Preparations For The Coriolanus Live Broadcast - I Can Relate To This On A Psychological Level.

The main response by the authors in defense is that genetic diversity is a ‘proxy variable.’ This is a common assertion, but I find it really infuriating. I happen to drink coffee most days, which correlates with my happiness. So coffee consumption is a ‘proxy’ for my happiness. Therefore, I can put it in a regression and predict the relationship between my happiness and the amount of times I go to the bathroom. Ergo universal conclusions: ‘Relieving yourself improves mental well-being.’ New policy— you should relieve yourself at least two times per day in order to maintain high levels of emotional well-being.

Kyle Peyton Regarding this controversy.

It's a new world order anyway, you cannot heat your home but you can buy yoghurt with chocolate in it.

Loki with Becci Wallace

look, it’s 01:32, and the notebooks in the pits of my drawers are not enough for the horror that is tropical disease biology studies…

I wonder, when you decide to voice your questions, when you send off your impressions, when you speak or write or type, out of the blue, to your unsuspecting peers, is it done with an obstinate hope that you will receive at the very least any kind of response? A measured reply, despite the overwhelming standard of there seeming to be so few who would not only appreciate the question, but would consider an answer at all. 

In a manner that is self-deprecating, I think, I have been hunting for forms of connection that are more opportune for people who would rather not engage in anything so "aggressive" if "cute" without first throwing their daily habits into disarray. For whom such randomly expressed vexations of admittedly pretentious proportions pose as minor amusements, surprising puzzles, forms of performance art, and above all, a craving for approval–the latter, undoubtedly, many of my hurriedly scribbled down remarks are, but more, I suppose, a form of reassurance to myself that it is fine if I cannot help myself. Rather that than a kind of validation that is supposed to instill in me, over and over again, my sense of self-identity and worth. That would be very silly, don't you think? But it is to be expected that more often than not we will seem silly regardless, and are loved despite of it, than seem as we want to be, and are loved because of it. So herein then, ought we not to give free reign to the expectations of others, and to our own, and tailor our contentment accordingly? 

From there has emerged, I reckon, the infamous, “Nevermind that,” for which I am chastised here and there alike. Yet it occurs to me that I do not dismiss so much myself, but what I see as the toil and burden for you to bear if I did not do so.

I have never thought of it like this before, or thought of any of it for the longest time, if only in passing sneer in relation to my own expectations of people. Suppose I have dismissed thinking about it entirely, but wouldn't that truly be considered as “settling”, after all?

What I really object to... is that there is a rhetoric out there of trying to convince people that they’re insufficient and that everything should be the private property of a small number of people for this reason when in fact, if it was really the case that those few people were so important, and great, and powerful, they wouldn’t need to have all this rhetoric to convince other people of it. People would just see it, they would get it. If there were really a few X-Men floating around, it would be manifest to everyone. In fact, those X-Men wouldn’t even need everyone else. They would do the Atlas Shrugged thing like go off, do whatever you want, and have no connection to the outside world. If you’re really that great, just do it, and stop bitching, and trying to convince everybody else that they’re inadequate, and stupid, and useless, and that you’re the elite. Fine. That doesn’t bother anyone if you want to go do that, but don’t take as private property all the stuff that was produced in this society that we created. Go off on your own with nothing into the forest and build this great Atlantis that you’re capable of doing, and that no one else can do. Great. Honestly, if there were a bunch of X-Men, they would do that. They wouldn’t bother with everyone else. They’d just go off into outer space and do their own thing. That’s not what’s actually going on. What’s actually going on is that there’s this elite of people who’s trying to use rhetoric to dominate others, and to take the collective work that others have done, and expropriate it to themselves. I think that’s nonsense.

Glen Weyl Radical Institutional Rerforms Podcast on 80,000 Hours

jensenacklesmishacollins:

Ei talupoegadele - No to peasants.

...

The majority speaks Sense.

http://jensenacklesmishacollins.tumblr.com/post/99414721364/as-i-said-there-was-a-protest-against-union

Peel 201208 by den dzjow on Flickr.

Lightly, child, lightly. You've got to learn to do everything lightly. Think lightly, act lightly, feel lightly. Yes, feel lightly, even though you're feeling deeply. Just lightly let things happen and lightly cope with them. I was so preposterously serious in those days, such humourless little prig. Lightly, lightly - it was the best advice ever given me.

Aldous Huxley Island (1962)

I think one of the kindest things you can do for people with various mental health struggles is just... let people back into your life after they've been absent for a while.

Making friends as an adult is so fucking hard already and isolating yourself from other people is a very common symptom of depression, anxiety, burnout, ocd, trauma, grief, etc. Which means that someone will do the hard work of recovery/healing and resurface back into a world where their previous friends have written them off because they stopped showing up.

So if you know someone where you're like "yeah we could have been better friends but they fell off the map a bit" and that person suddenly reaches out, or starts showing up to events even though you kind of forgot they were still in the group chat... well they may have been Going Through It and you don't actually have to punish them for their absence you can just be glad that they're back.

Fascism is psychologically far sounder than any hedonistic conception of life … Whereas Socialism, and even capitalism in a more grudging way, have said to people “I offer you a good time,” Hitler has said to them, “I offer you struggle, danger, and death,” and as a result a whole nation flings itself at his feet … We ought not to underrate its emotional appeal.

George Orwell Cited in The Atlantic's 'What ISIS Really Wants?'