mentalisttraceur-reactions

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I've been seeing a lot of posts recently about forgiveness. It could be because my personality has changed and I've just been noticing those posts more. But it could also be because with Trump as president for a second term, forgiveness is more important now than ever.

As time goes on, people will slowly begin to realize that Trump conned them and that he isn't in their best interest. It probably won't be a lot of people, and it certainly won't be those with the most power, but there will definitely be some. You'll probably even know some of them. They'll experience a hardship that they previously believed only happened to "those other people" who did something to deserve it. They'll expect to receive sympathy since they "did everything right unlike those other people", but they'll be treated just like "those other people" are. And they'll realize that other struggling people were telling the truth this entire time.

And it's understandable to be unwilling to forgive them. After all, they're failing an open book test. So it makes sense to not be able to forgive them on a personal level or to forgive only under specific conditions. If you stopped being someone's friend because they supported Trump, it's okay to be hesitant to rekindle your friendship. It's okay to expect them to be openly antifascist in order to even consider forgiving them.

But if forgiveness is 100% impossible no matter what, then it's only more likely that they'll continue supporting Trump. If a former Trump supporter is looking for acceptance and the only possible source of acceptance is current Trump supporters who think they never did anything wrong by supporting Trump, then they'll spend more time around pro-Trump propaganda and continue supporting Trump.

Forgiveness is a process. It should not be granted immediately upon request, but it should not be impossible either.

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I genuinely think there was no greater insight into the modern Christian mindset than when the Pope said he very much hoped Hell was empty and he was absolutely hounded by both Catholics and Protestants outraged at the idea of a man who wanted a place of infinite suffering to have nobody in it.

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Edit: TL;DR: complex system animism.

Off the top of my head, I'm tempted to call it all "circumstance animism" or "situation animism".

I don't think subcategories all need efficient two word names. In fact I think it's better to call the same mental error by the same name in all its applications/settings.

If you're willing to go for three words, "complex system animism" is maybe more apt. Or perhaps just "complexity animism".

Hmm... could do "simplifying animism", if we use the adjective to describe one of the biggest functions/effects of the animism rather than what it is being being reduced.

But I think I like "complex system animism" the most. It centers the reminder that these are complex systems, those usually have emergent properties; stop trying to use chimp intuition on complex systems; and so on.

there should be a term for that whole "there is something in our society or culture I don't like, therefore it is due to the purposeful intervention of an agent" mode of thinking

"economic animism" covers most of the left-wing versions but right-wingers are just as obsessed. "cultural animism" or "societal animism" both sound like descriptions of a culture built around a shamanic tradition.

"superterranean animism" isn't very informative

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HELPPPPP

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Part of this scene really strikes a chord with me:

"Are you afraid of anything? No. Are you the toughest bastard you know? Yeah. You're strong... Stronger than I ever was."

And to a lesser extent

"Lenny could never have done that".

As a physically abused son who ended the abuse with his own strength... to me, few things can sound as good, from a physically abusive dad.

It validates and acknowledges the pieces of identify and self-image which were (and to large extent still are) most crucial for my endurance, self-worth, and feelings of safety/security.

After all, that's why I survive. That's why I feel good about myself despite the monstrous implication permeating my childhood that my worth was however bad it needed to be deserve how I was treated. That's why I am able to press on in life, despite seeing just cause for fear all around us better than most can.

It hits the nigh unremovable deep crave for parental pride, with one of the only approvals that I didn't have to learn to not value.

It comes about as close as possible to "maybe, just maybe, it was worth it, it was okay that this was done to me, despite how not okay it was, because nothing better could've forged me."

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Ok so my kid had an ear infection, right? As kids often do.

The doctor scraped out a bit of earwax to have a better look inside.

I was sent a bill for $200 PER EAR for this 5 second procedure which I did not give permission for them to do.

That was key- they did not ASK me if they could do this "procedure". And, as I OWN a medical practice (it's me. The medical practice is me, sitting in my house on video calls) I knew to call them when this bill came in to be like "You did not obtain informed consent for this procedure, and it was not en emergency procedure. You had full ability to gain my consent and didn't. I'm not paying."

And the massive hospital who owned the bill said "yuh-huh you do have to pay."

And I said "I own a practice. I know these laws. I do not owe you money for this."

And they conducted an "internal review" and SURPRISE! Decided I totally owed them money and they had never done anything wrong ever.

And so I called my state's Attorney General office, and explained the situation because, as I mentioned, I know the law. The AG got in touch within a couple days to say they were taking the case and would send the massive hospital conglomerate a knock it off, guys letter.

Lo and Behold, today I have a letter where said hospital graciously has agreed to forfeit the payment.

"How not to get screwed over by companies" should be part of civics class.

Know your rights and know who to call when they're infringed on. This whole process cost me $0 and honestly less effort than I would have expected.

May this knowledge find its way to someone else who can use it.

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This a a reminder to not fall victim to the sunk-cost fallacy. Just because you invested time and energy into something, does not mean you should indefinitely waste more time and energy on it, if you decide it’s not what you want anymore. This goes for anything, from books, to relationships, to jobs, to hobbies, etc.

If it’s not serving you anymore, move on.

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Id like to propose we invent a paper document u can have where it states that youve had a prescription for so many years, that u can just have it. Walk into any pharmacy. 200 miles from home. Nobody has ever heard of you. Show paper. Get prescription. For free. A prescription diploma. You put in so many years on this prescription, you graduate from having to ask for it. Life could be so perfect.

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Absolutely. Being affected intrinsically gives you an inalienable right to have a say.

An ideal governance mechanism needs to have the capability to implement that and to never lose it.

This is a pretty significant value that drove my design of decision shares.

i think they should allow everyone in the world to vote in american elections

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Check out this lady's beautiful weird dress

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Yes->No->Why? should have a selfishness option. Something like "your health risk matters less than my inconvenience" -> "honest asshole". At this level of granularity and charitability, that's a more accurate match for myself than any of these other options.

But if we want to diagnose and engineer solutions, rather than just putting more social judgement force on the sisyphian boulder of collective behavior:

There should also be a "not enough people will wear them" answer. (To lump this under "peer pressure" is failing to understand people, possibly due to willful clinging to enjoyable uncharitability. And it's different from "masks don't work" because it's a claim about conditionality of masks working.)

For some people, I suspect a lot of people, mask wearing simply has a high participation threshold for joining. They'd be more happy, or at least willing, to wear masks when enough people are wearing them that it feels fair, or feels like it will be effective. They're not willing to take on that extra personal cost when it seems like it won't move the needle on disease mitigation (including by encouraging more mask wearing).

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I really like how peaceful and cozy this is. Reminds me a lot of how I like to spend time in the rain - sit/lay just out of the rain, outside or right by an open window/door. Watch+hear+smell it, feel the cool humidity or the very edges of spray on my skin.

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also if we're being real for a second, some of the men (and people in general) you need to keep the closest eye on in your life are ones who vocally attempt to distance themselves from their capacity for violence by identifying it as a function of porn or any other ~cultural degeneracy~ which they so righteously and graciously choose to abstain from

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so matt's absolutely giving scorched earth orders behind the scenes right. Not only are publically visible transfems dropping like flies, but every third person who musters up the audacity to comment negatively on Staff or Matt about this vanishes fucking instantly

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Tumblr because my logo works better as a square.

Baldness is for nerds this is a battle to the death. If you have the same character/pfp on both platforms you have to decide which is the superior.

You have to explain your reasoning in the reblogs too

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One of the great virtues, in my opinion, is the ability and willingness to, like, drop kayfabe and just present your actual considered empirical and ethical views on something, seperate from any political or social "bit" that you feel the need to do about it as a public-facing individual. And keeping any "bit" that you do within bounds of some reasonable degree of honesty, even if you naturally find yourself exaggerating or being really pushy or whatever about a particular issue. I try pretty hard to be like this myself (although I'm obviously not perfect)—to be amenable to "okay but seriously, do you really think X" type questions, to shed heavy rhetoric in serious conversation among friends even if they strongly disagree with me, etc.

Nothing makes me feel crazier than when it seems like someone just won't "drop the bit" and let me talk to the real person underneath, even on a relatively benign subject or in demonstrably safe circumstances. I understand that this is a weird preference of mine and that most people can reconstruct a suitable model of the "real" person from heavily distorted outputs without ever being so gauche as to speak plainly. But it just drives me up a wall, and I do my best to surround myself with people who, perhaps even to a fault, are willing to "break character".

(I do think it's an epistemically useful trait, but insofar as it to some extent hinders "getting high on your own supply" that can still be counterproductive for a lot of practical purposes. So I recognize that this is all to some extent quixotic)

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In my case, unironically true.

Honestly might be more true than "hurt people hurt people", even though it's a strict subset, because I think the narrowing is removing a lot more counterexamples than examples.

I feel like the causal link is very strong from being raised with one or more people hitting you and developing emotions that cause you to hit people.

But maybe I'm just doing same-mind bias here. I do seem to have a temperment unusually suited for metabolizing being hit into wanting to hit.

there's that saying "hurt people hurt people", right, kind of a middlebrow moodboard aphorism, and clearly a lot of its appeal lies in its verbal structure. you can't do this with most words, obviously. but you can do it with any transitive verb for which the third-person plural present indicative is the same as the past participle. so we can come up with some others in the same vein and then maybe let them loose and see if any of them do big enough numbers to put on a T-shirt:

Upset people upset people

Hit people hit people

Cut people cut people

Put people put people

Typecast people typecast people

Spread people spread people

Wet people wet people