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Feeling like a pariah, even when you’re not

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Re: Feeling like a pariah, even when you’re not

#61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you find people with similar mindset in that 'zoo' ?

Yes. I would say that the population was made up of people who wanted to do politics, the ones that wanted to do research without interfering with anyone, and the ones who left for industry because they wanted to at least be well paid and not look at each euro back and forth. I would say that the second population was good to brilliant, but somehow unfit for the real world (that was theoretical physics, mostly). The…

Oh happy to see that France is involved in the latest dirty politics tech :)

ce.qui-ne-te-tues-pas-te-rends-plus.fr

Re: Feeling like a pariah, even when you’re not

#62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. I would say that the population was made up of people who wanted to do politics, the ones that wanted to do research without interfering with anyone, and the ones who left for industry because they wanted to at least be well paid and not look at each euro back and forth. I would say that the second population was good to brilliant, but somehow unfit for the real world (that was theoretical physics, mostly). The…

Oh happy to see that France is involved in the latest dirty politics tech :) ce.qui-ne-te-tues-pas-te-rends-plus.fr

I am afraid I do not understand your comment

Re: Feeling like a pariah, even when you’re not

#63
post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Damn, have you considered social experience could be the reason someone ended like that? It's a feedback loop and the less in control you are, the less in control you are. Until you hit rock bottom. Which might not happen, and where you might bounce off, or not.

I'm in the long slow process of rebuilding parts of my life that were stunted in childhood, and learning how to feel and show honest emotions instead of fearing that I'll be rejected just for showing myself. It is hard, and runs over into all the usual self-help, but the one thing that has pointed me in the right direction is when I realized that I choose how, and what, I show to the rest of the world, and if I want…

"You're always in control" means "others will always hold you responsible, no matter whether you're in control or not". This model is called "virtue ethics" and I consider it disconnected from reality.

If you don't know you're in control, you're not in control. It's as simple as that. In my ideal world, one who has lost their self-control or self-awareness would be helped by one's community to regain them. In reality, when normal people see your self-control faltering, they will either try to protect themselves from you or to take advantage of you. Maybe not murder you outright, but definitely get rid of your presence, which is only going to amplify the disconnect.

That is a positive feedback loop, in the pure physical sense: the more alienated you are, the more alienated you become. It's like pointing a microphone at a loudspeaker.

Any system, including your emotional well-being, generally needs a negative feedback loop: when you get too much of something, you start getting less of it, and when you get too little of something, you start getting more of it.

This is complicated by ideological hijack of the signifiers "positive" and "negative". When they say "positive", they mean "thanks for accepting our groupthink as self-evident, you will be favored". When they say "negative" they mean "you have no right to be critical, you will be disregarded". I consider this use of language untruthful and abusive.

> I choose how, and what, I show to the rest of the world, and if I want a positive feedback loop, it starts with me.

I can't even tell if this is supposed to be 1 or 2 insights, but I can tell you're right about running into the usual self-help territory. To me such sentences are quite intentionally devoid of meaning (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thought-terminating_clich%C3%A...), and following them to their logical conclusion would take one right back where one started, which is the ultimatum we're all born to: embrace the nonsense or perish.

Re: Feeling like a pariah, even when you’re not

#64
post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Damn, have you considered social experience could be the reason someone ended like that? It's a feedback loop and the less in control you are, the less in control you are. Until you hit rock bottom. Which might not happen, and where you might bounce off, or not.

Absolutely, I'm no stranger to having a string of bad social experiences leading to becoming (more) unpleasant and then receiving unpleasant feedback. I didn't mean to suggest it would be easy, and if you know a better way to start trying to turn things around I'd like to hear it.

No, sadly mine is the case of "bouncing off rock bottom".

But I believe that our society claims the responsibility of helping its most vulnerable members to their feet? If that's the case I'm pretty sure someone would come up with a better way to do that than "a miracle", if we'd just all put our minds to the question of how to help people regain self-control, rather than leaving them to figure it out all on their own.

The first step would be coming to terms with just how much we all rely on each other's helplessness.

Re: Feeling like a pariah, even when you’re not

#65
post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why it is so important to have the courage to get up and leave. If one has been successfully sidelined then, yes, they will become an actual pariah because they feel like they have to explain everything that they do and will continue to do so because they feel like no one is acknowledging them. This is part of the gaslighters trap. It should not be a surprise that there are some who might feel threatened by p…

As the academic job market gets more and more competitive, in group vs. out group dynamics get stronger and stronger and stronger. And yet so many of my classmates from graduate school (mathematics) prefer to live through "visiting assistant professor" hell than make the transition into technology, where they would do very well! I never really thought of it as a matter of courage, but maybe it is.

Do very well in what sense? Money?

Re: Feeling like a pariah, even when you’re not

#66
post #46

I listened to an interesting Joe Rogan episode with David Sinclair, a doctor studying aging. At one point, he published a paper and someone from one of the drug companies wrote a scathing rebuttal, which caused him countless problems. Because his research was called into question, he couldn't get funding, and his lab shrunk from maybe people to only a few. So he had to do a lot of extra work to re-prove all his asser…

It is not lost if then that person's truth emerges. In any political system, one may have to burn themself to make any change.

Re: Feeling like a pariah, even when you’re not

#67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh happy to see that France is involved in the latest dirty politics tech :) ce.qui-ne-te-tues-pas-te-rends-plus.fr

I am afraid I do not understand your comment

Ah, nevermind, my joke bombed

Re: Feeling like a pariah, even when you’re not

#68
post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As the academic job market gets more and more competitive, in group vs. out group dynamics get stronger and stronger and stronger. And yet so many of my classmates from graduate school (mathematics) prefer to live through "visiting assistant professor" hell than make the transition into technology, where they would do very well! I never really thought of it as a matter of courage, but maybe it is.

Do very well in what sense? Money?

Money, mental health.

Re: Feeling like a pariah, even when you’re not

#69
post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm in the long slow process of rebuilding parts of my life that were stunted in childhood, and learning how to feel and show honest emotions instead of fearing that I'll be rejected just for showing myself. It is hard, and runs over into all the usual self-help, but the one thing that has pointed me in the right direction is when I realized that I choose how, and what, I show to the rest of the world, and if I want…

"You're always in control" means "others will always hold you responsible, no matter whether you're in control or not". This model is called "virtue ethics" and I consider it disconnected from reality. If you don't know you're in control, you're not in control. It's as simple as that. In my ideal world, one who has lost their self-control or self-awareness would be helped by one's community to regain them. In reality…

I agree that the problem you've outlined here is a serious one, and I consider it a societal failure. It may be valuable to critique society from time to time, but when I spend too much time doing it only makes me miserable company for myself and anyone else who happens to be around.

The self-help thing seeming to blame the victim is real, but I think it is possible to skirt that problem by setting aside blame and switching to something like: Something very bad is happening here, and I need to see what levers are available to me. I have much more power to change myself than to change society.

Re: Feeling like a pariah, even when you’re not

#70
post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm in the long slow process of rebuilding parts of my life that were stunted in childhood, and learning how to feel and show honest emotions instead of fearing that I'll be rejected just for showing myself. It is hard, and runs over into all the usual self-help, but the one thing that has pointed me in the right direction is when I realized that I choose how, and what, I show to the rest of the world, and if I want…

"You're always in control" means "others will always hold you responsible, no matter whether you're in control or not". This model is called "virtue ethics" and I consider it disconnected from reality. If you don't know you're in control, you're not in control. It's as simple as that. In my ideal world, one who has lost their self-control or self-awareness would be helped by one's community to regain them. In reality…

What I was trying to convey is more "Regardless of what's going on outside you, you can choose how to respond. And as of recently, I'm choosing more positive reactions, instead of cynical and self-defeating."

stoicism, as opposed to raw control issues.

I'm trying to break that feedback loop, and be a source of more positivity, knowing that there's a sea of chaos out there.

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