TheAdamAndChe

What's frustrating is that the term "toxic masculinity" describes something very real. Unfocused masculine energy can drive very negative behavior, from hypersexuality to aggression to the desire of dominance and extreme novelty seeking. But describing it under the term "toxic masculinity" destroys conversation because of the implication that all masculinity is bad, which is just not the case.

It's much like talking about "neurotic feminity." There's something to it, but it's not a good way to frame it.

Suit yourself, but this kind of thing matters in a democracy where everyone has the capacity to influence the direction of the government.

You see this a lot nowadays. A lot of social media sites are biased towards positivity and reaffirmation, but what happens is that people get lots of positive feedback for identities and mentalities that are counter productive to a good life.

Yeah, and lots of people used methadone successfully.

I don't want there to be stiff market competition in the addictive substances market. We already did that with tobacco and still haven't fully phased that out.

I definitely wouldn't support the legalization of heroin. We already have alternatives(kratom, suboxone) that are legal and have far less abuse potential.

Not all drugs are the same, we shouldn't act like they are.

I'd rather they keep them out and raise either pay or quality of life instead. Quality of life hasn't risen with productivity increases in decades.

Every single country talking about it has had a populist spurg and political instability recently. It just seems like a psyop to distract people who trend towards conspiratorial thinking and prevent them from focusing on politics.

Yes, I see the irony in saying this.

Subjective measures are everything when considering quality of life.

Both jobs were in the same somewhat small city in the Midwest, they were just different sizes and have drastically different cultures.

I have a Bachelor's degree in IT, hold a whole alphabet of certifications, and am happy to work part time at the company I work at making $20/hr. Why? Because I'm actually treated like a human being with tons of autonomy. I can crack jokes, control my own schedule, take breaks if I get frustrated, and do basically whatever I want as long as I'm honest with my work logs.

So many jobs here are dehumanizing. We are treated like cogs by a highly stressed management, and if you don't "pull your weight" and overwork yourself then you are cast from the group. Try to push back, and you get a talking to by silver-tongued executives who just don't understand why we don't Work Harder. In a previous job, I was scheduled shifts from 7am-9pm just a week after being in the hospital.

I'm not so sure about this. Ask a random lower or middle class American if their quality of life has gone up in the last 20 years, I'm willing to bet most will say no. The world is far more competitive, has undergone a large amount of cultural decay and fragmentation, and certain important things like housing, education, and healthcare have gotten far more expensive.

Yes, but reality is muddy and people affect each other. Look at the rates of anxiety, depression, and suicide, and see how well they correlate with the liberalization of American culture since 2012. Look at the declining rates of sex in our youth, the number of school shootings, the rise of populist politicians... If a generic goal of diversity and avoiding hurt feelings was what our country truly needed then our country would be better than ever, but its not.

You are obviously right when you look at the far right. Complete oppression is a bad thing. But swinging to the other extreme and saying that no ways of life are better than others causes social instability too.

Whether it should be government's job to do that is another matter.. I'd much prefer that our society handles such social pressures itself, though such social feedback systems seem to have broken down.

The fundamental purpose of law is to place limitations on the allowed behavior of other people. The lines between what behavior is right and wrong varies from people to people and group to group, hence why we have democracy to try to form a consensus.

The liberal viewpoint is vastly different from the conservative viewpoint, but only if we find a way to communicate and find common ground will we ever hope to move forward together as a nation. Seeing your political opponent as irredeemable is the first step towards sectarianism, which can easily lead to war.

I lean to the right, and yet regularly talk to and see the humanity in liberals on a pretty regular basis. We are all people, even if we see things differently.

This is very true. It makes me wonder, what has driven this change? Human nature didn't change over the course of a few decades.

Fist fights between men used to be a pretty normal way to resolve disputes.

Wages haven't kept pace with productivity since the 70's, and income and wealth inequality has reached astronomical proportions. IMO its time for a bit of inflation and improved employee leverage.

But why is equality of outcomes necessary? We see worldwide physical and psychological differences between the sexes, and the reproductive strategies typically used are different. Why shouldn't that reflect in broadly different social norms and roles?

The way you phrase a word affects its interpretation. Imagine for a minute if the term "neurotic feminity" was a common thing, and described how anxiety, depression, and other negative aspects of stereotypically female behavior are actually just unhealthy. People would be upset because the phrasing implies that feminity itself is bad, which is wrong.

Good jobs with growth potential that don't require a four year degree and actually treat you like a human being?

If only that were the only step to stop the new Windows install spam.

What you say is true. It's also not what I suggested.

With anything political, you can almost always find politicians contorting them for their own benefit. That doesn't mean the underlying concept is bad, only the contortion is bad.

Common sense reforms like voter ID laws and paper ballots don't discourage people from voting. They are commonly used in most functioning democracies around the world.

Perception is everything in a society. Police can't be everywhere, and the stability of the system is maintained by everyone accepting the legitimacy of a certain political structure.

There may not actually be fraud, but strengthening the election system wouldn't hurt, and it would calm those who think there is and help stabilize the system during a tumultuous time in our country's history.

Where do you find a position in the police force as an IT/computer forensics specialist? Everything I've researched indicated that I needed to join the FBI in order to focus on cyber crimes, and their agents are required to work a minimum of 50 hours per week, which is nuts.

Yes, there's an entire references section in the end of the book.

The process I use isn't everything the book said to do, it's just what I chose to adopt to strengthen my weaknesses. The book covers much more.

There are high focus and low focus modes of thinking that serve different purposes in learning something.

Chunking is the encapsulation of several steps or processes into an overarching process. Think of all the steps required to put on a shirt. You need to know how to hold the shirt, have an intuitive understanding of cloth dynamics, pull it in a certain way so that you can put your arms in, etc. But because you do it every day, it has become second nature and all you have to think to complete the task is "put on shirt." It has been chunked.

Chunking requires 3 things: focus, understanding, and practice. Math is largely about chunking underlying concepts so you can learn more complex concepts.

Chunking is a high focus activity, and spaced repetition is best as a low-focus activity that can be used to efficiently memorize jargon and other things that involve rote memorization.

There's a lot more in the book, but those are the pieces that I remember best and that have had the biggest impact for me. I review flash cards every day, and once every few days, I do a high-focus learning activity. Even though I don't put much effort in, it feels like I am learning as much as I did in university.

A Mind for Numbers is the one I read. It also goes well with her Coursera course Learning How to Learn.

I highly recommend her book too. Combining what I learned from her book with spaced repetition software has boosted my capacity to learn significantly.

I interpreted the CEO's reactions less as scared and more as angry. The guy interned at their company, refused a bunch of offers, then released an open source project that at first glance mimics their own company.

It seemed more like an emotional reflex by the CEO than a calculating ploy to suppress competition. Still doesn't bode well though.