UNLIMITED holist appreciation thread

[P3nT4gR4m]

I always had american football down as a kind of extreme sport where people get injured, paraplegia or dead on a regular basis but that doesn't make it a bad thing cos the participants accept the risks and say "fuck it, I wanna do this anyway"

Is there like a cultural aspect at work here where people are being railroaded into it against their will?

[Verbal Mike]

From what I gather, not against their will, but by the huge social prestige of being in that sport at an age and in an environment (highschool and college) where a lot of athletic young people think that kind of prestige is actually more important than other things. They promise young guys glory, fame, and wealth, and probably underplay the health risks.

[P3nT4gR4m]

I guess Jello covered it in Jock O rama. I don't have a problem with self destructive risk taking, be kinda hypocritical of me since that used to be my entire life but it should be a go into it with your eyes open trip. I guess it's a kinda fine line. When you're young, how open can your eyes be?

[tyrannosaurus vex]

I guess Jello covered it in Jock O rama. I don't have a problem with self destructive risk taking, be kinda hypocritical of me since that used to be my entire life but it should be a go into it with your eyes open trip. I guess it's a kinda fine line. When you're young, how open can your eyes be?

I keep reading it as "Barack Obama."

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

From what I gather, not against their will, but by the huge social prestige of being in that sport at an age and in an environment (highschool and college) where a lot of athletic young people think that kind of prestige is actually more important than other things. They promise young guys glory, fame, and wealth, and probably underplay the health risks.

I personally think that it violates the standards of informed consent because of the age at which players are recruited; players who are very young are lured with the promise of glory and high social status. Football recruiters and coaches are not held to the standard of  medical personnel.

[Dildo Argentino]

I think the behaviour Nigel describes in the OP (and yes, I think it is a very good question) is partly a spandrel of social evolution. I also think it is partly also caused and sustained by the prevailence of neurosis among people raised and living in the multicultural (and, as someone pointed out earlier, though I don't remember who and which thread, fractally cultural) environment of the megapopulation after being raised in more or less dysfunctional families. I believe this unfortunate story began about the time the paelolithic slowly turned into the neolithic, whenever that was. When sustained and significant interaction between cultures and hence cultural evolution got off the ground.

In greater detail: I think people do not find it hard to admit to making a mistake in general. I think they find it hard to admit a mistake they are confronted with when they feel misunderstood, and when they sense that they are being rejected. Of course, some people are maladaptive to the point that they feel they are misunderstood and rejected every single time they are confronted with a mistake (this is the sort of thing you are trying to pin on me, totally unfairly, but I'll leave that until later.) It is those element of misunderstanding and rejection that make it hard. And it makes it hard because being misunderstood and rejected is actually quite terrifying.

And this is despite the fact that, if you look at it objectively, in this day and age, being misunderstood and rejected is in most cases not such a big deal.

But it is a big deal in a monocultural tribal society. In a society where there is one language, one ethos, one set of customs, one way of understanding the world, in which people who stray from those norms are seen as fundamentally defective (mad, or evil, possessed, or whatever, but badwrong), being misunderstood is a terrible thing. A terrifying thing. It could well be the lead-up to being abandoned, or coerced. And most people (those whose early years are spent in a community that is functional enough) spend those first three, most formative years of their lives, when their emotional self-regulation is fine-tuned for a life in a particular culture, in an environment (a family, or, unfortunately, sometimes an insitution) which is quite a lot like a monocultural tribal society. So their emotional self-regulation, when they are thrown into the sea of the megapopulation at age 3, or later (kindergarten, school, etc.), is that of a monocultural human. Very scared of being misunderstood/rejected. Try to think back to your earliest memories: your were a blessedly happy and sheltered child indeed if you don't recall some scary incidents that involved interacting with strangers who did not know how you tick and didn't much like you.

If close family did that, so much the worse, which brings me to the second part of my explanation:

Most of the people on this board, just like most of the people who grew up in this civilization we share and are alive today, actually were raised in a manner that was far from optimal (in the evolutionary sense), and hence their emotional self-regulation is (to a greater or lessed degree) off-kilter. They feel threatened when they are faced with their mistakes, because they think they can only be loved if they are perfect: their lack of security in their relationship with their primary caregiver scars them for life. Some overcome it. Many never do. Those who don't often find it very hard to admit being wrong because they are afraid that if they do, they will be left alone to die. Those two effects interplay and reinforce each other in a number of interesting ways.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Most of the people on this board, just like most of the people who grew up in this civilization we share and are alive today, actually were raised in a manner that was far from optimal (in the evolutionary sense), and hence their emotional self-regulation is (to a greater or lessed degree) off-kilter. They feel threatened when they are faced with their mistakes, because they think they can only be loved if they are perfect: their lack of security in their relationship with their primary caregiver scars them for life. Some overcome it. Many never do. Those who don't often find it very hard to admit being wrong because they are afraid that if they do, they will be left alone to die. Those two effects interplay and reinforce each other in a number of interesting ways.

You just couldn't resist, could you?   

[The Good Reverend Roger]

All I can say is, so long as this shit continues, I'll be posting my rants at Scrubgenius.  Not because I'm mad or butthurt or anything, but because they just sink off the page while everyone's hollering at the aspie.  I'll repost them here when things calm down.

Incidentally, we're at about half the active users we had 2 weeks ago.  Just saying.

[LMNO]

All I can say is, so long as this shit continues, I'll be posting my rants at Scrubgenius.  Not because I'm mad or butthurt or anything, but because they just sink off the page while everyone's hollering at the aspie.  I'll repost them here when things calm down.

Incidentally, we're at about half the active users we had 2 weeks ago.  Just saying.

THANKS A LOT, OBAMA!

[Dildo Argentino]

Most of the people on this board, just like most of the people who grew up in this civilization we share and are alive today, actually were raised in a manner that was far from optimal (in the evolutionary sense), and hence their emotional self-regulation is (to a greater or lessed degree) off-kilter. They feel threatened when they are faced with their mistakes, because they think they can only be loved if they are perfect: their lack of security in their relationship with their primary caregiver scars them for life. Some overcome it. Many never do. Those who don't often find it very hard to admit being wrong because they are afraid that if they do, they will be left alone to die. Those two effects interplay and reinforce each other in a number of interesting ways.

You just couldn't resist, could you?   

Well, I certainly include myself in it, I am one of those unfortunates. But if this board is actually a filter that only lets people with satisfactory primary carer relationships pass, and I just slipped through by accident, then I am very happy to remove that bit and apologise. But I do stand by most people who grew up in the western civilization having suboptimal emotional self-regulation and self-image issues.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

But I do stand by most people who grew up in the western civilization having suboptimal emotional self-regulation and self-image issues.

Who cares what you stand by?   

[Dildo Argentino]

But I do stand by most people who grew up in the western civilization having suboptimal emotional self-regulation and self-image issues.

Who cares what you stand by?   

Well I don't quite know. But given that I am still being talked to, perhaps someone besides me does. WHo knows?  (still laughing with you, by the way)

[Internet Jesus]

Most of the people on this board, just like most of the people who grew up in this civilization we share and are alive today, actually were raised in a manner that was far from optimal (in the evolutionary sense), and hence their emotional self-regulation is (to a greater or lessed degree) off-kilter. They feel threatened when they are faced with their mistakes, because they think they can only be loved if they are perfect: their lack of security in their relationship with their primary caregiver scars them for life. Some overcome it. Many never do. Those who don't often find it very hard to admit being wrong because they are afraid that if they do, they will be left alone to die. Those two effects interplay and reinforce each other in a number of interesting ways.

You just couldn't resist, could you?   

Serial arsonists have better self control.

[Dildo Argentino]

Most of the people on this board, just like most of the people who grew up in this civilization we share and are alive today, actually were raised in a manner that was far from optimal (in the evolutionary sense), and hence their emotional self-regulation is (to a greater or lessed degree) off-kilter. They feel threatened when they are faced with their mistakes, because they think they can only be loved if they are perfect: their lack of security in their relationship with their primary caregiver scars them for life. Some overcome it. Many never do. Those who don't often find it very hard to admit being wrong because they are afraid that if they do, they will be left alone to die. Those two effects interplay and reinforce each other in a number of interesting ways.

You just couldn't resist, could you?   

Serial arsonists have better self control.

As I just said, I did not mean this as a derogatory comment. I just happen to think this is the reality of general situation. Unfortunately.

[Anna Mae Bollocks]

Where the hell is the ignore button?