People miss the point of this community

So if we say that interpretation of the information is something that rests upon the shoulders of the individual, then we can say that the community is responsible for what information they are receiving? As I said earlier, if most of these guys never encountered the material that is available within the community, then I don't believe they would end up falling prey to the traps that Meg outlined many men fall into.

Am I the only one that has encountered biased information and been mislead into coming to the wrong conclusions as a result? Was it my fault for reading The Game and coming to the belief that Style is a nice, friendly, stand-up guy, as a result of what he wrote in the book and not bothering to do a bunch of background research and find out that he had placed an incredible amount of bias on his perspectives. Take for instance how he mentions that he often came home to find people he had never met in the house and you get the impression that these are creepy guys that shouldn't be there, but are anyways. If you get the same information from another source like Barry Kirke, you discover that they were friends and students of other guys in the house and that he was the one giving them weird looks and being so anti-social that he wouldn't say "hello" back to them when they greeted him.

Am I the only one that has fallen prey to peer pressure in the course of my life? I under-performed in school as a result of hanging out with guys that had much lower levels of academic skill than me and so I felt guilty for doing well and thus I got into a bad habit of not studying or doing homework and skipping classes with them, yet I still felt bad when I got better marks than them.

Put this into the context of the community and your result is guys that don't spend nearly as many hours as we here do (c'mon we're just a little more active than your regular members of the community) and so they don't have the same broad perspectives that we do, because they haven't encountered as many concepts and material as we have. Perhaps they have only read The Game and are under the belief that Style and Mystery are the most amazing men with women on the planet and that by being like them, they will achieve true happiness because of how Style makes himself sound so enlightened and happy by the end of the book. They see tons of other guys within the community with this same belief and ones that have been around much longer than them that are dedicated to the M3 model and canned lines and routines and talk about how great they are with women and rave about sleeping with so many. This is completely congruent with what they came into the community believing from reading just that one book and then they see the evidence of it being true in many places and a much smaller ratio of people like us, who consider ourselves to be to "enlightened" ones and to know the "true" path to happiness and they base their beliefs on the sheer number of people that are of the opposite opinion, which is statistically intelligent if you think about it. Those other guys say they're happy, so why NOT believe them?

Seems like the community is set up in such a fashion as to overwhelmingly direct new members towards that mentality and once they're there, they only increase the number on that side of the fence, so that future new members coming in, see the same thing. Yet here we are patting ourselves on the back and looking at them scornfully saying that they are wrong and we are right and this is a matter of us being smarter than them and being able to make the intelligent decisions based upon our beliefs....or perhaps we just don't like to go with the flow and if the tables were reversed, we'd be on the other side of the fence....

How bout we leave it at this, you guys wont ever seen it the same way the other group does and we wont ever see it the way you do, so lets cut out the mental masterbation and spend our time elsewhere.

Yes Rye, it is completely mine and your fault that these guys entering the community turn out to be womanizers, scum, players, and the like, because we are giving out the information that they are using to play with women. You're right.

I believe I'm going with Ka's suggestion here. A healthy debate is a good thing, but none of us are going anywhere here.

Eventually this thread wouldve have turned into BITCHASSNESS! so ill leave it open for another day and then close it.

L.A. Tripp wrote:

Yes Rye, it is completely mine and your fault that these guys entering the community turn out to be womanizers, scum, players, and the like, because we are giving out the information that they are using to play with women. You're right.

I believe I'm going with Ka's suggestion here. A healthy debate is a good thing, but none of us are going anywhere here.

Woah, woah! Jump to a hasty conclusion why don't you? Did I ever say that it was OUR fault? No. So don't put words in my mouth, k bud?

I personally feel that everyone here on this board is actually great for having amazingly healthy and community enriching perspectives that make the community better, not worse. You brought up the topic of what people feel about the community as a whole though (although on this board I honestly hardly see the point based upon what I said the previous sentence).

I addressed what you brought up, the fact that people view the community as causing negative things in people, which I feel it does in many ways, but I also feel that there is a lot of good in the community, otherwise I wouldn't be here, I would just ditch it and walk away. I still feel like we're outnumbered by the bad element and that's why I thought this was a good topic. If we just act like the community is alright and nothing needs to be done to make it better, then it may never get better, it may just remain where it is, or at least take a really long as time to drastically improve to being primarily good people that aren't social robots and that have the best of intentions.

Instead of saying that there's nothing wrong with the community and that's it's just fine the way it is, I've personally been actively trying to make it better however I can. I've pledged to run workshops at reduced rates, never exceeding $1500, even if I somehow managed to become as well known as Mystery, who charges twice that. I constantly encourage men to uphold what I view as healthy values, such as the guy I just commended and encouraged and gave advice on how to have a meaningful relationship with a girl that he really likes, which most guys will probably tell him is one-itis because he forgets himself around her and loses all his confidence suaveness. I'm also planning on writing an article very soon about something I've been working on, regarding the myth of AA, because if I could achieve one thing from being part of the community, it would be to rid it of the emphasis on that dissempowering belief.

If wouldn't do these things if I didn't think good would come of it, I merely give my argument to point out to you that we must remain ever vigilant in order to increase what we consider to be the good and true morals and values.

Sure I may have thrown in some food for thought in the hopes that it might generate some deep reflection and conversation, because that's just what I do. That's how I talk with my friends that are capable of holding an intelligent conversation and questioning life and themselves. I figured you guys were keen on that sort of thing, as it often produces epiphanies and new perspectives that can improve your knowledge of self. I thought you were worthy of such a deep and involved debate without acting like personal attacks were being made because you had to reflect on things with serious thought. I thought we were all grownups and wouldn't resort to throwing our hands up in the air and stomping off because things got less than black and white. Perhaps I was wrong, or perhaps you need to re-examine things and realise there was no malicious intent on behalf of either Hobbit or myself, we were merely engaging in an engrossing discussion of mind expansion and perhaps at some point you'll be capable of joining in without taking it so personally and instead enjoy the philosophical and psychological nuances of it.

Now Rye, hold up. I wasn't being an ass with my previous post. To me it seems that the personal accountability issue is being skipped, and that's where myself and a couple of others are concerned.

I personally see nothing wrong with debate and with intellectual conversation . . . if it's going somewhere. But on this thread all we are doing is as a couple of people have pointed out on this thread, going nowhere.

The personal accountability issue is being skipped over, which is what my point was in the original post. In my view, it's not the community itself that screws anyone's life up, because it's each of our personal choice as far as what we do with our life. Period. Sure the community puts out material that can teach guys how to be social robots and all this stuff, but that same material also teaches other guys how to build a meaningful life, so obviously it's not the material itself that leads one guy the wrong way and one guy the right way, but rather how they interpret the material . . . hence the personal accountability. Which is what my point has been all along.

L.A. Tripp wrote:

Now Rye, hold up. I wasn't being an ass with my previous post. To me it seems that the personal accountability issue is being skipped, and that's where myself and a couple of others are concerned.

I personally see nothing wrong with debate and with intellectual conversation . . . if it's going somewhere. But on this thread all we are doing is as a couple of people have pointed out on this thread, going nowhere.

The personal accountability issue is being skipped over, which is what my point was in the original post. In my view, it's not the community itself that screws anyone's life up, because it's each of our personal choice as far as what we do with our life. Period. Sure the community puts out material that can teach guys how to be social robots and all this stuff, but that same material also teaches other guys how to build a meaningful life, so obviously it's not the material itself that leads one guy the wrong way and one guy the right way, but rather how they interpret the material . . . hence the personal accountability. Which is what my point has been all along.

I think the only reason this discussion may not go anywhere, is because of the focus on personal accountability. I'm not saying there is no need for emphasis on said accountability, merely that there's really not a whole lot to be done about it, as that is a personal responsiblity and choice and aside from telling people to be critical in their thinking, there isn't much more we can do; we can't force people to examine what they are reading and not believe everything they read, that's just not within our realm of influence. I think that's actually part of the point you're trying to make if I'm not mistaken and exactly why you guys seem so frustrated with the argument, correct?

My side of the argument though, is that we DO have the ability to affect this issue by putting forth more material that goes against that mindset and that causes people to see a wider perspective merely by reading it. We have the ability to post stuff that doesn't conform to the social robot way of thinking and encourages people to think more diversely. They may not think about that information critically and take a personal responsibility to compare it to other perspectives and ways of thinking, so again that is their personal accountability falling short and something we have no influence over. Yet by putting forth more open-minded material and stuff that doesn't emphasize happiness through sex, we have the ability to do a bypass of many of those issues previously discussed as being common within the community. This IS within our zone of influence and thus it isn't a waste of time to discuss, because we can talk about in what ways we can be more effective in promoting the health and integrity of the community and make action plans to achieve those goals.

See where I'm coming from? You made this thread with the initial intent of just saying, "Look, the community isn't at fault, it's your responsibility to think about shit." But that doesn't change anything, that just hopefully tells people to think about things and hopefully they listen. That message doesn't reach everyone and thus doesn't have a dramatic and wide ranged effect upon the community, it merely affects the people that read it. What I'm talking about is the problems that exist within the community and waging a battle against them that we can actually constantly do through being vigilant in everything we say and do with people. We can have a measurable impact and effect upon the community through these steps and this is within our control, whereas saying that the responsibility rests upon everyone else and there's nothing you can do about it.

Personally I'd prefer to have some level of control and responsibility over things. I'd rather have the ability to make changes and improve the state of things from where they are right now.

I've discussed this with Sean Messenger and we realised we have a common goal is this and so I'm attending his workshop in a week and a half in the hopes of us being able to work together to further the concepts of happiness through personal responsiblity, growth and development. In turn that will improve the vibe within the community and perhaps cause more people to take that responsibility of personal accountibility more seriously because of the new mentality.

Currently I don't believe the prevailent mentality promotes such thinking; I feel that it promotes listening to the well known guys that "know what they're talking about" and people just take it as gospel. By changing the focus of the community, not only do we remove the focus on fucking as many girls as you can to achieve happiness, not developing loving relationships, becoming more of a jerk in order to get the girls and all those other detestable things that Meg mentioned, well first off no longer will people have any reason to blame the community for anything, because it's all good! There isn't that focus on things that outsiders and even many of us may perceive as negative consequences of being involved in pickup.

Secondly, part of what that mentality promotes is the focus on being responsible for your own happiness and that it comes from within you, not as a result of accomplishing goals with women, but just by being content with yourself. I'll tell you right now, I haven't had sex in months because I'm so focused on other aspects of my life right now and I honestly don't give a shit! To be perfectly honest, I'm incredibly happy with the way things in my life are going right now and although I would be even happier as a result of being in a relationship with a deep connection, I know that having that and not being happy with the rest of my life would be worse than being happy with the rest of my life and not having it. Heck, if the next girl I get into a relationship with doesn't want to have sex for a few weeks, I could care less, as long as we're still in a healthy relationship that is intimate emotionally. Sex isn't relevant to happiness, it is merely an expression of that connection and I don't derive that feeling of connection through sex. Having this mentality allows me to consciously process all the information I come into contact with and evaluate whether it is congruent with my values and beliefs, or whether it will cause my values and beliefs to become better or worse as a result of integrating it. If it doesn't benifit me, then I don't integrate it, but I still remember it.

By making a push towards this mentality and promoting that sort of thinking with the right kind of material, it has a cascading affect and people become more apt to think critically and accept their personal accountability. The negative aspects of the community become greatly reduced and they become the minority rather than the majority. Then the whole argument becomes irrelevant as a result. It would be like arguing that living in New York causes you to join a gang, just because a small fraction of the population there participates in gangs and that is a complete fallacy of biased statistics and hasty generalizations, so it is easily dismantled. As it stands, look how long we have been discussing the argument because of the state of the community; who's responsiblity is it; what causes it; where does the blame rest; what can be done to fix it? All gone and easily dismissed within the length of one sentence, "That is a minority of the population and within any population, there will always be an undesireable element - even within a small town of a couple hundred people there are a few people that aren't viewed in a positive light - this is merely a result of statistical probability and human nature." Bam. Who's gonna fuck with that argument? I wouldn't.

So sure, we can just wash our hands of it and say, "Oh well, not my fault, not my problem. We can't do anything to fix it, because it's their responsibility!" Or we can take responsiblity for what we DO have the ability to affect - which I'd argue you already do without realising how it fits into this argument - and say, "Yes the community may be currently situated to have a negative impact upon individuals within it, but we can change that! We can make it better, stronger, faster!"

I choose to see the community for it's flaws and take the responsiblity to do everything I can to change that, not just say that it's every individual's own responsibility and nothing to do with the community itself, because saying that leaves me powerless to do anything to change it and I always choose to feel empowered versus powerless in any situation. I'm sure you do too and that you probably agree with most of what I've said, it's just a matter of admitting we're not talking about two different things here, we're talking about things that can be causally related.

OMG. Three pages and one post of 10 paragraphs for a breakthrough, LMAO.

BTW, was I suppposed to read ALL of that? LOL.

It took this long for me to see you admit that we each do have personal accountability. Rye, you know that I have been promoting slightly different things than the community in general. Such as I talk about the fact that women DO have value, that guys SHOULDN'T play with women and use them, and things like that. This is what you are talking about doing yourself. Well, one aspect of it. That's a good thing. However, the fact remains that no matter how saturated we are able to get THAT thought process out there, even THAT still remains at the mercy of the receiver and how they use that information, i.e. interpret it. Which, again, is the personal accountability issue.

I still agree with Ka that we are actually talking about two different things here. I started the thread talking about each person's personal accountability. No matter what material we put out there, it's still ultimately up to the user to do with it what they will. I'm not saying we shouldn't put out better material, but that we can't, as YOU said, force them to do with it what WE want them to do with it. Which is their personal accountability.

Tripp you keep arguing nature without any nurture. Can't we admit its a mixture of both? A kid who grows up in a racist family will most likely have racist beliefs, regardless if he wanted those beliefs. The same is true for a low self esteem person who is used to supplicating and conforming to survive. The example and information provided by those at the top influences those at the bottom. If Ross Jeffries was in Style's or Mystery's spot on Thundercats list, the community would change drastically.

An amazing example of this is PUAF. With the change of administration and the man hailed as #3 started contributing, the rise up against M3 has started. Many of the newbies now have an alternative and are being socialized a different way. Maybe it's good, maybe it's bad. But the fact remains those with any power in the community directly influence the direction those under them go. It is quite evident in the posts by newbies.

Thought this was interesting. Johnny Soprono recently joined PUAF. AFC Adam also gave him reputation points for this.

Quote :

For the last couple of years, I've been actively campaigning against the glorification of the term "".

Ironic, I know, considering I made Thundercat's Top Ten list this year... BUT I NEVER ACCEPTED THAT TERM, nor do any of the guys in The Community I respect.

PICK UP ARTISTS are the CON ARTISTS of the 'Sexual Predator' arena.

Throughout history, when someone was ACCUSED of being a 'Pick Up Artist' he'd back-peddle and deny it.

"I wasn't playing games with her or trying to have sex with her without offering to make an 'honest woman' out of her...."

But society has always insisted that a woman is ONLY supposed to offer her sex to a man in exchange for his providing her with SECURITY - ideally by marrying her, and committing to support her for life.

A woman could also barter her sex for lesser rewards, but only handfull of times, without appearing 'too easy' or 'a slut'.

So a Pick Up Artist essentially CONS a woman into considering him as someone who is offering her security - but he is actually just trying to get into her pants, without a care for her feeling used and abused - leaving her to publicly decry the Pick Up Artist for being the scoundrel he was, in an effort to save-face for having been duped.

People who THINK OF THEMSELVES AS "PICK UP ARTISTS" are creepy.

Don't be creepy.

Don't get me wrong - I'm not criticizing learning "Pick Up" skills -
I believe that most men were raised to be timid of, and anti-social with, women. This is a shitty situation on all sides.

Guys NEED to learn that women are not 'The Enemy' - and that IT'S OKAY to meet them and learn about them and let them learn about you, without guilt or compunction.

What I'm concerned with are men who believe that they want to BECOME A "PICK UP ARTIST".

When being a 'PUA' becomes their goal, they stop being cool and they become creepy.

Instead of becoming socially calibrated, and comfortable enough in themselves simply to introduce themselves to women - they begin to treat the affection of women as a vehicle for proving themselves TO OTHER MEN and they stop viewing women as PEOPLE, and instead view them as TROPHIES.

Men who look at women as 'HB8.5' or "UG5" are beneath us.

They are CREEPY, because they are not trying to enjoy the company of people who attract them, looking to share themselves with the objects of their desire; they are looking to impress other men with their ability to dupe externally-appraised trophies into 'putting out'.

Please check THIS POST: '' if this is at all unclear!

Johnny Soporno
Worthy Playboy

We must continue to discuss because it cultivates deep thoughts, as mentioned by Rye Lee. Also, I am an advocate of conversing, disagreeing and finding common ground. Such is the case, now. I concur with Rye and Hobbit, without abdicating my original stance, of personal choice being a greater percentage over influences. Group influence is strong, and in many ways can garner the us vs. them mentality in many respects, in regards to many difffering schools of thought on various matters. For seasoned venusian artists, and newbies alike, we can't turn off the level of influence, but maybe we can turn down the dial on the volume of influence. Meaning, that we can't deny that the material will continue to influence some positively, and some negatively.

It is of grave concern to me, that there are many guys who enter the community falling victim to the hype. There are many teachings in the community, that can lead a guy astray and have that individual down a path up a creek without a paddle. The numbers game aspect, the hb ranking system, and the aforementioned " one-itis dilemma" are subjects that arise in the community, that carries a vast amount answers, that in some cases, are standard insider responses. In most cases, when dealing with a one-itis inquiry, I offer the solution of focusing on some different girls. This is one of my standard responses, but I also give the fact-based reasoning, that life is to short. We honestly have no days off.

It is of consequence that we insiders, learn to answer on case by case basis when answering any questions, or offering our viewpoints. As leaders, gentlemen/young ladies, comrades on the field of social dynamics. Our strategies on some instances should be questioned, but our personal choice is inevitably where we all end up. peace,lvoe and succe SS

Hobbit, I'm not denying and have not denied that the community has an influence and that those at the top have an influence. That hasn't been the issue.

Look, how many times has J said to some guy "the woman is accountable for her own actions"? BINGO. Guess what . . . so ARE WE, GUYS!

Once again, each and every individual receives the same information. You can argue till your blue in the face that it's the fault of the community or of the leaders because they have influence over the masses, but the fact remains that EACH AND EVERY individual makes his or her OWN CHOICE as to what they do with that information and influence. Some choose to follow it lock, stock, and barrel while others choose not to follow a single shred of it. Why? Because it's OUR OWN CHOICE.

That is the most frustrating and stickiest part of this subject. Because in this country, no one wants to hold themselves personally accountable for anything anymore. It's always "they made me do it."

Back to the point of the original post. The community does not have the power to destroy a single person's life. The community holds influence, but it simply does not have the power to make you say a certain thing each time you talk to a girl. It is impossible for the community to dictate word for word and action for action what you do with your own mind and body. Therefore, the community does not and can not destroy a person's life. The person does that all on their own.

L.A. Tripp wrote:

OMG. Three pages and one post of 10 paragraphs for a breakthrough, LMAO.

BTW, was I suppposed to read ALL of that? LOL.

It took this long for me to see you admit that we each do have personal accountability. Rye, you know that I have been promoting slightly different things than the community in general. Such as I talk about the fact that women DO have value, that guys SHOULDN'T play with women and use them, and things like that. This is what you are talking about doing yourself. Well, one aspect of it. That's a good thing. However, the fact remains that no matter how saturated we are able to get THAT thought process out there, even THAT still remains at the mercy of the receiver and how they use that information, i.e. interpret it. Which, again, is the personal accountability issue.

I still agree with Ka that we are actually talking about two different things here. I started the thread talking about each person's personal accountability. No matter what material we put out there, it's still ultimately up to the user to do with it what they will. I'm not saying we shouldn't put out better material, but that we can't, as YOU said, force them to do with it what WE want them to do with it. Which is their personal accountability.

First off Tripp, I know this is just the way that you talk, but I feel that the way you've phrased that first paragraph is very loaded and possibly misleading. I'm taking the personal choice to assume you didn't mean to say that you're the one that started promoting those things and I'm the one following you, because I'm not going to get into a "chicken or the egg" discussion of who took the stance first and I don't believe that was your intention either; I'd merely caution you to be more attentive to how you phrase things in the future, so as to avoid those sorts of misscommunications. Also, you make it sound like I've finally come round to your side of things and had a realisation that people have free-will, which is completely faulty, as I've mentioned the validity of free-choice many times in this thread, I merely placed my emphasis on my point that the content of the community has an effect on people's mentality regardless of that personal accountablity, or not.

Secondly, you keep saying that we're discussing two different things and that you made this thread with a different intention, but unfortunately that's not how intellectual property works and you should know that as a writer and from being a major member of the forums for so long. Once you put a concept out there, people interpret it and they are free to discuss it based upon how they interpret it, because you can't tell them that you only meant to deal with one specific point when there are other connecting points that you didn't take into consideration initially. That's like trying to tell people to ignore a relevant point of an argument simply because you don't agree that it is relevant, which would mean that you have the ability to orchestrate it to your whim. That's telling people what to think and there are words for that, such as dictatorship, so unless you are trying to control how people think, I humbly suggest that you discuss the validity of the arguments, rather than whether you wanted to include them in the scope of the conversation or not.

Now that I've got that out of the way (and understand I mean nothing by it, I'm merely trying to improve the productivity of the discussion, from the point of someone currently studying argumentation in great detail in school), I think Hobbit put it best when he said that the argument comes down to Nature vs. Nurture. Nature in this case being each person's personal accountability towards thinking critically of the concepts they encounter. Nurture being the content of the community and what content precisely each individual encounters. This is a debate the greatest minds in the world cannot come to an agreement upon, aside from the fact that there is irrefutably an impact from both effects; the disagreement is merely upon how much. Again, I'm studying this right now in my Lifespan Development course, which deals with how human beings develop from conception to death, largely based upon our assimilation of knowledge. I won't even be so presumptuous as to place a ratio on the effect that Nature or Nurture impact people in this instance, or any instance, but they do both have a profound impact and it is largely in how the person is taught to interpret events, as well as what events they encounter in life, combined with a genetic/mental pre-disposition towards certain ways of thinking.

Lets re-visit the example of the racist family, shall we? Little Jimmy grows up living in Texas back in the 30's and his family is part of the KKK (yeah, lets not fuck around; we're gonna go extreme). He is raised by his parents to believe that hating non-whites is the correct thing to do, because non-whites are all sorts of evil and should be lynched, or at the very least treated like slaves. He grows up thinking this is the way the world works, he accepts it because this is all he has ever known and he has no references to indicate to him that this is wrong. He joins the KKK, him and his family enjoy many a racist event until I throw in a happy ending and their house has a gas leak and explodes with everyone inside. Hurrah!

Now let's check out his next door neighbour, Bobby. Bobby's family is just as racist as Jimmy's family in every way. They attend the same KKK groups, they are equally hateful and lets for the sake of absurd argument say that there is absolutely nothing different between the families in any way shape or form, down to the fact that Bobby and Jimmy are born on the same day at the same hospital, at the same time, delivered by the same doctor (temporal distortions?! this is a hell of an argument! ) and christened by the same racist mother fucker of a so-called priest. However....Bobby doesn't turn out racist. Something happens and he decides this may not be right to treat other people like this and he "mistakenly" views black people as people. What happened? Personal choice right?

But lets now take a broader look at the rest of the members of the aforementioned KKK group and see how all their kids turned out. Out of the 100 different families that participate in this particular group, with somehow every single family having kids, only a very small minority of those kids ended up with views opposing the rest of their family. Among those kids, it ranges from ones that don't want to actively participate, but do nothing to stop their families or others from being racists, to rather outspoken individuals that try to persuade others that their beliefs are wrong, to little Bobby that likes to blow up racist's houses in the name of truth and justice everywhere.

Who's to blame? The kids? The parents? The KKK?

Well the kids were taught by their parents and everyone says to respect and listen to your parents, so should we blame them for not analysing the situation better? I mean they were kinda raised from birth to hold those beliefs, so at what point should they have stopped and taken a look around and realised something isn't right? It only gets harder to do so as you get older.

Let's blame the parents then! Oh wait...they were probably raised by their parents to be that way, just like their kids have been....hmmm....They're even older, so like I said, that's even harder to break that pattern, as it's been ingrained longer and they don't have anyone older than them telling them it's wrong, so they kinda set the precidents.

Alright! We'll blame the KKK! That's easy right? But wait....isn't the organization merely a congregation of people with similar beliefs, which means we would in turn be blaming the people listed above?

Who the FUCK do we blame then? Like I said, there IS no clear cut answer. You can't lump it on the people and you can't lump it on the organization, you merely have to realise that they both play a part and that they are intertwined.

In order to fix the issue, you can't just attack it from one side, it doesn't work like that when something is intertwined. You can't stop racists by telling them to stop being racist and you can't just outlaw the KKK and expect it to stop them from being racist either. You have to educate and promote equality and acceptance, as well as taking an active part in eliminating those organizations, or it won't go away. Unfortunately there is freedom of speech even in racism and so it won't go away, but the hope to stop the acting out of crimes.

You can't just tell people to wisen up and think about their actions and beliefs, that shit doesn't work. They won't stop and say, "OH REALLY?! Shit, I didn't REALISE that women are people too! I should have figured that out before, but now because you've told me to think, I managed to come to that conclusion, just as you did!" You know that, else you wouldn't be telling men to view women as equals. You can't tell the community that all material relating to viewing women as objects is hereby banned and nullified, it doesn't work like that and there's a lot to be learned from that material, even if many other lessons may also be problematic.

You show them another way and by showing them that way and teaching them to think for themselves and what kinds of beliefs are valuable to have and you spread those beliefs and information around as much as possible, they take root and spread. It creates an atmosphere where those beliefs are considered standard and thus people are pre-disposed to adopt them, rather than the beliefs that are currently viewed as typical (ie, lots of random sex = happiness), which are what people are currently pre-disposed to accept. People think critically about all this information, as that is one of the beliefs that is promoted and so they are more apt to make better decisions about what is right and wrong.

So what's more powerful here: Nature or Nurture? I still can't tell you, because they're intertwined and it's a "chicken or the egg" argument. There's the theory that perhaps a lizard layed an egg and out hatched a chicken, but conversely there's also the theory that a chicken needed to exist in order to lay the egg. All I know is that people are more pre-disposed to adopt prevalent beliefs over the beliefs that are in the minority, just like that egg is more likely to hatch a chicken if a chicken laid it. That first chicken had to come from somewhere though and whether it hatched from an egg, or evolved from a live something else, it still came into being in order to help propogate the species. Some of us were born into the community with these beliefs already inherant, I know I was and I've never viewed women as anything less than men (Nature). Some of us were born into the community adopting the beliefs that men have the power, women are different and even less-than, but they turned around after thinking about it for a while and reading certain material that turned them around (Nurture). Who cares, let's just make more like us; lay more eggs and hatch more chickens; let's do that evolving thing that the community keeps talking about.

If you'll note, I outright admitted that I personally fall into your school of thought Tripp, so I can't be entirely ignorant of your views and beliefs, as I embody them; you are aguing the egg and I AM the egg. There's still a ton of people out there that are lizards waiting to evolve into chickens though and plenty of unlayed eggs that we can still help hatch as chickens if we set the environment up right for them to be pre-disposed to it.

*Thank god I copied that at the last moment, my internet fucked up and I almost lost it all *

^ crazy

LOL@Meg

Rye Lee wrote:

Secondly, you keep saying that we're discussing two different things and that you made this thread with a different intention, but unfortunately that's not how intellectual property works and you should know that as a writer and from being a major member of the forums for so long. Once you put a concept out there, people interpret it and they are free to discuss it based upon how they interpret it, because you can't tell them that you only meant to deal with one specific point when there are other connecting points that you didn't take into consideration initially. That's like trying to tell people to ignore a relevant point of an argument simply because you don't agree that it is relevant, which would mean that you have the ability to orchestrate it to your whim. That's telling people what to think and there are words for that, such as dictatorship, so unless you are trying to control how people think, I humbly suggest that you discuss the validity of the arguments, rather than whether you wanted to include them in the scope of the conversation or not.

Um . . . yeah . . . that's what I've been saying, lol.

No Rye, I didn't intend to imply or state that I started this movement and you followed me. I didn't directly say that and had no intention of coming across that way so I'm glad you didn't take it that way.

Good to hear you're the egg.

Quote :

There's the theory that perhaps a lizard layed an egg and out hatched a chicken, but conversely there's also the theory that a chicken needed to exist in order to lay the egg. All I know is that people are more pre-disposed to adopt prevalent beliefs over the beliefs that are in the minority, just like that egg is more likely to hatch a chicken if a chicken laid it. That first chicken had to come from somewhere though and whether it hatched from an egg, or evolved from a live something else, it still came into being in order to help propogate the species.

It's pretty well agreed upon in the evolutionary discourse that the egg was around long before the chicken.

Hobbit wrote:

Quote :

There's the theory that perhaps a lizard layed an egg and out hatched a chicken, but conversely there's also the theory that a chicken needed to exist in order to lay the egg. All I know is that people are more pre-disposed to adopt prevalent beliefs over the beliefs that are in the minority, just like that egg is more likely to hatch a chicken if a chicken laid it. That first chicken had to come from somewhere though and whether it hatched from an egg, or evolved from a live something else, it still came into being in order to help propogate the species.

It's pretty well agreed upon in the evolutionary discourse that the egg was around long before the chicken.

Well in-so-far as birds evolved from lizards, which laid eggs, yeah, but you get the analogy, although I admit it is a somewhat imperfect one.