and live off trash or stolen mangoes from a tree, until something better comes along.
And become another person. Someone who might be happy someday.
Effectively "kill" yourself: all the identities you have with your current existence, the sum of all your relationships that aren't working, the job that fills you with nothing but misery, all of the reality around you that cages you about how you think about yourself. "Kill" all of the signifiers about who you currently are and how you think about your place in life.
And maybe the challenge and novelty of that will put you in a new frame of mind. And then you can be happy someday.
Of course, I know, the fear is you carry the seed of your depression around inside you, and even in a new life, the despondency will return. But I think, for many people, it is a combination of nature and nurture, and you, who you are, had your life gone another path, you might not be so depressed. We all are depressed at times, we all carry the seed of depression, and major depression too, were the situations in our life and how we come to think about ourselves had evolved a different way. So write a new story. Yes, you carry a seed of it inside you. We all do, and we aren't committing suicide because our seed never grew. So cut down the tree your seed has grown into, and move to new soil where the seed can't grow.
So restart the story. A lot of people talk about reinventing themselves, in ways they consider major, but are really minor. Consider the most radical reinvention possible, instead of suicide.
"Most species of whales are not endangered or threatened"
yeah
because we stopped hunting them, idiot
right, i understand that. it's called social darwinism. and what i'm telling you, out of an abundance of intellectual charity, is no one is going to want to live in such a society, because it doesn't reflect their values, and pretty much goes against basic human decency. oh i know you will happily live (or rather, die) in such a brutal society, but that's because you're a fringe asshole whose opinion will never prevail
you have this weird opinion that assumes people destroying their lives over drugs only effects them
you have an equally weird opinion that any normal human being can deny someone healthcare just because they can't pay
i don't really think you have a good understanding of how the human beings around you actually function and interact
it's like interacting with a cartoon
i think you've done too many drugs. the word "ignorant" is clearly in the post i responded to
the most destructive force in the entire history of human existence is not war, disease, authoritarian government... it is substance abuse
as for my opinion of certain drugs, it is based on a distinct understanding of inebriation and addiction: highly addictive, not inebriating: ok (nicotine). highly inebriating, not addictive: ok (lsd). middling addictiveness and inebriation: ok (alcohol, marijuana). highly addictive and highly inebriating: not ok (heroin, cocaine, meth). why? because that is the combination that renders you unable to hold a job and a relationship. meaning you cost society. meaning i have an economic interest in preventing the creation of more of you. by limiting the substance that renders you useless
like this son:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9c/Rational_scale_to_assess_the_harm_of_drugs_(mean_physical_harm_and_mean_dependence).svg
wake up
i'm ignorant
because i consider the effects of physiological addiction in the formation of my legal opinion about certain drugs
got it
legalizing that stuff would destroy more lives than the cartels do
access does matter. of course you can still get these drugs, but it is more difficult than if it were legal, which is the whole point. casual exposure to very addictive drugs at certain ages destroys entire lives. if you reduce the casual exposure, then you justify the money spent on the war on drugs in the savings you make in terms of destroyed lives. the prohibition example only works for drugs that aren't highly addictive and highly inebriating at the same time. for such drugs, the war drugs will simply go on forever. it's a simple maintenance cost of civilization. arguments for the legalization of all drugs seem to utterly ignore what the drugs do themselves to human lives. i am for the legalization of marijuana, mushrooms, lsd: nonaddictive or low addiction. nicotine should be legal too: highly addictive, but not inebriating. its the combination of high inebriation and high addiction: the heroin, coke, and meth, that renders people unable to hold jobs or carry on with relationships. then i have to pay for such people, as they can no longer house or feed themselves, or in terms of higher crime in my neighborhood. no, i'd rather just go after the substance that turns people into useless zombies in the first place