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A shift in American family values is fueling estrangement

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Re: A shift in American family values is fueling estrangement

#601

Post by brightball »

tharkun__ wrote: post #599
bashmelek wrote: post #540

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think I would say "everything happens for a reason" to someone who is suffering, but all the same for me and other people of faith it's a simple reality. But for people who disagree or struggle with the premise, it will offer no solace. They would probably feel like it dismisses and trivializes their suffering, and worse, they might attach other, unintended meanings. History attests to the terrible condition…

Like you said, it can probably console people that believe in that sort of stuff and probably is meant like that but you gotta be careful with it if you ask me. I can easily be damaging. If you think about it, the bible and other books/religions were created in really hard and tough times and the belief that somehow in some way "it was meant to be and there's a reason behind this terrible thing happening" was helping…

That was really my point. In the Bible, you see God directly intervening in certain situations but you don’t see Him actively controlling everything. Moses even argues with Him at one point.

There’s a couple of verses that people have strained to apply that meaning to it, but reading the entire Bible to put things in context you don’t see “everything” happening for a reason. You see some things.

It’s one of the reasons that I try to make this point a lot. I don’t know how many people realize how much that phrase leads non-believers to demonize God by attaching every awful thing that happens to a reason, which then makes those things His doing.

It’s simply not reflected in the text.

Re: A shift in American family values is fueling estrangement

#602

Post by NateEag »

wonderwonder wrote: post #52
dcole2929 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's the thing though. If you hit me with your car, it doesn't matter whether it was an accident or whether you intended to. You still caused me damage and it's still not crazy for me to hold you accountable. I may have more empathy in one case than another but if you refuse to accept responsibility for the harms you caused then yeah that empathy is likely going away. And this is what the author refers to near the…

I don't disagree, it is everyone's job to work on relationships.

Sometimes only one side wants the relationship.

In that case, they're the ones that have to work on it.

Re: A shift in American family values is fueling estrangement

#603

Post by refurb »

rednerrus wrote: post #548
cinntaile wrote: post #498

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is super obvious but I'll say it anyway. We have been living in the good times phase for many decennia now, so it's no surprise that you don't see emotional damage from the bad times phase.

We've had perpetual war for the last 20 years. We've had increasing inequality. The temperature is rising, wages are stagnating, riots in major urban areas are becoming more common. These are not the good times. We have plenty to eat and too much technology but these are not what make the good times.

Perpetual war in a far off land that has pretty much zero impact on people at home.

Inequality sure, but the economy has been on a tear in the US since the 90’s, contrast that with the decade of the Great Depression.

And the riots now are nothing compared to the 60’s riots worldwide.

The last 20-30 years have definitely been easy times for the developed world. Not without challenges (2008 crash) but relatively speaking easy times.

Re: A shift in American family values is fueling estrangement

#604

Post by mensetmanusman »

moate wrote: post #537
mensetmanusman wrote: post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe it is: Humans have moral worth; to remove suffering of humans, make sure they don’t exist to experience suffering.

This is the question inmy mind: an unborn/un conceived child has not experienced any suffering. Is it morally just to expose someone to suffering, even if the alternative is non-existence (or whatever state they are in prior to life)? I did not consent to exist, to think/feel/hurt, but two idiots made that choice for me 37 years ago and now I have to deal with it.

For me it is illuminating to meditate on some underlying assumptions here.

E.g. “I did not consent”

This type of statement assumes you have a will. If one decides that they have a free will to make decisions, it is useful to note that this is a supernatural belief (because the laws of physics have no room for free will in a stochastic universe).

If there is no free will, and nothing matters, not only did you not consent, but the entire chain of events since the creation of the universe also lacked consent.

In this sense, whatever happens, happens.

(Note: I do not believe this :) )

Re: A shift in American family values is fueling estrangement

#605

Post by rednerrus »

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #593
rednerrus wrote: post #407

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most emotional damage that I've seen comes in the good times phase. That's when genx's parents were born. In the good times everyone is free to do as they please and have to find their own meaning, this creates weak men. Weak men create hard times. We're entering the really hard times now. When things really go to shit, you'll find your purpose and have to rely on others. That creates strength and good times, eventua…

Think about most hostile places, in the midst of civil war- do they produce the greatest people? In all times, the great philosophers, engineers, generals, scientists, etc. Were never made up of peoppe that suffered greaters hardship, that starved in the childhood. They were always elites, people with best education or at least middle class. We've run this experiment, there is zero evidence for it.

People born in 1930: Clint Eastwood, Sandra Day O’Connor, Warren Buffett, Sean Connery, George Soros, Ray Charles.

Re: A shift in American family values is fueling estrangement

#606

Post by anjel »

crazygringo wrote: post #309
ClumsyPilot wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Lots of people are massively fucked up and still have kids anyway, either accidentally or otherwise. And then their kids are put at a massive disadvantage in life and in human relationships." This is an interesting one, and in direct contradiction to the adage: "Hard times create strong men, strong men create good times, good times create weak men, and weak men create hard times.” My life experience agrees, tough…

I mean, that adage about hard times, while entertaining, has zero truth to it. It's not something supported by history. It just sounds cool to say is all.

A child born to a parent with Borderline Personality Disorder will likely pay a hefty price for their parent's Diagnosis, good times or bad.

Re: A shift in American family values is fueling estrangement

#607

Post by mensetmanusman »

bckr wrote: post #456
mensetmanusman wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It also might be a reversion to the mean. E.g. One reason ancient Christianity was such a big deal according to historians (and resulted in billions of followers, etc.) was their profoundly different family structure when compared to what was happening in the roman culture and throughout the world. They brought Jewish traditional family structure to the ‘gentiles’ (read: everyone else who wasn’t omitted by blood line…

I like this perspective. There are so many folds to it, though. First fold: Christendom and its 2,000-year-old siblings/cousins Islam (also Confucianism? Buddhism?) have been around long enough to form a sort of base social reality. Second fold: These 2,000-year-old cultural regimes are crumbling and we are moving into new cultural regimes. Third fold: The crumbling is actually, as you said, a reversion to the mean.…

I would add that the ‘crumbling’ is a matter of perspective.

Every (expired) empire on earth has been a blip on the radar of the oldest continuous organization in recorded history (the Roman Catholic Church).

Most demographers are actually predicting a precipitous drop in the population of ‘non-believers’ since secularists choose to have so few children. It might be an evolutionary dead end, so to say.

Re: A shift in American family values is fueling estrangement

#608

Post by KMag »

Tade0 wrote: post #158
nsxwolf wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A few years back there was a movement on Facebook with groups called "Survivors of Narcissistic Parents" and similar that encouraged people to cut off their parents. It seemed wildly popular and had tons of engagement. People would diagnose their parents with Narcissistic Personality Disorder, discuss how every problem in their lives could be traced to their parents, and that was that. I've also saw more than one per…

> after being sucked in to the anticircumcision movement Did it take a lot of sucking into considering that they've been subjected to genital mutilation?

Circumcision can be delayed until a man can consent, but it's much more traumatic if done after infancy.

I'm one of those people that people just feel comfortable opening up to.

In college, one friend told me his dad was asking him if he resented his father's decision to circumcise him. His father had to get a medical circumcision due to recurring infection due to difficult sanitary conditions in mandatory military service in his country of origin (where circumcision is uncommon). The father's experience was terrible, decided his son should never go through that, and circumcised his son. Years later, he was second-guessing the decision. My friend wasn't sure how to respond to his father, since it was clearly weighing heavily on his father, but it was totally a non-issue for the circumcised son.

Another friend told me that he was circumcised at 12 due to recurring infections (in a first-world G10 country), and is a big advocate for infant male circumcision.

Anyway, there are statistically significant benefits from male circumcision, though they are often over stated. On the other hand, the downsides to circumcision are also minor for most men. For the average male in a G10 nation, circumcision seems to be low-risk low-reward procedure, though with large fat-tail distribution on both the risks and rewards.

Re: A shift in American family values is fueling estrangement

#609

Post by [deleted] »

the_only_law wrote: post #598
ta2158 wrote: post #597

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact that you're flagging this means you know it's the truth but you just have to flag to keep the narrative. That the Pulse nightclub shooter was gay, was on gay dating apps, etc. and decided to shoot up the club because he was closeted (this was wildly paraded on the news) and self-hating. The FBI investigation months later found out that all of those claims were unsubstantiated, and that the real motivation wa…

Would you mind sharing the exploit you have that allows you to determine GP flagged your minute old comment? I’m sure the technical details would be fascinating.

[deleted]

Re: A shift in American family values is fueling estrangement

#610

Post by sudosysgen »

pkghost wrote: post #382
bseidensticker wrote: post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think "toxic" means "irredeemably harmful". It just means harmful and makes no judgement on intent.

It's more than harmful—prior to the latest common usage, toxic usually meant potentially lethal for sufficient dosage. So, while it is indeed free of connotations of intent, it evokes disgust and, in fact, invites ostracism. If something is so dangerous that it can kill you, there's rarely much wisdom in attempting to talk it out of being lethal. Better to just remove it from your environment. In any case, I agree th…

Everything is potentially lethal given a sufficient dosage.

So really I think "toxic" is appropriate.

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