Discuss your Opinion!

[SCZephyrinus]

Well of course! Not that I support those three ideas, but in general when one lashes out they're usually in need of help, and I'm quite happy to oblige. Most of the time the best I can do is offer some kind words/provide insight, but even just a little encouragement can go a long way for some people. However, it should be said that every situation/person is different, and things should be taken on a case by case basis. Some people I'm just incapable of helping/tolerating, or even willing to. Usually if the person respects you as a friend (or more) just not replying to comments or laughing at their jokes is enough to tip them off that you don't roll that way. Perhaps I'm just looking through rose tinted glasses or I just haven't run into some of the more serious offenders... or I didn't bother with them, as noted earlier. For my final words, I'd have to say that the way you act towards them and what you say to them will carry a far greater affect then how they may try to influence you, if you keep your head about you.

[AlanMor]

I think that person must be happy despite on his age or job or male!!

[Psychotic Ninja]

I think that person must be happy despite on his age or job or male!!

 

I see you're excited to have created your account, and are happy to post here. Maybe a little too happy. I see you've spam posted in the Serious Topic Discussion sub-forum. Now, I'm no mod or admin, yet I still have something to say. Your spam posting is a little annoying. Sure, nothing wrong with spam posting. Hell, I'm guilty of it. Mainly in the Forum Games. Forum games where there's usually a one word, or at most, one sentence replies. So quick responses are bound to happen.

 

However, one thing I've noticed in STD (great anagram Ross...) people usually are posting 1-5 paragraph responses. Not only that, but they're on topic, they're continuing the conversation/debate and/or responding to someone else. From what I've seen, all you're doing is making quick posts, one sentence long that have next to nothing, if nothing to do with the subject on hand, that aren't a response to someone else but have a minor connection to the thread title.

 

I can't speak for the mods, the admins, or for anyone else, however, I find it really annoying. It comes off as you don't care about the subject matter, only about your post count. So, could you please stop, and be respectful about the subject matter?

[Blightmare]

Please refrain from backseat moderating. Tends to lead to issues.

 

But yes, Psycho does have a point. Posts here are generally more constructive and are made for others to work with. One-line single-sentence responses tend to add little to nothing to the subject, and your recent posts here are mostly loosely related to the topic at their best. In the future please try to refrain from posting in a topic unless it's part of the discussion or relevant to the topic/subject. (Advice for everyone, really. )

 

Other than that, welcome to the forum.

[Miss Stonesinger OOS]

#25: I try to be patient with some of my more racist or sexist friends, but even they are quite limited in their prejudice and my patience has its limits. I'm not exactly on the far end of the left/right spectrum, and many of my leftist friends probably feel the same way regarding some of my principles and attitudes. Without wanting to I've sometimes lost friends for some of my opinions. I think friendship can transcend moral and political opinions anyway.

 

Can I post a question? #26: Is rehabilitation of criminals more important than punishing them? My points regarding question 25 tie in with this, as I've always been of the opinion that the vast majority of people are fundamentally responsible for their actions, no matter what their upbringing or life experience has been like.

[BTGBullseye]

Can I post a question? #26: Is rehabilitation of criminals more important than punishing them? My points regarding question 25 tie in with this, as I've always been of the opinion that the vast majority of people are fundamentally responsible for their actions, no matter what their upbringing or life experience has been like.

Rehab, when it's feasible, is always superior. Sometimes it isn't possible, like for much of the criminally insane, and repeat offenders, and they really should just be locked in a penal facility. (preferably in a very structured environment where they are productive, but very tightly regulated in the actions and movements)

 

Most criminals however are criminals of necessity, not of convenience. Most of the criminals wouldn't be criminals if they had decent jobs, with decent bosses, but that is extremely rare for anyone that isn't already fairly well-off. (the top 10% of earners tend to have the decent jobs and bosses locked up already) Most of the problem stems not from the opportunity and tools to commit crimes, but the lack of reasons not to turn to crime.

[Heliocentrical]

#27 Comforts Lead to Weakness

I believe that when we indulge upon comforts it weakens us and leaves us susceptible to addiction. All Comforts are habitual mechanisms, it's in their nature to have you return to them as much as possible. As such it's important to subject ourselves to as much discomfort as possible so that we're mentally hardened rather than weakened. So that when we're deprived from a comfort we can endure that deprivation or possibly become immune to it entirely. This philosophy can be applied to virtually everything the modern world has trouble dealing with such as overeating, oversexualization, procrastination and countless others.

[Vapymid]

One should have measure and moderation in everything but it is futile to deprive oneself of every comfort just so that IF something happens it might be easier to cope with it.

 

Well, firstly it doesn't work that way. It's like giving yourself a chemo treatment just on the off chance that you might have to endure it in the future if you get cancer. It will feel crap the first time and if you will have to get it for real - it will feel just as crap.

 

Then - modern "comforts" are something that is necessary for the complex society to function. We can't afford to waste our time on fetching water from a kilometer away, going to outhouse to take a dump, set up a campfire every time we need to make a cup of tea. Our society needs productivity and to maintain productivity we must have "comforts" - power, water, canalisation, communications, transport.

 

Also - clean and safe food and water - we cannot afford having huge cities of people knocked down by disentery or cholera.

 

And - these comforts are signs of our progress and achievements and obsessively preparing for their disappearance is preparing for failure. Better make sure that we won't fail in the first place.

 

oversexualization

Oh, please tell me more about this one...

Cause I heard about it many times but I still don't understand the concept...

 

Regards

[Heliocentrical]

One should have measure and moderation in everything but it is futile to deprive oneself of every comfort just so that IF something happens it might be easier to cope with it.

 

Then - modern "comforts" are something that is necessary for the complex society to function. We can't afford to waste our time on fetching water from a kilometer away, going to outhouse to take a dump, set up a campfire every time we need to make a cup of tea. Our society needs productivity and to maintain productivity we must have "comforts" - power, water, canalisation, communications, transport.

 

Also - clean and safe food and water - we cannot afford having huge cities of people knocked down by disentery or cholera.

 

And - these comforts are signs of our progress and achievements and obsessively preparing for their disappearance is preparing for failure. Better make sure that we won't fail in the first place.

I don't think we're on the same page here, I'm referring to recreational activities that can evolve into addictions such as eating, having sex, taking drugs not necessities like clean water and power. Our brains are hardwired to participate in these activities and since we derive pleasure from them they have a high tendency of becoming habitual. Once they become an addiction it can mentally harm the addict if said addict was unable to fulfill his/her addiction. While moderation of these recreational activities isn't impossible I have yet to see it in the western world.

 

Well, firstly it doesn't work that way. It's like giving yourself a chemo treatment just on the off chance that you might have to endure it in the future if you get cancer. It will feel crap the first time and if you will have to get it for real - it will feel just as crap.

But you would've been used to feeling like crap at that point so feeling like crap wouldn't impact you on a mental level because you're used to it. This the form of mental immunity I was talking about. If say chemo made you feel really good you would've instead developed a sensitivity to feeling like crap rather than an immunity and possibly an addiction to chemo.

 

Oh, please tell me more about this one...

Cause I heard about it many times but I still don't understand the concept...

It's basically what it sounds like. Anything can be fetishized and as long as there are fetishized objects there will be an industry specifically tailored to facilitate this newly formed market. The demand for said market can then be amplified via the media. Take large female breasts in the western world for example. Nothing inherently sexual about them and they serve an important function to breast feed infants. Well at some point large female breasts became fetishized and then that fetishization was then amplified by the media. large Female breasts then became viewed as shameful and slutty for simply existing. It's also worth noting that repression plays a key role in the fetishization process. Shortly thereafter a market for large female breasts cropped up and as result industries such as the silicon breast implant industry and the bra industry were formed to cater to this market because they served to enlarge breasts or make them appear larger.

 

I also believe female ankles were fetishized at some point as well but I don't have enough information to go off of since that fetish died out a century ago. I would also take what I say with a grain of salt since these are assumptions based off of what I've observed in these newly formed markets. But I still think my theory of self-fulfilling markets holds some weight. Anyway just some food for thought.

[Vapymid]

recreational activities that can evolve into addictions such as eating, having sex, taking drugs not necessities like clean water and power.

 

Well, there is a bit of confusion here... Eating is not addictive with the expection of very mild chocolate and caffeine dependencies that can develop, but they have negligible impact on anything.

 

There is no such thing as sex addiction. It just doesn't exist.

 

And drugs are not recreational activities - drug taking is an illness.

 

So... yes, Americans should eat less. But that falls within the scope of the "moderation" that I mentioned before.

 

As far as sex is concerned - sex drive is not dependent on external factors, it's internal and individual for every person. The "sexualisation" has very little to do with sex drive and actual sex and rather more with the social promise of greater sex availability. That promise is invariably false but it helps with sales.

If you try to get yourself used to not having sex, all you'd achieve - you'll just get so horny that you won't be able to think straight...

 

Drugs - one must not do drugs, period. There is no moderation there. Note that I don't include alcohol into "drugs" category, even though it's very fashionable to do so in some circles these days.

 

you would've been used to feeling like crap at that point so feeling like crap wouldn't impact you on a mental level because you're used to it.

No - firstly, you can never truly get used to something like that. And secondly - the chances of you having a cancer are very low, just like the chance of you having to live in a post-apocaliptic world without water and electricity are very low. It is a waste of everything to try to condition oneself to something that has a very small chance of happening in the first place.

However - if you are planning to volunteer for humanitarian service in Syria, there may be a point in trying to prepare oneself mentally ahead of time.

 

And finally - I don't understand the mix up between fetishes and "sexualisation". I don't exactly know how fetishes develop - I don't have any - but I suspect that when someone is artificially prevented from access to the opposite sex in the formative years of puberty, it can create associations between the suppressed desires and certain objects.

 

However, what you are saying about big boobs - that's not a fetish. It's more of that social promise I referred to earlier. When you had Joe Blow oggling Playboy and the glitsy glamorous women with artificial boobs and then looked back at the saggy tits of his eternally angry missus - he associated the bikinis and large tits with the lyfestyle which was so different to his own and so desirable.

 

However, with the availability of the internet amateur porn the interest in artificially looking female form has declined dramatically, which shows to me that most people are turned on by "normal" people and not by some grotesque exaggerations...

 

Regards

[BTGBullseye]

There is no such thing as sex addiction. It just doesn't exist.

https://encrypted.google.com/#q=sex+addiction

 

It very much does exist.

[Vapymid]

Clinicians, such as psychiatrists, sociologists, sexologists, and other specialists, have differing opinions on the classification and clinical diagnosis of sexual addiction. As a result, "sexual addiction" does not exist as a clinical entity in either the DSM or ICD medical classifications of diseases and medical disorders.

No, it doesn't exist.

 

But a lot of people would like it to exist because it is very useful for promotion of their agendas...

 

Regards

[Heliocentrical]

Well, there is a bit of confusion here... Eating is not addictive with the expection of very mild chocolate and caffeine dependencies that can develop, but they have negligible impact on anything.

It isn't a chemical addiction but a mental one. The overweight people I know seem to have this irrational fear that they'll run out of food if they don't eat it or see food get thrown away. It throws them into a panic not unlike a phobia. Now that I think about it might be more accurate to describe this phenomenon in America as a phobia of not constantly eating rather than an addiction to food itself.

 

There is no such thing as sex addiction. It just doesn't exist.

Again it could be a phobia of not having sex rather then addiction to sex itself.

 

And drugs are not recreational activities - drug taking is an illness.

Isn't that what addiction is? A disease which causes the subject to become dependent upon the drug they've consumed? Also weed is a drug people can take for recreational purposes. So yes drugs can be taken recreationally unless you don't consider weed to be a drug. Again I'm not so sure you and I are on the same page here.

 

As far as sex is concerned - sex drive is not dependent on external factors, it's internal and individual for every person. The "sexualisation" has very little to do with sex drive and actual sex and rather more with the social promise of greater sex availability. That promise is invariably false but it helps with sales.

When did I say sexualization was linked to sex drive? Sexualization is an artificial economic construct attaching itself to the concept of sex.

If you try to get yourself used to not having sex, all you'd achieve - you'll just get so horny that you won't be able to think straight...

Or you might suppress the desire entirely. It depends on the intensity of one's sex drive and this can vary from person to person. While you might say that you can't possible expect to speak for everyone because you can't.

However, what you are saying about big boobs - that's not a fetish. It's more of that social promise I referred to earlier. When you had Joe Blow oggling Playboy and the glitsy glamorous women with artificial boobs and then looked back at the saggy tits of his eternally angry missus - he associated the bikinis and large tits with the lyfestyle which was so different to his own and so desirable.

Yes it is a fetish, a fetish normalized by society but a fetish nonetheless. If an object with no inherent sexual functions is considered sexual by someone this person has a fetish for said object. Large female breasts do not have any inherent sexual properties so anyone who finds female breasts sexual has a fetish for female breasts.

However, with the availability of the internet amateur porn the interest in artificially looking female form has declined dramatically.

If anything I would tend to say the opposite is true, that the interest in artificially looking female form has increased dramatically over the years with the introduction of VR porn and sexualized robots.

[Vapymid]

Addiction to me is when you take an average healthy human being and subject them to an experience and it generates certain changes in their organism that make them uncontrollably crave that experience.

 

You can't take a healthy human and stuff him with food so much that he would start wanting to overeat all the time.

 

A healthy human will not uncontrollably crave sex having experienced it for a few (or many many) times.

 

Drugs are addictive. You take a healthy average human and give him drugs and he WILL get addicted. But drugs are not for recreation, weed or not. So they are not part of the "comforts".

 

And I beg to differ - you can't suppress your sexual desire. Unless you use medication. Certainly not by abstinence.

And yes - as I also said, everyone has their own level of sex drive, which also changes with age and circumstances. But you can't regulate your hormones just by willing them off.

 

And, sorry, you're maybe right about big boobs being a fetish - certainly, for some it is. Everything is a fetish for someone - for a tiny fraction of the population. But it's not the reason for wide-scale use of them in commercial promotions.

 

Cybersex will only be increasing in popularity but it will not be a fetish either - and it will be designed to mimic the real thing. So, once the customer base expands beyond a bunch of sex-deprived myopic nerds - cyber sex partners will be designed to look like an average human.

 

Regards

[Heliocentrical]

Addiction to me is when you take an average healthy human being and subject them to an experience and it generates certain changes in their organism that make them uncontrollably crave that experience.

 

You can't take a healthy human and stuff him with food so much that he would start wanting to overeat all the time.

 

A healthy human will not uncontrollably crave sex having experienced it for a few (or many many) times.

 

Drugs are addictive. You take a healthy average human and give him drugs and he WILL get addicted. But drugs are not for recreation, weed or not. So they are not part of the "comforts".

Then how do you distinguish between enjoying something and doing it a lot from being chemically addicted to a drug? They seem quite similar. You'll still experience some form of a withdrawl purely from turning something into a habit and then reverting it back into not a habit. That withdrawl is your brain adapting to a new circumstance.

 

 

And I beg to differ - you can't suppress your sexual desire. Unless you use medication. Certainly not by abstinence.

And yes - as I also said, everyone has their own level of sex drive, which also changes with age and circumstances. But you can't regulate your hormones just by willing them off.

I don't know, from my perspective it's a chemical addiction not unlike drug addiction. Hormones are chemicals and if we didn't have them we wouldn't be compelled to have sex. All sex is purely for continuing the species and nothing more than that. If you eliminate that aspect from sex it acts in a similar fashion to drug addiction. Now I'm not saying that's bad thing. if we didn't have that compulsion then our species would've died off. Chemical safeguards are important. But sex still uses us and we have no control over it.

And, sorry, you're maybe right about big boobs being a fetish - certainly, for some it is. But it's not the reason for wide-scale use of them in commercial promotions.

You said that commercial promotions use the promise of more/better sex in order to promote their products. In order to do this they use large female breasts and exploit that fetish. Outside of demonstrative purposes and most commercials I've seen don't demonstrate how female breast functions I can't really think of why else they would be present or have the camera focusing in on them.

 

Cybersex will only be increasing in popularity but it will not be a fetish either - and it will be designed to mimic the real thing. So, once the customer base expands beyond a bunch of sex-deprived myopic nerds - cyber sex partners will be designed to look like an average human.

But is that necessarily the same as a real life sex partner? What makes you think that people with this level of convenience would want to transition over to a real life human which isn't as convenient?

[SCZephyrinus]

So much to say vapy! I'm glad you defined what you see addiction as though. However I wouldn't limit addictions to healthy people, unhealthy people can get addicted too... So yeah, I was excited at first but then I actually read through the thread. I'm pretty on board with Heliocentral and BTG here. Although I wouldn't have been on the same page as Helio if you didn't probe further into his assertion.

 

Also, haven't you met someone that's really hard on for something that isn't REALLY all that important? I knew a girl that insisted upon being depressed if she wasn't in a relationship, and would call me and cry about it... Then I've this friend down in uhh... Brazil. Yeah, down in Brazil, she's a friend who literally cries for curves, because (from what I've heard) having a good body is everything down there. Kids will make fun of eachother for not being born with what their culture deems as valuable. Even if it isn't what Helio was going on to, I feel it's a worthy idea to bring up.

 

Bhuddism, seems to go hand in hand with this page of posts. Unless I've been reading it wrong once monks are ready they take it upon themselves to be abstinent all the way to not even masturbating. There's even rules against monks doing silly things like walking through tall grass without underwear on to get off.

 

Now as to what Helio said in his #27, I still don't think I'm on board here, but I'll give what I think of it a go:...

Hmm, I went off on a tangent because I didn't read it correctly. (not shown)

Ok. So, after some thought, if they're too habitual they can't be broken so easily as to just quit. An addiction per se... With these natural inclinations towards such things, how are we to stop them, and what are we to replace them with? Unless there's something greater then it'll just get filled in with something else that's as equally unimportant, or even harmful. Honestly, the only thing I can liken it to in my mind is the shackles of sin, dumb stuff that pleases us yet isn't all that good or even helpful to anybody in the long run. Which of course should be given up in return for something greater, if we're even willing/able to do so in our current state. That's pm all I can come up with on that topic rn..... and then I'm notified helio posted again in response to vap. Maybe I'll come back later/soonish.

[Vapymid]

The reason I confine addictions to those affecting healthy people is because in unhealthy people such behaviour is caused by some other disorder or pathology and any obsessive behaviour is a symptom then, rather than the problem.

 

And if we remember the original premise of Helio's post - that we must voluntarily deprive ourselves of comforts to harden ourselves to the possbility that these comforts may be taken away - such pathological cases are not applicable here...

 

As for the various obsessions - well, I still stand by the need for moderation and common sense and that it needs to be developed in people through education and parenting. But abstinence or self-privation as a way of generating immunity from wanting the creature comforts - I disagree with the idea that it is needed at all and I contend the notion that it can ever be effective.

 

Oh, the buddhist monks, hehe... Don't get me started... It's easy to be dismissive of physical needs when your code requires all others to support you in every way. And - I just won't ever believe that celibacy exists amongst monks. Sorry for being an old cynical dog here but... Every time police gets involved in any crimes involving monks - they invariably find stashes of porn all over the place...

And look at the Western priests - how much their proclamations of celibacy are worth?

 

Nahhh... whenever people declare that they have attained an unattainable goal - it means fraud and deception are involved.

 

EDIT:

Then how do you distinguish between enjoying something and doing it a lot from being chemically addicted to a drug? They seem quite similar.

 

Because they are self regulating. A healthy body makes you want to eat when you need to, drink when you need to, have sex when you haven't done it in a while.

 

By doing any of that you can't make your body want to have it more than it already does. If you take a shot of heroin - your body, which didn't need it before, will make you want more and more.

 

If you wank all day - all that'll happen is you'll get sore and go for a beer and won't be able to think about sex for a few hours/days/years - depending on your individual body.

 

You get a relief when you are taking a leak but you can't get addicted to pissing...

 

Oh, and sex is not just for mixing two sets of genes together - don't deceive yourself. In humans and in many higher animals sex is a required function for creating social bonds and cohesion. You remove sex from humans and the society will collapse immediately - not through the natural ageing and lack of replacement but from breaking down of social bonds. Love and sex are not separable and you take away one - you take away the other and so you take away the main driver of the human civilisation.

 

As far as cybersex is concerned - I think it might be an interesting separate subject, actually.

But - I don't think for a minute it will replace real sex and real relationship - not beyond a fringe percentage.

After all - dildoes and vibrators, no matter how widespread now, never stopped people from wanting real partners.

 

Outside of demonstrative purposes and most commercials I've seen don't demonstrate how female breast functions I can't really think of why else they would be present or have the camera focusing in on them.

Well, they show you the boobs to give you the message that those who buy this or wear that have girlfriends like this. So, if you buy that stuff from them, perhaps you won't need to work anymore and can relax on a beach with a mojito and have plenty of sex with smilng and cheerful females. And the size of the breasts in question - well, they only have a few seconds in a commercial to get your attention, so - size does matter...

 

Regards

[Miss Stonesinger OOS]

Can I post a question? #26: Is rehabilitation of criminals more important than punishing them? My points regarding question 25 tie in with this, as I've always been of the opinion that the vast majority of people are fundamentally responsible for their actions, no matter what their upbringing or life experience has been like.

Rehab, when it's feasible, is always superior. Sometimes it isn't possible, like for much of the criminally insane, and repeat offenders, and they really should just be locked in a penal facility. (preferably in a very structured environment where they are productive, but very tightly regulated in the actions and movements)

 

Most criminals however are criminals of necessity, not of convenience. Most of the criminals wouldn't be criminals if they had decent jobs, with decent bosses, but that is extremely rare for anyone that isn't already fairly well-off. (the top 10% of earners tend to have the decent jobs and bosses locked up already) Most of the problem stems not from the opportunity and tools to commit crimes, but the lack of reasons not to turn to crime.

I'm not 100% sold on the benefits of rehab, at least not for everyone equally. I know of individuals, both famous or not, who never make decisions or did things to cause harm or distress to others despite their own terrible life experiences. I do agree with your idea that if our social systems worked the way they should and everybody had decent job and lifestyle prospects it would reduce certain crimes and remove the need/desire to commit certain crimes, but I still think that punishment for doing wrong (which I realize is a morally hazardous greyzone) should either slightly take precedence over or at least be in balance with rehabilitation. I sometimes think we lean too strongly on rehabilitation in our current concept of justice and often interpret criminals as somehow being more a victim than their actual victims. A lot of people take this idea too far and seem to wish for some sort of return to harsh Victorian internment, so I think my beliefs wouldn't be easy to put into practice.

[GolfClubNinja]

#27: Importance of a legitimately balanced, fact based, unbiased new source. do we need it, or is it un-imporant in our society

[Heliocentrical]

#28: Sources

Do we as a society benefit from balanced, fact based and unbiased sources or are they unimportant in the grand scheme of things?

 

Interesting question, I'm of the opinion that balanced, fact based and unbiased sources are important a degree. You have to be somewhat grounded in order to form an accurate conclusion otherwise you're basically creating fiction. However these aspects will invariably be distorted due to differences in interpretation, time and a combination of both. We're either bad at archiving or the people that have archived(such as collectors) sources want to keep those sources closed off in order for them to become more valuable in the future. For instance do we know 100% how 18th century people lived? No, we might get it close but we can't be 100% sure. There might be some key aspects that would be unfortunate if we missed and we will miss them. IMO human error doesn't help keep sources grounded but it isn't the sole reason for why our information is as unreliable as it is.