I have an over-active imagination and music stimulates it. There’s almost no time in which I’m listening to music and not imagining some emotion-stirring scenario in my head.

Definitely Skyrim, across multiple editions and platforms. And I’m proud to say I never sank into the stealth-archer habit. Armored mage FTW muthafucka!

Oh, man, where to start? The tribal nature of humanity is a core problem in our psychology that leads to so many different problems in modern society, it’s difficult to even fathom. We just aren’t evolved to live in a society this large. We’re also grossly myopic and don’t act to fix problems that we know are coming but aren’t right in front of us yet. Then there’s the fact that we have advanced science and yet tons of us still subscribe to religion.

I don’t know if contempt for humanity is right phrase for what I feel, but I definitely consider myself a misanthrope. Disappointment might be more accurate.

I found a dandy lion.

I flirted with the manosphere for a while. I don’t regret it, but I’m aware enough of the public perception that I don’t mention it to most people today. Yes, I’m aware of the irony of announcing it here. I would simply say that it suffers from the over-simplification of groups and ideas that affect all groups today, including feminism. Are there bad elements to it? Absolutely, but even feminists admit it has good points and members. People just tend to submit to basic views of things in general.

We all do. Stereotypes contain kernels of truth, which do define groups to a certain extent. At the same time, no one fits the bill absolutely perfectly. So, it’s all a matter of perspective and standards. Stereotypes provide general rules of thumb that can be just as harmful as they are helpful. Knowing where to stop applying them is the real artistry.

It takes a certain type of person to accomplish this successfully. I’ve seen it, but it’s admittedly rare. You’re right that this is the sadly more common outcome, but you’re wrong if you think it’s impossible.

I applaud your appeal to rationality.

But most human believe in God. Rationality is beyond our grasp. We’re fucked.

“Denny Crane.”

I have mild dyslexia. It makes reading take a lot longer (about 100 pages in 3 hours), and it makes telling left vs. right a bit of a chore (1-2 seconds of additional cognitive load), but other than that, it’s been okay. I don’t know if that lines up with what other people call “mild dyslexia” though. I’m judging myself based on other cases I’ve read about/heard.

I decided in my mid-to-late 20’s that I did not want kids and that relationships tend to bring too much stress into my life. And from what I’ve seen from most other people’s relationships and marriages, I do not regret my decision. And these aren’t even bad relationships/marriages. They’re very functional. But there’s still stress and “drama” in all of them. No, thanks.

Tough question, but the first one that comes to mind is the Carmina Burana by Carl Orff.

Consenting adults can do what they want, so long as they’re not hurting anyone else. It’s nobody else’s business.

People who believe in God have failed to adequately reflect on their beliefs. Religion is fairy tales for adults. Sorry, but that’s the truth. Your question is simply a step on the staircase of rationality.

Thank you. I’m a lefty myself, but leftists have such a hard time seeing that criticism of their own side actually has validity. I totally understand what this developer is saying about depicting a progressive topic without being “woke” (preachy) about it. I see the same thing in movies/shows that depict female heroes—there are some that just make the hero a woman, and then there are others that pump the “girl power” angle, overplay the female lead, make it explicitly clear she’s better than all the male characters, bloat the script with feminist jargon, blah, blah, blah. It’s stupid. You want to do the progressive thing? Fine. Just do that. Don’t brow-beat your audience with a political message about it.

Cute meme but a friend of mine got fired yesterday. Having a job definitely doesn’t suck as much as not having one.

That’s a nice line of thinking but it ignores the fact that it adds layers of complexity to life that aren’t necessarily beneficial. What has this 100% to 90-99% straight identification really added to your life vs. how much cognitive power it’s cost you to achieve it?

This is what I meant about us not having observed gender-neutral identification appearing throughout history. Sure, it may be a nuanced idea to gender identity, but what’s it really worth? If it was worth much, I would think we’d see examples of it poke through the prejudices of society throughout history. I just don’t see that.

Likewise, if it was really biologically driven, I would think it couldn’t be fully suppressed by societal norms, just like homosexuality and transsexuality. The fact that it doesn’t seem to be so strong a trait leaves me thinking it’s a cultural phenomenon. That doesn’t make it invalid or useless, but it certainly does make it less important than traits that are indelible enough to overcome cultural factors.

Honestly, I’m really not convinced it’s just a cultural fad, which may reflect a gradient on the gender spectrum, but is more like the tapers of the two spikes that represent male/female identification, rather than some vast valley of gender-in-betweenism that deserves broad acknowledgement.

你老母大減價!

Oh, sure. But if that was the case, I would expect to see evidence of it cropping up throughout history, like we see with homosexuality and transsexuality. Maybe there is evidence and I’m just ignorant, but it hasn’t been pointed out to me if that’s the case.

Probably not, just because I don’t think I can really relate to that identity. If I’m being honest, I just don’t really understand it. It seems more like a cultural phenomenon to me than a real identity that is based on some biological reality, even if just in the brain. I’m not saying I don’t think a brain biology couldn’t produce something like that, but it seems much more likely to be the product of cultural factors than that to me.

Addendum: Plus, I honestly find it hard to use gender neutral or gender-sex unaligned pronouns if the person still looks like their biological sex. I don’t think I’d want to deal with using gender neutral pronouns with a partner that looks female, and being straight, I probably wouldn’t be attracted to an androgynous or male-looking person.