Acfox13 this post of yours is an incredible gift. Thank you. I'm so sorry to learn of what you endured.

>It's like letting your employer continuously steal the fruits of your labor.

Glad to see you are at least opposed to capitalism.

Feel free to browse through my comment history. I've been working on my healing in earnest for the past four years (since the fog of denial finally shattered). I've collected a bunch of resources and got lucky with a very knowledgeable and experienced trauma therapist. I'm actually seeing progress from implementing healing strategies and modalities based on neuroplasticity, polyvagal theory, and attachment theory.

sure, but that's not at all what you said in your original post. thanks for your reply

From what you shared personally and hour sources I want to say two things, I am sorry for what you went through growing up and the problems it caused as your life continued as an adult, and the other is I want to commend you for the work you have and are putting into being a better person. I have experienced a lot of trauma and it is so hard to climb out from the mess. I grew up in a small town and kinda managed to live in a bubble until almost 30, even as an alcoholic. Both parents suddenly died 18 months apart with no warning. Mental health tanked, drugs were added and final homelessness where I saw the worst of the worst and honestly some of the best of the best. But the bad burns itself into your mind and eventually that "scaring" hides the good things and all that a left is fear, mistrust, and a sense of helplessness. If you can implement these things into your life where the real challenge is and where I struggle and fail. I really wish I could be as naive as I once was, ignorance isn't necessarily bliss but it allows for much more contentment with however things are currently going.

Thanks for sharing all this, I got a lot from it and its clear you shared it because you did as well. Ill be watching/reading your links over the weekend.

What bills are you referring to?

I am not anti-trans, and think that people should have access to care and treatment if needed.

But it is undeniable that there are elements of ideology shaping the medical practice which I think should remain separate.

Well if you read about Tavistock you’ll see that children came to harm because of political pressure from trans activists.

I support trans rights unequivocally, but it is completely reasonable to challenge and scrutinise the process and systems in place around transitioning considering it’s long term effects.

Saying trans rights activist have a disproportionate amount of Influence over policy while we are actively watching bills signed to limit their gender affirming care is laughably inaccurate. Are you trolling?

Eternal punishment in hell doesn’t seem like being generous and giving people a second chance.

In some of the tournaments described in the thread, after each round winning strategies reproduce and take up more seats in the next round. Losing strategies get fewer seats in the next round. I would guess that the slave strategies would quickly fall out of the competition. How would the masters fare against generous tit for tat without slaves? Instead of cults, this could be a model for tribalism.

[removed]

'Authentically yours?' This statement literally means less than nothing.

By less, I mean that it increases confusion and ignorance more than mere nonsense would do.

If the only voice that exists in your own head, the only perception that exists in your private universe, the only awareness that you can - ever - experience is literally all that can ever happen for you, the issue of 'authentically' has no meaning.

To even suggest that your own self awareness is 'inauthentic' invokes something outside yourself that could be authentic, or which is producing a false sensation of existence, and there is zero basis for such a notion. It is ridiculous at every level.

If your own self awareness is not 'authentic', then what would be 'authentic'? You might as well be asking, about the apple on your plate, 'is this apple a - real - apple?' what does that even mean? It is defined as an 'apple'. It is all that there is. What is it? A plastic replica?

There is no 'plastic replica' of self aware experience. You either exist, or you do not, in which case this argument ends - you do not exist, and I am not communicating with anyone at all.

If you can post back, you exist, and that existence is authentic. It has to be, unless you are a NLP-based chatbot, which you cannot be, because such a bot cannot succeed in signing on to reddit to respond in the first place.

This is getting silly, by which I mean you are getting silly.

No, and I wouldn't be too eager to trust the British press on anything involving transgender people.

Nonviolent communication is life-changing, when you can train yourself to frame things in that manner. It's made all my relationships, both personal and professional SO much better. Not easy, but absolutely worth the time to learn.

Not blaming, but holding to account. He is a very intelligent man, capable of doing his research. Not reading a mainstream media article critically is a tad suspicious of a man renowned for being critical...

The Tavistock was closed down for, essentially, being oversubscribed. The interim report goes into more nuanced detail, of course.

Never been a big Zizek fan.

It doesn't surprise me that an intellectual would make sloppy arguments and fall for the same old pitfalls in arguments as many before on an issue which is so nuanced and tricky to navigate.

You're missing the crucial why.

The problem is the expectation that there is a true self to find in the first place. Simply needing to stop looking for it, implies that you might find it one day. The expectation that you might find it one day will constantly cause suffering, because you would think that you are missing something or that your life isnt fullfilled until you have it.

Understand that "the true self" doesnt exist. Therefore you can let go of the thought of your true self and you will never even feel the need to look for something that you know doesnt exist.

Edit: Instead focus your attention on the things that exist and are actually worthwhile.

However it's not central to religious faith.

Why do more religious communities have more retaliation against things like gays?

People want to marry and love who they want but religious people have decided they can just others be happy if it doesn't follow their world view. Same with dressing in drag. Nothing that impacts them but they feel the need to aggressively pursue ending the happiness of others by trying to create laws to make it illegal. They also don't care about other religions.

If highly religious people were really forgiving and wanted to cooperate they would never try to discriminate against the LGBTQ community. Hell they push ideas like conversion therapy which goes fully against the idea of letting people be.

these mfers will type "you can't just say he's transphobic the word will lose all meaning" and then type "his only mistake is levelling reasoned criticism against the quite aggressive trans rights activists" like Bruh...

stay strong friend<3

Appreciate it, I’ll have a watch

edit: just finished, was really good. I think the author of what I posted and Julian de Medeiros are on the same page.

Cool! I will definitely check it out! Thanks again!

Of course! I found the idea of "dropping the second arrow" to be really helpful, if you're interested in some reading. I think it's a Buddhist concept?

I thought tit-for-tat - strategies were shown to be powerless against swarming the competitions with master / slave bots, where the first few exchanges are a code to establish whether an alliance exists and the slaves are programmed to destroy non-allied participants regardless of the cost to themselves and to give points to their masters. That would explain why cults seem to be doing really well in reality right now.

I also found this critique by YouTube philosophy educator Julian de Medeiros on the article in question to be valuable.

In other words, a shift in perspective. Both are not changing the fact that the car will die, but the fact that one’s perspective towards that event is key to finding oneself.

I may have to look further into this… I feel like my perspectives in my life need some serious retuning. Thank you!