The meaning of life - as communicated to me by Eris herself

[Doktor Howl]

Nigel, I have encountered something interesting: I witnessed someone go full bio-survuval mode (like a base level "threat to survival" reaction) in response to checking their bank and seeing a negative balance.

That is to say, they were not under any direct physical threat to their existence, but they had (or something had made them become) trained their brain and body to treat the abstract concept of "money" as a physically tangible thing.

While we can rationally say that having a negative bank balance would not be classified as physical suffering, this person had all the mannerisims and adrenaline-fueled mania normally associated with fear of imminent death. 

Maybe he's about to get evicted with 3 kids to worry about, or has to pay off his dealer or something?

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Question:  Is being subjected to a moderate level of discipline "suffering"?

When you say "discipline" do you mean "punishment"? Most people do, although the words are not synonymous.

If yes, then by "punishment" do you mean "hitting"?

Discipline, in my view, does include punishment.  Spanking, grounding, time outs, etc, as appropriate.

(I am a firm believer that spanking doesn't work after age 5.  Note that I differentiate between "spanking" and "knocking the kid into next week".)

What discipline includes depends on the context; in the context of parental discipline, I do not believe that spanking necessarily equals suffering, as long as the parent is consistent about how and when the spanking is administered, and doesn't ever even once spin out from spanking into beating. If that ever occurs, the child will anticipate each spanking with the fear of unknown potential harm.

And I agree that spanking is no longer useful after about five or six; it just breeds resentment instead of being a wake-up call.

[Doktor Howl]

Question:  Is being subjected to a moderate level of discipline "suffering"?

When you say "discipline" do you mean "punishment"? Most people do, although the words are not synonymous.

If yes, then by "punishment" do you mean "hitting"?

Discipline, in my view, does include punishment.  Spanking, grounding, time outs, etc, as appropriate.

(I am a firm believer that spanking doesn't work after age 5.  Note that I differentiate between "spanking" and "knocking the kid into next week".)

What discipline includes depends on the context; in the context of parental discipline, I do not believe that spanking necessarily equals suffering, as long as the parent is consistent about how and when the spanking is administered, and doesn't ever even once spin out from spanking into beating. If that ever occurs, the child will anticipate each spanking with the fear of unknown potential harm.

And I agree that spanking is no longer useful after about five or six; it just breeds resentment instead of being a wake-up call.

Sure.  A kid 5+ years old can listen, and process what you tell them.

Before age 5 or so, they are industriously trying to kill themselves, and reasoning with them won't do a damned thing, because they aren't yet capable of reason.  That's why we call them "children", instead of "tiny adults".

One thing that always sets me off laughing is being told that I'm a monster because I spanked my kids.  The ones who tell me this invariably fall into two catagories:

1.  They don't have kids (babysitting doesn't count), or

2.  They - in the same breath - complain about how their kids are unmanageable (or alternatively, how they're "special" in behavior).

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Nigel, I have encountered something interesting: I witnessed someone go full bio-survuval mode (like a base level "threat to survival" reaction) in response to checking their bank and seeing a negative balance.

That is to say, they were not under any direct physical threat to their existence, but they had (or something had made them become) trained their brain and body to treat the abstract concept of "money" as a physically tangible thing.

While we can rationally say that having a negative bank balance would not be classified as physical suffering, this person had all the mannerisims and adrenaline-fueled mania normally associated with fear of imminent death. 

I don't even know if I can explain this one to you in a way that will make sense to you, although I was just reading a psychology book that was talking about how people whose survival has never been threatened by poverty don't have that reaction to a negative bank balance, which I found interesting since it's never occurred to me that there could be any other reaction.

It's basically a trauma response. Poverty is a life-threatening condition. Anyone who has ever been in a position of poverty is permanently conditioned with a fear response to not having enough money.

In childhood, abandonment is also life-threatening, which is why people who had very insecure childhoods may still react with extreme fear to the threat of being abandoned even as adults.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

it seems readily apparent to me that 'suffering' is a broadly flexible term and only has specific meaning in context.
so, i would say that, in some sense, any discipline can fall under the term.
why not?

of course, i know that you don't suffer fools easily, so you may disregard my view as deemed necessary.  

Suffering is a flexible term, sure. Generally speaking though, it differs from "disappointment" or "struggle" in that actual suffering triggers the trauma centers of the brain and is something that the sufferer is, or feels, helpless over. People "struggle" to feed a family, but they "suffer" from famine.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Nigel, I have encountered something interesting: I witnessed someone go full bio-survuval mode (like a base level "threat to survival" reaction) in response to checking their bank and seeing a negative balance.

That is to say, they were not under any direct physical threat to their existence, but they had (or something had made them become) trained their brain and body to treat the abstract concept of "money" as a physically tangible thing.

While we can rationally say that having a negative bank balance would not be classified as physical suffering, this person had all the mannerisims and adrenaline-fueled mania normally associated with fear of imminent death. 

Maybe he's about to get evicted with 3 kids to worry about, or has to pay off his dealer or something?

Having a negative bank balance can set off a horrible chain reaction of financial disaster that, if insufficient resources are available, can be unrecoverable, or take years to recover from.

It can mean not getting to eat, having your gas shut off, your kids taken away, losing your car, and a host of other really really bad stuff.

[Cramulus]

RAW has a big section of Prometheus Rising about how our biosurvival hardware imprints resources. If you've grown up under capitalism, you've imprinted those green slips of paper as a route to biosurvival instead of, say, dead deer and boar. LMNO's ATM anecdote is a good example of how those ancient biosurvival systems are still very real and intact. That's why some people need to be escorted out of the building by security when they get the pink slip. While a lack of money is an intangible threat to survival (it's not like we EAT money), it still triggers those hard wired fight or flight responses.

[P3nT4gR4m]

Interesting point. Maybe suffering is a subjective reaction to varying degrees of objective strife? The pain may be the same but we all have different thresholds.

Pure wankery. Some people learn to tolerate pain better after they've been exposed to it, is all, but a coddled brat simply does not hurt as much from bruising his shin as, say, an 18-year-old soldier hurts from being shot in the leg.

Want evidence? No matter how sheltered someone has been, people do not experience clinical trauma disorders after being denied a luxury, but they do after being starved.

To me, the clearest delineation of the existence of suffering vs. disappointment is the presence of fear. Real fear generated from your brain's limbic system, not "Oh noes I'm afraid I might not be able to get a reservation on Friday".

Luckily, science today tells us a lot about trauma, suffering, fear, and how the brain reflects and reacts to them.

Not what I meant. You administer a punch of equal strength, directly to the face of two people. One of them freaks out and thinks you're going to kill them, the other one laughs and shouts "hell yeah, it's on!"

Same strife, different suffering?

[Dysfunctional Cunt]

Interesting point. Maybe suffering is a subjective reaction to varying degrees of objective strife? The pain may be the same but we all have different thresholds.

Pure wankery. Some people learn to tolerate pain better after they've been exposed to it, is all, but a coddled brat simply does not hurt as much from bruising his shin as, say, an 18-year-old soldier hurts from being shot in the leg.

Want evidence? No matter how sheltered someone has been, people do not experience clinical trauma disorders after being denied a luxury, but they do after being starved.

To me, the clearest delineation of the existence of suffering vs. disappointment is the presence of fear. Real fear generated from your brain's limbic system, not "Oh noes I'm afraid I might not be able to get a reservation on Friday".

Luckily, science today tells us a lot about trauma, suffering, fear, and how the brain reflects and reacts to them.

Not what I meant. You administer a punch of equal strength, directly to the face of two people. One of them freaks out and thinks you're going to kill them, the other one laughs and shouts "hell yeah, it's on!"

Same strife, different suffering?

So it's all in how you respond, not how much it hurts?

[P3nT4gR4m]

That's what I'm thinking - suffering is subjective. I mean, yeah, you amputate a leg with no anaesthetic then pretty much everyone is going to experience peak-suffering but on a sliding scale the experience varies. Lose your car keys? Rank it 1-10. I'll bet if you ask ten different people you'll get ten different answers.

[Dysfunctional Cunt]

That's what I'm thinking - suffering is subjective. I mean, yeah, you amputate a leg with no anaesthetic then pretty much everyone is going to experience peak-suffering but on a sliding scale the experience varies. Lose your car keys? Rank it 1-10. I'll bet if you ask ten different people you'll get ten different answers.

I understand what you are saying.  And since attitudes and the ways we deal with situations is directly related to our environment, then a rich kid whining about losing his phone is the same to that kid as a poor kid crying because they have no food.  Yes one is much much worse than the other, but they are equally upset because of their environment.

Or am I way off?

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

It's subjective, of course. What else could it possibly be?

How much suffering is triggered by an event has a lot to do with preceding events. This is why a prank that is funny to one person may be traumatic to another. Even the degree of pain perceived is tied to previous events in an individual's life. I don't think that proves that we can't be happy without suffering, but it depends on whether you are redefining suffering to include inconvenience and disappointment.

[P3nT4gR4m]

It's subjective, of course. What else could it possibly be?

How much suffering is triggered by an event has a lot to do with preceding events. This is why a prank that is funny to one person may be traumatic to another. Even the degree of pain perceived is tied to previous events in an individual's life. I don't think that proves that we can't be happy without suffering, but it depends on whether you are redefining suffering to include inconvenience and disappointment.

That's not what I'm doing at all, aside from maybe ranking inconvenience and disappointment as really REALLY low-level suffering. The reason I think you can't be happy without suffering is because without suffering you have no frame of reference with which to experience happy. You'd just be neutral, maybe even depressed. You can't appreciate a good meal unless you're hungry. The hungrier you are the better you enjoy it.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I think that my definition of suffering is very different from yours. I don't rank inconvenience, disappointment, or low-level discomfort as suffering at all. See, to me being hungry isn't suffering, it's just a biological function. But being hungry isn't the same as going hungry. Going hungry is suffering. But you don't ever have to experience chronic hunger or starvation in order to appreciate a good meal. You don't ever have to be raped to appreciate good sex, or be beat up to appreciate cuddling.

I do think people need to work, to strive, to struggle, in order to be, overall, happy people. They need to experience inconvenience and disappointment and not always get what they want. I don't think they need to suffer.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

(Unless, like I said, you define suffering to include inconvenience and disappointment.)