MuadDib

Male lizards are fabulous, and in many species of reptiles, females are the dominant sex.

@Natasha Tori Maru Reading your breakdown of flirtation feels like watching someone diagram 4d chess. A single well-timed quip can lighten the mood, map the emotional terrain, and nudge everyone toward a cooperative orbit. No small feat. What really resonates is that “Gotcha!” spark you mention. For me it’s less a volley over a net and more like two code-breakers realising they’ve cracked the same pattern in the same instant. That shared click says, “You see the subtext too.” People often assume that kind of banter is effortless. They miss the quiet observation, the mental dress-rehearsals, the constant fine-tuning so wit lands as warmth instead of shrapnel. Keeping that radar on all day can be oddly draining and isolating in the face of so much contact, which is why a stretch of solitude afterward paradoxically feels like flipping the breaker and letting the circuits cool. Your point about laughter as a strategic anchor is spot-on. A genuine laugh softens defences faster than any memo; once it’s there, steering everyone toward the shared goal feels less like compliance, more like collaboration. It’s emotional aikido rather than manipulation. Anyway, thanks for articulating the craft so cleanly. It’s reassuring to meet others who treat light-hearted wordplay as both science and art. People who know that beneath the sparkle is a serious intent: making the room feel a little lighter and everyone in it a little less alone, while still getting the job done. Even if the price you pay is loneliness.

blast from the past https://www.actualized.org/insights/my-apology-01 Pretty sure there was another one on the importance of not using truth to hurt people.

Perhaps women are better at gauging the relative truths of individual subjectivity, i.e. reality mapping the subjective spaces of people, and men at overarching objectivity. My point still stands that if you want Truth, you need to master both. Try building a plane without the cooperation of other people and their diverse internal landscapes, or without a society of people to produce the materials needed and afford you the time to actually sit down, crunch Reynolds numbers, apply Bernoulli's theorems and such. This response would be most conducive to a good, long-term relationship. It blends objectivity with empathy; if she has a problem with this, she'd best look for someone else. Other responses: "No you don't look fat"; she knows she's fat, and knows you're willing to lie to make her feel better, it's good in the moment to keep the peace, but now she doubts your ability to stand up to her and will shit test you. "Yes you're a whale." She knows it, and knows you don't care about her feelings, not good in the moment, but might be beneficial long term. She trusts your ability to stand up to her, but now doubts your love and will shit test you.

Shes asking a question to probe for a deeper truth. Namely, do you love me in spite of my flaws? Truth is the handmaiden of Love.

I'd say masculinity prioritises thinking over feeling. Not necessarily truth over feeling. Is thought a better vehicle to arrive at truth? Perhaps, but I'm not entirely convinced. It might simply be the case that survival is generally easier as a man, and so truth seeking is easier. Not so much that men have a higher intrinsic capacity for it because of their masculinity. Men and women don't generally value truth primarily. They value survival, and truth insofar as it augments survival. Women meet their objectives primarily through feelings, and men with thinking.

True, and if nobody ever cared about your feelings, held you close at night, reminded you of the truths of beauty, love, friendship, warmth, you'd find unhealthy coping strategies (drugs/alcohol) or commit suicide under the weight of it all. Only amplifying suffering. Else you become jaded or traumatised and actively inflict more suffering on the world and others. This is a more accurate and holistic view of things. As horrific as child slavery is, child slaves in Africa find moments of joy in their lives. It's also true that bacon and/or a well made salad are delicious. How else does one get fat? All I'm saying is you need both for effective survival, and therefore truth seeking.

Everyone starts at beige brah. Beige needs a momma to make it. Or wolves.

Just jotted down some of my counterpoints to the most recent blog post and had AI tidy it up and reinforce it for brevity: Empathy + Ruthlessness = Superior Survival The blog post rightly observes that raw, fact-driven action (“ruthlessness”) can be indispensable in high-stakes arenas like warfare or billion-dollar boardrooms. It also notes that traditional child-rearing pushes mothers to soften harsh truths. Those are real evolutionary pressures I’m happy to concede. Yet history, data and modern doctrine all show that pairing ruthlessness with deliberate empathy—rather than treating them as masculine vs. feminine binaries—produces the most resilient outcomes as far as survival is concerned. 1 Empathy pays in cold cash Corporate performance. In Harvard Business Review’s Global Empathy Index, the ten most-empathetic firms grew in market value more than twice as fast as the ten least-empathetic and generated 50 % more earnings. (hbr.org) Employee retention & innovation. EY’s 2023 survey of 1,000 U.S. workers found that mutual empathy from leaders boosts efficiency (88 %), creativity (87 %) and even revenue (83 %). (ey.com) Brand-safety reality check. After Elon Musk’s takeover, monthly U.S. ad revenue at X/Twitter slid 55 % year-over-year as advertisers fled an environment perceived as hostile to minorities—an object lesson in how ignoring customer feelings burns shareholder value. (reuters.com) Bottom line: in competitive markets, emotional intelligence surfaces blind spots and protects revenue streams every bit as much as price discipline or cost-cutting. 2 Battlefield truth now requires empathy Modern militaries no longer see empathy as a luxury: The U.S. Army’s Leadership Requirements Model explicitly lists empathy toward “families, local populace, and even enemies” as a core attribute of effective command. (archive.org) Field Manual 3-24 tells soldiers they must be “nation-builders as well as warriors,” codifying “hearts and minds” alongside kinetic force. (army.mil) History bears this out: the Mongols’ first major defeat—Ain Jalut (1260)—came when the Mamluks matched Mongol cavalry ferocity and leveraged local alliances and popular support, stopping an empire that had steam-rolled purely terror-based opposition. (en.wikipedia.org) Reading an adversary’s motives, social networks and morale is intelligence work; empathy is simply a data-collection technique that supplements satellite photos and casualty counts. 3 Gender: overlapping curves, not iron laws Average sex differences in empathy and aggression are real but modest. Training and context shift them more than chromosomes do. Women who run global M&A desks learn to act decisively without losing rapport; male pediatric ICU nurses cultivate emotional attunement without “turning feminine.” The distribution overlap means any individual—man or woman—can train whichever dial their role demands. 4 A two-dial model for leadership Product pivot. When a company must change direction, the “ruthlessness dial” involves killing beloved but under-performing features quickly. The matching “empathy dial” means listening deeply to users to understand their unmet needs. Together, this mix usually translates into higher customer retention. Peacekeeping. In a fragile post-conflict zone, success hinges on firm rules of engagement (ruthlessness) paired with active civil-affairs outreach to local communities (empathy). Balancing the two reduces the number of new insurgents and stabilises the region more sustainably. M&A negotiation. Effective deal-making couples a non-negotiable walk-away price (ruthlessness) with a careful mapping of the seller’s emotional drivers and personal goals (empathy). This dual approach secures better terms while minimising late-stage surprises. Smart operators treat the two qualities like twin throttles on an aircraft: push whichever lever the terrain demands, rather than locking one forward and one back because of gendered ideology. 5 Closing thought Truth shorn of human context turns sterile; empathy unanchored from reality turns naïve. Master both—and toggle as circumstances change—and you out-compete anyone who fetishises only one. I disagree that men and woman don't have equal access to truth. Just access to different tools of survival. Pragmatism requires both to be most effective at survival, and truth seeking. Consider: Who would most effectively lead humans to God A misanthropic cyberbully, or a leader who embodies the whole gamut of humanity? When I understand my enemy well enough to defeat him, then in that moment I also love him - Ender Wiggin

Software update while True: print("love")

Penetration tools

Not even if he sat down with a therapist and opened up about his childhood with his father? I'm sure he could elicit a great deal of empathy. Btw, you're conflating political parties with women. If your analogy were true, then I'd say ... they need a real man to lead them.

Heartbreak Repairs Ready Steady Gogh ...

anyone get the footage?

Boxing day

Irish stew I can't film at my local swimming pool but I managed a 100m dynamic apnea freedive (No fins) without training. I am not allowed to continue freediving training there without a partner for safety reasons ):

Bitterballen met Bavarian Weissbier

Château Lafite Rothschild 1982

Casu martzu

Chill in equanimity for mindful serenity