The Paradox of Human Connection

Maria Popova, writing at The Marginalian:

The hardest thing in life isn’t getting what we want, isn’t even knowing what we want, but knowing what to want. We think we want connection, but as soon as contact reaches deeper than the skin of being, we recoil with the terror of vulnerability. There is no place more difficult to show up than where marrow meets marrow. And yet that is the only place where two people earn the right to use the word “love.” Our avoidance of that terrifying, transcendent place holds up a mirror to our most fundamental beliefs about life and love, about what we deserve and what we are capable of, about reality and the landscape of the possible.

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Argument Pyramid: Deploy in Case of Ad Hominem Attacks

This pyramid is an elegant response to shitstorms of ad hominem attacks.

If your response is "this pyramid sucks," it's especially for you.

Credit for this meme goes to Paul Graham, a computer scientist, essayist, entrepreneur, venture capitalist, and author.

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The Mental Health Challenges of Liberal Girls

Janathan Haidt, writing at his new Substack:

In conclusion, I believe that Greg Lukianoff was exactly right in the diagnosis he shared with me in 2014. Many young people had suddenly—around 2013—embraced three great untruths:

They came to believe that they were fragile and would be harmed by books, speakers, and words, which they learned were forms of violence (Great Untruth #1).

They came to believe that their emotions—especially their anxieties—were reliable guides to reality (Great Untruth #2).

They came to see society as comprised of victims and oppressors—good people and bad people (Great Untruth #3).

Liberals embraced these beliefs more than conservatives. Young liberal women adopted them more than any other group due to their heavier use of social media and their participation in online communities that developed new disempowering ideas. These cognitive distortions then caused them to become more anxious and depressed than other groups. Just as Greg had feared, many universities and progressive institutions embraced these three untruths and implemented programs that performed reverse CBT on young people, in violation of their duty to care for them and educate them.

See also, this article discussing (among other things) The Coddling of the American Mind, by Haidt and Lukianoff.

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TikTok Tics and Social Contagion

Reported by the Daily Wire:

A new paper published earlier this month in Comprehensive Psychiatry proposed that “social contagion” through prolonged social media use can explain why some teens, mostly adolescent females, self-diagnose with rare mental illnesses and personality disorders online.

The paper proposes that social media platforms like TikTok, whose core user base are teen girls, and the popularity of online communities that glamorize mental illness, may act as a “spread vector” for adolescents to adopt various disorders as part of their online personas.

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Crickets . . . The Sound We Will Hear from Corporate Media Instead of Apologies

The Washington Post reported a story today without mentioning that until today, the paper has been engaging in reckless journalism for many months prior. Here's today's headline:

"‘Havana syndrome’ not caused by energy weapon or foreign adversary, intelligence review finds: After a years-long assessment, five U.S. intelligence agencies conclude it is ‘very unlikely’ an enemy wielding a secret weapon was behind the mysterious ailment.

To be a modern corporate journalist, you don't need any evidence to publish a story. All you need is to know someone in the federal government who whispers something to you that furthers your employer's favorite narrative. Just look at these clowns go at it, convincing each other that the sounds made by crickets were caused by a Russian high tech weapon that was frying the brains of U.S personnel. WaPo published DOZENS of these xenophobic articles. How much of our Russia-hate these days is because of journalistic malpractice?

Glenn Greenwald adds (and I agree that this is an easy bet):

This is yet another hoax where any ethical and actual news organization would go on air and say: "for years we told you something that turned out to be false. Here's why we did it. We apologize and retract our stories."

That they don't tells you all you need to know about them.

I just checked (March 1, 2023 at 11pm CT): The corporate media refusing to mention that the story was a hoax include: NYT, Washington Post, NPR, MSNBC and CNN.

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