1016
on the male loneliness epidemic
(lemmy.blahaj.zone)
Show transcript
Screenshot of a Tumblr post by nongunktional:
when i first heard about the male loneliness epidemic i was like oh yeah close camaraderie and bonding between men is often discouraged in favor of competition or, if not discouraged, at least filtered through a lens of individualism that precludes deep connections. and then i learned what people meant by it (men arent getting laid) to which i say skill issue
to all the men out there not getting laid: try less hard to get laid and try more hard to be an enjoyable and relaxing presence
"predeterminism" is as you acknowledge a concept and that's not what the question is asking. What is your will free from that has a real effect on what your decisions actually end up being? Are your decisions somehow made outside of the dictation of physics?
Your brain is dictated by physical reality. Your sense of control is an illusion. This doesn't mean we should curl up in a ball and wait to die. The future is unknown to us, trying to make it a better future is a natural goal to seek.
However, "no free will" also means that "punishment" and "reward" are both fundamentally amoral tools to achieve ends and not intrinsically justified. Meritocracy has no intrinsic moral value.
An example of what I mean here: If there was a method of rendering a serial killer harmless without causing them any pain or death that would be the more moral decision than punishing them for killing people.
The comment you were responding to was talking about how they thought Lemmy hated them because of the generalities contained within OP's screenshot post and I responded to that. I have never established that whether the loneliness epidemic among men was "about getting laid". I would say its not exclusively about that, but that sex is a major component, as well as any physical intimacy in general.
We've branched out our conversation and in ways that largely was more dependent on what you and I have and have not refuted/argued with each other. This is a meandering conversation at this point but at the very least we are moving close to core philosophical disagreements. That's fine by me because its at least meaningfully possible for some kind of ideological reconciliation as far as I can tell. But maybe not, maybe our perspectives are fundamentally at odds and we may run into a brick wall.
Lying to myself for the sake of my own mental health is both something I pragmatically and ideologically reject. Truth of reality is maybe not a core axiom of mine but its pretty damn close and might as well be one. But also I just think "changing my beliefs" (lying to myself) is unsustainable anyway and wouldn't work or if it did would result in potentially more catastrophic results long term.
I need to clarify something: My life is not good but I do try to make it better. Again, I don't think a lack of free will means I shouldn't try to make things better. I just don't ascribe my "trying" as some sort of magical will essence outside of physical reality. The end resulting actions I take are the result of neurons in my brain firing a certain way.
Furthering my point: Human beings do have some level of autonomy, but so do robots (literally "automatons"). Human's have agency (the ability for their actions to effect the world outside of them) but again, so do robots. But robots do not have free will either right?
I did understand them. Like I said, I ruminated. I thought about them probably more than necessary.
I never said that it was. My perspective on responsibility stems more from a core belief that free will doesn't exist.
I already try to do that. If she knew and that upset her, then that's unfortunate but I did not owe her anything beyond professionalism and politeness. And you know what, she never made it clear that I had bothered her by my avoidance. I'm pretty sure she just figured I was busy.
If I was avoiding critique, we'd be not having this conversation. TBH, I find talking about me, maybe not boring, but besides the point.
I was talking about "men" in general. Not myself. Men are fucked by the current state of things when it comes to loneliness and intimacy, I don't assign meaningful blame to any one individual or group and blame isn't needed, solutions are. Hell, I think women aren't really benefiting either.
Your focus on me is misguided. My love life atm is possibly worse than average, but its definitely better than the men complaining for their own sake given that I have sex here and there. At least one night stands. Not gotten a more stable relationship in a very long time though.
My arguments have to do with the overall amount of sex that's being had. And its significantly less across the board at a society wide level (well in many countries). I think that's bad and should be fixed. Sex is fun, we should all have more of it.
If she was hurt, she was hurt by her own emotions. I can't control how other people react to my decisions.
That explains your focus on me as an individual I suppose. You are used to thinking that way.
Just because some of our choices are constrained by natural limitations, does not mean all our choices are. Just because I cannot choose to fly like Superman does not mean that I cannot choose to have beer for breakfast everyday.
I think you are running into aspects of the mind body problem.... Our brains are not dictated by physical reality, but it can be shaped by how we interact our environment on both a physical and metaphysical scale. Basically the physical world can shape the way we think, and the way we think can change our brains physically.
That argument is based on an unsubstantiated claim, and is argued with semantic reasoning. Free will, punishment, and reward are all different concepts who's meaning depends on the context, and the perception of the person you are speaking too.
The concept Meritocracy has a moral value that is self evident. The point of establishing social mores is to create a functional and cohesive society, meritocracy is a tool to make societies more durable and efficient.
Social mores are human constructs which may change when evaluated across time and different cultures. However, that doesn't really matter when talking about individuals operating within their own ethical constructs. I'm not claiming there's an overall ethical superstructure that mandates the same moral construct of all humans throughout all time.
^If there was a method of rendering a serial killer harmless without causing them any pain or death that would be the more moral decision than punishing them for killing people.
I'm not quite sure how you are correlating that with the idea of predetermination? In this example I don't really think punishment or reward is really a matter of ethical choice. Are you saying we don't as a society have a choice how we deal with someone who has committed murder? Or that the individual who murdered has no choice?
^The comment you were responding to was talking about how they thought Lemmy hated them because of the generalities contained within OP's screenshot post and I responded to that.
The generalization he was speaking about were about claiming the male loneliness epidemic was just about trying to get laid.
I'm still not quite sure I understand your metaphysical perspective of reality as a whole. But the more we speak, I don't think the argument was really presented very well. I don't know if focusing on "free will" really should be the focus of your claim. It seems like your argument is less about predeterminism and more about the mind body problem and the schism between the physical and the metaphysical? Do you have any particular philosopher that you prescribe too that's influenced your perspective? That might be a better starting point.
^Lying to myself for the sake of my own mental health is both something I pragmatically and ideologically reject.
Mental health professionals aren't supposed to help you lie to yourself, they are supposed to help you understand your own perspective and help you come up with ways to navigate the world in a healthy way.
^Truth of reality is maybe not a core axiom of mine but its pretty damn close and might as well be one. But also I just think "changing my beliefs" (lying to myself) is unsustainable anyway and wouldn't work or if it did would result in potentially more catastrophic results long term.
Outside of very specific scenarios where we can measure and recreate a shared experience, there is no such thing as "truth of reality". The Human experience is subjective in nature and how we understand and interact with our environment changes the definition of "reality".
I suggest maybe reading into The philosophy of the mind
I think you have a lot of misconceptions about cognitive science. You can literally train your neurons to make connections in new ways by how you interact with physical and metaphysical phenomenon.
Automatons are defined by their lack of will, they simply follow a set of predetermined sequence of operations prescribed by someone.
Human agency is defined by the capacity of individuals to make choices and act on those choices, thus influencing their lives and the world around them. It's the ability to intentionally shape one's own actions and outcomes. It's a term adopted by social cognitive theory, not the layman's definition of agency. So no, robots do not possess human agency, in fact it's one of the ways we determine if an artificial intelligence ever reaches self actualization.
Again, ruminating on something is not the same as processing. There's ways to cognitively train autonomous responses, and it's not by "lying to yourself". You had a reaction that was much more intense than the situation called for, and was probably an autonomous response caused by an excited nervous system.
Again..... I don't really think your core beliefs are very well flushed out and are inconsistent with both scientific and philosophical literature.
Again, people with autism are not very good with determining what is professional or polite. I would argue that avoiding a co-worker based on their looks is neither of those things.
I think you can be overly defensive and still participate in conversation.
Fucked by who though? If we're going to turn this into a sex specific claim then we have to evaluate the problem through that lens. If men are being fucked over to more significant degree than who is doing it? Pretty much every social structure is dominated by men. So are we claiming that men are responsible for fucking over men?
How do you find a solution without evaluating where the problem stems from? Just because you aren't specifying a source doesn't mean you aren't begging the question. By specifying it as male loneliness, you are alluding to a problem needing to be solved. When people look for the source of the problem and suggest it may be men, people yell victim blaming. So who does that leave?
Then why dictate it as a "male loneliness" problem?
Sounds like you could use that excuse anytime an action you do hurts someone?
You can't exactly talk to society....... You are the person who reaches out to me, not vice versa. Of course I'm going to address your perspective when you are the one challenging what I said.
In all seriousness though, I do think you have some pretty flawed beliefs when it comes to your philosophical perspective and would be interested what exactly influenced them.
The first time I came to the conclusion that there is no free will was when I was neutrally discussing it on the internet and someone asked "What is your will free from?" I was already leaning against it at that point but wasn't sure. That framing immediately cemented my belief.
There is also Robert Sapolsky. Who has recently been promoting what is essentially the exact same belief I've had for about 5-6 years now. He's a much smarter person than I and maybe could explain my perspective better.
Healthy for me? Or healthy for society? Healthy by the metrics of me enjoying my best possible life or healthy by the metric of expected normal human behavior?
What one person defines as healthy is not always the same as another.
Well, its not only about that. That's a major component but there are other issues.
That said the framing of it as "only" sex seems to belittle the importance of having sex as a form of existential fulfillment. I'm someone who thinks we all should have more of it with more people. Which the reason I engage in one night stands.
A bit of a tangent but I also identify as polyamorous. Though still looking for a polycule with some deeper relationships, I don't live in a particularly progressive area though so I don't expect to get one unless I can escape this conservative rural hell hole I currently live in. I almost got a girlfriend here a little while back but she insisted on monogamy so we ended up just as friends. Though admittedly possibly a strained friendship, since she seems annoyed that I insisted on polyamory years ago.
This is a fundamental disagreement I think. Do you not believe in empiricism?
Anyone with power to effect the way society is structured. So yes this would include men. But generally the men complaining aren't powerful men with the needed influence over society and culture to fix the problem on their own.
Because generally if you ask men if they'd like some sex with someone that they're even only slightly attracted to, they are pretty likely say yes. I know because I'm bi. Guys are extremely easy (at least bi and gay ones), even the hot ones.
Most average individual men are very willing to "solve" the problem but whether they can solve it is largely dictated by gatekeepers. And those gatekeepers aren't always women deciding to forego sex with them on a broad scale. Sometimes its just societal rules and expectations. Sometimes its law restricting sex work. Sometimes its cultural influence (religion, fictional media, social media) and capitalist enterprise: Like dating apps which are specifically engineered to keep paying customers romantically and sexually unsatisfied so they'll keep using the app. Its also the dynamics of the economy but that's a whole other can of worms.
Maybe if you interpret it in a very specific way. If I did or said something to her that was specifically rude or harmful that isn't really "excusable" obviously.
But that's not what we're talking about. We're talking about me taking active steps to minimize our interaction. I do not owe other people my time or energy outside of previous agreements.
But we can talk about society.
The problem with this framing is that it lacks any reference to an overall ideological understanding of the people who claim free will exist. In philosophy there are primarily two main groups who make claims about the existence of free will, compatibilist and libertarians.
For the compatibilist, free will is freedom from coercion and constraint. A person acts with free will if their actions align with their desires, intentions, and rational deliberations, without being externally compelled or obstructed. Free will is primarily about freedom from external constraints and the ability to act according to one’s internal states (like beliefs and desires).
For libertarians, free will means being free from deterministic causation. External influence is accepted, even certain kinds of hard constraints like biological ones. Individuals can be the ultimate originators of their actions, and these actions are not predetermined by prior states of the world, even if they're influenced by them.
Robert Sapolsky is a brilliant cognitive scientists and educator, however hes a terrible philosopher. And if you are making claims about the nature of free will, you are no longer making claims solely about cognitive science. The issue with the way he defines free will
Is that it isn't really a definition at all, it's a rebuttal against a claim no one is making. It isn't what compatibilists mean when they defend a version of "free-will", compatibilists agree that our behavior is dependent on our biological and sociological and physical past. Compatibilists are determinists after all. So who is he arguing with here?
It's not a definition a libertarian would endorse either, they don't endorse the idea of a "causeless cause" in a "total" sense. They allow for constraints upon free will by biology and other factors. They allow for our past to have a powerful influence on our choices. So the "in this total sense" part just doesn't engage with libertarian ideology.
The problem with Sapolsky is that he doesn't engage with the mountains of literature that have already been written about this exact subject and instead supplements his own definition of free will that no one is utilizing, so ultimately he is engaging with a strawman.
He has admitted in the past that he ignores this literature because he doesn't like philosophy, but free will itself is a philosophical concept.
You and Sapolsky are far from the first people to have these thoughts, it's a topic that in essence was argued about thousands of years ago, and specifically has continued to be hotly debated in philosophy of the mind and cognitive science. I would say if you are living your life according to a belief system to approach the practice with some skepticism. Read what some of the most famous minds throughout history have to say about it before enacting upon your theory with practice that may be harmful to yourself or the people around you.
Whatever your core beliefs are, having them be inflexible when challenged with new information or perspective is not rational.
Healthy for you my dude.... Learning how to manage scenarios like we discussed in a healthy way is all about self improvement. I don't imagine you like feeling depressed or feeling like you are in pain when you see a particular person who didn't wrong you.
Yes, but there's a common ground as we are all humans. You don't have emotions that haven't ever been felt before. I doubt anyone sees emotional pain as healthy.
As a philosophical concept? I mean, yes but it's obviously limited by the subjectivity of the observer. Have you ever read any Hegel? If we utilized empirical thought alone then we wouldn't be able to process any abstract thought. Empiricism is what I was talking about with the phenomenon that is observable and repeatable. If your claim is that "shared truth" is theory that can be put forward through the scientific method.... Okay, but that invalidates a vast sum of what it means to be human, including most rational and abstract thought. Arguments against empiricism are famously as old as Socrates.
From the sounds of it then this isn't a male problem, but a class problem.... My point is that painting it as a male problem as most like to do, can lead to a misdirection this anger towards parties whom do not deserve it, namely women and leftist in general. We've seen a massive rise in mysoginy and young men being attracted to the alt right because of this misdirection of blame.
Again, women also like sex and are restricted from it for the same reasons.
I would say actively avoiding someone is doing something.
Which we are doing. Adding in personal perspective is important to determine how a person feels and acts within a society, which is why you added your anecdotal experience in the first place. I think it's a bit of a double standard to then expect not to address your anecdotes.
The problem is, maybe you are right that Sapolsky hasn't looked into them but I've looked into them and their definition of free will is not meaningfully different from a theoretical conscious yet programmed robot's "will".
It also shouldn't disagree arguably with the more important issues of justice and meritocracy. Its just shifting the definition of 'free will' to just be 'autonomy'.
If those are the same thing, sure whatever that definition of "free will" is true but then robots also have free will, and we treat a programmed autonomous robot very differently compared to a human.
They're religious and I don't engage in religion, spirituality, supernaturalism, or theology. Absolute waste of time.
Maybe Sapolsky knew they were wastes of time and skipped them. You don't have to read the bible to know christianity is a waste of time. I don't need to read libertarian ideology to know the same about their ideas.
Free will hasn't been meaningfully defined to differentiate itself from "Autonomy" by compatibilists. Their definition as a result is worthless. Libertarians basically believe in magic.
If anything, he's offering a steelman.
My "core beliefs" are basically my axioms. And axioms are more like ideological goals or ways of thinking. Changing those certainly can happen, it used to be the case for me that my moral axioms placed "truth" above basically everything but now its below harm reduction for instance.
If someone's core belief is more of a specific "factual statement", then sure. One should be willing to change one's beliefs with new evidence. And really it shouldn't even be a core belief in the first place.
What I believe is true: 1) I engage with empiricism or scientific consensus. 2) If something is outside of empiricism or scientific consensus I fall to Occam's Razor. 3) If something can't be engaged with either of those things, I simply assume I cannot know right now and have to wait for empiricism or scientific consensus and that it isn't worth fabricating a comforting fairy tale to explain it.
The "abstract thinking" all happens essentially at 0) My way of figuring out what is true stems from rationality and rational thinking structures. Abstract thinking never follows the other steps.
Given that its earnest, I appreciate the concern. That said, if I hadn't avoided them I'm pretty sure I would have unironically risked suicidal ideation. There wasn't a safe way for me to engage at the time but to minimize. The only reason I'm able to talk about it now is that it was a long time ago and I'm kind of dead inside anyway at this point.
There have been people I've seen that I also felt similar to, but they've not been people I had to regularly see.
It can be both. Its in fact many things, religious and cultural norms play a major role as well.
Absolutely, but they simply aren't at the same rates and getting consent for sex from a heterosexual/bisexual man is rarely a problem for the average heterosexual/bisexual woman.
Its doing something, but its not "Doing something to her." Its more like doing something to myself.
OK, let me break this down because there needs to be fewer people who do this.
I added my anecdote for context as supporting contribution to my argument to demonstrate an idea or probable reality. I wasn't interested in actively changing the subject to me personally as the focus. Especially since that can often just result in discussing my character instead of engaging with the main argument, which is basically what you did.
If you wanted to attack the relevance/factuality/meaningfulness of the anecdote itself that is fair game. However, you then took your chance to decide largely to attack my character. This was ultimately me being good faith and willing to open up for the sake of a more meaningful discussion and you turned it into a dunk and a personal criticism.
This did not hurt my feelings but it annoyed me because its escaping from my actual points and meant suddenly I needed to defend my character, something I really don't even care that much about on here as this is specifically the account I use to misanthropically complain about the state of the world during slow times at work. In order to maintain the legitimacy of my argument I ended up having to waste time defending myself. It just bogged down the conversation.
Lol, I think you are massively conflating influence with literal programming. I don't think you would find anyone credible to agree that robots have "will"
Also, "theoretical conscious" is doing a lot of lifting in this argument.
You mean a "theoretically conscious" robot would theoretically have free will, since this has not happened, and some would argue it cannot happen, we have no idea how we would treat them.
What? I mean there are theological libertarian takes, but a libertarian take on free will is not innately religious. They just believe that predeterminism is logically incompatible with freewill.
Lol, you obviously haven't read their ideas if you think it's theological in nature. You can decide you don't want to engage with the body of work, but you can't then critique it. If you don't know what you are critiquing, then any argument you make is going to be a strawman.
I'm mean it depends on the compatibilist..... Some do make arguments that differenciate the two. However, most do not because you are utilzing language in engineering to combat a philosophical principal.
Some utilize autonomy as a synonym for free will, some say free will is just a stronger for of autonomy, some describe the difference as a matter of agency. For example, a slave has free will, but is being controlled by another so lack autonomy.
Again, you are attacking a strawman with this argument.
Again.... I really don't know how you are interpreting this?
What? You do know what a strawman argument is right?
Axioms are self evident, if your beliefs were actual axioms we'd all believe in them.....
I mean, definitely a step forward.....but I'd still challenge you to practice some skepticism about these "axioms" of yours.
So what are your core beliefs based on if not empiricism?
So how do we handle subjectivity?
Occam's razor is only meant to adjudicate between two competing theories that are equally supported by evidence that have already passed theoretically scrutiny.
I fail to see how you can make a claim against the existence of free will with that thought process.
So your rationality isn't influenced by observation and your observation never influences your rationality?
Again..... I would highly advise you to talk to a professional about this. Your avoidance of health professionals and tbh your entire belief system seem highly irrational and dangerous to your own health.
Could that not be influenced by the sexist expectations set upon women by a patriarchal society?
You can do both at the same time.
Again..... We are debating. You can't expect to introduce an argument and have me not offer a rebuttal to that argument. If you are wanting to avoid shifting the argument towards your personal behavior, I advise not to add personal anecdotes that support your claim.
Your behaviour was relevant to the argument, so I criticized your behavior. If you decide that your actions reflect the nature of your character then that is a personal insight.
That's just it though, there is no reason to assume that there is something intrinsically special about the human brain that allows it to exclusively be conscious. The brain is just a computer made of flesh, one that merely at the moment can't be programmed directly. If we replicated it artificially and it was able to be fully programmed the obvious implications is that there also is nothing special about our own brains in terms of "will" because we'd have a replica that we'd be able to directly control and program. It'd just mean our programming came about from evolutionary forces.
"Predeterminism" is a red herring. I don't believe in predeterminism either. I don't think the future is already written.
"You can decide not to read the bible and hundreds of years of theological theory, but you can't then critique it."
If 500 years ago, someone wrote a complicated theory that stated that everything was made of bananas and then over the course of the past 500 years people debated the specifics filling up tomes of books on the nonsense I wouldn't be required to read it all to not be fully in the right to completely dismiss it as gibberish and to openly insist that others also not waste their mental energy on it.
I find libertarian ideas around free will to be nonsense at a fundamental level. Reading the specifics would go no where. I'd need to be convinced that the core idea had some merit to begin with. As far as I can see, they have zero.
There are multiple definitions of axiom. I'm referring to personal ideological axioms. "A self-evident principle or one that is accepted as true without proof as the basis for argument; a postulate. "
Empiricism itself is not a factual statement, its a system of thinking. Empiricism is indeed a core belief of mine.
You'll need to be more specific. What do you mean "handle"? Do you mean the issue that you can't truly "know" anything?
I guess? I not sure how this contradicts my usage of it? Also why arbitrarily two? If you are discussing something where every theory has zero evidence for it then you'd be able to select the most simple out of a list of theories of any size. They'd all have zero evidence. Its not like you'd be forced to only consider two of them.
Because free will itself is a fairy tale. But it got stopped one step further. There being free will is more complicated than there simply being no free will.
The rational abstraction is systematized. Its not so much that it's not a potential that observation could never influence my rational thinking, but that if an observation does then that has potential impacts on all of my rational thinking systems. This is pretty unlikely, we're talking a major and profound table flip. It would need to be demonstrated that the very way my rational system of thinking is inferior at obtaining truth compared to another new way.
That said, as they are, the only abstract thinking that would follow is more like a procedural set of steps that I've already come to follow to process new evidence.
So rationality "applies" to evidence, but like a pre-written function.
Oh it definitely is. It however isn't the only influence, patriarchy is only one component of cultural conservativism. There is also religion and capitalism.
Plus, lets be honest here women just are less horny because of the nature of hormones. Just ask someone on any kind of HRT. We probably evolved that way to create a competitive pressure on men. Natural is brutal and amoral, and men are thrown into a metaphorical gladiatorial arena by it. The one that comes out on top gets to have kids (and have a fulfilling sex life), and from my perspective this is pretty awful. I'm not a fan of nature. I want every individual, men and women (and otherwise), to have fulfilling sex lives.
I don't believe I made a claim that there is, just that our current technology is nowhere close to having a computer actually achieve consciousness.
Again..... I don't think you really have enough knowledge about human physiology to make that claim, and it completely ignores the mind body problem. The misconception that there is some kind of separation of the brain from the body is a product of how we first began to learn about the brain. The more we learn about cognitive science the more we learn just how inseparable the mind is from the body. You can physically alter the composition of the brain by physically changing the body and vice versa. A brain is not a computer, at most you could potentially claim that a computer is made as a simulacrum of a brain.
If my grandma had balls she'd be my grandpa...... That's quite the big "if" to hang your argument on. Secondly, I believe you're conflating programming with learning.
I didn't claim you do..... That argument is just what libertarian believe.
First of all, there's a big difference between philosophical theories which are put forth with rational arguments using logic and rhetoric, and a religious tome. Claiming otherwise is not academically honest.
Secondly, your analogy is lacking. Of course you wouldn't have to research 500 years of banana ect... That's unless your rebuttal was based on the claims already put forth by the banana theory.
The original affirmation is claiming that there is something called "free will", they go on to describe what this encompasses. Your negation is that there is no such thing as free will. However, what your rebuttal refers to as free will is not the same idea the affirmation is actually making claims about.
So you are ignoring the actual argument, and claiming it to be ridiculous without knowing what they are talking about.
Again, you haven't stated your interpretation of what libertarians actually believe.....other than falsely claiming that it's inherently religious.
How is that rational in any way? You are making determinations and then forcing ways arguments to fit.
This does not align with your other statements, it seems you are utilizing circular logic.
I mean you don't account for it at all in your process.
Because the theory wasn't made to applied across a large swath of knowledge, nor is it supposed to be the only argument utilized. It's just a rational argument claiming that if the theories are equal in all ways, the simpler is more likely to be true.
Zero empirical evidence does not make the arguments equal. Occam's razor is itself a rational argument..... One of the theories may itself contain more rationality than the other. This is the problem with only relying on empiricism.
How does this incorporate empiricism, where knowledge is gained through observation alone? Your "ration system of thinking" seems to be irrational in nature. Maybe we have a miscommunication but your claims about how you think seem to be incongruent with your claims about determinism.
That seems to be a highly irrational process....
Both of those systems are patriarchal.
And we're back to blaming women for men not being able to control themselves....
I think we're done here. We keep circling the same arguments, which makes sense considering what you've told me about your thought process.
If I knew you, I would be highly concerned for your well-being. At this point I just wish you the best, and hope you consider seeing someone about your mental health. Take care.