Are You In Your 50s + and Out of The Loop?
“You are out of the loop,” she told me in that linked comment.
Oh, yes; I see: THE loop. But, I’m wondering just which of THE loop I’m out of.
– Am I out of the Solipsism loop, were, loosely stated, only one’s own personal experience is truly valid?
– Or, perhaps I’m out of the Dunning-Kruger loop, “a cognitive bias manifesting in unskilled individuals suffering from illusory superiority, mistakenly rating their ability much higher than is accurate. This bias is attributed to a metacognitive inability of the unskilled to recognize their ineptitude.”
– Maybe it’s just the run-of-mill circular reasoning loop I’m out of.
– The confirmation bias loop?
– Oh, here’s a great loop to be out of: Argumentum ad populum, “a fallacious argument that concludes a proposition to be true because many or most people believe it.”
…Well for sure I’m out of the wisdom and enlightened inexperience of youth, loop (basically, a combination of all of the foregoing loops, plus more). Hell, it’s really disappointing to realize how much less I know day by day—over the last 30 years, since the hubris of my 20s—as I rack up more experience in terms of days on planet, relationships of all sorts, starting businesses and actually making a profit last 3 businesses in a row after those first 2 failures during those cocksure 20s (at a tuition cost of $50k), managing employees (including many 20-somethings far wiser than I, naturally), etc.
If I only knew now what I knew back then… But it’s very difficult to stay in THE loop when with every passing day, more and more loops of all various kinds, circumstances, and contexts present themselves to me. Life is just so damn certain with only one loop: THE loop.
“All the sanguine guesswork of youth is there, and the silliness; all the novelty of being alive and impressed by the urgency of tremendous trivialities.” ― Siegfried Sassoon
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Free The Animal is an eclectic writing project about everything since November 2003. 23 years, 5,500 posts, 5 million words.
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I’m in my 60s and getting more and more comfortable with making my own loop … but some of the credit has to go to several years of reading writers like you.
Oh, to have the experience of my father or my grandfather. But still see the world with my own novel eyes.
I will get there. And, with the help of men/women like you, futher.
I’m just loopy.
You’re criticizing a real aspect of the culture, but her comment wasn’t an example of it. Richard, you helped to criticize someone for having their privacy invaded! Oh, wait, sorry – now it was just “exploited via human intelligence gathering.” The new American entreprenuership (no wonder the country’s in $17 trillion worth of debt).
Again: was it stupid, as a famous person, to have nude photos on a computer / at the cloud / in existence / whatever? Yes – but at what point does one refuse to stop pretending as if right and wrong doesn’t exist simply to be able to effectively combat wrong? At what point does it stop being worth it? If you reach the point, psychologically/spiritually, where you no longer regard evil as a deviation from nature, and instead cynically treat it like gravity or the need for sleep, there really isn’t any reason any more to protect the privacy (dignity) of your naked body. You’ll have reached a point emotionally where you won’t be able to enjoy using it anyway.
I yearn for the day when celebrities can leave their nude pictures in the cloud unmolested – because it will mean we will have returned to the days when people were able to leave their front doors unlocked. Anything less really isn’t worth living in.
Technically all a “cloud” is your own personal space in a massive public place.
There are a million exploits and ways in. Whats that old saying
“A lock is for an honest person.”
What these nitwits did with their pics is the equivalent of locking your door with a twist tie. I am not saying it is right that the hackers took liberty with the twist tie but when you leave a welcome mat out some people don’t have the strength of good character to not tug on the twist tie.
“but at what point does one refuse to stop pretending as if right and wrong doesn’t exist simply to be able to effectively combat wrong?”
Well, of course—and I’m certain you understand this—it’s a version of Rand’s “The Stolen Concept Fallacy.” This is what happens when right and wrong are based upon feelings and groupthink, rather than principles derived from the metaphysical.
What? What is a version of The Stolen Concept Fallacy? The idea that a picture which is clearly not intended for anyone and everyone to see, shouldn’t be looked at by anyone and everyone? Most people might believe in that because it feels good, but (because A is A), it also happens to be correct.
The “blinds weren’t left open” in these incidents. They were closed, and the window was down. Leaving it unlocked isn’t equivalent to putting up a sign which says “Hey, if you want to, slide this up, reach in, and twist the little vertical hanging plastic bar thing in order to open the blinds.”
I don’t think you’re really following very well.
1. In the former post, I clearly stated that it’s a case of trespass and petty theft. That would be, uh, wrong. But it’s not sexual assault.
2. The Stolen Concept applies to your own statement (I thought you were doing it on purpose, so perhaps my mistake) wherein people are pretending right and wrong doesn’t exist in order to right a wrong.
Ought I have used the standing on the tree branch you’re sawing off metaphor?
Look, my point – yet again – is that the only way to prevent people from looking at and disseminating your photos is to develop a level of cynicism that makes preserving the dignity of one’s naked body (through privacy) pointless. Are you going to address that or not?
“Are you going to address that or not?”
No. It doesn’t matter. Better, in my view, people get it through hard knocks in trying to have their cake and eat it too (another thing I put in my post that you obviously didn’t put any mental effort into integrating).
All I get out of this is someone starting that nihilism stuff (of which I suffer from mildly)… But I think the basic concept of not hurting others (as in taking their stuff included) can be agreed upon by any sane rational person.
At a minimum we must get society (I hate even saying that word) to understand any sort of aggression is bad.
Until then I suffer the fools that vote.
I tried to integrate it, but it’s place in the hierarchy was all wrong, so it wouldn’t fit.
Again, the metaphysical isn’t the man made. Evil – people ignoring the rights of others (or even just objectively valid standards of worthwhile behavior) – isn’t metaphysical. It’s the man made. It’s a choice. It doesn’t have to be – and internalizing that fact isn’t a weakness. You, however, think it is – because it doesn’t make one cynical enough to filter every decision and action through the prism not of living and enjoying oneself, but remaining guarded against evil.
And then, to ad insult to injury, you accuse the injured of being irrational – because they wish to have their nude photos and to keep them private too (as if they had posted them up in Times Square, “for safe keeping”, and then were complaining that the public saw them).
You’ve completely lost the distinction between the metaphysical and the man made – but I guess I shouldn’t expect much more from someone who owes his entire fortune to a willingness to exploit perverse government financial regulations (and then has the gaul to act as if he was in the same vein as the Rockefellers or the Carnegies of the world).
“You’ve completely lost the distinction between the metaphysical and the man made”
No, because I understand how natural rights are derived from the metaphysical nature of man, and you appear not to. I’m willing to bet that you couldn’t explain the derivation even maintaining your disagreement whereas you’re just another run of the mill guy who thinks all sense of right and wrong is human construct.
So, we have absolutely nothing to talk about. Hell, you don’t even understand the nature of my former business.
I don’t know about metaphysics or anything like that, but seriously? Keep the nudie pics in a safety deposit box.
Why is an underage potential celebrity chick getting nude pictures taken anyway? And then it’s supposed to be a problem when someone sees them? What about the person who took them? Is that not a problem to begin with?
It’s all great publicity and that’s the bottom (erm) line isn’t it?
I haven’t seen the pictures so as to exact content I cannot comment. But if I want to see tits and ass I just need to stand in front of the mirror.
Loops…
As in the thing at the end of a noose?
Or driving/pacing in circles (commuting to and fro, stressing about the Joneses’)?
Circular (loopy) logic?
Being in lock step with the masses?
Keep this flat earther far far away. I like having my own thoughts.
I’m glad to be out of the loop.
btw some anonymous broad named kathy really got under your skin.
seems like she called you old and somewhat less than virile and you started waving your eh brain around.
I’m a blogger, Elmo, with 4,000 posts. I’m always looking for something to write about and object lessons like that from out of nowhere are some of my favorite.
It’s easy to tell when something gets under my skin. Look at the time stamps on the comments.
Now,that said, do you actually have anything cogent to say about the post or are you simply looking to police my blogging, the most futile waste of time in the universe?
nah, nothing cogent to add, just observing :)
Hmmm
It seems what gets under yr skin is that she no “got u under my skin” or “under yoh thumb”.
But Ella would, or Jagged Mick –
youtube.com/watch?v=nYYTLJ8YHi4 –
Sláinte
You should watch “In The Loop”, you’ll appreciate it just for Capaldi’s insults: imdb.com/title/tt1226774/