On Heated Arguments And Civilized Debate

This is an important post. Information density is medium, length is significant but not nearly as much as my other posts that are just as important, so relatively short, and the ideas are important ones, which makes this post one of the un-skippables, things I indicate at the beginning of every post. Ideas including the edits, as always. Similar posts include 'Courage', 'Confessions' and 'Objective is Subjective'.

"Hermione, you’ve told me a lot of times that I look down too much on other people. But if I expected too much of them - if I expected people to get things right - I really would hate them, then." ~Harry James-Potter-Evans-Verres, HPMOR

Hello everyone. This is a post discussing a serious issue, with some questions for whoever happens to come across it. I’d preface with saying that I’m relatively introverted, and I have some conditions that prevent me from fully trying to function normally in social situations, so I’d like you to keep that in mind while reading this. New to this blog? Start here.

I usually don’t talk to many people online, and any people in the real world. I have not interacted with any person except my parents for months now, and not too long ago I had a continuous streak of more than two years, and I talk to very few people online, so I have never been in a real world debate or serious discussion revolving around an important topic. I actually have a few times, but not in the way I’m going to describe now, which is the reason I felt motivated to create this post, because putting everything into words makes it all coherent and clear, enables me to organize and gather my own thoughts, and writing is therapeutic, so I thought I would share my experiences with anyone who is willing to read this post, which is also shorter, more readable, and more grounded in reality and the everyday life rather the abstract and general, unlike most of my other posts.

Long story short, without going into too many details, I recently got into a discussion where I could absolutely have just pretended to agree with the person who had a different point of view from me and let it end right there, but I don’t believe in lying, faking opinions and being dishonest about my views and foregoing such an opportunity to learn from a person with a different worldview and opinion, because if I do this now, I would also feel comfortable doing this when the stakes are high, and not take a stand for myself, and let things happen to me and my decisions taken by people whom other people are too afraid to confront, or just don’t care enough to bother with them and are fine with the consequences. And this was not acceptable to me. That actually reminds me of something from not too long ago that I’ll briefly recount before starting with the incident that motivated me to write this.

Here goes nothing. A room I shared with four of my roommates in a hostel once upon a time had a problem. Three of us were early sleepers, early being 11-12 AM, and one of them used to break in every night around 1 AM with his group of noisy friends talking and laughing loudly creating a ruckus and waking us up, watching movies, playing loud songs, cooking Maggi, and- it was a serious issue because it messed with our sleep cycles and productivity next day, but now in hindsight, it sounds a bit funny- out of us three early sleepers, one was not bothered because he lived nearby and just went to his home if he wished, but the other one lived too far to have such a privilege, but too scared to confront him and put forward his opinion, so I had to do it myself, because I believed that being tactical and conveying my reasons with a calm and cool mind would work- with letting the other person know that I empathize with them and reframing the issue and solution from their perspective to show how it would be better for them and us both, and also letting them know that I understand their motivation behind what they are doing and respect their preferences, and I’d do the same had I been in their shoes and it’s fine but it’s disrupting our sleep cycle. And it worked, he went elsewhere after that. And that made me confident about the power of logic and effective communication to convince and persuade other people, until the incidents that I’m going to describe now.

Here's the main incident I’ve been alluding to: without going into too many details yet attempting to capture the essence relevant to our present discussion, I asked some questions and shared my opinion on a controversial topic hoping to learn something from someone who holds views dissimilar to my own. As always, I made it clear that I have an open mind and really wish to understand their perspective, but they got heated up and said words that hurt me a little, still I tried to have empathy and understand where they might be coming from, personal experiences might be compelling them to do that, and why I might be at fault for saying things that might have triggered them.

I kept my calm and tried not to resort to the sort of foul language that they had started using against me, attacking me and not my logic, and blaming me and saying that I’m the one who is not willing to listen and change my mind, even though I literally said that in every sentence, but once again we never know what experiences and suffering they went through, and I now see how foolish it was of me to expect someone who has had traumatic experiences themselves and witnessed it for their close ones to suspend their emotional motivations just like that. I was naïve, and I can see that, and I know not everyone holds rationality as one of their core values, so it’s also a different in preferences and values.

I tried to explain that I respect their opinion, and wish to keep it rational and civilized, yet have no hard feelings because I get where they are coming from, but the situation escalated, and there was a moment when I felt like explaining the conditions, I am going through that makes it harder for me to empathize and due to which I just happen to think very differently from others, despite which I’m trying to understand them, yet they attacked the very condition I entrusted them with, and that made me really uncomfortable to the point that my discomfort was manifesting itself physically in very noticeable forms, and I felt hurt.

It's hard to have empathy after a point, but I’m glad that I kept it till the end, never resorted to certain words that they felt no compunctions with employing without any reservations- and a bit too liberally in my opinion- for understandable reasons, yet I tried to be polite, because in all probability it was my fault in what words I shall use, what tactics and effective communication techniques to use that doesn’t come off as triggering or offensive, and my incorrect mental model or map that told me how the person would react which apparently was considerable different from reality.

Even if it were not my fault, I know myself enough to realize that I could never sleep peacefully again if I lost my temper with someone who has been hurt by my miscalculated words and way of explaining or conveying my side of the debate, and I’d never be able to overcome the sense of disgust and aversion I would have developed with myself, which would have been a huge blow to the inferiority complex which I have fortunately been able to overcome lately with some positive and encouraging comments and external validation about my abilities from accomplished people I admire and look up to with deep reverence.

But after a point I realized I won’t be able to take it any longer, because it takes a considerable amount of mental energy and restraint to be faced with constant abuses and personal attacks yet maintain your calm and composure while also simultaneously trying to be polite and understand what the other person might be experiencing and external factors that might be at play here.

After I realized that, which was when they shared my condition which I am still trying to grapple with and yet and they said I’m using it as an excuse, understood that it is not logical to carry on the conversation, not worth my time and mental sanity and the probability of having a productive and civilized discussion is too low, the opportunity cost of time and mental energy not worth it, and I’d just be wasting it however badly I am trying to change my mind.

That got me thinking of another instance when there was a class discussion and one kid had this unpopular and unconventional opinion on a controversial topic and expressed it and whole classed turned against him, point is I’m not defending him or saying he was right, just saying that the class didn’t even try to understand his point of view and it escalated into a heated argument, and I was wondering why on Earth they can’t just talk it out like intelligent, rational, civilized humans and try to understand each other and learn more about the other side, and if nothing else, just agree to disagree. But no, it seems like you can’t try to do that with them, you’d just be wasting your time and energy.

These incidents, the first one more importantly, made me realize something significant about the way I wish to live my life. I used to think that I could have some logical and evidence based beliefs, and even if I was mistaken, I could have an open conversation with any person and learn from them, but now I realize how ridiculous and naïve my thinking was, how some people just aren’t worth talking to, not because they don’t have good ideas; they might have some great ideas that I could learn a LOT from if I try to, it’s just that their way of talking and presenting their ideas, in a way that’s so emotionally charged and irrational, is so mentally draining and puts at least me in an undesirable mood, and seems like a huge waste of time, to the point that I’m willing to forego any great insights they might have if I get to preserve what little mental sanity I have left- I am willing to trade off the gain of potential ideas for my peace of mind and value of time saved- and use it in more productive tasks which I am more likely to succeed in and learn from.

Of course, I’m willing to change my mind if anyone is able to convince me why I should still keep at it, and has any effective communication techniques other than the usual any rationalist would know- including trying to have empathy, be polite, using logic and reason, being kind and compassionate, trying to listen and understand, not judging and attacking the person or using rude words or losing my anger etc. otherwise I think I’m being rational, given that this is a case of uncertainty, and my preferences in this case is my own mental health rather than trying to explain myself and change their mind, which frankly, I would be more than happy to, and also change my mind if they have such logical reasons and are able to convince me, but which seems impossible or at least not worth my time and limited cognitive resources and mental and emotional energy.

This brings me to my questions: does anyone here feel the same, that most seemingly intelligent people get heated too soon, and attaches themselves to their ideas, which leads to them trying to get personal and defend themselves and attack the other person willing to have a productive debate? That even if they feel strong emotional affect for something, which of course we all respect because we all are humans, yet who apparently can not set aside their emotions and be logical for a moment, and try to explain their reasons and their why for their beliefs? I empathize with such people, they might have been through experiences that makes them act in such a way, and it just happens that unlike people who hold rationality and logic above most other things- such as me- they happen to have values that are very different, which is why they are unwilling to bring in logic in a debate that hits too close to home.

I’m not saying that rationalists never get angry, we probably do, but we are able to be logical and direct, and we could restrain ourselves from attacking you and using rude or emotionally charged words, and if it gets too much, the desire gets too strong, such that they are not able to carry on a civilized debate and logical conversation, they’d simply tell you that they wish to stop here and this is not the right time, or they don’t want to talk about it- at least I would do that in such a situation, and like to think I could actually do that if such a situation takes place, judging from past experiences.

I’m also re-evaluating my attitude towards when to engage and when not to engage with people, because I now understand the type of idealist idea I talked about at the start is too naïve, and I can’t talk to everyone and hope to learn from them, even rely on them to be able to change my mind with little else than appealing to my emotions and intuition without giving me logical reasons, because most don’t know such reasons and follow their feelings and emotions without scrutinizing them, or know the logical reasons but get too emotionally motivated and charged trying to explain which makes it futile and a waste of time to even try to understand them. So I need to learn how to pick my battles wisely now, and also if it’s really that undesirable and irrational to keep my opinion to myself in certain situations when the stakes are not too high, I don’t fee like engaging, the potential reward or expected benefits aren’t too great, and if I think that a discussion with a person is not going to be civilized or productive.

If I were to adopt this attitude, at least it won’t be out of fear or lack of courage like that roommate I mentioned, who was too afraid to even let the troublemaker know there’s a problem, afraid to take a stand and confront someone when required; I’d be making a more informed and calculated decision, doing the rational thing, only trying to engage where I would have the opportunity to learn and safely do so without any significant probability of offending the person I’m talking to, who would preferably have the ability to override their intuitive thoughts and emotions with their logical and rational mind in real time, and be clear and direct about it without resorting to emotionally motivated discussions.

As I said, getting angry or triggered is not the issue, getting angry and then not being able to control it and put it calmly to the other person and if required even let them know you don’t wish to talk about it right now seems like what a rationalist would do. It also relates to my blog post titled empathy, a call for compassion and thinking fast and slow, which funnily enough is the same post that started the main incident that motivated me to write this post; something related to prevention, rehabilitation and punishment, and having compassion and empathy for people who commit unethical actions.

I have another interested idea I might explain in another blog post. It’s about how paradoxically it’s the people who have experienced some sort of suffering who feel strongly about it, but then they get to emotionally motivated that they are unable to apply their logic to solving the problem, as I think everyone reading this is smart enough to understand how emotion is good for motivating you to solve something but it’s impossible to find the best way to solve something using your emotions.

Why did I call this a paradox? Because if you have never experienced such suffering, you would never feel about it enough to compel you to take action, it won’t produce in you the levels of emotional affect sufficient to motivate you so you desire to help people who might be going through such suffering, and you know because you have experienced it, but as I said you are also more prone to being too emotionally invested and not think straight and logically, being able to set aside your emotions because the topic might be triggering, and so the very thing that motivates someone to take action would be counterproductive to their actions.

This is the reason I use rationality and logic even in this domain. These people who are emotionally motivated might make others aware of this issue, but they would never be able to solve the problem and help people if they are not able to set aside their emotions. In the main incident I described in the post, the heated debate- heated from one said at least, because I succeeded in being polite, and still understand they were right and all their points were correct, just their way of putting it was very wrong.

In the debate, I was told that I should set aside my logic at some point because this is something that is only understood by understanding the emotional human experience. I completely agree, I might not know what it feels like till I go through it, but unless I decide to voluntarily undergo such suffering just to understand such people- and idea which to be perfectly honest did cross my mind- it might be unrealistic and irrational, and I am already going through enough right now to do something stupid like that.

But after I understand the experience and feel it, through books or media or talking to the victims themselves- it might be hard for them to recount but necessary if we wish to understand and share their pain and burden, and after the initial apprehension and difficulty also help them feel lighter because someone listened and understood, and really desires to help them.

And this is one of my ambitious grand projects, yes there are others, but this is one of the most important ones- eradicating all unnecessary suffering for all sentient beings on this planet, and such evil is part of it; I already have some plans and this is why I’m invested in this issue and did not, as I mentioned earlier in this post, just pretend to agree and close the debate right there and then. I wish to help such people, and I know this is a tricky topic that makes otherwise seemingly highly logical and intelligent people emotionally motivated, which is perfectly understandable and if I were in their shoes I’d have done the same.

But after I get the feeling and know what it’s like to go through all the pain, I need to set it aside- not everyone can do it, as I said, people don’t realize logic is a powerful tool to solve such problems, and even if they do they just might find it hard, but I know I can, and very few can, so I feel like it’s my duty to feel motivated enough to solve it, by remembering the emotional affect, but while planning and solving it, using my rational and logical brain, and I am confident that I can do it.

Not going to lie, it was a discouraging experience that made me think of altogether leaving this project to just be me and live and let live and never express or act on my beliefs or opinions, but now I see it for what it is- a novel experience that made me suffer a little but also made me tougher, helped me strengthen my resolve and understand more clearly the intricacies and psychology of people who hold opinion and beliefs dissimilar to mind so I can better understand them and be better equipped to help them.

I have some more ideas related to this, but I won’t share it now, because I don’t have the time and energy, but I have covered the main ideas I wished to convey. Do check out my post called 'courage, call for compassion, and thinking fast and slow' which is in a way a continuation of or an expansion on the ideas I touched upon in this post. Before ending, I’d like to leave here a piece of text that I found in my notepad randomly while reading through it, also posted on an online discussion forum, that’s relevant to our present discussion, and reminds me how this is an issue I just as bothered about around two years ago:

In my locality and on news channels, people seem to forget the purpose of the debate and get seem to get consumed by their passions. In the newspapers, I regularly read about people committing heinous crimes over petty issues.

Do these people think that getting aggressive while putting forward their opinion would help them win an argument? Don't they realize the effectiveness of logic and civilized debate?

It's almost like they need to be taught basic manners and the importance of keeping their impulses under deliberate conscious control. And made to read books like Cheng's The Art of Logic and Seo's Good Arguments. Maybe that would make their lives easier and help them reach an agreement faster.

Related question: My Uncle recently said that staying silent and not fighting back is a sign of cowardice. I disagree because I believe that it takes a lot more effort to stay calm under pressure and understand the other person's POV. But could there be a limit to that, when tolerance turns into cowardice? What could it be?

I'm a Ravenclaw and we believe that turning to violent means indicates that your brain is too weak to beat them the right way. We are driven by our desire to know things, which is not at all the same quality as being intelligent, so sorry if I'm being ignorant and missing something here. Thank you.

Edit: It makes more sense now that I have been diagnosed with high-functioning Autism or Asperger's syndrome. It's called cognitive empathy, and I have it in higher amounts than affective empathy, which is why most people feel but don't understand, and act on their impulsive desires without scrutinizing their intuitive thoughts with logic, also something that Aspies are usually better at.

This is just another good reason for me to try to explain why cognitive empathy is important, and how everyone who is not biologically naturally predisposed or inclined towards it could learn the thinking skills and processes which I have fortunately somewhat been able to capture by observing my thought processes and analyzing by own behaviour, and tried to express in simple and clear words and algorithmic practical steps that anyone could use to get better at it and be more kind and compassionate towards those who currently suffer due to this very inability of people to do so.

I believe that after a certain minimum level of affective empathy, it's important to use your logic and reason to be more rational while solving such problems, even if they involve doing good or produce any sort of emotional affect in your brain.

And of course myself cultivating more of affective empathy, so I can relate with neurotypicals in a better way, and because I realize the importance of having a certain level of affective empathy to motivate you to use your cognitive ability to solve a problem that you feel motivated about, though it's more complicated than that, because just feelings strongly about something doesn't mean that it's the most pressing issue or that you're going to solve it effectively, just that you happen to be predisposed to experience a high amount of emotional affect when you think about it, which is not the best way to do good, which is also what I think is one of the main ideas of Effective Altruism, and something I might talk about in other posts.

In any case, I'm going to be more proactive in trying to explain my perspective to the world, especially neurotypicals who don't have cognitive empathy, and create more posts on this topic in the near future.

Edit 2: On open-mindedness: I have written about this in many of my other posts, but here is more that occurred to me I might not have explicitly stated yet is important to be clarified if one wishes to gain an intuitive understanding of the concept and idea that I'm trying to convey here.

If someone is inconsistent or seemingly acting like a hypocrite, you don't just straight away assume malicious intent and label them a hypocrite, you try to point out their inconsistencies and tell them how they're going wrong, and try to understand their worldview and if what you thought is actually the truth, and once you're certain of that, and you find out that despite being warned and made aware of their actions that are inconsistent with their values and beliefs if they refuse to change their mind and don't say what could make them change their mind, or deny it even when evidence is clear, persist in their irrational worldview hypocritical behaviour, especially if it's harming others, and don't give logical explanations for it, then you call them out and you'd be completely justified in doing so.

If someone is saying that- and this is so common, it's hilarious and amusing and I would be more comfortable admitting so if it would not have cause so much harm in the past and even in the modern world through pseudoscience and religious dogma, with even very intelligent researchers and leaders falling for such irrationality, which was one of the first signs that intelligence is very inadequate on it's own, definitely not sufficient though perhaps necessary, but I'm not sure- they are never going to change their mind even if they are killed for their beliefs. Now, this is not wrong in and of itself, because if you are certain that your worldview is correct and the society is mistaken and very clearly logic and evidence suggests that you are right, but no one is being logical and rational, then it makes sense to say something like that, in my opinion.

But if you're like I won't even change my mind and no one could say anything or present any evidence or logical reason that could make me change my worldview and beliefs, then you are the foolish and immature person, the person who might be intelligent, but lacks common sense and what people call 'wisdom' and I can 'rationality' as I have started to notice. You are definitely courageous and brave to go to the stake for something you're sure you believe in, but if you refuse to change your mind even in light of new evidence and you're also trying to make everyone conform, then very clearly you're the stupid person and depending on the circumstance and the stakes involved, it might even be in the best interest of human civilization to take you to the stakes.

And I wish this had been done more frequently- and that's coming from someone who believes no one must be punished and everyone deserves to be loved, though I still maintain it would be much better and desirable if no suffering is involved, which is what I'm advocating for here- because in the past many people have fallen prey to this and it's so common place even today, if you take some time to internalize this you'd see this everywhere in your own life, and hopefully learn to be aware of and avoid falling for it yourself, at the very least.

Edit 3: Some personal experiences. First is about my past experience in a hostel, in very brief. Three roommates slept early, but one roommate was noisy and came in at 1am with a loud group of friends every day, disturbing their sleep cycles. The other two roommates were too scared to speak up, so the third roommate politely explained how it was affecting everyone's productivity and requested that they keep the noise down. It worked, but the sleep cycle was disrupted again upon returning to Delhi.

It's important to politely and tactfully communicate your point of view and request what you need from others, as most people will understand and apologize for causing trouble. It's also important to train yourself to express your opinion confidently, as relying on others to speak for you may not always be an option in the future.

It's okay to not care about what others think and be true to yourself, even if it means being seen as weird or awkward. Pretending to be someone you're not only leads to unhappiness. This is what I told to someone who was in a very similar position and afraid to stand by their beliefs and express their opinion firmly but politely, because they were too afraid they might offend the other person, and didn't realize that they could be polite and tactful and also express their opinion clearly and firmly, without being afraid of judgment and overthinking, and it's worth it after getting over the initial discomfort.

Another important lesson. There's the thing where someone has a great opinion and is actually correct about it being a better way to do things, but they get too heated up while expressing it and their method- their body language, manner of speaking, eye contact, tone- things that just act as distractions to the main point just end up being perceived as the person might be less credible and being counterproductive to their goals. So even if the person has something right to say, and no one else is voicing their opinion, and they have something unconventional but use the wrong way to say it, then it could backfire. And likewise if someone has ulterior motives with malicious intent such as maybe manipulating people and deceiving them to achieve their selfish desires, then they could employ the distracting nonverbal communication, rhetoric, persuasion and influence tactics to get what they want, and it's more powerful that most people realize and what gives people power over the masses, but the topic here is heated debates so I shall stick to it for now.

One example is my father, whose ability to voice his opinion when no one else is courageous enough to take stand is something I am myself trying to emulate, as you might have seen in the hostel example, I am still extremely introverted and talk very little, but when it's about voicing my opinion on beliefs that matter in the real world and are about real people's lives, I make sure to express my opinion tactfully, clearly, and politely while always making it sure to convey that I believe in open-mindedness and open discussion and debate, and I'll make sure to listen and understand your worldview and change my mind in light of convincing logical arguments and empirical evidence.

If I don't learn this now, I will fail when stakes are higher, such as in Nazi Germany, Asch's Conformity experiment, Milgram experiment, Stanford Prison experiment, Bystander effect and many many more situations throughout history and psychological experiments that show how it's a slippery slope and doing it in less important and seemingly insignificant situations make you more comfortable doing it later on in order to avoid cognitive dissonance (see my post 'Objective is Subjective' and 'Confessions' for more on the psychological process of rationalization.)

Which is why even though I strongly dislike rhetoric and anything that's not logic and make it confusing and distracting to convey ideas influencing us making our brain prone to falling for biases, I am training myself in social skills, rhetoric and anything that would help me convey my ideas in a manner that allows the average human to focus on the content of my ideas rather than other distractions like my appearance (can't fix my unattractive mask made of skin stuck to my biological machinery though), tone, body language or anything that takes away from the main topic. (except in creative writing and fiction where I admire the ambiguity of natural language and it's ability to make anything and everything more beautiful and fascinating, but that's the only exception to the general rule).

Actually this slippery slope is worth emphasizing and clarifying. I have two good reasons to believe that. First is from a person experience you might not be expecting. I'll just paste a self-explanatory journal entry from a time when I lived in a hostel, went to get food at the hostel mess or canteen:

People jumping ahead in line. Because they have batchmates in front. Or for no reason. Just like school.

And just like school, I am not annoyed of it. Yes it'll take a few seconds of my precious time, but the alternative of facing them off would be even more time consuming. And I'm generally an agreeable person. I am learning to be tactfully confrontational and stand my ground when it has important consequences. But these small matters don't have a high priority on the list of things I care about.

And it just occurred to me. The similarity of the situation with standing firmly with your values or beliefs. I don't believe that anyone should cheat, and I myself don't like to cheat. And this line jumping thing is also a very small form of cheating. If you don't stop yourself here, it could escalate, and you'll find it easy to justify your actions when the stakes are larger. As seen in Ariely's book on dishonesty, which has scientific evidence to show it's true.

It may be even that the people don't think about it much. They have no issue with it, and they don't stop to think how it could even matter. And other kids might see that it's socially acceptable to jump lines to go with batchmates and they won't face any repercussions, they see no immediate consequences. Or any inconsistences with their values, if they have any, or are aware of them.

And similarly it could be like the time in Nazi Germany when the people decided to blindly follow the ideology and mass genocide in support of the people belonging to their shared cultural and national identity. And it's only later that most of them realized what they have done, and how they got swept up in the heat of the moment. It could be their system 1 driving them, and the system 2 rationalizing their actions post hoc.

Maybe this is a slippery slope fallacy. Maybe not. But I got my food, and that's all that's gonna matter for the next five minutes till I finish it.

Here's the second reason. Even assuming that it's a slippery slope- which as I just explained I have good reason to believe it's not- here is my next argument to support my claim: Even if it's a slippery slope, I believe that I'm fully justified in employing such a rhetorical tool to exaggerate the situation. Why? To counter the cognitive bias of scope insensitivity, where people don't grasp the real extent of a situation, and donate to or volunteer for a cause they 'feel' bad about. Not their fault, the human brain has evolved in such a way. And to counter such biases that make it hard for people to grasp the real extent of the problem and it's future implications, you have to sometimes employ such tools. Even after the exaggeration I seriously doubt anyone was really affected.

I just gave an example of my father. Let's now turn to a more popular public figure. I was just talking to an old school friend of mine and he brought up Kanye West and the recent controversy surrounding him. Now, I still don't know much about him, and that's what I told him, but I did tell him that I saw a very short clip of him on the Lex Fridman podcast, and he seemed to be too short-tempered and aggressive, regardless of his views which also didn't seem too nice considering it was something about Hitler being correct or something.

My friend explained to me exactly what's the controversy, and I think you're smart enough to know this but I feel like warning just in case, his account might be full of subjective bias and my own opinion is based on incomplete understanding of the whole situation, but I believe that I understand just enough to know that it's relevant to the point I'm trying to make in this post, which is the reason I'm decided to talk about it here in the first place.

My friend explained that Kanye is actually pure at heart, has good intentions (his reasoning being that an artists songs are a reliable sign of their personal life and reflects their subconscious desires or psyche- he didn't use those exact words but I understood that was what he's trying to say with his limited vocabulary, no offense, just like not knowing English doesn't make you any less intelligent, because all that matters is you're able to get your point across, unless it's something more complex that requires knowledge of advanced vocabulary, which is not the case here.

I agreed that an artist is greatly influenced by his experiences and we could get a glimpse of his mind through his art; but his second reason is he knows Kanye is nice because he's been listening to his songs since childhood, which I believe is a ridiculous argument. I'm not saying that Kanye is not nice, I'm just saying that the data is insufficient, evidence is inconclusive and completely irrelevant to the main claim; he's committing a logical fallacy I can't quite point out right now but I know that you can't infer a person's intentions (which involves a deep knowledge of psychology and his internal subjective mental state) from his art.

And so we can't say based on someone's songs if he's good or bad, and even if we could, the person could be deliberately manipulating you into believing he's good through 'good' sounding songs that leave a good impression and employ cognitive biases to make them more likeable- assuming that's even possible- and hence deceive people by making them believe that he's good when in fact he isn't. Again, not saying it's the case here, just pointing out how illogical his argument is. But still, just for fun, we assume that he's correct and it's true that Kanye is pure at heart, just logical, direct and brutally honest about his opinions and feelings, however unconventional or unpopular, without being afraid of judgment or other people's feelings. We will assume this for the rest of this discussion about Kanye, just like I did while talking to him.

My friend told me that he believes that Kanye did the correct thing (Subjective value judgment alert- we're not talking about preferences now, we're talking about normative theories about how it 'should' be, which is just as subjective as values as it depends on a person's goals and preferences.) by voicing his unpopular opinion. He said that he was also right about Hitler. He told me that Kanye probably didn't mean to say that Hitler was good, but that Hitler was an intelligent dude and good with politics. So, somehow my friend was able to not just read the mental state of Kanye West and know things he didn't even say, by making is sound like he was trying to say something much less controversial and closer to reality than he was, but he even said that the interviewers always play mind games with him and manipulate him into getting angry.

Again, I think it's ridiculous, but I'm going to assume it's true, and show him how how's incorrect even assuming what he said is true. So I'm going to believe that this is actually the case, and show how him using his own arguments without proving them wrong (though it'd be ridiculously easy to pick them apart, but I was just having fun by playing his game and attacking his strongest- albeit weak- arguments.) And so I replied by saying that 1) I agree that Hitler was an intelligent person (intelligence has zero correlation with morality, 'good' or 'evil', I believe), Germany saw lots of economic growth under him (historical fact we are taught in history books, might be wrong, but that's what I have been taught in school), he was very good with words, rhetoric, public speaking and manipulation tactics which is how he was able to sway masses to commit unethical stuff like almost exterminating a whole race; you can't be stupid and achieve something like that. If we're not talking about ethics, then that's true, but the fact remains that Kanye never said that, which brings me to my next argument.

I told him that, in my opinion, if someone is expressing some unconventional or unpopular opinions, and he's honest, direct, and has good intentions, but doesn't know how to be tactful and phrase his arguments the right way- be articulate enough- in a manner to not just be able to clearly express everything that is on his mind, but state explicitly each and every point and be prepared to answer questions that are going to be raised, and also be careful to not offend anyone's sensibilities or hurt their feelings, then he should just shut up.

I said this because even if he happens to have good logical arguments and good intentions in mind with a pure heart, but doesn't know how to convey those ideas and express them clearly without leaving out anything important, then he might not just get attacked for his ideas, but also offend others and hurt their feelings. If he has something to say but doesn't say it all in a clear way, he might say some very outrageous stuff that could elicit a strong emotional response in people and misguide some to believe in all the wrong ideas and incite violence by moving more gullible of his followers and supporters to harm others.

Also, just to comment and give a little hint on how weak his initial assumptions and logic of his arguments, I mentioned how we can't currently infer subjective mental states by observing behaviour, and so we rely on what we can observe in an unbiased manner, which is behaviour, devoid of any psychological states, let alone something as mysterious and complex as intentions; and also that it doesn't matter if the interviewer is giving off bad "vibes' to manipulate Kanye, because if Kanye is expressing some unconventional opinions, he needs to be smart enough to detect such deception tactics and be aware to not fall for them, and also smart enough to not blindly follow his first impression, biased emotions or subjective intuitive preferences cloud his logical mind and objective judgments.

Another very short example for a public figure whom many people might realize from the season one of Shark Tank India. Ashneer Grover. Perfectly logical, brutally honest and direct feedback, constructive criticism. But frequently gets heated up for no good reason, almost abuses the person (as much as could be allowed on a show that is being broadcasted all over the country without him getting sacked; he did get sacked for season two though but I'm not sure if there is any other reason he left.) who is already so anxious and nervous having to pitch in front of so many sharks and being watched by millions of people all over the country, maybe even other countries.

I felt like he's saying all the right things and he's smart enough so why do I dislike him. I realized that I dislike his attitude and behaviour towards participants, and even though I liked his logical mind and direct attitude, he got a bit too rude and impolite in a way that I associate with someone who is not under control of their rational system-1 brain and driven by impulses and emotions, with little to no self-control, social intelligence or emotional awareness.

You need to not just be intelligent, but also have empathy and know how to communicate effectively, convey your thoughts not necessarily by sugarcoating them or using distracting word games or nonverbal communication tactics or needlessly complicated rhetorical tools, none of that nonsense; just enough to not offend the other person and not make them feel so intimidated and afraid that they can't focus on your main ideas, just trying to not break down in front of the whole country on public television during a formal pitch, in front of an apparently highly intelligent and successful shark who for some reason decided to be rude- who acts condescendingly and talking down on others by acting in an annoying and irritating manner.

If a person is calm and composed enough to be confident in their venture and not care about other people getting heated up or rebuking them on live television- which is how it ideally should be, in my opinion- which requires a certain amount of indifference, calm and confidence in their abilities, plus a certain worldview that allowed them to realize how foolish it's to care about other people getting angry and that sharks are humans and can act irrationally- which I seriously doubt includes most people in the population, then it's fine. It's like what I've heard about EQ being as important as IQ, sometimes even more, though I not sure about the validity of 'EQ' as a psychological construct; I'm already skeptical enough about 'IQ' and know how inaccurate and unreliable it is.

So a very brief summary of the previous point before coming to next the last lesson I wanted to convey in this edit: it's not always the person with the best argument who comes out on top. Sometimes, someone may have a great opinion and be absolutely correct, but if they get too worked up while expressing it, their message can be lost. Their body language, tone, and manner of speaking can become distractions that detract from the main point, and they may come across as less credible or even counterproductive to their goals.

I've seen this happen before, where someone had an unconventional opinion but used the wrong approach to express it, and it backfired. On the other hand, some people may have malicious intent and use distracting nonverbal communication, rhetoric, persuasion, and influence tactics to manipulate and deceive others to achieve their selfish desires. It's a powerful tool that can give people power over the masses.

Personally, I've been trying to learn how to voice my opinions tactfully, clearly, and politely, especially when it comes to beliefs that matter in the real world and affect real people's lives. Even though I'm introverted and don't talk much, I believe it's important to speak up when necessary and to convey my ideas in a manner that allows others to focus on the content rather than other distractions.

I'm aware that there are psychological processes at play that can make us more prone to falling for biases and conforming to group pressure, so I'm trying to train myself in social skills and rhetoric to avoid cognitive dissonance. While I strongly prefer logic over rhetoric, I recognize that it can be useful in certain situations. In creative writing and fiction, for example, I appreciate the ambiguity of natural language and its ability to make everything more beautiful and fascinating.

So, When expressing a strong opinion in a heated debate, it's important to be mindful of nonverbal communication, tone, and manner of speaking, as these can distract from the main point and make the speaker appear less credible. Even if the person is correct, if they use the wrong approach, it can backfire. It's also possible for someone with malicious intent to use distracting tactics to manipulate and deceive others. To effectively voice my opinion in important situations, I am learning social skills and rhetoric to convey my ideas clearly and tactfully.

To avoid cognitive dissonance- no, not that, because I can justify it with my brain that's so good at rationalizations, and somehow make it sound consistent with my belief- more like, to stay true to my core values and beliefs without falling for cognitive biases and self-deception: I confess that today I myself got a bit loud at angry while talking to my parents, but I caught myself quick and admitted my mistake, told them I'll make sure it won't happen again. That's what I think is important- not getting angry and emotional, cause that's system-1 brain that's not under your control, but the important thing is to acknowledge it and admit your mistake, and try to come up with ways to prevent it from happening again, realizing why it's a mistake and why it's irrational and illogical to get heated while explaining your side.

Now, I'm not making up excuses, because I have already admitted my mistake, but the reason is an important once, as you might guess it's something important if I am getting angry while talking about it, after everything I talk about here and in other posts, and you'd be right. My parents have already been bothering me with self-care stuff cause I've been neglecting my health, left exercising and messed up my sleep cycle (society that's biased towards morning larks for not many good reasons) and I have been agreeing till now. I do realize it's important, and also that it's futile to explain my ideas to them and why they are more important to write about than anything else, and my ongoing projects. Several reasons I describe elsewhere, such as my different worldview, sentient beings suffering, state of society and people falling prey to irrational behaviour that causes preventable suffering; and jus to avoid lying by omission, distraction from reality and as a means for escapism cause real life is getting too much to cope with these days, not depressed or anything, just due to some ideas that I constantly ponder on- can't help it- and just feel kind of depressed not due to my mood but because I don't see anyone talking about them and..

This brings me to why I snapped today. My parents were, for the millionth time, telling me to watch these powerful presidents and prime-ministers because they are important people and in my upcoming exams they might ask general-awareness questions on current happenings. This has happened before, but due to a combination of various factors, some of which might have included the nihilism I talked about just now due to the sad state of the universe in which beings suffer, working memory at nearly full capacity trying to hold ideas in my memory before I note them down, and last but not the least, the depressing weather bright sun outside, which has more of an influence on me sitting inside my dark room than I'd like to admit, but it's my irrational brain so I can only take measures to counter it.

Born by random chance or blind luck in the wrong country with a brain that loathes sun and pollution, among several other things that this isn't the place to discuss, other posts maybe; because why not? Coming back to what made me snap, they were telling me to watch these people and I already knew it's going to fail and they won't get it (I was right, they didn't) but I felt like trying and I started rambling about how these important people are powerful and already have a great career, people from all over the world watch them, even if they spend a whole week vacationing (Politicians actually do that) and playing games or whatever, their followers would reframe it in a way that makes it sound like they deserve it after all the hard work they do around the year, and maybe they are right, but coming back to me, I absolutely do not have such a privilege, because if I waste my time on watching these people (what difference would a stupid teen watching them somewhere on a tv even make?) I'll be giving up one of my most valuable resources- perhaps the most precious resource I currently have- time.

I am at an age where my neuroplasticity is at it's peak, and everything I do now would determine what sort of person with what abilities, traits and values I am 5-6 years later, when I would have to start a career. I can simply not afford to waste time playing games, watching shows and movies, socializing or anything because even if other people like doing it they could do it but I don't want to and I strongly dislike not spending every second of my time in a way that gets me closer to my true goals and ambitions and desires based on my inclinations and values. Those people who my parents are watching on tv have made it, I have not, I still got to prove myself, which is why I have given up watching all shows, movies, games, socialization, whatnot, even music, now socially isolated in my home all day everyday overworking to the extent that I'm sleep-deprived and still somehow going on like a braindead zombie.

Those people- most teens of my gen I have seen in the past when I was a bit more socially active compared to now- who spend all their time on tik-tok and all those video games and parties and stuff, they would- I can say with a certain level of confidence- never see what's wrong and if there is even anything wrong (I know there is no absolute "right" or "wrong" and it's relative and subjective but I'm talking about my opinion keeping in mind the state of society and what we should do to create a better society) with the way they're spending their time. And it's one of the very few things- even death isn't included in the list, or a certain level of suffering that I willingly seek out sometimes- that frighten me down to my core that much. If a day comes when I'm comfortable and content with not having any motivation, curiosity, ambition, eudaimonic interests and eradicating all suffering and helping people less fortunate than me, then I'd like not to live and request you to do me a favour and make it as painless and quick as possible. Because the day when I stop learning and growing as a person, helping people who are suffering due to no fault of their own, is the day I deserve to stop living.

And I'm also saying this because if you read my post 'Logical Reasons' and 'Confessions', you'd realize that my brain is very prone to justifying and giving me logical reasons to be unethical, and I'm afraid I might one day give up everything that's not just ethical but moral, and live selfishly, though I believe that my core values and morals are strong enough- stronger than most who have it based on emotions and intuition rather than logic like me- for me to believe in them even though I believe that morals have no absolute basis on objective reality and 'good' and 'evil' and 'wrong' are only social and neuroscientific constructs, so it's a variation and personal interpretation (though I developed them independently and their ideas just gave me confidence) of Nietzsche's Übermensch and Absurdism, maybe positive Nihilism and Absurdism. So I have created my own morals and I am not constrained by ethics and my own rule for morality is that all sentient beings deserve to be understood, loved, helped, and we ought to help every being who suffers in every form of suffering, including necessary till we find out the optimal levels (see my Schopenhauer posts for a more detailed treatment of this topic).

Coming back to the topic, that's one side of it. That's not the only thing that made me snap, I have more self-control than that. They also said general-awareness and exams. I already have a thing or two to say about general awareness in my post about Asperger's with analogy with an instance from Sherlock Holmes novels and Ramanujan's biography. But I'll skip that and directly come to the exam they were talking about which might ask general-awareness questions. He also said that degrees and credentials and marks are important, and if you've read my other posts you'd realize how disoriented I was with my brain screaming at me to convince him and question him and compel him to change his mind because I know my father well and know he simply never thought too deeply about it and is just talking about how he think it should be.

I tried to explain how society has conditioned you to believe in these social constructs, there superficial constructs like prestige, credentials and everything that is a way of- especially in India (More on this in the post 'confessions')- a way of producing more slaves for the rich and powerful industrialists, and that this rat race never stops because right now I have exams, then I would have a job and deadlines and assignment and one day I will be an old man with no idea what I wanted out of life and no idea if could be any other way, which is another reason time is so important to me.

I know what I want out of my life, and I know exactly how- okay I don't but I promise I'm trying my best to- be free of societal constructs and external influence that makes me act irrationally in a way that would not allow me to accomplish my ambitions and live according to my inclinations determines by my values as determined by my genes and early environment that further goes back to random chance and hence I will to live as I wish not just because it's selfish but because people are suffering and just like my father they don't see anything wrong with the way things are, and my recent diagnosis of Asperger's and some external validation has made me confident that my worldview is different and not a necessarily incorrect one and there is merit in my ideas that no one else seems to be talking about but causes people to act in a way that leads to preventable suffering.

Society has done things this way since a long time and every new idea is bound to face some resistance, and moreover, many people like my father think that credentials and degrees are much more than just something that is a social construct that was meant to be a true indicator of your ability and teach you instead of preparing you to be a corporate slave without learning anything and seeing how beautiful and absurd the universe is and discover the true joy of learning, being curious, asking questions, intellectual growth and growing into a responsible human with core values who could help those who are less fortunate than them. I realized that if I wish to truly learn and grow into the person I desire to be, cultivate my core values, and achieve my ambitions, I need to not depend- now I'm thinking I even might need to completely detach- from traditional social institutions established for a purpose now counterproductive to the very goals they were established for.

I know I might come off as insane to many people even reading this, but as always I have an open-mind and I promise it's very rare that I snap (never happened out of home in such situations) and even then I profusely apologize immediately after and feel ashamed of myself for not having enough self-control though with anyone else who is angry and also doesn't realize it I have no hard feelings and try my best to be (and I'm not guessing, I have been in such situations and I know I am) polite and have empathy, try to understand their worldview, request them to be open-minded and polite too but even if they're literally shouting abuses in my face I show kindness and compassion till I am able to, because I can understand the factors that might be compelling them to act in such a way (brain, genes, environment) and I know they might have some insightful ideas that I could benefit from, and I do this till I'm mentally and emotionally exhausted and then I simply remove myself from the situation, still no hard feelings but making sure to not talk too much with this person again because it's simply not worth my time and energy to work on a lost cause when I have much better use of my time and more importantly, when I value my own mental health and sanity more than most things, as everyone should.

It's so hilarious! I have been thinking that I'm already a bit too unconventional and going against the norms too much- despite always staying true to my values such as logic and compassion- and I've been thinking if universities I'm going to apply to this year could misinterpret and outright reject me for my ideas, and now I realize that actually I'm not being unconventional enough and I need to go all in- perhaps as I said even reject such institutions if by chance I'm unable to get into the colleges I really want to get into, because my time is precious and my ideas can't wait, and even though I am currently on a gap-year I'm more overworked that I ever was in school, because now I am self-motivated and education system is messed up anyway and.. because Victor's Logotherapy from Man's Search for Meaning, I guess, though it's not just meaning but motivation and interest too, and that's what I try to do: setting goals and meaning based on processes I enjoy so I can enjoy the journey while also not losing sight of the goal.

There might be some merit in the not too uncommon comment on my behaviour that I am insane, though I know I'm just different and it's a trait of Aspies to be obsessed with narrow topics, I am a bit too obsessed these days with questions such as the nature of reality, how qualia emerged out of immaterial life forms, what death feels like, the mere-addition paradox, Newomb paradox, time being a subjective social construct like other value judgments (see my post Absurdism) but even that's manageable.. what's less manageable and more annoying to my parents and causing much more mental agony to me is how I see people being irrational and stupid and that's fine cause I usually laugh if off but how it's causing suffering to people who are not at any fault, including young children and babies victim to genetic disease, mental disorders, horrible crimes, and I can see a very clear way in which this could be solved (see my posts Schopenhauer and Courage) yet no one seems to be talking about these ideas, so even though I'm sometimes depressed about the state of reality (not just society, but reality, as in how all values and morals are neuroscientific constructs and reality is an illusion you never get out of, also expand on this in my post Absurdism) but as I said, compromising on my health and not watching any shows or stuff and still feel like I'm watching a lot of time and 24 hours isn't enough and unfortunately can't control time to be more than 24 hours a day, though I do have a few projects related to that- not even kidding, it's related to some research stuff in neuroscience and physics that sounds sci-fi but is possible with current advancements but let's not get into that here.. for instance the WEF AI Youth Council project pitch and policy proposal, my recent diagnosis of having high-functioning Autism or Asperger's which would have been fine if I wasn't going through this drama in which this stupid medical system has incentivized doctors to fool ignorant people- much more common in stuff related to mental health and neurodivergence where you are forced to conform and get "treated" and I'm planning a few interesting projects for that too- plus college applications, entrance examinations, blog posts, and much more.. so I could so with a superintelligent AI system, like JARVIS, though I've realized that ChatGPT is capable of much more than I had thought and it's now a recurring event that I think no it can't possibly do that and test my intuition with experimentation as everyone who believe sin logic and the scientific method should, and it's a pleasant surprise that it actually can, and it never disappoints. Now you yourself need some language ability and know how to frame the right questions good enough to get your desired outcome, but that level of linguistic ability or language skills isn't too high- perhaps a bit above-average- but after that you'd be surprised to know everything that's possible with ChatGPT..

Ashneer Grover, direct, honest, logical, helpful feedback, but doesn't know how to be polite and tactful enough to just avoid offending someone and intimidating them so much that they are too afraid to listen to their helpful ideas. Which is the reason I'm repeatedly saying that in many cases, in the real world with neurotypical humans in society, how you say something matters even more than what you are saying, as most people don't even think, let alone think logically, rationally, question it; they're simply influenced by distractions like appearance, attire, voice, eye contact, tone, phrasing, wording, height etc. Then there's this Indian actress Kulkarni a short article I read in which she says something that I completely agree with, it makes perfect sense and is a logical solution to an important social problem. Her main idea was that women should be self-dependent and contribute to the society and household income and not just rely on their partners. But she faced a lot of backlash and had to apologize.

Why? Because she didn't know how to say it- the article itself started with saying how she said women are "lazy" and "only want rich husbands/boyfriends who earn well and have a house.." and if you have a great idea but you directly attack the very people you're trying to help, by calling them "lazy" and attributing malicious intentions to them when in fact it's not them being lazy but the way society has worked all these years, social conditioning, outdated irrational traditions which are slowly changing now, where women are encouraged to work and follow their dreams, pursue their passions, study as much as they want.

So, she had a great idea, but she had no tact and was too honest and direct and offended their sensibilities in a way that made them feel emotionally hurt- most people have ego problems and focus on the emotions your words generate and how you make them feel instead of the idea you're trying to convey, and unfortunately this is the sad reality that I've myself learned the hard way and glad to have learned sooner than later, at 19, before the stakes were higher. This means that you can say anything and make it sound convincing and be attractive and use the right words and you will soon have a following and influence masses. That's how power works, and how politicians get elected. That is also the reason I believe that even though that Kulkarni person had some good ideas, she should have shut up if she didn't know how to convey them, as now she has done more harm than good and people will reject the good parts of her idea along with the bad parts.

The same tool could be used to convince irrational people or those who don't se how their actions are causing harm to them and those around them, using empathy and also being polite and tactful; the people who get emotional too easily, get into fights, don't see how their practices, religious or just plain ignorance or malicious intent, stemming from external factors that shape their brain and compel them to act in ways they do, such as genes and early environment, and using the right logic, psychology, language or even neuroscience, we could create a better, more compassionate, empathetic, peaceful and kind society where no one suffers due to such people and we try our best to help those who suffer due to be less fortunate just due to accident of birth or random chance, which when you think of it, is everything that people suffer due to;

realize that undesirable subjective mental states are true evil, not any person or class or people, and we could help them all and prevent all crimes and even subtle ones such as deception and manipulation and toxic relationships even. Not being unrealistic, I have a clear plan to achieve this, and I'm going to try my best until the end. Help people think, question their beliefs, make better decisions, be aware of cognitive biases, analyze their behaviour and grasp the implications and opportunity costs, how it's affecting others, and act in ways that makes it more likely for them to achieve their goals.

The average person does not (read: can not) comprehend the obvious fact that reality is not simple black and white, "good" and "bad", and that someone who has some wrong ideas can have good ideas, let alone the fact that even a seemingly "good" idea can have "bad" negative consequences or effects, and game for "good", but I can't realistically expect everyone to understand this. If you think that I'm being too condescending, please keep in mind that I don't consider my worldview any "Better" than someone else's, and I have tried explaining to a lot of people but no one gets it, so it's my own coping mechanism and way of staying sane by setting low expectations for people and only having such discussions with people who are able to carry on a decent conversation and at least share some of my core values, such as logic and open-mindedness, or at least willingness to explain their worldview clearly without getting emotional). I do realize that the Kulkarni person must have had good intentions, and I have enough empathy to know that she wanted to solve this social problem and outdated mindset and unintentionally just made it worse, but it's very little damage and everything will be fine soon.

On the Indian society: I just saw an advertisement of that screen like in Times Square, and it's good, but I was internally mocking the people who stopped at wonder and took pics like small kids getting amused by a new toy, enjoy your new little distraction, entertainment that distracts you from the real problems. I am not being ungrateful, I like the society for being enough to be able to keep me safe, despite all it's flaws related to every single social institution or system. I am not complaining, I am only pointing out the flaws because I care about improving the society. I care about changing people's mindset for the better, they keep breaking rules, get into religious wars, and much more. I don't need to even point out the flaws, yet I'm explaining the problems very clearly, and also proposing some realistic solutions, unlike the kids who might internally hate society but on the outside agree with everything and everyone and say hey "Indian society is perfect and I am proud to be Indian" and utter some nationalist phrases for virtue signalling or display of patriotism that are meaningless to them, and then participate in brain-drain and go abroad and never really solve the problems, never even talk about the problems. At least I'm vocal about where I like society, and when I hate it, and how to improve it, and I admit I also intend to go abroad, but I have other logical reasons to do so- one big one being research opportunities in a field that is non-existent here- and I'm actively trying to make a change here till I am here, and I'm not being a hypocritical two-faced person who says everything is perfect but internally hates and doesn't care even if the country self-destructs, which it very clearly is doing, and I care, which is why I'm trying to point out all the flaws and solve them.

Just like my parents tell me that they scold me because they care for me, and would not have bothered with a stranger, and I agree but also tell them about psychological experiments which show that helping a kid understand why they are wrong is much more effective over the long-term than punishment, and similarly, I am just trying to make everyone realize how society is going wrong, not saying that I am as experienced and knowledgeable about society to the same extent that my parents are to me, but I know I am different, I have asperger's, and I think I can solve the problems, so even if I come off as complaining too much, ranting or "scolding", my intention is to try to help people see, and change society for the better.

Add to the friendship blog post- I also have a friend who is very shy while talking to girls and not with boys. And it's strange because he has made connections with people from almost every single country and received accolades and positive comments from several international organizations, frequently participates in events and collaborates with people from different cultures and countries, but he admitted to me that he's more comfortable and open with boys than girls.

I usually just told him it's understandable and didn't think too much about it, but then this one time we were working on a project and it was just us and a girl in the meeting and I noticed how he is actually so shy he's so afraid to ask important questions related to the project, and I realized how being a friend it's my responsibility to be honest and direct with him and explain how this is a problem and how their could lead to costly mistakes in the near future. Before coming to what I told him, I'd like to say that by this time I was already confident and expressive enough to talk to anyone, ask questions and also express my opinion firmly and of course tactfully and politely but never hesitate to speak up about anything and everything, so the friend himself noticed how comfortable I seem to be talking to a girl, and admitted that he feels like if he speaks up, the girl might misinterpret his words to mean something inappropriate or take it as signals or indicators of something he didn't mean to say despite his best intentions, where he is simply asking questions or talking openly and the girl starts getting the wrong ideas and rebukes him or something. I told him this: you might feel uncomfortable talking to the opposite gender, and I can understand it perfectly well because I myself was very shy and didn't talk much not just with girls but even boys, in the not too distant past, and I still don't talk much but I talk when it's important. I tried to put it in simple language: if the girl might not know that he is shy, and if she notices how he is so open with other boys but not girls, in fact it's then that she would have a very good reason to be offended and might even scold or reprimand him and call him sexist or misogynistic.

That's because- I told him, but please keep in mind I'm a boy and I admit I'm not an expert in girl psychology (I've never even been in a relationship, as I explain in the edit of post Falling in Love and Friendship) so take everything with a grain of salt and keep in mind it's my subjective opinion and personal preferences of what I think the girls think, or more accurately my perception of the girl's expectations based on their mental models of society and behaviour of men, and if there are any girls reading this, please let me know if I'm correct. I told him that girls like being treated equally as boys because of the gender gap and discriminations due to gender, and that he must keep in mind that we are all humans and sentient beings at the core, and gender is only something superficial that comes after humanity, because it's biology and social constructs, and gender should not cloud our judgment and distract us from the important fact that we are all humans with similar needs and desires, and we all deserve to be understood and loved, crave social connection and feel bad when ignore. I told him that if anyway any girl noticed that he is more open with boys, she might take it to mean that he is biased against or discriminating girls due to their gender- something that they don't get to choose and that it'd be irrational to form negative judgment of a person on the basis of- and she might not understand that he's shy but think that he's acting in a way that propagated social norms associated with patriarchy and male dominance in society and the workplace.

I explained that right now he's in college, so the stakes aren't too high, but later when he joins the corporate workforce and any of his women colleagues thinks that he's discriminating against her by not talking to her as frequently as the male colleagues, it could be costly for his both his career and mental health or peace of mind, as a person who's so overly careful and sensitive about women's thoughts might not wish to be labeled as someone who's biased against women and believes that women are not equal to men and every other negative undesirable belief that any sane rational person with any sense of morality and wisdom would wish to avoid and not take any chance or risk associating himself with, keeping in mind the current state of society and all the women bias (random book recommendation: Invisible Women: Exposing Data Bias in a World Designed for Men by Perez). The person could get the wrong idea maybe if the person is a bit stupid or has traumatic past personal experiences that warrant or justify an emotional reactions, they could get the wrong ideas but that's not your problem, it's their problem misinterpreting your words and if they are not stupid and have at least room-temperature intelligence quotient- and emotional quotient maybe- they would not get offended so easily and if they are, they would try to clarify and try to make it clear how some of his words are making them feel uncomfortable, and I told him that he is smart enough to then clarify all misconceptions and misunderstandings and clearly express his true intentions and what he meant.

Here's another conversation with the same friend. He was telling me how one person who he had talked to a few weeks ago had started ignoring him. An acquaintance studying at one of the more prestigious universities with connections and advice that he was hoping could also help him in his career. Then he told me about how some people don't even reply and accept a request to connect (happened with me too, though I will just come to my thoughts; this is a feature specific to LinkedIn, no idea about other platforms) and more annoyingly, how some people who he had helped in the past forgot about him after they got their job done, ghosted him, ignoring his messages and cut off all communication for no good reason. He told me he'd considered they could be busy but that it'd been months, and I agreed that's too long. I asked that because I myself have been very busy lately, not even getting time to sleep and constantly overworking myself, and I have left some people hanging who'd been kind enough to reply to some messages I sent on LinkedIn, but it's only been days and I'm going to get back to them very soon. Even when it's late, at least I send a message just to make it clear that I have read their message and I'm going to respond soon and thank them for their patience, apologize for the late reply if required. That's not such a big issue though.

The lareger issue was how some people take your advantage to get their job done and then don't help you or don't even reply to your messages. He told me he finds it very annoying because he takes out time even during exams to help people who need it and he finds it hard to understand how such people can't even take out a few minutes to at least let him know that they're busy. I told him about my attitude towards such people. I simply don't care and don't give much thought to such people because it's their loss and their problem, because if they don't value your time, then it's not on you to let it affect your mental or emotional state, because you don't assign an external locus of control to any external uncontrollable factor, in this case other people's attitude and behaviour. I don't mind and I'm completely indifferent to what they might decide to do with their time and how they arrive at their decisions, because this is something I cannot control and hence won't spend much time obsessing over.

Moreover, I told him how such people- some of them seemingly intelligent but apparently stupid and irrational, I'll tell you why I said that. I told him that in the short-term it might seem like being selfish is the best option, but they seem to lack the foresight to consider the not so unlikely prospect that in the very near future they might need our help again. I explained with an example: He might- hypothetically- get into Harvard or another prestigious university or get an coveted job at some reputed multinational corporation. And then they would think of taking advantage of you being nice or maybe because they think you're gullible and can't say no and ask you for another favour by somehow rationalizing away or justifying their past mistakes with some made-up convincing lies, but if you decide that no one can take advantage of you, you would be resistant to be such deception or manipulation tactics by people with malicious intent and ulterior motives who are only concerned with their selfish desires without any intention for reciprocating when they get into a more privilieged or fortunate position, not thinking how they were once in a relatively less fortunate position because they don't consider it their duty to help those who are less fortunate than them due to random chance or accident of birth that didn't give them as many opportunities or connections to succeed as they got.

I also recounted some personal experiences from when I was very little, still in middle school. I always knew that this kid who's acting so friendly and being all nice and requesting me for my pencils and stationery tools is never going to give them back, and that my new 'best friend' is going to disappear the second he gets his job done. I had this weakness where I could not say no, even when I knew that they are being fake and pretending, I always felt like helping them because I thought I must not act like them and it's a worthy sacrifice if my parents back home guillotine me- I talk about such incidents in greater detail in my posts about friendship and cognitive empathy.

I told the friend how I'm still working on being more confident and expressing my opinion and confront a person (politely and tactfully, of course) when I believe it's required and that might be costly to me if they are trying to manipulate me by detecting I'm a good target and agreeable. I'm relatively good at it now, to the extent that I was even able to detect and have a conversation with a real psychopath once. I describe elsewhere in another post about Asperger's why this is such a big feat and why even confident confrontational neurotypical people should never do that as it could be very dangerous. There's another thing I didn't mention during the phone call and that I realized later: when you find activities and goals aligned with your true inclinations and values, not just what you enjoy but that is also in demand in the market by society, some skill that you enjoy and you also happen to be good at, then reality becomes like what I've read falling in love feels like. Okay, before proceeding, I'd like to clarify that I have neither found such an in-demand niche yet- not certain- and nor have I ever been in a relationship, and I'm purely theorizing here playing with ideas doing armchair philosophy like I do in most of my posts.

So, I've read that love feels like reality is finally better than your dreams and sleep, and so you are happier than before. Similarly in this case you'd start valuing your time more, and be selective to who and how much you devote your limited precious resources time to. This is because your time is limited on this planet, and you can't waste a single second because it's only when you're older and closer to your death-bed that you'd regret not doing what you were passionate about and realize how much you care about superficial nonsensical absurd things.

(Again, I'm 19, so yeah kind of mid-life crisis and all but not that old, and I learned this lesson from Stoic philosophy 'memento-mori' and a video on youtube I watched years ago in which old people were all talking about things that they regret and most of the regrets were about things they did not do, due to a number of reasons be it fear of judgment, lack of courage, low risk-taking ability, or whatever; also a ted talk on regret I don't remember but you could easily look up if you're interested; the main takeaway that I extract from it was to do what you feel like even if you think it's risky or unconventional, you must remember that one day you'd- even if not die- be very frail and old and weak and no be able to do much or enjoy life as much as you used to or were once capable of and you'd realize how you wasted all the time and didn't do it when you had the chance, and that's just another general principle- try to imagine the absence of anything to know how important it is.

Or just try changing your environment like how you'd realize the important and express gratitude for everything once you try to live as a beggar on the roadside sidewalk or footpath for a month or even just a week. That's an extreme example and I'm definitely not saying you do it as not everyone has that level of mental and emotional strength, but you could do it with small everyday comforts and little things, even your senses by thinking how blind people don't get to experience this subjective mental state of all these bright vivid wonderful colours and how you might be looking at your phone at night or whatever and damaging your eyesight or simply not paying attention to the beautiful flowers or plants and everyday things we overlook.)

Update: Father said that due to policy change, people started drinking more, and I said that those who were going to drink were going to drink anyway, then he said that it's cheaper and so the poor can buy more booze, and to this I said that actually, the poor don't have distractions like piano or books or anything as they don't have the money and society is already too harsh on them... Those who drink often say they do it to escape reality, but those who don't have creative outlets and are already suffering can't do things like read books or play the piano because they don't have the money for it. So they do what they can afford, and drinking provides a means of escape.

They feel justified in doing so. Additionally, when Papa gets heated and honks his horn in road rage, I try to explain that those around him aren't listening and don't care. The people who would care wouldn't behave that way in the first place. However, as you might imagine, this backfires because he thinks he's older and I'm younger, and he doesn't attack my ideas or logic, just my fallacies. When I explain that he's being fallacious, illogical, and irrational by getting heated for no reason, he just gets more emotional and starts scolding me. So, I've learned to stay silent and keep my distance. I would not care as much if he wasn't family, but he is, and so I still try to help him become more logical and less neurotic and angry. However, I need a different solution method that I currently don't know. The problem remains the same, just with a different solution.

Meanwhile, I let him do what he wants and keep my thoughts to myself and my blog. It's emotionally draining, mentally exhausting, and takes up precious time, which could be used for more important tasks with a higher probability of success. I detach from the outcome and only try my best. You can't control the outcome, only your thoughts and behavior. You try your best and detach from outcomes. This is Stoic philosophy 101. Another problem is Papa not wearing a seatbelt and running red lights. I tell him that rules are there for a reason, for his safety and that of others.

Even if he thinks he's a good driver, he must wear a seatbelt to protect himself from unpredictable, bad drivers. I succeeded in this regard. I pick my battles wisely, estimating the probability of success and opportunity costs in terms of time, cognitive resources, and mental and emotional energy. Lastly, my friend once littered, and I told him that this is why the Indian mindset is so hard to change. Everyone does it, so you think it's what you should do, and that's causing the mess we live in.

~

it'd be hilarious and also great to see some political party with a young kid as a leader, someone from my generation perhaps, someone politically inclined and intelligent enough to- this is the interesting idea- not engage in petty unsophisticated heated arguments, even when another party criticizes them, they are perfectly calm, indifferent, and politely and nicely request them to criticize their logic and stuff instead of other distractions to further their own agenda, because this person would preferably be aware of biases and fallacies and not be easily angry, and win over everyone with peace, politeness and not profess any one religion or caste and wow, this diverse country all the race, religion, caste and stuff, it would be awesome if they could unite them all and make them see it's just superficial divisions.

Did I mention that they could also be a girl, it would be even better to see someone from such a marginalized community- like the honbl president Draupadi Murumu, but not president, the PM, because the PM has more power and in a way leads the country. Have a strong sense of morality, be logical and most importantly promote peace, kindness, compassion, unity, harmony and love among all humans. Yet firm, strong, logical and intelligent. It just occurred to me that I could myself write a book about this, perhaps with aliens and stuff, not about my own country, but in general.

I also realized I could try for the politics thing myself but I'm not too politically inclined, neither that intelligent nor that tactful and strategic, even though I like game theory, as you'd know if you've read my posts, and also consider myself good at resolving conflicts, I don't believe I have what it takes to be a great PM or leader of so many people. I am also more globally inclined, a global citizen, want to explore other countries and cultures. And also more interested in science, a research career, maybe entrepreneurship. I do want to help my country, but not as directly as that. I know it's also hard for someone who is that intelligent and has the connections, so it's even less likely for me even if I tried. I'd like to see someone like that getting into politics though.