Is Musk really Trump’s consigliere?

Elon bolted awfully fast when the Tribe was unhappy being compared to YT in the first phase of the Hamas war.

He’s an interesting fellow but not consistent. If I were Trump I’d be wary.

The idea of people committing suicide over sexual frustration goes back at least to William Shakespeare (cf. Romeo and Juliet). I can’t recall anything by Karl Marx which had much to do with this.

I found this article interesting, but was a little put off by the inclusion of Karl Marx as an illustration of the “leftist” phenomenon which the article attacks. I don’t think Marx has anything to do with the intrigues of those student cliques, which resemble more the plot of those late 1990s and early 2000s teen flicks than anything Marx described or proposed.

LMAO. Joe Biden received even LESS REAL votes than Caramel Harris. (((Elon Musk))) is a dweeb.

No: it’s the result of a society that tries to treat men’s depression in the same way they treat women’s depression, and is astounded that this doesn’t work for people who biologically geared to seek solutions and control, not acceptance and validation. Most men don’t need therapy. Most men don’t need pills, and for those who do, the pills are a secondary, means-to-an-end measure. They aren’t the main focus.

This.

Actual professionals who try to keep men from killing themselves know the above, but they are always having to push uphill at feminized rules. They sometimes have to disobey policy in order to actually keep some guy from topping himself, and it gets to be tedious.

Women are not “men with boobs who can have babies”.
Men are not “defective women”. We are not.

Not.

These two falsehoods grow out of the blank slate fallacy that’s been taught in the West for generations. If just one man reads these truths and steps away from them, my comment is worth making.

My relationships with women improved spectacularly when I realized that talking about their problems was *how* they reached a solution for themselves. I stopped offering solutions: other men want to “fix” stuff. Women just respond with frustration, just as guys hate hints and indirection. I just listened instead. I validated them. And they found their solution in the midst of the conversation.

It’s different. But no less effective: the goal is the same. And if I’d grown up in a society that treated the differences between the sexes a bit more honestly, wouldn’t have taken me until well into my 20s to figure this out.

The only scenario that a man is typically helped by people talking about his depression is acknowledging there is a problem in the first place, for younger ones, that his suffering sucks, and that everything is not entirely his fault. (Emphasis on entirely, because once the preliminaries are done, you go to stuff he controls, and that’s a lot more of the traditional bootstraps and no sympathy stuff.) But that’s usually due to the fact that they’ve spent their whole lives being subliminally bombarded with the notion that having your problems acknowledged is correlated with moral worth. Perfunctorily doing that is the only way you’ll get started. Again: this goes against what works for most men. Often the misery and confusion quickly dissipates when you get them to realize that they’ve been fed stuff that doesn’t accord for them.

Hardly. I think men and women are equally prone to depression, and usually for the same reasons. Nobody responds well to having their lives taken away from them or having their lives constantly blocked or feeling that they have no future. Ultimately, admitting that depression is a mundane biological response to modern American society would annoy too many vested interests, though, hence why depression has now become a status symbol, or a normative illness like the flu.

The depression just (usually) manifests differently in women and men. It’s not better or worse: as is often the case between the sexes, it is a trade-off. What is not really disputable is that therapy culture is more geared to the strengths of women, therefore it shouldn’t be shocking that men don’t respond as well to it. It’d be nice if we could just be honest about the fact that men and women *on average* process things differently and have different healing methods for mental scars, but we’re not that mature as a society, because Of Course That Means You Think One Party Is Worse Than The Other. Instead, men are blamed when they resist therapy or respond poorly to it, and too many guys end up believing that something is wrong with them being a square peg instead of the fact that they are being pushed into a round hole.

Just talking about their depression doesn’t seem to help men, but it does seem to help women.

You get out of it what you put into it. Therapy is not a gab session. The point is to learn how to not make things worse with “cognitive distortions.” Nobody is going to come along and give a depressed guy a purpose in life. Our society doesn’t work that way, whether it should or shouldn’t is a separate question. A depressed person control that, but cognitive behavioral therapy can be very helpful for people who are willing to seriously apply themselves to it.

Me neither, but take a closer look at what you NF is saying. It’s a variation on the hysterical woman trope. Men have objective reasons for their depression, which in turn can only be solved by some of circumstantial change.

Not necessarily. A man can be depressed for objective reasons or totally subjective reasons, but either way a change of circumstances or behaviour can work wonders.

Just talking about their depression doesn’t seem to help men, but it does seem to help women.

I see nothing wrong with a suggestion their treatment could also be more effective if it were more tailored to their specific needs.

The best answer for men who are depressed is – find a hobby.

Men get immense satisfaction out of doing things for the sheer pleasure of doing them. The more useless the activity the better.

Any civilisation that does not allow people to pursue useless activities is not worth living in.

… not the gym though, I hate the gym!

The very thought of stepping inside a gym is enough to make me suicidal. Ditto for things like running or riding bicycles. There’s something desperately sad about grown-ups riding bicycles.

You described him that way, I reserve comment.

I see nothing wrong with a suggestion their treatment could also be more effective if it were more tailored to their specific needs.

Me neither, but take a closer look at what you NF is saying. It’s a variation on the hysterical woman trope. Men have objective reasons for their depression, which in turn can only be solved by some of circumstantial change. In women, depression is a manifestation of their endemic neurosis rather than the result of any real life struggle (which privileged women don’t have). Hence, we just need a shoulder to cry on.

NF is a nice guy, BTW. His only fault is that he exaggerates the differences between men and women, usually to our disadvantage, though he doesn’t mean any harm.

Not quite; men do get depressed clinically but they might present somewhat different symptoms; for example men are more likely to acknowledge physical symptoms rather than feelings. I see nothing wrong with a suggestion their treatment could also be more effective if it were more tailored to their specific needs.

… not the gym though, I hate the gym! It would definitely not work for me 🙂

No: it’s the result of a society that tries to treat men’s depression in the same way they treat women’s depression, and is astounded that this doesn’t work for people who biologically geared to seek solutions and power, not acceptance and validation.

It ensures to me that the upshot of what you’re saying here is that men don’t get depressed in the clinical sense. I don’t buy that. Why did Chris Cornell kill himself?

No: it’s the result of a society that tries to treat men’s depression in the same way they treat women’s depression, and is astounded that this doesn’t work for people who biologically geared to seek solutions and control, not acceptance and validation. Most men don’t need therapy. Most men don’t need pills, and for those who do, the pills are a secondary, means-to-an-end measure. They aren’t the main focus.

Men need three things: a purpose, a mission, and the means to accomplish or at least embark on that mission. Give them that, and you’d be surprised how the worst loser you ever knew would be willing to crawl through fields of broken glass in pursuit of them. Take them away, learned helplessness ensues, which leads to depression. They need to be realistic: which a lot of men have trouble with. But they also have to be real, plausible missions worth busting your butt for: which society has trouble with.

The gym is an excellent “starter” mission that will work for any guy who is not in the hospital, particularly if friendships come as an added bonus, and especially if the guy is deep in the mental rabbit hole. Minimal startup costs. Doesn’t care about your job, social connections, or even previous levels of fitness. Omnipresent. Etc, etc. Really, COVID depression and suicides could have been tamped down far more effectively by encouraging gym use, even if the US wasn’t obese to begin with.

Often, though, that’s not what happens. Instead, suicidal man is dropped off at an office and expected to talk through his feelings and take some pills, while the people who dropped him off immediately forget about him. Not hard to conclude that these people don’t care at all and just wanted to make themselves feel better. Which likely makes the whole situation worse.

As a result of aggressive secularization of society, that is what we are left with. Don’t blame me, I voted for God.

Someone who is really determined to end things is not going to let laws or prevention measures against suicide stop them.

Let me put it from the POV of a man (I’ll let someone else talk about women) really, truly considering suicide, but has not made up their mind fully yet.

If they mention they are considering suicide, people who ordinarily could not care less about them all of sudden try to act like their best friends, with levels of intimacy that might genuinely take the guy aback. Now, the person considering suicide is not stupid. They know this is the socially programmed response. Especially for men used to being ignored or having their desires and wishes treated with contempt, this can be very, very cynicism inducing if not followed up on properly. It does not have to be. If this response is followed up by someone investing some time in them, this might change their mind-and their life. It doesn’t have to be a big deal. Say, one of the guys who dissuades them from killing themselves agrees to go to the gym with him for a couple of weeks. This could, no kidding, save their life. I’m not joking around here.

Often, though, that’s not what happens. Instead, suicidal man is dropped off at an office and expected to talk through his feelings and take some pills, while the people who dropped him off immediately forget about him. Not hard to conclude that these people don’t care at all and just wanted to make themselves feel better. Which likely makes the whole situation worse.

Nobody is entitled to time or attention. Fair enough: that’s not what I’m arguing. What I am saying is that if you actually want to change somebody for the better, you have to view them as an end in themselves. If you don’t, then think twice about how you act around them. Don’t pretend to care when you really don’t.

Bardon Kaldian: “I know about China, but it’s mostly despair of destitute old women. Atypical. ”

I would think that that demographic might also apply in the West. Then too, the whole topic of what counts or should count as suicide is slippery. For example, if a woman knows that a certain man will beat her to death if she does x, and she does x anyway, isn’t that really a suicide? If so, it may be that women actually commit suicide just as often, but in different ways than men. There is also the gray area of self-destructive behavior. An unknown number of single car crashes, maybe even the majority of them, might actually be suicides. Reckless driving, drug addictions, risk taking as a lifestyle, thrill seeking … all of these things have a suicidal quality. We probably have no idea what the true number of suicides is, let alone the gender ratio.

Men are shown repeatedly from childhood onwards that they are the disposable gender, regardless of all mainstream cultural protests to the contrary. And that’s fine, it is what it is. Short of biological engineering, that won’t change. And it is a good thing: that’s what pushes men to excel. But don’t be surprised when that means that men respond worse to economic failure.

TBH, everything mainstream blatantly gaslighting men on these kinds of realities just makes male mental health worse, especially men who lack confidence in themselves and are easily pressured. I’ve found that men often respond very well to being told harsh, cold truths, provided that they feel like their problems aren’t being ignored totally.

True again, but that doesn’t really help defend against the charge of nihilism.

To say as you do that “at the end of this journey, there is nothing” is a bit of oversimplification. There is freedom from suffering and rebirth, certainly, but whether that equals to nothingness or to eternal bliss is a matter of interpretation. But in any case, let us remind ourselves what we are actually discussing: we are not arguing about whether Buddhism is right or wrong, but how compatible it is with Western thinking. Well, even if your charge of nihilism stands, nihilism is also a Western concept so there is still nothing in Buddhism that we couldn’t think of ourselves.

I also think the Buddha’s avoidance of metaphysics was wrong.

Possibly; but again – see above. Still compatible with many forms of Western thinking.

how much distance from your own thoughts and feelings can you have before you’re not really alive anymore?

I think you are misrepresenting Buddhist view here; what they are after is awareness of processes going on in your mind; such awareness is the very opposite of not being alive – it means being alive on a deeper level!

Anyway, if Buddhism works for you, knock yourself out.

Heh, I don’t actually consider myself a Buddhist, if only because I would not be a credit to Buddha’s teachings. If Buzz Mohawk is a deist influenced by Buddhism, than I would say I am an atheist influenced by Buddhism.

My point is that automation does not save human labor in the aggregate.

Yes, we know. You have made zero effort to actually demonstrate this. You prefer handwaving, contentiousness and insults to reason and numerate logic.

Sad.

As I said- here you got everything you need. Methods, motives, stats ….

I know about China, but it’s mostly despair of destitute old women. Atypical.

you can be Western, or you can be a Buddhist, but not both.

I’m not very familiar with Buddhism, but I think you’re right. But a lot of western “buddhists” are not really buddhists.

I don’t think so, it’s more different ways of thinking. It’s the same thing as when a couple has a problem. Men want to fix the problem, women want to “discuss it”.

For women, suicide is more about an attempt of communication, to call attention to their plight (even if it’s successful, it “passes a message” – but this also explains why many of their suicide attempts are just “failed attempts”).

For men, it’s more “fuck it, there’s no solution, I’m outta here”. They don’t want to communicate anything (unless it’s something politically motivated, or in specific contexts).

At least, I think so, but I could be wrong.

Also, there’s a big difference in methods used. Women will take an overdose of sleeping pills and booze and lie in the bathtub, men will shoot or hang themselves.

Rube Goldberg schemes are ever brought into being is because the robot transfers ultimate control of the operation from the small proprietor to the Big Company engineer

Like with digitalization (and lockdowns), big companies like Amazon win, small companies like your local neighbourhood store lose.

about Western Buddhists. I long ago concluded that such a thing doesn’t exist. That is, you can be Western, or you can be a Buddhist, but not both.

I live in Japan and have travelled through China and SE Asia. I think you are correct.

By fatalism I understand a position that since events are inevitable, our actions and choices make no difference.

True, I was trying to be diplomatic. The correct word is nihilism, because at the end of this journey, there is nothing.

Not so; suffering (and that is not the best translation, or so I am told – it should be more like “unsatisfactory state� but that does sound rather clumsy) is the result of our attachment to things that are inevitably impermanent (grasping).

True again, but that doesn’t really help defend against the charge of nihilism. I also don’t think it’s true. If one has the right values (and that’s a big if) there is deep, abiding joy to be found in this life.

I also think the Buddha’s avoidance of metaphysics was wrong. Metaphysics is not an inconsequential distraction. If indeed there is a God, He doesn’t want you to spend your life that He graciously gave you thinking about how you can escape it forever. (To be fair, this is a criticism that can be leveled equally at any brand of mysticism, including theist varieties.)

they are talking about maintaining a distance from your own thoughts and feelings,

Distance is precisely the right word. There’s certainly a great deal to be said for not sweating the small stuff, but how much distance from your own thoughts and feelings can you have before you’re not really alive anymore?

Anyway, if Buddhism works for you, knock yourself out. I’m not trying to persuade you otherwise, I’m just saying that I don’t think Buddhism has much potential for growth in the West.

There is another factor. Elderly black women are more valued and have greater community support than elderly white women. They are often raising the grand kids or even the great grand kids as the baby mom is unable to do so. This keeps them from becoming isolated and gives them an important role in their community. It also is convenient to have some younger hands around to do things they no longer are physically capable of doing.

Negro men do not have as strong a role in their community often being economically useless long before they reach old age but many economically useless negro men are culled off before they reach old age and others just die in prison.

The West is progressive and optimistic, at least in the long term, with a linear conception of time. Buddhism is fatalistic, with a cyclical concept of time, though its adherents bristle at the charge.

I bristle at this charge! 🙂 Buddhism describes the cycle of life and rebirth, yes – but it is progressive rather than cyclical because it also offers a clear prescription how to break out of that cycle and what’s more, rather than placing faith in some external deity it puts you squarely in charge of the process. By fatalism I understand a position that since events are inevitable, our actions and choices make no difference. Buddhism is the exact opposite of that: our actions and choices make ALL the difference. That, and only that, can gradually lead you out of the circle of death and rebirth: your actions and your choices. No grace, no forgiveness, no negotiation with higher powers – you just have to work at it. Good news is that unlike in Abrahamic religions, there is no rush; you’ve got the whole eternity, not just one life. I think it’s an incredibly uplifting and empowering concept.

Suffering is the result of your deluded belief that you exist.

Not so; suffering (and that is not the best translation, or so I am told – it should be more like “unsatisfactory state” but that does sound rather clumsy) is the result of our attachment to things that are inevitably impermanent (grasping).
The concept of impermanence is not actually that foreign to our way of thinking; well, it might not be the way we think everyday, but we can wrap our heads around it easily enough if we try: thousands of years ago Heraclitus said, “panta rhei”, and modern science agrees.

The Buddhist answer is to be found in the nearly-inscrutable doctrine of dependent origination

The concept of twelve links is not that inscrutable, actually it is laid out in perfectly logical progression; I will grant you it gets less logical if you try to apply it to questions such as “well how did it begin then”. In this way it is no different to our Big Bang theory which has plenty of descriptive power when applied to the Universe after it begun, but not when applied to its beginning itself. In the same way, twelve links are useful when looking ahead: how to break the cycle. That’s what matters to Buddha – he was not interested in lying down the general theory of everything. He was only interested in one very specific goal: teaching people how to release themselves from the circle of rebirth.

The whole thrust of Buddhist practice is disengagement from life.

That’s a bit of misunderstanding; when Buddhists talk about detachment they are not talking about disengaging from life – they are talking about maintaining a distance from your own thoughts and feelings, and not in the sense of denying them but in the sense of not being completely ruled by them; being able to pull back and observe, and being aware of their transient nature.

This seems to indicate differing behavior patterns for men and women so ipso facto it is obviously a mere social construct with no basis in reality. When we deal with false consciousness we will find the WOCs kill themselves with exactly the same alacrity as white men………..maybe!

There are various, very different types of suicide one simply cannot put into one category. I knew some people who did it, or tried it.

In one case, a woman in the Netherlands killed herself after ca. 2.5 years of excruciating headaches. She tried to get help from every doctor imaginable, but it didn’t work. She had a little son & wanted to live But the pain, day after day after day….was unbearable. So she finally finished it.

Another case is an acquaintance of mine, an academic painter, diagnosed with BPD. He was on medications, but it was not efficient enough. One Sunday afternoon, he had been dosing on a couch, his wife next to him. Then, he felt an irresistible force (later, he talked about it to me in detail). No questions, no moral dilemma, no fear, no despair, no nothing. Like a zombie, he knew he had to do it. He found a rope & went downstairs to their garden, where he hanged himself on their plum tree. He immediately lost consciousness.

But, his wife felt that he was not lying by herself, got up & looked through the window & saw him. She swiftly went to him & held him up, crying for help. Their neighbor jumped across the fence, so they untied the knot & put him on the ground. Later, he told me, he felt he was “coming” out of nowhere, but had enough strength only to say: water. They poured water on him, he regained consciousness & spent next two months in a psychiatric ward.

Now, he’s good & on different meds. This happened ca. 10 years ago.

So, there are extremely different situations. Poor health, psychological pain a person cannot endure anymore, ,,

if you equate Western thought with Christianity I guess you might have some issues. But if you consider Western to be that which is left once you take the influence of the Church out, I see no problem with Buddhist teaching.

The West is progressive and optimistic, at least in the long term, with a linear conception of time. Buddhism is fatalistic, with a cyclical concept of time, though its adherents bristle at the charge. The usual response is that Buddhism is actually very hopeful, insofar as it offers the way to escape from our miserable state of suffering! Suffering is the result of your deluded belief that you exist. To an authentically Western soul, this leaves much to be desired.

Aalso, note the logical difficulty with this position. What is deluded if not the Self? (h/t Descartes) The Buddhist answer is to be found in the nearly-inscrutable doctrine of dependent origination (the wheel of life that creates the cycleof death and rebirth). Some Buddhists downplay this doctrine and argue that it is not essential to Buddhism as a spiritual path. This is a cope. The whole thrust of Buddhist practice is disengagement from life.

http://www.aimwell.org/dependentorigination.html

Suicide is a personal matter. Why would this be an issue for public opinion? If somebody wants to kill him/her/itself, well, the less said the better, just try not to make a mess. The state and lawmakers have no place in this. Little busy bodies living vicariously at the expense of others even less.

Contra Intelligent Dasein, I think we’re going to get wrecked by automation.

Well, that was kind of my point. We will get wrecked by automation the more it is implemented, but not because it is more efficient or better in the sense that the techno-Utopians describe it.

My point is that automation does not save human labor in the aggregate. It only distributes the labor over a broader base and transfers it from one class of workers to another. The more a nation industrializes, the more its exigencies multiply, the more energy and resources it consumes, and the more total work must be done.

It is much easier to hire a human burger-flipper at minimum wage than it is to design, build, and install a robot to perform this rather basic task. The only reason such Rube Goldberg schemes are ever brought into being is because the robot transfers ultimate control of the operation from the small proprietor to the Big Company engineer, and through him to the management, and through them to the banks and financial centers.

you can be Western, or you can be a Buddhist, but not both.

Why is that? As a Western atheist I see nothing about Buddhism that would not be compatible with my Western ways. I guess it very much depends on your understanding of Buddhism and of being Western… if you equate Western thought with Christianity I guess you might have some issues. But if you consider Western to be that which is left once you take the influence of the Church out, I see no problem with Buddhist teaching.

I am a Deist who was influenced by Buddhists.

Bardon Kaldian: “Women rarely kill themselves, because they’re more drama queens & are more into suicide gestures.”

“Rarely”? Not exactly. In most of the world, men commit suicide more often, but female suicide is still far from rare. In China, the suicide rate for women is even slightly higher than for men.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_and_suicide

•Dolt

That’s a cold way of saying we men are expected to make our way in the world, to “earn our living,� without depending on anyone else to support us. When something makes that impossible, we freak out. It doesn’t feel good, okay?

I get it, but I think you’re probably going to have to learn to cope with it going forward. (I mean men in general, not you in particular.) Contra Intelligent Dasein, I think we’re going to get wrecked by automation. Marx was right about one thing, at least. Capitalists just can’t stop doing everything in their power to put their own customers out of work. (Radicals are usually much better at diagnosing problems than coming up with workable solutions.)

BTW Are you a Buddhist, Buzz? You were talking on another thread about Western Buddhists. I long ago concluded that such a thing doesn’t exist. That is, you can be Western, or you can be a Buddhist, but not both. Maybe you can change my mind, if you care to have a go. What say you?

Oh, so whites and Asians kill themselves because they are smart, and the darker races do not because they are dumb.

But Indians, whom, I think, are dumb; kill themselves.

And Africans who are dumb kill themselves too.

Got it.

60 seconds research: Men have greater self-esteem than women. It increases with age. These are true across all cultures.Men’s self-esteem is a function of their occupational accomplishments.

OK. So are you agreeing with me or disagreeing with me? It seems that the greater the extent to which self-esteem is based on “occupational accomplishments,” the more likely a person is to become suicidal in the event of a career setback.

Men tend to think of their worth in strictly economic terms, whether they’re aware of it or not.

That’s a cold way of saying we men are expected to make our way in the world, to “earn a living,” without depending on — or attaching ourselves to (as women do) — anyone else who will support us. When something makes that impossible, we freak out. It doesn’t feel good, okay?

Believe me, some of us have to deal with this at an early age, even before we have the chance to prove otherwise.

60 seconds research: Men have greater self-esteem than women. It increases with age. These are true across all cultures.Men’s self-esteem is a function of their occupational accomplishments. Women’s self-esteem is a function of their success at having relationships and attachments.

2 cents worth: Support for the right to end life is interesting, but there’s also this: Support for the right to drown oneself in booze or drugs.

The sex differences are interesting.

The CDC numbers have males with a much higher rate of suicide than females.

Men chose a means that works. Females will often cut the skin of their wrists, without cutting the arteries or veins.

Well then, women are more prone to displays that should be interpreted as a cry for help, but are less inclined to actually kill themselves. Men attempt suicide when they mean it, but they mean it more often than women. Conclusion: women are more resilient than men.

Additionally, women are more effective at getting help when they need it.

Or does it mean that women are actually tougher than men and are less inclined to take the easy way out when things get difficult?

Interpreting data in the manner most favorable to women isn’t the done thing around here.

Anyway, I’ll offer my two cents. Men tend to think of their worth in strictly economic terms, whether they’re aware of it or not. Hence, they’re more likely to conclude that their loved ones are “better off without” them if they are suffering some sort of reversal or challenge in life.

Or does it mean that women are actually tougher than men and are less inclined to take the easy way out when things get difficult?

I doubt it. Women appear way more neurotic in day to day life, whereas men are more phlegmatic. Women make up about 70% of cult members.

On the level of suicide, the behaviors are radically different. Men chose a means that works. Females will often cut the skin of their wrists, without cutting the arteries or veins.

I’m not an expert on the matter, but based on what I’ve heard out of Japan, I’d say girls seek out other girls to engage in suicide together, to give each other courage. I don’t believe that happens with males as much? Someone please correct me, if I am wrong.

Women rarely kill themselves, because they’re more drama queens & are more into suicide gestures.

Being a woman in the West = Life on easy tutorial mode

Or does it mean that women are actually tougher than men and are less inclined to take the easy way out when things get difficult?

Having in mind that ca. 4 times more whites than blacks commit suicide, this graph does not reflect on reality

Generally, darker races do not kill themselves because they are mentally underdeveloped & lack introspection; whites & Asians do this thing more, but for different reasons (Asians more because of shame culture, whites more because of existential despair).

Also, blacks kill themselves in big numbers in parts of Africa due to poverty & generally miserable life without hope; not so in the US & the Caribbean, because they expect Whitey to save them.

Native Americans kill themselves because they’ve lost all hope in any future & meaning of life.

Women rarely kill themselves, because they’re more drama queens & are more into suicide gestures.

The sex differences are interesting.

I wonder if it somehow connects to women engaging in suicidal behaviors, but often not being able to go through with it.

Consciously, no, probably not. But a life of accumulated insults surely takes its toll.

I’m very sceptical. I just don’t buy it as a cause of suicide.

A lot of people on the far right have a great deal invested in pushing the idea of white genocide and they’re always looking for even the flimsiest and most trivial pieces of supposed evidence to support that idea.

People kill themselves because they believe they have very strong reasons for doing so, not for silly trivial reasons such as this.

Whites are being genocided under the current system.

Poppycock. And right-wingers accuse liberals and women of putting feelz before reelz. That really is emotional nonsense. White people are suffering from declining fertility rates. So are the Japanese, the South Koreans, the Singaporeans. Are the Japanese being genocided?

When you use terms like white genocide you simply discredit yourself in the eyes of ordinary people.

There is certainly a culture war going on but it is not black vs white or non-white vs white. The culture war is mostly being waged by one group of whites against another group of whites. The culture war is elites vs non-elites, and it’s also to a very large extent Millennials and Zoomers vs Boomers and GenXers.

And to a large extent the culture war is the imposition of American liberal culture on the rest of the planet.

There is certainly a problem with increasing suicide rates among some whites. Mostly it’s poor, working-class and rural whites. This is a result of economic problems which have been caused by white people. White people who have been royally screwed by other white people are giving in to despair and killing themselves. This has zero to do with race. There’s also a cultural problem in that white people have, quite voluntarily, abandoned the family and community networks which in the past tended to prevent suicides.

I’m not saying that declining fertility rates and higher white suicide rates are not real problems. They are. But they are not white genocide. They are problems which are afflicting all races in all advanced societies.

I think that trying to make the very imperfect system that we have more bearable is better than either of those alternatives.

Whites are being genocided under the current system.� Unless large parts of it are figuratively bulldozed (all racial preferences for non-Whites, most if not all anti-discrimination law in both employment and housing, the feed-em-and-breed-em welfare system, all immigration both legal and illegal) White people are done for.

I’m willing to exercise the Samson option to get rid of the threats.� If our rulers won’t remove them peacefully, they deserve what they get.

We need to learn to make this strange, contradictory, multicultural society work.

It is not working because it cannot work. That was the whole point of the social engineers who imposed it; the purpose is to torture the erstwhile majority with impossible demands.

That leaves you with two alternatives.

A. Retreat into a fantasy world.

B. Hope for a cataclysmic economic and political collapse which will most likely result in millions of deaths and a society in ruins. And which could trigger a global war which will leave the planet a smoking ruin.

I think that trying to make the very imperfect system that we have more bearable is better than either of those alternatives.

give it a decade and smart phones may well be replaced. Though we may be the worse off for whatever replaces them.

There sees to be a law that each new technology is more destructive than the previous one.

If the Amish can survive and thrive so can others. People need to form likeminded groups around a shared value( race isn’t enough glue.) face to face groups that interact regularly such that all members know each other. These groups are unlikely to ever be in charge but they can survive and provide a community for their children.

Absolutely brilliant comment – especially the last paragraph.

That’s why many people who are formally religious are often hugely egotistical people, often being completely blind to it (case in point on this site). And the more you talk about subduing your ego the bigger it grows.

The entire comment should be read with care and attention, as its more subtle than most mainstream commentary.

but if you can’t know what you truly are, then how can you know anything at all?

If you distrust your mind, then the mind doing the distrusting cannot be trusted. At a certain point you realize you literally have no choice but to trust yourself.

How does one know when they are following their true spirit?

Unpeeling all of your false ego’s defences may be challenging, but if you can’t know what you truly are, then how can you know anything at all?

How does one know that this will automatically align with what the Divine expects of them?

All of creation is one, so all of creation is God.

Rather than trying to rationalise your way to awareness though, you might simply drop the false rationalisation and just be.

I guess it depends on perspective; I don’t see how he was doing greater violence to himself than thousands of women and children that weren’t slaughtered or burned or whatever in the wake of his conquests. This seems kind of like “everyone is really equally a victim at root�; should we take this seriously?

I didn’t say “greater”. He was one with his victims as he was one with everything. He therefore hurt himself the greatest, literally, though he hurt them equally.

His consciousness may have partly hidden his pain from itself via endless rationalisation, but he was hurting nonetheless.

I am not expert on Ghengis Khan, so I can’t go into a lot more detail than that, nonetheless I do know #BLM. Of course, the following are generalisations of types by skin colour in that movement, but I am saying what I see.

The black rioters may burn down stuff and beat people, while seemingly being highly emotional, but their own sense of feeling does tremendous violence to their own sense of awareness. This is why they come across as megalomaniacal children, irrational and yet also so full of energy, however misdirected.

Half of them is being beaten, arsoned and looted by the other half. This is happening constantly within themselves. They have no escape. For those on the extremes, it is a true manifestation of hell.

The white enablers may smugly parade their peverse morality and seemingly developed sense of awareness, while lecturing on in endless inane abstract sermons, but their sense of awareness has boxed in, suffocated and practically disappeared their own sense of true feeling. It has defeated its purpose, and theirs, so they now have none.

This is why they come across as soulless, dead inside, cold fanatics. They too are their first victims. They are lost in the endless lies of the narcissist, trading being, for the illusions of the ego. Just imagine having to listen to their thoughts, 24 hours a day and 365 days a year! Then imagine having to identify as their thoughts…(cold) hell, indeed…

He stated that their pain made him happy; why shouldn’t we take his statement at face value?

People walk around in pain without fully realising it all of the time. People lie to themselves and others. They run from it and never face it. Often they even add to it by using terrible distractions to try to escape themselves. Why would anyone take the purported self-justification of a monster at face value?

Thankfully, despite all of the above, on a deeper level, everyone really is already complete. All of their suffering is up near the surface and, if they could just bring their awareness to the almost unfathomable depths below, they’d realise that they were always exactly as they were and are, complete and serene and part of divine creation.

They are simply examples of human beings in dysfunction, you don’t have to look hard to find them.

Peace.

The Poz is a monstrous creation but it’s something that whites created.

Wrong.� It was created by (((fellow white people))).

We need to learn to make this strange, contradictory, multicultural society work.

It is not working because it cannot work.� That was the whole point of the social engineers who imposed it; the purpose is to torture the erstwhile majority with impossible demands.

You must spend a lot of time following utter weirdos if you could even find such videos to use as examples.� I sure don’t have time for that stuff.

More good points.

I admit I have no idea how to persuade people that they need to drop their smartphones into the trash can and go out and meet actual people in real life.

Don’t worry, give it a decade and smart phones may well be replaced. Though we may be the worse off for whatever replaces them.

Peace.

The middle class white conservatives who whine about everything wouldn’t have been successful in the 1950s either. It’s just a cope so they can feel safe about their lack of social and sexual success.

There’s a certain amount of truth in that.

It’s the working class who have really been screwed, but the black working class has been screwed just as thoroughly as the white working class. Rural communities are suffering also but that has nothing to with race.

I’ve never had a non-white, be it Chinese, Indian, Pakistani, or Arab, bitch at me for being white, or scream for more abortions or climate change.

The Poz is a monstrous creation but it’s something that whites created.

This can definitely help people get out of the rut of loneliness, which is a growing issue in our society.

The tragedy is that loneliness is mostly just an inability to take that first step towards social contact with another person. Because that first step is a really big one. You might spend a couple of years travelling to work on the same bus as a woman and you might want to talk to her, and she might want to talk to you, but it doesn’t happen because it’s too scary.

But if you were both Wagner fanatics and met at a Wagner Lovers’ convention within minutes you’d be happily chatting away about Lohengrin and within an hour you’d have exchanged phone numbers.

The internet has killed real life social clubs and that’s a large part of the problem. Somehow we need to rebuild those real life informal social meeting places.

The internet has also encouraged hookup culture which is a lot worse than the old-fashioned picking someone up at a bar (or getting picked up at a bar) system where you at least had to go through the motions of interacting socially before you got to have sex. Whether you approve or disapprove of casual sex I think you’d have to agree that casual sex without even the pretence of having to make conversation first is much worse.

I admit I have no idea how to persuade people that they need to drop their smartphones into the trash can and go out and meet actual people in real life.

Good points. This can definitely help people get out of the rut of loneliness, which is a growing issue in our society.

Peace.

We need to learn to make this strange, contradictory, multicultural society work. It won’t be perfect, it isn’t my first choice and it won’t be like the past but it is survivable.

Yep.

The important thing is to overcome the sense of isolation that so many people feel. Almost any shared interest can do that. If you’re a gardening fanatic and you join a gardening club you’ll find other people with whom you have at least something in common. You have the basis for a social network. You will make friends. With luck you’ll make one or two close friends. You might even find a nice gardening fanatic of the opposite sex and that could lead to wedding bells (it’s been known to happen).

Traditionalists and racialists will object that such communities are not organic and not permanent. Who cares? You work with what you’ve got. Any social network is better than none. And once you find a social network, no matter how inorganic it might be, you learn social skills. If the gardening club goes belly up you ask yourself what other passions you might have. Maybe you’ve always had a yen to do amateur theatrics. So you join an amateur dramatic society. Since you’ve already picked up social skills and confidence in the gardening club the chances are very good that you’ll make friends in the amateur dramatic society.

The main reason people feel isolated is usually lack of confidence. A common interest gives you a social icebreaker. You know you have at least one subject to talk about with these scary new people.

The internet initially seemed like it would make this sort of thing easier but in fact it’s made it worse. Online communities don’t really work. But the internet can be used to find real life groups. Say you’re obsessed with morris dancing and you live in Melbourne and you think there’s nobody else in that city who shares your interest. Spend five minutes on a search engine and there’s a good chance you’ll find the Melbourne Morris Dancing Association and if they have actual real life meetings, go along.

Sometimes social problems can be solved quite simply and they don’t require the complete destruction of existing society.

**that WERE**

if they follow their true spirit then it will accord with the divine will.

How does one know when they are following their true spirit? How does one know that this will automatically align with what the Divine expects of them?

Video Link

Video Link

he would have realised that he was one with those he was scattering and the greatest violence he was doing was to himself.

I guess it depends on perspective; I don’t see how he was doing greater violence to himself than thousands of women and children that weren’t slaughtered or burned or whatever in the wake of his conquests. This seems kind of like “everyone is really equally a victim at root”; should we take this seriously?

but, at root, your pain is equal to theirs.

He stated that their pain made him happy; why shouldn’t we take his statement at face value?

Peace.

There is no empowering of the false ego; the sacred law is pretty clear about the need to bring one’s ego into check and bring into conformity with the Divine Will.

Since the divine will is creation, and people are part of that, if they follow their true spirit then it will accord with the divine will. What you call “sacred law” is a confusing abstraction that most often rationalised to avoid this.

The way the world has actually unfolded speaks to this perfectly.

Laws are there to prevent harm from those that are likely to break the law. I don’t lock my door at night to protect my home from law-abiding citizens. We fine the kinds of people who would carelessly park their car in a handicap spot NOT those who naturally abstain from it out of courtesy.

Yes, a world full of confused and less than fully conscious people, will need enforcement of laws, but reifying the law above consciousness is counter-productive, except maybe, for the very young.

Some don’t have a benevolent spirit and it needs to be reigned in otherwise

If he wasn’t so defensive and could open himself up, he would have realised that he was one with those he was scattering and the greatest violence he was doing was to himself.

You might call him strong and he was, but only in an egotistical way, really he was closed, guarded, confused and far too weak.

You can reason yourself into thinking you feel good at someone else’s pain, or you can shroud your own pain at seeing it, but, at root, your pain is equal to theirs. You might not have the strength to face up to this and may, instead, choose to inflate your ego, but that’s not strength or true virtue.

It feels clear to me that by empowering the false ego

There is no empowering of the false ego; the sacred law is pretty clear about the need to bring one’s ego into check and bring into conformity with the Divine Will. However, not everyone is able to (nor sometimes willing to) devote the time and energy into working to bring this reality about. We still have to deal with those people in the world.

these strictures are used to impose suffering

Laws are there to prevent harm from those that are likely to break the law. I don’t lock my door at night to protect my home from law-abiding citizens. We fine the kinds of people who would carelessly park their car in a handicap spot NOT those who naturally abstain from it out of courtesy.

what the benevolent spirit would do naturally.

Some don’t have a benevolent spirit and it needs to be reigned in otherwise:
There are those who are strong and they will take advantage of the weak and they have to be reminded that there is One over them that can take them to task for it.

Peace.

The sacred law is there to define the boundaries for those that may be personally lacking these internal mechanisms in those very cases when they may be angry or otherwise be in a position to take away someone else’s rights. Why? Because, even if they can get away with it in this world, the Divine is observing and will take them to task:

It feels clear to me that by empowering the false ego, these strictures are used to impose suffering, even while, when painfully articulated and studied, they may end up as a simulacrum of what the benevolent spirit would do naturally.

Having said that, I’d guess there’s a part of Islam that’s in line with my vision.

Sufism. The great Sufis were opposed to mainstream Islam in most respects. Some Sufis even denied they were Muslims.

Instead, I feel that whole, aware people will naturally be good, not because of some abstract argument, though they might make one up afterwards, but because they are benevolent and strong in spirit. As everyone actually is, but in these cases their consciousness is in tune with their spirit, rather than lost in artificial moral dictates.

The basic position of Taoism. And to some extent Buddhism.

that your (seemingly very thin) argument is the true one.

It’s only thin for people who haven’t studied this religion in any depth. The scholarship cited in that article is unassailable; men like Imam Ibn Abidin (ra) are the go to fatwa reference in the largest school of Islamic jurisprudence (the Hanafi school). The scholar who wrote the article is a mufti that I personally attended an intensive course on regarding the Islamic rules of marriage and divorce. He himself is a student of Mufti Taqi Uthmani, who was just selected as the most influential Muslim on the planet.

If some illiterate “auntie” in Peshawar has no clue about what Islam demands of rights and obligations of husbands and wives, then that is a issue of education, not doctrine or praxis.

it goes against the observation that the more into Islam someone is, the more likely they are to act in these nasty ways.

Hardly. I have studied Islam for over a decade with qualified scholars. I certainly don’t run my household like that since I know both my rights and obligations as a husband. My wife is a white convert and has studied even more than me – she knows both her rights and obligations according to the sacred law. Why don’t you ask your Muslim acquaintance how much formal knowledge of Islam the people she is talking about have.

So no, the reality is that there is an inverse relationship between the knowledge of Islam someone has and their propensity to act or run their households in the manner you described.

That’s why Islam, with its simplistic prohibitions, is not for me.

That’s fine – that’s not the discussion here; I’m simply clearing the air on doctrine.

but because they are benevolent and strong in spirit.

The sacred law is there to define the boundaries for those that may be personally lacking these internal mechanisms in those very cases when they may be angry or otherwise be in a position to take away someone else’s rights. Why? Because, even if they can get away with it in this world, the Divine is observing and will take them to task:
“O you who believe! Stand out firmly for justice, as witnesses to Allah, even though it be against yourselves, or your parents, or your kin, be he rich or poor, Allah is a Better Protector to both (than you). So follow not the lusts (of your hearts), lest you avoid justice, and if you distort your witness or refuse to give it, verily, Allah is Ever Well-Acquainted with what you do.” (4:135)

“O you who believe! Stand out firmly for Allah, as witnesses to fair dealing, and let not the hatred of others make you swerve to wrong and depart from justice. Be just! That is next to piety – and fear Allah. For Allah is Well-Acquainted with all that you do.” (5:8)

it certainly doesn’t see to be the case for the vast bulk of what fervent Muslims adhere to.

I guess it really depends on who these “fervent Muslims” are that you have labeled as such.

Peace.

Best of luck persuading other Muslims that your (seemingly very thin) argument is the true one. It would substantially reduce human suffering.

Nonetheless, as always with the “Islam is actually not about all these unpleasant things that Muslims do” lines of reasoning, it goes against the observation that the more into Islam someone is, the more likely they are to act in these nasty ways.

Except for children (and maybe not even for them), I’m not going to push that you should tell people what is moral and then they’ll do it; instead they’ll probably use it to justify their most monstrous excesses. That’s why Islam, with its simplistic prohibitions, is not for me.

Instead, I feel that whole, aware people will naturally be good, not because of some abstract argument, though they might make one up afterwards, but because they are benevolent and strong in spirit. As everyone actually is, but in these cases their consciousness is in tune with their spirit, rather than lost in artificial moral dictates.

Having said that, I’d guess there’s a part of Islam that’s in line with my vision. There normally is in any spiritual conglomeration, but it certainly doesn’t see to be the case for the vast bulk of what fervent Muslims adhere to.

Also, what kind of women kill themselves? This might help to shed light on why men kill themselves. My guess would be that alcohol abuse is also a factor in female suicide.

There are some age stats. Women in their 50s have the highest suicide rate (just as men), while for teenagers and the elderly it’s about equally low. 15 to 19-year-old girls dwarf every other group by attempts, but that fortunately doesn’t result in many actual deaths. Men’s suicide rate decreases in their 60s and 70s (but never gets as low as for teenage boys) and grows again after 80, but not everywhere. In British Columbia, for example, the 80+ age group has the same, very low suicide rate as the 10-18 age group for both sexes.

Being Native American and especially a native of the Arctic is the biggest ethnic factor for female suicide. Living in a big city significantly lowers both suicide and attempt risk.
That doesn’t square with the social alienation theory – but maybe it’s just a result of cities having many immigrants.

Agreed. I live in a very vibrant area, in fact it is only 30% white and my city is <50% white.

Being relatively wealthy and white, it's actually a blessing to live in this area. In fact, I've never had a non-white, be it Chinese, Indian, Pakistani, or Arab, bitch at me for being white, or scream for more abortions or climate change. You can guess which group has done this. Non-pozzed, non-redneck white men are at the top of the dating pole. Despite the cries of muh white supremacy, every brown girl wants to be riding a white dick

Downsides are atomization, lack of community, and general loss of western IQ which suggests to me that this area will eventually turn into a slum. And I admit that this is probably alot worse for the white working class, who have been moved out. The white working class needs to band together and create its own populist movement.

But life is still good. The middle class white conservatives who whine about everything wouldn't have been successful in the 1950s either. It's just a cope so they can feel safe about their lack of social and sexual success.

I wonder if there are any stats or even anecdotes about suicide in North America before Europeans came.

“It is important to note that before the 19th century suicide was extremely rare in North American Native communities. The culture shock that ensued with the arrival of the European explorers coupled with the institutionalized racism inherent in the Canadian government’s policies, resulted in a steady increase of suicide in the 20th century which has continued until the present day.”
https://www.suicideinfo.ca/resource/indigenoussuicide/

Considering Canada, male suicides in Quebec have been falling consistently since 1999.

In Alberta they were at the highest in 1986 (the first year of available data) and 1991, fell until 2005, then grew. The numbers on the graph are mortality rate, not total numbers.

In Brisish Columbia there was a spike in 2014 (382 to 488 male suicides), and a slow fall since then, to 424 in 2018. Only total numbers are available (the population of BC likely grew a little, thus decreasing the rate).

We can see the steady increase in the US is quite unique and not shared by their most culturally close neighbor. What will you make of it?

Yes

The fantasists here that imagine complete separate and a new segregation are going to get a lot of us killed if they were to go down that road. We need to learn to make this strange, contradictory, multicultural society work. It won’t be perfect, it isn’t my first choice and it won’t be like the past but it is survivable.

Not racial pride but rather a sense of community and belonging to a group. Church can fill this role. Or a small town where one’s family has lived for generations. This is likely to include people all of the same race but that isn’t the basis of a meaningful bond.