Schopenhauer on Steroids 2 ft. Dostoyevsky, Bateman, Hannibal, Joker, and Much More

Continuing from: But I realized why I like such characters, and recently I was able to articulate it and put it into words though I’m not sure if the words would be able to convey my point and get it across as clearly as I can see it in my own head.

It’s this: they happen to be mentally ill, and society is usually trying to poke fun and test their limits, and they try to be good at first and believe that hurting others is bad, minding their own business when that’s exactly what others should do but they don’t, and then there comes a breaking point that crosses the limit and then they snap, and then things go horribly wrong and they become the ‘villain’.

In other words, they happen to inclined in a way that they have impulsive desires and primitive visceral intuitive and intrusive 'system-1' thoughts (thinking fast and slow reference) that they are unable to control after failing to restrain themselves in addition to whatever society throws at them, and some are unable to do even that, which seems like the rational thing to do when you realize that's how you could save yourself from more suffering.

Here’s another interesting one: Christopher Knight, Hermit Maine, ‘The Stranger in the Woods’ by Michael Finkel is his bio, and you could find some interesting articles about him if you look him up. So he basically one day gets up and decides the nope society is not for me and packs his bags and leaves his family and his family is so nice that they don’t even try to find him just cause they decide that they respect his decision and once someone leaves he leaves, and yeah I’m not making this up.

But what I like most is that it has those Walden vibes about it, and it’s an extreme case where he lived in the woods- don’t remember the exact duration- for more than 25 consecutive years and those are levels of self-sufficiency someone can only dream of, because I cannot imagine how someone could live without any social interaction for such a long time, and he somehow did, with almost nothing with him.

It's more powerful that people realize at first glance; they don’t immediately see how powerful it is to not depend on external factors for your fulfilment, because when you delegate your happiness and have needs that rely on what others think and how other’s behave, then you are never going to be fulfilled, because humans are unpredictable and irrational and you can never please everyone and you can also not control how someone behaves or thinks about you.

So you could try to care less, but you can never really do it unless you have those natural inclinations and predisposition to be able to withstand such isolation. I have been isolated for a few months and already started noticing the negative effects of loneliness and observing it’s consequences on my thought processes and behaviour.

If you could be perfectly at peace with yourself and never depend on others for external validation or to be understood or anything that doesn’t make you feel depressed if you don’t talk to any human for an extended period of time, you would not only thrive in isolation, but also be more confident, expressive and less insecure being your real self in social situations and achieve a respectable status in the social hierarchy and social structures of society-

Because you simply won’t care, and as I’m starting to learn now, noticing a pattern, apathy and indifference are some of the most powerful mental states to be in, almost at par with how a monk is able to stay calm after they meditate for years and gain control over their mind, and how we could emulate it using brain-computer interfaces in hours in the very near future.

It’s almost as powerful as I used to think intelligence on its own is, though now I see intelligence is nowhere near the top of the most essential qualities and virtues to focus on and cultivate to live a fulfilling life aligned with your values. It’s still high up, but that’s more of my personal preferences and experiences rather than an objective evaluation and any indicator of the merit of intelligence per se.

Here's another example: Rodion Raskolnikov from Dostoevsky’s classic Crime and Punishment. He’s a highly intelligent guy who goes through a lot of suffering and wrestles with the morality of killing a lady if the actions could have consequences that would make the incident a net-positive, despite it going against his ethics, and it’s unclear if he even wants it; that’s my broken attempt at explaining what I remember about the book from when I read it a few years ago, and that shall suffice for the purpose of our present discussion.

I admit that the first time I read the book I read it like a story and didn’t understand it too deeply, but recently it just clicked, and I’m sure there is a lot of stuff I’m still missing, insights that I might have overlooked just by skimming over the words on the surface without going a layer deeper and trying to read between the lines, which is the reason I’m looking forward to reading it once again in the near future. Here’s another example that I won’t even need to explain, because I don’t think any explanation would be required, so I won’t: Rick Sanchez.

I know there's Hannibal in the title and my first draft contained him too, and more characters from Red Dragon and Silence of the Lambs, but it got too lengthy and went of tangent so I just decided to create a separate post of it's own. It's titled 'confessions', or something similar.

Also I know I should probably add links but I'm too lazy to do that right now, sorry for the inconvenience. There was even Sherlock in the draft, and I have some very cool examples connecting instances from Sherlock novels and my own personal experiences, but that goes to my blog posts in which I talk about my experiences as an Aspie. For the same reason Hannibal had to go.

Another example but this one might be unexpected, considering the others, I don’t think anyone could have anticipated my bringing him up or knew how he is similar to others on this list, but he’s from a movie I just decided to watch recently, at a time when my brain had already started revolting that I’m wasting time and I need to read and learn instead of wasting time on movies, but I’m glad I did, because it was a great movie, and helped me realize how it’s not just possible but very effective to draw the public’s attention towards important social issues through dark humour and satirical comedy.

I’d already known the power and effectiveness of conveying scientific and mathematical concepts through creative media such as HPMOR, Flatland, Alice in Numberland, Mastory and other similar works, but this one helped me realize how it’s possible to contribute to political and social change by using satire, and that too through a medium that I don’t know much about but had always been very curious to learn about anyway: cinema.

Here it is: Aladeen, from The Dictator. Towards the end of the movie, he has this realization that he doesn’t want to be like his father and (pretends to) commit suicide, and there is this scene where he says this dialogue about how he knows deep inside he’s nice even though on the outside he might not seem like it, and it beautifully captures the point I have been trying to make about love.

He happens to fall in love with someone who doesn’t approve of dictatorship and always insists on being accepting of every race and religion and politically correct, and that is what bring about this change.

Initially he mocks and ridicules this way of thinking, but over the course of the movie he falls in love and this forces him to change (Not getting into the philosophical debate of how much you should change yourself for another person, versus maintaining aspects of your personality that make you unique so you also don’t go against your nature and push yourself too hard, pretend to be someone you’re not, and end up unsatisfied.)

And just like that I believe that true love, not necessarily the kind of romantic love in the movie that is the same kind that first jumps to people’s minds, but love in all it’s forms, where you are made to feel understood and there is someone who gets you and is always there for you and wants the best for you, regardless of circumstances, so you are never afraid whatever happens you know that you have their support and with them you can overcome any obstacle.

And this need is especially important for those who are denied it and who are labelled as contemptible people who don’t deserve to be loved, even though they are the ones who need to be loved more than others who are already fine enough for you to love them; if you’re selectively loving only those who are already similar to you and who are fine and healthy, not those who are dissimilar to you and going through several problems and at a low point in their life, are you not being a hypocrite?

If you love someone who is easy to be loved anyway, and neglecting those who are humans too and deserve it just as much as any other human, you have no right to say that you love your fellow humans, and you might as well go against a hate campaign against queers or blacks, cause that’s what you’re doing, just in a more subtle and socially acceptable manner in a way that no one notices and it’s not apparent at first, but a little bit of logic would show you that’s what’s consistent with your values, if you act this way.

Such people need love, which they don’t get, and the spial into a negative cycle of self-hatred and depression and the feeling of not being wanted, not deserving anything and it goes either of one ways typically, and both are undesirable for society and both involve them going through a lot of suffering before succumbing to mental illness.

You want me to spell it out explicitly? They either go on a rampage to revenge the people who belong to the society that wronged them; they robbed them of their mental peace and never tried to listen or understand, or maybe they never gave anyone the chance to listen or understand, because of the stigma against such people, even though there are always signs and someone has to know unless they happen to be a hermit living in an isolated island in the middle of nowhere.

Or they self-destruct, if they happen to have a strong moral code consistent with the prevalent ethical code in society, they know they won’t be able to live with themselves after causing harm to others.

Or maybe this is why shooters and mentally unhinged and deranged serial-killers often commit suicide at the end, but then the person might not want to cause harm to anyone at all, and living would be too much suffering, and they know they can’t take more, because they’d already be at their breaking point, and every day just seems to get tougher and more challenging than the last, with no hope in sight, so they go ahead with the only option that is left to them.

Coming back to The Dictator, it’s mainly a parody of dictators and satire on how they get to decide everything for the people, which is why I was not expecting such insights from a movie that at the same time I found hilarious, almost at par with Mr. Bean, whom I have a lot of childhood memories associated with, and Rowan Atkinson himself is a very talented person who is able act and make people laugh without saying a thing, yet at the same time his stand-up comedy videos on YouTube are no less funny.

Here’s another lesson from The Dictator that I realized at the same time while watching the movie: despite being the sort of rude, contemptible, ill-mannered, inconsiderate and politically incorrect person he was at the start, he found true love, and most people think they don’t deserve being loved, which is a very real problem that comes with loneliness and not being understood, but they must understand that there is always someone just like them and they could find someone who could understand them and it maybe be harder for some, but never impossible.

I sometimes wish I were able to take my own advice but anyway just to not leave out some important points so you come out with some unrealistic expectations of the movie, there are inappropriate themes and suggestions about how Aladeen was a sexual predator back in his kingdom and has a weakness for younger looking people-

(In the post 'Confessions' I talk about the process of rationalization and how it's behind how sexual predators and serial killers and common people with evil intentions are able to justify their behaviour and see nothing wrong with it.)

Another equally important point about how this change in personality and realization is because of a complex interplay of superficial love and lust, and so he’s just rationalizing based on his desires, one very important pitfall that I discuss in the other posts, but all this is not relevant to the present discussion. No, I’m not cherry-picking data, cause if that were the case, I’d not even have pointed this out, it’s simply irrelevant to the present discussion.

Still, it’s just a movie, with some strong themes, yes, but it does the job well, with dark humour and satire for something that people give their lives for and never get that much effect and literally get themselves assassinated, so it must have taken courage to make such a movie, and it’s popular now, for its comedy and humour, at the same time inseparable from the very clear message it’s trying to send.

Just like the thing with science and creativity, you write a fictional and poetic work about science bringing out its beauty through the beauty and ambiguity of natural language and rhetoric, and it’s inseparable from- and hence helps bring out- the real beauty in science, which is why I compared it to the books I compared it to, earlier.

Aladeen is an exaggerated and dramatic form of someone who kills the second he thinks someone disagrees with him and has some habits that would instantly make him an outcast and get ostracized by civilized society with any conscience or sense of internal moral compass, but still he finds love and tries to change himself, and I believe that it’s a very good depiction cause I don’t think anyone could possibly even hope to be as evil as Aladeen, and you could again argue it’s just a movie and it doesn’t happen in real life, but that’s exactly what I’m saying, it does, and it can, and we need to make it happen because they are humans, they might be evil, but they are humans and their evil actions can be changed, through the power of love and compassion.

And not gonna lie, I had seen (one of the) plot twists coming much earlier than it did, but not the plot twists in the plot twists, and the ones that came after that, so it won’t be a bad analogy to compare it with a rollercoaster.

One less popular example you might never have heard of, and who’s not as popular as Knight, Joker or the one that’s going to come after this, but nonetheless has a very interesting story.

Hugh Everett III, the physicist who came up with the many-world interpretation of quantum mechanics, and a brilliant example of the eccentric mad scientist who nicely demonstrates the point I’m trying to make (most such scientist fit the template, because they have to be a little obsessive and learn to value their time more than the rest, and more reasons that I don’t wish to think about now, perhaps elsewhere.)

In very brief, from my what I remember about him from around three years ago when I last read about him, he committed suicide, after which his whole family did, and he did this because of his strong belief in the many worlds theory. I won’t get into the fact that how stupid and irrational it is to so strongly commit to a theory that hasn’t even been tested and experimentally verified-

But I’m trying to demonstrate how he was able to do something that the society discourages people from, and almost every culture conditions you to believe is not the ‘right’ or ‘good’ thing to do, and in most cases for the right reasons (I am aware that now I’m using subjective value judgments myself) but here he committed to his beliefs and acted on them, acted ‘rationally’ (in a certain sense of the world) such that his behaviour is consistent with his worldview, regardless of the belief-formation methods he used to form his judgment about the worldview he so strongly believed in.

He acted consistently with his beliefs even though it very clearly went contrary to the beliefs of the society, and it’s an extreme example and I’m definitely not saying that suicide is right and you should commit suicide; if you seriously think I’m saying that, actually keeping your mistaken understanding and distorted interpretation of my theory might save you a lot of future suffering if you keep at it, if you know what I mean...

Just kidding. Don’t. I’m only saying that he adopted a belief and acted consistently with his values whatever his values happened to be, and for most people- I hope- their values involve them staying alive in order to live fully according to their true interests and fulfil their desires according to their inclinations, and eventually self-actualize.

That is what I was also trying to convey in my post ‘Thus Spoke Zarathustra’. You do what you are inclined to do- unless it happens to involve harming yourself or others, like Everett or the Unabomber, in which case you slow down and think, maybe seek help and talk to someone, depending on the situation- and you follow your inclinations even if it happens to go against what society has conditioned you to believe is the ‘truth’, because there is no objective truth or a correct way of doing things.

That is almost certainly going to be the case with anything that involves subjective value judgments, and with practice you can identify such value judgments and then acknowledge that they are subjective, which means that there is no absolute objective basis to it, it’s just a human and social construct, with several ways of interpreting it, and you are free to create your own values and meaning that is in line with your inclinations, if the prevalent value judgments happen to not be aligned with your inclinations, that is. I talk more about this in my blog posts ‘science and absurdism’ and ‘nonverbal communication tactics and other distractions’.

Another similar example- there are a lot, and I won’t share them all, but this one is interesting- when I discovered a hidden talent of mine while trying to analyze a movie just from the clips and came up with an interesting theory to explain the behaviour of the protagonist in a way that made the plot of the movie- at least in my opinion- even more interesting and at the same time more realistic.

In short, I turned one of the most ‘evil’ and twisted characters in the history of western cinema, a widely acclaimed classic, into a good guy with good intentions who more closely mirrors the present condition of the society and turned a movie trying to spread awareness about an issue that was prevalent at that time into an issue that’s now not that problematic but another that very much is.

I turned the American Psycho Patrick Bateman into a good guy who had a strong desire to murder but actually is a good person, even though he has no conscience or internal moral compass, he is a good guy with good intentions and because he can’t intuitively differential right from wrong like other neurotypical people, he has to go to great lengths to suppress his violent urges and irrational intuitive thoughts and instinctive desires to make an extra effort to remain good, something that comes to most people naturally, but he has to go against his nature to accomplish.

He suppresses his desires and we know it’s unhealthy to do so, but we unfortunately- even in real-life- live in a society where people with such instinctive urges might feel guilty or ashamed for having them and feel anxious seeking help because there is a stigma associated with it and they know that instead of being understood, they would be ostracized and declared an outcast, and so they suppress it till it gets too much and they either have to give in to the desires or self-destruct.

Coming back to my theory and American Psycho, he snaps, but no, he doesn’t do everything that is depicted in the book and the movie, his repressed emotions get too much but he with an extraordinary display of will-power and restraint, superhuman self-control, stops himself, doesn’t seek help but doesn’t harm anyone, and so the emotions have to eventually find an outlet, which they do in the form of broad daylight hallucinations and a psychotic break.

The mental delusions make him believe in the false reality and he loses all sense of what’s real and what’s not and then he starts losing it which makes a lot more sense because with all the people he killed, it was ridiculous how he was never caught, and it also makes sense how he panicked and called his lawyer towards the end, who says he is just joking, when in fact he was just hallucinating and it never happened but he thinks it did and that’s in my opinion more realistic and much more tragic.

Yes, I came up with this theory without watching the movie or reading the book and watching a few clips and talking to a guy who was a fan who had watched it several times and was astonished at my ability to come up with such a theory and I’m myself sometimes pleasantly surprised by my brain’s ability to come up with rationalizations and questions and theories about topics I feel I’m bad at and not good enough at.

This is similar to my blog posts titled ‘courage’ and ‘heated debates’ which I encourage you to check out. You don’t just blindly follow your intuition and feelings, you scrutinize them with logic and reason, and test them, analyze them and do what’s rational, even if you are repulsed by killers or think homophobes are repulsive or people with autism are weird.

You don’t act on your intuitions, you keep in mind how that person would feel and that it’s irrational to blame them for something that is not under their control, and you overcome your impulses to do what’s right, that is to listen and understand them, and for this you need to cultivate empathy, which might be harder than it may sound like.

This has happened when I read biographies of not just killers, but also highly accomplished researchers and entrepreneurs who happen to have strikingly similar childhood backgrounds yet just go on to do something opposite, the most recent one being Karl Friston, whose childhood also I found very interesting.

It’s like there is some sort of correlation between being an outlier, being different and above or below average or anything that makes you different from the majority, and then you could go to the light side or join the dark side.

I used to think it’s just as simple as that- choose the light side, duh. But now I see it’s not like that, it’s what you genes predispose you to, then your environment. Talking about myself, because I can only be certain talking about myself, I always felt different, and just recently realized I have high-functioning autism or Asperger’s.

But even long before I found out I have autism, I had grown so frustrated with everyone around me, started having pessimistic and suicidal thoughts, and that’s not even a fraction of the whole story, but we don’t need to get into that, except that I have my fair share of both physical and mental illness and disease that has caused me great suffering though I have grown somewhat desensitized to suffering now.

But here’s the thing, I am inclined in a way that I feel bad even thinking about causing suffering to any sentient being, even ants and plants and bugs, it’s that extreme. But lately my brain has started telling me and coming up with some interesting rationalizations about how ridiculous and irrational everything is- I’d have accepted even if it was just absurd, but I will come back to this topic shortly.

The point is, I don’t think that I could ever do anything like that, but then I realize how young Ted could never have though that thought he’d do what he is known for, and how he could actually maybe with a little help and support turn out to be some mathematics prodigy like Tao or do go great things, even in some alternative imaginary universe turn out to be this century’s Einstein, we would never know.

It’s sad how we not only could never know, but also how there would be many more such people who go wrong or if not cause harm to others just end it themselves because the society values what the majority values and makes you conform and if you don’t realize that you would try to conform or end up frustrated and no one who conforms or is inclined to conform- now I strongly suspect- is capable of achieving something great because I see how some of the most bright and accomplished people were also maladjusted and eccentric.

So, I am not saying I’m bright or capable of anything, I feel like I’m below average but I’m biased against myself due to my inferiority complex and I’d have evoked the Dunning-Kruger effect but I can’t until I know how being aware of it affects people who have an unrealistic perception of their abilities.

And I am not aware of any research papers that show how knowledge of DK effect affects people, because if someone is dumb then they would secretly believe that they are intelligent but when they read about the DK effect they would learn that intelligent people think and act dumb so they would pretend to be dumb and in reality also be dumb but secretly believe they’re smart.

Same for smart people: they would think they’re dumb and pretend to be smart but secretly think they’re dumb when in reality they really are smart and even that would be solvable but if someone were to accurately estimate their realistic ability then they must not be punished but being accurate, and so if a dumb thinks they’re dumb they should be taken into account, and not just false positives and false negatives.

Coming back to Bateman for a second, I realized how it might come off as me saying that his character was portrayed as some enlightened individual who breaks through and is free from all superficial influence but no that’s not what I’m saying, I realize that’s foolish and the work is a piece of satire on the culture and society of that time.

What I am saying, is that Bateman did acknowledge and overcome and somehow satisfy his urges and succeeded and was able to overcome them at the end- in the real version, by actually acting upon them and doing what he wanted to do- and I’m absolutely not saying all killers should be let free and kill humans.

Of course that’s not what I’m saying, but I am saying that we must try to help them and not ostracize them for having desires and impulses due to factors (genes, environment) that are not under their control and that goes for not just killers, but everyone who is involved in suffering in any of its forms, and this is an issue that concerns all sentient beings.

Bateman’s iconic card scene where he sweats and is jealous just because others have better cards than him which is a scene that’s supposed to show how people care about little things that don’t matter, and later it’s in contrast with how easily and without any compulsion or hesitation he kills Paul Allen and again experiences the discomfort upon noticing how more expensive his apartment is than his own and whoa it also overlooks a park!

We might laugh and ridicule him, and that’s fine, it’s a movie and it’s for entertainment so of course mock him as much as you wish, but real world serious, and it has lessons that I see people don’t learn- not just the lack of empathy and understanding for people who are not able to control their thoughts and impulses, but also the superficiality and caring too much about little things that I see almost everyone doing at some level or another.

I myself was a perfectly disciplined kid in school who always completed his homework on time and achieved decent grades and talked to everyone keeping in mind that I never offend them, cared a bit too much which made me very socially awkward and eccentric, and this was just one of my habits.

Never picked a fight or yelled at anyone for little things, gave them stuff I knew I’m never going to get back, and knew that the “friends” are going to disappear the moment they get their job done, to the extend that I was at times willing to lend my notebook tomorrow even if I had an exam on the same subject, and prepared to get guillotined by my parents back home and considered it a worthy sacrifice for a noble cause I’m giving up my life for and despite knowing all this I was just being stupid, selfish, though you might think I was being selfless, I was being selfish by not being able to resist the desire to help others and act what is rational and best for my own self-interests, I was just doing what I felt compelled to without thinking too deeply and even worse, thinking and knowing but not acting upon it, though yes it might be considered selfless in some sense of the word, but definitely not in the sense it’s popularly used.

I know I’m still stupid in this regard at least, and I also realize I’m just talking openly about it to allow people with malicious intentions and ulterior motives to exploit this weakness of mine in the future, but then they must be warned that I’m not stupid enough to be talking about it if I didn’t already have something in mind to prevent it, and you can be certain and estimate a high probability of some undesirable event to take place soon after you attempt anything like that, and yes that’s a threat. ^^

I still give exams and care too much, and I still care too much about institution prestige and credentials despite my belief that age and credentials don’t tell anything about your abilities, and yet I am in a society so I must go with the flow where I must till I am able to break free, and even if I know how irrational and flawed almost every social institution like the education system is, I can laugh at it and acknowledge it and still participate in it just because it’s one of the external factors I currently don’t know how to control, just like my genes, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to take it for granted and not even try to at least understand the ways in which it affects me and controls my life, and figure out how much is under my control and how much isn’t, so I can focus on what is.

That’s essentially exams in a nutshell, benefits people by giving them a false sense of accomplishment and delusional or distorted sense of their own abilities while kills some who might be bright kids with a lot of potential but discouraged due to some stupid meaningless numbers on a sheet of paper. Can't even accurately measure the learning of neurotypicals so how could I expect them to measure the ability of neurodivergents.

You might connect it with the card scene from American Psycho, and you’d realize you probably do the same in your everyday life because society has conditioned you to not even think about it and question the way you are doing whatever you are doing and your beliefs, your established patterns of thought and behaviour that makes it difficult for you to even realize that you’re stuck, let alone break free which is why I believe in lifelong learning and open mindedness, and being open to new experiences, because the day you stop learning and growing as a person is the day you die in the most important sense of the word, which in my opinion is a much more dreadful state of being and horrible death than the physical death everyone makes a fuss about that I find unreasonable.

So I might participate and pretend where it’s absolutely required and when it’s the rational thing to do, but not where it’s usually the norm to such as trying to pretend and fit in (what’s commonly called “masking” in autism community and what I had stopped doing much earlier; you could say that I had quit masking before I even knew what masking is.) but this is a discussion for a separate post about autism spectrum disorder (it’s not a disorder, can’t emphasize this enough.)

So I might do all this, and try to get into a good institution and score good grades, but not without being ignorant of the way things are, which means I’m relatively well-informed and trying to make a calculated risk, and that’s what matters.

I could desire good marks and be proud of my achievements yet acknowledge that the education system is a great mess and needs a radical reform and the outdated traditional education system is counterproductive for the very purpose it had been initially established for and that current methods of evaluation are nowhere close to an accurate or reliable indicator of true learning or ability or predictor of success, and it’s just to brainwash students to not question and produce more slaves and so are all education institutions and they are succeeding because not only curiosity is rare but actively discouraged and crushed for children who have it, and I have seen this in real life talking from my personal experiences.

Kids are rewarded for something that they never tried for and that is useless and something they’d understand if they start questioning everything which could be a reason we’re not taught philosophy and philosophy majors are looked down upon, though I’m not sure if even the majors teach anything like what I’m talking about.

Everyone is into mindless social media and video games which is fine and you do you and live and let live you do what you are inclined to and I do what I want; but that’s not how it works when these things act as a method of distraction by shortening their attention spans and distracting them from the real issue and only makes them think of employment and sustenance without trying to think about the current state of society and how we could create a better society which is why society is f- I don’t wish to use any strong words here- something I very rarely do unless the situation demands and this definitely is one of those situations where such emphasis is not just preferable but required and very necessary, though by no means sufficient- but I think you get it.

You do what’s rational and what makes it easier for you to live according to your values and achieve your goals, and you do it while being aware of everything you’re doing, and that’s very different from those who are doing the same thing but are not aware of, don’t even think of questioning- not their fault- why they do what they are doing and why they think what they’re thinking and how they spend their time. Being ignorant is never a solution, and for me personally, ignorance is never bliss.

You can indulge in seemingly irrational activities from time to time, but it would only be irrational if you are not aware of the downsides and possible consequences and willing to accept the worst case scenario, and if the potential upsides or expected utility or benefits outweigh the potential risks, in which you do it, and you’d not be acting inconsistent to your values and beliefs.

Coming back to the main topic: But now I have realized, from the external validation I have received from others with regard to my motivation and abilities in domains like the psychological and brain sciences, and more linguistic and musical domains, that maybe I could achieve my ambitions, the ambitious research projects and questions I have set for myself, that also happen to aim to help people live better lives and minimize unnecessary suffering or try to the best of my abilities at least.

But there was a time when I had seriously started doubting my abilities and questioning my own sanity, because no one could understand me- still very few do, no one in real life, which is why I’m socially isolated now- and I felt like something is wrong with me, because I have zero interest in games, sitcoms, playing with people, pointless gossip.

And I feel guilty not learning and reading and writing, and I never met a single person in real life who shared my levels of motivation and curiosity, and still very few people online, though now I have realized that Aspies are more likely to have such traits and inclinations than the average member of the population.

So even before the diagnosis I had stopped pretending and started being myself anyway, and the diagnosis has given me more confidence that I’m just different and I must embrace my differences and harness my strengths.

But I still get those whispers in the back of my brain, and I know that my brain is very good at rationalizing based on my intuitive preferences and desires, so I am extra cautious and ask myself a few questions to make sure that it’s being rational, and the method’s working quite well.

But on the bad days, my brain again invents some ingenious logical reasons I can not refute and that makes me have thoughts that may harm me or others, but I am fortunately self-aware and rational enough to catch it when that happens.

And write it all down and be more passive when it’s like that and not act upon my brain’s inventions and rationalizations, however logical they might sound, because now I know logic isn’t everything, you know when and how to use and apply logic rationally.

This is also why I have realized that intelligence isn’t everything, you need to be rational, live according to your values, know how to direct your intellect, have self-control and discipline, know about yourself and your beliefs etc.

And this is also the reason I am being able to relate with these people who turn out to be deviants, and why and how some people who display such traits turn out to either self-destruct or achieve something that makes them popular or infamous..

I know that I not one of them, I know I’m not intelligent enough, but I also know that’s just my inferiority complex talking, and I need to stop denying and be more confident lest I end up like someone I wish I do not end up like or fall prey to irrational behaviour or beliefs and figure out. everything.

Not just to understand myself, though that certainly is a big motivator, but also to help people who might be like me and go on to cause harm to themselves or others in the future, and also satiate my curiosity and learn more about the human nature and how to improve the human condition, learn about the ‘self’ and how we could self-actualize and create a better, safer and more accommodating society.

I even created a post criticizing the Unabomber and talking about how apparently just having a high IQ does not seem be sufficient and in fact woefully inadequate and how you need to be what people seem to call wise and what I think I call rational- I’m not sure, and I know I can never be absolutely sure, but judging from my observations it seems that we have the same thing in mind.

But as I explained earlier, now I know it’s not, and I need to find out what is, and find it soon, because I do not have much time, I can’t explain why, but I know I don’t, and I might do something irrational and harm myself or others, or worse, lose my motivation and become mediocre or average like everyone else, though I’d prefer to end it before I have to experience something like that. That’d be too cruel after all this.

I hate it, because it causes a lot of unnecessarily excessive suffering to all sentient beings on the planet, directly or indirectly through the actions of humans, and it needs to stop, right now.

I have done an extensive cost-benefit analysis elsewhere, but that’s what I believe. The absurd world with it’s mysteries and fascinating phenomena, how we all came to be like this and do all this crazy stuff everything we overlook and take for granted, all this behaviour and ability to think and comprehend and understand symbols and sounds and create everything we created, it’s fascinating, I concede.

But it’s so wrong that a universe like this has to be unfair like that, like how I described in the beginning how we happen to be a product of random chance and after than determinism and randomness, and society doesn’t help either, and so the only thing that I strongly dislike is that this leads to unnecessary excessive suffering, and suffering is bad and needs to be stopped.

And there are very few things that I’m so certain about, because I consider open-mindedness one of the virtues or values higher on my list, and I am still open to changing my mind if anyone can convince me, but this is one of the things I’m certain about.

As much hate as I hate it, hate is a strong word in my vocabulary and I rarely use it, because I believe that no one deserves to be hated, and everyone deserves to be loved, everyone, because despite what society tries to condition us to believe, I can now see that it’s only actions that are evil, not people compelled by external factors out of their direct control. I might fail to follow my own advice at times though.

And people just have this preconceived notions and pre-conceived response to their actions without even trying to understand why they did what they did, what factors resulted in them doing it, they lack cognitive empathy to the extent that I feel so dejected and hopeless at times, and wish to leave society and live somewhere all alone by myself, even though my stupid brain is then going to make me feel lonely, this stupid piece of junk, all it’s biases and biological limitations.

Sometimes I feel like just giving up, because even though I have now learned to laugh at the absurdity of the universe and mock the irrational and meaningless beliefs and behaviour of all these humans who never even stop to think for a moment, and do all these ridiculous things and care a bit too much about absolutely everything even though nothing is going to mater in the grand scheme of things and everyone is going to die one day, and nothing is going to matter when you die.

Everything that is a social and psychological construct, nothing absolute of objective, no good or evil, no right or wrong, no meaning to anything, even time or reality, even ethics and morality, it’s all what you make of it, it’s all what the majority of society wants you to believe is the absolute truth and never question it.

Everyone is too rigid, not everyone, but most people, fall for ideological dogmatic beliefs, something that I might be guilty of myself, but I don’t know and try my level best to not fall for it, always keeping in mind and reminding myself at every opportunity to internalize the principle of open-mindedness.

I’ve talked about this in several of my other posts about how it’s inconsistent with logic and the scientific method to be closed-minded, because open-mindedness is one of the core pillars of the scientific method, and you can never be absolutely certain about anything because it’s simply impossible to prove anything, you can just collect evidence, and that evidence could turn out to be wrong or the logical reasons could turn out to not hold true in real-world experiments, which is why you never fall for ideological dogma and beliefs, and always keep in mind that you should be willing to change your mind in light of new logical reasons or empirical evidence.

I think people could benefit from being a bit more rational and logical. The fight over small things, there is no compassion and they’re so rude. I might be just detached from reality speaking down on people without experiencing it myself because I’m inclined in a way that I have never lost my temper with anyone, and try my best to be polite and logical while trying to listen and understand without any judgment or getting offended.

I’m also not saying everyone should be like that, but when I see how rare it is to find like-minded people who are willing to listen and understand without attacking the person for their beliefs or ideas, it’s a bit depressing.

It’s also in my opinion amusing and at the same time depressing how people are so quick to pick fights without trying to understand and resolve conflicts with productive debate and logical arguments as civilized people ought to do, in my opinion.

It’s not merely an opinion. It’s a belief, because it’s about how the world should work and what would be best for society and every individual’s well-being. I find it even more amusing that in my country, the movies- Bollywood as it’s called- produce movies that are about aggression.

And the hero is always ready to pick fights with people and interestingly people idolize such heroes and like the fighting scenes and how the hero is not even trying to be logical and understand and just going around fighting people and how is that fun and how are people okay with it and why does no one see anything wrong with it is beyond my ability to comprehend.

And that’s what we see people acting and emulating- consciously or not- and which is one of the bigger reasons I dislike the mindset of the Indian society and the way it works and the way people behave.

I like the tradition and culture even though I’m still not very knowledgeable about it, but I am too negatively biased by the way I observe everyone and everything around me such that unfortunately seeped into my perception of even the great culture, history and tradition. I am trying my best to fix that and acknowledge that’s irrational.

Not even going into the absurd and hilarious aspect of how people with certain physical and mental characteristic tend to arouse certain desirable emotions within us just because we have the genes that incline us to like them and act irrationally to desire such people in our own lives; in simple language just for those who don’t get it, anyone who ever had any favourite actor or celebrity.

Not even going into that, can’t we have actors and protagonists who are more aligned with what a better society would look like, so kids who grow up watching cartoons and movies where the hero always gets his way through violence, and rude words, and rowdy insensitive behaviour which enforces silly traditional masculine stereotypes-

And also makes them harder to think about the world other than simplistic black and white, good and evil, right or wrong false dichotomies and makes it harder for them to comprehend the closer to truth version of grey fuzzy areas where people are never bad only their actions are, and there is no good and evil only circumstances that make people act in ways that society labels and conditions us to perceive as good and evil.

Actors are just one very small example of the absurdity that has recently made all everyday events much more hilarious while making things people find funny I am now indifferent and apathetic to. Just look at how people don’t know and aren’t even bothered to know how some photons enter this sensory organ that’s literally an extension of their brain and helps convert some symbols (and from ears, frequencies) to make sense from some sort of mental representations; that’s natural language in a nutshell.

Then there’s the same frequencies that moves some people to tears and makes others cheerful, what we call music. And the halo effect and subconscious preference for people we find attractive with evolutionary underpinnings, and how taller people tend to be perceived as more authoritative and powerful, and the fact that none of these factors are exactly under our direct control (such as genes) and even if we are aware of these biases it doesn’t mean we won’t fall for them even if we think we’re not prone we do fall for it more than we’d like to admit, as we can see from experiments (Harvard as a really nice online test for racism.)

And even that much would be alright if people were not so ignorant about all these factors are determine their life outcomes for them and predispose them in such essential ways; it’s as if they don’t even want to take control of their lives and are fine with being dictated around. Important distinction: It’s one thing to accept the course of nature and go with the flow (something I respect), and completely another thing to completely surrender yourself to factors you not only don’t want to control but don’t even want to know how they’re influencing you in ways that determines your abilities, traits, thoughts, behaviour, and your whole life and reality.

I’m not even being dramatic or exaggerating; I wish I were. It’s literally your brain and your genes, and your whole sense of reality and how you perceive it depends on the processes you’re not even aware of, and maybe can never be fully aware of, but does that mean you should not even try? Are you going to give up such an important aspect of your life to random chance, do you know what that means and it’s implications? I don’t think the people who are able to accept it do, or if they do, I’d love to know their reasons.

Take time. Time is a mental construct, and there is scientific evidence that time is not objective, as a photon can experience the past, present and future all at the same time. You can’t comprehend this and nor can I cause we have human brains that are not made to comprehend reality; they’re made to survive and pas on our selfish genes.

Another small example: I’m doing this to make you see that it’s literally your who life. It’s what you call your ‘self’ while you don’t even know what the ‘self’ is because it’s constantly changing but most people don’t even try, and till we don’t at least understand which factors influence us in what way, we could never live a fulfilling life just by focusing on what’s under our control. Despite people being too pessimistic about it, I believe we can control much more than we believe, and I have good reason to think so. Take your close friends and relationships: did you really choose them, or did you choose the people who were predisposed in a way and whom you were near to (proximity is a strong predictor of friendship; one study even showed how two kids sitting on the same desk in a randomly assigned seating arrangement in a classroom were more likely to be not just best friends but partners!)

And how are you sure that out of the around 8 billion people on the planet today, or people with a combination of traits and abilities who don’t even exist but might exist a few years younger or older than you such that you never meet them or come across them, but had you come across them you’d be even better friends or partners, but you probably never will, which is why the explore-exploit trade-off and rationalization exists (see my post analysis paralysis and the free energy principle.)

The point I’m trying to make is not that you are never satisfied with who you have in your life and constantly seek for an ideal friend or partner who might not even exist; that’s one of the surer ways to lead an unfulfilling and unhappy lives. I’m just saying that we are aware of it, and if not all the factors, at least enough that we’re not pushed around by unknown phenomena and forces, because we know enough in social psychology, sociology, and their intersection with the mathematical and computational sciences to actually method it more objectively.

Then there’s the fact from psycholinguistics and social psychology about how our culture and mother tongue or primary language determines how we perceive reality and judge people and objects and think about the world; our language and culture literally shapes our thought processes, and we take for granted the culture we’re born into and the language we happen to be taught without asking any questions and exploring different worldviews like nice little mindless automatons and NPCs. Not being harsh, but frank and honest, cause that’s what I see all around me most of the time: NPCs. Non-playable characters.

Cause it could be true that we all are NPCs pushed around by chance and determinism, and I could be one too, but the important distinction is that I need to understand and I can’t take for granted and just accept this absurd universe and biological machine I happen to inhabit and that also happens to be a source of constant amusement and wonder, but more importantly and pressingly a source of constant excessive suffering for many and I hate that I can do so little about it which is why I think that we should never just take anything for granted and even if we don’t wish to or are not capable of comprehending this, at least play a part in helping people who happen to be less fortunate than us, instead of drowning yourself in distractions and wasting precious time when people are suffering from a fate worse than death.

It's as if everyone is plugged into Nozick’s machine. The analogy is so strikingly similar I realized: I always wondered why people would not want to plug into Nozick’s experience machine, and came to the conclusion that it’s due to their incomplete half-baked understanding of the brain and what’s possible; they don’t see how literally anything and everything is possible when you manipulate the brain in the right way, you can create any experience you wish and get anything you want.

And this conclusion was supported by another experiment that confirmed my suspicions: when people are asked if they are told that this reality is a simulation and they actually already are in Nozick’s machine and if they would like to plug out. Guess what? They don’t. Of course they don’t, and they also don’t spout nonsensical reasons like it won’t be ‘real’ enough or ‘genuine’ enough, and fail to see that this is exactly how reality would feel, perhaps even more real, if we could somehow invent such an ideal Nozick’s experience machine.

And what if everyone is plugged in and happy? Well, reality would be controlled by the ones who are not, the ones who are in charge of the machines and control everyone else’s reality. And just like that, in reality, everyone is plugged into the machine that is distractions like tv and movies and games and whatnot and it’s so frustrating to see how everyone has been turned into this.. and no one seems to know or care enough, and I’m the only one I know who has detached myself completely from all these distractions, though I do occasionally still listen to music or watch videos, but not to the extent that I neglect the main issue or lose sight of the most pressing problems and forget the people who are suffering, and I hope to cut this leisure time more slowly, hopefully, if everything goes according to plan.

Once upon a time I would also have said it’s a matter of personal preferences and I should respect I and live and let live, but now I see it’s not so when people are suffering, little babies doomed to a lifetime of more suffering than an average person could withstand or comprehend, and that’s what bothers me most, so I believe it’s not a matter of preference now. It’s a matter of values and beliefs. It's not about which colour shirt you like cause it won't make much of a difference, it's about actions and behaviour that has consequences on the lives of several real people.

Which means that you either put down the damn distractions and devices (the Nozick's m machines, just less apparent, and it makes sense because the social media apps and every distraction really makes money off your attention and time and uses it to get in power and exploit workers and you don't even think because you're already addicted; you're plugged in, and now the corporations and executives control your reality, and you need to plug out right now and help the people who are suffering and crying for help but you're too distracted to listen),

and help people to the best of your abilities- only indulging in distractions to de-stress the minimum amount required for you to perform optimally and remain productive enough to focus on the main task, and at least start building small habits and first of all be aware that it’s even a problem, and people are suffering, and the suffering is real, and you could be just like them, and if you don’t do this, you’re indirectly responsible for their suffering, and all the suffering that could’ve been prevented had you taken action.

When everyone is plugged in, those who are not have the power of determining the reality of those who are. So guess who those people are in our reality? Of course those in positions of power and privilege, the rich and powerful who wish to maintain their status quo which is why the rich-poor gap and worsening and people are suffering despite there being enough resources to help them all. Is that even news? That’s the thing; everyone knows it, but not one questions it or investigates deeper, which is why the society is the way it is, and is going to stay that way if we don’t take action.

Coming back to the absurdity I touched upon a while ago: there’s humans fighting over misunderstandings that most frequently arise from the ambiguity inherent to natural language, and instead of resolving them or learning about biases and fallacies, they resort to violent tactics- be it violent language or behaviour- which are again negative-sum which means none of the parties benefits from it and still it’s somehow the most widespread manner of dealing with things and debates when someone happens to have a different worldview than us; and funny thing is we don’t even stop and think to make sure if we’re talking about the same thing but just using different terminologies.

I was frustrated with people all the time for this, but now I’ve learned that it’s simply not worth my mental and emotional energy to be bothered unless it happens to be something under my control, otherwise I just laugh and mock their irrationality, and an external observer might think I’m crazy, and so did I before learning that I’m literally what people misunderstand as crazy; I’m neurodivergent, I’m just different, and I am now more comfortable and confident being different, and this is just one of several reasons.

Coming back to heroes who are more polite and well-mannered: If we could achieve that- and I believe we can, if we try- we could raise people who are more accepting and accommodating of all differences, even neurodivergent and queer individuals, and be more kind and compassionate towards their fellow humans and realize that all the outdated and unreasonable traditional social constructs were such a harmful way of thinking, and be glad that they were not born in a time that brainwashed them to think like that and laugh at it because- fortunately- they happen to not realize how bad it was and how much suffering it caused and conflict it encouraged among people by making life much harder for some than others.

Actually this is a point worth repeating and emphasizing because we don’t understand the implications without reflecting for some time, of being born due to random chance at a place in a time, and how we get attached to the place we happened to be born by random chance in, the society that happened to be there and teach us things we take too seriously and close our minds to other ways of doing things which creates cultural barriers and ideological and physical and mental borders which makes it harder for us to understand and unite with other humans and maintain peace.

We do what we happen to be told and taught and even we develop the intellect and emotional maturity to break free, we never question and act like silly kids who are adamant and think they are right and everyone else is wrong, which is what is commonplace in religion, overly emotional and motivated displays of patriotism and nationalism, culture, and in fact every in-group you can imagine.

It's easy for anyone to be “kind” and “compassionate” with people in their in-group and in conditions where everyone can easily do it, but if you have read everything I’ve said till now and understood, you’d realize that’s not the kind of compassion I’m talking about, it’s much different and in my opinion a better form and more encompassing and inclusive and accommodating form of compassion that I’m trying to explain.

You need to be consistent with your values and beliefs, and if you believe in having compassion and kindness at all, then you should do it with people who are different from you because those are the ones who need it the most, and in situations that are hard to have such compassion-

Because those are again the situations where it’s needed of you the most, and if you can’t be compassionate and kind in those such situations, just quit being a hypocrite and give up the false pretenses for virtue signalling, because to be honest and direct, that’s what you are being if you behave like that.

You could tell me that I’m living in a little isolated bubble separate from the real world and you’d be right, because as I said I’m socially isolated and all day at my home just reading and experiencing very little, though I definitely plan to, in the very near future.

But then I'd also like you to know that I've never once picked a fight or raised my voice against any kid all of my school life, and I am also confident that you could ask anyone I know, including all of my family, friends and acquaintances who know me enough to attest to the fact that I have never been impolite or illogical with them.

I always listen and try to understand without judgment or getting offended- it’s very hard to offend me- and even if someone says something that’s not consistent with my values or beliefs, or directly attacks my personal views in a way that makes me feel hurt- this has happened- I still never attack them and try to understand their perspective with an open mind and try to have empathy by understanding that the way they are acting is fully justified.

I do this in every conversation I have, and try to be as logical and polite and listen and understand rather than attack or win an argument or attach myself to any belief, though recently I have realized how mentally exhausting and emotionally draining it is to talk to people who do not have the same values as you have, and so it’s hard to understand them and in my honest opinion not worth the time, effort and energy to argue with them even if they have some valuable insights.

This is the reason why I’m now even more selective with what I talk about with whom and when, in what way, in what context, so I already talked very little, with just the people I felt would get it, but I have realized that my sense of who such people are is getting weaker and less effective as I’m coming across more complex personalities who display unexpectedly different traits that don’t fit into my mental models of what I expect and anticipate- the healthier, less harmful and more useful types of stereotypes, if you will.

And so I don’t care if you have different beliefs and preferences than my own, but I do care a little if you are not open-minded and not able to think and communicate logically and express your thoughts without getting emotionally motivated or irrational and falling prey to common fallacies and biases.

I’m not saying that my way of acting is superior than anyone else’s, not at all, far from it, but I definitely am saying that I believe that people should consider adopting such a worldview and adopt similar values and try to cultivate these qualities in themselves, because this would be beneficial for both them and the people around them and help us create a better, safer and more accommodating society.

Why can we not as a society genuinely have an explicit social contract instead of relying on unspoken and ambiguous terms which might be broken by anyone and which would not be good for anyone except the deviant, which would be like Moloch?

I’m saying this taking into account my social ineptitude due to Asperger’s, and I still have good logical reasons to think this is the correct way, though my mind might be rationalizing based on my intuitive personal preferences, which is why I’m constantly seeking logic and evidence to the contrary, and not just willing but happy to change my mind in light of new convincing contradictory evidence.

If we could all have the best self-interests of each other in mind, we could enable everyone to live and let live and help them find their true inclination, predispositions, proclivities, whatever you wish to call it that your genes and early environment determine your values, desires and interests, and enable everyone to live and let live a fulfilling life in a systematic way which is net-positive and a positive sum game, in both utilitarian and game theoretic terms.

Even people who don’t wish to let live like those who have a desire to cause harm and malice intent yet strong ethics, we could help them and have empathy for them, because they are humans too and we think it’s hopeless and they’re irredeemable evil and can’t be fixed but we are most probably wrong and they deserve as much compassion as we do, as I explain in blog post ‘courage’.

We could help them and fix them and also help those who have suffered through a lot of ways and some of my own research ideas that involve a combination of neurotech, pharmacology, biophysics, implants, AI powered neurofeedback training, behavioural and psychological tools, and much more.

We need to keep in mind Carl Jung’s Shadow Theory and Rawl’s Veil of Ignorance and similar experiments with the one essential common point that: for a slight change in blind luck and random change, you could have been born as them and everyone is capable of such a thing we think evil even if we think we are not, even the most ethical person is capable of the worst if the circumstances are right, if they were to be born or happen to be in the right place at the right time, there is nothing that anyone is not capable of, each single person on Earth.

It makes sense, logical sense. Even assuming for a moment that you believe that the universe has no randomness and everything, with perfect knowledge, could be explained just by determinism, the chain of cause and effect of scientific processes and physical principles, okay, even then, you can possibly not deny- I can see no way, but that doesn’t mean that it’s not possible, just show the cognitive limitations of my biological brain and possibly the epistemic uncertainty inherent to all of knowledge- but I still think it’s exceedingly unlikely that the consciousness you happen to have is not dependent on pure random chance.

Think about it- could you predict that you the conscious and sentient you would have been born in this place with these genes in this environment to these parents? It’s random, it’s very improbable that it’s not random, and I see no way to conceive of a situation in which such a thing could be possible, and I’d like to know if you can.

Which means that you could be born as anyone in any time at any place- a person who suffers greatly due to an incurable genetic disease, a person who has urges and feels guilty seeking help due to social stigma who is compelled to be a serial killer or sexual perpetrator, or a woman who is burned because some idiots believe she is a witch.

We cannot help those who have suffered and gone, but we can help those who are in the present suffering and prevent future suffering and help everyone, we do not need to identify and necessarily constrain them and punish them in a way that causes future suffering, we can fix them and help all of them, make them all happy and satisfied and create a better and safer and more humane, kind, and compassionate society where everyone is loved equally because everyone deserves to be loved, and we forget this in situations when it’s needed the most.

You need to realize that you could have been just like them, and how much you would suffer from the external factors that compel act this way. I’m absolutely not saying that we shouldn’t focus on the victims, but I absolutely am saying that we focus too much on the victims when in fact we can prevent them from becoming victims by fixing the criminals such that it never even takes place.

I’m saying that of course it is important to help those who have been victims, but I’m also saying that we could prevent people from being victims in the first place and break out of this vicious cycle that makes us think that some people are ‘evil’ and not human and can’t be fixed and don’t deserve any compassion, that’s very wrong.

I can understand how strongly those might feel who know victims or who have been victims, but I am assuming here that you are logical and open-minded enough to at least try to listen and understand, because you are under no obligation to do so and you can just end it by sending my some abuses and blocking me and never reading my blog or whatever, but here I’m trying to help you and everyone who might be just like you in the future and also the people who might commit such crimes, I have your best intentions in mind.

Which is why I’m speaking out when I know perfectly when that I can just keep it to myself and live life peacefully and watch people suffer and there be more victims and it all happening in front of me while I’m alive is too unbearable for my conscience which is why I myself feel a bit hopeless and suicidal at times, even though I know it’s not my fault, I hate it that life has to be so unfair and at the top of this people have to be so damn irrational and not have empathy.

I also admit that being an Aspie I’m high on cognitive empathy and lower on affective empathy, which means that I have an above average ability to comprehend all the external factors and thought factors that go in the mind and shape the thought processes of such criminals, while I’m low on the emotional or feeling part, which is why I can see how people just feel- and I’m not denying the importance of feeling emotions, they’re absolutely important- but I think that we rely on emotions too much, and it’s high time that we turn to logic and try to think more clearly and calmly about such things-

Because it’s no joke, it involves real sentient beings suffering, and suffering greatly, something that should never even have existed in a universe or a society that values compassion, kindness and love for all their fellow beings, and it must be eradicated from it’s roots as soon as possible; I believe it can be done and I dream of a society when it would be done, which is why I’m using natural language to the best of my abilities to explain and convey what I think and what a few other people might think but don’t have the ability, medium or motivation to explain. I do, and I feel that this unique position puts me under an obligation to do so, so I’m going to try my best, regardless of the outcome.

Just to repeat a point worth repeating, I am not against people who are victims of such crimes that cause them great suffering, on the contrary I’m trying to propose a solution which involves there being no victims in the first place, when there would be no such people who need to be helped, isn’t that so much better than merely helping the victims recover after the damage has been done?

Which is why I’m focusing on the root cause of the issue. When we are able to identify and prevent, that’s when we need to think the way I’m trying to make you think now, see what I’m trying to explain, have more cognitive empathy because we need to think of such people as humans and understand that ‘good’ and ‘evil’ are subjective value judgments (just like ‘right’ and ‘wrong’, objectively speaking) which don’t exist in the universe and are meaningless terms and merely human and social constructs, and it’s only undesirable actions that cause suffering that we correctly term evil, so we ought to focus on the actions and not the people, because the people are humans, just like us, and every human deserves to be understood and helped, every human deserves compassion and every human deserves to be loved. No exceptions.

If you happen to have Asperger’s or have more of cognitive empathy than affective empathy (there is a strong correlation, but having one doesn’t necessarily imply having the other.) then you could think of love just like a social contract (nothing wrong with contracts, it’s just a bias that transactions carry negative connotations due to being associated with money and the society the way it is today, something that took me a long time to realize and that I’m still unsure of. But it is a bias for sure, as several studies in behavioural economics suggest.) It would be very similar to my post about friendship and how it is a social contract, or at least should be thought of in that way.

So, love everyone. If you think that’s not true, then you should also love no one, because having inconsistent values and moral standards is what bothers me the most; you are emotional and express sympathy for some relative or close friend or a young kitten, but then you turn a blind eye or worse start ostracizing and abusing when it’s someone who is not similar to you, still human, but just a different brain, genes and circumstances that made him do stuff you dislike but instead of helping them you just declare them an outcast and act cruelly because you think that you should be cruel to people who are cruel when in fact you’re just making the problem worse and you don’t see how you’re also being responsible for the future criminals who victimize more people. By playing a role in not breaking this negative cycle that has been set in motion, you are playing a part in anything that future criminals who do more horrible stuff to victims, compelled by external factors.

Yes, read that again, let that sink in. I’d even say that you would be in many cases even worse than the person you’re calling ‘evil’ because they are compelled and society has no way to help then and there’s a lot of stigma and it’s the abusive childhood and genes, but I’m assuming the many well-educated and otherwise kind and compassionate humans would consciously and willingly do this to them, which makes them worse. To repeat my point, everyone deserves kindness and compassion. Every. Single. Sentient. Being.

You can’t stand high and act all holier-than-thou and impose your and the majority’s correct way of doing things without trying to even understand and listen and have some empathy, and that’s exactly how witches were burned, Jews were almost exterminated, a whole race almost wiped off the face of the planet, queer and gay people were given horrible treatments and killed for no good reason, and neurodivergent individuals made to feel uncomfortable and mocked just because they happen to have the brain and genes that make them like this.

Why do we use different moral and ethical standards for queer and neurodivergent individuals and others who are in the exact same situation just with slightly different genes and environments that’s still out of their control and a result of random chance? It’s not in my ability to comprehend this, and it’s soul-crushing to witness this every day, so I would appreciate it if anyone more educated, knowledgeable and intelligent than me could enlighten me and make me see what I’m unable to see, and I promise to listen with an open and receptive mind why people do this, and how they are able to live and sleep peacefully without facing any sort of cognitive dissonance.

This is just one of the topics, yet one of the main and primary topics of most importance, that makes me grow more pessimistic and nihilistic each day, and lose hope in society, sometimes on days where I feel like not even getting out of bed, and suicidal even when I’m not depressed. Mocking people at their irrational behaviour and absurdity of the universe is all fun and games, but when it involves suffering such as this, I feel like the world is not one worth living in anymore, and feel powerless yet think I’d be a coward and stupid idiot if I went out without even putting forward my opinion and expressing my worldview.

And I am able to feel why some people believe that ignorance is bliss and some very intelligent people distract themselves with pointless and mindless video games and series, superficial social media and pop culture stuff, everything which I felt like respecting cause it’s their personal preferences, but then I realized how messed up it really is, believed that everyone should quit all this nonsense with all these crap movies and games and stuff when people are literally suffering and dying a horrible slow death.

And I see why some people despite knowing this don’t take action, or why many philosophers were so insane or suicidal and outcasts, some outright mad and belonging to a mental asylum or psychiatric institution for the mentally ill, and I might end up like one of them if I live long enough without understanding the cause behind all of this.

This is also a major reason I find comforting to believe in a determinism universe with some randomness (doesn’t matter as long as there is no free-will) and the idea of death as an escape from this game even when I’m not suicidal (this stigma needs to go, it’s high time now, so I might create a post about my thoughts on euthanasia, longevity and the contemporary immortality movement too.)

It’s also understandable now why some people just quit society and give it up altogether, because even though there definitely is good in society, a lot of good, it’s just all irrational and superficial and misdirected and inconsistent and the evil seems to outweigh the good too much and it just seems more simple and easier way out to just give it up- in any sense of the world, either by quitting, society or the world of the living, or just being a part of the crowd and going with the flow, drowning yourself with nonsensical but mind-numbing games, tv, and any and every other distraction and method of escapism that you can find.

I know that’s not the way, because everyone has the genes and environment that has inclined them to behave this way, but I’m the same, and it’s a kind of coping mechanism for me now, looking at everything trying to be as objective as possible, not bringing in subjective value judgments, and thinking logically and scientifically.

Of course I might be biased due to my own personal experiences as a neurodivergent individual and experiences and observations, and a few months ago I’d have also said that I might just be crazy or mentally ill, but now I know that I am just different, and if you have are reading this.

Just as a quick recap and overview of the main theme: without going into the subtopics, I think there is just one important distinction that needs to be pointed out, that’s the most relevant to this discussion.

One theme was about how we could create a better, more accommodating society for people by allowing them to live as they wish, according to their inclinations and predispositions and not exert any influence that is going to make them act irrationally- in any way that leads to thoughts or behaviour that is going to decrease the probability of them leading a fulfilling life- follow their interests, activities that induce in them a state of flow and help society, or anything that they must be free to explore and choose for themselves, even though they never really are free, and it’s unclear if they even can, which brings me to the second theme I discussed.

The second theme is how our genes and early environment control us in ways that we are not even aware of, and how we could learn to be more in control if we could figure out in what ways external factors determine our traits, abilities, decisions etc. and how much is under our control, so we can focus on what is and detach ourselves from what is not- just like how we do with outcomes in stoic philosophy, something I find very helpful in making decisions- and also if we can control, how much we can control, and how much we should control.

This is similar and deeply intertwined with my idea that’s in many respects similar to Nietzsche’s Übermensch that I explain in my blog post titled ‘Thus Spoke Zarathustra’ which talks about many of the same ideas: in ‘Thus Spoke Zarathustra’ I talk about how to break free to all influences and to at least try to understand if there is a ‘self’ free from all influence, find out what those factors are and how they shape the ‘self’ find out what that self is, and if there is not, then it’s societal implications and how to manipulate the factors to be the person you wish to be, and live a fulfilling life without going through the troubles of discovering your true inclinations; either by determining your inclinations and values just by gene sequencing and brain scanning (plus other tools like behavioural, psychological,) or just directly manipulating for you to be satisfied in your current situations (undesirable and the last resort, as I explain elsewhere in another post).

I talk about being free from social conditioning if you happen to be inclined that way, and going a step further to the level of genes and early environment, and the neural processes too, all of this reframed from the perspective of making you think about yourself, turning your introspective lens inward, while in this series of posts, I talk about the same fundamental concepts as applied to the problem of evil and suffering. Both are the same in essence, just different applications, which is why it’s more like a worldview or way of thinking, developing thought processes, or more like describing my thought processes, and asking you to play the devil’s advocate if you can, or share any comments even if it’s not any counter-arguments.

In it I talk in the context of breaking free from all irrational restraints and impositions be it from society or your own compulsions, creating your own values and morals based on your inclinations that would allow you to live rationally and maximize your likelihood of living a fulfilling life aligned with your inclinations, and keeping in mind that most of the things that we consider objective are in fact psychological or social constructs, and hence you won’t be doing anything ‘wrong’ as long as you’re not harming anyone.

And if you are (to be more accurate and precise, if you’re inclined in a way that compels you to cause harm in order to satiate your desires or live a fulfilling life), well this post covers that already, so you should know by now what shall be done with those who desire to harm others. So what should we do with, say, someone who has just ended a shooting rampage killing over twenty school kids, or a sexual predator who acted upon his impulses and troubled a few underage kids?

Or even a predator with a strong sense of ethics who has such desires but has not acted upon them, but has these desires and is confused why he has them and how he can manage them, or a serial killer who wants to kill some people, but is trying hard not to, but it's getting harder every day, and finally a psychologist or detective finds them out before they can do anything that harms others.

What should be done with them, in your opinion? Please keep an answer in mind before reading the solution, just to match your own solutions, it shouldn’t be that hard.

Did you think? What is your answer? Does it match this or resemble this in any way that makes it similar to this solution: They must be tortured to death or guillotined to death in front of the public, of course.

If that’s you, congratulations! You just failed, and miserably at that. No. That’s very wrong, and that was, in addition to sarcasm, a test to check if you understood the point I’ve been trying to make throughout this post. If you seriously believed what I just said, and if you think that is what must be done with such people, I politely but firmly request you to message me, but only if you are open to changing your mind and trying to understand my perspective, and engage in a productive debate.

If, on the other hand, you didn’t fall for it, and your answer didn’t match that solution, congratulations, to you and to me for my short crash course on cognitive empathy turning out to be so effective. I am glad that you were able to understand the idea, and I don’t want you to immediately change your mind or agree with me-

I just want you to reflect on it and think why it’s right or wrong, and for any clarifications message me, because even though the post was lengthy, it’s negligible in comparison to the live experiences you have accumulated and beliefs you have been conditioned to accept till now, and same goes for me, but we can at least try to understand each other, and that requires someone who is willing to listen and explain.

It’s rare to come across such a person, because mostly people don’t try to use logic, they are like it’s so obvious can’t you see it it’s so intuitive and why don’t you get it what’s wrong with you, and they get all heated and emotionally motivated, and I have always been polite and tried to understand such people, but it’s really draining, and I’d prefer to have lesser of such conversations and keep my interactions with such people to a bare minimum as much as possible.

As I might have mentioned earlier, I am an Aspie, which is why I don’t intuitively get it, but I’m also not just okay with being like yeah you do you and leave me alone and close myself off from those who don’t get it. I can do that, and it would in fact be in my best interest to do so, because I could just stick with my kind and never try to expose myself to those who are different from me, never have to do anything with them for my whole life; I have always been one who operates and observes people from the shadows, so why am I trying to come out now?

In case I still need to explain why, and answer that question, it’s because this is important, I need to understand how people are fine with other people suffering, in all of it’s forms, not just the most obvious ones, because we all try to help victims, which we should, but we don’t try to eradicate evil from it’s roots; we have such a distorted idea of “evil” that we get it all wrong and think people are evil and never try to help them or fix them so such incidents never even happen, and I think I can’t be the only one to think so, I can’t be the first to think this, which is why I might be wrong, and I can’t just not care and sleep peacefully at night, which is why I’d love to hear from someone who shares my values yet thinks differently to make me understand who is in the wrong, and why, with logic and reason.

I, on my part, am trying to do my best to understand those who think differently, because I wish to broaden my worldview and fill the understanding gap between me and others, which is most people who have different beliefs, and I wish to have a conversation with someone who is just as willing to understand my viewpoint as I am, and willing to express their reasoning and logic behind their beliefs clearly, so that we both could learn something new, maybe change our mind too, I definitely would, if I am convinced, because as I have repeated several times throughout this post, this is serious, this is about suffering-

And I’m not exaggerating when I say that there are sentient beings forced to accept a fate much worse than death, experience mental states that no one should be fine with in a humane civilized society of beings as intelligent and capable of morality as humans are, which is why as I said I’m so beyond frustrated and annoyed when I see people wasting time and drowning themselves in distractions, when they could use the same time to prevent suffering-

And them not doing so is making them, in my opinion, responsible for the suffering that they could have otherwise prevented. This is also giving people in position of power control over those who are plugged into this metaphorical Nozick’s machine, as I also explained somewhere in this series of posts.

If everything is in our control, what is that mysterious self so detached from reality and how is this even possible in a physical universe, and is it is, what are the societal implications on learning about determinism, and how can we manipulate it all to create a better society, right down at the genetic level? I expand on this idea elsewhere.

If you understood the ideas presented in the post, you’d realize that punishment is futile, you can punish them and make them suffer all you want, but you won’t be preventing any future evil, and in fact you would be responsible for when it happens again in future, indirectly, because you did not take steps that could eradicate it from the roots, which in a very brief recap involves prevention through early detection techniques, rehabilitation or fixing them by any means possible and stopping the negative cycle right there.

I didn’t elaborate on exactly how, but that’s not because I don’t know how, but because it’s already a lengthy and dense post, but I know very well how, I have research papers and techniques, and some interesting ideas of my own, research topics and questions I’m going to investigate in the near future. Just to pique your interest, I’ll mention that the tools include tools from broad disciplines such as tech, pharmacology, behavioural science, psychology, physics, neurobiology, genetics, and much more.

If such interventions to help victims and help those who are suffering are not developed in the next 2-3 years, rest assured that I’m going to make it possible.

If you’re someone who knows me, you’d also know that it’s very uncharacteristic of me to have too much confidence in my abilities due to my inferiority complex that never really goes away, and my preference for realism over unrealistic vision of utopia and over-optimism, but I mean what I just said, and I know that I have the ability and I don’t know much of even theory but enough of it and enough about myself to know that I can make it possible;

I can help those who suffer and those who are victims of crimes that cause great suffering, and I have also told this to a friend of mine who has suffered from childhood trauma due to a sexual predator, and I myself have experienced enough stuff that I won’t list here else it’ll unnecessarily take up valuable post space and your valuable time that I’m sure you would not want to spend reading about my past illnesses and disorders, which have been both physical and mental and extreme in nature.

Yet I’m fortunately good enough to do what I’m doing, and make such statements and trying to help others, and I wish I remain so, because I didn’t care much about myself and considered myself disposable and worthless not too long ago, when my inferiority complex and nihilistic tendencies were exacerbated with my lonely and depressed brain, but now I know it’s too selfish to seriously consider, and I won’t make any promises but shall try my best to keep in mind all those whom I could help if I keep at it and do what I’m trying to do.

I believe that you are also likely to be open-minded enough to understand and point out anything that you find wrong with whatever I have said, and as always, I’d be happy to change my mind in light of logical reasons or empirical evidence to the contrary. Have a nice day and night.

_______

If you have read till here, you have my respect, cause I know most people are not- I would have said interested in the near past, but now it's high time I drop that pretense and stop denying what is closer to truth- able or capable of understanding such concepts, and even among the tiny proportion of those who do, very few have the interest- interest comes later, yet I am sure someone who is interested with a bare minimum of ability could do so but I'm not sure if they should, taking into account the suffering and the opportunity costs of the lost time and effort that could be employed in more fruitful endeavours in spite of the potential benefits, but for now we don't know, so it's a personal preference, and if you are such a person which you likely aren't even if you think so, cause Dunning-Kruger effect, you are still someone I'd like to have a conversation with.

So as I was saying, even among the tiny proportion of those who do, very few are interested and able to grasp and critique ideas such as those I presented in this post, which is why I would greatly appreciate your comments and any insights you have to share, or just plain feedback or constructive criticism, and sort of comments, even if it's just to tell me that I suck at writing and conveying my ideas clearly or any flaw you perceive in my personality, nothing is off limits or out of bounds, because I'm not one who is easily offended, and also not one who is judgmental- at least I like to think so- and even if you tell me you hate something about me that you feel like killing me, and turns out you're not kidding, I would try to listen and understand your perspective, cause it might after all- it's very possible- be the rational thing for you to do, though I am unable to conceive of such a situation in which that might be the case or the best solution, but just cause I can't perceive doesn't mean that it can't happen- it just means that the cognitive limitations of my biological brain are not allowing me to conceive of such a situation, which is different from the set of all events in the possible reality, which is a very large sample space with a lot of events beyond anyone's wildest imaginations, including mine, of course, or so I'd like you to think.

So any feedback you give me doesn't mean I'm going to act on it. It simply means that I'm going to try my best to understand you and listen to your worldview, and give it the weight that I think is appropriate to the decision I'm making keeping in mind my values and preferences, which might be different from yours, but doesn't mean that we can't understand each other and learn something new, possibly even change our minds or discover some value that we prize and admire yet had overlooked, something that we had not known before but that through a productive discussion and debate we could learn that could allow us to be a better version of ourselves, increase the likelihood of use achieving our goals or desires- whatever they happen to be, though I tend to think in terms of processes rather than goals, but goals are important too, just that they must come after processes- and becoming our best selves, or if nothing else, just get to know about a unique and different worldview, how people might think differently, agree to disagree, and be more confident in the belief or current worldview that we hold because we know that despite knowing the different worldview, we were able to defend our viewpoint- not through rationalization, but defended with an open mind, logic, scientific method and seeking evidence to the contrary- it's never about your ego or winning debates or arguments, and I'm so frustrated when I see this, and I see this much more frequently than I'd like to- it's about getting closer to truth, learning something new and trying to learn more about yourself and what is true in reality- are your beliefs mistaken, is there something you need to know but don't- and this is only possible if you don't emotionally attach your 'self' to the belief and take the attack on the belief as a personal attack, in which case you'd never be able to get closer to truth and fall for ideological dogmatic beliefs and be closed minded and you might as well give up science and logic and go to a palmist and get into astrology or something, cause in such a case that would be more consistent with your values and what you would have to do anyway to avoid cognitive dissonance.

You listen and try to understand, engage in civilized debate, polite and open-minded, cause we are capable of that, understand that the person you're talking to is just as intelligent as you, and there is something you can learn from them- intellectual humility is important- and try to express clearly your own side and not try to heatedly defend it and get hot-headed but rather engage in constructive criticism and try to understand the points they are making- asking questions not to show you're superior or assert dominance or win the argument or debate or preserve your ego- cause I am presuming you're an emotionally mature and logical being capable of civilized debate- hell, even I'm at the time of writing this 19 years of age and hence not full emotionally mature cause there's a part of my brain responsible for maturity and emotional regulation- forgot it's name- that's not fully developed till the age of 21-22. Which is also why adolescents are so rebellious by nature and it's the time- not sure where I read this and not sure if it's true but it's interesting nonetheless- when you are most likely to do work the wins you the Nobel later in the future or do something that gets you killed. That reminds me that Nobel is something that is related to external validation and is very bad for your intrinsic motivation and innate passion and productivity, but I won't go too far off tangent here, and keep it for another time, another post perhaps.

So it's about listening and learning, admitting your own mistakes, knowing what kind of evidence could change your mind, accepting that you were mistaken and your worldview was incorrect; it would not make you whatever the hell people are afraid it would make them that stops them from doing this, it would only make you a more well-informed and knowledgeable person, and a better human being who plays an important part to create a better society for everyone, where no one is threatened or act irrationally just for having a different point of view.

You don't lose your temper or calmness and politeness even if the other person does, and that's something I've been doing throughout school and a few times in some debates, and it's very effective in making the other person realize that they are in the wrong; not necessarily that their side or logic is wrong, because once again we must separate subjective value judgments from objective truths, facts and logic, but that their method of delivering their opinion and expressing their thoughts is a wrong one, and what they hope to accomplish through this is only going to be counterproductive because people would think that they are acting all aggressive and dominating cause they known they are wrong, when in fact it could be very possible that they are logical and have good evidence that could change the mind of everyone only if presented in the correct manner.

Not everyone has the ability to do so, and if you can, you can be powerful, in every sense of the word, in my opinion. I might be biased because I am more linguistically inclined, unlike other Aspies who are more mathematically inclined, but this also allows me to see how stupid politicians- no offense- have not just not passed high-school and this is what people criticize them for but I believe credentials (and age.) should be no bar for anything (even research; startup industry seems to realize this for entrepreneurship already, hence less focus on credentials and more on skills, and I believe that every system can learn from this reform.) but these politicians know not a thing about logical fallacies and cognitive biases and philosophical logic and presenting your ideas in a coherent and clear manner- one that they constantly use when I happen to- by mistake, a very unfortunate one whenever it happens- listen to the tv news channel my father happens to be watching and one they constantly use is ad hominem, and I feel the embarrassment down to the core even though I don't have anything to do with them; except for the fact that they happen to be the same people who create public policies, governance, legislation, judiciary, law enforcement, and literally every way society is governed.

They have power, and sadly most of them don't deserve it, though they could try to improve their mentality and made to see, but every day I'm getting less confident in this belief of mine, and so less hopeful about the state of society, at least the part of society where such people are voted to power- nothing against democracy, but there are people who actually vote for them, and it has it's flaws, and it's better than many other alternatives, though I'm not too deep into political philosophy to comment anything on such a controversial issue, might even get assassinated in my sleep tonight, and I wish that was satire. Not uncommon for issues related to nationalism and religion.

Now that reminds me of nationalism. And now I shall say something that I would be willing to risk my life for if people who are unable to grasp the meaning of "open-mindedness" and "civilized debate" happen to read this, though I doubt they would be able to comprehend this, but I've recently realized that highly intelligent people can be very irrational and emotional too, so I need to be even more cautious with how I say what I say and when I say it and to whom, cause once someone intelligent determines that I'm some idiotic kid who needs to be taught a lesson, or I use words that happen to produce strong emotional affect in them and attacks their core values or beliefs which they attach their 'self' or ego to, and the second they refuse to no listen to anything I have to say and are inclined in a way that prevents them from feelings like they must seek clarification and have a nice logical debate, I'm going to be in some deep trouble.

But more importantly I have relaized I can't and won't stay silent about issues that I see in society that makes it almost unlivable to the point that I myself feel it's not worth living in such a world, issues such as I describe in some other posts, too, and so I know I am in a position to try to explain, and I'd be happy to go out if I stick to my values and beliefs, than live a life pretending to be someone I am not, and being unfulfilled and dissatisfied, forever full of regret. It'd be kind of like how people are afraid of death when death is nothing to be afraid of, dying is, or to be more clear, suffering is.

I believe that people get too deep into nationalism and patriotism and for every in-group they get too motivated in a way that prevents them from trying to understand that there are other cultures and countries and ways of doing things and humans who are deep down just like them but they become so close-minded just because they happen to be born in a place at a time in a society that conditions them in this way that they think this is THE correct way to do things, and literally get ready to come to the level of violence and kill people rather than simply sit, listen and talk. I come from a country which might be notorious for it, one of the neighboring countries being it's rival for religious and political reasons, and their rivalry infamous and well-known all over the world.

And I hate it that people don't see how we all need to just have a nice little talk and it could be sorted out, am I being too naïve for thinking that everyone deserves to be loved and understood? That war and violence and abuses are not the solution, but civilized debate is? Even looking at what happened to Ukraine, I still think it's possible, with people who are ready to destroy whole countries and lives just for their selfish desires and unreasonable wishes at the cost of others; if you see the videos.. and I myself have seen only one..

Of how the army people were injured, them crying in pain as they hug each other and- desperately wait for their end, at the same time being afraid because they would never see their loved ones or their newborn or their parents again, yet wish to pass away soon because the suffering is too much- shiver and tremble in pain and fear cause they're going to die shortly, thinking of their family members and sons and wives they had promised they were going to meet soon, maybe having sweet dreams of the reunion, meeting loved-ones they had not seen in a long time, when they were forced to go to war, and now here they are lying in pain and intense suffering surrounded by decapitated body parts and organs and crying and despair and -

I'm sorry for the vivid imagery, I'm deliberately trying my best to evoke the right amount of emotional affect not because I'm a sadist and derive pleasure from making you feel uncomfortable; it's very uncomfortable for me to write it myself despite my lower levels of affective empathy, but we need to understand some people are living it, this is their life and reality, and they do not have the privilege to just close this tab and stop reading the post and drown themselves I distractions happy upbeat music and pretend everything is fine when it clear as day is not.. and the part the bothers me the most is that it's these people in power- the same people in power-

the emotional immature kids, much worse than emotional immature kids- who are sitting I positions of power, influence and great wealth, and ordering people to suffer and pay with their lives while they sit back and enjoy and engage in hedonistic pleasures and do whatever the heck they are able to do while knowing what they are doing to those people. It's always the people who are not in power who have to suffer, while these powerful people don't have to think twice just because they don't know what it feels like and that they could be just in the same position just by random chance and blind luck, and I'm confident they wouldn't have like that then, and would not like the powerful too much.

Same analogous situation you might observe in the world with the rich-poor divide, and powerful multibillionaire executives of large multinational corporations who exploit workers and not even talking about the butterfly effect or cause and effect on those consequences on those who are unemployed and poor and just can't kill themselves cause they unfortunately or fortunately have strong morals and society has conditioned them to believe suicide is wrong (Not necessarily saying it's not, but in certain condition is it. Will create a post about it soon.) and euthanasia is and and they know they have to feed their family maybe or their dog or grandmother and hope cling desperately that things would improve even though deep down they realize that society is .. I think you get it.

Am I too naïve to think that we can resolve every conflict and solve most of the social problems through peaceful and civilized debate instead of engaging in direct and indirect physical and verbal attacks, sometimes through subtle nonverbal communication tactics and implicit messages that seem to be made for the sole purpose of evoking or implicating our "rivals"? Can't we all come up with a system where everyone can resolve their problems through a discussion in which everyone would be judged by the merit of their ideas, regardless of their background, age, credentials, whatever?

That we could break all these imaginary and physical borders and superficial ideological divisions and live in unity and peace without being afraid despite all our resources and intelligence, everything we've achieved as humans, are we not even capable of this much? That we all are at our core despite all the diversity and individual differences humans and everyone deserves to be treated with compassion, love and respect?

That no one is "better" or "worse", it's high time we do away with meaningless subjective value judgments and harmful social constructs like "inferior" and "evil" and try to understand and help everyone rather than blame and punish and fight we must try to understand and have empathy, and that there is no one correct way of doing things and we should live and let live and everyone has very similar needs and desires that we could find out and enable everyone to live as they wish, aligned with their values and inclinations and not being afraid to express themselves and pretending ("masking" in autism community) who they are not and just be themselves without unreasonable fear for judgment by anyone?

Is there not already enough suffering in the world that we are not only not trying to lessen the suffering of those who need to be helped, but creating even more and more divides and needlessly making people suffer just for being themselves for no fault of their own due to unreasonable restrictions, outdated beliefs, preconceptions and prejudices and harmful stereotypes?

I know everyone is much smarter than that only if they're made aware of the way society has conditioned them to behave and think without questioning their beliefs and way of doing things, only if we- not even saying that we should tell them to be more liberal or open-minded or accepting, not even that- just saying if we teach them critical thinking skills and experiments such as Rawl's Veil of Ignorance and moral and political philosophy and how to think for themselves and a little bit of logic and rationality, how science works, and what it means to have empathy, they could figure it out on their own, I like to think.

Talking of the political leaders and authority figures, people in positions of wealth and power, I touched upon briefly earlier: at least they should have the ability to express their thoughts and ideas in a clear way and know the basics of debate, and of course be open-minded enough, but other than that, it gets all superficial and distractions from the main topic.

I have such a system in mind other blog posts. I believe that, being an Aspie, I am in a unique position to help such people and it's my responsibility to represent the less fortunate member of the community, be a voice for them, literally, because most of them happen to be non-verbal, but also suffer from comorbidities such as depression and ADHD, and learning disabilities and cognitive deficits.

I have suffered from such illnesses in the past too, but now I'm fortunate enough to be low on the negative traits and higher on the traits that bring me closer to the gifted end of the spectrum, and I wish to make the best use of my abilities to help people who are suffering because I know what it feels like.

I think I'm in a unique position because I happen to be gifted with cognitive empathy, very high levels of motivation and an obsessive interest in topics such as psychopathology and abnormal psychology, and at least an above average linguistic ability and a strong desire to help everyone and create a better society, with the ability to take initiative and power to overcome all my inferiority complex and social anxiety issues, and also happen to be inclined in a way that my core values happen to include open-mindedness, kindness, compassion and love for every sentient being on the planet.

This is I feel I'm in a unique position to do this and so I must, and I'm not saying that I'm the only one to do this, but unfortunately I've met so few that as much as I'm trying to run away from such a conclusion, I can not, which is why the posts and now also thinking of reaching to a wider audience through more media.

I'd love to meet like-minded people with similar goals or values, but it's hard, so I'm writing so that I can increase the probability of me finding such people, and make people who don't currently know understand why it is important. I had definitely considered just not caring and living in the shadows, as I always have, both literally and metaphorically (oversensitivity to lights, and being inconspicuous, having very few friends and being effectively socially isolated now.) but for the reasons I mentioned above, I think it's by responsibility to do so, and I'm going to try my best, because fortunately I happen to derive a sense of satisfaction and pleasure from taking on ambitious projects, and these are topics that are not just aligned with my values but that I also happen to enjoy and be somewhat good at.

I myself had started doubting my own sanity and thinking I'm wrong and everyone is right and something is seriously wrong with me, but now I know I'm just different, and I want others who might be in a similar position to understand that being different is perfectly fine, and in a sense an ability and strength they must learn to harness and channel in the right manner to maximize their potential to do what they like and they're good at while also helping others. I have been through it and everything makes sense now, my past behaviour and personal experiences.

And I can see how it could be very discouraging and demotivating for someone who happens to be inclined in a way to have lower mental or emotional resilience or limits, and society plays it's role in pushing the limits to it's breaking point very well even for those who know they have autism, or are neurodivergent, or queer for that matter, let alone those who themselves don't know that there is nothing wrong with them and hence happen to be at greater risk of getting gaslit by society and go through a lot of mental agony.

I believe that having such an ability and such ideas, it's my responsibility to make everyone who is willing to listen aware of such ideas, and obviously not impose it on them, but at least make them aware of the possibilities and engage in an open discussion so I can be pointed out my mistakes and improve myself in the process; trying to improve my ideas such that they could be implemented to make the real world a better place, and trying to be a better human being myself and everyone who decides to join me on this journey.

I had in fact given up at a moment when I realized that this is very emotionally draining. I describe this in my blog post titled 'heated debates', and that is when I realized why even the people who have the ability to do it might be demotivated, discouraged or just not be inclined in a way to be able to handle such stress, it's very taxing. I had heard several times how hard it is to question your own beliefs and change your mind, and I had not realized this until very recently what it really means, and that's not even talking about other people; not that I'm trying to change anyone else's mind, I'm never going to try such a thing.

This is another point worth clarifying; if someone disagrees with me on an issue or a fundamental belief of mine that I believe everyone should adopt, a hypothetical, even then my approach would not be to try to change their mind because I know this approach is not just unlikely to work, but is also unhealthy and counterproductive and hence irrational keeping in mind my own values, preferences and goals.

What I am going to do is try to understand their point of view. Ask questions, try to understand their worldview, try to understand why and where we diverge, is it a matter regarding a difference of values? Or a mistaken belief regarding how things are in the real world? If it's about values, we could agree to disagree, and if it's about objective beliefs, one of us has to be closer to truth and more correct than the other person, and we are only going to find that out by trying to listen and understand a person's strongest arguments and logical reasons and evidence. And trying to see how it could be true, and if it is true, how that would fit in with my worldview and make me update my beliefs.

Now this is where people go wrong as I notice so frequently: people are not able to hold two or more opposing ideas in their head and try to evaluate and rigorously scrutinize them all without trying to get emotionally attached to one and attaching their ego or 'self' to it, just detaching yourself from it, and objectively and logically comparing them while being aware of any biases that might affect your judgment based on your intuitive preferences or past personal experiences, and never committing to any and even when you decide what's right, just keeping in mind it might be wrong and keeping in mind what type of evidence could make you change your mind.

You ask yourself: why do you believe what you believe, and what would make me change my mind. Is there anything that could make me change my mind? If no, you have fallen for ideology or rigid unchanging beliefs and closed-mindedness, and you must be aware of this, because you need to know what made you fall for it and it's consequences, and if you are not willing to introspect your beliefs and try to figure out why you believe in what you believe in, and what could be the possible reasons that compelled your brain to believe it in the first place, then at least you could be aware of the consequences and make a more informed, calculated risk, which is still, in my opinion, much better than ignorance.

Reminds me of this quote: "You are entitled to your desires and choices, if you have preferences, you have the right to do so. But beliefs aren't about you, they are about the world. They should be the best estimate of things are, and you are entitled to your own best effort to find that best estimate. Everything else is a lie" - Robin Hanson.

One of the most dangerous of such biases that I find myself most susceptible to- my brain is really good at rationalizing anything and coming up with very convincing and irrefutable logical arguments for anything that I intuitively prefer or desire, and I won't get into much detail here, because I have discussed this topic elsewhere, but in very brief, I have learned to ask some questions and be aware of it and now harness it to my own advantage and control it at will in a way that's rational and logical, maintaining my core values of open-mindedness and scientific skepticism, and it's a pity to see very clever and intelligent researchers and people in power falling for this very common phenomenon, in fact even criminals like the Unabomber and Hitler and sex offenders and serial killers.

I have read about their backgrounds, and- take it however you want for now, but I'll explain this in greater detail later in this post- I can understand and relate very well, because my mind kind of works similarly, and I'm using it for good, and to help society rather than turn like such people, and if you want to prevent such people in the future and help them before it's too late, you need to think like them, be in their shoes, think like the criminal and become one in order to understand their thought processes and understand all the external factors that shape their thinking and compel them to do what they do. (Sherlock Holmes anyone? Or even better, Will Graham, from the Hannibal books?)

Coming back to and elaborating on a point worth repeating and emphasizing- this is something important- because some people might think that constantly saying that "I am open-minded ask me absolutely anything and I will change my mind" no that's not how it works. I am only going to change my mind if it's convincing- not just rhetoric, ethos, pathos, persuasive language, linguistic devices or other distractions, whatever, you could give me credit for being less stupid than falling for such nonsensical distractions- but more importantly if it's logical and there is empirical evidence to support it.

Then I would definitely change my mind, if my cognitive faculties remain intact, cause if I still don't change my mind, it means I have given up some of my core values of rationality, open-mindedness and scientific skepticism, and in such a case I would love you to do me a favour and shoot me in the head, or maybe some other method that doesn't involve as much suffering, but living on without such values is not something I would wish to experience in my worst nightmares. Maybe it's just another one of my Aspie obsessions, including my obsession with logic, linguistic and music ability, motivation and passion for certain research interests, quirks and eccentricities common among the Aspie community, I believe.

Coming back to the main topic, as I was saying, you keep and open mind, but not so much that your brains fall out (read that somewhere, forgot where, not my quote) so you listen to everyone and make a well-informed decision and calculated risk, where applicable, and you acquire as much information as possible and as you can compute and that's relevant to the decision you're trying to make and use your best tools and methods to arrive at the most rational decision depending on your goals, constraints and values.

You don't just change your mind the next time a fool regurgitates some stupid fallacious illogical arguments they heard and were influenced by some mindless idiot or manipulative sociopath who doesn't understand or scrutinize their beliefs but just adopts the next best idea that 'feels' good and that they happen to like, just being guided by their visceral primitive mind and intuitive desires and emotions and feelings, and there are more people like that than you might realize.

I'm also not saying that don't borrow any ideas, that's simply impossible (see my post, good artists borrow great artists steal) but what you can do is scrutinize each and everyone one of your core values and beliefs to understand what's important for you, what's rational for you, discover what you want out of life, and how you could live according to your true values and beliefs which depend on your inclinations and predisposition which are a product of your genes and early environment, which is also the reason I use the word "discover".

You would very soon also realize that it's not even possible to scrutinize every beliefs cause you don't have the cognitive or computational resources, information and time to do all that, so that's when you rely on the experts who have it all, which by the way is why they're called experts, and that's when your critical thinking skills come in, so you're once again not influenced by some "expert" who's spouting nonsensical BS that would crumble apart the second you do even basic-level investigation, so you try to learn what the consensus is and actively seek counter-arguments and evidence to the contrary, and keep doing this till your resources are exhausted and you have to settle with the best you have for now, and even then you go ahead with what you think might be the right thing (makes more sense to depend on intuition now) but always keep in mind that it might be wrong- nothing is absolutely true and certain- and open to changing your mind and recalibrating your beliefs to be more in line with reality when you come across such information.