Well, I purposefully chose to use sociopathy in this example to indicate the
complete competency spectrum. A flood-prone sociopath *needs* to get good at
suppressing their freak-outs. A psychopath doesn't need to suppress anything.
There's no such thing as an ideal psychopath, of course. We're all a little
psycho to some extent.
But if you're asserting there's a difference between freak-out behavior and a
freaked-out mental state, then we might expect the monists to come flying out
of the woodwork with their loops on repeat. It's a social skill, a competence,
to be able to *whip* oneself up into a state of enthusiasm ... or even a state
of Flow. When you enter the MMA ring, you don't calm yourself, meditate, and
relax. You whip yourself into a [controlled] freak-out. Explosive athletics
require freaked-out mentality *and* often quite a bit of bit of freak-out
behavior.
This conception of flooding and freaking out as some sort of
over-the-threshhold loss of control is idealistic nonsense. That's the heart of
my claim that freak-outs aren't the problem.
On 4/28/22 14:32, Marcus Daniels wrote:
Sure, it depends whether we define a state-of-mind as the freak out, or the
observed behavior of the freak out. The former could happen, and no one would
know. And I think you are confusing sociopathy with psychopathy in this
example.
-----Original Message-----
From: Friam <[email protected]> On Behalf Of glen
Sent: Thursday, April 28, 2022 2:24 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] A million year old driving assistant
But by keeping it together, you *weaken* your plausible deniability. Keeping it
together would give the prosecutor the ammunition to accuse you of
[pre]mediated murder (with [pre] in brackets because it's not technically
pre-mediated murder). The more cold-blooded you are, the more likely we'll
interpret your killing as cold-blooded murder.
So a competent sociopath gets good at *simulating* freak-outs. Again, the
freak-out isn't the problem, here. Freaking out is a tool just like any other.
And it's rational and intelligent to use the tool deliberately.
On 4/28/22 14:17, Marcus Daniels wrote:
Just to clarify, I wouldn't shoot the guy because I was emotional. He was the
one that experienced the freak out. In some potential circumstance, I would
potentially do it for protection of my passenger, and to a lesser extent as a
sort of public service, because the opportunity was given to me in the context
of (plausible) self-defense. The subtler reason that excuse would be
appealing would be due to the basic injustice that I was basically keeping it
together and he was not, and keeping it together is work. So why should I
take on the burden for adapting to lazy people? Just because I can? If we
go around making special accommodations for people that don't try to keep it
together, one can expect a lot more of it.
-----Original Message-----
From: Friam <[email protected]> On Behalf Of glen
Sent: Thursday, April 28, 2022 1:49 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] A million year old driving assistant
Well, OK. So we can partition freak-outs into (at least) 2 types: angry vs
joyous ... or whatever other false binary you choose (pro- vs anti-social
perhaps). Then we argue for suppression of one but not suppression of the
other? Pffft. That doesn't work. E.g. https://youtu.be/etK7e7iBJVQ You'd just
end up living in a world of dead-eyed automatons.
What you seem to be targeting, here, is *material* cause. Those of us who tend
to flood more than others need less access to powerful tools like cars and
guns. Again, it's not the freak-out that's the problem. It's the network in
which the freak-out exists.
On 4/28/22 13:40, Marcus Daniels wrote:
It's not about the manners, it's about learning to distance from discomfort.
Like continuing to press a climb up a hill on a bicycle while the lactic acid
burns your legs.
Spend some time around someone with borderline personality disorder for a
while, you will change your mind.
Road rage is a common example. The other day there was a bicycle that I was approaching
who wasn't going very fast, even for a bicyclist. She did have every right to be there,
and so I was also going slow to wait for her to get around a parked car before I passed.
Meanwhile, some lunatic comes up behind us laying on his horn, oscillating from the left
side of the lane to the right trying to find a way around. Because he went so far right,
there was no way he couldn't see the bicyclist. I don't have a lot of patience for this
kind of behavior, so I indicated my displeasure with a middle finger. This individual
then roars in front of us both and puts his car horizontally in front of mine. He gets
out and starts banging on my window to get his "catharsis". Had I determined
he was an actual threat to us, I might have pushed his car out the way with mine (which
was much larger), or had I a weapon, shot him. F*ck his catharsis, he can share the
minor frustration of daily life with the rest of us, and in silence please. There is no
benefit in his freak out, it was basically a criminal act as far as I was concerned.
There are situations which a rant is truly righteous, but I have found mostly
no one cares about that. Usually this discovery comes at some personal or
professional cost.
-----Original Message-----
From: Friam <[email protected]> On Behalf Of glen
Sent: Thursday, April 28, 2022 1:20 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] A million year old driving assistant
"This is your last free article." [baaaaahhhhhhhh] Now what am I
gonna read this weekend!?!? Damn you! [stomp][stomp][stomp]
Of course, I disagree completely with the point being made, there. The
freak-out improves relationships and rationality, smooths over difficulties in
the real world, and has all sorts of narrative-breaking, cathartic benefits. In
the same way that convictions to ideologies foster conservatism and hamper
progress, the suppression of one's freak-outs amounts to rejecting a large
array of measures and indicators one might ordinarily use to understand the
world. The problem isn't the freak-out. The problem is a lack of tolerance
*for* freak-outs. It's the repressed Victorians running around complaining
about the lack of manners and decorum around them.
Please. Don't repress your freak-outs. We're tough. We can withstand your
freak-out and use it to better plan for the future. The last thing we need is
to turn into a bunch of dead-affect emotionless, freak-out-free psychopaths.
Where would stand-up comedy be without freak-outs? Where would we get our
qualia-laden *rants* from? What even is laughing if *not* a kind of freak-out?
I haven't had the giggles in decades. But for some reason, a group of us were
eating lunch a few weeks ago. Someone told a joke. Another someone kept
laughing. I mean, even after the topic had changed and everyone'd moved on.
This dude kept laughing. I tried to take a sip of beer and I ended up snorting
it ... just because that other dude kept laughing. I'm allergic to barley. So
when I snort beer it seriously messes me up for about an hour or 2. Fvcking
laughing. Stupid freak-out. I should have suppressed it.
On 4/28/22 12:53, Marcus Daniels wrote:
“Emotional flooding might have helped your Pleistocene ancestors survive, but
it is maladapted to most modern interactions.”
https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2022/04/how-to-manage-emo
t
ions-and-reactions/629692/
<https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2022/04/how-to-manage-em
o
tions-and-reactions/629692/>
--
Mɥǝu ǝlǝdɥɐuʇs ɟᴉƃɥʇ' ʇɥǝ ƃɹɐss snɟɟǝɹs˙
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