They can get quite vicious in mainstream forums if they find out you have ties to the adult industry.

This guy is a pervert. He is a pedophile. Blah blah blah.

Fortunately, more often than not they usually end up self destructing in front of everyone.

I think I can hold opposing views more easily than some. It's really hard to say. But I will say that I don't think that its a good thing. In my view, there is a larger detriment to seeing both sides and being comfortable with all the arguments and giving them equal weight than being blinded to one side and letting the bitter fight rage and the winning idea rise to the top. I also think there is an important distinction to be made of those "in the middle" in politics. Most, I would guess are those who simply don't have a strong opinion/emotional response vs those carefully weighing both sides. I think my issue is really that I don't have much of an emotional response and drive to act out on those responses.

I don't really believe in right or wrong and I believe our behaviors are what they are because they have proven the most effective when it comes to survival and reproduction. We are basically apes who's brains happened to stumble upon an adaptation that led us complex language. I don't look down or up to anyone because I believe everyone is a cog in the machine, each serving their own purpose and no single cog is better or worse as they all are required to make the machine work.

I am also secretly envious of those full of passion. After all, what is better... to be Neo and see the Matrix, or to be in the Matrix and never know and live a perfectly fulfilling life?

This is a great book to read on the subject of politics and religion written by a psychologist Jonathan Haidt who has dedicated his life to the study of moral psychology and emotions like disgust. He also wrote the Happiness Hypothesis which is also a really good book and one I made my GF read as well :).

http://books.google.com/books/about/...d=ItuzJhbcpMIC

http://media.npr.org/assets/bakertay...70d-s2-c85.jpg

one day thesquealer and i shall have a discussion about psychology. :-)


i'd like to be proven wrong.

Why would i want to prove you wrong? Why would my answer better than any other? Either its well studied and well proven, or its theory.

added this to my wish list at audible.com..... here's a book for you http://books.google.com/books?id=YIY...well& f=false

i didn't say you'd want to prove me wrong, i said i would like to be proven wrong.

not at all envious..... my biggest issue in seeing both sides is deploring the intellectual arrogance of a polarized viewpoint and unadmitted bigotry... I do believe the pursuit of balance is a goal of intelligent life and that eventually all things will be equal

I don't want to prove you wrong. I think my views are getting to be more and more out there. :)

another interesting book:

http://www.amazon.com/The-Moral-Land...rds=Sam+Harris

ok, np. was recently reading the latest on crisis therapy and how destructive it is, it corroborates my thoughts that psychotherapy overall is destructive.

This man is most definately not a Wingnut.

i'd wager you didn't understand a single word of that.

Ahh... haha. awesome. That was in my list! I love the study of moral psychology in particular and the neuroscience behind values and morals. A very interesting area of neuroscience is in studying babies and brain function and the incredible amount of information and innate behaviors they possess from a rudimentary understanding of physics to a sense of fairness and right and wrong and basic framework of morality.

This is an interesting read on that subject:
http://www.windsorstar.com/life/cms/...?size=620x400s

I have an active interest in human behavior, in particular brain function but therapy is something very different. I think that most therapy/therapists are bullshit. People can go to therapists for years and not get over the same minor phobias that most people just wake up one day and decide "i've had enough". People go to rehab with very little more success than the average person locking themselves in a room and trying to get over it themselves because they were determined to do so. That said, its obviously the one of the few options available for someone who watched their family get tied up and executed in front of them or that experience some major debilitating mental disorder that requires both medication and therapy to control. I am not sure that either of us are in any position to attempt to discredit an entire complex field of understanding and treatment that requires an 8 year degree :)

Freud was wrong about a lot of things. Freud was very right about some things that still rocked the field of psychology, namely his insight that there must be an unconscious mind and unconscious mental process that we have no conscious access to.

i believe either of us is in a position to do that.
intuition trumps research here.

we all know deep down inside. the roadblock is exactly what you pointed out earlier, it's easier to operate on the surface and not deep thought, especially deep thought about one's self.

moreover, what's the point of it all in crisis management for instance? is all that management going to help the parent of the sandy hook tragedy? not at all. somethings can't benefit from science and research. the event won't ever make sense to that person. science doesn't really apply to random events and our emotional lives are full of random events. maybe it can help someone with a coping mechanism, like count to 10 or a positive affirmation, etc. but deep down we know what our coping mechanisms are.

sure, researchers can pool a random sampling of people, conduct an experiment, make observations, and arrive at a conclusion but generalizing like this is not really how life works. not to mention clouding the issue with medications. and alcohol. etc.

certainly there are fringe personalities that need medication, i get that, but it's bizarro to think a mental health expert can load up someone with psychotropic meds and then perform therapy on the person while in that state.

that said, i don't disagree with research, in fact, it's important, in spite of all the harrowing stories of psych research and the trail of damaged people it's left behind. it's human nature to seek to understand shit we don't.

for me, the bigger issue arrives at applying that research/low level of understanding, especially with a group of trained specialists that as a whole don't/can't/won't keep up with the tools of the trade, a lot of what i've come across includes observations that shrinks and psychologists continue to embrace outdated therapy.

First, I would have to say that Romney is quite normal in comparison to Palin and Cruz. Romney was just your classic politician with buttloads of money who couldn't relate to people without. He is not what I would consider to be a Wingnut.

I think the others do their best to blend in at first for the sake of getting elected, but then the power of their positions rusts away at the cage of self restraint. Palin, Bachmann, Cruz - they are full blown Wingnuts.

Since being dumped at the curb by the GOP, Palin seems determined to punish them by backing all these Tea Party numbskulls bent on getting their way at the expense of compromise.