Emerald

That was always my impression of him... just as a gut vibe that I've gotten about him that he has an emptiness he's trying to fill. And clinging to eternal life corrupts the spirit. It's all yang with no yin. So, I was a bit surprised to hear him prioritize compassion. He always struck me as robotic and prioritizing longevity over all else.

These types of influencers make their money and get popular by pandering to men and telling them something affirming and validating... even if they're affirming negative things. For example, Blackpill panders to men who worry they're going to die alone by telling them "Yes, you've been right all along. You will die alone." And in this case, it gives this validation from a woman. So, it gives a false para-social kind of sense of bonding with the woman in the video because she understands you and empathizes with you 'while those other women won't'. It's also empowering because it's "Why men are deciding to remain single." It gives the sense of agency and power in dating because it's "I've decided dating women isn't worth it because women are ___." instead of "I feel really uncomfortable with dating because of my own internal reasons." It gives the illusion of power and someone to blame. And it's a victim narrative. And like you said, it also gives you rationalizations for why dating is a bad idea and isn't worth it so that you can maintain the status quo. Ultimately, all these kinds of channels (not just ones with female hosts) are looking to keep you in an insecurity cycles so that you keep clicking on the videos and keep buying their products and services. These people are just in the business of exploiting common male insecurities. And they have done market research to tell you what you want to hear in your own words. It's just like there are so many businesses exploiting women's insecurities by telling them they're not beautiful enough and selling them a fix.

That's interesting. And I do tend to share his views on society growing more compassionate as it develops. I'm actually somewhat surprised/impressed that his choice is coming from ethically Vegan place and that that's what he's prioritizing. The vibe I've gotten from him is that he values longevity as his primary value.

I thought he chose it because he looked at the studies of different diets' correlation with all-cause mortality and chose the diet associated with the lowest risk.

Of course that's true. Heart-wisdom without intellect-wisdom is an innocent child. Intellect-wisdom without heart-wisdom is a floating brain in a jar. But the problem with this particular context is the "brain in a jar" problem. Too wrapped up in intellectualizations to get in touch with grounded embodied wisdom and empathy. And not aware when they use their higher understandings to block out uncomfortable down-to-Earth truths. Too much up in the branches... not enough down in the roots. But the issue is actually lack of integration between intellect-wisdom and heart-wisdom... and using one to negate the other or seeing them as fundamentally opposed to one another.

Sure. That's true. But I see a lot more of the logical-minded traps in this context than the heart-centered traps. Lots of people using rote memorization of higher truisms to lie themselves out of their embodied heart wisdom

Yes, I agree with that. I thought you meant something different at first. It's the problem of the two thorns... You can use the mind and use deep contemplation to take away your blinders or to cement them on. But the pattern that I notice is that people tend to reach for top shelf absolute truths to overwrite and ignore more practical and heart wisdom truths. It's using intellectual understandings of the Truth to hide the truth from ourselves. Very sneaky of us.

Explain a bit more. Do you mean the metaphorical chopping block? If so, yes we could end up in situations that induce suffering because someone is exploiting us. But if you mean literally... it's highly unlikely for a human being to be raised in a factory farm and slaughtered. That's pretty obvious. That said, you could empathize deeply and imagine being farmed. You could watch Earthlings. And that's what would awaken some of that heart wisdom I was talking about. But you could potentially be trafficked or put in a concentration camp or in a prison with not human rights... which is possible for humans to experience. People experience it all the time. So, we can be exploited and killed... just not usually in the same exact way.

Only if an alien race comes down and starts farming humans for meat and milking them.

Yes, exactly. And it tends to be that the types of animals we consume from factory farms are bred to be domesticated and cannot live in the wild. Like broiler chickens were selectively bred (during a contest that many farmers participated in back in the 50s) to grow extra large to produce more meat. But it's very unhealthy for the broiler chickens. And they don't live very long. And they certainly couldn't live in the wild. It's a little like how we bred pugs to suite human aesthetic tastes. But they have all sorts of health issues because of the selective breeding.

The reason why we have billions (though probably not trillions) of these animals in existence at any given time is because we continuously breed them into existence specifically for the purpose of consumption. So if we imagine a theoretical world where humans totally abstained from all animal agriculture and no one consumed animal products, that means that there would be no profit incentive to breed so many of them into existence. And farmers simply wouldn't breed them. And there are Vegan activists who have framed how we could taper that number down over time while allowing them to live out their lives. I don't recall the specifics of it though because it's been a while since I looked at it.

I'm the only Vegan in my house. I went Vegan after both of my kids were born. But if my husband and I were both Vegan when we had kids, then I'd have probably wanted to raise them Vegan from the get-go. But I would not interfere with the status quo and upend their person sovereignty in those choices. The way that I see it is that I'm able to have a much more positive and long-lasting impact on them by simply modeling the behavior and allowing them to behave in the way they're used to.

Sometimes I feel like this lower vs higher perspective thing (while indicating something that's true in the absolute) can be a way to ignore embodied heart-based wisdom by writing over it with a disconnected intellect-based rationalization that is meant to maintain homeostasis. I notice this can often be a problem on this forum in particular. Everyone's always looking for the superior intellectual framework. But many miss what really matters. And the servant becomes the king and the king the servant. And doing this intellectual trick can be used as a way for a person to hide their embodied heart wisdom from themselves through a series of abstract higher truth intellectualizations. And they can use these higher truth intellectualizations to poke holes in Veganism so that they don't have to become conscious of the incongruence between their actions and their heart-wisdom. And they can maintain the status quo without sensing their cognitive dissonance. And this doesn't just happen with Veganism. I've seen people do it with other harm/suffering related topics as well. But Veganism is a good example to use because most people aren't Vegan. Like if you're a human being and you say "There's a reason for evil to exist because the nature of God is infinity... which includes suffering." or "Morality is relative." These statements are true in the absolute. But people can use these absolute higher truths to rationalize away their heart wisdom. But if we were a cow at slaughter, we would not be able to ignore the heart wisdom. It is only from the armchair of privilege that we can intellectualize with the taken for granted solace that we will not be on the chopping block in this life.

RIP David Lynch. I really enjoyed Twin Peaks. But I also like his other strange ideas... like his show Rabbits. And his book about "Catching the Big Fish" is really helpful for people aspiring to be creative. I read it like 10 years ago or so and it opened me up to new ways of thinking about creativity.

@Leo Gura @Something Funny @yetineti @Malekakisioannis Thank you

Lol. You're super immature with repeat of the sandwich comment. You go make me one. And you literally said "We run you" and "men built everything and you women will have to obey". And "women love it when I scream at them to make me a sandwich." It was really direct and making a clear statement that men are superior to women and that women need to obey men. And you came out the gate with male supremacist narratives. Don't pretend like you were just 'mentioning' traditional gender roles and that my Feminist brain 'blew a gasket' at the mere mention of traditional norms. I was a stay at home mom for about a year after my son was born. And while I'm glad to have spent the extra time with him, I wasn't feeling very fulfilled because it was isolating and non-directional... and the work was constant with no dynamism. So, I felt a lack of meaning in the way my life was structured. But I understand that some women might prefer that dynamic. I certainly wouldn't criticize that choice. It just isn't for me because I need a sense of worldly trajectory in my life. And look back at your posts in this thread. You clearly believe that your culture is superior to Western culture. So, don't pretend like you don't. Like I said to you before... be honest and own your shitty opinions. Don't try to weasel out of them because you realized later on how bad they make you look. And yes, there's a lot of Western imperialism... which is why there are huge disparities in the indexes that the other Western guys were mentioning. We'd all have similar levels of Spiral Dynamics development if imperialist nations (like the US) weren't playing world police and toppling foreign governments to bring "democracy" to the "backwards places". It's similar to how we used to say "bringing civilization to the uncivilized". It's all a narrative to weaken other potential empires and to extract cheap labor and steal resources. But I see now that Leo said that we're supposed to keep the topic on Andrew Tate. So, I'll leave this discussion here.

So you don't like it when people create supremacist narratives, eh? I suppose we have something in common then. But weren't you just spouting off some male supremacist narratives the other day saying 'We're men and we own you and you must obey us because we make society' etc.? Plus, you've spent this whole thread saying how your culture is superior to Western culture. So, I don't really think you have any foot to stand on complaining about supremacist talking points because you fundamentally agree with the notion of supremacy. Your whole worldview is based on it. You agree that there are some cultures that are superior to others. You just don't like it when others do the same thing to you because you think everyone should agree that your culture is superior. And Western culture is your main bug bear because it is perhaps the most diametrically opposed to your own.

Of course she wouldn't be okay with knowing that. It would naturally create a feeling of insecurity with the relationship, and for good reason. Women's sexual instincts are very much wrapped up in creating a stable context to raise a child in, even if the woman isn't interested in having children. So, being with a guy who's not committed will create an intense anxiety once she is attached to that guy. The best thing to do is probably to break it off with her as soon as possible since you're not that into her, as it will free her up to find someone who genuinely wants to be with her instead of leading her on and wasting her time. Also, if you actually have real feelings for a woman (not just surface level attraction), you won't want to leave her for someone who's theoretically better. The main issue here is that you may not have actually had real feelings for a woman before. So, you may not know what that feels like yet. So, you're approaching women as fungible and something to level up with. And this will create a really anxiety-provoking relationship dynamic for the woman because she will see you as non-fungible but you will see her as fungible and as something to trade out for a better model. And if she's attached to you and hasn't learned to differentiate between men that are really into her and men who are sleeping with her and spending time with her, she may waste a lot of time anxiously trying to keep you and convince you to care about her. So, my recommendation is to break up with her.

Yes, I'm in a relationship. I don't feel like this tendency comes from trauma with bad men... though my first relationship from age 16-20 was terrible. But I'm not angry at him. I just feel bad for him. I suspect he has BPD. And he wasn't a misogynistic guy or a cheater or anything... he was just self-destructive and that self-destruction eventually became something that was really dragging down the quality of my life. And on the last day of our relationship, he threatened to hurt me and kill me... which he'd never done before. So, that was how that ended. That one was a really traumatic relationship that went on 3.5 years longer than it should have. But otherwise, my experiences with men have been primarily positive. But that's been because I'm pretty good at discerning which men to keep away from me. (and people in general) I just really cannot stand all these men's movements because they aggravate and step on the wounds that women collectively have. And it really creates a lot of fear and unsafely and anger and all sorts of other emotions. Plus, it's warping into all the political ideologies that are threatening to encroach upon my rights and freedoms. So, I find it very upsetting and disempowering. And it's difficult to not get too upset at an individual man who's like this. But I notice that when I'm on here talking about anything about my experiences with being female, I don't feel like people are open to understanding me because I'm a woman talking about the female experience. So, I tend to want to share my more polarizing feelings and perspectives in a way that's more judgmental to agitate a bit and to evoke emotions that could unsteady people and cause them to doubt or to question their narratives. This is something I don't really do it other contexts. But this is a forum where people mostly shout their options at others. So, I feel like there's something that's verging on a kind of catharsis as I tend to keep my judgments to myself as I don't really have a context to release all the feelings I have about all this crazy manosphere stuff that's all over the place. But I can also set that totally to the side and fully see the vulnerabilities that make all of that run. But when I do that, I am not able to be in touch with my own vulnerability and anger. So, I treat this as my place where I get to be a bit combative and polarizing when I'm typically doing the opposite. But in honestly, I've found that having these sorting mechanisms have served me pretty well. Sorting is the most important skill a woman can develop as it pertains to developing a healthy social circle and getting into a relationship with a healthy and compatible partner. So, that's something that's more of a background mechanism that I don't even have to think about it.

Number one, I don't do it consciously. And I'm in a relationship, so I'm not looking for a partner. Now, it's more of a friendship sorting thing. I just don't feel comfortable around guys who think that way. So, I don't spend time around them. It's not even something that I'm very tuned into why I'm doing it. It's just a visceral feeling of discomfort and moving away from the source of the discomfort. But it's something you learn to do as a woman because it makes your life a lot better. It may seem distasteful to talk about so candidly, but it just is what it is. And if a man cannot understand why I feel that way, then he's probably not the best person to be friends with either because he won't be a safe person to express those feelings to.

Nah. If you were a straight woman, you'd still like men. You would just be a lot more selective about the men you spend time around. And you'd weed out men who gave off that vibe because you'd have developed the spidey sense for it. If you didn't see Andrew Tate's toxicity the first time you decided to go out on a date with him... you'd definitely see it in all similar men thereafter. It's all part of living and learning... and developing a more refined sense of disgust.

That's exactly what I mean. Only, I don't have much of a judgmental thought process towards it in the moment. It's more just picking up on a vibe that doesn't mix well with me and feeling repelled by it. It's more visceral. When a guy holds misogynistic views (which vary by matter of degree) or he's been in spaces like that, you can sense it on their energy. And it doesn't feel good to be around them. It's like a cold bitter metallic energy mixed with isolation and shame. That's the only way I can describe it. It comes through the pores somehow. And there tends to be a spectrum of it. I can sense when guy has a touch of it. And I can sense when a guy has a lot of it. I don't think I'm unique in this. People are actually really good at picking up on vibes... and that's especially true for women. That said, if a woman has certain familial patterns, she may find herself attracted to these vibes. So, even women who go for these guys are quite attuned. But what many women would be repelled by, she is attracted by because of the events of her past.

I recognize that I'm atypical with regard to your metaphor about animal torture and phones and clothing. My point was to say that your metaphor doesn't work for me. But I am NOT atypical AT ALL in sensing and feeling repelled by Red Pill-ish guys. I know that a lot of women are very attuned to these male patterns as the awareness of them is pretty mainstream among women in their 20s. Lots of women joking in YouTube videos about asking probing questions on a first date to vet for these kinds of ideologies. I sense that you underestimate how intuitive the average woman is with regard to picking up on subtle tells about a person. And I wish I could describe the vibe in words because I can tell you misunderstand entirely what I mean by the vibe. You seem to be thinking of it as being some over social ineptitude. But it isn't that most of the time. It's very subtle. It's like you're drinking a sweet drink but the aftertaste is bitter. And that's the type of subtle vibes that socially adept guys are that give off these vibes. It's not very easily masked.

I just know that I notice it right away. There's a vibe that doesn't lie. It's like a perfume of the personality. I can smell it on them straight away. So, it's not a lefty talking point. It's just immediately evident in facial expressions, gestures, vibes, words, and actions if a guy has some misogynistic/Red Pill/Incel kind of stuff going on. And it isn't necessarily social ineptitude that I'm picking up on, though these ideologies can grow from and exacerbate social issues. From my subjective perspective, it's just hints of his underlying ideological framework and feelings about women that I can intuitively sense and that little glimpses come through. People tend to give themselves away in the first 5 minutes... even in rare instances where people try to mask it for fear of being picked up on and evoking a negative reaction. I just know what I notice and the feeling of being repelled. And I'm positive that I'm not a minority of one. I think 25% is a decent estimate of the percentage of Millennial and Gen Z women would relate to what I'm saying. Though, women over 45 might not be quite as attuned to it because they haven't been as affected by these movements or aware of them as women in their childbearing years in the age of internet misogyny movements.