“Reenactment” or “repetition compulsion” is the unconscious tendency to recreate circumstances, relationship dynamics, or emotional patterns that mirror past traumatic experiences. I first learned about this behavior pattern in the context of sexual assault trauma or romantic relationship dynamics, but I think it actually applies to quite a lot of things. For example, political debates. It often happens where someone is very aggressive in their stance while I am trying to deescalate and have a real conversation. I will perhaps find something to agree with them on but they will then mock me for that. And I’m just thinking, O, you don’t want understanding or agreement, you want a fight! You want to be angry and to yell at me! No doubt this person didn’t do a good job of standing up for themselves or their beliefs in some other time and place, and now they are attempting to correct that by reenacting that fight with me, and really sticking it to their opponent this time! Ya, that’s not much fun to be around. But once you see it….

I don't like the collectivist language here. I didn't fight to get paid, at least not in this life, that happened well before my time. But I am so very grateful to the women that did fight to get paid, cuz yes, women and mothers have always worked.

What does the word "capitalism" mean to you? And I don't need a dictionary or text book definition here, I'm looking for the associations that the word holds for you. So let's do word association! When I say "capitalism", what 5 other words come to mind?

This is not what a man looks like. This is someone who has intentionally, with all consuming dedication, cartoonified themselves for the entertainment of others. No doubt it’s impressive, and very eye catching! 👀 But very likely, for most women, not really that attractive. This dude is no fun. This guy will not join you on a wild night out and do shots and then have tacos. This guy will make your child together cry on their 5th birthday when he refuses to eat a piece of the birthday cake. You’ll never see this guy as he’s at the gym 3 hrs a day. He’s pretty miserable. Most women are going to want men that look like real men.

86 47 is a threat. It's fair to investigate that.

For a while the BDSM scene has been confusing to me, and a bit concerning. But, after many books and conversations, I think I understand why this exists. But first, a few very important disclaimers: Consenting adults can do whatever the fuck they want in the bedroom. I am not trying to say that people shouldn’t do these things, or even that they are unhealthy things to do. There clearly seems to be some therapeutic benefit. And I am of course speaking in broad generalities here. Humans are complex, people do these things for a wide variety of reasons. So let’s go with a typical setup here, a heterosexual pairing with a woman playing the sub role and a man playing the dom role. Alice and Bob. Alice was brought up in a time and place that taught her that women’s sexuality either didn’t exist, or was very shameful. Because of this sex and shame became fused in her head. Not at all helping this situation is her experiences with sexual abuse. Alice was sexually abused by a close male family member for a time during her adolescence. So not only are sex and shame fused in her head, she also has a hard time differentiating between sex, violence, and love. For her sex is difficult to experience without the themes of violence and shame and a power imbalance. When dealing with trauma people often do ‘reenactment’ where they attempt to recreate the stories, but this time with a different ending. Or sometimes they recreate in an attempt to process what happened and change their relationship to it. Alice seeks out interactions with BDSM doms and presents them with a list of her boundaries. A 3 page detailed list of things that are a hard no, things that are a soft no, and things that she’s comfortable with. This formality helps her to regain a sense of control over sexual interactions. Bob was an awkward and sensitive kid. His mother was erratic, at times manipulative or even abusive. She terrified him, he had no idea how to interact with her let alone connect to her. And as he entered adolescence this fear of his mother extended to women in general. Bob has generally not done very well with the ladies. He doesn’t know what to say or to do, he has no idea what they do or don’t want from him. He desperately wants them, but has no idea how to go about connecting with them. He feels as if he is a cocaine addict and women are people who unknowingly walk around all day with a briefcase of cocaine handcuffed to their wrist and ignore him. After a long dry spell Bob began to dabble in the BDSM world. He seeks out women to play the sub role. The formality of these relationships gives him some clarity in a situation that otherwise baffles him. And playing the dom role gives him a sense of control over an act whose absence has felt like constant humiliation. A BDSM interaction gives them both space to work through these things.

The internet can be an ugly place. Sometimes I'm scrolling and its all just... "XYZ is all the fault of women!" "ABC is caused by the Jews!" On and on. Sometimes it gets to me, but sometimes it's wildly flattering. Don't know if you knew, but apparently, I run the world 💅✨

A lot of people think they like direct communication, but what they actually like is not having to do the work of being considerate, and they don't like it when someone hands them the raw truth without consideration.

If you voted for this guy you should be embarrassed, and not due to any left vs right bullshit, but just cuz you fell for the lies... yet again!

Let's do AI predictions! AI and software development. I am very onboard with using AI as an efficiency tool. It just writes and reads code SOOO much faster than a human can. It makes me 5x more efficient. But, what about "agentic programing"? This is where a 'developer' spins up a team of AI agents and gives them different roles and has them build software without any human in the loop. One agent writes, one runs tests, one reviews, etc. etc. I am very nervous about this. I think it's possible that we develop quite a lot of slop. So here I don't want to debate these things. I'm don't have a horse to back here, I'm just curious and concerned. So please don't try to convince me of anything, but please do give me your predictions! In July 2028, what will be the state of all these projects built with agentic programing? Running smoothly? Works great and humans don't write code anymore? Security disasters? A maintainability nightmare? Too expensive to make business sense? What do you see happening here?

If you want to convince someone of something, you have to give them a way to think of themselves as the hero. And when someone hands you a villain to hate and tells you that you need to be heroic in fighting against them... pause for a moment, you might be being manipulated.

On a scale of 1-10, how would you rate your interpersonal conflict resolution skills?

You are a slave to the “Egregore” until you have learned to see the egregore. I am so sorry, humans are not the independent creatures that you want them to be. You are not the independent creature that you want to be. I am not the independent creature that I want to be. And it gets worse! The less aware of this issue we are, the more it controls us. The more you think you are above the impacts of “culture” the more susceptible to it you are. Now at this point you might be feeling what I’ve often felt when wrestling with this issue, perhaps you’re thinking “Hey, I’m not an automaton, I have free will!” And of course you are right. But you are a limited creature, very effected by and formed by your surroundings, that is developing free will. And the less you are aware of the limits of your biology, the more you are chained to it. Humans are, fundamentally, inseparably, at our very essence, down to the neurons in our brains, social creatures. This is fact. I could send you a library of evidence. We literally absorb and mirror some of the thought patters of those we spend a lot of time with, for example depression is contagious. The ideas we are surrounded by and the things we experience as a child literally forms the structure of our brains. Our social-ness, our ability to form tribes, this is the human survival technique. We are not bigger, we are not stronger, we are not faster. In some ways we are more intelligent, but not in other ways. We have survived by forming groups. One human vs one tiger and the human is lunch. Ten humans vs one tiger and the tiger is lunch. This is essential to the human species. The egregore, the collective unconscious is our survival technique. Our ability to do this is why we still exist. Only through the understanding of this reality do we gain independence from it. We become independent creatures when we realize that we have not been. We gain independence from the egregore when we learn to see it. So it’s not a question of if culture comes from people or people come from culture… it’s a dance between the two. And the more we are aware of the dance, the more we can lead it.  And it's so, so important that we see this reality as it is very much used against us. Language triggers tribal feelings. We all, yes even you, have exclusion panic baked deep into our brains. Seeing this and knowing how to use it is the special skill of politicians and marketeers. We will not be free from this manipulation until we have learned to see the egregore. So this is really a massive, MASSIVE, issue. It's the next phase in human evolution! The egregore got us to where we are now, and now we need to evolve past it.

I’ve done a lot of different things in my 43 years on planet Earth, but learning Spanish is one of the coolest. I watch YouTube travel videos en español & just sit there & marvel at my ability to understand it. It still blows my mind every time! 🤯

"I myself have never been able to find out precisely what feminism is: I only know that people call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from a doormat." - Rebecca West I think about this quote nearly everyday. It's so true. I'm really bummed that I didn't come up with it. Quite often when I call someone out on their disrespect they shout "feminist!" at me as if that would hurt my feelings 🤷‍♀️

Bitcoin isn’t a revolution, it’s evolution. Revolution is changing one figure head at the top of the power structure for another. Evolution is removing the need for the power structure.