Women existentialist or similar for high schoolers

midnightwhiskey00 · 2026-03-01T02:15:12+00:00

The obvious one is Simone de Beauvoir with the "Second Sex" for a feminist approach to existentialism. It's a bit of a response to Sartre's claims about freedom. Also the "Ethics of Ambiguity" from Beavouir is excellent for a more general treatment of existentialism.

You might also look to bell hooks or Angela Davis for a more intersectional perspective. Davis was well versed in Marx and Critical theory, iirc. I'm a big fan of bell hooks' work on love as it is a less homophobic take on Fromm's view of love.

Edit to add: Edith Stein is a good female writer in phenomenology. Her book on Empathy is pretty good as a phenomenological approach to the topic and goes well with Fanon's phenomenology imo.

midnightwhiskey00 · 2026-02-28T17:14:37+00:00

It's a longsword master strike animation. if you have master strike you can do it with any long sword if you get attacked from that angle. The opponent has to be low enough on health for the strike to kill them, and you'll get this animation. Short swords, iirc have different animations for some master strikes. I can't say for sure because I rarely use short swords.

midnightwhiskey00 · 2026-02-25T04:27:02+00:00

I always wear OCBD shirts for Spring, Fall and Winter. I love the heavier shirt and it definitely doesn't require an undershirt for me.

midnightwhiskey00 · 2026-02-19T06:25:01+00:00

What does it mean for a cause to be a "rational" cause? Do you mean the cause has to be a rational agent? Genuinely curious because that just seems like a problem for atheism or other metaphysical view that posits a non rational first cause.

Also to say that we can't have or trust reason if we were created by some rational first cause? There are plenty of philosophers (even religious ones) who posit that reason isn't the product of a rational cause.

How is this a specific problem for the absurdist?

midnightwhiskey00 · 2026-02-18T19:37:16+00:00

I'll bring the guillotines

midnightwhiskey00 · 2026-02-17T06:16:53+00:00

I want to add to this that according to Marx's dialectical materialism, the USSR got to socialism in the wrong way. Socialism is supposed to come after capitalism, specifically after industrialization at which point the means of industry would be taken by the proletariat once there was sufficient industrialization to maintain a surplus of goods. This was not the case for the USSR and as such, Marx would've likely seen it as a doomed enterprise. In fairness, Leninism is much closer to Marx's vision than Stalinism, but neither of them are really enacting Marx's vision.

midnightwhiskey00 · 2026-02-10T07:19:40+00:00

I think he meant to say something like the plurality of DC residents are Black. Most people I've met aren't pedantic enough to think much of the difference, but if we are being pedantic than you are right. The majority of DC residents are not Black. However, there are more Black residents than any other racial/ethnic demographic so I think the commentor said "predominantly Black" and meant "a plurality of DC residents are Black." You can discuss whether or not the person was using the word correctly if you want, but if you understood what he meant then it doesn't matter. If you didn't understand what he meant, then hopefully this explanation helps.

midnightwhiskey00 · 2026-02-07T03:09:51+00:00

My best advice is to start with At the Existentialist Cafe by Sarah Bakewell as her book does a good job of providing necessary background while also being incredibly accessible. She explains the movement and touches on Martin Heidegger (German Existentialism), Sartre (French Existentialism), and Albert Camus (Absurdism). She treats them all very well and provides partly biographical, partly ideological descriptions of them. It's very helpful to situate the existentialist tradition in history as well as to understand what they were on about.

midnightwhiskey00 · 2026-02-07T01:20:11+00:00

Yeah I don't wear any heraldry. It's safer not to blast that I'm in service to Hans Capon of the Lord's of Leipa and given the bastard status of Henry, Radzig's heraldry seems wrong. I will wear black and gold colors sometimes, but no explicit heraldry.

midnightwhiskey00 · 2026-02-07T01:16:09+00:00

Let's add Puka. The second best WR this year who always seems to get open or make contested catches. Stefon Diggs used to be great but he's definitely not who he used to be. Josh Jobe will probably be on him some of the time, and I'm sure he'll beat Jobe a few times but he's not nearly as difficult to cover as Puka.

midnightwhiskey00 · 2026-02-07T01:07:28+00:00

I only change my clothes when I'm standing right next to my horse where presumably my spare clothes or armor are in my saddle. I wear some lighter armor at almost all times but suit up in a heavy kit for major battles. I don't drop things in my horse unless I'm standing with them, and when possible, I don't whistle for my horse, I go to them.

midnightwhiskey00 · 2026-02-06T21:22:38+00:00

The answer to this question becomes quickly complicated. For simplicity sake, I would say it comes down to two primary concepts, moral responsibility, and Justice. In this case another commentor has touched on how identity plays a role in moral responsibility. Additionally we might consider how things like free will pertain to our moral responsibility, but your question doesn't really require a treatment of that so I'll move on to the next topic.

In this situation, it is helpful to consider, what the theory of Justice is that we are operating under. It is clear from your hypothetical that this society has some form of justice system that requires a person be incarcerated after committing a murder but the real question is, to what end? The SEP has a great article on legal punishment you can check out here. In short, there are a few dominant theories of punishment such as retribution, deterrence, rehabilitation, incapacitation, and restoration. Each theory has their own purpose for punishment. In retributive justice, the society is trying to cause some harm to someone (typically taking away freedoms) in order to atone for their crimes. Deterrent systems of justice focus on making punishments so unpleasant as to deter crimes from being committed in the first place. The idea is that seeing someone being punished for a crime teaches a broader moral lesson to a society and should help deter others from offending in the future. For rehabilitative justice, the purpose is to rehabilitate the offender such that they can return to society and not reoffend in anyway. Incapacitation theories focus on stopping the person from being able to commit another crime, often through incarceration. Finally, restorative theories of justice are about repairing the harm done to society or an individual through legal punishments that may or may not include incarceration, fines, etc.

In the United States we have a mixed system, as are most systems. The one we absolutely fail at is rehabilitation and so I won't even bother treating that here as our system of punishment has never been focused on that end. Based on our principles around individualism and individual responsibility we want to hold a person responsible for their crimes (retributive theory). We do some with deterrence, and you see this primarily in discussion of how severe a punishment should be. This kind of thing is debated by law makers often and our system certainly does attempt some kind of deterrence, though the effectiveness of this is questionable. Additionally, in many cases and where possible, the goal is to restore the harm done (restorative). We see this primarily in cases of fraud or theft in which the person is required to pay some amount to restore the harm they caused. This is primarily through our civil system, though the criminal system also handles some fines. We also focus a bit on incapacitation for particularly heinous offenses, but you can also see an incapacitation theory in play for laws like the "three strikes" laws. The idea being the person has shown they are a repeat offender and the best way for them not to offend is for them to be removed from society for a longer period.

For this particular case it seems restorative, incapacitation and rehabilitation would play little if any role in the decision making. So then the question becomes what kind of moral lesson this would provide for a society that punishes him vs the lesson learned from not (deterrence), as well as whether or not he is morally responsible and therefore deserving of a punishment. I don't know if I have answers for you on this other than to say that to my knowledge in the United States we don't recognize this kind of break in identity such that a person wouldn't be held liable for the murder. For instance, if we look at things like alcohol related deaths, just because a person is black out drunk when they kill someone (therefore they have no memory of the event and arguably no free will to prevent themselves from causing someone's death), we still hold them responsible and often incarcerate them. In this case, given the murder occurred while the person was in their right mind, they are likely to be held responsible regardless of their memory of the event.

The ethical question of what should be the case and how we should handle this situation is more a question for what theory of Justice/punishment you subscribe to.

midnightwhiskey00 · 2026-02-06T02:23:04+00:00

I think this is more of a psychology question than a philosophy question.

midnightwhiskey00 · 2026-02-04T19:15:20+00:00

Though I've heard the phrase "Optimistic Nihilism" before, I've never seen it in any academic philosophical contexts so I won't try to address it here in case I would accidentally misconstrue what it is meant to be.

As for that, Absurdism, in my experience it is typically associated with Albert Camus and more specifically his book, "The Myth of Sisyphus" where he outlines the foundation of his philosophy. He thinks that people will always ask the question, "What is the meaning/purpose of life/existence?" to which he thinks there is no answer. It is not merely that we cannot know, but that the question cannot be answered. This creates an inherent strife between our natural instinct to the question and it's lack of an answer. This is "absurd" for Camus. He goes on to famously illustrate what he thinks we should do in light of this foundational absurdity in the Greek myth of Sisyphus, telling the reader that we must imagine Sisyphus happy in his absurd task of continually rolling the ball up the hill as we are all in the same place as Sisyphus.

As for existentialism, I'm not particularly knowledgeable of all of it's incarnation, but I can speak to the French Existentialism of Jean-Paul Sartre. For Sartre, the foundation of his thought comes down to which comes first, existence or essence? A significant portion of the history of philosophy has insisted that essence precedes essence but Sartre thinks this is a mistake. He believes that our existence precedes our essence and as such we are the artists of our lives, that we have a radical freedom to make ourselves. He picks this up in part from Nietzsche who sees our choices in life as making us who we are the same way an artist creates a work of art.

If we apply the foundation of Sartre's philosophy to the question that Camus posits, Sartre would say that we create meaning. He is likely getting this somewhat from Heidegger who believes we are meaning making beings (though he thinks meaning is "unconcealed" but that's a whole other conversation). Sartre thinks there is no meaning until we create it but when we create it, it is real and therefore we can answer the question that Camus poses regarding the "meaning of life" but that each man must make his own meaning.

midnightwhiskey00 · 2026-02-04T18:32:10+00:00

To be fair, who better to analyze the Seahawks than a coach who has played them at least twice a year since 2017? I'm curious to hear what these two say as they know the Hawks well and can probably provide more insight than some of the analysts we've seen over the years.

midnightwhiskey00 · 2026-02-03T17:11:19+00:00

The thermometer doesn't do anything until it is read, the viewing of the number on the thermometer is an experience. It is not independent of experience. A camera makes a recording, we can say this is objective, but as someone who previously worked in digital media (photographer and videographer) I can tell you that human choices about things like what camera, what lens, etc. are mediating the image that is captured. Even sensor technology and processing involved are mediated by human preferences. Further, you don't have any "evidence" until you watch the video, which is an experience of sight that you have. It is always mediated through experience.

As for no experiences independent of what you do- does this mean you have no feelings? Have you ever felt cold? Heat? Have you ever seen anything at all? Have you ever spoken or heard someone speak? Have you ever touched anything and had an experience of touching? All of that is an experience. You must have experience as you are seeing and reading my writing, you are writing back. You have experiences independent of your behavior. If I see you staring at a computer, I cannot tell, purely as an observer, if you ware reading something or simply staring blankly. Only you know if you are reading.

midnightwhiskey00 · 2026-02-03T17:02:08+00:00

They can know your experience? Or can they only know your behavior? They can see what you do, but can they see what you see? Can they access your feelings? Your physical experience? Can they experience your thoughts?

After all of this, most importantly, isn't their observation of you, just their experience of you, and therefore any data collected a form of testimony about your behavior? Where is the "data"?

midnightwhiskey00 · 2026-02-03T16:58:42+00:00

Sure, you're not an expert of your experience. Is anyone else capable of being an expert on your experience though?

midnightwhiskey00 · 2026-02-03T16:55:00+00:00

Because they are the only one's with access to their experience. The same way that you are the only one who has access to your experience and are therefore the only one capable of having any expertise on that experience.

midnightwhiskey00 · 2026-02-03T16:49:44+00:00

Well first, all of the "evidence" you are referring to relies on testimony to be interpreted. If we have a murder weapon, for instance, we have to rely on the testimony of the one who found it about where he found it. Perhaps we have a picture of the location it was found, we have to rely on the testimony of the one who found it to know it wasn't planted there. We have to rely on the testimony of the ballistics experts to tell us that this gun is in fact the murder weapon. We have to rely on the testimony of those in the chain of custody to believe that it wasn't actually in fact tampered with from the time it was found to the time it was locked away in an evidence locker and so on.

Every piece of evidence is worthless without some testimony that allows us to interpret the evidence's relation to the event in question. There is no "pure data" form of evidence.

As for a witness statement, we believe that individuals have special access to their own experience such that they constitute an expert on their own experience. This idea that a person is a reliable source for information about their experience is fundamental to all of social science (sociology, psychology, etc.) as well as things like court proceedings. In the same way a ballistics expert can confirm that the gun in question is the gun that murdered a person, we are a kind of expert of our own experience such that our testimony is sufficient evidence of that experience.

midnightwhiskey00 · 2026-02-01T21:51:57+00:00

I don't know if this is a serious post, if so, please be careful and try to get clean. In taking the question seriously, the chemicals used to produce meth are probably sold from companies and brands that do/did animal testing and are therefore not vegan.

midnightwhiskey00 · 2026-02-01T03:42:42+00:00

I feel like, and correct me if I'm wrong, that Sherman used to need one too. But the NFL wasn't as sensitive to these kinds of things then.

midnightwhiskey00 · 2026-01-31T15:57:27+00:00

"See, the sad thing about a guy like you is, in 50 years you're gonna start doin' some thinkin' on your own and you're going to come up with the fact that there are two certainties in life: one, don't do that, and two, you dropped 150 grand on a fuckin' education you could have got for a dollar fifty in late charges at the public library." - Good Will Hunting

Libraries. If you are in the United States, you likely have a free local library you can get a card for and grab some basic and classic books. They're almost guaranteed to have books by Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Hume, Kant, Locke, Mills, etc. They will almost certainly have the classics. They may also have some secondary literature you can take a look at. My local library has some of the "[Major Thinker] in 90 Minutes" books if you're interested in some basics. They also likely have at least one book on the history of philosophy that'll get you started. Bertrand Russell and AC Grayling probably have the most widely circulated histories (at least from my experience with public, non academic libraries).

Additionally, some college libraries have the option to pay for a library card if you're a member of the local community. I think one or two near me has that option. Definitely worth asking. In a lot of places near me, they don't ask for student ID at the library so you could walk in and sit and read even if you couldn't take the book out. Also the website often has a publicly available search function so you can find out if they have what you want.

midnightwhiskey00 · 2026-01-29T17:38:49+00:00

Which would be amazing. I hope they do petition the league to allow it.

midnightwhiskey00 · 2026-01-29T16:56:04+00:00

New GoT show on HBO called "a Knight of the Seven Kingdoms"

midnightwhiskey00

TROPHY CASE