'Nowhere is our butler status more evident than in matters of reproduction. The lady now owns her reproductive self determination, as well I believe she should. Unfortunately, no boundary exists between her choice of self determination in this matter and that of the Western male. His obligation to the lady is still intact even as her traditional restrictions have been lifted. As a result, her choice is more than his responsibility, it is his life, with no moral boundary separating his life from her choice. The Western butler is expected to shoulder the weight of her self determination by chivalrously casting aside his own, and the only cost is his humanity. -- In the same way, the Western butler is responsible when the lady breaks her part of the marriage contract and finds herself mothering another man’s child. Her status as a lady worth sacrificing for is secure in spite of her infidelity. The Western butler remains obligated to her benefit, and thus works to protect her from the inconveniences of her choice. He is not allowed to consider himself, since no boundary exists to separate his responsibility even from her degenerate choice. -- Furthermore, the Western butler is obligated to the safety of the lady. Yet the lady increasingly recognizes no limits on her own behavior. Thus, the Western butler must take responsibility for the lady who increasingly refuses to accept any responsibility for herself. The lady’s poor decisions where her safety is concerned must never be questioned. Doing so results in international slut walk movements to remind the butler of his place. Thus, the Western butler’s obligation to the lady’s safety, even as she continues to behave as she likes, ensures she will not be inconvenienced by any of her own choices, since he is responsible for those choices. She can behave in any manner she chooses, and he will sacrifice and come to her defense, whatever the circumstances, without questioning her. The butler’s own safety, of course, is not a priority. -- In matters of sex, the Western butler is also responsible for the lady’s choices. She may desire sex, but if she has been drinking, it is his responsibility to decline. He is thus expected to protect the lady from herself. Her choice to consume alcohol is his responsibility, no boundary exists to separate these concepts. She may choose to consume alcohol or drugs in any quantity. Perhaps she wants to enjoy sex while drunk or high, but he must protect her anyway. Such is the way of the butler. His chivalrous obligation to the lady prevents him from respecting her adult volition and choices, even as she’s warming him up with the most “enthusiastic consent” he’s ever received. The Western butler’s choices are thus to engage her and risk being called a rapist, or reject her and open the gates of hell. -- The Western butler’s chivalrous obligation to the lady prevents him from defending himself even if she is attacking him. If she murders him, society holds him responsible. He must have been violent, and such a betrayal of the butler-lady relationship often validates her act of murder. The Western butler must also keep a straight face while the lady and her friends display their open hostility and contempt for men and masculinity. In addition, the lady can fire the butler at any time. He can be removed from the house by force and even by gunpoint if she wishes it. He can be ejected from his family. -- At least a traditional butler so discarded was never expected to finance his former master’s operations while he searched for a new one like the Western butler is.'

'A revolution to free both sexes from their socially imposed gender roles was necessary as soon as the industrial revolution allowed women to begin joining the workforce en masse. -- The women’s liberation came first, and developed into the contemporary feminist movement recognizable today. Predictably, men prioritized women’s humanity and for the most part supported their movement. Unfortunately, feminism perpetrated one of the most subtle and unnecessary betrayals ever committed upon humanity. Feminism utterly ignored the repressive forces acting upon males, and instead prioritized the repression of women. This blindness to the other half of the story led feminists to consider their repression as oppression, and led them to conclude that males were their oppressors. In doing so, feminism created a theoretical framework that utterly precluded any possibility of male repression by casting men as universally privileged patriarchal villains that needed to be taken down a peg. And as for the repressive roles men traditionally suffered? An enormous societal blind spot began growing around them. -- Marriage came to be viewed through the same patriarchal lens, and a subsequent unopposed feminist campaign of politicized hypergamy to “free” women has broken the institution and the courts beyond any realistic hope of repair. This too went unopposed, as the repressive, damaging male role of provision and protection fell into the blind spot. Unsurprisingly, men are now opting out of marriage by the thousands, and, humorously, because men’s feelings are stuck in the blind spot, so too are their motivations for abandoning marriage. -- As a result, a comical campaign of utter indifference to men’s feelings and motivations has society asking if it raised a generation of weak men. Further, society has begun fabricating ridiculous concepts like Peter Pan syndrome to shame men back into compliance. Since the blind spot has engulfed all male perspective on the matter, fixing the institution of marriage will not be a priority. Predictably, the priority has been instead to force men back into their “proper” role, and repression be damned.'

'The female defect is her desire to infantilize herself; to project a facade of weakness and victimhood. The female does this because part of her identity is contingent on compelling males to act on her behalf. This is a mechanism which allows the female to feel desirable, important, and powerful. The female often mistakes this behavior as personal empowerment, when in reality it is quite the opposite. Taking personal responsibility is something she will inherently resist, because as soon as she takes personal responsibility and stops infantilizing herself, her identity can no longer command others to act on her behalf. Thus, the female defect keeps her from assuming personal responsibility, which presents a barrier to her self-actualization. -- This is why the self-actualized female finds playing the victim so repugnant; she is shunning part of her old identity. -- The male defect is his desire to compensate for the infantilized female. He does this because part of his identity is contingent on earning female validation. He thus demonstrates his ability to protect, provision and inform. This is a mechanism for feeling useful, powerful, knowledgeable, and important. The male defect leads him to compete with other males to demonstrate his primacy to females, and it ultimately turns him into a guardian, which keeps him from relinquishing responsibility. This becomes his own barrier to self-actualization. -- This is why the self-actualized male sees competing for female validation as idiotic; he is shunning part of his old identity. -- These defects mean that the female path of self-actualization is one of taking responsibility, and the male path of self-actualization is one of relinquishing responsibility. -- Because feminism doesn’t acknowledge the existence of the female defect, it denies female complicity in traditionalism, and thus distorts the male defect of compensating into one of oppressing. -- Feminists claim their movement is about female equality, but I disagree. Being an expression of the female defect, feminism is merely a movement to express female victimhood; more specifically, it is an expression of female victimhood to compel sociopolitical male compensation with the humorous goal of preventing female victimhood. -- This results in a merry-go-round to hell, wherein feminism actively entrenches the same value it seeks to fight. -- Because feminism is essentially an expression of female victimhood working to end female victimhood, most feminists are stuck in the destructive convulsions of an individual fighting against a victim identity she has chosen for herself. -- The nail in the coffin for our society is that the male defect supports and encourages this female behavior.'

'A computer programmer becomes fascinated with the digital currency Bitcoin, and through his involvement in the Bitcoin community, we learn about the impending global impact of this amazing new technology.'

'... That is what Sociopaths ultimately do with their lives if they survive long enough: generate amoral power from increasing inner emptiness, transforming themselves into forces of nature. -- As a side-effect, they also manufacture transient meanings to fuel the theaters of religiosity (including various secular religions) that lend meaning to lives of Losers and the Clueless. This meaning is achieved via subtraction, through withdrawal of complexities that the latter are predisposed to ignore, leaving behind simpler, more satisfying and more tractable realities for them to inhabit. -- That is what Sociopaths ultimately do with their lives if they survive long enough: generate amoral power from increasing inner emptiness, transforming themselves into forces of nature. -- As a side-effect, they also manufacture transient meanings to fuel the theaters of religiosity (including various secular religions) that lend meaning to lives of Losers and the Clueless. This meaning is achieved via subtraction, through withdrawal of complexities that the latter are predisposed to ignore, leaving behind simpler, more satisfying and more tractable realities for them to inhabit. -- The Sociopath journey begins with what is essentially a religious dissatisfaction. A dissatisfaction that awakens the first time Sociopaths contemplate their situation in life. -- On the one hand, they find the contemporary account of reality to be suspiciously convenient for those with power: it explains the prevailing social order as a necessary and natural one a little too neatly. -- On the other hand, they find themselves facing the intolerable expectation that they accept powerless stations, defined by scripted actions and fixed rewards within that order. -- Whether they dismiss prevailing accounts as rationalizations and begin a search for deeper meanings, or defy expectations and reach for power beyond their station, Sociopaths begin their unscripted journeys to rid themselves of that fundamental dissatisfaction; the sense that reality is more complex than whatever is being presented to them. That important things are being hidden from view, and not for their own good. -- They are not entirely sure what they are looking for, but they do know that they are looking to engage reality directly, without mediation by other humans. -- As the journey proceeds, Sociopaths progressively rip away layer after layer of social reality. The Sociopath’s journey can be understood as progressive unmasking of a sequence of increasingly ancient and fearsome gods, each reigning over a harsher social order, governing fewer humans. If morality falls by the wayside when the first layer is ripped away, other reassuring certainties, such as the idea of a benevolent universe, and predictable relationships between efforts and rewards, fall away in deeper layers. -- With each new layer decoded, Sociopaths find transient meaning, but not enduring satisfaction. -- Much to their surprise, however, they find that in the unsatisfying meanings they uncover, lie the keys to power over others. In seeking to penetrate mediated experiences of reality, they unexpectedly find themselves mediating those very realities for others. They acquire agency in the broadest sense of the word. Losers and the Clueless delegate to them not mere specialist matters like heart surgery or car repair, but control over the meanings of their very lives. When they speak, they find that their words become imbued with divine authority. When they are spoken to, they hear prayerful tones of awe. The Clueless want to be them, Losers want to defer to them. -- So in seeking to unmask the gods, they find themselves turning into the gods.' -- Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven.

When an inner situation is not made conscious, it appears outside as fate. – Carl Jung

'It is hard to resist the conclusion that this war has no purpose other than its own eternal perpetuation. This war is not a means to any end but rather is the end in itself. Not only is it the end itself, but it is also its own fuel: it is precisely this endless war – justified in the name of stopping the threat of terrorism – that is the single greatest cause of that threat.' -- When an inner situation is not made conscious, it happens outside, as fate. – Carl Jung

'While other media outlets bring you news as it happens, only the Onion News Network has the power to bring you the news before it happens. In the year 2137 a catastrophe has reduced the world to a lawless wasteland — food and water are scarce, social institutions have crumbled, and a screaming, tattooed thug has been installed as the president of what remains of the United States.'

'Funny how, in a supposed patriarchy, men can be vilified by saying they're angry and feel disrespected.'

'Men tend to adopt a position of constantly qualifying for a woman’s intimacy, and understandably women reinforce this because to puts them in control of the frame and aids in their sexual selection. -- The real insidious part is that the more deprived a man is of that intimacy, the more he’s likely to convince himself that the change is genuine. Whenever I hear a guy or a woman say “we’re working on our relationship” or “relationships are a lot of work and compromise”, it translates to the man changing or compromising to better fit the woman’s ideal. He’s being ‘fixed’, he’s broken and he needs to change. It often gets to the point where the guy will believe that there IS something genuinely wrong with him – it’s her reality he must conform to because the feminine reality is the ‘proper’ reality. The rude awakening comes when she discovers that the man she’s fixed her husband to be is the polar opposite of the Man she was attracted to at the start.'

"...if you think about what the real essence of the placebo response is, it's a sense of well-being... the systems that will be involved in those types of reactions are going to be the hedonic systems..." -- "...the placebo response is the reactivation, if you will, of those [self-soothing] systems that were learned early on in childhood, and then get revoked and remembered in response to a caretaker situation as an adult." -- "...anhedonia ... precludes the ability to develop placebo responses..."

'...on the one hand, they don't want to have to conform to society's impossible standards, but on the other hand they don't want the existential terror of NOT conforming to some kind of standard. They want an objective bar to be changed to fit them – they want "some other omnipotent entity" to change it so that it remains both entirely valid yet still true for them, so that others have to accept it... -- ...obsessive worry about what's on TV or what's in an ad is completely predicated on the assumption that the ad, the media, has all the power to decide what's desirable. And therefore, of course, it does. But the important point is not that you believe this to be true, the point is that you want this to be true. You want it to be true that advertising sets the standard of beauty because in the insane calculus of your psychology you have a better chance of changing Dove than you have of changing yourself... -- Dove, et al sympathize with your powerlessness, so since you can't get anywhere near those impossible standards, ads give you a chance of making some kind of progress: a little moisturizing soap and a positive message and maybe you get closer to the aspirational images of the women in the ad. "Those women are aspirational?" Of course: they're happy, Dad told them they're good. It feels like improvement, it feels like change, and I hope by now you understand it's only a defense against change. -- "It's called a confidence game. Why, because you give me your confidence? No: because I give you mine." Take a minute, think it through.' -- The first rule of business, protect your investment.

'I have been reading about the ancient Egyptians, and trying to get into their mindset. They used to have this really complex symbol matrix that they lived within. They get up in the morning, they want to put a bit of slap on, put coal around their eyes and look into a mirror. A mirror to them symbolises a pool of water. Now to them, a pool of water represents the eye of The Goddess. So you’ve this other >cosmological idea coming in; just having a shave and putting on your make-up means you have a lot of concepts to play with. You are looking at your reflection in the eye of the Goddess. What does this mean Does this mean that how I see myself is how the Goddess sees me? Does this entail saying that I am the Goddess in some sense? Now I’m not saying any of these ideas are earth-shattering, but they are interesting to play with while you’re having a shave. It makes shaving a richer experience. That’s just the mirror. Everything else that they touch or see, during that day, during their entire lives, was part of this learned alphabet of symbols that came from a rich symbolic language with which to approach the symbological world if you like, the conceptual world. A stone picked up on a beach is a unit of information, if a child picks it up the information the child is drawing from the stone is probably how heavy it is, how far it would go if you threw it, whether it is the right shape to skim a couple of times across the waves. That is information. Obviously a geologist picking up that stone is going to be able to abstract more information from it. It is possible that an archaeologist noticing an imprint in the stone – that would tell him a lot more – a quantum physicist considering the stone would be able to get different levels of information from it. A William Blake picking up the stone is going to have a whole new channel of information from which he can draw from it. To some degree, the stone is only the compound sum of its information. As are any of us. We are all the aggregate of the ideas about us, including our own ideas about us. That is all that any of us can be considered as – units of information in a sea of information. When you get to a certain point, there is not much more to it than information. Which for our terms is practically synonymous with language, because that is the only way we understand information, in one sort of language or another. Yeah, well that’s not bad, we’ve managed to dissolve the entire universe in a sea of language before I’ve finished my coffee. -- I’ve known a lot of people go mad over the years, and it is more distressing than people dying. People dying is quite natural, people going mad is the complete antithesis of that. Just after I became a magician, the son of a close friend of mine – who was a kind of rave culture casualty – had quite a powerful and florid breakdown. Very grim, I was going to visit him every day in the local loony bin – I wouldn’t dignify it with the term ‘mental home’ – and his florid beliefs, his messianic fantasies, and I was listening to him and thinking “well, he’s putting it in different terms, but this is pretty much what I believe.” Where are we going with this? I cannot I stand here with my hand on my heart and say that my perceptions of reality are any madder than his, or less mad, what’s this about? The best description I could come up with was that somebody had said “all of us, as human beings, through our accumulated perceptions, that could be considered to be our window on reality – what we perceive. We know that it is limited, what we perceive, but it is still our window upon reality. Just as if you are looking out of a window from your house, you can see a little bit of the houses across the street, a little bit of sky – you know there is a whole universe out there, but the limits of your window just show you that view. What the magician is attempting to do is alter the dimension or the angle of that window, broaden it perhaps, tilt it so it can see different things. The schizophrenic has had their window kicked in, the magician has got a body of law – probably most of it bollocks, it doesn’t matter. The magician’s got a system into which the alien information that will be pouring into him or her will be fitted. They’ve got a filing cabinet, like the Qabalah, which is a filing cabinet for ideas. It divides the whole universe up into ten drawers. Any experience can be passed into one of the drawers. The schizophrenic is probably having exactly the same experience as the magician but has no context in which to understand it. If I see some particularly florid vision, I can think ‘right, Qabalistically, because I saw this number of flying talking fishes, then this number relates to here on the Qabalah, the fact that they were fishes would mean they tend to relate to this, and I can start to make sense of this apparently incoherent vision. The schizophrenic can’t. They get the same feeling. The schizophrenics I have known, the most evident thing about it is the interconnectedness of everything. That’s standard lunacy, it’s also standard magic. But with one of them, it is uncontrollable, you are lost in a world in which everything is obviously connected by symbolic threads. That is what the magician is seeking, to see these threads that connect things up. If you’ve got a system – even if it’s a completely made-up bogus system – then you’ve at least got a filing cabinet to sort this stuff into, you don’t have to get crushed under it. -- The magician to some degree is trying to drive him or herself mad in a controlled setting, within controlled laws. You ask the protective spirits to look after you, or whatever. This provides a framework over an essentially amorphous experience. You are setting up your terms, your ritual, your channels – but you deliberately stepping over the edge into the madness. You are not falling over the edge, or tripping over the edge.'

'...first I say that I believe that any kind of so-called "therapy" — any kind of human helping situation that makes sense to both participants and that can be entered and exited and conducted wholly consensually, voluntary, and that is devoid of force and fraud — any and all of that is, by definition, helpful. If it were not helpful, the client wouldn't come and pay for it. The fact that a client returns and pays for what he gets from a therapist is, prima facie evidence for me, that he finds it helpful. -- The relationship has to be wholly cooperative. The two people may meet only a few times, or they meet many times over many years. The therapist is the patient's agent. This doesn't mean that he must agree with everything the patient believes or wants; far from it. But it means that the therapist is prohibited — by his own moral code — from doing anything against the patient's interest, as the patient defines his interest. That is part of my idea of the contract with the patient. That's why I titled my book, "The Ethics of Psychoanalysis." Therapy is a matter of ethics, not technique. -- It was crucial that my patients selected themselves. They came when they wanted; they came to see me, because they wanted to see me, not someone else. And there wasn't any of this business about being "ready" to end therapy. Just as the patient decided when or whether to begin therapy, so he decided when or whether to end therapy. There isn't any of this business that the therapist has to change the patient, or make him better, or control his behavior, or protect him from himself, and so forth. It is up to the patient to change himself. The therapist's job is to help him change in the direction in which the patient wants to change, provided that's acceptable to the therapist. If it's not acceptable, then it is therapist's job to discuss that with the patient and end the relationship. -- The patient doesn't have to do anything except pay. This sounds like a selfish joke. It is not. It is important. It's up to the patient what he or she takes away from the situation. The situation is similar to what happens in school, especially at the university level. If you go to school and have to pay for it, the idea is that you should learn something. But there is no coercion. At the end of it, if you don't learn something, that's your business. It's your loss.'

'If we could find something that sustained that sense of being in jeopardy, it would be a permanent source of willpower. We don’t like to think about it, but there is something you’re always at risk of losing: your future. -- Every person has his own version of a future destroyed by his passivity in the present. That’s the ultimate source of jeopardy, and the ultimate source of willpower.'

'Adolescence is when most of us decide to hide the part of ourselves we’re most ashamed of—what Jung called The Shadow. In every adolescent there is a powerful drive to fit in, to conform to the norms of a peer group. In order to do this, the individual must hide any qualities that are nonconforming. An adolescent girl starves herself to be thin; an adolescent boy conceals his emotional sensitivity. -- The difference between the average, insecure, shadow-hiding kid and a bully is that the bully adopts a more aggressive strategy: the bully targets someone who doesn’t fit in, someone “different,” and persecutes him relentlessly. This is reassuring to the bully because it diverts attention from his Shadow. It works even better if he can get others to join in – the group unites around a common enemy; its motto is, “We don’t have Shadows – the only Shadow is that kid over there.” -- Sadly, everyone loses. The victims of bullying pay a huge price: the modern equivalent of the biblical scapegoat, they carry the “sins” of the community and are exiled into the wilderness of social isolation. The toll – in pain, alienation, and self-loathing – can be severe. Bullies pay a price, too, albeit a less obvious one. Driven mindlessly by the fear that they might be seen as “different,” they repress everything that makes them interesting and unique.'

'It doesn’t matter how rich, beautiful, or famous you are; as long as you fear that people can see your Shadow you will be insecure. -- We deal with this insecurity – in public speaking, at social events, in confrontations with authority, etc. – in exactly the wrong way. We see our Shadow as a source of humiliation that we try to hide – usually through some kind of perfectionism. The counter-intuitive truth is that when we reveal the Shadow, when we give in to its imperfections, its nature changes. It becomes a source of creativity and confidence. -- When I bonded with the Shadow at the seminar I immediately gained a sense of authority based, not on the approval of the audience, but on my acceptance of myself, hence “Inner Authority.” It’s an authority no one can take from you. Others feel it instantly and are attracted to it (usually because they don’t have it themselves).'

'Flow doesn’t come to those who try to express themselves well. Flow comes to those who express themselves freely. This is obvious if you watch little kids playing. They’re in a flow state exactly because aren’t evaluating how well they’re expressing themselves; they’re in a flow state because they’re free of such adult concerns. -- It’s easy for a child to play an imaginary game and reach a flow state—she has nothing at stake. It’s much harder for an adult writer who depends on writing to make the monthly mortgage payment. For the adult writer to reach a flow state, she has to do something counterintuitive: she has to accept flawed writing. -- Here’s the truth about writing (or any other form of self-expression): If you can’t accept the bad, you can’t get to the good. It’s as if the flow is pure, clean water trapped behind dirty, disgusting sewage. If you can’t welcome the sewage and let it flow through you, you’ll never be able to get to the pure stuff.'

'Part of cleaning up his life required a call to the powerful club owner he’d blown off. It was intimidating enough asking him for a job, but now he also had to ask his forgiveness. Vinny’s assignment was to use the Reversal of Desire every time he thought, No way, I can’t do it. After two weeks of doing this, he shocked himself and made the call.'

'...The person thus enters into a curious and somewhat unpleasant state. He seems to be living in a wasteland, devoid of the life-giving, perpetually-stimulating diversity of the earlier stages. His invocations never seem to produce anything new, just variations on experiences that he already knows well. His efforts to forcefully project his awareness into higher levels leads him into states that aren't truly new, but are obvious distortions and perversions of his normal state of awareness. He feels like he's run up against a barrier like the light-speed barrier; no matter how hard he pushes, he never quite gets through it. And beyond the barrier – perhaps making up the barrier – there appears to be nothing but a void, a total lack of any perceptible quality whatsoever. This is the so-called "Abyss". -- I can testify from my own experience that the Wasteland is well-named. It is a desert in which the hunger, the thirst for a touch of a higher spirit can reach excruciating levels. (The biblical crucifixion seems to me to be a compact but very appropriate description of this stage.) The intensity of the need is so great that sometimes total oblivion seems a preferable state. -- I can see how someone reaching this stage might eventually decide that there really isn't any further to go, turn his back on it, and try to continue living in the world he has known. This is what Crowley says makes a "Black Brother", one who denies the spirit and sees himself as the epitome of creation, with no purpose higher than his own desires. -- But you've got to keep pushing, no matter what. Because, while one's conscious experience is utterly miserable, on unconscious levels there is a very great deal going on.'

'...The Exempt Adept now enters into a period of increasing "dryness", what I call "wandering in the wasteland", following the myth of the Grail Knights. I don't know how this associates with the so-called "dark night of the soul" – descriptions of that never resonate for me. He has reached a point of diminishing returns in both his magickal and cabalistic endeavors. ...'

'Choronzon is a demon or devil that originated in writing with the 16th century occultists Edward Kelley and John Dee within the latter's occult system of Enochian magic. In the 20th century he became an important element within the mystical system of Thelema, founded by Aleister Crowley, where he is the Dweller in the Abyss, believed to be the last great obstacle between the adept and enlightenment. Thelemites believe that if he is met with proper preparation, then his function is to destroy the ego, which allows the adept to move beyond the Abyss of occult cosmology.'

'In the Qabalistic system of Crowley, the Abyss contains the 11th (hidden) sephira, Da'ath, which separates the lower sephiroth from the supernals. This account derives from the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn's view of Genesis, in which Da'ath represents the fall of man from a unified consciousness into a duality between ego and divine nature.[8] The Abyss is guarded by the demon Choronzon, who manifests during the third, ceremonial method of crossing this gulf. He represents those parts of one's consciousness and unconsciousness -- "a momentary unity capable of sensation and of expression," in Crowley's terms[9] -- that are unwilling or unable to enter the Divine. According to Grant Morrison in the Richard Metzger Book of Lies, at least, Choronzon "is Existential Self at the last gasp...Beyond Choronzon we are no longer our Self. The "personality" on the brink of the Abyss will do anything, say anything and find any excuse to avoid taking this disintegrating step into "non-being.""'

'This documentary is about Bitcoin's impact in Argentina. In Buenos Aires we talk with Diego who uses Bitcoin to avoid the skyrocketing inflation and monetary restrictions of the Argentinian Peso. Check out http://bitcoinfilm.org/ for more information.'

'Realtime Bitcoin transaction and trade visualizer.'

'The amazing new "Relationship Pro" video game controller lets both members of a couple pretend they are in a healthy relationship.'

'#Yalom: As you've discovered, the fear of existential isolation is the driving force behind many interpersonal relationships. But true relationships do not use the "other" as the functional "it" to guard against existential isolation. Once a person can accept that they are ultimately alone and can not have all of their needs met by others, then they can develop richer, more tolerant, and more loving relationships based on a deeper sense of communion. When we are able to stand alone and dip within ourselves for our own strength, our relationships with others are based more on fulfillment, not on deprivation.'

'...there are some real differences in how male and female brains process emotion. One of the main characteristics of male brains is that they’re actually more emotional—counter to stereotype—and have more right-brain activation than women, but that more visceral, raw sense of emotion is not as linked with language, so that modulation of emotion is much more problematic in men. Whereas connectivity in the brains of women is much more evenly distributed in the left and right brain, so that everything is much more connected for women. Under extreme emotional activation, language sort of goes off screen for men. So it’s not that men don’t have feelings; they have tremendous, tremendous emotion, but the capacity to articulate is different. And then there’s all this backlash in terms of shame and feeling inadequate for not being able to have an emotional conversation. -- ... There’s an area in the brain that’s devoted to face recognition and women are superior to men in face recognition in all conditions, across the board. Under stress, women’s face recognition gets better and men’s face recognition gets worse. In stress-based literature they say that under stress, men’s sympathetic nervous system—the fight-flight response—is activated. For women, what’s activated under the same kind of threatening conditions is the limbic system and what’s been called the “tend and befriend.” -- We women reach out, seek, and offer care. Reaching out to others means better face recognition, right? Presumably, evolutionarily speaking, the more you can recognize a face, you can recognize friend, foe, nurturer, etc. Whereas under stress, men sort of go inside, get strong, get into fight or flight, and are more isolated. It’s like the focus is on action and the face recognition drops off. So those are two things that seemed to me to bear very directly on our work, whether we’re working with individuals or couples.'

'Joy is social, so you’re looking at play. Play is a brain process that feels good, that allows the animal to engage fully with another animal. And if you understand the joy of play, I think you have the foundation of the nature of joy in general. Part of its benefit is simply taking away the psychological pain of separation. Play is engaging in an attachment-like way with strangers, which you have to do later in life. -- #Is play embedded deeply in the brain, the way attachment is?
 Many experiments over the years suggested it was, but to be sure I removed the upper brain of the animals at three days of age. Amazingly, the rats still played in a fundamentally normal way. That meant play was a primitive process. We saw, too, that play helped the animals become socially sophisticated in the cortex. That’s why it’s so important to give our kids opportunities for play. And yet it seems that childhood play has become much more controlled than it was when I was young. 
I have gone to ADHD meetings to consider this childhood problem. But the doctors do not want to hear the possibility that these kids are hyper-playful because they’re starved for real play—because they are giving them anti-play medicines. Teachers are promoting the pipeline of prescription controls as much as any other group, because their lives are hard. They are supposed to be teaching kids at the cortical level of reading, writing, and arithmetic, but if they’ve got kids who are still hungry for play, it’s gonna be classroom chaos. And you can sympathize with them, because they should be getting kids that are sufficiently well regulated to sit and use their upper brains. But the kids’ lower brains are still demanding attention.'

'...the main kind of play is when animals physically engage each other in rough-and-tumble activities. Physical play is fun. But playing games is also fun. However, if we didn’t have a play instinct, maybe neither kind of play would exist. However, playing games is not primary-process play. The most primitive parts of the brain generate various primary process emotions, including physical play. Playing games is likely to be a secondary process, dependent on learning and memories. -- I think young children rarely get as much play as their brains need in our country. Physical play is at times considered bad behavior, and medications for ADHD, such as Ritalin, all reduce play. By doing this, we are taking the desire to play away from our children. Human problems need to be dealt with in human ways. We have to develop a society that understands play, and the many good things it does for children’s brains and minds. We developed the concept of having “play sanctuaries,” where children have safe environment to play and develop their own games. We have much to learn about how good play is for the brains of our children. -- I think many of these emotional systems have a natural developmental time course, and vigorous physical play occurs only in animals. It declines after puberty. Old rats certainly don’t play, but old humans can. Still, physical play is for the young. But if animals indulge in a lot of play when young, they tend to remain playful and friendlier when older. -- For human children, I think the “terrible two’s” reflect the onset of strong play urges At age 2, the desire for play becomes very intense. By age 6, most children develop enough cortical inhibition to be able to sit still in classrooms. Before then, no child can sit still for too long. All very young children behave as if they have ADHD.'

SEEKING, FEAR, RAGE, LUST, CARE, PANIC, PLAY (with transcript)

'Human life is like walking into a movie halfway through, and having to walk out again two minutes later. You’ll have no idea what’s going on when you walk in. And chances are, just as you begin to get a clue, you’ll be kicked out. -- So unless you are lucky enough to walk in during a scene that is satisfying without any longer narrative context (think sex or violence), your ability to derive satisfaction from your two-minute glimpse will depend partly on your ability to construct meaning out of it. -- One way to do this is to pretend to be immortal. To pretend to be immortal is to approach your limited two-minute glimpse of the movie as though you’ve been watching all along, and as though you might stick around to see how it all ends. -- You will have to manufacture unverifiable memories and unfalsifiable foreshadowings. You will have to devote some of your limited time whispering to your neighbors, and perhaps surreptitiously looking up reviews with spoilers on your cellphone. -- But at least you’ll walk out with a satisfying story, even if not the story. So long as you walk away feeling like you’ve just enjoyed an entire movie, it doesn’t matter. -- To do this at the level of an entire life is to spend much of your time having one-way conversations with the dead and the unborn, through books read and written. You inhabit a world of ghosts while walking among the living. -- Ghosts seek meaning. Vampires seek more direct experience of life. In our stories, ghosts usually cannot do anything, but hang around until unresolved matters are resolved. Their satisfaction is based purely on meaning. Vampires on the other hand, have a reason to go on living for as long as they enjoy the taste of blood and enjoy a very interventionist sort of immortality. -- The distinction between ghosts and vampires is real for sufficiently small beings who can meaningfully choose between non-interventionist meaning-seeking lifestyles and interventionist experience-maximization lifestyles. Life for a vampire is about viewing life as a play rather than a movie, and making your way to the stage within those two minutes and scoring at least a bit part for 20 seconds. If that means you miss much of the on-stage action during your two minutes, so be it.'

'Four forms of love were identified by the ancient Greeks: Philia (friendship), Eros (romantic, sexual love), Storge (parental affection), and Agape (love of humanity, of our fellow human beings). In my view, these forms of love are most often complexly intermingled. In the richest and deepest romantic relationships, for example, we may experience a lover fluidly and flexibly as an object of our erotic desire and as our best friend, as our parent and as our child, as our brother or sister and as our soul mate, and, in existential kinship, as a fellow human being. The richer and more multidimensional a love relationship, the more traumatically world-shattering will be its loss. -- More generally, the nature of a loss experience will depend complexly on the forms or dimensions of love that had constituted the lost relationship. For example, relationships differ according to the extent to which self or other—two experiential foci within the unitary structure Being-in-the world—occupies the emotional foreground. The experience of the loss of someone who primarily had been loved narcissistically, serving as support for the bereaved person's sense of selfhood, will differ from the loss of someone whose otherness had been recognized and deeply treasured. In the former case one’s sense of selfhood will be weakened, whereas in the latter one’s emotional world will be emptied out and impoverished. -- There is no loss more horrific than the death of a beloved young child. What is not generally recognized, however, is that loss is experienced by a loving parent throughout the course of his or her child’s development. At each newly emerging stage, the parent experiences both joy in the child’s developmental achievement and grief over the loss of what is being left behind.'

'Robert Stolorow has proposed that the existential meaning of emotional trauma lies in the shattering of what he calls the "absolutisms of everyday life"—the system of illusory beliefs that allow us to function in the world, experienced as stable, predictable, and safe. Such shattering is a massive loss of innocence exposing the inescapable dependence of our existence on a universe that is unstable and unpredictable and in which no safety or continuity of being can be assured. Emotional trauma brings us face-to-face with our existential vulnerability, our vulnerability to suffering, injury, illness, death, and loss, possibilities that define our existence and that loom as constant threats. Because we are limited, finite, mortal beings, trauma is a necessary and universal feature of our all-too-human condition. -- The working through of painful emotional states requires a context of human understanding in which they can be held. Central to this process of helping us to bear and live in our emotional pain is the bringing of the visceral, bodily aspect of emotional experience into language. Such visceral-linguistic unities, unities of bodily sensations with words, of “gut” feelings with names, are achieved in a dialogue of emotional understanding, and it is in such dialogue that experiences of emotional trauma can be transformed into endurable and namable painful feelings. The blues are a wonderful example of such dialogue.'

'Early situations of consistent or massive malattunement to a child’s emotional experiences (situations in which the child’s feelings are ignored, rejected, invalidated, devalued, shamed, punished, and so on) have particularly important consequences for the development of character as I have conceived it. One consequence of such malattunement is that emotional states take on enduring, crushing meanings. The child, for example, may acquire an unconscious conviction that unmet developmental yearnings and reactive painful feeling states are manifestations of a loathsome defect or of an inherent inner badness. A defensive self-ideal may be established, representing a self-image purified of the offending emotional states that were perceived to be unwelcome or damaging to caregivers. Living up to this emotionally purified ideal then becomes a central requirement for maintaining harmonious ties to others and for upholding self-esteem. Thereafter, the emergence of prohibited emotion is experienced as a failure to embody the required ideal, an exposure of the underlying essential defectiveness or badness, and is accompanied by feelings of isolation, shame, and self-loathing. A person with such unconscious organizing principles will expect that his or her feelings will be met by others with disgust, disdain, disinterest, alarm, hostility, withdrawal, exploitation, and the like, or will damage others and destroy his or her relationships with them. -- A second consequence of significant emotional malattunement is a severe constriction and narrowing of the horizons of emotional experiencing so as to exclude whatever feels unacceptable, intolerable, or too dangerous in particular relationship contexts. When a child’s emotional experiences are consistently not responded to or are actively rejected, the child perceives that aspects of his or her emotional life are intolerable to, and unwanted by, the caregiver. These regions of the child’s emotional world must then be repressed or otherwise kept hidden in order to safeguard the needed tie. Large sectors of the child’s emotional experiencing are sacrificed, and his or her emotional world may thereby become emptied and deadened. Such sacrificing may also take the form of aborting the process whereby emotional states are brought into language. When this is the case, emotions remain nameless, inchoate, and largely bodily, and psychosomatic problems may develop. -- How does character—that is, the array of a person’s pre-reflective organizing principles and the corresponding horizons of emotional experiencing—change as a result of a successful psychotherapeutic process? In regard to psychoanalytic therapy, there has been a longstanding debate over the role of cognitive insight versus emotional attachment in the process of therapeutic change. The dichotomy between insight through interpretation and emotional bonding with the therapist is revealed to be a false one, once it is recognized that the therapeutic impact of analytic interpretations lies not only in the insights they convey but also in the extent to which they demonstrate the therapist’s attunement to the patient’s emotional life. I have long contended that a good (that is, a mutative) interpretation is a relational process, a central constituent of which is the patient’s experience of having his or her feelings understood. Furthermore, it is the specific meaning of the experience of being understood that supplies its mutative power, as the patient weaves that experience into the tapestry of developmental longings mobilized by the therapeutic engagement. Interpretation does not stand apart from the emotional relationship between patient and therapist; it is an inseparable and, to my mind, crucial dimension of that relationship. -- In a nutshell, interpretative expansion of the patient’s capacity for reflective awareness of old, repetitive organizing principles occurs concomitantly with the emotional impact and meanings of ongoing relational experiences with the therapist, and both are indissoluble components of a unitary therapeutic process that establishes the possibility of alternative principles for organizing experience, whereby the patient’s emotional horizons can become widened, enriched, more flexible, and more complex. As the tight grip of old organizing principles becomes loosened, as emotional experiencing thereby expands and becomes increasingly nameable within a context of human understanding, and as what one feels becomes seamlessly woven into the fabric of whom one essentially is, there is an enhancement of one’s very sense of being. That, to my mind, is the essence of character change.'

'Authentic existing presupposes a capacity to dwell in the emotional pain (grief, terror, horror, existential anxiety, etc.) that accompanies a non-evasive recognition of finitude, and this capacity, in turn, requires that such pain find a relational context in which it can be held. -- We must not turn away from another’s experience of trauma by offering false reassurances about time healing all wounds or empty platitudes about letting go and moving on. We offer such reassurances and platitudes when another’s traumatized state confronts us with our own finitude and existential vulnerability, and so we turn evasively away. If we are to be a holding relational home for a traumatized person, we must tolerate our own existential vulnerabilities so that we can dwell unflinchingly with his or her unbearable and recurring emotional pain. When we dwell with others’ unendurable pain, their shattered emotional worlds are enabled to shine with a kind of sacredness that calls forth an understanding and caring engagement within which traumatized states can be gradually transformed into bearable painful feelings.'

'Social media’s sharing rituals and feedback loops give the subject momentum, a sense of control over both the flood of information in and the flood of information out. Their ability to capture everyday life becomes not a threatening form of total surveillance but a giant Getting Things Done flowchart for processing life experience. In this system the evaluative criterion of experience is not exposure or authenticity but efficiency. -- The data self cannot exist apart from social media and is at the mercy of how they calibrate their filters. The data self may not face the threat of inauthenticity but it’s intensely threatened by the possibility of being disconnected, of having the information flow disrupted. That reflects an underlying terror that there’s something crucial about our lives that can’t actually be expressed — integral things that can’t be processed. -- But what the data self may ultimately offer is a bridge to precisely that kind of contentless identity, an identity that doesn’t signify. Rather than being hopelessly trapped in authenticity games, the data self, as an outsourcing of identity, could point toward postauthenticity, in which the momentum of sharing itself is all that needs to be shared, and identity becomes noninterpretable.'

'The EVE Online Real Estate Crisis: One week after the launch of EVE I handed a report to Reynir Hardarson explaining, among other things, how this weakness in the economic design threatened their game and how to solve it. My solution was to greatly raise the rents on these factories so that only those that were actually actively running them would want to hold them. The idea was to create a “hot potato” effect where no rational person would want these factories unless they were doing a lot of output with them. -- While it took several months to implement the fix, once it was in it worked perfectly by causing the speculators to abandon their stranglehold on the economy. In the meantime a handful of players who did have factories (myself included) got exceedingly rich. Thus the effect of this speculation was increased wealth stratification, reduced economic competition, increased consumer goods prices, and crazy real estate inflation.'

Comment: rustybenelli: '4-6% rates of return on a bank deposit is the new junk bond.'

'Unlike your genome, which is fixed from the moment of conception, your connectome changes throughout life. Neuroscientists have already identified the basic kinds of change. Neurons adjust, or "reweight", their connections by strengthening or weakening them. Neurons reconnect by creating and eliminating synapses, and they rewire by growing and retracting branches. Finally, entirely new neurons are created and existing ones eliminated, through regeneration. -- We don't know exactly how life events -- your parents' divorce, your fabulous year abroad -- change your connectome. But there is good evidence that all four Rs – reweighting, reconnection, rewiring and regeneration – are affected by your experiences. At the same time, the four Rs are also guided by genes. Minds are indeed influenced by genes, especially when the brain is "wiring" itself up during infancy and childhood. -- Both genes and experiences have shaped your connectome. We must consider both historical influences if we want to explain how your brain got to be the way it is. The connectome theory of mental differences is compatible with the genetic theory, but it is far richer and more complex because it includes the effects of living in the world. The connectome theory is also less deterministic. There is reason to believe that we shape our own connectomes by the actions we take, even by the things we think. Brain wiring may make us who we are, but we play an important role in wiring up our brains. -- To restate the theory more simply: You are more than your genes. You are your connectome.'

'The common description of judgers is that they are organized, have their life structured and everything planned, arrive on time (or even early), want everything to be decided and settled, often seem rigid – but also responsible, and like closure. It is unacceptable to them not to get things done, not to get results, not to finish. (Note: “judger” does not mean judgmental.) -- On the other hand, perceivers seem chaotic, are spontaneous and flexible, often arrive late (or not at all), don’t like making decisions, always feel it’s premature to make a decision, always want more information, like to keep their options open, want things to be open-ended, tend to procrastinate, and prefer starting new things to finishing them. -- Now, there is other, much more interesting definition: Judgers try to “lock down” the external world, so they have internal freedom. Perceivers try to “lock down” the internal world, so they have outer world freedom. -- And to evolve ourselves to the next level, we need to develop and integrate both our Judging and Perceiving aspects. It is usually our weakest aspect that limits us the most. -- Perceivers have problems making decisions. The word “decision” originally comes from Latin, and it literally means “to cut off”. When you decide, you cut the other options off. Perceivers hate that – they want to keep as many options open as possible. However, this comes at a price... -- ...if you really want to be efficient as a perceiver, you have to develop your judger muscles. Developing those muscles and going through a “judger stage” can be very challenging. You need to structure and organize the outer world (your life), so it pushes you to be efficient and get things done. This also gives you the opportunity to master the control of your inner impulses, and discover which structures give you the most leverage on yourself and when to use them. -- The ultimate idea is that as an enlightened perceiver, you have an inner compass so strong and powerful, that you move forward regardless all hell breaking loose. The inner compass must be stronger than the low inner impulses from your reptilian brain, and it must be stronger than distractions and interruptions from the outer world.' -- Maximizers vs Satisficers / Prospectors vs Refugers / Near vs Far

'The most coveted fake accounts tweet (or retweet) constantly, have profile pictures and complete bios, and some even link to Web sites that they claim belong to them. But in many cases, a close look reveals that some of the accounts were set up purely to retweet material from specific sites. -- “Resellers lately haven’t been selling only accounts and followers, but are now getting into the retweet business,” Mr. Stroppa and Mr. De Micheli wrote in a report. They said prices range between five retweets a day for $9 per month to $150 a month for 125 daily retweets.' -- Home again, home again, jiggity jig.

'Thinking about locusts and the behavior of customers around services like Groupon, I’ve become convinced that the phrase “sharing economy” is mostly a case of putting lipstick on a pig. What we have here is a locust economy. -- Locust economies are built around 3-way markets: a swarming platform “organizer” player who efficiently disseminates information about transient, local resource surpluses, a locust species in dormant grasshopper mode, and a base for predation that exhibits a scarcity-abundance cycle. -- So long as different locations are not synchronized, a locust market will usually have a surplus somewhere, even if it is a zero-sum or negative-sum market overall. Where that surplus comes from varies. -- Locust swarms are aggressively and energetically social. Remind you of any contemporary pattern of human behavior? -- There seems to be an implicit holier-than-thou assumption among sharing economy evangelists that social sharing is primarily about virtuous behaviors like generosity, empathy, minding the planet, conserving resources, avoiding waste and so forth. Only secondarily do they see it as a zero-sum/negative-sum adaptation to recessionary conditions — Bruce Sterling’s favela chic. They rarely think of it as a predatory behavior at all. -- Once you increase your foraging range sufficiently, “local” means the smallest area within which you never have to pay full price. So the abundance here is an illusion created on top of local scarcity via cheap discovery of transient local surpluses, artificially created by small Jeffersonian middle class actors hopelessly looking for leverage, and co-opted by swarming-platform owners. -- Whether it is underutilized inventory of living space, coupons, parked cars or anything else, for most of the people, most of the time, if you have enough of the market navigation information, and are willing to travel a little further than you normally do, you can always find a deal. -- The catch is of course, that for platform organizers to be profitable, they have to aggregate such slightly evil locust instincts and create locust swarms. -- Starbucks survives, coffee drinking grasshoppers survive, small coffee shops go in and out of business. -- Add the locust-swarming platforms into the mix and you get mechanized, efficient predatory dynamics that speed up the idealism-to-extinction churn rate. -- Throw in a recession, and instead of the devastation of true abundance (such as a harvest season), you get the devastation of a system in a state of scarcity that is trying desperately to send fake abundance marketing signals, in a hopeless fake-it-till-you-make-it attempt at survival. -- In the sharing economy, we may not be eating each other literally, but we’re certainly eating into what Richard Dawkins called the extended phenotype of our neighbors. To the extent that your belongings are a logical expression of your genes and memes sharing them amounts to allowing others to eat them. -- So the harsh bottomline of the locust economies, once the Jeffersonian middle class prey base has been bankrupted, is that we locusts turn on each other. -- We call it peer production and prosumer economics, but it isn’t Jeffersonian producerism. It is locusts in their cannibalistic phase. -- When the harvest is gone, software eating everything translates to prosumers eating each other.' -- Arbit-triage

'#Masks and persons: If you wear a mask long enough, it ceases to be a mask. By way of feedback (facial, bodily, social), it becomes part of who you are. Here’s a jaw-dropping piece of etymology: our word person comes from the Greek word for mask. That’s right. Per (through) + sona (sound). The thing worn on stage, through which an actor’s voice is transmitted. How’s that for the relationship between identity and inhabitance? -- #Ecology and personal identity: Personality is an adaptation to a social niche.'

'To be ashamed is to expect rejection, not so much because of what one has done as because of what one is. -- "Normal shame," Scheff says, "is just like breathing air: it's necessary. Personalities and civilizations coexist, even thrive, with normal shame. But unacknowledged shame is a pathogen. It kills." -- "As with any problem that is severely repressed and unresolved," says Leon Wurmser (The Mask of Shame, 1981), a Baltimore psychoanalyst and shame pioneer, shame "forces us in ways that are outside our control to behave destructively to ourselves and to others." If you run from shame, he says, you may successfully avoid the humiliation you fear, "but you constantly sense this anxiety within yourself and you know you cannot escape it – it follows you like a shadow." -- ...pathogenic shame belief seems to block creative avenues. It is crippling, because it contains not just the derisive accusation that one is a wimp, a bully, a runt or a fag but the further implication that one is at core a deformed being, fundamentally unlovable and unworthy of membership in the human community. It is the self regarding the self with the withering and unforgiving eye of contempt. And most people are unable to face it. It is too annihilating. -- Shame of this sort can be understood as a wound in the self. It is frequently instilled at a delicate age, as a result of the internalization of a contemptuous voice, usually parental. Rebukes, warnings, teasing, ridicule, ostracism, and others forms of neglect or abuse can all play a part. "A lot of parents learn that one of the best ways to bring about conformity is through shame," says Frank Broucek (Shame and the Self, 1991), a Kansas City psychiatrist, "sometimes by telling the child directly, That's disgusting, you should be ashamed of yourself. Or it may just be a turning away from the child, a shunning – it gets the message across." Many parents, because of their own unresolved anger, bitterness, or unmet needs, are unable to accept the child for who he or she is. They may want a child who's prettier, bouncier, smarter, more aggressive, more compliant, more charming. They may fail to give the developing youngster the appreciation and respect she needs, or they may create a climate of periodic rejection or pervasive disrespect that steadily erodes the child's sense of self-worth, making her susceptible to shame's ugly self-portraits. -- Nothing, apparently, defends against the internal ravages of shame more than the security gained from parental love, especially the sort of sensitive love that sees and appreciates the child for what he or she is and is respectful of the child's feelings, differences, and peculiarities. Nothing seems to make shame cut more deeply than the lack of that love.'

'The greatest Threat to the Feminine Imperative is men becoming self-aware of their own sexual market value and the dissemination of information about how the imperative uses this lack of awareness to perpetuate itself. -- The first recourse to prevent this is male-specific ridicule and derision for even attempting to explain the social constructs of the feminine imperative. -- In a large public forum like this Huff-Po video we don’t see the underlying feminine social urgency and anxiety about men becoming aware of the mechanisms of the feminine imperative because for decades women’s unknowability has become synonymous with the feminine mystique. So it’s made laughable by default that any man would have a legitimate understanding of women – they are just unknowable, so men’s perspectives and insight about the psychology of women starts from a position of ridicule, even when it patronizingly agrees with women’s perspectives. -- Women sustain themselves on indignation and nothing stimulates that better than a man who publicly declares he knows how women think. The Atlantic has made a very profitable business model for a dying form of media based solely upon this feminine-satisfying indignation. This host, the Huff-Po, are simply following the model. So yes, Roosh is right, the manosphere will go mainstream this year, to the overwhelming adulation of the media that’s discovered this type of feminine imperative indignation is extremely profitable.'

"The master's vulnerability serves as a smokescreen, hiding the true nature of the master-slave exchange. ... A system of slavery will last only so long as the master is perceived to be more vulnerable than the slaves."

'According to study organizer David Griffith, poll respondents were surprisingly uniform in their opinion that the nation is too much of a hassle. -- "I already belong to a health club, a church, and the Kiwanis Club," Tammy Golden of Los Angeles wrote. "I'm a member of the Von's Grocery Super Savers, which gets me a discount on certain groceries. These are all well-managed organizations with real benefits. None of them send me a confusing bill once a year and make me work it out myself, then throw me in jail if I get it wrong."'

'Prior to Henry George, David Ricardo and John Stuart Mill were particularly adamant that the rent paid for access to land was an unearned value and that it came at the expense of productive activities. Think of a small shop owner who must pay part of their earnings out as rent instead of purchasing more inventory or employing people. It was John Stuart Mill who originally called the increase in land value, and thus the rent or sales price that is charged for more valuable land, the “unearned increment”. This is because the value of land is created by factors such as the natural fertility of the soil, government services and infrastructure, and the productive activities of the community that surrounds a particular plot, not the individual landlord. -- The word “rent” has a very nuanced meaning in economics, and varies widely in usage. Originally, it meant what you and I call rent, the cost of renting space, a plot of land with perhaps a house on it. Early political economists like Adam Smith, Thomas Malthus and David Ricardo felt the need to divide rent into what tenants pay for land (land rent) and what they pay for improvements, such as buildings (building rent). -- Ricardo and Malthus fiercely debated over whether land rent was earned. Ricardo believed it was not, and it was Ricardo’s arguments that generally won out in the public sphere, at least with respect to the Corn Laws. Political economists generalized the meaning of rent to all natural resources, simply referring to them as land, one of two critical elements for all production; land was and still is the means of production. -- A great amount of effort was exerted by neoclassical economists, especially John Bates Clark, to organize a stratagem against Henry George’s ideas, to obfuscate the importance of land and the political economic definition of rent. As a result, even well meaning contemporary economists often do not use rent synonymously with land rent (i.e. natural resource rent) or even imply that all rents are unearned. There is a lingering perception of rent as unearned, but it has been loaded with linguistic baggage. Therefore, we must begin the task of dispossessing the public of such deceptive language. A rent is simply the economic value of a natural resource. -- Let’s eschew muddling our definition of rent, the value of our natural resources. Land rent is sacred and deserves much the higher consideration than the other so called rents. We have a lot to gain by not simply using alternative words to describe proposals which only rehash the same tired debates. This is what the plutocrats want, to confuse the real issues, to draw attention away from the true source of privilege, who owns the earth.'

'...“free-market capitalism” is a contradiction in terms. There are two reasons why the economic system is called “capital”ism rather than “laborism” or “landism.” First is that capital dominates labor. The second reason to call the system “capitalism” is to hide the role of land, so that people focus only on the conflict between workers and capitalists. The chiefs of finance and real estate are able to dominate because of their political clout. They obtain privileges from government in subsidies, limits on competition, and periodic bail outs. In contrast, in a free market, there is no domination, with neither subsidies nor imposed costs. -- Pearlstein then says that if “markets” were providing prosperity for most folks, there would be no need for governmental intervention. But we don’t have pure markets. We have a mixed economy, with intervention into markets, so one has to first analyze whether it is markets or else interventions that cause high inequality, instability, poverty, and unemployment. Since pure markets are not given an opportunity to work, how can they be responsible for economic woes? -- Critics of markets have asserted that stagnant household incomes and financial crises are the fault of a greater role for markets, when in fact, in the US and Europe, massive subsidies to real estate caused the recession, excessive government borrowing has caused the fiscal crises, and a governmental redistribution of wealth from workers to landowners has stagnated net wages. -- I agree with Pearlstein that we should welcome the debate on economic morality. But we should use words that have real economic meaning, rather than propaganda terms. Any person who refers to “capitalism” other than with critical quotation marks contributes to the confusion. The critics of markets opportunistically use the term “free market” to refer to the mixed economy, and then use the term “capitalism” also for the concept of a pure free market. Hence they argue that “capitalism,” as the mixed economy, suffers from economic woes, and then jump to the false conclusion that “capitalism,” meaning the pure market, causes the problems. -- A real debate should also unmask the role of land that hides under the label “capital”ism. Critics who speak of the “market’s” unequal distributions overlook the massive redistribution of income from workers to landowners, as taxes on wages pay for public goods that pump up rent and land values. Their call for higher taxes on the rich disregards the distinction between earned income from entrepreneurship and unearned income from governmental subsidies.'

'...if we accept the thesis that all money is a universal mass illusion, then a market-based illusion can be just as valid or more valid than a State-controlled illusion. What Denninger and Greenbackers and MMT supporters reject is the notion that monetary illusions themselves are a competitive marketplace, falsely believing that only the State is in a ‘special’ position to confer legitimacy in monetary matters. -- Governments have appropriated the monetary unit for their own benefit by declaring it the only preferred monetary unit for payment of taxes to the State. Believing that governments have sincere and good intentions in administering the monetary system is akin to believing in fairy tales. Control of the monetary system serves one and only one interest — the unlimited expansion of the sovereign’s spending activity to the detriment of the unfortunate users of that monetary unit. Decentralized Bitcoin obliterates this sad state of affairs. -- Denninger’s biased and establishment preference for a monetary sovereign serves only to harm his analysis because it undeniably closes him off from alternative, and usually superior, free-market monetary arrangements. More damaging, however, is the fact that it places him outside of the mainstream in free banking circles and squanders his remaining quasi-libertarian credibility as a champion of markets.'

'HOMEOPAPE: A newspaper that filters the news so it only shows what you are interested in.'

'A filter bubble is a result state in which a website algorithm selectively guesses what information a user would like to see based on information about the user (such as location, past click behaviour and search history) and, as a result, users become separated from information that disagrees with their viewpoints, effectively isolating them in their own cultural or ideological bubbles. Prime examples are Google's personalised search results and Facebook's personalised news stream. The term was coined by internet activist Eli Pariser in his book by the same name; according to Pariser, users get less exposure to conflicting viewpoints and are isolated intellectually in their own informational bubble. -- In The Filter Bubble, Pariser warns that a potential downside to filtered searching is that it "closes us off to new ideas, subjects, and important information" and "creates the impression that our narrow self-interest is all that exists." It is potentially harmful to both individuals and society, in his view. He criticized Google and Facebook for offering users "too much candy, and not enough carrots," He warned that "invisible algorithmic editing of the web" may "limit our exposure to new information and narrow our outlook." According to Pariser, the detrimental effects of filter bubbles include harm to the general society in the sense that it has the possibility of "undermining civic discourse" and making people more vulnerable to "propaganda and manipulation."'

'It is tempting to see the internet as the ultimate fulfillment of the ideals of modernism – after all, the world wide web seems the perfect embodiment of Paul Otlet’s “Mundaneum.” Also, when you look at it from a strictly formalist viewpoint, the whole visual landscape of the internet is made up of exactly those elements that most people seem to associate with International Style: templates, grids, sans-serif type, the specific use of “empty” space, flush-left ragged-right columns. Even the use of all-lowercase letters in text messaging can be seen as stylistically linked to International Style. But still – we would say there is one fundamental, crucial difference between the print culture of modernism and the digital culture of the internet. In our view, print is still a more public medium. If a poster is hanging in the street, it is seen by every passerby in more or less the same way. Sure, the interpretation of the poster will differ from person to person, but by and large, the poster itself will appear in roughly the same way to every viewer, regardless of his/her class, race, gender, age, personal preferences, etc. -- This is different on the internet, where websites and pages conform themselves instantly to cater to the personal tastes and preferences of the individual viewer. Google search results change from person to person, the advertisements that clutter online profiles are specifically targeted toward the viewer, etc., etc. This makes the online environment ultimately an individualistic, isolated experience, despite the promise of “being connected.” It also makes most online activity a somewhat unadventurous, undialectical affair, as you only will be confronted with stimuli that are algorithmically curated for you, based on what large corporations (such as Facebook and Google) expect you to want to see. Whereas, within the context of the street, you will be confronted with information that is not specifically intended for you – posters you might not immediately understand, slogans you might disagree with (or not), kiosks carrying newspapers that are not necessarily tailored toward your specific lifestyle, book stalls displaying secondhand books expressing conflicting opinions. In our view, it is this notion of print culture within the urban environment that offers the most dialectical, and therefore most modernist, experience. So it’s exactly that idea that we try to explore most in our work. And, as paradoxical as it may sound, it is this theme of modernist print culture that is also one of the main subjects of our online presence – whether it is our actual website or the Facebook group you mentioned.'

'Double binds are what people are put in by the trickster archetype so long as it remains unconscious, in which case one is vulnerable to being taken advantage of by others. It is an enormous step in type development when we are able to make the trickster conscious and put the person who is trying to take advantage of us in a double bind. -- Alfred Hitchcock had a very developed trickster function. A shy man, whom I see as an ISTJ, he had tertiary Introverted Feeling and could not stand to have conflict on the set. Early in the making of Vertigo, Kim Novak came to the director upset that the clothes he had had designed for her role did not reflect her taste. This was a challenge to Hitchcock’s Introverted Feeling, which had taken the creative and commercial gamble of giving Novak’s upper-class character an unusually conservative wardrobe (including a grey suit with black shoes) in the first part of the film - an intended effect, but not the usual presentation of an emerging Hollywood sex symbol. Giving in to Novak would have ruined the picture, but so would him insisting that he knew what he was doing, which would have sparked a resentment that might show in her face on the screen. Hitchcock’s drew on his trickster Extraverted Feeling to rescue him from the double bind. He told his star, “My dear Miss Novak, you can wear anything you want, anything - provided it’s what the script calls for.” Somehow he succeeded in making the script (that he had in fact approved) bigger than both of them, and that put the double bind on the actress’s animus: she knew how to stand up to a director, but not to a script. To do the latter would have required a level of Extraverted Thinking that she did not have. I am not certain of Novak’s type, but I am reading her leading functions as Introverted Feeling and Extraverted Sensation, and her Extraverted Thinking as an inferior function, carried by an animus that Hitchcock was able to use his trickster to stymie. I do know that she and Hitchcock got on famously after, and the picture that resulted has been widely hailed as both his and her masterpiece.'

'The gratuitous violence of the movie Fight Club epitomizes Jung’s description of the inferior function of the introverted intuitive type as “extraverted sensation … of an archaic character” (CW 6, para. 663). -- The entire movie is one man’s fantasy of an alternate reality. The protagonist, Jack, played by Ed Norton, could be viewed as an INTJ, though a dysfunctional INTJ.ii A similar movie could be made about any of the types, but this type code enables the exploration of the inferior function via what is perhaps the most vivid and cinematically gratifying function: extraverted sensation. We see in Jack’s character the qualities Jung observes in the introverted intuitive type: “The intensification of intuition often results in an extraordinary aloofness of the individual from tangible reality” (CW 6, para. 661). The movie exaggerates this aloofness to the point of near-complete dissociation from reality. However, the main character’s internal monologue is so insightful and original that it illuminates the extraordinary richness of the interior life of Ni types, of whom Jung says, “They are living evidence that this rich and varied world with its overflowing and intoxicating life is not purely external but also exists within” (CW 6, para. 665). -- We can also see Jack’s type in his almost complete repression of sensation, as perhaps could be expected of a youthful Ni dominant individual, though with Jack this is pathologically exaggerated. He inhabits a world of extreme sensory deprivation. -- This all recalls Jung’s description of the way a dominant Ni may experience or manifest his inferior function, Se: “What the introverted intuitive represses most of all is the sensation of the object and this … gives rise to a compensatory extraverted sensation function of an archaic character” (CW 6, para. 663). Extraverted sensation “of an archaic character” virtually defines Tyler Durden, the antagonist played by Brad Pitt. Just as the inferior function compensates the dominant, Tyler is everything that Jack is not: Tyler is the man of action who lives in the moment and takes pleasure with no thought of consequences. Jung says, “Instinctuality and intemperance are the hallmarks of this sensation (para. 663)” when it manifests in the introverted intuitive type. As the carrier of Jack’s inferior Se, Tyler’s gestures and speech are fast, spontaneous, reckless, and instinctual, and his dress and style of interaction are anything but conservative. Tyler erupts in Jack’s life much the way the inferior function can erupt in any of us if we manage to suppress it or avoid it for a long time—in violent disruption. Tyler urges Jack to break through his self-imposed isolation from reality by engaging in acts of violence. Tyler insults, attacks, harasses, and torments Jack. As horrifying a friend as anyone could imagine, Tyler is relentless and remorseless: TYLER: "Look at you. You’re pathetic. Why do you think I blew up your condo? Stop trying to control everything and just let go. Let go!" -- Here, the credo of extraverted sensation – ‘be spontaneous’ – is exaggerated by the barbarous quality of the inferior function, which always remains primitive in us. In the dominant position, extraverted sensation is fluent and persuasive; if undeveloped, however, as in the inferior position, it can be brutish and bullying. -- Ever the primitive, Tyler urges Jack to give vent to his most violent impulses by creating the Fight Club, which, tellingly, is hidden underground. The club becomes the visual expression of inferior extraverted sensation, but also of the addictive rush that can be had from projecting our own animal instincts onto others and then attacking them for the same. It exemplifies the drive that feeds war, genocide, and mob rule. As Spoto observes: “Because the inferior function is so tied to the side of an individual’s personality, we must realize that the inferior function, when it is at the heart of such projections, can actually be dangerous.” -- Jung suggested that the inferior function can exercise a near-fatal attraction over us. Marie-Louise von Franz, Jung’s protégé, has described Hitler’s rise to power as a function of his ability to appeal to the inferior function of his audience (1971, 68). Like Hitler, Tyler appeals to his audience’s inferior function. Not surprisingly, the rules appeal to Jack’s attachment to intellectual formulas. The men who are drawn to the club all have suits and briefcases. They all resemble Jack—i.e., men who have repressed extraverted sensation and who can only experience it negatively, through violence. Von Franz says that the voice of the inferior function expresses itself in clichés and in primitive ways. Tyler’s innumerable mottos and rules have the quality of clichés, delivered with the hypnotic power of one who tells the audience what it wants to hear: TYLER: "The first rule of Fight Club is: You do not talk about Fight Club. The second rule of Fight Club is: You do not. Talk. About Fight Club." The rules are simplistic, primitive, and irrational as von Franz predicts. The repetition adds form without content, creating nonsense: If no one talked about the club, how would it gain members? The rules also show occasional flashes of brilliance, as is sometimes the case with the inferior function, but often this brilliance is dangerously cruel, as is the case with Rule #8: “If this is your first time … you have to fight.” Note the little sneer in Tyler’s face after he delivers this final rule. The Fight Club rules reflect the dangerous desire of the ego to dominate and silence the other parts of the self and to prevent the conscious self from acknowledging its unconscious projections. ... -- The last scene of the movie shows the skyscrapers of the city exploding and falling in an eerily prophetic glimpse of 9/11, the most historic acting out of shadow impulses in our time—prophetic because the movie pre-dates 9/11 by three years. [View video-clip] The significance of this coincidence is uncomfortable, as befits the inferior function. It suggests that we are all terrorists, that we all have a Fight Club within us. We must all unseat our ego, comprised of our conscious functions, and especially our Hero or dominant function, in order not to be overrun by our Shadow functions. In order to resist the tyranny of others, we must learn how to deal with the tyrannical aspects of our own ego, which tends to treat our inferior and unconscious aspects as rogues and rebels. If we do not acknowledge these lesser aspects, the rogue aspects will tyrannize us themselves.'

'E-Gov Link announces integration with Bitcoin in its popular E-Gov suite of products. Now municipalities can offer their citizens another option in paying for services like permits, utilities, class or event registration, shelter reservations, or even parking tickets.' -- Beggarman, Thief.

'As long as the Internet remains turned on, Bitcoin will be there... -- Bitcoin is a hedge against the entire global currency system -- ...people would prefer to throw in their lot with anonymous strangers instead of the world economy. Bitcoin isn’t tied to any commodity – besides trust. As a statement on the global economy, Bitcoin is hilarious. -- Maybe Bitcoin’s devotees are right, and it’s the currency of the future. Or perhaps it’s a ridiculous joke – a speculative, hilarious enterprise taken to its most insane conclusion. Given that the founder is nowhere to be found, it feels like a hoax, a parody of the global economy. That the technology used to implement it has, so far, shown itself to be impeccable and completely functional, and that it’s actually being exchanged, just makes it a better joke. The truth is, it doesn’t much matter if it’s a joke or not. It works.' -- Better to reign in Hell, than serve in Heaven.

'A hard-working lawyer, attached to his cell phone, can't find the time to communicate with his family. A couple is drawn into a dangerous situation when their secrets are exposed online. A widowed ex-cop struggles to raise a mischievous son who cyber-bullies a classmate. An ambitious journalist sees a career-making story in a teen that performs on an adult-only site. They are strangers, neighbors and colleagues and their stories collide in this riveting dramatic thriller about ordinary people struggling to connect in today's wired world.'

'It's shame all the way down.'

'The connection economy continues to gain traction because connections scale, information begets more information, and influence accrues to those who create this abundance. As connections scale, these connections paradoxically make it easier for others to connect as well, because anyone with talent or passion can leverage the networks created by connection to increase her impact. The connection economy doesn’t create jobs where we get picked and then get paid; the connection economy builds opportunities for us to connect, and then demands that we pick ourselves. -- #TRUST AND PERMISSION: In a marketplace that’s open to just about anyone, the only people we hear are the people we choose to hear. Media is cheap, sure, but attention is filtered, and it’s virtually impossible to be heard unless the consumer gives us the ability to be heard. The more valuable someone’s attention is, the harder it is to earn. And who gets heard? Why would someone listen to the prankster or the shyster or the huckster? No, we choose to listen to those we trust. We do business with and donate to those who have earned our attention. We seek out people who tell us stories that resonate, we listen to those stories, and we engage with those people or businesses that delight or reassure or surprise in a positive way. And all of those behaviors are the acts of people, not machines. We embrace the humanity in those around us, particularly as the rest of the world appears to become less human and more cold. Who will you miss? That is who you are listening to.'

'One of the most common epithets hurled at men by feminists, and probably the most genuinely hurtful, is that men are upset at women because they are bitter about being unloved. The reason this one hurts more than the typical “small penis” or “mother’s basement” insult is because it is so often accurate to some extent. The best insults always hit a weak spot. It’s true that many men are very bitter about loss of love, betrayal or lack of attention from women. This is why some pick up artists have such commercial success with their ventures, and why men flock to gurus who say they hold the secrets to a woman’s heart. -- Actually, if these cruel women only knew, it goes a lot farther than mere heartbreak. The abandonment of men in contemporary society is so comprehensive that a man who has lost a wife or lover not only suffers from the loss of that deep personal connection, but from a fairly comprehensive rejection by society in general. First you lose your wife, then your kids, and then even your own family turns against you in many cases (this is a lot more common than most people realize — American men’s own mothers very often blame them and side with the ex in what is usually a futile effort to maintain contact with the grandchildren). The thrashing you get from the police and courts is just gratuitous abuse; in many cases guys are simply numb to additional pain by that time. -- So, yes, these are bitter, unloved men. They are hated and they know it, although many have no clear idea why.'

Comment: Typhon Blue: 'When you're taught your whole life to be passive, hate is an emotion more suited to you then love. Love is about what you do; Hate is about what's done to you. That's why women can be so passionate in their hate and so apathetic in their 'love'.'

"When a man surrenders, it's the end of his power; when a woman surrenders, it's just the beginning of hers."

"Now they must earn an identity through their actions in service of some outside goal. Enter the Sultan's Threat Narrative. When you no longer have an innate positive social identity, you're compelled through shame to take your positive identity through your actions and ambitions in service of someone else's Threat Narrative. You lose the ability to acknowledge your own vulnerabilities; your vulnerabilities are placed in opposition to the very source of your identity: your ability to serve. Because you can't acknowledge your vulnerabilities, they become recast as personal failures. They become shame. These slaves may refer to any mention of their vulnerabilities as 'whining' or being a 'pussy' – 'slave up', they might say." -- "The only way to see the slavery inherent in the system would be to see how shame creates slaves with no identity outside of serving someone else's Threat Narrative."

Twenty infants, ranging in age from six to 12 months, came into the lab at their regular bedtime. While they were asleep in the scanner, the infants were presented with nonsense sentences spoken in very angry, mildly angry, happy, and neutral tones of voice by a male adult. “Even during sleep, infants showed distinct patterns of brain activity depending on the emotional tone of voice we presented,” Graham said. The researchers found that infants from high conflict homes showed greater reactivity to very angry tone of voice in brain areas linked to stress and emotion regulation, such as the anterior cingulate cortex, caudate, thalamus, and hypothalamus.'

'In June 1936, intrigued by social workers who were telling him that ”relationship therapy”—not ”interpretive therapy”—was the emphasis of the Philadelphia School, Carl Rogers invited Otto Rank to Rochester to conduct a 3-day seminar on his new, postFreudian practice of therapy (Evans, 1975, p. 28). No longer calling himself a psychoanalyst, Rank was by 1936 a ”world-renowned psychologist whose major works could be read in English, French and German” (lieberman, 1985, p. 355). In 1935, Rank had spoken at Harvard at the invitation of Henry Murray (p. 363), then the preeminent American student of ”personology.” -- What did Rogers learn during this June 1936 seminar? No one can be certain, but one month after visiting Rochester, in July 1936, Rank published two books: Will Therapy: An Analysis of the Therapeutic Process in Terms ofRelationship (193671978b) and Truth and Reality: A Life History of the Human Will (1936/1978a). The titles reveal Rank’s fundamental concerns: creativity and relationship. Although densely written, these books offer his richest thinking in response to a riddle Freud struggled with for a lifetime but could never solve: What, precisely, is the human meaning of the therapeutic relationship? -- In The Trauma of Birth, said Rank, he had referred to ”the creation of the individual himself, not merely physically, but also [spiritually] in the sense of the ’rebirth experience/which I understand … as the actual creative act of the human being.” A creature born out of a biological mother, out of a speck of cosmic dust, ”the human being,” continued Rank, ”becomes at once creator and creature or actually moves from creature to creator, in the ideal case, creator of himself, his own personality” (Rank, 1936/1978a, p. 2). The development of consciousness and ”the never completed birth of individuality,” according to Rank, seemed ”somehow to correspond to a continued result of births, rebirths and new birth, which reach from the birth of the child from the mother, beyond the birth of the individual from the mass, to the birth of creative work from the individual and finally to the birth of knowledge from the work” (pp. 11-12). The essence of life and consciousness is ceaseless change. Individuation is never complete. -- The difference between nonexistence and existence precedes and colors all other difference—whether it be the difference of sex, age, race, intelligence, or nationality. Existence comes first. According to Rank, ”The fundamental problem is individual difference, which the I is inclined to interpret as inferiority unless it can be proved by achievement to be superiority” (Rank, 1932/1989, p. 42). Only through creative production—in art, philosophy, or science, for example—can the pain of living be eased and the strange gift of life justified. -- Living in the present—being present—is not so easy. Male or female, the human being is tormented by a question that science with all its great achievements cannot answer: What does it mean to be conscious during this brief interval, a holiday on earth, between two eternities of darkness? Not a ”black box” in the mind whose ”contents” can be uncovered and repackaged by analysis, the unconscious is utterly shrouded in darkness. The unconscious is before Oedipus; before pre-Oedipus. The unconscious, according to Rank, is an infinite past stretching backwards into the impenetrable coldness of space and time ”before” our sudden arrival on the planet and forwards into an equally infinite icy abyss looming ”after” our death. Emerging at conception from oblivion, and returning at death to oblivion, we are astounded by the eerie similarity of the two dark holes called ”before” and ”after.” -- Human beings are thrown into the world at birth and thrown out at death. But not only do we forget that we are born to die, we also have an astonishing ability to forget that we are living. Enigmatically, our conscious awareness of Dasein — German for being there — appears to have suffered a much deeper repression than even the repression of Oedipal sexual wishes or pre-Oedipal deficits in the development of self. Are we not forever in debt to another or an ”Other* — someone or something outside ourselves — for our very existence? -- Why is it so hard for human beings to bear the burden of selfhood, the pain of individuation, the anxiety of standing up and accepting full responsibility for one’s self—one’s difference? At the core of suffering, according to Rank, is angst—anxiety, anguish, or dread. Even with the kindest of parents, and the least violent of births, the human being is born afraid, a shivering bundle of anxiety cast adrift in an awesome and uncaring Cosmos. Angst ”seems to be erected as a dividing line between the I and the world, and vanishes only when both have become one, as parts of a greater whole” (Rank, 1936/1978b, p. 198) — in, for example, art or love. -- With birth, the feeling of oneness with ”the ALL” is lost. It is only the glue of art or love that can bind our broken parts together, make us whole again, if only for a fleeting moment. I = pain. Only through art or love can the individual be ”delivered from his isolation and become part of a greater and higher whole” (Rank, 1932/1989, p. 86).'

'Our bodies and homes are covered in microbes -- some good for us, some bad for us, and some just along for the ride. As we learn more about the germs and microbes who share our living spaces, TED Fellow Jessica Green asks: Can we design buildings that encourage happy, healthy microbial environments?' -- I am large, I contain multitudes. (Walt Whitman)

'When artists invite the Muse, whether they know it or not, they are setting a place for both her creative and destructive inspiration. Creativity is a dangerous vocation. Genius is daimonic. Which is why, as one of my old mentors, Rollo May, pointed out, "creating, actualizing one's possibilities, always involves destructive as well as constructive aspects." -- What makes one person (Picasso, Beethoven, Bob Dylan or John Lennon, for instance) a predominantly creative genius, and another a more destructive or evil genius? I term these two distinct types or personalities eudaimonic genius or dysdaimonic genius. While each have the innate capacity – like all of us to some extent – for both creativity and evil, in contrast to the dysdaimonic genius, the eudaimonic genius is the more mature, conscious, integrated, whole, balanced and self-possessed person. He or she has learned to deal relatively constructively with their inner demons, whereas the dysdaimonic genius has not. The dysdaimonic genius embodies a confounding combination of exceptional creative powers juxtaposed with equally strong tendencies toward psychopathology, perversity, destructiveness, cruelty and evil.'

'...in relationships where sex eventually breaks down, it’s because the partners ultimately aren’t able to face their own shame, damage or limitations. The excitement of early sexual passion — the feeling that we’re part of a unique and amazing couple, mutually idealizing one another — serves as a powerful defense against underlying shame, but it eventually fades as the relationship becomes more real. We come to see one another more clearly and honestly. On an unconscious level, many of us then experience a return of the shame we escaped through idealized sex. The exciting sexual arena is no longer a haven from shame but a place where we may experience it even more intensely. Projecting unbearable shame into our partners also makes them unattractive, another obstacle to ongoing sex. Eventually, our defenses against intolerable shame kill off desire and our sex life dies. -- By contrast, successful long-term partners manage to keep their particular sexual lives vital, with all their quirks and imperfections. One of my middle-aged clients and her husband have a day each week when they generally try to have sex. Her hair is entirely gray, he’s overweight and has back issues; there are other physical complications, but more often than not, they manage to have satisfying contact that brings them closer. It helps defuse the kind of shame-trading that too often comes to characterize many unhappy marriages. You can often tell the difference between couples who have a satisfying sex life after many years and those who don’t: do they still feel proud of one another, or do they undermine each other in subtle ways, exposing them to criticism and ridicule?'

'With banks in Cyprus now scheduled to re-open on March 26th after eight days of consecutive closure, this would make the Cypriot banking-system shutdown tied with the U.S. (March 6-13th, 1933) for longest number of shutdown days, following only first place Argentina (April 20-29th, 2002) at 10 days. Should the crisis extend beyond eight days and the European Central Bank pulls the liquidity it has been pumping into Cypriot banks, the ATMs may become cashless. -- With capital controls to prevent a mass exodus from Cyprus banks now fait accompli regardless of the bailout decision, Jeremy Warner at the Telegraph says that it is the end of the single currency in all but name: "Yet the point is that if capital controls are introduced, it basically makes Cypriot euros into a national currency, rather than part of wider monetary union. The capital controls will severely limit your ability to get your euros out of Cyprus, rending them essentially worthless in the wider eurozone. It would be a bit like telling Scots they can’t spend their UK pounds in England. Monetary union is many things, but above all it is about free movement of money and a uniform value wherever it is spent. When these functions are disabled, then you cease to be part of a single currency." -- The era of free capital movement is behind us. Capital controls are about government keeping your money within easy reach should they ever want it. A decentralized and nonpolitical currency like Bitcoin starts to look attractive by providing a safer destination for wary depositors, allowing them to store their money securely in a digital account on their own computers, away from the big governments and politicians’ reach.'

"What is the purpose of a bank?"

'...the insightful criticism isn't that they didn't artificially include a black woman, it is that they artificially excluded Asian women – that this photo could only be made by actively denying a reality: among women, Asian women are proportionally overrepresented in successful positions, especially tech jobs, especially Silicon Valley, and yes, Apple Maps, India is in Asia. Putting this shot together is like staging an NBA publicity photo without any neck tattoos or handguns. "What?" When I was in my 3rd year of medical school and we all had to select our tax bracket, the Asian women went into surgery, ophthalmology, or the last two years of a PhD program, you know where the borderline sleeves went? Pediatrics, which I think is technically sublimation but I'm no psychiatrist. The logic was straightforward: they wanted kids, and, unlike surgery, pediatrics offered future doctor-moms a bit of flexibility, while the Asian women apparently didn't worry about working late because their kids would be at violin till 9:30. -- This porno, for the Time et al demographic, cannot allow this bit of reality to be shown, because the moment you see Padmakshi or "Megan" at the table it is too real, it undermines the entire sexism thesis and suggests that something else may be going on... This doesn't mean Asian women don't experience sexual discrimination, it means that when an Asian woman succeeds, the other women in the office don't get to experience sexual discrimination, so they're left only with sexual harassment. Read it a couple of times, it'll make sense and you won't like it.'