#when they were younger and had those teachings that everyone can be anything that conflated to themselves as well

[birthdayboy-ilu]

Hojo:IF YOURE NOT CAREFUL THEYLL THINK UR A FEMALE‼️💢 SEPHIROTH WILLIAMS THADDEUS HOJO ARE U LISTENING TO ME UR SWAG WOULD BE TOO LOUD THEYLL KILL U

Sephiroth: woagh,,i wonder whatd my girl naeme wouldbe……

[thepapergirlandthespiegelman]

Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality: Initial impressions

Titles can be deceiving.

CW: child abuse, childhood trauma, mental illness, depression, anxiety

I think I can recall hearing about Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality at some point in the fairly distant past, though I can’t be sure. What I can say with relative certainty is that if I did encounter it, I probably wasn’t very likely to read it. I probably assumed that HPMOR was one of those obnoxiously misguided and pedantic critiques of fiction by scientists who neither know how to utilize suspension of disbelief, nor understand the basic nature of symbolism. At best, I might have imagined it to be a piece attempting to discover or construct a coherent logic from the magic within the Harry Potter universe, just for the pure amusement value, the absurdity of attempting to apply logic to that which defies it. I could see the appeal of that, but probably not 122 chapters worth of it.

After actually reading the first ten chapters of HPMOR, however, I can say that my first guess was incorrect, and my second guess was insufficient. HPMOR does capitalize on that humorous absurdity, but that’s hardly the core of the story.

One major reason for my misperceptions was a lack of familiarity with the difference between science and rationality. In layspeak, we often use these terms near interchangeably, and while they do go hand-in-hand to some extent, they’re not the same. Science is a method of obtaining knowledge. Rationality is an approach to living life, which dictates utilizing philosophy and science to obtain desired outcomes. You can be a scientist and be completely irrational, which actually reflects back on my initial concern; there are some scientists who will attempt to use the theory and language of science to denigrate works of art, completely ignoring the point of art.

HPMOR itself deals with this problem, not only the conflation of science with rationality, but the conflation of science and rationality and aptitude and general intelligence. The very first chapter highlights how AU Harry’s (Harry James Potter-Evans-Verres, HJPEV for short) father is a professor, knowledgeable about science, presumably quite intelligent, and yet behaves incredibly irrationally. Rather than attempting to settle the dispute about the existence of magic objectively, he refuses to entertain the idea on principle, saying, “Magic is just about the most unscientific thing there is!”

And here’s where the real story begins to unfold. What makes HPMOR hit hard, at least for me, is not the discussion of science and rationality in the abstract, or even the very useful, illustrative scenarios, but the emotional struggle of trying to be a rational person in an irrational world, especially when you’re a child. In so many ways, HPMOR is a story about the trauma of growing up as a so-called “gifted” child. Almost every chapter that I read was painfully reminiscent of my own childhood:

Seeing my parents speculate and argue endlessly over things that could be proven;

Attempting to reason with them only to be shut down;

Having my value in their eyes dependent on their perception of my intelligence and academic performance, being praised for when I was perceived to have succeeded in these matters, while at the same time having my perspective completely ignored when it came to anything that mattered;

Being mocked relentlessly for things I did when I was younger, ignoring the incredibly rapid growth that defines childhood;

Constantly feeling as though, as HJPEV puts it, I was being treated as “subhuman,” my feelings, thoughts, and opinions all invalid because of my age;

Feeling so, so frustrated that the people who were supposed to protect me were so absurdly, ridiculously, unfairly, woefully, tragically ill-equipped to do so.

I became hopelessly isolated from my parents, and my self-esteem became self-degrading. Being told over and over again how what I felt or thought didn’t matter because I was only a child made me doubt and disrespect my own emotions and doubt my very sanity. I don’t think that my parents meant to gaslight me, but that’s exactly what they did. For years, and years, and years, and it hurts. so. much. It...I cannot express how much it hurts.

And I am left with all of this damage, these lines of irrationality programmed into my brain, this obsessive need to to be perceived as intelligent in order to believe that I could be loved, in order to merely function, this irrationality that I hate so much because it hurt me so much is now encoded into my very being and it fills me with existential horror to this day.

It was difficult for me to get through as much of HPMOR as I did, and I genuinely wonder if it would be detrimental to my mental health to go on. It triggers both the suffering that comes with remembering past trauma as well as the compulsions that have resulted from that trauma. Hearing HJPEV list all the books he’s read sends a bolt of anxiety down my spine, knowing that I will never measure up to people like him, I will never have read enough, I will never be smart enough, I will never...be...enough—

Enough. I know when to stop torturing myself.

I was shocked to see how quickly HPMOR itself comes to the conclusion that what HJPEV has endured is a form of child abuse. It took me years to become comfortable using the words “abuse” and “trauma” to describe my experiences, and HPMOR introduces the word “abuse” in Chapter 6! I give HPMOR’s McGonagall much less credit than HJPEV does, but even so, it’s kind of astonishing to me to see an adult pick up on the existence of abuse in a so-called gifted child, even in fiction. I find myself wondering how I might have turned out differently if I had had someone like McGonagall in my life, or someone better than McGonagall in my life, who had told me in no uncertain terms, “What is happening to you is abuse, it is not okay, it is not your fault, and while I’m unable to legally extricate you from your unfortunate circumstances, I will do everything in my power to protect you.”

Because that didn’t happen. No one told me that I was abused or damaged. They told me that I was “smart,” “gifted,” “advanced,” or “mature”; and if they noticed anything odd about my behavior, it was because I was just “quiet,” “shy,” “introverted,” or “diligent.”

I also find myself wondering if I might have been a little different if I had read HPMOR when I first had the chance. But then again, I don’t know if I would have understood it as I do now, after years of studying psychology and working to heal myself.

God, seeing it all laid out so starkly, things I worked years to understand, in a few short chapters of someone’s fucking fanfiction*...I sure do feel like an idiot.

But then, this whole conversation has primed me to feel those feelings.

I must not undervalue myself. I am not playing that game. That game is the problem.

One thing does irritate me, though. Putting aside my misconceptions about HMPOR specifically, there’s this huge barrier to entry to the rationalist community in general. I think people perceive (correctly, as far as I can tell) that it is a community of highly intelligent people, who are highly skilled in STEM disciplines, particularly math. The one friend who could have introduced me to all this was someone who I saw as hopelessly more intelligent than I, and that perceived disparity made it incredibly difficult to approach him even as I admired him, envied him, and desperately needed the things that he could teach me. (I don’t know what things were like on his end. I still don’t.)

We’ve already seen that someone can be highly intelligent and completely irrational. I wish we could take that logic a step further and really make clear that rationality is not something that requires high intelligence. As with learning anything, intelligence helps, but intelligence can’t be a prerequisite for this skillset, because literally everyone should have it. I guess this might be controversial, but so far as I can tell, rationality is just the best way to go through life. And of course, knowing the best way to move forward is especially critical for those of us leaving behind dark pasts.

For fuck’s sake, this doesn’t have anything to do with quarks or discrete math or machine learning. It has everything to do with reducing human suffering.

And I wish...I really wish that there was a way to share this world with my friends. The only reason that I made it here is that I’ve constantly existed on the borderline, wavering around the threshold of what is broadly considered intelligent, attempting mastery of both STEM and humanities, science and art. As much as I doubt and denigrate myself, I am able, if I really want to, under certain favorable circumstances, to convince myself that I belong here. Not all of my friends have the same privilege. I have friends who have lived their whole lives believing that they just aren’t that smart, or that they aren’t any good at math or science. Maybe they decided early on that that stuff wasn’t for them, or maybe they tried and felt like they failed. I know that, for many people, academic language is frustrating, triggering, or otherwise completely inaccessible. I know that many people will find HJPEV absolutely insufferable and most of what he says incomprehensible.

And I’m really not sure what to do about that. I’ve not sure how to convince people that striving for rationality is both possible and worthwhile for everyone, and if I do convince them, I’m not sure what to actually show them that will make any sense to them.

I don’t know. Maybe it does have a bit to do with math. Because a lot of what I get from rationality, I can get from other places, be that art or psychology or witchcraft, but the stuff that is unique does tend to be the mathematical and statistical thinking. And philosophical thinking, academic thinking. Talking about things with precision...That’s always been my problem with trying to translate the academic into ordinary speech, it feels like all the precision is being lost. To be precise, you need unique words, and unique words tend to be obscure, and people find obscure words upsetting.

Obviously, this isn’t a problem I’m going to solve in this blog post. But it’s something to think about.

So, I guess that’s my review of the first ten chapters of HPMOR, if you can call it that. If one of the purposes of fiction is to unlock a bizarrely intense cocktail of existential horror and unadulterated wrath deriving from the wrongs of one’s childhood—and I certainly believe it is—then HPMOR succeeds spectacularly.

*Edited to add: In my unfortunate compulsion to drag myself down, I often drag down other things or people too. I shouldn’t trivialize the value of fanfiction. And, quite honestly, I really shouldn’t be surprised that it could be a source of profound insight. After all, writing fanfiction has been one of my own ways to cope with and sort through my emotions and illnesses for a long, long time.

[kittenn1011]

“Ways Millennials are Ruining Parenting”

Okay, but I have to share this dumb-ass fucking list and my gripes with it. Ignore me screaming into the void here if you’re not interested. There are two types of posts in this list: first are things that conservative parents think are wrong because they’re conservative, and there are things that probably piss off the older generation because they’re projecting. You know, when you know in your unconscious that something about you is wrong so you hate that fault in other people? Also, points where the poster seems to be conflating Gen Xers with Millennials, because it’s complaining about how people let their teenage/adult children act...

Don’t pretend the parents of Millennials didn’t drop them in front of a television when they needed a breather. That electronic babysitter would’ve been in restaurants with us as kids if our parents had the option, let’s be honest. And, I mean... lots of kids didn’t or don’t behave in restaurants. Giving them an ipad with a game while they wait just means more quiet dinners for everyone else. 

Imagine being upset that someone else is okay scrubbing shit off reusable diapers without it ever affecting you. And maybe if previous generations didn’t decide everything should be disposable we wouldn’t have so much of the environmental crisis we do, hm? Even if you don’t agree, that literally doesn’t affect you. 

Another thing Millennials did not invent: getting tattoos that don’t mean anything. Given, if your baby’s face is on it, it doesn’t mean nothing. And nobody is permanently altering their bodies for likes, they may be dumb but they genuinely thing it’s a good idea. 

No, you just made a home video and maybe sent it to AFV. Okay, maybe not you, but lots of people of your generation did. It’s not something Millennials invented. 

This is the one on the list that made me need to make a post about it. How is taking pictures of your pregnant belly not paying attention to the kid inside? And how is showing any skin mean you need to “go to church”. Grow the fuck up, a pregnant belly is not a sexual image, and even if it is, it’s not ruining anything if a woman wants to take one. That’s her own damn business. Cover your own bodies if it bothers you, but it’s not your business to cover anyone else’s.

I’ll take memes taken out of context and attributed to the wrong people for $200, Alex. Seriously, the Millennials making jokes about not being able to “adult” are generally not the ones with babies, they’re the ones who’re in their twenties living alone for the first time who don’t have any life skills because our education system and parents didn’t teach us that crap. Which is a problem with... our parents, not us. 

Grandma, sweetie, you’re the one who invented participation awards, not the Millennials. Remember ten years ago complaining about Millennials being given too many participation awards and that’s why we’re supposedly so fucked up? Can’t have it both ways. We can’t have gotten some from our parents and school and then gone and invented them to give to our kids. That would be... our parents. 

Again, AFV existed. So do movies like “Jackass” and we certainly weren’t the producers behind the reality TV that’s been on the air of people doing stupid stuff since we were children. We weren’t the first generation to ever do dumb stuff for attention, parents or not. 

Err, no, Linda. You might’ve forced your kids outside, but as a millennial child I sure remember having friends with their own cable TV in their bedrooms, I remember many a day spent with unlimited TV. Fuck, people have been complaining about kids with unlimited TV time since the beginning of the home TV. Anyone remember the kid from Willy Wonka? I rest my case. Millennials did not invent this. You didn’t even invent this one, your parents did.

You also raised your kids to not understand their own bodies and to be afraid to ever talk openly about them and some of us have found serious problems because of that down the line. For example, that tabooness definitely is a factor in kids’ embarrassment about being molested and being scared to tell because they think they did something wrong. Because you don’t talk about those things. That “modesty” and “dignity” in never talking about your body also keeps kids from ever learning about their body properly. 

Parents have been failing to straddle the line of parent and friend since the beginning of time. Again, not invented by Millennials. The background image adds icing to that cake because this is definitely a text between a mother and her teenage daughter... most Millennials with kids do not have teenaged children. The older ones are only 30. 

... and Americans have to pay through the nose to do so...? Birth at a hospital is not cheap???

... not all of you did. Lots of Millennial parents use real discipline for real problems. And lots of our parents were soft about discipline too. Not something we invented. 

How is balancing life with parenting a stupid trend, exactly? 

Every Millennial has a story of getting lost in a stupid place as children, c’mon. 

I will pay you to point me to a thirty year old or younger who has a kid who needs to visit with them rather than text them, because saying that implies the kid lives away from their parents and is in control of visiting parents, ergo an adult themselves. And parents can’t make or let their adult kids do anything-- they’re fucking adults.

Sorry, I think I hallucinated my entire childhood. But I seem to recall a pretty unhealthy trend back when I was a kid of parents enforcing a “if it’s on your plate you have to eat it” rule which has led to many people to have unhealthy eating habits into adulthood. It was usually accompanied by some sort of rhetoric about starving kids in Africa? No? Never happened? Must be my bad. *eyeroll*

Okay, this is pretty stupid to me... but the argument of why this is stupid is complete bullshit. You can do stupid shit like this and still go out and work hard. You don’t live to work. You have time off. And this is coming from a generation of workers who weren’t expected to work sixty hour weeks just to put food on the table on the regular like many Millennials are. 

Cars are dangerous too, you know??? They’re one of the most deadly things on this earth. You shouldn’t try to be trendy and put babies in cars, Boomers.

Sorry for being less focused on gender roles and forcing women to stay in the home and dads to be the breadwinners. Our bad? We say, more power to the man if he wants to be the one who stays home with the baby. Home work is hard work! It fucking /is/ supporting your family.

Wow, it’s almost like Millennials don’t just have a single brain between them, imagine that. 

I sure hope you don’t call yourself a feminist with the previous two posts there, fucker. Also, kids aren’t sexy. No matter how much or how little skin a kid is showing, they ain’t dressed sexy. Stop projecting sexuality onto kids, ya’ll. 

I’m usually the first to protest against stupid baby names, but I know Millennials with stupid baby names too. We didn’t invent that.

Either we never let them go outside or we’re doing extreme sports with them. It can’t be both, boomers. Make up your minds! /sarcasm

That didn’t stop lots of parents in your generation from doing the same shit, eh? Nursery aesthetics aren’t for the babies, they’re for the parents and family. Same with first birthday parties, and ya’ll threw lots of them for Millennials when we were one. 

I think we’ve bypassed the 23 this list is supposed to be, so imma stop here, I think... but wow. Wow. Fucking wow.

Wait nevermind, let’s do a few more picked and chosen from the rest.

My parents did this to me all the damn time, fuck. Doing chores to earn your allowance is one of the older fucking tricks in the book. 

My parents also did this because it was cheaper to blend their own baby food than to buy it for premium prices in a can.

What the fuck is wrong with a selfie that kids should be barred from it? It’s not something sexual, it’s taking a fun picture of yourself or yourself with a group of other people... which kids have always done. There are fucking Polaroid selfies from boomer’s childhoods, photo booth pictures... and what’s the difference between a parent taking pictures of the kid and the kid taking pictures of themselves that makes it so wrong to provoke this response. Because lots of boomers every generation after have hovered around their kids’ childhoods with a camera ready...

... okay, the baby shouldn’t have been left on the floor like this, let’s be fair... but for a kid that age, I’m relatively certain my mom dumped me in a crib or a playpen to go take a shit, not took me with her. 

And then they hid it in their backpack and put it on in the school bathroom anyways? What did that accomplish? Not much, I tell you.

That comic about parents getting mad at their kid’s teachers has got to be at least 20 years old now. That wasn’t us inventing that, I promise.

Guarantee you our parents put us through this trauma too, laughing the whole way.