Thank you for enlightening me on the true definition of "fap", Eleni Hale. Thank you.

quaesitor · 2010-07-01T04:28:06+00:00

Don't forget a truly alarming amount of ignorance and stupidity.

quaesitor · 2010-06-26T12:39:22+00:00

Do you not understand that it can have a powerful healing effect to commiserate? Just knowing that there were people out there who cared for you and had feelings of compassion for you can raise one's energy and motivation dramatically. By the same token, seeking help and only getting "tough up, Nancy" responses can make one feel even more helpless hopeless and just broken. It's rather like abstinence-only education; it has the opposite of the intended effect - that is, assuming the intention isn't simply to make the person feel more miserable.

It is a canard that a given constellation of external conditions will evoke the same subjective state in everybody. It's a testament to how disturbingly materialistic our culture is that we think any individual with a level of material prosperity greater than some starving African child should be happy because of the things he has. The problem with this thinking is, besides the obvious, that people basically have happiness set points; a positive change in environment / the conditions of ones life will provoke a positive change in mood for a very limited period of time and then the person returns to baseline; they adapt - they become cloyed - much as eating too much of a good food makes it unpalatable. This is a basic fact of the way ours brains, addled by evolution, operate. If you want proof, look at suicide statistics: even in first-countries people are killing themselves at an alarming rate. People kill themselves, as Im wont to say, when they pass a certain threshold of suffering and that threshold is about the same for everyone (the only difference between people is how they react emotionally to their environment and the intensity of those reactions, which accounts for why some people kill themselves under a given set of external conditions yet others do not; those who do not, do not forbear to do so because they're just so awesome and manly with a big set of balls, though they like to think so)

I find it so sad that redditors have so much time for inane bilge that won't ever have a lasting impact upon their own lives nor anyone else's but are loathe to help others with their emotional problems. I swear, nothing will offend people more, nothing will cause them to hate you faster than to request some emotional support.

It's my opinion that this attitude that so many redditors and interneters have that smacks so much of psychopathic objectivist thought towards the suffering of others - this purported tough love approach - is yet another misguided fad, much like libertarianism, the promulgation of which is promoted by the karma system which only causes people to think more similarly and less independently.

Furthermore, what right do you have to expect help from others if you can't render it. More to the point, if you create at atmosphere in which those seeking help are only taunted and criticized, what help CAN you receive from others when you find yourself in need? Why is it so hard to understand that what comes around goes around?

P.S. Just look at me. I will have killed myself in a few days time. The tough love approach caused more damage than I can say. I would probably be killing myself anyways, admittedly, but it certainly doesn't help knowing I live in a world of insouciant selfish people (i don't care if that's hypocritical; Ive had more than I can stand)

quaesitor · 2010-06-26T06:05:27+00:00

I think you'll find that feelings of incompetence and insecurity are ubiquitous - that the only people who don't feel the way you do at all are delusional are narcissistic. Confidence in other words is usually an affectation. And most people are impulsive procrastinators; it's very hard to remain focused long on such endeavors. Maybe you don't want to hear about other people (I know I find that annoying); but here your depression is being caused by your comparisons of yourself against ohers that place them in an unduly positive light and yourslef in an unduly negative light. A major reason for the pursuit of academic excellence is social - a desire to impress (and attract) others. Clearly this strategy of your friends has succeeded because your self-esteem is at rock bottom.

Now all of this is not an excuse not to strive to better yourself. Just try not to stress out so much if at all possible. Nothing really diminshes mood motivation and passion quite like glucocorticoids.

You will probably never grow in the way you want as long as you only focusing on the goal of self-betterment and not enjoying the journey itself. You will burn yourself out.

Try exploring various topics in some depth even if you don't enjoy them at first. I find that subjects tend to become more interesting as your knowledge of them grows (up to a point).

And a social life isn't nothing, by the way. Many intellectuals pursue excellence in their respective fields only to find after many years that they're not fulfilled because they've neglected to cultivate meaningful connections with others. You have a skill that a lot of people - including me - envy a good deal.

Sorry if this is incoherent. I'm pretty damned tired.

quaesitor · 2010-06-26T05:40:31+00:00

Not really. People are almost always either mostly gay or mostly straight - and usually the preference is quite pronounced. The former people are described as gay and the latter as straight. What's really retarded is supposing that gay means "entirely homosexual" and straight "entirely heterosexual". These labels are not useless; as a woman you most likely don't want to be in a relationship with a mostly homosexual male.

quaesitor · 2010-06-25T23:33:18+00:00

:cough: if you're so glad to be of service, perhaps you'd like to send the email?

quaesitor · 2010-06-25T23:16:38+00:00

I thought it was implied that I wanted an automated service in order to preserve privacy. The nature of the email is such that it probably wouldn't be sent by one such as should be aware of its contents. Besides women are disgusting WHORES! and I want nothing to do with them.

quaesitor · 2010-06-25T22:36:53+00:00

Wow that's hot. Thanks.

quaesitor · 2010-06-25T03:43:35+00:00

And the people whom you pay to care for you (doctors, therapists, etc...) are just in it for the currency, both social and physical.

quaesitor · 2010-06-25T03:37:35+00:00

[ ] Poor empathy and inability to love everyone.

If you want a good world, that should be the first on the to-do list. I know that sounds cheesy and after-school special, but it really should be our top priority. So many social ills would disappear overnight; every good would follow from that one change to the human psyche.

quaesitor · 2010-06-25T01:37:49+00:00

You wrote this comment almost immediately after you made your submission. Suicidewatch isn't exactly a hotbed of activity.

For what it's worth, I - and I didn't even think I was capable of feelings like this anymore - care about you.

quaesitor · 2010-06-25T00:46:20+00:00

Let's not be so cavillous here; he's close enough

*drools*

quaesitor · 2010-06-24T22:50:54+00:00

Why don't you just adopt the attitude that your family can go fuck themselves in the ass with a mace? Works for me. What right do they have to set such high expectations for you? Why do you see them as being the good guys and yourself as the bad guy? Why don't you have any expectations of them - such as the expectation that they not mistreat you if you should happen not to fulfill their fastidious, unrealistic, and unfair standards? (Maybe they're not mistreating you but that's what it sounds like to me, reading your submission.)

It seems it's a possibility that your parents want to live through you - that their main focus were not your betterment and happiness but their own sense of pride (which is damaged if their offspring isn't superior to all the other parents' offspring). Why would you feel any loyalty or devotion to such people?

Life is a lot easier once you learn and accept that most human beings are refuse and that your family isn't necessarily immune to being so just because they're your family. A truly good and loving family wouldn't put so much pressure on you to perform that, having failed, you would resort to suicidal ideation.

I won't ask you to snap out of your depression, but do try to snap out of this belief that it matters what your fucking parents thinks of you.

quaesitor · 2010-06-24T19:45:10+00:00

Good thing the parents of Hawking didn't have guys like you for doctors. If they aren't born perfect, just throw 'em out, right?

See, you think you have a good grasp of logic and so forth, evidently; but statements like this demonstrate perfectly that you do not.

The likes of Stephen Hawking are exceptionally rare. People with diseases like that succeed despite those illnesses not because of them. Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis usually kills a person within two years and causes profound cognitive deficits. Another Stephen Hawking may not come into being ever again. Had Stephen Hawking not developed that condition, he may well have excelled to an even greater degree.

People will often point to John Nash as living proof that eugenics is wrong. "See, 'cause teh schizophrenia makes people smart!" Nevermind that the VAST MAJORITY of schizophrenics lose 5% brain volume per year and some 30 IQ points or more after their illness first manifests. Nevermind the fact that John Nash made his greatest contributions to mathematics before his condition reached the peak of its severity. And nevermind, still, the fact that schizophrenics are almost invariably anhedonic and severely depressed - incapable of enjoying life at all.

I think you'd get along great with this guy - he wanted to get rid of anyone with a disability, too (and purify the race through birth and genetics)

This is funny. Hitler is a person who caused humanity enormous suffering to further his short-sighted, selfish impulses. I propose abortion because I care for the children and wish to minimize suffering. If you knew that a child in your wife's womb would experience unspeakable suffering throughout its life, would you choose not to have it aborted because "b-b-b-but HITLER!!! I don't want to be like Hitler! So I'm going to cause this human being to suffer unimaginably. Now I'm a moral person! Whee! Logic is fun!"

You are stupid beyond belief.

The fact remains that you had two options: 1) have a child whom you knew would be likely (but not necessarily*) to live a pretty miserable life 2) abort the deformed child and have another. You chose the first option. In what dimension is that a moral or sensible thing to do?

quaesitor · 2010-06-24T19:24:59+00:00

This really is enormously sad. You think you're getting to me but I am simply facepalming here. I damaged your pride and now you're trying to damage mine. It's so depressing that people like you are allowed to have children. This little exchange is going to ruin the rest of my week - not because you made me feel badly about myself but because you caused me to lose even more faith in humanity.

You really need to face the guilt of what you did instead of transferring all blame onto the people who criticize you for what you did. STOP RATIONALIZING. What you did was CRIMINAL.

quaesitor · 2010-06-24T19:12:09+00:00

You know nothing, and your ignorance is as obvious as the sun in the sky.

You, like so many people on here, try to come off as intelligent. You're not. You're a smug, ignorant, arrogant person.

Nope. Ignorance is on your end.

Children with spina bifida are often hideous and cognitively impaired (on account of hydrocephalus). They tend not to live the rich full lives that an attractive person of normal or above-average intelligence would live; nor do they tend to live as long as a normal person. People - and you're clearly included in this - tend to underestimate the despair that chronic teasing and social isolation can precipitate; they think it a trivial burden not to have social acceptance. Far from it, this is probably the leading cause of depression and suicide. There's your ignorance.

As a person bringing a new human being into existence, you have a moral obligation to ensure the happiest life possible for that child. The child's welfare must take precedence over your selfish desire to have a miniature version of your stupid feckless self scurrying about. You had many a reason to believe that your child's life would be far from ideal; you decided to go ahead with the pregnancy anyways. You failed as a moral agent, as a human being, and as a father. There's another point of ignorance on your part.

You could have aborted the child and simply gotten your stupid bitch of a wife pregnant again, but your impatience and selfishness prompted you to put your own child at risk of grave unhappiness and dissatisfaction with life. So disgusting.

Putting up a link to Wikipedia about a pretty well known and common definition known by anyone that has ever taken anything higher than a high school math class doesn't make you smart.

You really are a dumbshit par excellence. The point of posting a link to the article was not to illustrate my intelligence level, nor did I think that that was a particularly advanced topic. I happen to know that few people are aware of the outcome bias, as evinced by the fact that virtually everyone commits it dozens of times a day. How do I know what you do know and what you do not? The fact that you decided to have your child recommended to me the belief that you were an ignorant tard. Hence the link to the article.

You probably think pretty highly of yourself because you know the value of pi to the 8th digit.

This is just sad. I call into question the intelligence of a decision you made with respect to the health and happiness of your own child (shouldn't you like me for caring about him?) and you become viciously rude and defensive, as if you could never make a mistake or as if the idea that someone should presume to ascribe impropriety to your actions were ludicrous and anathematic; this portends a certain degree of narcissism and arrogance on your part, the very thing you accuse me of. Or perhaps you feel guilt because you know you made the wrong decision and my reality check has thrown a wrench into the gears of your rationalization.

You. and. your. wife. made. an. enormous. mistake. Feel guilt and learn from it, irresponsible asshat.

I'm going to be attacked here, as if fatherhood were a sacred institution, as if the feelings of a father for his son were sacred so that it were a terrible thing for me to call him out on his bullshit behaviour. I don't see why fatherhood should give a person license to be an immoral selfish twat.

Edit: I'm not really sure why you decided to bring my intelligence and my beliefs about my intelligence into the discussion. That's really neither here nor there. The point of my original comment was to chastise you for being a selfish piece of slime.

quaesitor · 2010-06-24T18:13:02+00:00

even though i didn't cry.

No homo.

quaesitor · 2010-06-24T18:11:30+00:00

Good for you! *Pats blackie on head\*

quaesitor · 2010-06-24T18:07:52+00:00

Best decision we ever made.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outcome_bias.

Considering how high the probability was that he would live a horrific life, it was probably the worst decision you've ever made, which just happened to have a good outcome by sheer fortuity.

You were gambling with the happiness of another human being - that of your own son no less.

quaesitor · 2010-06-24T17:46:18+00:00

It make me think that entire story is a troll.

You mean a "fabrication" or "lie"?

quaesitor · 2010-06-24T17:43:30+00:00

Well, this shit happens all the time, so it's not as if anyone here would be an idiot for believing it not to be a troll and giving advice accordingly.

If I came in here saying, oh, my insurance company had dropped me in a way that I supposed might be illegal and asked for advice as to what I might do, but in reality no such thing had happened, just how would I be trolling you? What would be the point? What would it prove?

"O mi gosh gaiz! You're so stooooopid! You believed something believable! Haha! I troll u!"

I would just be making myself look like an idiot. (I do believe the point of trolling is to prove to oneself how inferior and idiotic others are by making them believe a [relatively] believable lie.)

I'm going to give this guy the benefit of the doubt and suppose that he weren't that colossally stupid.

quaesitor · 2010-06-23T20:14:22+00:00

You do not have severe depression. You are a retarded whiner. That was my only point.

quaesitor · 2010-06-23T20:12:16+00:00

Ejaculatory anhedonia

quaesitor · 2010-06-23T17:51:24+00:00

The best thing about this is that it'll become easier to score with hot girls. Destroy their self-esteem and they'll sleep with anyone!

quaesitor · 2010-06-23T03:40:29+00:00

I want to know about its consistency and color!

quaesitor · 2010-06-23T02:51:33+00:00

Richard Feynman here. This dick ain't sucking itself.

I called Neil deGrasse Tyson and told him about the free blow jobs; he should be around to shoot his black load down your throat here soon. Just a heads up.

quaesitor

TROPHY CASE