The Periodic Table's Younger, Sexier, Sibling Thread...

[aweraw]

Just wanted to put out another plug for the Slymepit subreddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/slymepit/

tkmlac has volunteered to become a mod, so peoples submissions won't languish in the modqueue while I'm sleeping.

Also, for anyone who views it regularly I recommend installing the Reddit Enhancement Suite if you haven't already - it will let you see image posts inline, and also adds support for a number of other handy features that aren't integrated into the site itself.

Thanks for your support so far, pit crew.

[Steersman]

Steersman,

Stop allowing him to wind you up. He does not see your responses. It's a waste of energy.

Of course you made me look -

Steersbot: More hypocrisy from franc-the-crank. How many of your posts contain repeated images, comments and references?

Funny you should bring up references of all things, you sack full PETA farts. A thalidomide baby in an iron lung would make more effort to provide references than you ever would. Providing references - that's a fault to you?

Gawd, you’re obtuse. For one thing, a brief perusal of my posts would, or should, disabuse you of the notion that I think that providing references is a fault. In addition, if you put me on ignore then if you’re going to respond to me you might want to, at least if you don’t want to look foolish, actually find out and respond to what I actually said in previous posts that is relevant and not what happens to fit into whatever narrative you’ve got going in your head. I made that statement about references in response to your:

Steersbot and Eucli are peas in a pod -they either repeat what irrelevancy they have said umpteen times in a closed loop, or parrot an observation made more eloquently by others. Unique content of interest - nil.

“Irrelevancy” being somewhat of an “in the eye of the beholder” thing, and “repeating” being largely a matter of fact, I figure I was entitled to charge you with the same “crime” – i.e., “repeating irrelevancies”; ergo, hypocrisy.

If I repeat things, it is in response to newcomers who ask questions; if I repost images, it's because similarly, those images have re-use value for newcomers questions.

Ah so! When you do it it’s for perfectly acceptable reasons – “the images have re-use value for newcomers” – but when anyone else does it it’s “cloying casuist piffle” or worse. One would have thought you at least would have had enough self-awareness to recognize that that has some similarities to what “we” supposedly deprecate in the Baboons and company, i.e., hypocrisy.

I don't know how you slipped my mind previously - but you are typhos personified.

Similar to Cunning Punt’s quote of PZ about Noelplum, I might have to include that in my signature. However, while your post provides some interesting observations and facts with which I quite agree, I would have to say that it is rather wide of the mark as a personification of me:

typhos – Archaic Greek, literally “smoke, vapor”. A cloudy, misty, befuddled state of mind; intellectual smog; the delirium of popular ideas and conventions that are thoroughly divorced from reality or merit.

If you haven’t been able to discern that my opinions and facts and quotes and arguments are a long way from that delirium that supposedly characterizes the Baboons and company, although to be fair that might have been due to you having your head in the sand or up your ass which tends to produce deliriums of its own, then I have to say that you’re far more obtuse than I was giving you credit for.

[justinvacula]

Scorched earth on CFI thread - emphasis mine

#18 Mary Ellen Sikes (Guest) on Wednesday January 09, 2013 at 9:26pm
I am no longer a supporter of CFI although I once had a very close relationship with its associate organization, the Council for Secular Humanism. I have served on the staffs and/or boards of several regional and national organizations. Presently I am the founder and president of the American Secular Census, whose registrants answer demographic and viewpoint questions very relevant to what is being discussed here, and I am one of the founders of (and now an adviser to) Secular Woman.

I am also a woman, one of those who is taking a break from the organized secular movement until I see that 1. it reflects humanistic values as I understand them and 2. it is capable of transforming itself from what many minorities see as an aging white men’s club to a sustainable movement that includes all secular voices. I hope my break is not permanent, but like Ophelia I’m afraid I see few indicators to give me hope. And I’ve looked in several places.

If I were queen for a day in the secular movement, I would take the bold step of choosing the masses over the privileged few whose influence and connections and money appear, to many on the outside, to be the organizations’ top priority. I would replace leaders who’ve served organizations for more than 4 years with new staff and board members. I’d have a zero tolerance policy regarding membership, events, and positions of responsibility for those who engage in online harassment, make public videos to mock or argue with other secularists, or engage in similar unprofessional behavior. I’d offer communication training to local affiliates, but not till the national boards/groups completed it themselves.

I was involved in the formal secular movement for almost twenty years and am now a grandmother. I hope my five little ones will find a more vibrant, effective, and rewarding secular community than I have.

(BTW, I am not interested in arguing these points with other commentators. Mr. Lindsay has invited feedback on his organization’s site and we are all guests here. Abusing his hospitality by attacking others is as stunningly rude and juvenile as it is painfully illustrative of the challenge faced by the secular movement.)

[Steersman]

okay Steersman.

by all means, knock yourself out

It would have been “knocking myself out” if I had spent a week downloading all of his comments, and itemizing all of those posts where he repeated various “images, comments and references”. Methinks that simply asking a somewhat rhetorical question that alludes to those as evidence of hypocrisy really doesn’t cut it.

[rayshul]

I'm very delighted that the feminists are finally fucking off! I hope it's a trend.

[astrokid.nj]

From my limited exposure to a limited subset of several of those cultures, I was pretty certain that there was more to that bus rape than what the West was having pornographic orgasms over (the guy who was with the girl ... vanished from the narative for example). There are other implication such as what area the family came from and what community they were living in. No mention of the in-group/out-group caste and relative social standing of all the various parties involved and/or the unbrindled hatred on display.

There is much more to this that meets the eye, and I am pretty confident that not many in the West are qualified to understand (including me) what the various dynamics involved were other than a superficial one based on the news reports.

I am not going to discuss the specific case either Andrew, and like I said in an earlier post.. there's so many intractable complex problems there it just boggles the mind. A country where approx 40% dont even have a shitpot. Thats why people live in escapism.. a popular culture of movies that offers romance, victory over evil and happily ever after. And a religion that says, "Hey.. this is the best shit you got in this life. But just do your duty, and in your next life things will be better. You will be like those people who are better off right now".

As usual the politicians are going to enact some idiotic law that will fuck more people up. I am told the Government and women organizations proposal under consideration is to effectively "teach men not to rape.." you know, the one thats working out so well here.. but the more dangerous aspect is to "protect" rape-victims by immediately jailing the accused, paying the woman a lumpsum cash amount (Rs200K) for expenses, and a job in the Indian Govt for long term security. yeah.. Incentivize it.. thats worked out so well in the US.
If I were a God and had a magic wand and could do just 1 thing to benefit India, I will probably do "inception" to control the population. Just have 1 child. OR I will just materialize another brilliant thinker like Dr.B.R.Ambedkar to fix things.

[franc]

Bloghog's doing her truffle pig shift -

[sacha]

I have no idea what this means:

The attachment beyond hilarious.png is no longer available

then again, I don't understand the article:

http://www.freezepage.com/1357733437KKGGTVNZYK

You don't understand it because you're not a loon.

well, that is reassuring. I'm completely baffled by this.

I went to her twitter feed to see if there was some sort of "explanation" for her position.

"know your enemies" -Sun Tzu - Art of War

here is what I found:

favour.png

(35.14 KiB) Downloaded 208 times

preference.png

(30.46 KiB) Downloaded 217 times

condescending lies.png

(29.03 KiB) Downloaded 208 times

"I have no problem with men who admit that makeup looks good, like grownups."

apparently there is no such thing as natural beauty and women without cosmetics are more vulnerable

"the ideal of 'natural' beauty is tied to the female submission ideal."

"men trot out 'natural beauty' because it's a tool to control women."

"not all men think it's sexier when women are vulnerable, not in control, and kept as private possessions."

I would like to hear what "first wave" feminists think about this.

It's not only that she believes most women are unattractive without cosmetics (including herself), and therefore men who prefer women without makeup, simply do not exist (is this a Merkin belief?), what is even more peculiar, is that she does not comprehend what it means to love someone.

She has some serious insecurities and self-hatred.

[sacha]

chalk it up.png

(36.11 KiB) Downloaded 197 times

and now, I just want to punch her, (but I don't want to get makeup all over my fist) so I think I'm done with Marcotte for today.

[somedumbguy]

I have no idea what this means:

beyond hilarious.png

then again, I don't understand the article:

http://www.freezepage.com/1357733437KKGGTVNZYK

You don't understand it because you're not a loon.

well, that is reassuring. I'm completely baffled by this.

I went to her twitter feed to see if there was some sort of "explanation" for her position.

"know your enemies" -Sun Tzu - Art of War

here is what I found:

favour.png

preference.png

condescending lies.png

"I have no problem with men who admit that makeup looks good, like grownups."

apparently there is no such thing as natural beauty and women without cosmetics are more vulnerable

"the ideal of 'natural' beauty is tied to the female submission ideal."

"men trot out 'natural beauty' because it's a tool to control women."

"not all men think it's sexier when women are vulnerable, not in control, and kept as private possessions."

I would like to hear what "first wave" feminists think about this.

It's not only that she believes most women are unattractive without cosmetics (including herself), and therefore men who prefer women without makeup, simply do not exist (is this a Merkin belief?), what is even more peculiar, is that she does not comprehend what it means to love someone.

She has some serious insecurities and self-hatred.

I wouldn't worry about it too much.

Though I agree with your analysis, the truth is she just takes any position needed at the moment to fight the Patriarchy. There is no consistency and she'll switch positions tomorrow if that is what is needed tomorrow to fight the Patriarchy.

Tell her women are ugly and need make-up, and you'll see her tell how women are oppressed by make-up and men's demands on them to be made-up.

[somedumbguy]

http://www.hollywoodgothique.com/wp-con ... er-bed.jpg

Amanda Marcotte, rolling out from bed, looking for her black eyeliner and red lipstick.

[astrokid.nj]

Andrew,
FYI.. there's all kinds of gruesome crimes in India. There arent too many guns handy.. so primitive weapons.. like agricultural implements are used to hack off arms, head etc (No bobbitts though).
A narrative that made a lot of sense to me about patterns of crime.. A CRIMINAL HISTORY OF MANKIND by Colin Wilson.
Since huge populations in the Third World countries are stuck at the First and Second Levels of the hierarchy.. i.e Physiological (survival and sexual needs based) and property-related.. I dont see these kinds of crime going down anytime soon.
[spoiler]Clearly, there is some sort of pattern here. But what are the underlying laws that govern it? In the
mid-1960s, the psychologist Abraham Maslow sent me his book Motivation and Personality
(1954), and it was in the fourth chapter, ‘A Theory of Human Motivation’, that I thought I saw the
outline of some kind of general solution to the changing pattern. The chapter had originally been
published in 1943 in the Psychological Review, and had achieved the status of a classic among
professional psychologists; but for some reason it had never percolated through to the general
public. What Maslow proposed in this paper was that human motivation can be described in terms
of a ‘hierarchy of needs’ or values. These fall roughly into four categories: physiological needs
(basically food), security needs (basically a roof over one’s head), belongingness and love needs
(desire for roots, the need to be wanted), and esteem needs (to be liked and respected). And beyond
these four levels, Maslow suggested the existence of a fifth category: self-actualisation: the need to
know and understand, to create, to solve problems for the fun of it.

When a man is permanently hungry, he can think of nothing else, and his idea of paradise is a place
with plenty of food. In fact, if he solves the food problem, he becomes preoccupied with the
question of security, a home, ‘territory’. (Every tramp dreams of retiring to a country cottage with
roses round the door.) If he solves this problem, the sexual needs become urgent - not simply
physical satisfaction, but the need for warmth, security and ‘belonging’. And if this level is
satisfied, the next emerges: the need to be liked and admired, the need for self-esteem and the
esteem of one’s neighbours. If all these needs are satisfied, the ‘self-actualising’ needs are free to
develop (although they do not always do so - Maslow recognised that many people never get
beyond level four.)

Now, as I worked on a second study in criminology, A Casebook of Murder, it struck me that
Maslow’s hierarchy of needs corresponds roughly to historical periods of crime. Until the first part
of the nineteenth century, most crimes were committed out of the simple need for survival -
Maslow’s first level. Burke and Hare, the Edinburgh body-snatchers, suffocated their victims and
sold the corpses to the medical school for about £7 each.

By the mid-nineteenth century the pattern
was changing; the industrial revolution had increased prosperity, and suddenly the most notorious
crimes are ‘domestic murders’ that take place in respectable middle-class homes: Dr Palmer, Dr
Pritchard, Constance Kent, Florence Bravo. (American parallels would include Professor Webster
and Lizzie Borden.) These people are committing crimes to safeguard their security. Charlie Peace,
housebreaker and murderer, practised burglary to subsidise a respectable middle-class existence
that included regular churchgoing and musical evenings with the neighbours.

But even before the end of the century, a new type of crime had emerged: the sex crime. The Jack
the Ripper murders of 1888 were among the first of this type, and it is significant that the killer’s
contemporaries did not recognise them as sex crimes; they argued that the Ripper was ‘morally
insane’, as if his actions could only be explained by a combination of wickedness and madness. The
Ripper is the first in a long line of ‘maniac’ killers that extends down to Heath and Glatman, and
that still throws up appalling examples such as Dean Corll, John Wayne Gacy and Ted Bundy. To
the crime committed for purely sexual reasons we should also add the increasing number of crimes
committed out of jealousy or the desire to get rid of a spouse in favour of a lover - Crippen,
Bywaters and Thompson, Snyder and Gray.

So what I had noticed in 1959 was a transition to a new level in the hierarchy: to the crime of ‘selfesteem’.
From then on, there was an increasing number of crimes in which the criminal seemed to
feel, in a muddled sort of way, that society was somehow to blame for not granting him dignity,
justice and recognition of his individuality, and to regard his crime as a legitimate protest. When, in
October 1970, Victor Ohta and his family were found murdered in their California home, a note on
the doctor’s Rolls-Royce read: ‘Today World War III will begin, as brought to you by the people of
the free universe ... I and my comrades from this day forth will fight until death or freedom against
anyone who does not support natural life on this planet. Materialism must die or mankind will
stop.’ The killer, the twenty-four-year-old drop-out John Linley Frazier, had told witnesses that the
Ohta family was ‘too materialistic’ and deserved to die. In fact, Frazier was reacting with the self centred
narcissism of the children described by Becker. (‘You gave him more juice.’ ‘Here’s some
more then.’ ‘Now she’s got more juice than me ...’) He felt he had a long way to go to achieve
‘security’, while Ohta had a swimming pool and a Rolls-Royce parked in the drive.[/spoiler]

[somedumbguy]

http://img2-3.timeinc.net/ew/dynamic/im ... me_400.jpg

Representatives of Lancome help to talk Amanda Marcotte out from under her bed.

http://i.imgur.com/OLd9N.jpg

[AndrewV69]

[spoiler]I am not going to discuss the specific case either Andrew, and like I said in an earlier post.. there's so many intractable complex problems there it just boggles the mind. A country where approx 40% dont even have a shitpot. Thats why people live in escapism.. a popular culture of movies that offers romance, victory over evil and happily ever after. And a religion that says, "Hey.. this is the best shit you got in this life. But just do your duty, and in your next life things will be better. You will be like those people who are better off right now".

As usual the politicians are going to enact some idiotic law that will fuck more people up. I am told the Government and women organizations proposal under consideration is to effectively "teach men not to rape.." you know, the one thats working out so well here.. but the more dangerous aspect is to "protect" rape-victims by immediately jailing the accused, paying the woman a lumpsum cash amount (Rs200K) for expenses, and a job in the Indian Govt for long term security. yeah.. Incentivize it.. thats worked out so well in the US.
If I were a God and had a magic wand and could do just 1 thing to benefit India, I will probably do "inception" to control the population. Just have 1 child. OR I will just materialize another brilliant thinker like Dr.B.R.Ambedkar to fix things.[/spoiler]

I hear you. I also saw your comment here:

http://freethoughtblogs.com/amilliongod ... ment-19929
[spoiler]

27
Astrokid.NJ

January 10, 2013 at 10:18 AM (UTC 5.5) Link to this comment

Nepenthe said nobody has actually been sentenced to 10 yrs (or more, implied). Thats an extra-ordinary claim.. the onus of which is on her/him to prove. I just provided an example as disproof .. to preemptively show how full of shit that claim is.
re: Biban Biswal.. I dont know who he is.. whether he’s powerful or what.. Whether justice was done in the case or not is a different conversation. You and I both know that the powerful in India get away with all kinds of things.. not just rape.
The failure to understand the sentence-related simple argument.. is why I no longer debate feminists. I am sure I have outstayed my welcome, so I will disappear.

[/spoiler]

Same the world over as far as the powerful are concerned. For example:
http://business.time.com/2013/01/09/a-h ... ng-it-out/

Hank Greenberg didn’t get to where he is today by being timid. The former chairman of AIG built the company up from humble beginnings in the 1960s to become the world’s largest insurance company, before a 2005 accounting scandal forced Greenberg to step down. But he remained a major shareholder through the U.S. government’s 2008 bailout of the company, when the feds took an 80% stake in the firm in exchange for an $85 billion loan, which saved the company from certain bankruptcy. (The bailout eventually ballooned to $182 billion loan in exchange for a 92% stake.)

But Greenberg isn’t thankful for the rescue. In fact, he thinks we the taxpayers ripped him off in the deal, and he will meet with AIG’s board today in an attempt to convince the company to join his company, Starr International, in a law suit against the federal government, according to a report yesterday in The New York Times.

Oh, right at the top I left this out, so here it is:

Update: The Wall Street Journal is reporting that the AIG board has decided not to participate in the lawsuit.

So it is all OK then. Wonderful sign that. I breathe a sigh of relief.

[Gefan]

...Thus concludes todays lesson on Australasian wildlife for American tourists.

I spent some time in Australia in 2007 and kept running across a book entitled "See Australia And Die" which chronicled tourists' fatal interactions with the country's astonishing variety of homicidal wildlife. The thing was on prominent display in every airport bookstore demonstrating not only the Aussies' charmingly phlegmatic approach to death by razor-sharp teeth, neurotoxin, or belligerently drunk six foot tall bird but also their carefree disregard for the tourists who provide such a huge chunk of their foreign currency earnings. "If they're gonna let a few White Pointers and Crocs scare them off, fuck 'em! Bunch of pooftas!".
We fucking LOVED Australia.

Also went to New Zealand back around 1989 but it was closed.

[AndrewV69]

[spoiler]

I have no idea what this means:

beyond hilarious.png

then again, I don't understand the article:

http://www.freezepage.com/1357733437KKGGTVNZYK

You don't understand it because you're not a loon.

well, that is reassuring. I'm completely baffled by this.

I went to her twitter feed to see if there was some sort of "explanation" for her position.

"know your enemies" -Sun Tzu - Art of War

here is what I found:

favour.png

preference.png

condescending lies.png

"I have no problem with men who admit that makeup looks good, like grownups."

apparently there is no such thing as natural beauty and women without cosmetics are more vulnerable

"the ideal of 'natural' beauty is tied to the female submission ideal."

"men trot out 'natural beauty' because it's a tool to control women."

"not all men think it's sexier when women are vulnerable, not in control, and kept as private possessions."

[/spoiler]I would like to hear what "first wave" feminists think about this.

It's not only that she believes most women are unattractive without cosmetics (including herself), and therefore men who prefer women without makeup, simply do not exist (is this a Merkin belief?), what is even more peculiar, is that she does not comprehend what it means to love someone.

She has some serious insecurities and self-hatred.

No kidding. She is actually on my list of people I would not mind getting some bio samples from for analysis (I believe it is illegal without consent so it is not likely to happen.... pity that).

[somedumbguy]

And of course, women put make-up on for themselves, and for other women.

Nevertheless, women are oppressed by men, most of whom are completely confused as to why women wear makeup.

[franc]

Seeing as she's snuffling around right now -

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur McCreight adipiscing elit. Morbi ullamcorper eros eu augue eleifend fringilla. Cum sociis natoque penatibus et magnis dis parturient montes, nascetur ridiculus mus. Proin eget pretium mi. Praesent pretium ornare odio, sagittis congue libero posuere quis. Sed feugiat euismod turpis, convallis ullamcorper elit placerat a. Nullam dapibus, ipsum id ultrices malesuada, ante justo aliquam tellus, in molestie mauris arcu id odio. Curabitur iaculis varius odio, vitae ultricies nisi placerat nec. Suspendisse hendrerit vehicula ipsum, id gravida ligula bibendum sed. Suspendisse faucibus euismod justo, vel elementum neque blandit non. Donec ullamcorper metus bibendum odio aliquet egestas.

Nunc ligula magna, tempus et pharetra sit amet, posuere id orci. Phasellus lacinia lacus at lacus tristique ut vulputate est tristique. Integer nunc felis, sollicitudin vel viverra sit amet, pulvinar a lacus. Mauris suscipit libero a diam ultrices rhoncus. Nullam et quam nec lacus laoreet viverra. Duis rhoncus dumb varius neque at tristique. Curabitur molestie diam lacus. Suspendisse velit nisi, elementum malesuada vehicula ac, blandit in mi. Mauris vestibulum vulputate velit, id iaculis sapien aliquam nec. Ut quam quam, tempor id posuere eget, ultricies ac magna.

Nullam quis felis ac risus volutpat elementum sit amet pellentesque orci. Nullam sodales ante in lorem consequat aliquam. In lacinia eleifend lacus, rutrum tincidunt leo tempor suscipit. Donec vel lacus nunc. Etiam tellus diam, accumsan ut volutpat vitae, hendrerit nec dolor. Sed nec nisl nec magna dapibus dapibus sit amet id felis. Sed sem nisi, lacinia vel imperdiet et, aliquam vulputate nisl. Maecenas odio numb tortor, dapibus sed feugiat viverra, rutrum et turpis. Ut eget lectus ac justo rhoncus suscipit eu non ante. Mauris nec enim ligula, at luctus arcu. Suspendisse quis turpis sit amet mi pellentesque dignissim. Cras fringilla, libero at viverra vestibulum, eros nibh porta elit, eget pharetra sapien enim quis risus. Sed bibendum pretium placerat. Fusce sed sapien eget ipsum aliquet sagittis nec ut arcu. Sed volutpat mi venenatis lacus aliquet vitae ultricies leo aliquam.

Cras ut varius neque. Integer pharetra condimentum porttitor. Donec lorem felis, consequat ut vehicula vitae, tempus ut purus. Donec vel urna sed velit commodo tincidunt. Nunc posuere mauris eget felis elementum hendrerit. Donec vel orci felis. Donec sollicitudin leo a lectus sagittis ac consequat odio suscipit. Vestibulum lorem justo, aliquam sit amet tincidunt eget, hendrerit id tellus. Aliquam bibendum mi non eros egestas a lacinia sem sagittis. Nullam gravida massa id leo ullamcorper cunt ac venenatis tortor facilisis. In et.

[Gefan]

And of course, women put make-up on for themselves, and for other women.

Nevertheless, women are oppressed by men, most of whom are completely confused as to why women wear makeup.

Oh, you're still trying to win at this game?
Please, quit the field and come up into the stands. Crack a beer and just watch. It's seriously entertaining stuff.

[somedumbguy]

And of course, women put make-up on for themselves, and for other women.

Nevertheless, women are oppressed by men, most of whom are completely confused as to why women wear makeup.

Oh, you're still trying to win at this game?
Please, quit the field and come up into the stands. Crack a beer and just watch. It's seriously entertaining stuff.

Yeah, I know.

[Skep tickle]

Advertiser carefully matched to the potential customer base at FtB :roll:

http://i.imgur.com/zCHRF.png

[AndrewV69]

Andrew,
FYI.. there's all kinds of gruesome crimes in India. There arent too many guns handy.. so primitive weapons.. like agricultural implements are used to hack off arms, head etc (No bobbitts though).
A narrative that made a lot of sense to me about patterns of crime.. A CRIMINAL HISTORY OF MANKIND by Colin Wilson.
Since huge populations in the Third World countries are stuck at the First and Second Levels of the hierarchy.. i.e Physiological (survival and sexual needs based) and property-related.. I dont see these kinds of crime going down anytime soon.
[spoiler][spoiler]Clearly, there is some sort of pattern here. But what are the underlying laws that govern it? In the
mid-1960s, the psychologist Abraham Maslow sent me his book Motivation and Personality
(1954), and it was in the fourth chapter, ‘A Theory of Human Motivation’, that I thought I saw the
outline of some kind of general solution to the changing pattern. The chapter had originally been
published in 1943 in the Psychological Review, and had achieved the status of a classic among
professional psychologists; but for some reason it had never percolated through to the general
public. What Maslow proposed in this paper was that human motivation can be described in terms
of a ‘hierarchy of needs’ or values. These fall roughly into four categories: physiological needs
(basically food), security needs (basically a roof over one’s head), belongingness and love needs
(desire for roots, the need to be wanted), and esteem needs (to be liked and respected). And beyond
these four levels, Maslow suggested the existence of a fifth category: self-actualisation: the need to
know and understand, to create, to solve problems for the fun of it.

When a man is permanently hungry, he can think of nothing else, and his idea of paradise is a place
with plenty of food. In fact, if he solves the food problem, he becomes preoccupied with the
question of security, a home, ‘territory’. (Every tramp dreams of retiring to a country cottage with
roses round the door.) If he solves this problem, the sexual needs become urgent - not simply
physical satisfaction, but the need for warmth, security and ‘belonging’. And if this level is
satisfied, the next emerges: the need to be liked and admired, the need for self-esteem and the
esteem of one’s neighbours. If all these needs are satisfied, the ‘self-actualising’ needs are free to
develop (although they do not always do so - Maslow recognised that many people never get
beyond level four.)

Now, as I worked on a second study in criminology, A Casebook of Murder, it struck me that
Maslow’s hierarchy of needs corresponds roughly to historical periods of crime. Until the first part
of the nineteenth century, most crimes were committed out of the simple need for survival -
Maslow’s first level. Burke and Hare, the Edinburgh body-snatchers, suffocated their victims and
sold the corpses to the medical school for about £7 each.

By the mid-nineteenth century the pattern
was changing; the industrial revolution had increased prosperity, and suddenly the most notorious
crimes are ‘domestic murders’ that take place in respectable middle-class homes: Dr Palmer, Dr
Pritchard, Constance Kent, Florence Bravo. (American parallels would include Professor Webster
and Lizzie Borden.) These people are committing crimes to safeguard their security. Charlie Peace,
housebreaker and murderer, practised burglary to subsidise a respectable middle-class existence
that included regular churchgoing and musical evenings with the neighbours.

But even before the end of the century, a new type of crime had emerged: the sex crime. The Jack
the Ripper murders of 1888 were among the first of this type, and it is significant that the killer’s
contemporaries did not recognise them as sex crimes; they argued that the Ripper was ‘morally
insane’, as if his actions could only be explained by a combination of wickedness and madness. The
Ripper is the first in a long line of ‘maniac’ killers that extends down to Heath and Glatman, and
that still throws up appalling examples such as Dean Corll, John Wayne Gacy and Ted Bundy. To
the crime committed for purely sexual reasons we should also add the increasing number of crimes
committed out of jealousy or the desire to get rid of a spouse in favour of a lover - Crippen,
Bywaters and Thompson, Snyder and Gray.

So what I had noticed in 1959 was a transition to a new level in the hierarchy: to the crime of ‘selfesteem’.
From then on, there was an increasing number of crimes in which the criminal seemed to
feel, in a muddled sort of way, that society was somehow to blame for not granting him dignity,
justice and recognition of his individuality, and to regard his crime as a legitimate protest. When, in
October 1970, Victor Ohta and his family were found murdered in their California home, a note on
the doctor’s Rolls-Royce read: ‘Today World War III will begin, as brought to you by the people of
the free universe ... I and my comrades from this day forth will fight until death or freedom against
anyone who does not support natural life on this planet. Materialism must die or mankind will
stop.’ The killer, the twenty-four-year-old drop-out John Linley Frazier, had told witnesses that the
Ohta family was ‘too materialistic’ and deserved to die. In fact, Frazier was reacting with the self centred
narcissism of the children described by Becker. (‘You gave him more juice.’ ‘Here’s some
more then.’ ‘Now she’s got more juice than me ...’) He felt he had a long way to go to achieve
‘security’, while Ohta had a swimming pool and a Rolls-Royce parked in the drive.[/spoiler]

[/spoiler]

I have lived in a couple of 3rd world contries and seen this type of thing close up and personal. You are right that this is not going away any time soon.

Indeed the Colin Wilson analysis fits within the framework. Quite frankly, I seriously doubt the possibility of educating the West is anything but vanishing low.

[franc]

Indeed the Colin Wilson analysis fits within the framework. Quite frankly, I seriously doubt the possibility of educating the West is anything but vanishing low.

Criminal History of Mankind is an amazing book. And perpetually out of print - check the Amazon prices below. That said, there is no moral grey area to using other means to get a copy -

https://kat.ph/wilson-colin-the-crimina ... 00819.html

[KiwiInOz]

Bloghog's doing her truffle pig shift -

Holy fucknuts Batman. I ... No, what I mean is ....

Bugger it. Mr Spankey can do the talking.

:hankey:

[Steersman]

Indeed the Colin Wilson analysis fits within the framework. Quite frankly, I seriously doubt the possibility of educating the West is anything but vanishing low.

Criminal History of Mankind is an amazing book. And perpetually out of print - check the Amazon prices below. That said, there is no moral grey area to using other means to get a copy -

https://kat.ph/wilson-colin-the-crimina ... 00819.html

According to the Wikipedia article on Wilson it is available as a PDF here:
http://www.crowhealingnetwork.net/pdf/C ... ankind.pdf

[sacha]

So, apparently, somewhere in subconscious, or even conscious, I don't want to quit.

Oh, and while I am typing this? I've got a cigarette in the ashtray.

Nearly everyone who has quit smoking has failed numerous times. Those who quit the first or second time they tried, are not predisposed to addictions. Most people try quitting for years.

Smoking is the way you cope with conflict and stress. It's also the way you celebrate feeling good. If you do not replace smoking with something else that helps you feel in control, and is enjoyable, you won't stay away from cigarettes for very long.

Withdrawal effects are not pleasant, nor are they easy, it is an out of control panic that cannot be ignored, combined with feelings of depression and anger, and you know that feeling calm and in control is only an inhale or two away. It isn't going to be pleasant, don't think you will able to disengage from the anguish, no amount of strength can make one immune to the effects of withdrawal. Keep in mind, you are going to feel dreadful. If you plan to feel complete despair, you may be pleasantly surprised when it isn't as bad as you imagined. No matter how bad it gets, remember it is temporary, and far better than lung cancer.

Get it out of your head that you won't be able to quit because you haven't been able to go without a cigarette for a significant amount of time. You did not try to quit the way it will work for you, you tried to quit the way it worked for someone else. You inadvertently set yourself up to fail. Don't blame yourself, you did not know that you were doing it wrong.

Don't think of "never having another cigarette". You like smoking. So did I. The thought of never again having something you enjoy is not going to help you quit. Think of it as stopping for a while in order to feel better. You can have a smoke sometime in the future.

Smoking speeds up the brain and central nervous system, and causes the body to release dopamine. That can put one in a better mood and makes one feel alert. You need to find things that give you the same effect. I drank a fuckload of tea. I was never without a teacup in my hand, unless I was sleeping. I liked that I was holding something warm, and comforting, that was not a cigarette.
Black Ceylon tea (English tea) has more caffeine than coffee, but the effects are spread out, so you don't feel a rush, or shaky, and you won't crash. You can try tea, but that is what worked for me. You need to find the thing that works for you. I also used the patch, and I always carried a pen around to draw with. The patch alone is not going to be enough

Go research things that give one similar effects to smoking, but are not harmful. Get all of them, and see what helps. Perhaps it is switching off between a few, or more than one at a time that will help with the cravings. Remember smoking is also about having a prop. You need to replace the act of holding a cigarette with something else. Tea was great because it kept my hand and my mouth busy. (giving blow jobs was extremely helpful, but that won't work for you).
Do not substitute extra food! You smoke after you eat. Food is not a replacement for smoking, you already eat. You need something new.

Get really good at shuffling a deck of cards, or something like that. Plus, with a deck of cards, you can carry them in your pocket like a pack of cigarettes. Go research things to keep your hands busy, that are small enough to carry around, and may also be enjoyable to you. Things that are a bit challenging are best. Learn to draw Frank the Pug. Get a small pocket-sized drawing pad, a few pencils, and print out "how to draw a Pug" instructions from the internet. Carry these with you. I'm sure I can think of other ideas as well.

if you want more of this, let me know.

[Skep tickle]

From the "Are the mods capricious..." thread at atheism+ forum, at the bottom of this post:
[quote=mood2]By the way, anybody here read The Trial by Franz Kafka? Might be handy in your newbie bag-o-links.[/quote]

Thanks to the dumbed down atheist 27 Franc Hoggle episode, which I enjoyed listening to last night, I have a frame of reference for that comment that I didn't used to have. (And the rest of the discussion was interesting, too.) TYVM, franc.

[DownThunder]

...Thus concludes todays lesson on Australasian wildlife for American tourists.

I spent some time in Australia in 2007 and kept running across a book entitled "See Australia And Die" which chronicled tourists' fatal interactions with the country's astonishing variety of homicidal wildlife. The thing was on prominent display in every airport bookstore demonstrating not only the Aussies' charmingly phlegmatic approach to death by razor-sharp teeth, neurotoxin, or belligerently drunk six foot tall bird but also their carefree disregard for the tourists who provide such a huge chunk of their foreign currency earnings. "If they're gonna let a few White Pointers and Crocs scare them off, fuck 'em! Bunch of pooftas!".
We fucking LOVED Australia.

Also went to New Zealand back around 1989 but it was closed.

Gotta be careful with the big birds. Never confuse an emu with a cassowary. One can be aggressive, but the other can fuck your shit up immensely.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cassowary# ... ry_attacks

[justinvacula]

"Teenager falsely accused of rape beaten to death by gang"

Five killers carried out the 'extraordinarily callous, violent and brutal' murder of a teenager after the sister of one wrongly claimed he had raped her, a court heard today.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/ ... -gang.html

[John Greg]

The thing I found most frustrating about qutting smoking -- not the hardest, but the most frustrating, was weight gain. Quitting the fags had a huge effect on my metabolism. My eating habits changed only slightly, a very slight increase in sugar intake, and very slightly larger servings at meals. But within 8 months of quitting smoking I gained 40 pounds, and regardless of what I do about it (with the exception of when I had two back-to-back diverticulitus attacks, followed by a run of bronchitis two years ago, during which I lost about 18 pounds or so), I have been unable to get rid of that extra poundage in the last 13 years.

[sacha]

Oh, and while I am typing this? I've got a cigarette in the ashtray.

You know what my biggest obstacle is? With the number of do gooders squealing "we must protect the children"; anti-tobacco jihadi "researchers" not content with fear-mongering about passive second hand smoke being lethal (while ignoring diesel and aviation fuel fumes amongst countless genuinely dangerous and ignored carcinogens) now concocting terror about 3rd hand smoke; general "my body is my temple" fitness narcissists; litigation fearing politicians and businesses hounding smokers into ever more stringently limited smoking spaces etc., smoking is now becoming an act of civil disobedience. Fuck them collectively. I'll quit when they stop telling me to quit.

I was the same for a long time, that is just our personalities. I still have that attitude about a lot of things.

Al can find something to replace it, or can be just fine with the other things he does that says "fuck off" . He has a wife and children.

It's different for us. We will outlive those who would be affected by us dying early.

"my body is my temple" fitness narcissists are the worst. I would get the "how can you be a vegetarian and smoke!". I'm not vegetarian for health reasons, that's how. bloody prat.

[Skep tickle]

"Teenager falsely accused of rape beaten to death by gang"

Five killers carried out the 'extraordinarily callous, violent and brutal' murder of a teenager after the sister of one wrongly claimed he had raped her, a court heard today.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/ ... -gang.html

That's horrifying.

Another news site says he had a young son.

The page you linked has this, IMO oddly phrased, comment about the "rape claim":

Mr Denison said two years before Alice Hall had made a complaint to the police about the victim.

"She initially claimed that he had raped her.

"But when what she was saying was examined more closely by the police it was clear that she was not in fact saying he had raped her and no further action was taken."

What does that mean? I'm not finding any other news articles that explain that line further.

[sacha]

nice to see your Tony Montana kitty back, Outwest.

[sacha]

Speaking of assault rifles... it's good to see Rambo kitty again, I missed him.

I thought it was Tony Montana kitty

[Skep tickle]

...

This why the guest traffic has been higher today? (That, and PZ & god knows who else retweeting it)

[Skep tickle]

Advertiser carefully matched to the potential customer base at FtB :roll:

http://i.imgur.com/zCHRF.png

BTW, huge apologies for not hiding this + no trigger warning :doh:

:lol:

[sacha]

Problem is, I really do get thirsty for a cigarette if I've been without one for too long. Like Al, I smoke rolys (I've even got some chocolate flavoured papers somewhere), and one time I was out of baccy, I got so desperate, I tried smoking tea leaves. Trouble was, I was out of papers too, so I made a big Camberwell Carrot type thing out of cartridge paper without realising that cartridge paper is significantly more combustible than cig-rolling papers. Cue me drawing a jet of flaming tea-leaf coals into my mouth. It was most unpleasant.

and some of us are predisposed to addictions. I have my tales of idiocy as well.

Reminds me of the coke heads who would take the straw to the carpeting if a line blew off the mirror.

[sacha]

A date with a Feminist:

http://i.imgur.com/jztLw.jpg

haha!

[sacha]

The boys would tell the already-pretty girls they don't need makeup and would never give the less pretty girls w/o makeup a second look. The issue isn't that these kids are trying to control the girls, it's that they're trying to impress them by being so profound or something. At least, that's how it was when I was in HS.

high school is a whole different topic of discussion.

Everyone is insecure at that age.

I'm specifically referring to adults.

[franc]

Problem is, I really do get thirsty for a cigarette if I've been without one for too long. Like Al, I smoke rolys (I've even got some chocolate flavoured papers somewhere), and one time I was out of baccy, I got so desperate, I tried smoking tea leaves. Trouble was, I was out of papers too, so I made a big Camberwell Carrot type thing out of cartridge paper without realising that cartridge paper is significantly more combustible than cig-rolling papers. Cue me drawing a jet of flaming tea-leaf coals into my mouth. It was most unpleasant.

and some of us are predisposed to addictions. I have my tales of idiocy as well.

Reminds me of the coke heads who would take the straw to the carpeting if a line blew off the mirror.

Strung out junkies injecting water just for the ritual with the needle.

[Phil_Giordana_FCD]

[spoiler][youtube]bB4vxQDllFU[/youtube][/spoiler]

Dude. That's the funniest fucking thing I've seen (and heard) in a long time.

My ears are bleeding, and I think I just popped a kidney. But to be fair to these poor sods, playing in a cathedral is no bed of roses, acoustic-wise. Took me about an hour to get the right setup for just one keyboard plus one singer, and I'm not exactly a newbee when it comes to live settings.

Still, that was atrocious, but probably not as much as this (TRIGGER WARNING, DON'T PUSH PLAY IF YOU VALUE YOUR PANCREAS!):

[youtube]AZH4dRLZ20A[/youtube]

[DataNotDogma]

I somehow missed this looking for blogs/articles on the rape info-graphic. Nothing of substance really(other than crying wolf doesn't help victims) but some fun use of language. Enjoy. Or not.

Of course, it is not fashionable to ever pollute the “rape culture” discussion with facts. Facts are sexist. So Mark Bennett must be sexist, because he’s forcibly sodomizing the dumb piece of shit who put this “info” graphic together with a throbbing cock made of facts right over here.

http://randazza.wordpress.com/2013/01/0 ... ith-facts/

[comslave]

Bloghog's doing her truffle pig shift -

That's it, I want to see the medical records.

Actually, I don't. I just realized I have to care left over.

[franc]

[spoiler][youtube]bB4vxQDllFU[/youtube][/spoiler]

Dude. That's the funniest fucking thing I've seen (and heard) in a long time.

I actually love it - it is wasted on slugs like Myers. This is the people's music - and it owes a lot to the original Portsmouth Sinfonia.

I always found classical music to be an exclusionary, therefore suspect, club - it strove to make music as impossible to participate in as possible for the common man. Dry hump them up the ass with Laden's dick.

The Portsmouth Sinfonia began as a joke and became a valid cultural phenomenon - since emulated and no longer funny by turds like the Really Terrible Orchestra, who I have not heard acknowedge PS even once.

This vid is a bunch of PS fans in New Zealand - they are far more attuned to the original spirit.

[comslave]

.
I don't have any room to indicate the source in the sig, or I would have. That one anteater guy said it.

That one anteater guy. That ONE ANTEATER GUY????

I am not an anteater guy. Get ready for an almighty flounce.

Well, I misremembered your avatar. Whatever you are, you're very cute, so please flounce away, honey.

An anteater:
http://0.tqn.com/d/goaustralia/1/0/9/i/kiwi.jpg

A beaverduck:
http://www.amamoorlodge.com.au/images/p ... imming.jpg

A llamarabbit:
http://museumvictoria.com.au/pages/1232 ... -large.jpg


Thus concludes todays lesson on Australasian wildlife for American tourists.

Which one can I legally shoot?

[sacha]

To further confuse any residual manichean reader, I'm not a republican either!

the Merkins are now completely confused.

[comslave]

We should use this image as a trigger warning for pointless rhetorical posturing:

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8045/8365 ... 220008.jpg

[youtube]d8rCfB8pgKc[/youtube]

[Michael J]

.
I don't have any room to indicate the source in the sig, or I would have. That one anteater guy said it.

That one anteater guy. That ONE ANTEATER GUY????

I am not an anteater guy. Get ready for an almighty flounce.

Well, I misremembered your avatar. Whatever you are, you're very cute, so please flounce away, honey.

An anteater:
http://0.tqn.com/d/goaustralia/1/0/9/i/kiwi.jpg

A beaverduck:
http://www.amamoorlodge.com.au/images/p ... imming.jpg

A llamarabbit:
http://museumvictoria.com.au/pages/1232 ... -large.jpg


Thus concludes todays lesson on Australasian wildlife for American tourists.

Which one can I legally shoot?

The llamarabbit.

[EdgePenguin]

So, anybody in the UK been watching Stargazing Live?

What do you all think? Fans or not of Brian Cox?

[rayshul]

"I have no problem with men who admit that makeup looks good, like grownups."

apparently there is no such thing as natural beauty and women without cosmetics are more vulnerable

"the ideal of 'natural' beauty is tied to the female submission ideal."

"men trot out 'natural beauty' because it's a tool to control women."

"not all men think it's sexier when women are vulnerable, not in control, and kept as private possessions."

That's really, really fucked up. Why is fucking slap a feminist issue? Why does it need to be taken apart like that? I mean... fuck. Wear make up or don't wear make up or what the fuck ever. And some men will like it and some men won't and some men will ask to try some on.

Most women I know don't wear make-up. Because they're sporty or brainy kind of people and it's often impractical when you're sweating in the gym or you don't have time 'cos you're studying. I don't either. My mother (second/first wave feminist) wears a whole pile of slap 'cos she likes her face with it on.

I have read that wearing make-up means you're more likely to get paid more - and apparently heels gives you a $10k+ pay rise. (I am going to scientifically investigate this by purchasing some heels and learning to walk in them.)

[Michael K Gray]

An anteater:
A beaverduck:
A llamarabbit:
Which one can I legally shoot?

The gnarsupial LadenSkunk.

[Michael K Gray]

(I am going to scientifically investigate this by purchasing some heels and learning to walk in them.)

Oh noes!
Will you begging for donations from your hordes of sycophants, like some sort of slyme-grifter?

[Polterguest]

#CallClegg whatever you like. Personally, I'm going with 'cunt'.

Christ - can you believe someone said that? They must be misogynist, since 'cunt' is vagina, and it's basically saying that if Clegg is bad as a vagina (which reduces women to mere vaginas) then he really must be bad, since vaginas (i.e. women) are horrible.

So who is this misogynist, danger to all women in the atheist community?



Oh. He's no danger at all - he's a wonderful ally. It's ok if it's him, and anyway, he's British. If they're British it's ok, unless they're not a wonderful ally, in which case being British is no defence at all.

[EdgePenguin]

#CallClegg whatever you like. Personally, I'm going with 'cunt'.

Christ - can you believe someone said that? They must be misogynist, since 'cunt' is vagina, and it's basically saying that if Clegg is bad as a vagina (which reduces women to mere vaginas) then he really must be bad, since vaginas (i.e. women) are horrible.

So who is this misogynist, danger to all women in the atheist community?



Oh. He's no danger at all - he's a wonderful ally. It's ok if it's him, and anyway, he's British. If they're British it's ok, unless they're not a wonderful ally, in which case being British is no defence at all.

He is one of the Heresy Club idiots isn't he?

[masakari2012]

I guess Jen McWrong's stableboy removed her blinders and allowed her hoofs to touch the computer.

[Michael K Gray]

I guess Jen McWrong's stableboy removed her blinders and allowed her hoofs to touch the computer.

Are you willing to post a recent photo of yourself, as well as your physical age?

[SPACKlick]

Alright, because I remembered it just now, if you want to get a mind fuck, go to Wikipedia and click on a random link.

Then follow the first hotlink on every page (not the ones that show pronunciation).

If you do it right, it will eventually lead to 'philosophy'. Every single time.

FALSE! There are closed loops.
England
First LInk is
part of
Leading to United Kingdom, whose first link is
England

[masakari2012]

Are you willing to post a recent photo of yourself, as well as your physical age?

Well, okay.... This is me, but you're going to have to guess my age....

[spoiler][/spoiler]

[SPACKlick]

[spoiler]Okay bitch, I don't normally do this, (but I'm suffering through norovirus, I am in a fucking mood. From the time I was halfway through third grade, until the end of fourth grade, I was regularly molested by a trio of older kids. In their apartments, in the woods out back of my apartment complex, in my room. I got handed the fuck around, and didn't dare say shit about it. That was my day. Three stooges and a dick in my mouth. One kid was blonde, one kid was a redhead, one kid was a brunette, all male, except occasionally when an older sister would get in on it.

Those were special days.

You know how long I saw possible rape in older males?

fucking never, because after my folks found out what was happening via the calm, rational method of "dad came home early", (and you want to talk about victim blaming you marshmallow - shaped lump of shit? I was a fucking pariah for the next six months, because it was alllll my fault, and my parents couldn't get out of their lease early, welcome to the 70s) and things calmed down, they, two barely functional alcoholics sat in the living room with their very confused, scared son, and instead of making me relive it to "find out what had happened, (what my dad saw made it pretty obvious), they said over and over:

"This is not your fault, these are not normal people, this is not how things normally work"

Over. And. Over, because they were, I found out later, terrified of what effect this would have on me, and wanted to be sure I knew that this was the most fucked up thing ever, and that no, most people weren't like this, and I had done nothing wrong.

And when I was so angry at my dad, because no one would talk to me any more or better yet, would try to beat the crap out of me for being a snitch, he and I would go on a "paper run" down to the corner 7-11, and I could yell at him and call him names, and he'd just take it until I had gotten it out of my system. Then he'd buy me a slurpee and we'd walk home.

I am sorry, stephanie, that bad things happened to you, more than you will ever know, or care. I've got a list of bad shit that I lived through that would drive you into a padded room. I know what it's like better than you want to think.

But do not sit here and expect anyone to give a fuck about your problems when you engage in the very behavior you cry about. "OMG VICTIM BLAMING", what the FUCK DO YOU CALL WHAT YOU DID TO JUSTIN GRIFFITH YOU HYPOCRITICAL CUNTSPURT?

If you want any fucking pity or even understanding, stop doing all the things you fucking bawl about in an attempt to get hitcounts. Bad things happen. To you. To me.

The difference is, I'm not wallowing in it to look superior to my critics.

And no, I didn't give a trigger warning. Fuck you.[/spoiler]

[spoiler]Wow. And there it is. :clap:

That, in a nutshell, is the thing that, to my way of thinking, divides the adults from the children. Adults pull themselves together and move forward. The badness may remain a part of them, but it is not the driving focus of their lives in any way. They grow and move forward. The permanent children of the world, and the rad-fem pityseekers like Svan are today's textbook example, make sure they wear the pity-inducing badness as if it should be a pitymagnet badge of honor. Their entire lives will be built around the event like the black pearl around an irritant seed. Fuck. That. Shit.

My childhood was a pretty significant mess by any measure. No sexual abuse, thank goodness, but plenty of physical and mental. I won't bore everyone with the details of what really is old news at this point, but when people learn of my childhood, usually after knowing me for many, many years, if ever, the most common response is along the lines of 'How did you end up so normal?' Easy. It didn't happen overnight, but as I integrated into more normal environments I was intelligent enough to recognize that the earlier years were the aberation and I adjusted to what i recognized as the actual norm. No magic. No blaming, victim or otherwise. I just fucking moved on and grew up. Close friends would normally have no idea that anything unusual had EVER happened to me.

Sorry you had to be exposed to that crap, Welch, but good on ya for dealing with it straight on.[/spoiler]

I think this is a central question that someone on that side of the fence should be asking. Why does rape destroy some people's lives and for others it's a slightly icky experience and they brush off and move on? Why do some people become "a victim of rape" once they're raped and others are "someone who was once a victim of a rape"?

I'd really like to know what can be done to support the first category of people because it can't be fun to have your life defined by this shit.

[sacha]

I think it takes someone who has actually seen the dark places of humanity to recognize what's really harassment and violence and what's a victim complex.

This is why I use the crying wolf reference so often when any of them ask for pity.

For the person who has been truly sexually abused, and has moved on from the trauma without begging for, or demanding sympathy, without thinking the world owes them anything, and without wallowing in self-pity, who has not allowed themselves to be defined by victimhood, and who had the temerity and strength to ensure that their abuser does not get to take one more moment away from them, by living a happy and fulfilling life in spite of the abuse, to those people, the most patronising thing one can do, is play the victim when all they have are trivial experiences which they want others to view as equally horrific.

People who have been brutally raped do not think it is the same thing as going along with sex willingly because of a few cocktails.

The idea that "rape is rape" and all are equally pernicious is contemptible. Those who perpetuate it are repugnant.

Poor Me Syndrome:

The common theme of these self-piteous cognitions and verbal declarations can be described as the “poor me” phenomenon, where one globally labels others as well as life/the world at large as harsh, cruel, unfair, or bad for treating them unjustly. While some might believe that vengeful statements about the malevolence of other individuals and situations external to self help protect them from the unforgiving world, this is wholeheartedly inaccurate. By stewing in hatred of others and life, one is in fact perpetuating their own misery, inflicting further harm on the very individual whom they are trying to protect the most. One’s chronic insistence that life circumstances change and others behave differently towards them as well as the whiny rehearsal of self-talk like “others and life are bad because they don’t give me what I want” do nothing but self-defeat and propagate negative, unhealthy states of being.

That isn’t to say that life and others are not capable of unfairness at times and that they never deal us a shitty hand. Quite the contrary. Life is hard and people do behave contemptibly, and these are some of the unfortunate truths of being alive. But that is not to say that you have to make it worse by catastrophizing about bad events and the unsettling behaviors of others, and you surely do not have to demand that things outside of your control be different. Instead, tell yourself that life at times can be a complex, challenging series of adversities and that others have, are, and will continue to treat you poorly at times. However, also remind yourself that you have control over your own emotional well-being regardless of the injustice that occurs around you. Tell yourself that life circumstances and maltreatment by others could always be worse, that at least some aspects of your life and relationships with others are positive, and that NOBODY, including Mr. Life, HAS TO give you everything you wish for.

http://rebtinstitute.org/blog/2011/04/1 ... drome-pms/