nanana

I have a different view that public (or really any) schools are usually there to indoctrinate kids into non-parental belief systems, usually making them overvalue the State and put hurdles in the way of their individual callings. Some good skills sure, but critical thinking happens DESPITE schools not because of them. Teaches kids faith in the VICTORS’ version of history.

Why does the state need to validate something that should be between two adults? I say Get the state out of marriage altogether, including all of the tax issues.

This is a great point TT2025 and is part of my objection to NATO, agree that it is a military industrial racket. I think it is arguable that we "need" alliances. We definitely need friends, and we need to treat other countries honorably, but I think the "alliance" may need to shift when our partners use our strength to pick fights and send us the bill. I very much agree with folks who say that there have been huge financial benefits to entities from NATO military spending, but I object to the idea that military profits are good for the "USA" as a whole. they tend to support the war-profiteer interests, which are quite happy to beggar the rest of us taxpayers. I am fond of friendly isolationism myself and would love to starve any government of funds for war. I WILL SAY THAT I am worried that the tenor of the current administration is not driven by friendly intentions, especially to countries that have minerals. I am tempted to see the isolationism, but in truth I am also observing a re-energizing of mineral colonialism. I couldn't find the quote, but someone observed that it was the same people who accused Europe of being warmongers as who were demanding that European countries increase their defense spending. It is an interesting observation, but in case it was I that the author was writing about, there is a third option that I would be MOST happy about: DECREASED defense spending in both US and Europe. I may have seemed to champion greater European defense spending, but if so it was based upon the observation that Europe is currently more war-monger-y and should thus pay for its aggressive policies. I would be MUCH HAPPIER if Europe de-escalated. I am SUPER DISAPPOINTED but not in the least surprised that Trump bombed the civilians of Yemen, already suffering greatly with high risk of famine and disease. Whatever de-escalation he may be practicing in Ukraine, his middle east policy is so far a MASSIVE DISASTER for civilians in Gaza, Syria, and Yemen. I am also pretty concerned that the whole de-escalation process in Ukraine is really a ploy to free up military resource to increase the heat in Asia, e.g., Taiwan. When I was young, my mom and I spent time at a convent with nuns who walked across the deserts of Iraq during the Iraqi war for peace. Now THOSE women are my heroes, such courage, to save the lives of innocent children in country our warmonger leaders had whipped us up into believing they were "enemies," when they were probably at worst obstacles to profit.

That's beautiful, and thanks for adding the context of your journey. I embrace your distinction between faith and religion. It rings true to me, as in my conception of God, God whispers highly different miracles into each of our ears (who am I to say what God DIDN'T say to you), whereas in a religious conception of God, there is frequently (not always) a belief in a single script for God's whispers, often documented long before God's existence is likely to be over. (There are mystical traditions in most religions that do create space for continuing individual revelation...) I like putting the state of being comfortable with "not knowing" as another step towards enlightenment. I feel very comfortable not knowing things, but I am often triggered by someone else's certainty. I am going to see if I can let that go right now, having expressed it, and if not able right now, to keep working on it. It is great that you found someone who was able to respond to your journey without being too blocked themselves to be at peace with you. It is amazing how powerful it is to feel heard and to matter. My own path to skepticism of science as the only source of truth came from growing up as a great admirer of my dad, who was a Physics professor. I loved his brain and the way he could figure out just exactly the level of physics story to tell me to take me on the journey of understanding. I went to a "loose-hold" mainline Protestant denomination and enjoyed that, but followed my dad into empirical data-worshipping atheism and (you might say) "knowing" skepticism. At some point much later, I began to observe that many scientists - my dad included - would refuse to converse with religious people around their different formulations of the origins, e.g., creationism, intelligent design. It struck me as a huge missed opportunity, and then it made me wonder why he/they wouldn't if their arguments were so slam-dunk. That realization, and my conviction that all of God's children matter, made me realize that I had tuned in EXCLUSIVELY to brain-and-fact data and tuned OUT HEART DATA. My dad is still amazing to me, AND his way no longer informs me of the limits I should set on my life's inquiry.

hi tallslenderguy, I loved your response to my response to your sharing of the video. it resonates with me that writing, though powerful, can suck all of the tone and bodily nuance out of communication. ascii may read as hostile but if you saw the smile and the engagement and other context, it may feel less shunning and more passionate - full out play. I keep coming back to the site and engaging, not because I think the measure of the exchange is that we should all agree, but that we are meant to run and bark and nip and steal each other's toys together for a brief period before the leash comes back on. at my best i'm being playful, whereas at my worst i'm more likely to be fighting some imaginary life-or-death struggle to fulfill some desire for evidence of my existence. this despite the fact that my mental model provides for as many differing truths as there are people, even more with all of the transient contradictory thoughts in one person's head. tallslenderguy, I loved your analogy of how to treat sepsis and dr mccoy's take on our highly powerful "modern" medicine. I share dr mccoy's that people will look back on this era as being equally barbaric and maybe even more barbaric due to turning science into a faith. however, I hope that they see all the well-meaning people in the profession trying to do good things with the power. but regardless, this exchange has been a good reminder to me to get back to my higher self, which is fostering a playful space for all voices in the pack to be heard, and not judged but perhaps to lean into feedback. peace.

this deserves a much longer response, but however I took the video, I publicly celebrate your INTENTION of finding common ground! and l love your inseminating the response with integrated sexual emotional and brain responses! more when I can you justice!

great feedback tallslenderguy. it was a pompous answer in retrospect. I did look at the whole video, and I did EXACTLY what turned me off about the video. Instead of looking at what I could change about myself, I focused my critique on others. I can definitely be a pompous ass. It is true that I was super lonely during the COVID years and have never really recovered my sense of connection from those years. I DO have friends who like me 🙂 but I will own your point about being "vulnerable" or "friendly" and self-reflect. One of the hopefully-more-sympathetic reasons I reacted the way I did is because the video focuses on judging people (including oneself) because they are incorrect about facts and interpretations. I think if anything we need LESS judging rather than more. I am concerned in this "fact-checky" world that the conversation becomes super impoverished around just facts rather than the souls the facts pass through. It would be nice to see a return to a greater tolerance for different interpretations of shared and unshared truths. HOWEVER, to your point tallslenderguy, I have hardly been a great model for that. I am not great at de-escalation, a skill I value, so should work more on. I DO think it will be difficult in this environment to get back to tolerance when partisanship presents existential (even if not real) threat to diverse populations and their ways of thinking. I appreciate your point about how I would ever make a self-assessment "research-quality" but will stand by the assessment, though obviously with some serious lacks in that space. Thanks for taking the time to respond, you gave me something to think about and reminded me of some of my core values I haven't been manifesting.

My dick goes totally limp for beta herds of any partisanship.

Not at all. I have been a communist, a socialist, a democrat, a libertarian and a republican so I’m pretty good at seeing pros and cons, insights and blind spots. I question myself all the time. I’m both larger than life and smaller than life but rarely life size. I dig Deep down my research and am still wrong very frequently. But it gets boring when one is of the few questioning themselves among the great safe majority who just pile on. It is not a vulnerable friendly atmosphere. Stifles true inquiry, self-questioning, and beyond-insight.

I think it’s more likely to encourage people that “the other side” is stupid. Face it, how many of you who saw it secretly congratulated yourselves that you weren’t the stupid ones?

Greetings men: leaving DC around 3/15 or 3/16 heading down I-95 to Charleston then heading back via Columbia Asheville Charlottesville back to DC 24th latest. Hit me up for anything from chat to rum/sodomy/lash

If you imagine that you are the same as a superpower and as such you are empowered to sacrifice Americas tax dollars and become a wounded vegetable that deserves a subsidy, then by all means (but with no guarantees) live your words you brave man. If you think this call to sacrifice will go far on a pleasure-seeking bareback site filled with lovers (definitely not fighters), then ask these warmonger Eurolads to put their (free-site-access) dick-money where Zelenskier’s mouth is. Or post your bank account and routing number here so we can let the IRS know that you volunteered our tax money to military-socialism up the world.

Lol

Lads we’d are all here because sex has a power for us but did any of you imagine it as an either / or? Either slut or chaste monk who’d be happy with another non-sexual access to your higher pleasure power? I’ve taken thousands of loads and fed 10 years of cocsuckers. Am I just fooling myself that I’d be happy in a sexless world?

Very fair question. My source is Ron Paul. I hope my responses to facts shared in this forum add a nuance for those who cry mis-information. Long before it was a thoughtcrime many fact-loving people were wrong, made mistakes, or cited statistics from a slightly different time set. Anyone who reports annual data for a non-calendar fiscal year will run into how confounding it can be to normalize data. Without presuming to know the souls and motivations of anyone let along the pixellated mysteries on this site, I can easily imagine that many of you who may passionately disagree with the way I see things may be equally as passionate as I am about wishing for a path to peace. I wish you all profound peace in this very moment, but maybe unlike Viking8x6’s caution I bet the lads on this site may enjoy some group knicker-twisting in dark rooms… 🙂 im sure it can be upsetting to confront diverse ways of thinking, but imagine how it might feel to be in a thought-minority… be safe!