I like the novelty/predictability ratio idea. There is also the idea of “create expectations and satisfy them”, which leads to a sense of stability. Our cultures and genres create expectations. Rhymes tied to a certain metric can become part of these expectations. Of course, you can also create expectations and frustrate them, which leads to a sense of instability. Searching for “fakeout rhyme” videos makes this evident. Pat Pattison, an expert in songwriting, could be a good source on this ☺️

I do see how the narrative in the headline could be a call to action, but the article doesn’t propose a solution behind which the audience can rally. At most, the article describes how Americans can interpret the inevitable defeat. Of course, this text doesn’t exist in isolation; other texts would have to do the heavy lifting so that Americans rally behind a war effort.

Thanks for the response. I guess I do see much of human behavior through a contextual behaviorist lens. Sorry if it seems excessive. I am not Hayes or Hoffman. It is just frustrating to see blanket explanations for human behavior, instead of understanding specific processes. I guess I really want to avoid the fundamental attribution error and reductionism, something contextual behaviorism deliberately aims to avoid.

While I recognize Emotion Focused Therapy is helpful to understand and, if possible, change social behavior (which is why I mentioned it previously), I maybe should have brought up Emption Construction Theory or even Sapolsky’s multi-lens framework, considering different timescales of explanation. Would you have suggested something different? When does contextual behaviorism fail?

Thanks for helping me potentially falling into reductionism. I wouldn’t want to fall in that trap.

Anytime we talk about human behavior, it is a good idea to learn and use the lens of behavioral contextualism. If and only if the contextual behaviorist analysis concludes that human connections is the issue, Sue Johnson’s texts will be great to understand your coworker. Otherwise, the contextual behavioral analysis will let you know what’s going on.

Edit: Removed excess text

You raise an excellent point that the quote from Andrea Dworkin portrays a rather extreme and controversial view that is not representative of feminism as a whole. In fact, many prominent feminists have strongly disagreed with Dworkin’s perspective.

For example, Laura Tanenbaum, a respected feminist writer, has bluntly called Dworkin’s views “shit.” (1) Wendy McElroy, in her book XXX: A Woman’s Right to Pornography, also presents a feminist case against Dworkin’s anti-porn stance (2). As the esteemed feminist scholar Dr. Dale Spender has eloquently put it, “Feminism['s battles] have been for education, for the vote, for better working conditions, for safety in the streets, for child care, for social welfare, for rape crisis centres, women’s refuges, reforms in the law.” (3)

This demonstrates that feminism is a broad movement focused on expanding women’s rights and opportunities - not demonizing male sexuality. In fact, as Amartya Sen compellingly argues in Development as Freedom, the expansion of women’s capabilities is essential for the betterment of all people. When women have more voice, choice and agency, it leads to progress in areas like health, education, and poverty reduction that benefit entire communities.

So while Dworkin’s quote may get attention for its shock value, I would encourage looking to the many other feminist thinkers who take a more nuanced, constructive and less male-antagonistic approach (5). Feminism is not about vilifying men and male sexuality, but rather about advancing gender equality in a way that uplifts everyone. There is room for an open, healthy dialogue about sexuality within a framework of mutual understanding and respect between women and men.

(1) Laura Tanenbaum, “The Appeal and Limits of Andrea Dworkin,” Jacobin, August 5, 2019, https://jacobin.com/2019/08/andrea-dworkin-last-days-at-hot-slit-review.

(2) McElroy, Wendy. XXX: A Woman’s Right to Pornography. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1995.

(3) Cleal, Olivia. “Australian ‘Feminist’s Feminist’ Dr Dale Spender AM Dies Age 80.” Women’s Agenda, November 27, 2023. https://womensagenda.com.au/latest/australian-feminists-feminist-dr-dale-spender-am-dies-age-80/.

(4) Sen, Amartya. Development as Freedom. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1999.

Thanks for the response. What you’re describing - feeling a bodily urge to masturbate when viewing porn, even if you’d prefer not to - is very common. We’re kinda designed so that our bodies respond to sexual stimuli. Many people can relate to that internal tug-of-war between an impulse and a conflicting desire.

From a psychological flexibility perspective, the key is to approach those urges with mindful acceptance rather than struggle against them. Fighting with or trying to suppress an urge often just makes it grow stronger, like a beach ball you keep trying to push underwater - it keeps popping back up with greater force (1). Instead, psychological flexibility invites us to open up and make room for the urge, observing it with curiosity and letting it be fully present in our awareness.

This doesn’t mean you have to act on the urge. In fact, by giving it space to exist without resistance, you gain the ability to unhook from it and consciously choose how to respond in line with your values (2). You might say to yourself “I’m having the thought that I need to masturbate right now” and feel the sensations of that urge in your body, while still maintaining the freedom to decide if acting on it is truly what you want.

Imagine for a moment that a dear friend or loved one came to you struggling with this same dilemma. How would you respond to them? Most likely with compassion, understanding, and encouragement to be kind to themselves as they navigate this very human challenge. We could all benefit from extending that same caring response to ourselves.

At the end of the day, you’re the expert on your own life and what matters most to you. By practicing acceptance of your inner experiences, unhooking from unhelpful thoughts and urges, and clarifying what you truly value, you can develop psychological flexibility to pursue a rich and meaningful life - whatever that looks like for you. That means that there’s no one “right” way to relate to masturbation and porn. The invitation is to approach it mindfully and make choices that align with the kind of person you want to be.

(1) You can check out the “rebound effect” or “ironic process theory.” It’s been studied extensively in the context of thought suppression. The seminal paper on the topic is Wegner, D. M., Schneider, D. J., Carter, S. R., & White, T. L. (1987). Paradoxical effects of thought suppression. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 53(1), 5–13. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.53.1.5

(2) This meta-analysis reviewed laboratory-based studies testing the components of the psychological flexibility model, and how psychological flexibility techniques increase behavioral flexibility. Levin, M. E., Hildebrandt, M. J., Lillis, J., & Hayes, S. C. (2012). The impact of treatment components suggested by the psychological flexibility model: A meta-analysis of laboratory-based component studies. Behavior Therapy, 43(4), 741-756. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.beth.2012.05.003

Masturbation is totally normal and healthy, and you’re spot on that it shouldn’t be demonized or shamed. In men, it might even reduce the risk of prostate cancer.

At the same time, it’s important to have a balanced and psychologically flexible relationship with masturbation and sexuality. As psychologist Steven Hayes, a leading expert on psychological flexibility, explains: getting too fixated on any one activity or coping mechanism, even a healthy one, can lead to psychological inflexibility if it is used to avoid experiencing your life fully (For a thorough explanation of how this works, feel free to check out A Liberated Mind by Steven Hayes). Psychological inflexibility here means getting stuck in rigid behavior patterns to the point that it messes with living a full and meaningful life.

So while I’m totally with you that masturbation is healthy and that bullshit social taboos against it should be rejected, it’s also good to be mindful about your motivation behind doing it. Are you doing it because you’re escaping pain? Or are you doing it because it aligns with your values and makes your life meaningful? If you rely on masturbation too much and don’t have ways of accepting your emotions and connecting with the world, it could potentially tip into unhelpful psychological rigidity and a frustrating life. The key is to be able to experience masturbation while still staying flexible enough to show up fully for the rest of your life too.

We’d have less instance politics

How is “defederat[ing] from everyone but lemmygrad and hexbear” not instance politics? Politics, at its core, is the way we distribute political goods, such as physical goods, access to information (including instance posts), and legitimacy, to name a few of the options. What is your definition of politics?

Ah. Thanks for taking the time to explain the meme’s context!

I’m sure this is a quality shitpost, but I don’t get it 😅 Can someone explain the context for this?

Or mammal supremacist. Or vertebrate supremacist. There are options

Then how do you explain this? Checkmate, anyone who doesn’t see the halo 😎

The way string of any material is woven should be durable. But plastic can be a magical material. It doesn’t cool when wet, regardless of whether it’s got fat on it (unlike wool, which requires lanolin). And its cheapness makes it readily available to billions of people.

To be clear, yes, we should avoid overproduction and overconsumption of plastic. Yes, we should research cheap ways of making durable and waterproof/still-warm-when-wet clothes that are biodegradable. Yes, we should require good filters in every washing machine and dryer so that we don’t get full of microplastics.

Sometimes I don’t either…

I think most of the criticism on Telegraph regarding how Matrix handles rooms and events are addressed by the work behind linearized matrix: https://www.qwant.com/?l=en&q=linearized+matrix+messaging&t=web

EDIT BEINGS HERE

So I actually watched a talk by the person who coinded “enshittification”, Cory Doctorow, recently, and I have changed my perspective about Kagi. I no longer think Kagi is doomed to enshittify.

Enshittification requires advertisers. As long as Kagi finances itself with money that does not come from advertisers, it will not enshittify.

This does not mean that it’s not problematic that their code is closed-source.

EDIT ENDS HERE

I like what I hear about the user experience, but there are many problems I see with the service.

For one, it’s based in the USA, so it is legally subject to the insane, antidemocratic, and awful state surveillance there.

It is also a corporation, so it is subject to enshittification. Currently, it is giving users loads of stuff so that users use it, but sooner or later investors will want their money back and Kagi will enshittify.

Finally, these two problems would be mitigated by open-sourcing and making libre their software. With that, alternatives in more sensible legislatures could open. Users could migrate to instances that are still libre and not enshittified.

It is really unfortunate that Kagi is doing so many things well while doing some fundamental things terribly. As it stands, Kagi is doomed to enshittify.

I know encapsulation is desirable in part because of security. I figured something similar could happen by removing the ability to import anything from another program. However, I struggled to think about other situations in which no imports were desirable, and so I wondered…

My ex’s dad worked for someone that would get a new phone for each member of his family yearly and then would give his old phones to his employees. I ended up receiving year-old iPhones until 2020.

My local library had an iMac lab. I spend countless hours doing my work and hanging out there, all using iMacs. Eventually, I also bought an Apple Intel laptop with the awful butterfly keyboard, only to sell it a couple of months afterwards.

So I have tried Apple hardware. Up until 2020 it was the only smartphone hardware I ever used. It was the computer hardware I used for the vast majority of my middle and highschool years (heck, even in college there’s an iMac lab that I spent quite some time in).

I spent most of my life using Apple hardware with Apple software and when I switched to repairable hardware and libre software exclusively, my life improved.

I think real shit https://www.denverpost.com/2023/07/03/slackline-hero-mickey-wilson-heroism-award-carnegie-medal-arapahoe-basin-ski-lift-rescue/

Except a restaurant is not asking to log every word of yours in exchange for pizza.