this post was submitted on 30 Jul 2025
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Don't be mean. I promise to do my best to judge that fairly.
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This platform's demographic is overwhelmingly men who are enthusiastic about tech....... not exactly a population known for being a bunch of Casanovas.
Kinda feels like you are taking a post originally made on a different platform kinda personal. Judging by some of the comments there are plenty of dudes who don't date because of social anxiety, and there seems to be some regurgitating incel propaganda.
Maybe the OG poster shouldn't speak in absolutes, however I think it's a reasonable criticism as a lot of the ideology surrounding "male loneliness" was created/utilized by right winged influencers to grow their viewership.
If someone said "lemmy users with the word 'empire' in their name are unworthy of love and need to get gud at dating." I think you might take their words a little personal even if the post wasn't literally directly targeted at you.
Lol, nah I don't really take generalities personally, that's why they're called generalities.
Why get upset at something that isn't specifically addressed to me and doesn't even make any sense?
Racism is almost always generalities, that aren't addressed to an individual person. Why does anyone get upset at racism?
Lol, just because some generalities are bad, doesn't mean all generalities are bad. Claiming that they are is in fact a generality.
It's almost like you are allergic to the concept of nuance.
It was an example of it conceptually it wasn't meant to be a serious generality obviously.
Also generalities are bad. If people started saying that people with specific traits that you specifically share were always bad people in some way, it would bother you.
Further, you can be bothered even if you are emotionally secure about yourself. Its not always even "taking it personally" because sometimes people have empathy for people who are like them but aren't them and dislike seeing them thrown under the bus.
I myself am not really a guy who is bad with women anymore (I'm not rolling in pussy but I can get around) but I used to be painfully bad about it and I know I wasn't some awful person worthy of scorn and disdain because of that. I wasn't some loser sociopath for wanting sex with women when I wasn't getting any.
And neither are lonely sad sexless guys. I don't like them being mocked because I've been there and I know that it doesn't help to be mocked for a "skill issue" anyway. Mocking them sends them further into a self loathing or hateful spiral. Telling them to be better people implies they are bad people for not having sex or having a girlfriend.
Its like telling fat people they're fat: it doesn't actually help. It usually makes them give up.
That said... them saying they're done with dating doesn't mean they're bad people either. Just like women don't owe them sex, these men also don't owe women their time and effort. Its perfectly morally fine to be done with dating women forever. It wont be pleasant for the guys who try TBH, but its morally fine.
Now, are some of these guys pieces of shit? Sure, but that doesn't relate to their sexlessness. Absolute pieces of trash have sex with hotties and it doesn't suddenly make them good people either.
Lol..... Gonna let that one steep and see if you spot the contradiction in that.
Not if the trait itself was a valid criticism. All pedophiles are bad.....is that a bad generality to you?
Again, this is a strawman argument. No one is claiming that all lonely men are incels..... They were specifically talking about people with the idea of a male loneliness epidemic. An ideology that is utilized to radicalize young men by right winged influencers.
It also doesn't make them part of the loneliness epidemic. If it wasn't about sex then they would just focus on building healthy relationships with friends. If they are making a conscious decision to not pursue sex then why are they upset?
There is cognitive dissonance occuring here where people are claiming that it's not about sex, but then being hysterical about not being able to find a partner.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtuous_Pedophiles
Acting on it is bad obviously.
Thing is, I also don't believe in good/evil or free will. As a result I categorically reject virtue ethics anyway so IDK how meaningful discussing this further can be.
The male loneliness epidemic isn't strictly a "rightwing ideology". Incel/redpill is rightwing ideology.
There is also a female loneliness epidemic. Though its fairly different in nature.
I never said that sex wasn't an important component of the issue.
You aren't this dumb. You know exactly why they'd still be upset. They would be making the conscious decision because they are trying to seek a sliver of personal peace after a period of failure or simply because of disillusionment with heterosexual dating. Its not like they'd be making that decision and feel content that they're going to live without a sexual or romantic partner. They're trying to avoid the pain of the process of seeking it, they'd still want a partner.
Have you never seen someone so attractive to you that it physically HURT? I have. Literal physical chronic pain. And once I established they lacked any mutual romantic interest in me I avoided them like the plague and tried to forget they existed as best as possible, which was hard because I worked in the same building. Thank fuck I don't work there anymore.
this person is a low-rent troll with delusions of grandeur. look at their other comments in the thread. example after example of trash-tier baiting while thinking they are oh so clever.
I think they're primarily authentic rather than trolling/pretending, its just that they have twitter/bluesky disease where they think the best way to engage is by vapidly dunking.
Lol, you are such a pedant. Okay, all pedophiles who act on urges are bad..... That's not a correct generality?
I mean if that was true you wouldn't have an issue with the original claim.
I agree, I don't really think speaking to someone who isn't arguing in good faith is going to be productive.
It just happens to align with it constantly......right.
So what you are saying is that people are lonely.
Just making rebuttals for people who did...... If you don't adopt the same claim then your rebuttals are irrelevant to the organinal argument.
And lashing out at other to seek a sliver of personal peace after making a personal choice is socially acceptable behavior that shouldn't be criticized?
Jesus Christ..... No reason to call yourself out this hard. Are you in middle school or something? I don't have a sliver of empathy for your "chronic pain". Some random woman was attractive, and didn't reciprocate your romantic interests and you chronically avoided them, a co-worker......
What if they believed that you were painfully ugly, and avoided you because of it, treated you differently just because of your appearance...... Do you even understand what I'm getting at here?
What? The original claim? That pedophiles are bad? Not believing in free will technically nullifies any moral evaluation of the virtues of any group. The only thing that would matter is consequences.
Yes, but the nature of that loneliness is different when it comes to romantic loneliness within the heterosexual sphere. Just look at how many more men are on dating apps vs women.
Lashing out? I think you are inserting something into the conversation that I never defended. Maybe mixing up responses.
I never understood this obsession with anon people "telling on themselves". Its called setting aside ego and engaging in good faith. We don't know each other, there is no reason for me to restrict what I say here about myself. I'll tell you any embarrassing thing about myself because why would I care? There are no stakes other than the discourse. Which you don't seem like you have a good authentic desire to engage with.
TBH I'm also pretty dead inside so I probably wouldn't care if we were in person either but still why are you so obsessed with status on a random internet thread?
I think you are potentially projecting additional details here and that by avoiding her I was hurting her feelings or something. She almost certainly had no idea I was avoiding her. I wasn't making a big show of it.
I had no ill will towards her I just was avoiding an infohazard.
Its completely unsurprising to me that you lack empathy and it was an error of mine in assuming you were maybe capable of it considering your other responses. My mistake I guess.
Its not like I owed her my consistent presence outside of professional necessity which was fortunately rare. Its not some kind of injustice that I dare not be her work friend.
If you don't believe in free will then what is the point of disputing or chastising any claim? Why would consequences even matter if they are already pre-determined by circumstance or a higher power?
Maybe that's because women are better at communication and thus are more likely not seek emotional support from friends instead of seeking codependency with a partner.
What is the actual difference between romantic loneliness and loneliness.....kinda just sounds like you're defining it as sex plus codependency.
Eh.... Based on our previous conversation you appear to be harboring some unhealthy opinions.
It's not just embarrassing.... It's admitting to immaturity and an inability to process your emotions, and then treating someone poorly because of it. So what, you didn't get something you wanted, that's life. There's no reason then to lash out at your coworker by avoiding them, just because they had the audacity to be attractive.
Lol, status? What does anything we communicated about have to do with status?
Avoiding a coworker because of the way they look is not only poor work place etiquette, but it's morally abject. Im sure if a woman made a post about avoiding a guy at work because of his looks you would have a different opinion...
You were avoiding confronting your emotional immaturity.
I have empathy... it's just for your coworker, who did nothing wrong and was treated differently just because she didn't reciprocate your feelings.
You don't have to be her work friend, just don't treat her differently than everyone else because she's an attractive woman.
Because suffering, pleasure, and conscious beings are at stake? I'm confused about what you think of the moral implications of not believing in free will actually is. It sounds like you place all meaning on choice/will or something. I don't do that. I care about people's happiness and well being, not their will (at least not intrinsically).
"better at" is this some sort of team sports competition? Yeah, some groups of people are better at certain things. Is there a reason you hang on that point in particular? I hear this point a lot and I don't know if when I hear it they're saying it as some kind of dunk on men or they're making some kind of constructive contribution/suggestion without explicitly saying it. So you'll need to clarify.
I mean, when it comes to sex and relation with romance, its about physical touch, associating physical release with another human being, another person's pleasure becoming your own. etc.
"Codependency"? If you are entirely cynical perhaps. The term is interdependence. When you romantically bond with someone deeply, you generally become deeply dependent on them and they become dependent on you. And yeah, sex is going to bond you way way stronger to a person.
You'll need to be a little more specific. I already know I'm mentally unwell.
I did not treat them poorly. They had no idea I was avoiding them. I was polite and professional when I had to interact.
I did not lash out. I was avoiding psychological pain. That's it. I did not hold anything against them individually. Seeing them made me cripplingly and dysfunctionally sad, but they did not know that. Shit if they had seen how sad they made me they'd probably assume I was being emotionally manipulative. There would be no benefit to them interacting with that, I had no desire to make them feel guilty and I had no desire to feel cripplingly sad if it could be avoided.
I think that's a pretty mature and reasonable way to handle things. I'm not sure exactly what your alternative would have been.
I think I confronted my emotions and decided the best way to handle them was to avoid making them worse and focus on other things and other people as best as I could. How is that immature?
Yeah I'm aware you're real sad for them. I promise you they're almost certainly happier today than I am. I would bet money. And she was never ever even aware of my internal feelings, other than at one point I asked her out and she politely rejected me.
You treat people differently based on their appearance all the time. Everyone does. You are probably just less conscious about it.
And if free will does not exist does your opinion on the matter have any effect on the predetermined outcome?
Most forms of determinism believe that people's happiness and well being are predetermined and our opinions about their feelings has no effect on how they feel.
I'm wondering if you actually understand the philosophical concept of determinism?
It's an alternative explanation detailing why there are less women on dating apps.
So sex..... Just like the original post claimed. This is about sex.
Again.... This all started because the of post claimed people identifying themselves as belonging to "the male loneliness epidemic" was really men complaining about not having sex. That's what got everbodys panties in a twist, and the deeper we dive into the denial of the claim, the more it seems to be true.
You don't seem to just want to be more social, you seem to be mostly complaining about women withholding a sexual or romantic relationship from you.
You seem to lack healthy coping skills when you don't get what you feel you're entitled too. You seem to reaching out for someone or something to blame for this lack of coping skills. You also seem to adopt an attitude of morose self deprecation as a defense against any form of criticism. Attempting to redirect the criticism by utilizing guilt as a redirection, aka the pity fallacy or sometime pityfishing.
You know you chose to avoid them.... You have no idea if they knew or not, I don't imagine reading social cue is probably a specialty of yours.
You don't sense that might be problematic? Avoidance is not a healthy coping skill. Neither is being in pain because someone is attractive. There are attractive people everywhere, are you in constant crippling emotional pain? Or did that pain really come from being denied something you secretly feel you are entitled to?
Avoiding emotions is pretty different than confronting them.
Empathy doesn't equate to pity. Again you are pityfishing.
I don't really think I do, it would negatively effect my work. Plus, even if I did, there's a matter of scale. I'm not running away or avoiding people based on their looks.
If you are trying to string me along/troll me, you are doing a good job.
Do you think people who don't believe in free will shouldn't express their ideas or beliefs in order to be consistent with a lack of belief in free will?
Pure determinism isn't my stated belief. I said I don't believe in free will. You are adding to what I said again, pulling stuff out of thin air.
Here is the core question I have to ask you, given that you seem to believe in free will: What exactly is our will free from?
Random chance doesn't mean free will either. I don't believe in some meta-physical super natural aspect of our will either but even if there was, that still wouldn't mean we have free will either.
Pre-determination isn't the issue: its the nature of choice and how its a completely meaningless illusion. The main impact on morality it would have is in terms of justice and how society functions, but also it essentially means on a interpersonal level that you forgive yourself and others because no one chooses to be born. No one chooses to be who they are, we don't choose our parents, our bodies, our brains. We are shunted into existence and expected to perform life and to take responsibility for it, even when we never choose it to begin with.
Do you actually think that's the reason? I'm pretty sure its because men have to try a lot harder. Meaning if they want to maximize their chances they need to go on dating apps even when they know they're financially predatory and awful.
Its not only that, but that's a major component. Yeah.
I never said that I thought I was entitled to that woman. If I thought I was entitled to her I would have kept asking her out or insisting on her dating me.
Here is the thing: I fundamentally disagree with criticism of individuals this way. I think things need to be solved systematically or technologically. Not with psychoanalysis or "pulling ourselves by our boot straps" or whatever. So yeah, when you argue with me and you decide to angle it based on me individually and my individual faults and personal defects and I'm just a bad person, I just fundamentally disagree on the very basis of your engagement with the topic.
I don't need your pity to know I'm right or wrong about something. I want you to argue against my points. I want you to challenge my ideas. I'm not particularly interested in talking about me other than as example/anecdote for my own arguments (which is why I brought up the personal example). If I have "unhealthy opinions" I want to know specifically what they are and then I can either realize I'm objectively wrong or I can retort with some argument. I don't care if call me a bad person is my point. You clearly don't share my moral ideology anyway why would I?
That said, I am an open book: I personally am indeed incredibly depressed (which relates to the self depreciation) but not because of lack of sex. I mean I was depressed in the past because of that when I was still figuring things out maybe but now its because Trump won a second time and that's kind of permeated and filtered how I see people in general. And I mean, also my life sucks and I legitimately resent having been born but none of that is relevant to the current topic of male loneliness in of itself.
I mean, sure. I couldn't know for certain. I tried my best to just function at work when I needed to with her. This is an important question: What else could I have materially done? Its not like I could just delete the emotions and just pretend I was fine to chit chat with her at the water cooler or something. If anything I was doing her a favor.
And true, being autistic tends to make me pretty weak at reading people probably on average but I'm probably a bit better than the average autistic person. I'm a very extroverted autistic person. Despite the nihilism and politically induced misanthropy.
Healthy in what way? For me? I don't think purposefully exposing myself to someone who rejected me who I badly wanted to be with romantically would have been good for me and my heavily obsessive and ruminating autistic brain.
Avoidance was a lesser evil. I have experience enough to know that.
There is not that many people that I am that intensely attracted to everywhere no. There is a difference between very attractive and "I want to die when I see them" level of physical attraction.
That said, its frequent enough that I've fallen into a few emotional holes through life, yes. Sometimes its not been avoidable. There are a few stories.
I'm not pityfishing what do I even have to gain from your pity? We will never ever meet. I don't care about your opinion of me. I am not important. Neither are you. I care that I am correct that men are fucked by romantic loneliness right now and pulling themselves up by their bootstraps is not a viable solution.
By bringing up our relatively happiness what I was doing was making a point: She is almost certainly fine. She is not a baby. She is an adult woman who had her own life going on. Me keeping things strictly bare minimum and professional was perfectly reasonable. And if it did hurt her feelings, I'm sorry I guess? What do you want from me?
Are you a psychologist or something?
No, just that their ideas and beliefs should be consistent with their states ideology.
I didn't say what type of determinism you adhere to, if you read what I said it states "most forms of determinism".
Lol, that's a bit of a pedantic tool to evaluate of determinism. However in simple terms free of the concept of predetermination.
I don't have the ability to choose between different courses of actions, or have the agency to control my own actions to fulfill a personal sense of morality?
Maybe if morality were determined solely by legality, and if we only examined ones own actions on a grand societal scale.
Just because you didn't choose to be born doesn't mean you don't get to choose how to navigate your own life.
Lol, yes you can choose who you are. We are a collage of our own actions and we are able to choose how we react to different scenarios throughout our lives. We may not get to choose who are parents are, but we get to choose what kind of relationship we have with our parents. The same goes with our body, even if born with an innate disability, we choose how we respond and adapt to the disability.
And yet everyone still has the choice to take responsibility or not. Expectations are not an undeniable demand. We even have the choice of deciding if we even want experience life, suicide is often a choice.
Why do men choose to try a lot harder....? It's not like there vastly more men than women, or that our innate biological imperatives are different.
Lol, so you've been making a fuss for nothing?
Then why did she make you so upset? Do you have to avoid every attractive woman you see? There is more to this than "she's so pretty it hurts".
Seems like a complex way to avoid any sense of person responsibility..... I mean things like talk therapy have years of scientific evidence to support itself as a valid form of treatment. I don't really think your beliefs align themselves with reality.
"I cannot be judged by my own actions" is kinda a crazy take. I wonder why you have a hard time finding a romantic partner......?
^don't need your pity to know I'm right or wrong about something. I want you to argue against my points
Your point has shifted goal post so hard that it has nothing to do with the original prompt. We are now in the territory of you not believing in people being held responsible for their own actions.....
You already dropped the entire original argument. Which was based on the post claiming it's not about sex. You've already admitted nits mostly about sex.
^personally am indeed incredibly depressed (which relates to the self depreciation) but not because of lack of sex. I mean I was depressed in the past because of that when I was still figuring things out maybe but now its because Trump won a second time and that's kind of permeated and filtered how I see people in general. And I mean, also my life sucks and I legitimately resent having been born but none of that is relevant to the current topic of male loneliness in of itself.
I mean.... Maybe your fundamental beliefs are not condusive to maintaining your mental health. I would highly suggest you choose to talk to a mental health professional about it, which is statistically proven to help.
Your beliefs seem to have painted your mental health into a corner with no room for improvement. At some point everyone needs to take some level of personal responsibility in their lives, and sometimes that personal responsibility comes in the form of accepting you have negative attributes that you need to address in a healthy way.
You don't have to delete emotions, you process them. Evaluate why you are actually feeling that way, and if that is a reasonable way to to feel in the given circumstances. Why were you upset? Does it make sense to feel upset just because someone is attractive, does that happen to you every time you see someone attractive?
Once you figure out the reason you are feeling those emotions they are easier to manage and control. Emotions don't just happen to you, they are how you respond to stimuli, meaning you have control over them.
Both my wife and I are autistic, it's not a valid reason to shirk personal responsibility. In fact, unfortunately it means you have more responsibility to evaluate your own emotions and behavior to make sure you don't hurt people's feelings. It's a lot of work, but it is completely manageable. As an older autistic person I can basically guarantee your coworker noticed your behavior.
Right, and how long have you been ruminating on it since? How long ago was it, and how many potential relationships did it prevent you from building since then? What goes through your brain when you think about approaching a different attractive lady?
If you don't confront, process, and learn how to heal from harmful complex emotions you will never escape them.
Only because you haven't learned a better coping skill.
That's called obsession, and is often one of the bases of the OCD, autism, and ADHD triad that many people have to learn to deal with.
You don't have to actually care about my pity. I'm guessing it's a reflexive avoidance behaviour you utilize to most criticism you experience.
I am important not the people I care about, and I hope you are as well.
Fucked by who? It seems the major impediment isn't something society can really change for you.
Pulling yourself up by the boot straps is an analogy meant to represent something impossible, no one is asking you to do that. I just recommend learning to get back on your feet after being knocked down for whatever reason.
So is it okay to hurt people if the damage is not permanent?
I don't see how it was an act of responsibility if it wasn't even really socially acceptable.
What I want from all young people, to take some responsibility and attempt to do the best they can.
I work in healthcare, specifically with a lot of patients who have physical and mental disabilities.
"predeterminism" is as you acknowledge a concept and that's not what the question is asking. What is your will free from that has a real effect on what your decisions actually end up being? Are your decisions somehow made outside of the dictation of physics?
Your brain is dictated by physical reality. Your sense of control is an illusion. This doesn't mean we should curl up in a ball and wait to die. The future is unknown to us, trying to make it a better future is a natural goal to seek.
However, "no free will" also means that "punishment" and "reward" are both fundamentally amoral tools to achieve ends and not intrinsically justified. Meritocracy has no intrinsic moral value.
An example of what I mean here: If there was a method of rendering a serial killer harmless without causing them any pain or death that would be the more moral decision than punishing them for killing people.
The comment you were responding to was talking about how they thought Lemmy hated them because of the generalities contained within OP's screenshot post and I responded to that. I have never established that whether the loneliness epidemic among men was "about getting laid". I would say its not exclusively about that, but that sex is a major component, as well as any physical intimacy in general.
We've branched out our conversation and in ways that largely was more dependent on what you and I have and have not refuted/argued with each other. This is a meandering conversation at this point but at the very least we are moving close to core philosophical disagreements. That's fine by me because its at least meaningfully possible for some kind of ideological reconciliation as far as I can tell. But maybe not, maybe our perspectives are fundamentally at odds and we may run into a brick wall.
Lying to myself for the sake of my own mental health is both something I pragmatically and ideologically reject. Truth of reality is maybe not a core axiom of mine but its pretty damn close and might as well be one. But also I just think "changing my beliefs" (lying to myself) is unsustainable anyway and wouldn't work or if it did would result in potentially more catastrophic results long term.
I need to clarify something: My life is not good but I do try to make it better. Again, I don't think a lack of free will means I shouldn't try to make things better. I just don't ascribe my "trying" as some sort of magical will essence outside of physical reality. The end resulting actions I take are the result of neurons in my brain firing a certain way.
Furthering my point: Human beings do have some level of autonomy, but so do robots (literally "automatons"). Human's have agency (the ability for their actions to effect the world outside of them) but again, so do robots. But robots do not have free will either right?
I did understand them. Like I said, I ruminated. I thought about them probably more than necessary.
I never said that it was. My perspective on responsibility stems more from a core belief that free will doesn't exist.
I already try to do that. If she knew and that upset her, then that's unfortunate but I did not owe her anything beyond professionalism and politeness. And you know what, she never made it clear that I had bothered her by my avoidance. I'm pretty sure she just figured I was busy.
If I was avoiding critique, we'd be not having this conversation. TBH, I find talking about me, maybe not boring, but besides the point.
I was talking about "men" in general. Not myself. Men are fucked by the current state of things when it comes to loneliness and intimacy, I don't assign meaningful blame to any one individual or group and blame isn't needed, solutions are. Hell, I think women aren't really benefiting either.
Your focus on me is misguided. My love life atm is possibly worse than average, but its definitely better than the men complaining for their own sake given that I have sex here and there. At least one night stands. Not gotten a more stable relationship in a very long time though.
My arguments have to do with the overall amount of sex that's being had. And its significantly less across the board at a society wide level (well in many countries). I think that's bad and should be fixed. Sex is fun, we should all have more of it.
If she was hurt, she was hurt by her own emotions. I can't control how other people react to my decisions.
That explains your focus on me as an individual I suppose. You are used to thinking that way.
Just because some of our choices are constrained by natural limitations, does not mean all our choices are. Just because I cannot choose to fly like Superman does not mean that I cannot choose to have beer for breakfast everyday.
I think you are running into aspects of the mind body problem.... Our brains are not dictated by physical reality, but it can be shaped by how we interact our environment on both a physical and metaphysical scale. Basically the physical world can shape the way we think, and the way we think can change our brains physically.
That argument is based on an unsubstantiated claim, and is argued with semantic reasoning. Free will, punishment, and reward are all different concepts who's meaning depends on the context, and the perception of the person you are speaking too.
The concept Meritocracy has a moral value that is self evident. The point of establishing social mores is to create a functional and cohesive society, meritocracy is a tool to make societies more durable and efficient.
Social mores are human constructs which may change when evaluated across time and different cultures. However, that doesn't really matter when talking about individuals operating within their own ethical constructs. I'm not claiming there's an overall ethical superstructure that mandates the same moral construct of all humans throughout all time.
^If there was a method of rendering a serial killer harmless without causing them any pain or death that would be the more moral decision than punishing them for killing people.
I'm not quite sure how you are correlating that with the idea of predetermination? In this example I don't really think punishment or reward is really a matter of ethical choice. Are you saying we don't as a society have a choice how we deal with someone who has committed murder? Or that the individual who murdered has no choice?
^The comment you were responding to was talking about how they thought Lemmy hated them because of the generalities contained within OP's screenshot post and I responded to that.
The generalization he was speaking about were about claiming the male loneliness epidemic was just about trying to get laid.
I'm still not quite sure I understand your metaphysical perspective of reality as a whole. But the more we speak, I don't think the argument was really presented very well. I don't know if focusing on "free will" really should be the focus of your claim. It seems like your argument is less about predeterminism and more about the mind body problem and the schism between the physical and the metaphysical? Do you have any particular philosopher that you prescribe too that's influenced your perspective? That might be a better starting point.
^Lying to myself for the sake of my own mental health is both something I pragmatically and ideologically reject.
Mental health professionals aren't supposed to help you lie to yourself, they are supposed to help you understand your own perspective and help you come up with ways to navigate the world in a healthy way.
^Truth of reality is maybe not a core axiom of mine but its pretty damn close and might as well be one. But also I just think "changing my beliefs" (lying to myself) is unsustainable anyway and wouldn't work or if it did would result in potentially more catastrophic results long term.
Outside of very specific scenarios where we can measure and recreate a shared experience, there is no such thing as "truth of reality". The Human experience is subjective in nature and how we understand and interact with our environment changes the definition of "reality".
I suggest maybe reading into The philosophy of the mind
I think you have a lot of misconceptions about cognitive science. You can literally train your neurons to make connections in new ways by how you interact with physical and metaphysical phenomenon.
Automatons are defined by their lack of will, they simply follow a set of predetermined sequence of operations prescribed by someone.
Human agency is defined by the capacity of individuals to make choices and act on those choices, thus influencing their lives and the world around them. It's the ability to intentionally shape one's own actions and outcomes. It's a term adopted by social cognitive theory, not the layman's definition of agency. So no, robots do not possess human agency, in fact it's one of the ways we determine if an artificial intelligence ever reaches self actualization.
Again, ruminating on something is not the same as processing. There's ways to cognitively train autonomous responses, and it's not by "lying to yourself". You had a reaction that was much more intense than the situation called for, and was probably an autonomous response caused by an excited nervous system.
Again..... I don't really think your core beliefs are very well flushed out and are inconsistent with both scientific and philosophical literature.
Again, people with autism are not very good with determining what is professional or polite. I would argue that avoiding a co-worker based on their looks is neither of those things.
I think you can be overly defensive and still participate in conversation.
Fucked by who though? If we're going to turn this into a sex specific claim then we have to evaluate the problem through that lens. If men are being fucked over to more significant degree than who is doing it? Pretty much every social structure is dominated by men. So are we claiming that men are responsible for fucking over men?
How do you find a solution without evaluating where the problem stems from? Just because you aren't specifying a source doesn't mean you aren't begging the question. By specifying it as male loneliness, you are alluding to a problem needing to be solved. When people look for the source of the problem and suggest it may be men, people yell victim blaming. So who does that leave?
Then why dictate it as a "male loneliness" problem?
Sounds like you could use that excuse anytime an action you do hurts someone?
You can't exactly talk to society....... You are the person who reaches out to me, not vice versa. Of course I'm going to address your perspective when you are the one challenging what I said.
In all seriousness though, I do think you have some pretty flawed beliefs when it comes to your philosophical perspective and would be interested what exactly influenced them.
The first time I came to the conclusion that there is no free will was when I was neutrally discussing it on the internet and someone asked "What is your will free from?" I was already leaning against it at that point but wasn't sure. That framing immediately cemented my belief.
There is also Robert Sapolsky. Who has recently been promoting what is essentially the exact same belief I've had for about 5-6 years now. He's a much smarter person than I and maybe could explain my perspective better.
Healthy for me? Or healthy for society? Healthy by the metrics of me enjoying my best possible life or healthy by the metric of expected normal human behavior?
What one person defines as healthy is not always the same as another.
Well, its not only about that. That's a major component but there are other issues.
That said the framing of it as "only" sex seems to belittle the importance of having sex as a form of existential fulfillment. I'm someone who thinks we all should have more of it with more people. Which the reason I engage in one night stands.
A bit of a tangent but I also identify as polyamorous. Though still looking for a polycule with some deeper relationships, I don't live in a particularly progressive area though so I don't expect to get one unless I can escape this conservative rural hell hole I currently live in. I almost got a girlfriend here a little while back but she insisted on monogamy so we ended up just as friends. Though admittedly possibly a strained friendship, since she seems annoyed that I insisted on polyamory years ago.
This is a fundamental disagreement I think. Do you not believe in empiricism?
Anyone with power to effect the way society is structured. So yes this would include men. But generally the men complaining aren't powerful men with the needed influence over society and culture to fix the problem on their own.
Because generally if you ask men if they'd like some sex with someone that they're even only slightly attracted to, they are pretty likely say yes. I know because I'm bi. Guys are extremely easy (at least bi and gay ones), even the hot ones.
Most average individual men are very willing to "solve" the problem but whether they can solve it is largely dictated by gatekeepers. And those gatekeepers aren't always women deciding to forego sex with them on a broad scale. Sometimes its just societal rules and expectations. Sometimes its law restricting sex work. Sometimes its cultural influence (religion, fictional media, social media) and capitalist enterprise: Like dating apps which are specifically engineered to keep paying customers romantically and sexually unsatisfied so they'll keep using the app. Its also the dynamics of the economy but that's a whole other can of worms.
Maybe if you interpret it in a very specific way. If I did or said something to her that was specifically rude or harmful that isn't really "excusable" obviously.
But that's not what we're talking about. We're talking about me taking active steps to minimize our interaction. I do not owe other people my time or energy outside of previous agreements.
But we can talk about society.
The problem with this framing is that it lacks any reference to an overall ideological understanding of the people who claim free will exist. In philosophy there are primarily two main groups who make claims about the existence of free will, compatibilist and libertarians.
For the compatibilist, free will is freedom from coercion and constraint. A person acts with free will if their actions align with their desires, intentions, and rational deliberations, without being externally compelled or obstructed. Free will is primarily about freedom from external constraints and the ability to act according to one’s internal states (like beliefs and desires).
For libertarians, free will means being free from deterministic causation. External influence is accepted, even certain kinds of hard constraints like biological ones. Individuals can be the ultimate originators of their actions, and these actions are not predetermined by prior states of the world, even if they're influenced by them.
Robert Sapolsky is a brilliant cognitive scientists and educator, however hes a terrible philosopher. And if you are making claims about the nature of free will, you are no longer making claims solely about cognitive science. The issue with the way he defines free will
Is that it isn't really a definition at all, it's a rebuttal against a claim no one is making. It isn't what compatibilists mean when they defend a version of "free-will", compatibilists agree that our behavior is dependent on our biological and sociological and physical past. Compatibilists are determinists after all. So who is he arguing with here?
It's not a definition a libertarian would endorse either, they don't endorse the idea of a "causeless cause" in a "total" sense. They allow for constraints upon free will by biology and other factors. They allow for our past to have a powerful influence on our choices. So the "in this total sense" part just doesn't engage with libertarian ideology.
The problem with Sapolsky is that he doesn't engage with the mountains of literature that have already been written about this exact subject and instead supplements his own definition of free will that no one is utilizing, so ultimately he is engaging with a strawman.
He has admitted in the past that he ignores this literature because he doesn't like philosophy, but free will itself is a philosophical concept.
You and Sapolsky are far from the first people to have these thoughts, it's a topic that in essence was argued about thousands of years ago, and specifically has continued to be hotly debated in philosophy of the mind and cognitive science. I would say if you are living your life according to a belief system to approach the practice with some skepticism. Read what some of the most famous minds throughout history have to say about it before enacting upon your theory with practice that may be harmful to yourself or the people around you.
Whatever your core beliefs are, having them be inflexible when challenged with new information or perspective is not rational.
Healthy for you my dude.... Learning how to manage scenarios like we discussed in a healthy way is all about self improvement. I don't imagine you like feeling depressed or feeling like you are in pain when you see a particular person who didn't wrong you.
Yes, but there's a common ground as we are all humans. You don't have emotions that haven't ever been felt before. I doubt anyone sees emotional pain as healthy.
As a philosophical concept? I mean, yes but it's obviously limited by the subjectivity of the observer. Have you ever read any Hegel? If we utilized empirical thought alone then we wouldn't be able to process any abstract thought. Empiricism is what I was talking about with the phenomenon that is observable and repeatable. If your claim is that "shared truth" is theory that can be put forward through the scientific method.... Okay, but that invalidates a vast sum of what it means to be human, including most rational and abstract thought. Arguments against empiricism are famously as old as Socrates.
From the sounds of it then this isn't a male problem, but a class problem.... My point is that painting it as a male problem as most like to do, can lead to a misdirection this anger towards parties whom do not deserve it, namely women and leftist in general. We've seen a massive rise in mysoginy and young men being attracted to the alt right because of this misdirection of blame.
Again, women also like sex and are restricted from it for the same reasons.
I would say actively avoiding someone is doing something.
Which we are doing. Adding in personal perspective is important to determine how a person feels and acts within a society, which is why you added your anecdotal experience in the first place. I think it's a bit of a double standard to then expect not to address your anecdotes.
The problem is, maybe you are right that Sapolsky hasn't looked into them but I've looked into them and their definition of free will is not meaningfully different from a theoretical conscious yet programmed robot's "will".
It also shouldn't disagree arguably with the more important issues of justice and meritocracy. Its just shifting the definition of 'free will' to just be 'autonomy'.
If those are the same thing, sure whatever that definition of "free will" is true but then robots also have free will, and we treat a programmed autonomous robot very differently compared to a human.
They're religious and I don't engage in religion, spirituality, supernaturalism, or theology. Absolute waste of time.
Maybe Sapolsky knew they were wastes of time and skipped them. You don't have to read the bible to know christianity is a waste of time. I don't need to read libertarian ideology to know the same about their ideas.
Free will hasn't been meaningfully defined to differentiate itself from "Autonomy" by compatibilists. Their definition as a result is worthless. Libertarians basically believe in magic.
If anything, he's offering a steelman.
My "core beliefs" are basically my axioms. And axioms are more like ideological goals or ways of thinking. Changing those certainly can happen, it used to be the case for me that my moral axioms placed "truth" above basically everything but now its below harm reduction for instance.
If someone's core belief is more of a specific "factual statement", then sure. One should be willing to change one's beliefs with new evidence. And really it shouldn't even be a core belief in the first place.
What I believe is true: 1) I engage with empiricism or scientific consensus. 2) If something is outside of empiricism or scientific consensus I fall to Occam's Razor. 3) If something can't be engaged with either of those things, I simply assume I cannot know right now and have to wait for empiricism or scientific consensus and that it isn't worth fabricating a comforting fairy tale to explain it.
The "abstract thinking" all happens essentially at 0) My way of figuring out what is true stems from rationality and rational thinking structures. Abstract thinking never follows the other steps.
Given that its earnest, I appreciate the concern. That said, if I hadn't avoided them I'm pretty sure I would have unironically risked suicidal ideation. There wasn't a safe way for me to engage at the time but to minimize. The only reason I'm able to talk about it now is that it was a long time ago and I'm kind of dead inside anyway at this point.
There have been people I've seen that I also felt similar to, but they've not been people I had to regularly see.
It can be both. Its in fact many things, religious and cultural norms play a major role as well.
Absolutely, but they simply aren't at the same rates and getting consent for sex from a heterosexual/bisexual man is rarely a problem for the average heterosexual/bisexual woman.
Its doing something, but its not "Doing something to her." Its more like doing something to myself.
OK, let me break this down because there needs to be fewer people who do this.
I added my anecdote for context as supporting contribution to my argument to demonstrate an idea or probable reality. I wasn't interested in actively changing the subject to me personally as the focus. Especially since that can often just result in discussing my character instead of engaging with the main argument, which is basically what you did.
If you wanted to attack the relevance/factuality/meaningfulness of the anecdote itself that is fair game. However, you then took your chance to decide largely to attack my character. This was ultimately me being good faith and willing to open up for the sake of a more meaningful discussion and you turned it into a dunk and a personal criticism.
This did not hurt my feelings but it annoyed me because its escaping from my actual points and meant suddenly I needed to defend my character, something I really don't even care that much about on here as this is specifically the account I use to misanthropically complain about the state of the world during slow times at work. In order to maintain the legitimacy of my argument I ended up having to waste time defending myself. It just bogged down the conversation.
Lol, I think you are massively conflating influence with literal programming. I don't think you would find anyone credible to agree that robots have "will"
Also, "theoretical conscious" is doing a lot of lifting in this argument.
You mean a "theoretically conscious" robot would theoretically have free will, since this has not happened, and some would argue it cannot happen, we have no idea how we would treat them.
What? I mean there are theological libertarian takes, but a libertarian take on free will is not innately religious. They just believe that predeterminism is logically incompatible with freewill.
Lol, you obviously haven't read their ideas if you think it's theological in nature. You can decide you don't want to engage with the body of work, but you can't then critique it. If you don't know what you are critiquing, then any argument you make is going to be a strawman.
I'm mean it depends on the compatibilist..... Some do make arguments that differenciate the two. However, most do not because you are utilzing language in engineering to combat a philosophical principal.
Some utilize autonomy as a synonym for free will, some say free will is just a stronger for of autonomy, some describe the difference as a matter of agency. For example, a slave has free will, but is being controlled by another so lack autonomy.
Again, you are attacking a strawman with this argument.
Again.... I really don't know how you are interpreting this?
What? You do know what a strawman argument is right?
Axioms are self evident, if your beliefs were actual axioms we'd all believe in them.....
I mean, definitely a step forward.....but I'd still challenge you to practice some skepticism about these "axioms" of yours.
So what are your core beliefs based on if not empiricism?
So how do we handle subjectivity?
Occam's razor is only meant to adjudicate between two competing theories that are equally supported by evidence that have already passed theoretically scrutiny.
I fail to see how you can make a claim against the existence of free will with that thought process.
So your rationality isn't influenced by observation and your observation never influences your rationality?
Again..... I would highly advise you to talk to a professional about this. Your avoidance of health professionals and tbh your entire belief system seem highly irrational and dangerous to your own health.
Could that not be influenced by the sexist expectations set upon women by a patriarchal society?
You can do both at the same time.
Again..... We are debating. You can't expect to introduce an argument and have me not offer a rebuttal to that argument. If you are wanting to avoid shifting the argument towards your personal behavior, I advise not to add personal anecdotes that support your claim.
Your behaviour was relevant to the argument, so I criticized your behavior. If you decide that your actions reflect the nature of your character then that is a personal insight.
That's just it though, there is no reason to assume that there is something intrinsically special about the human brain that allows it to exclusively be conscious. The brain is just a computer made of flesh, one that merely at the moment can't be programmed directly. If we replicated it artificially and it was able to be fully programmed the obvious implications is that there also is nothing special about our own brains in terms of "will" because we'd have a replica that we'd be able to directly control and program. It'd just mean our programming came about from evolutionary forces.
"Predeterminism" is a red herring. I don't believe in predeterminism either. I don't think the future is already written.
"You can decide not to read the bible and hundreds of years of theological theory, but you can't then critique it."
If 500 years ago, someone wrote a complicated theory that stated that everything was made of bananas and then over the course of the past 500 years people debated the specifics filling up tomes of books on the nonsense I wouldn't be required to read it all to not be fully in the right to completely dismiss it as gibberish and to openly insist that others also not waste their mental energy on it.
I find libertarian ideas around free will to be nonsense at a fundamental level. Reading the specifics would go no where. I'd need to be convinced that the core idea had some merit to begin with. As far as I can see, they have zero.
There are multiple definitions of axiom. I'm referring to personal ideological axioms. "A self-evident principle or one that is accepted as true without proof as the basis for argument; a postulate. "
Empiricism itself is not a factual statement, its a system of thinking. Empiricism is indeed a core belief of mine.
You'll need to be more specific. What do you mean "handle"? Do you mean the issue that you can't truly "know" anything?
I guess? I not sure how this contradicts my usage of it? Also why arbitrarily two? If you are discussing something where every theory has zero evidence for it then you'd be able to select the most simple out of a list of theories of any size. They'd all have zero evidence. Its not like you'd be forced to only consider two of them.
Because free will itself is a fairy tale. But it got stopped one step further. There being free will is more complicated than there simply being no free will.
The rational abstraction is systematized. Its not so much that it's not a potential that observation could never influence my rational thinking, but that if an observation does then that has potential impacts on all of my rational thinking systems. This is pretty unlikely, we're talking a major and profound table flip. It would need to be demonstrated that the very way my rational system of thinking is inferior at obtaining truth compared to another new way.
That said, as they are, the only abstract thinking that would follow is more like a procedural set of steps that I've already come to follow to process new evidence.
So rationality "applies" to evidence, but like a pre-written function.
Oh it definitely is. It however isn't the only influence, patriarchy is only one component of cultural conservativism. There is also religion and capitalism.
Plus, lets be honest here women just are less horny because of the nature of hormones. Just ask someone on any kind of HRT. We probably evolved that way to create a competitive pressure on men. Natural is brutal and amoral, and men are thrown into a metaphorical gladiatorial arena by it. The one that comes out on top gets to have kids (and have a fulfilling sex life), and from my perspective this is pretty awful. I'm not a fan of nature. I want every individual, men and women (and otherwise), to have fulfilling sex lives.
I don't believe I made a claim that there is, just that our current technology is nowhere close to having a computer actually achieve consciousness.
Again..... I don't think you really have enough knowledge about human physiology to make that claim, and it completely ignores the mind body problem. The misconception that there is some kind of separation of the brain from the body is a product of how we first began to learn about the brain. The more we learn about cognitive science the more we learn just how inseparable the mind is from the body. You can physically alter the composition of the brain by physically changing the body and vice versa. A brain is not a computer, at most you could potentially claim that a computer is made as a simulacrum of a brain.
If my grandma had balls she'd be my grandpa...... That's quite the big "if" to hang your argument on. Secondly, I believe you're conflating programming with learning.
I didn't claim you do..... That argument is just what libertarian believe.
First of all, there's a big difference between philosophical theories which are put forth with rational arguments using logic and rhetoric, and a religious tome. Claiming otherwise is not academically honest.
Secondly, your analogy is lacking. Of course you wouldn't have to research 500 years of banana ect... That's unless your rebuttal was based on the claims already put forth by the banana theory.
The original affirmation is claiming that there is something called "free will", they go on to describe what this encompasses. Your negation is that there is no such thing as free will. However, what your rebuttal refers to as free will is not the same idea the affirmation is actually making claims about.
So you are ignoring the actual argument, and claiming it to be ridiculous without knowing what they are talking about.
Again, you haven't stated your interpretation of what libertarians actually believe.....other than falsely claiming that it's inherently religious.
How is that rational in any way? You are making determinations and then forcing ways arguments to fit.
This does not align with your other statements, it seems you are utilizing circular logic.
I mean you don't account for it at all in your process.
Because the theory wasn't made to applied across a large swath of knowledge, nor is it supposed to be the only argument utilized. It's just a rational argument claiming that if the theories are equal in all ways, the simpler is more likely to be true.
Zero empirical evidence does not make the arguments equal. Occam's razor is itself a rational argument..... One of the theories may itself contain more rationality than the other. This is the problem with only relying on empiricism.
How does this incorporate empiricism, where knowledge is gained through observation alone? Your "ration system of thinking" seems to be irrational in nature. Maybe we have a miscommunication but your claims about how you think seem to be incongruent with your claims about determinism.
That seems to be a highly irrational process....
Both of those systems are patriarchal.
And we're back to blaming women for men not being able to control themselves....
I think we're done here. We keep circling the same arguments, which makes sense considering what you've told me about your thought process.
If I knew you, I would be highly concerned for your well-being. At this point I just wish you the best, and hope you consider seeing someone about your mental health. Take care.
Just letting you know I'm leaving work from home now meaning I wont have access to this account. If you respond I'll respond Monday morning.
Despite the seeming hostility and intense disagreement here I don't hold anything against you. I look forward to reading what you have to say. I genuinely enjoy the discourse.
Same, be safe, have a good weekend.