Consept

Society is extremely difficult to manage, in terms of balancing 'freedom' with protecting people from others but also from themselves. Thought experiment type thing but do you think the following examples are limits on freedom or unethical as it stops people making a choice themselves and also if not or if so why? - Vaccines for when you go abroad, Malaria, tetanus etc one could make the argument you should be free to travel without having a vaccine that youre not sure of Restrictions for driving ie having to take a driving test, wear a seatbelt, follow signs etc one could make the argument that if you know how to drive you dont need the government telling you that you have to follow their rules. Banning of trans fats or having sugar limits or sugar taxes on certain foods, one could make the argument that you can monitor your own health and you dont need the gov telling you how much you should eat esp if they dont really care or promote a healthy lifestyle. Smoking, you should be allowed to smoke anywhere and it is a restriction of freedom not to be able to, its also not fair that its heavily taxed esp as we are aware of the damage it does now and we want freedom to choose to do it in moderation.

Isnt the issue more about having a few unelected people making decisions that potentially could affect a lot of people?

I guess ultimately the question seems to be, who can do a better job at managing money for the betterment of society? Is it the wealthy corporation owners or is it elected individuals within a democratic system? Traditionally corporation owners having more power has led to disastrous consequences but there maybe an argument that the corporation owners of today are more leaning toward green and may genuinely want to help mankind. However a counter would be when they have had a lot of power and responsibility they either haven't been able to handle it or have been quite underhanded in their action eg Facebook and Cambridge analytica. For me systems are essential as no one person holds all the power, the democratic system has many holes and things that need to be worked on but the intention is a system rather than individual power. It also feels like a throwback having, essentially Kings of industry ruling over us. I think I'd probably more accepting if musk had a basic income and used all the money for the betterment of society rather than even making a profit.

You guys should watch succession if you haven't already. Watching it you get the sense that billionaires today are basically what Kings were previously, instead of a kingdom they have a corporation. Unlike Kings they don't have ultimate rule the government prevents it but even that line can be pushed. At the moment the government is the only thing protecting us from the United States of Elon.

This is a bit of a personal one but if anyone wants to give advice I'd appreciate it. So my family is highly dysfunctional, I won't go into all the ways but one way it manifests is a kind of insult based humour, which seems to be about making the other person feel bad or react in some way, it's about laughing at the person rather than with them. It also includes telling the same embarrassing stories in social situations, stuff like when you were a kid and scared or whatever. It's mainly done by my step-dad but mum and brother also get involved. I have done it before but I try and be aware of it and catch myself, but there definitely is the thought to do it because of the environment. The thing is they are all highly sensitive, quite insecure people, meaning that if you insulted them they would dwell on it and it would really affect them. Its because of this I don't really do it even though I could. But the reason for the anger is that I realised I was constantly tip toeing around their feelings and they don't give a fuck about mine, they go put their way to try and embarrass or wind me up, it's not that what they're doing in of itself wind's me up, it's more the fact that they're trying to do it. Just for context I am completely independent from them so I don't live with them or need them for anything but I would at least like to communicate or spend time with them without having this dynamic. I have a sister as well and she's nothing like that and has also recently moved out. I have thought of a couple options but as this is a bit of an emotive subject just wanted to see if anyone could look at it more objectively

Nah dont get me wrong i dont want them to be different or at least ive accepted they are who they are, the anger is because of their effect on me and me obviously not setting appropriate boundaries. what do you mean by the last sentance?

I hear you in that the is racism and trauma but the solution is not necessarily about blame. I see it as accepting this is the reality and taking responsibility for behaviors that are accuring because of these past atrocities. It's like if you were bullied as a kid and it causes you to make bad decisions, is focusing on the bully going to help you or is working on yourself and becoming aware of the negative actions you make and why, then improving yourself?

Skimmed it but yes it seems to be a good analysis

Its true people do that but people are also ideological beings, i mean it happens both ways, ive told people who are against the vaccine that im vaccinated and they look at me like im an injured sheep. I think a good start would maybe be people not feeling they are some how superior for their choices

Thanks for this advice and i agree i think there have to be boundaries set and if i think about it ive probably let that slip. I think a lot of the time I put others being comfortable ahead of myself and this is something i really need to look at. I will definitely implement some of what youve suggested here. lol yeah ive had this thought before, it is a really good environment to practice, as frustrating as it can be! I havent of the drama triangle but will look into it. I have tried grey rocking and it does 'work' but at the same time i feel like why should i shutdown myself because of them? I cant remember what i posted previously but obviously its something ive been dealing with. I did try the grey rock method and and just generally not letting them into my life too much, it does work but tbh i dont even think they really notice, some of them are just in their own world and just completely self-focused so i guess its more about how i deal with the situation. What annoyed me and the reason for the post is a family convo over xmas via video call, i was the only one not physically present, my gf was with me and she noticed how they would just pick up on things she said and twist them to 'jokingly' insult me, that kinda triggered me and i was just like i need to do something about this. I called my mum to say how i felt and tbf she did accept what i was saying, the big issue is more with my step-dad, ive called him out before on my sisters behalf and he basically went crazy. Sorry to hear youve been through it as well bro, yeah i mean they would have to do a lot of work to even realise what theyre doing is not healthy and im pretty sure theyre not willing to. Complete no contact might be a bit extreme for me but my contact is limited anyway as i dont live in the same country, but i also feel a certain anger where i want them to know how i feel and set my boundaries up

Well you have freedom now, which is what everyone at least says they want. I would look at ways to outsource your business and let it run without much input from you, that in itself can be a challenge. Then just meditate on what you can do with that freedom understanding that nothing is going to give you complete fulfillment.

Black people, by many metrics have been progressing and are doing much better than they were, a lot of people in the community usually don't want to hear that but it's true. People like Coleman Hughes for example talk about this and are usually not looked upon favourably. Heres article about how much progress - https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.brookings.edu/articles/black-progress-how-far-weve-come-and-how-far-we-have-to-go/amp/ But yeah this is a complex issue and I think a criticism of KS is that he seems to cherry pick certain points that keep his narrative going, he doesn't acknowledge the progress really and this can make the situation look a lot worse than it is.

Well a scientific consensus technically would mean all the scientists within that field agree upon something, within science obviously there are disagreements and different findings, the consensus would be achieved after all that has taken place. But of course this could be one part of the picture, in terms how that consensus might be implemented or acted upon could be down to different bodies. If that then gets skewed by media, governments or big pharma i dont think thats sciences fault, but of course it is a factor that has to be considered and questioned. But again for it to even be questioned you have to have a starting point of something that can at least be agreed like things in the list above. This is the point of a nuanced discussion but you seem to making it binary, im not saying put all your eggs in the basket of the government, im saying we have to have a start off point of things that can be agreed, thats it.

We can experiment though and i agree, steelmanning is definitely the way to go although as you say can be very difficult. Why dont you list some relevant anti-vax talking points and then steelman them. For example the vaccine is killing 1000s of people

I mean ultimately on an individual level if he helps someone and they can separate out the toxic elements then i dont see a problem. But this is always the issue with teachers in that they maybe saying something relevant but people make heroes out of them and turn them ideological. In the case of KS in can in fact lead to men who are not really high value thinking they are or looking down on women as delusional idiots, this obviously can create problems in of itself. But not sure what the solution would be, its probably just an issue we have as a society

Im not sure if its rooted in it but you can definitely see signs of it which is the shadow element youre talking about, but there are points that he brings up that are at least worthy of discussion. There was a paper i found before where they were looking at married black mens perspectives on why black women are single which ill link below which was quite interesting. But i think the general point is that black males perspectives on relationships are not really heard enough and can automatically be labelled as misogynist (which can be from years of women being oppressed). But the perspective is definitely necessary even if its wrong, in terms of being able to improve relationships. You can argue whether Kevin Samuels is the best to deliver that message but thats a separate thing. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4465800

@Danioover9000 Exactly, great list btw, if we dont all accept basic points then we end up arguing over them which is of course pointless because these points have already been sorted out, at least by actual statistics or better scientific minds than ours. If these are accepted then you can go meta, otherwise its like talking about physics with someone who believes in flat earth.

lol ok i get it you think very meta as youve pointed out a few times now (joking). Anyway we seem to be talking past each other because I agree with most of what youre saying. My only point is that to have the discussion you have to include the scientific consensus position (ie vaccines are effective with some minor risks). The problem with discussions on here or anywhere, is that the science bit is basically ignored or fervently argued against, meaning that you cant really build a discussion from it if you dont recognise that in the first place. But it doesnt seem like youre doing that

Watch succession, its great

I mean you know what I'm going to say, a study of 33 monkeys and 200 mice is almost uncomparable to billions of humans, so i don't think.its worth touching that point. Yeah the Swedish study could be true I don't know, if it helps the vaccine safety then of course as long as it goes through the relevant trials. Your final point is a very personal one but I appreciate you sharing. I understand on a personal level you're thinking there's more risk taking the vaccine than covid because of your experience, that's fine but I would encourage you to think on a wider level and how other people have actually been affected by this.

OK but here's the thing I completely accept the issues with government and big pharma, its not a binary thing that you're either with the government and big pharma and therefore for the vaccine and if you're against government and big pharma you should automatically be against the vaccine, this in itself is very limited thinking. Its kinda like saying when the government made seatbelts mandatory you were against it because you don't like the government or car companies. What would should do if we're to.have a discussion is recognise what's likely to be true. If you don't want to listen to scientists and experts that's fine but leads to a difficult conversation because conceivably any point thrown up by scientific investigation should be thrown out. @Yidaki I agree everyone thinks they're right but if I'm understanding your proposal I think you're saying that if someone thinks they're right we should honor the values that led them to that viewpoint. That could be OK if there wasn't an iminant threat (don't look up the movie makes a good point on this) but the thing is if there is or even if its not iminant but important, then there have to be decisions made that people not be happy about but are the best decisions for everyone. As I mentioned seatbelts are a great example as people protested about them being mandatory and questioned science etc but obviously we can see and probably could see at the time that they would save lives. So my proposal would be to have critical thinking about topics, this would actively have to be taught from a young age, but again even teaching critical thinking is disputed by certain groups lol.

@TDLH What would be your meta analysis of the situation?

So this is a common trope of mis-information, it weights the dissenting voices much higher than the scientific consensus. In this case a huge majority of scientists have found vaccines to be effective, there maybe disputes on the technical details but they are in general agreement, however their voices are not amplified anywhere near as much as those that completely disagree. I found a research paper from UCL that goes into this in more detail - "The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in a slew of misinformation, often described as an “infodemic”. Whereas previous research has focused on the propagation of unreliable sources as a main vehicle of misinformation, the present study focuses on exploring the role of scientists whose views oppose the scientific consensus. Using Nobelists in Physiology and Medicine as a proxy for scientific consensus, we analyze two separate datasets: 15.8K tweets by 13.1K unique users on COVID-19 vaccines specifically, and 208K tweets by 151K unique users on COVID-19 broadly which mention the Nobelist names. Our analyses reveal that dissenting scientists are amplified by a factor of 426 relative to true scientific consensus in the context of COVID-19 vaccines, and by a factor of 43 in the context of COVID-19 generally. Although more popular accounts tend to mention consensus-abiding scientists more, our results suggest that this false consensus is driven by higher engagement with dissent-mentioning tweets. Furthermore, false consensus mostly occurs due to traffic spikes following highly popularized statements of dissenting scientists. We find that dissenting voices are mainly discussed in French, English-speaking, Turkish, Brazilian, Argentine, Indian, and Japanese misinformation clusters. This research suggests that social media platforms should prioritize the exposure of consensus-abiding scientists as a vehicle of reversing false consensus and addressing misinformation stemming from seemingly credible sources." Full paper - https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://arxiv.org/pdf/2111.10594&ved=2ahUKEwjW5LPSuov1AhULYsAKHXuECrwQFnoECA8QAQ&usg=AOvVaw31LVkDjeFZJ1ahoyTbAr6D So to have a meta discussion it would first have to be accepted that there is an overwhelming majority of science that agree vaccines are effective and then that the dissenting voices are actually highly amplified. Then you can debate from that point.

@Raptorsin7 I get you, i wasnt necessarily talking about you, it's just something I've noticed from people that follow him. He's obviously very divisive, could be the delivery I don't know, but then if he didn't deliver his message in such a way he wouldn't be listened to, but this means people are going to almost deify him on one side and then absolutely hate him on the other. I think what would be good and which I'm sure he won't do, is if he had a good faith argument with say a well respected feminist or someone who could challenge him on his points, he always seems to talk to the same type of women and just batter them down.

I think Kevin Samuels does raise issues that are important and hes not wrong about a lot of things, there is some delusion with certain women, gynocentricism and issues with the black community. Also it is fair to bring up these issues as they are relevant but arent really talked about it. However if you look into it more he says hes doing it for women but the reality is the audience is mostly male and if i were to take a stab at it i would say theyre not the top 1% high value males he often references. This then leads to delusion in the men that consume his content where they believe all their problems with dating are down to women being delusional and that they are in fact high value men (ill post an example of this below). Whats interesting with KS is that he actually started by doing what he does to women, to men. The only problem was it didnt get much traction and didnt lead to many views, then a video he did criticising a woman went viral and basically led to the success hes seeing now. In May 20 he had i think only a few thousand subs, he now has 1.29 million. Hes not a stupid guy, he recognised that if he continues with this formula, thats what will bring in the views and the money, he does a hell of a lot of content, nightly streams all about the same topic. So it should be mentioned that he at least thinks theres a need to give men similar treatment but it doesnt bring in the money, which also speaks to society in that, whats seen to be women bashing is hugely more popular than men bashing (could also just be because a lot more men are on youtube than women). Hes also obviously modelled himself on people like Simon Cowell and Gordon Ramsey and seen how popular they become, so I wouldnt necessarily say he has bad intentions, but his whole persona is a very calculated thing. Truth has to be holistic and i think he is articulating one side of it but to see the full thing you have to look at the whole the picture and i dont think his setup would allow him to do so, but thats why its important to have many sources of information. Video i mentioned - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nAt8Nhf093s&t=8s