Steve's road-rage module could deploy a net or a powerful, but not deadly, shot 
of electricity and call 911 with a GPS locator.    Then I wouldn't have to back 
up and make sure his head was flat.  But wait, shouldn't this socialist value 
system should factor in my visceral needs as well? 

-----Original Message-----
From: Friam <[email protected]> On Behalf Of glen
Sent: Thursday, April 28, 2022 3:22 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] A million year old driving assistant

Were I still a libertarian, I would agree. But now that I'm almost a socialist, 
I think it is our job to provide plastic context that allows for more freak-out 
than less. I'm equivocating on "job", of course. But you did it first. 8^P By 
flipping that road rager off, you did him a favor. By your lack of a counter 
freak-out, you helped him get what he needed. Good job!

On 4/28/22 15:16, Marcus Daniels wrote:
> I have no problem with the people that go to rave or to Dave's special house 
> to "lose it".  They have arranged for a relatively safe context for letting 
> their nervous system bounce around.   But it is not my job to facilitate that 
> experience, in general, in the wild.
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Friam <[email protected]> On Behalf Of glen
> Sent: Thursday, April 28, 2022 3:12 PM
> To: [email protected]
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] A million year old driving assistant
> 
> I like everything about that layout except the "outside the abilities". I 
> think those of us who "lose it" actually want to lose it ... or enjoy losing 
> it ... like dancing at a rave at the DJs crecendo. Some part of them knows 
> it's unproductive. And they don't have to be all that sociopathic, ignoring 
> the feelings of those around them or being all that ignorant of their 
> trajectory towards freak-out. They just *want* the freak-out. It feels good.
> 
> The trick is that some of us have manners and try to adapt to context and 
> others don't ... or simply don't have the willingness to classify contexts 
> and match them with different manners/modes. The right wingers who go on and 
> on about "wokeness" are this way. They simply don't *want* to exhibit good 
> manners. The same might be true of a freaking out antifa shouting at a nazi.
> 
> It's all about wants and (physiological) reward. What are they getting from 
> their chosen behavior? If they wanted to calm down, they would.
> 
> On 4/28/22 15:03, Marcus Daniels wrote:
>> My reasoning goes like this. 1)  I know there is a difference between the 
>> things I feel and the behaviors I have that could reveal them.    It is not 
>> a perfectly controlled thing, of course, but I have a degree of control.   
>> This control leads to some control of the feelings themselves.   As you say, 
>> one can whip themselves up, but one can also calm themselves.    2) I would 
>> never pull one of these vehicular stunts unless it was a theatrical 
>> motivation for a third party to observe or I was artificially influenced by 
>> a high dose of testosterone, adrenaline, meth, etc.   A common situation 
>> like low blood sugar or high caffeine wouldn't be enough.   I just wouldn't 
>> even think about it if someone flipped me off.   I might feel bad if I 
>> thought I had made a mistake and deserved criticism/shaming, but I wouldn't 
>> then thrust my car in front of another leading to who knows what outcome for 
>> no reason at all.
>>
>> I don't think thresholding is the right way to model it.  It is more like 
>> can one estimate how cool or agitated they are and modulate the situations 
>> to avoid unproductive conflict.   Some people I have found can't recognize 
>> their own degree of agitation.  The flooding is going outside the abilities 
>> of the control system.
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Friam <[email protected]> On Behalf Of glen
>> Sent: Thursday, April 28, 2022 2:44 PM
>> To: [email protected]
>> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] A million year old driving assistant
>>
>> 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-
>>>>>> e
>>>>>> m
>>>>>> o
>>>>>> t
>>>>>> ions-and-reactions/629692/
>>>>>> <https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2022/04/how-to-manage
>>>>>> -
>>>>>> e
>>>>>> m
>>>>>> o
>>>>>> tions-and-reactions/629692/>
>>>>>

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