Well, title is a bit provocative, but author put it this way ..

.Blogpost by George Tsakraklides

Honestly, I also tend to ask myself very same question at the end of this blog:

Back to the petri dish analogy, the carnivorous plant in Little Shop of Horrors and the bullying, fat brat that needs a life lesson. What do they need to experience in order to learn this lesson?

Because yeah, I might dislike anthropocentered humans all day and nigh, but their/our anthropocentrism ironically not allowed humans to even fix their own greatest danger to themselves, history culminated in WW2 and everything that followed apparently was not enough??? This is not rhetorical question for me, because if humans effectively stuck - who will un-stuck us? Or how to unstuck ourselves at non-minority scale? Not like this question can be solved at internet forum .... But this line of thinking tend to stay in my thoughts. Sometimes even thinking on letter/post may generate some insights ..... so this is partially - public remark to myself.

7362963

history culminated in WW2 and everything that followed apparently was not enough???

Thing is, it more or less unstuck Europe. Ever since WW2 there has been no major wars outside of the collapse a very unstable nation. So despite the name World War 2 wasn't very global, as it was mostly confined to Europe, Eastern Asia and the Pacific. You'd need a drastic global event to get similar results, maybe if World War Two was fought on all continents it would get everyone to seek peace. Because otherwise most people would not experience the horrors of war, only hear of it through the media which tends to white wash or desensitize things

7362967
well, may be whole self-beating route can't change us in desired direction? I mean, humans for very long time used punishment and all those nasty painful tricks on animals and lower humans because they saw 'fast results'. Results were fast but limited and with side-effects. May be humanity punching itself harder and harder only can develop some bigger psychosis, not punch thru some wall into fields of understanding .... But humanity is not exactly single-headed superorganism, so analogies ought to be applied with caution ....

On the other hand more pleasing things like fine arts etc also act more like hopium (ironical nickname for not really based on reality sense of hope) - so.... I don't know what can act outside of those two poles.

7362968

But humanity is not exactly single-headed superorganism, so analogies ought to be applied with caution

That's another point I was gonna make, Humanity as a whole is random mess. I don't believe any of this stuff is an inevitability, I just see at as we're unlucky to have major powers run by leaders who saw each other as belligerents. For instance if every major power on Earth was a functioning democracy how often do you think chaotic clashes would come about? At the very least it would be harder to sell to the people that they're a threat to freedom when they're also freedom loving people's, they just have different interests.

Went a bit off track but I don't blame human nature, history is just a stormy ocean of uncertainty and possibilities. Though due to recent events I am on the back foot on the side of Humanism

7362963
Hanlon's Razor states, "never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity", but if you look at malice and stupidity asking why one could be confused for the other, the thing that is caused by both is suffering. It's easy to see why a crying baby is just expressing a need. It is both unaware and unwavering in the suffering it creates with its own needs. What is not so easy to see, or perhaps I should say forgive, is when such a life grows older and has no ability or no desire to control such impulses. The hunter-gatherer instinct in humans is desperately strong, and everyone reading this has known the thrill of engaging in virtual life or death competition for spoils - in videogames enemies trying to kill you drop loot, and for gathering, games like Animal Crossing and No Man's Sky encourage us to go out and gather the resources that we need for ourselves or for trade. Of course, you've seen this long before videogames in board games and sports.

Linked in these ancient primal programs are the desire to be the best - to win, but the conscious mind and the primal programming are not in perfect unison. In 1994, a skater was attacked because her competitor hired someone attack her to prevent her from winning. Logically, such an act nullifies the victory, but the primal mind only acknowledges the idea of winning, not the rules. Feelings of guilt for cheating the program arise in normal people when they fully internalize the results of these actions, however, psychopaths are unable to perceive the results. Sociopaths, are able to perceive the results, but do not have the biological wiring to correct these problems.

The need for hunting and gathering is so far in the past, that these biological programs are actually hazardous to modern humans. Even the concept of revenge is a biological program that has gone astray: When someone of authority is teaching someone under them, the associated frustration at the student failing comes as the desire to punish. Being punished is also a biological program that forces the brain to rapidly recalculate the consequences of actions, so these two serve a purpose. The problem is that the purpose of punishment is to teach, and when it goes beyond that into a desire to torture, that is a failure - a failure that is so common that it is not perceived by humans as a malady. Even in the little often daily occurrences of someone "rubbing it in" or "One up-ing" peers is an expression of these flaws that ultimately not only assume but demand that one is the ultimate authority of all that is.

As each individual grows, events in our lives show us how we are not gods of the mortal realm. Those who have a truly great imagination can come to meditate upon what could be, and in so doing, imagine the many scenarios that break the self-centered way of thinking. However, this requires the ability to detect and calm the natural programming to see past ourselves to fully envision the outcome of actions.

It is my considered opinion, that most human beings do not have the "RAM" to make use of this ability. Imagination such as this is mentally taxing anyway, so many stupid people go off like wailing babies at the discomfort to their own minds. This gets closer to the heart of the problem. You see, humans are naturally lazy. This too is a biological program - to seek the shortest route to maximum gain. Many works of fiction and true stories boil down to trying to achieve this while making sacrifices of others to do so. Laziness ultimately stems from greed: it is not that we can't do something, but that we want to maximize what we get out of what we put into any given situation - this even extends to thinking for some people. I could comically interject that many of us are reaching new levels of laziness as we are now avoiding watching new shows on Netflix for fear that they will not have a high enough entertainment to duration ratio to be considered worth our time.

So would you rather phrase that as Humans are naturally selfish or Humans are naturally greedy?

Some people like myself find ourselves up at night tossing and turning as we mentally berate ourselves because we can see that our inaction more so than our actions are the source of inevitable suffering in the world. It's crushing because it feels like every little act of good we do and could do is disregarded, it hurts to do more. It takes our energy and our time, and rarely ever gives us a sense of satisfaction. Of course, giving into that feeling and choosing to stop caring makes one into the cause of the very suffering that we seek to end. It is unbalanced. It is unfair. Contemplating such matters causes one to flipflop between trying to be better and trying to not care...

But when I think about what it means to be pony in one word, it is: Helpful. To offer immediate aid when we see immediate need - to do this much is to prove, at least to one's self, that one is not evil.

7366189
welcome back ....

The problem is that the purpose of punishment is to teach, and when it goes beyond that into a desire to torture, that is a failure - a failure that is so common that it is not perceived by humans as a malady.

- yeah .. Like when my dog (Grey, I live with him for ...nearly 12 years?) shit at asphalted road I often (!) become angry and yell at him (because I'm afraid about humans yelling at me due to my dog's shit!). You can guess how it develops itself - dog becomes afraid of moving freely, and because we often come out for walk due to dog's needs - he blocks himself until same shit (literally) happens at slightly different spot :( I understand my fault ...yet not much was done in the way to actually change my own behavior

Sociopaths, are able to perceive the results, but do not have the biological wiring to correct these problems.

- I wonder what exactly is missing? < I have 'how it can be fixed' in my mind when I ask this question myself > I was thinking about mirror neurons - but aren't they mostly mirror physical actions of 'external' to our mind/body beings - so we have some vague feel of 'other' inside our brain, but this doesn't automatically translates into empathy? How much of this is learned? How much of this is based on some biological similarities, so this echo of other's actions (and reactions, like suffering) remaps to what we already have? How all this work, at engineering level? What today's humans can do about it?

It's crushing because it feels like every little act of good we do and could do is disregarded, it hurts to do more. It takes our energy and our time, and rarely ever gives us a sense of satisfaction.

- yeah, 200% this ....

But when I think about what it means to be pony in one word, it is: Helpful.

- sure, just not to some .... humans (who tend to make matters worse - ogh, well, defining 'worse' is beyond myself @now ...sorry.. I think you know what I mean, but explaining this to external party ...I simply can't do it :( so, vagueness in my lines .... 'worse' is too short word to pack all important cases into it :( Like, it may felt like worst - yet it may be important. Or it may felt very good - but lead to some problems later on, for various number of beings. Or it may make matters worse in some combination with usual life we do today .... explaining _this_ kind of 'being pony' is not something I can do, even if I think this might be useful .... because this is not default theme in ponyfiction at large.)

7362963
Read or listen to an audible version of Richard Dawkins' The Selfish Gene. A lot of the stupid behavior will make sense in the light of natural selection.

7366225

- I wonder what exactly is missing? < I have 'how it can be fixed' in my mind when I ask this question myself > I was thinking about mirror neurons - but aren't they mostly mirror physical actions of 'external' to our mind/body beings - so we have some vague feel of 'other' inside our brain, but this doesn't automatically translates into empathy? How much of this is learned? How much of this is based on some biological similarities, so this echo of other's actions (and reactions, like suffering) remaps to what we already have? How all this work, at engineering level? What today's humans can do about it?

In artificial neural networks, it's called back-propagation. As I look back on the events in my life, I think that the weight and distribution of back-propagation is lower in childhood and that this is an intentional evolution that allows each generation to branch out into new habits. The problem occurs when certain parts of the brain never grow out of that phase and causes a "thought cancer" that recognizes and is able to explore the destructive reactions to one's actions but not care to correct it.

But when I think about what it means to be pony in one word, it is: Helpful.

- sure, just not to some .... humans (who tend to make matters worse - ogh, well, defining 'worse' is beyond myself @now ...sorry.. I think you know what I mean, but explaining this to external party ...I simply can't do it :( so, vagueness in my lines .... 'worse' is too short word to pack all important cases into it :( Like, it may felt like worst - yet it may be important. Or it may felt very good - but lead to some problems later on, for various number of beings. Or it may make matters worse in some combination with usual life we do today .... explaining _this_ kind of 'being pony' is not something I can do, even if I think this might be useful .... because this is not default theme in ponyfiction at large.)

Are you talking about the difficulty of being a good person while being surrounded by hateful ignorant people? I think that is what you are saying, so I'm going to go on that. Yes, it is difficult to be a helpful being in this world. It is difficult to discern what is ultimately right and wrong when the majority of people around us adhere to a standard that revolves around selfishness and laziness. To do what is ultimately right extends far beyond the emotions of what makes us feel good; The Age of Enlightenment tried to disregard all emotions to follow strictly logic, and what they found was that things spiralled into absurdity. To do what is ultimately right may end in the death of the individual because it is so far outside of what is normal and/or acceptable to the society - clearly our sense of self-preservation does not want this.

The first season of My Little Pony Friendship is Magic shows that it is easy to be helpful in a world that is closer to perfect, however, this world is so far from pure that the weight of that attempt is simply too much for one person to bare. Buddhism recognizes this and holds that the sanga, the group of practitioners, is essential to continue being a force for good in the world, because in that bubble, there is a constant reminder that the efforts are not in vain. The problem for most people is simply that the weight of lifting the world to any higher state is divided among all present to help. This is why it is such a great task, but it should be a reminder that because it is such a difficult task, we must not break ourselves trying to do it all. Instead, we must do only the amount we can that will not prevent us from continuing with our own lives and happiness.

This is why I say that ponies are helpful, not ponies are martyrs. A helpful pony tosses and turns at night thinking, "I could have done more", and a martyr knows they have done all they can, but neither are they around to help again. Martyrs have their time and place, but I think about this analogy about boiling water: putting a pot of water on a very hot stove for a few seconds doesn't make the water boil, but putting the pot on a hot enough stove for long enough does. I think, then, that the most difficult task of wanting to live in a better world is knowing the possibility for a better world and the terrible tragedy that we don't know how best to get there.

7366646
I was trying to say two or more things at once.
One is, yes, our actions in this world definitely should be collective (because one is too small!), but on this way ... I don't think I can trust some even small organization of people because it fired badly in area that mattered to me. Even small (like 5, 7, 9 people sized) group unfortunately was not what I was looking for, and ultimately my views/words/feeling were made irrelevant by real actions of group....

Second part is ... I can't just point at ponyfiction in general and say 'I like it because it shows truely different kind of psychology/response' because most (?) ponyfics not about this level of otherworldness ... nearly like even authors of great imagination dismissed even possibility of such society/civilization because ... it feels unrealistic? So, authors write (imagine) ponies much uniformely 'just a little better than humans', in this aspect. It feels like irony of situation - for most (?) bronies this show is or was something they had in common - yet I tend to cling to very niche interpretation of it. So, almost no psychological support from this human herd .... So, I'm outside of both mainstream mainstream, and brony mainstream(s) ..... And such situation tend to remain with me on other sites as well .....

I tend to agree with you on

The Age of Enlightenment tried to disregard all emotions to follow strictly logic, and what they found was that things spiralled into absurdity.

. Nicely put. I also tend to agree with other sentences you wrote.

Humans are animals. Humans are Great Apes, who have evolved with the capacity for truly horrific violence and selfishness. A percentage is straight-up psychopathic, incapable of empathy or compassion. This is not a malfunction. The entirety of humanity is barely constrained by a thin layer of mutually agreed-upon rules, a social technology we call 'civilization'. If these rules ever become distrusted or ignored, the bestial nature of Man reveals itself in wanton violence and selfishness and greed.

Half of all humans are 'stupid'. Or more properly, 'intellectually challenged'. The average intelligence at 100, half on the bell curve are below that number. With sociopathy and psychopathy randomly distributed independently of intelligence, we have half of the human species massively capable of extreme atrocity and action against their own self interest when manipulated by others more intelligent and (thanks to that advantage) generally dominant.

'Evil' is a human construct. Good and evil have no real existence. They are part of the rule technology of civilization. There is no absolute good nor evil. There are only behaviors which support life and survival for either individuals or the group, and in many cases the same behavior could be either 'good' or 'evil' depending on the beliefs and attitudes of the individual judging it. But there is cruelty and savagery, these are real, and humans are absolutely capable of them - humans have evolved to be capable of taking the most exquisite pleasure in the suffering of those they consider 'other'.

We are witness, currently, to a Folie-a-Mille - an arbitrary and false hypnotic state of invested beliefs affecting millions - right now. The current vote in America is a textbook case - just under half of the American population ruthlessly supports a cruel, lying grifter who has left them impoverished, dying of a pandemic, and vastly worse off than they ever have been before. They worship this terrible 'Grayback Ape' who they see as nothing less than an anointed emissary of their god. 48% of the American people are so entranced. They are violent and dangerous as a group, and many have been harmed or killed by them. This precisely fits the lower half of the intellectual bell curve.

7366825
Well, that’s a disheartening way of looking at things, not that I disagree with you. It’s been my daydream that humanity will use genegeneering to create the race that will replace it, because it’s very clear to me that homo spaiens were not suited for the hyperconnectivity that the internet allows. That is to say that societies are becoming the “global village” but ape traits are ensuring its destruction because apes cast out and kill those who don’t fit their view, so many apemans who think themselves the leader are getting into fights bringing the others with them.

Truth be told, as terrible as the pandemic is, I believe it may have pushed back humanity’s self-eradication by one hundred years, but if humanity does not use this time to replace itself with a less selfdestructive species for the next stage of evolution then the end result will not change.

7366845 Humans aren't stupid or evil. We are part machine, part person and all emotions. We can be molded by others or ourselves.

To add more of Chat's woe are we, humanity as the animal model is also prone to psychological tricks and manipulation. Take her "arbitrary and false hypnotic state" statement and wonder if it applies to her? To you and me? We are not immune to propaganda. You got a bunch of sociopaths at the top of the world control chain who run everything by the control the money supply. They used that to "buy" and control companies, think tanks and people. Some of these people are politicians or CEO of media companies. And if you point this out, the media will whip a mob of "nazis" or "commies" or [insert boogie monster here] to deal with you.

Where do you get your news? A small circle of shirking news outlets and funded who are destroying the planet's eco systems in a bid to control everyone else. Who runs Google now since their they no longer has the line "Do no evil." Who controls the AI or programs that present to you what they want you to see? Not you and me. Who writes the laws in the USA? Lobbyist and special interest groups. Who is gobbing up smaller businesses and making it near impossible to make a living on your own? Is it the "nationalist" or the "protesters" that cause this? It's what the people running corporations tell you as they grow more and more powerful.

How come? They the oligarchs will fight each other with little hesitation but they won't give the rest who have much less a thought or consideration of well being. We are tools or resources at best or vermin at worst to 'em. You every play strategy video games? It's pretty much like that but for real. In Chat's CB stories they came out on top. They control the information, they control the resources and they control the people. Just like in the real world, but not at that level of horror in Chat's CB stories. Yet. The motivation for this is the human emotion: FEAR. There is of death, of rape, of lose of control, of misery, and biggest of all lack of meaning in one's life.

There is a lot don't agree with people and Chat here, but at the end of the day I'm not going to give and play someone else's sick game because they think they are a BIG PERSON. In fact they just bullies with all the toys who still can't understand they can't fill that emptiness by lording over us all. Half the US is at the other part's throat and vice verse. This wasn't organic or bottom up. This was plan from the top down. It's an art of war. Sun Tzu "Master Sun" himself. Fuck the fighting - I refuse to play that. Will not accept the programing from bullies. I follow the other Sun being: Celestia! She who Shepherds the Sun and Build Friendships.

This being is a fictional pony but it still an idea from us The Humans who Aren't Stupid or Evil.

7367102
Do you consider the oligarchs non-human? If you don’t consider them human, please explain. If you do consider them human, please explain how the statement “In fact they just bullies with all the toys who still can't understand they can't fill that emptiness by lording over us all.“ does not fall under the definition of stupid and how the statement “They the oligarchs will fight each other with little hesitation but they won't give the rest who have much less a thought or consideration of well being.“ does not fall under the definition of evil.

7367760
Yes - human. You have to be a person to be an oligarch. Since I know of no alien organic or AI metal or a combo of both, they are human. Even if they were lizard people or carton ponies, wouldn't be racist enough to go all Warhammer 40K, i.e. kill 'em all on their asses. Stereotypes have limited use as a mental short cut and I find them stupid. The question of "Are Humans Evil or Simply Stupid?" I will answer as "No way." Then again I don't see myself as the center of the universe despite my selfishness.

No - not stupid. Intelligence is graded on a relevant scale. It's a measure of fast you can think verse another person. There is also wisdom, creativity, imagination or empathy. Lot of meaning in a word. These could be throw into Intelligence/smarts, but I see them a bit separate. Traits of a bully include strength or lack of wisdom or empathy. They can care about other people but it's limited. Also think being a bully is foolish because you create foes and bad will towards you. Have to admit the term bully is a broad label and flawed shortcut.

Maybe - when it comes to evil. It comes down to morals and doing harm to other people. There are a lot of definitions within that concept. Within groups of family, friends and societies are individuals with emotions, motivations, wants and needs. People fight for many reason but this does comes down to anthropocentrism or selfishness. How many layers of the social wall would I have to climb up to even speak with someone at the top? Think it's easier to be more selfish the farther away a person is distance and social wise to another person.

Try to reject being railroaded into predetermined options. The whole "Do you want to be a big fish in small pond or a small fish in a big pond?" thing isn't me. Rather be fisherman, or the rod or even the pond. Maybe do something else as well?

Re: Trump.
This link just arrived in my inbox.

In her book and interviews, Trump’s niece Mary Trump talks about how Donald Trump’s narcissism is deeply rooted in an inferiority complex and childhood trauma that he has never managed to recover from.

IIRC Chatoyance pointed out similar case (of someone who lived in rich family, but was deeply traumatized by their 'norms', with different outcome ....)

I tend to agree with Griseus on 'intelligence' being packed with multiple meanings. I tend to think 'follow accurate/cautious {not overtly optimistic} 'emulation' of other being feelings and work forward from this' is brilliant idea, but for now it seems to be hard to make many enough people jump this rift?

I mean, bullying still around, in very same 'temples of education' commentariat at Stross blog want to multiply .... People learn something there, but are they learning art of disobedience and art of sensing others? Hardly, it seems.

On genetic engineering ... It sort of hard to say now what exactly should be amplified or tuned there? Just 20 years ago it was assumed one gene is rule one function - now this simple view found out to be incomplete? Those systems tend to be complex .... and anyway will require some post-birth calibrating for huge amount of real-world unknowns and news. (so, 'software' part of equation will remain important even if/when 'hardware' part will be put forward somehow.). I also agree with 'if forced to make limited two-item choice - explore whole space of possibilities' . Because apparently two dominant paradigms in any given area tend to exclude all other diversity, somehow?

7367968
I’ve been thinking about your reply for a while feeling rather frustrated. If this was just your opinion that would be fine, but you replied to my message that was a reply to Chat’s reply to my original post where I, like you, pointed out that the answer is not as simple as a choice between two predefined options but that the answer to the question requires greater scope to zoom out and look at the underlying cause. I was wracking my brain trying to understand what I failed to say in my original post to make you think that I was still missing something. This morning however, perhaps because I was still waking up it occurred to me that maybe you didn’t read or forgot about my original post. Please reread my original post and let me know if this was the case, or if I am still missing something, let me know what I failed to perceive in that post.

7368383 You're fine. I'm just being stupid.

7369327
I think you just cut/forge your phrases in somewhat unusual way ....

7368383
I wonder what you may have to say at the tail of this thread ?

7369467
What about it?

7369485
well, this little thing about boys being lovely to each other, so they less pushed to screw the world (in negative sense). I think one of the biggest problems on this way - how to generalize this experience? You can't literally love whole planet of humans - even if such experience was about to transform them permanently.... It will only expand like exponentially if every human will be able to replicate this effect on other humans around ... and as we can see from still huge counter-wave against same-sex relations ....counterforces are strong.

Still, this is also question about if such 'being lovely to each other' experience can be somewhat democratized? I mean, not all humans are strict homosexuals, most so far not even bi... But may be idea of learning how to do lovely thing with/for someone can be somewhat decoupled from somewhat dogmatic idea what sex (action) is? To put it very straight - I might dislike both idea about being anally penetrated (even if theoretically I saw argument for it) and sucking someone's penis. Yet this doesn't mean I'm against making someone happy by some less ...hardcore means! (when I realized one of my friends was gay I was unable to bring myself to do even remotely sexy things for him but at least was able to provide some ...cuddles. Because he was visibly sad without his lover.) SO may be this idea about doing nice physical things to someone next to you on agreed level is something we miss from our society?

In other words I think positive aspect of physical caring about each other must have upper ... hand relative to 'pureness' of sex action ...... It feels like in our culture sex seen as ultimate thing. THE thing everyone must strive for. May be by sort of smoothing whole practice same force currently driving us mad (I still remember all this crying from my roommate from apparent rejection by female! like 22 years later ...even if we were not close friends ... just I remember how hard it hit him) can drive us into more supportive direction?

EDIT: I mean this article as one pointing out that ...

For anyone living as male in this culture, that usually does include being penetrated, if only astrally. In our culture as in Migration-era Scandinavia, there is still a cultural superiority around being penetrated; it's seen as female - and therefore automatically passive and definitely lesser, something that takes away from the "superior", active manhood. That lack of being willing to be penetrated physically easily runs over into unwillingness to be penetrated emotionally, mentally...and spiritually.

. Well, as you can imagine I prefer to be penetrated by Ideas :}

There was another page I looked briefly at, and wondered why those spiritual beings may still find use for humans (as metaphorical horses). Humans moved from horses to cars and bicycles ... may be there is more on this link than it was needed by humans (not just ability to travel somewhere, but also kind of mind connection). May be those beings are asymmetrical powers - good at some future sociality, but not really able to forge technology as we understand it (due to their cosmos being different). may be they already just remaints from unwise cosmic-scale civs used up all their resources (seems shocking, but 'advanced' tend to be not 'equally advanced on all fronts', at least in cases we clearly see here ....) From time to time I like to speculate like this. This will not result in book or story, but ..I like to do it, anyway.

7369516
I'm surprised you have to ask. Bonobo apes are known to be bisexual. They are known to be less aggressive and less jealous than all other apes. They also share 98.7% of their DNA with humans. Then there are humans... When you look at the book 1984, the main character goes off about his disgust with what sex has become in their society: women are supposed to be interested in "making babies" and not enjoying sex, so the guy talking about this points out how even though he is getting sex he is very sexually frustrated. This is of course, referencing real world counterparts where christians have actually won the name "missionary position" from going around demanding that people have sex in this exact fashion of the women acting like a ragdoll. The reason for this is absolutely to raise aggression from frustration to help turn these men into soldiers. To be clear, sex is like a hunger that doesn't just demand that the individual be pleasured but that there is a reciprocity.

But may be idea of learning how to do lovely thing with/for someone can be somewhat decoupled from somewhat dogmatic idea what sex (action) is?

This along with the quote from the article that yes, there is a lot of artificial bullshit around sex, but even deeper than that is the bullshit about pride. You see, just as there are some apemans who think that they will become less if penetrated by another man, that same mentality of pride is what causes homeless people to reject offerings of money and food. It is an idea that their own pride is more important than their own needs or even the needs of others. There are some people out there that would rather rob someone than ask a charity for money because they believe the latter is too embarrassing.

well, this little thing about boys being lovely to each other, so they less pushed to screw the world (in negative sense). I think one of the biggest problems on this way - how to generalize this experience?

I think the biggest problem in the world today is that humans have too much pride to look past their own habits or even to look into their own habits. Let's examine receiving anal sex and giving loving charity together: both make another person feel good, and making others feel good is generally good, so why not do them all the time? Well, because we don't know if we care enough about that other person put ourselves through that - and there it is! The "astral penetration" that was quoted is really about the acknowledgement that in order to give something to someone else, we must take away from ourselves, and people in general are so desperately afraid of something being taken away from them by force or the fear of starting to give something away and then discover that it affects them more than they were willing - be it pain, money, mental effort, or physical effort. What's funny is that all these men afraid and angry at the idea of receiving buttsex for fear of surrendering control and being left feeling sore, think nothing of the fact that they are willing to spend lots of money to go to massage parlors just to surrender their control and be left feeling sore. Having done both of these things, I can honestly say that the satisfaction is very similar even though one is "giving something away".

This contradictory satisfaction is similar in acts of loving deeds, "because I love you, I give of myself to you", so we really do take away from our time, our, energy, our resources however we count them, to give to someone we find worthy of receiving these things not because we do not want or value our time, energy, etc, but because we see the want of another and want to fulfill it. And you've read the stories I'm sure (or at least I hope) of someone finding someone they think is unworthy of receiving love only to spend so much time learning that as a matter of fact they were worthy of receiving love, so we learn that we have to look at it a different way and think, "because I love, I give of myself"

well, this little thing about boys being lovely to each other, so they less pushed to screw the world (in negative sense). I think one of the biggest problems on this way - how to generalize this experience? You can't literally love whole planet of humans - even if such experience was about to transform them permanently.... It will only expand like exponentially if every human will be able to replicate this effect on other humans around ... and as we can see from still huge counter-wave against same-sex relations ....counterforces are strong.

What you are really talking about here, whether you realize it or not, is the inverse answer to the question that is this topic, which is "how do you make humans neither evil nor stupid?" And the answer is... "religion" and I put this in quotation marks because I am not speaking of organized-religion but the actual definition of the word which is "the way in which one lives", but to put it in words that will not outrage the atheists, you have to change your habits to match your beliefs. Let's say you are walking and someone asks you for money unexpectedly, do you give or do you withhold? How do you feel about it afterwards? The answer to these two questions show your habits which are formed from your thoughts. If you spend all your time thinking about how the world has taken too much from you then you're going to build a habit of taking as much as you can and refusing to give. If you spend your time thinking about how that mentality and habit is ruining everything, then you're just going to end up depressed and hoping that you can out run the world before it drags you down with it. However, if after spending all this time figuring out why things and people are the way they are, you find the underlying causes, and see how to change them as well as how to accept them. Logically, the answers you find just make sense, but emotionally, that is a lot of weight to carry in the moment. It's also a lot of strings of complex thoughts, so much so that you would not have time to recite or even think about all that when the time arises to make a choice, and that is why it is necessary to take these answers and practice them, make them into your habits to the point where you are no longer stopped by fear.

7369818
Thanks for thoughtful answer, I very much enjoyed reading it!

What's funny is that all these men afraid and angry at the idea of receiving buttsex for fear of surrendering control and being left feeling sore, think nothing of the fact that they are willing to spend lots of money to go to massage parlors just to surrender their control and be left feeling sore.

Last year I had very painful case of neuralgia (when it pains a lot between ribs) so I asked my more medical friend Dmitry to come and try to make it fade away. Massage was painful! Still, there was exactly moment when I just leaned on him and felt good, because he was there, and warm. Unfortunately, he died earlier this year ....

you have to change your habits to match your beliefs.

- totally .. This is why I try to help open-source projects, don't eat meat (my dog still eats it and bones and everything), try to be everyday's anarchist (this part about not pissing at someone labeled 'below', and not worship those who labeled 'above' you). Not much, but hovering here even 1m above ground takes some energy... Some things like eating probably habit by now, but Grey (my dog) obviously very alive reminder of inter-active part of my life ("responsibility is about to be able to respond to someone" and all this ).

On money to strangers or semi-strangers ..this is not clear-cut, in my case. Yes, I give money to them, but small amount (I usually don't have much anyway) and at least partially because ...because I want to avoid potential conflict. You can't say our fears of being interacted with force completely has no basis in reality ...this problem propagate itself.....

I sometimes try to resurrect lines in my life I cut some time ago - it doesn't work as I hoped it may work ... There is not much I can do if I receive no answer....

On pride ..may be I use term wrong but I think I have it - some kind of pride in not using block function on websites. This is easy to just hit button and not eat shitloads of shit (I'm not talking fimfic, but other site I tend to stay at - linux.org.ru. Not because I have no other place for reading news - but because among all those shitstreams interesting talk sometimes surface, or I still can drop note or two about projects I'm involved with. Or drop a line about my position on some matters, even if I have no steam for those pages and pages of insult-discussions still flaring there .....) but ..well .... that is easy and what is better to be (not) done tend to be misaligned here and now ......

I was recently re-reading Poly Little Pony, and there was bit I related to (but I'm fine with you remaining who you are, because Earth is Earth):

Around the globe, the kiosks and hypernet terminals had vanished, replaced by the Equestrian Post. Magical scrolls and pegasus mail, and crystal viewing mirrors replaced email and hypernet linking. The billions of former humans wrote and spoke to each other with these new tools, and online communities rediscovered each other and reformed.

As they communicated, they ceased using handles, and left anonymity behind. They wanted to know each other, and they were disgusted with the ways in which they had harassed and abused each other behind the cowardly shield of false names and identities. Former online bullies begged forgiveness from their victims, and pledged eternal friendship forevermore.

FROM

PS: is this toolbar around input form really become smaller very recently (it only holds four symbolic buttons in line, even if there plenty of horiz. space on my wide screen for all those button now hidden behind leftmost 'hamburger-menu' symbol - three horizontal lines one above another....), or my browser having bugs?

7370141

On pride ..may be I use term wrong but I think I have it - some kind of pride in not using block function on websites. This is easy to just hit button and not eat shitloads of shit (I'm not talking fimfic, but other site I tend to stay at - linux.org.ru. Not because I have no other place for reading news - but because among all those shitstreams interesting talk sometimes surface, or I still can drop note or two about projects I'm involved with. Or drop a line about my position on some matters, even if I have no steam for those pages and pages of insult-discussions still flaring there .....) but ..well .... that is easy and what is better to be (not) done tend to be misaligned here and now ......

I've read this several times and I don't really understand it. Everyone has pride, it's like a weed that keeps coming back, so it is our duty to identify it and cut it out - this is one of the reasons I was talking about needing an upgrade to humanity. Pride is the thing that makes us think that we are so much better than everyone else and allows us to ignore the worthy qualities in others because to admit that someone else is better at something than ourselves is to admit that we are not unquestionably better than everyone, and pride does not accept that. Even when we clearly see that someone is an excellent programmer, tennis player, writer, etc, pride sidesteps these truths by telling us, "Yeah, because they have learned that thing, but if I tried I could be so much better at then them!" And of course, to keep from being proven wrong, our pride will make excuses for why we "can't" go and learn that thing, because we know under it all we could and mostly will find something difficult to learn/do and that would prove to ourselves that again others are, at the very least, not above us, and pride hates that. Ironically, pride in this fashion puts so much pressure on us to become better than someone else that we become too focused on the frustration of not just being at that level of perfection that we end up making learning so much more difficult and sometimes impossible in the cases where we never start for fear of damaging our pride.

This is just one example of how pride is such a destructive force inside of ourselves. I've heard people talking about pride as a positive word, but honestly I have never understood that meaning of the word. I can understand moments of "joy" but it seems that this other "positive" meaning of the word pride implies some kind of ownership... I think about the phrase "being proud of someone" like a parent is proud of a child for passing a goalpost. The parent feels joy for being the one to help the child reach that point, but taking ownership of the child's success is dangerous because then one takes ownership of all the child's actions henceforth, they hold the child like a living trophy for their achievements made into the child, and the problem with that is that that child may, within a short time even, fail or reject whatever thing has made the parent proud, leaving the parent to "hold a trophy" that stands against what the parent has worked to accomplish... It's seems to me, as I am typing these words, that maybe the problem with pride is that it implies some kind of permanence, an absolute statement of what is and continues infinitely but without trying to upkeep that thing.

Going back to my first post in this thread, it seems to me that pride is really an accessory to laziness as it tries to reach the goal of perfection in the shortest route possible... But like I said, I don't know too much about what people call good pride, so if there is something there that I don't see, let me know.

7370820

Ironically, pride in this fashion puts so much pressure on us to become better than someone else that we become too focused on the frustration of not just being at that level of perfection that we end up making learning so much more difficult [...]

- yeah ... as I said I'm not vegan, even if I strongly like to NOT play my part in their (animals) exploitation and killing. I sort-of settled for just trying not consume much, don't eat meat/fish/crabs etc, without pushing to purity. Because, after all, me being 100% vegan (not just in what I, eat but in everything) will sadly not change much. In all those years only one friend (from those I know) followed my steps (not sure if from health or ethical reasons), and he was exactly same Dmitry I talked above ... so, my example is not kind of example that makes waves.

So, there must be some balance in what we can do, what we should do, and where we can say 'enough this narrowly-defined progress, let make some of it in another area'

I also was about to suggest this little trick of autotranslation - may be various threads on Internet in english hit you too hard because for you English is your native language. So, may be you can 'unload' those insulting threads somewhat by running them via autotranslator (eng>some_other_lang->eng), so you will have good laugh out of them, instead of feeling like hit by hammer. I'll try to eat my own idea and try this trick on my russian board :}

Re: genetics

I was looking for some other post, and found this link, posted to Chatoyance's timeline in 2015:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/05/150507135919.htm

Your genes may influence how sensitive you are to emotional information, according to new research by a UBC neuroscientist. The study, recently published in The Journal of Neuroscience, found that carriers of a certain genetic variation perceived positive and negative images more vividly, and had heightened activity in certain brain regions.

- but I guess this one a bit too symmetrical ....

On biases, I just reading (for first time for me, I think) another link found via archeology {digging into Chatoyance's timeline, with many great posts from many authors} "Adventures in flatland (2014)":

Conspicuous By Its Absence

Ever since humans discovered the scientific method, nearly 500 years ago now, they have formulated theories about nearly everything. There are cosmological theories, theories of physics, and theories of biology and evolution. In the social realm, there are many, many theories of political economy. You name it, and there are competing theories about it. All the important stuff has been covered—almost.

Conspicuous by its absence is a comprehensive theory, or competing theories, of how the human animal functions.

OH YESSSSSS!!!! I mean, not only I was banging my head against this vacuum!!!

Notice again that filtered information needn't involve potential physical threats. More commonly, socially threatening information is filtered.

- spot on .....

What's interesting from a Flatland point of view is that the four "biggest threats" to humanity all arise from human technological cleverness. And if you look at the picture of the Flatland brain I drew above, you will see something I call the technological instinct in the unconscious. That conjecture derives from the observation that humans, presented with some intractable, self-created problem, always seem compelled to apply technological fixes when behavioral changes are clearly called for. In such cases, we hypothesize that unconscious processes proscribe or inhibit the required changes.

I mean, this in itself is not VERY new for me I already have this TechNOfix folder (but not book), and of course with Internet even low-popular ideas go round, but still I like to try and find how to attempt this behavior change on mass scale.
PS:
For some reason in-forum search here doesn't work for me, but google search with this forum's URL + keywords still works...

Found interesting line of thinking (and blog itself might be interesting too ... anarcho-postumanist who sometimes does comedy...)
02/14/2015 A Violence Called Love By Scott Jeffery

More troubling is that in further experiments Forgas found that happiness could increase selfishness. Forgas suggests that “positive mood is in a sense an evolutionary signal, subconsciously informing people that the situation they face is safe and non-threatening”, encouraging people to focus on their own personal preferences.

Sounds reasonable. Unfortunately life around us tend to be dynamic and hard to guess accurately. And there are some runaway positive feedback loops in our brain biochemistry (most known is alcohol-related?). So, being afraid to be happy is not completely unreasonable (even if very sad to live with constantly) position ....