TheYankInLondon

^ Everyone knows that... But fifth gear is a hell of a lot more informative about cars than top gear

ThisCouldBeHeavn

Hard to learn anything when you're asleep

enfieldacademy

For how smart I perceive you to be, and how I perceive your life to have been (relatively continuous, no big struggles, etc.) , I find this sort of heedlessness alarmingly sad.



Oh I don't know. I think I realized awhile ago you were smart and so i thought you would be interesting to me, but then I was woefully disappointed at various junctures when you turned out to be almost the opposite.

I am uncomfortable with criticizing people for who they are (I don't want to do that). But I want us all to try and reach our potentials (certainly there's ways we can increase net utility, and my hope is in a way that while initially maybe challenging, might turn out to be nicer for us in the end too).

TheYankInLondon

Again people find the misfortunes of others amusing... Failblog and *** are popular websites that succeed purely on this premise. In addition people like rantings and complaining thus the success of the comedian Lewis Black and others like him. Perhaps before you criticize me for extrapolating what I find amusing to the community perhaps you should think whether you are doing the same.

I actually find this quite creepy as I've never seen you post must around here until this thread. I'm sorry to have disappointed you, however if you tell me in exactly what ways you do not like me I will be glad to point out to you whether they are in fact personality traits or if there is an inherent ambiguity in my tone at times due to the fact that you only know me via text that I have posted.

SquealOfaRaven

lolz, to be frank, i'd rather have people laugh at my misfortunes rather than to genuinely hate me. and sometimes i'd rather have them laugh at my misfortunes rather than to care too much about me (in which case the relationship may be unstable because they'll get disappointed in me).

and quite frankly, it's much better for them to laugh at my misfortunes rather than to get annoyed at me.

frankly, it's really just one of the three. either they laugh at you, get annoyed with you, or start caring about you (maybe too much too)

Anyways, here's an interesting thread:

Is it "bad" to make fun of people/laugh at their weaknesses? - Less Wrong

==

i once created a "i like *** a lot. does that make me a sociopath" thread on CC, but I can't find it anymore for some reason.

enfieldacademy

I am not really criticizing you for extrapolating what you find amusing to the community, I am criticizing you (and I would more call it subjugating, as i don't know if it's inherently bad) on the grounds of what exactly you find amusing. Being amused by other's SADNESS is not failblog or ***-type humor I don't think.

It's more my perception of the quality of your existence that has irritated me in the past. I mean, to test my hypothesis about you I guess you could tell me whether your friends are noticeably less intelligent than you (this is what my ideas about you might predict).

TheYankInLondon

Sadness was meant in a tongue-in-cheek manner... I was thinking more of an anti-Valentine's Day diatribe rather than genuine sadness.

I actually do not know what you mean by "quality of my existence" but to answer the second part of your question: I have a few friends that are as intelligent as I am, I also have some that are not.

HarryJones

This is beautiful.

TheYankInLondon

This is turning into a TYiL hate thread isn't it....

HarryJones

^Lawl, no, (if that was because of what I said). I was commenting on how beautifully nerdy the statement was. It's like your "FWB is a highly efficient relationship paradigm".

Wartsandall

I ate pizza and received a lot of candy (most of which I consumed within 24 hours).

Aside from that though, it was just like any ordinary day.

TheYankInLondon

^^ Haha, fair enough that statement was fairly nerdy but still amusing (or so I thought that is why I kept it instead of trying to rephrase)

SquealOfaRaven

having been depressed before, i'll say this:

i think it's more "stable" to have people laugh at you than to experience the alternatives, which are NOT pretty at all. some people develop an intense hatred towards you, while others grow immensely frustrated with you (ESPECIALLY those who care about you the most). i once got depressed and I managed to get an *entire* community to hate me that way. if they simply laughed at me instead, they might have not hated me as much. they might have said "post more" instead.

besides, it's actually somewhat reassuring that you're making someone else briefly happier for a period of time. it's not like you're losing anything when people laugh at you (really).

so this is why i actually welcome it when people laugh at my sadness (seriously, I've turned it into a series of self-parody threads before - and i felt less useless when people laughed at them). anyways i'm not depressed anymore but it's a different perspective that i think depressed people need to look at.

enfieldacademy

I think the action stands regardless (for the most part). To provide explanations, etc., etc., that just clouds the picture. We cannot always qualify everything, and so on. Sometimes to just examine what was done - the action alone - is elucidating.

And even the action of making light of sadness is revealing in itself. I am not saying that you are amused by genuine sadness (i do not think that; and it is obviously not true); what I am saying is that by carelessly saying something that reflects that - that right there is what i disliked.

by my perception of your quality of existence I meant how I perceived you to be living.

enfieldacademy

I do not think depressed people gain much from looking at different perspectives...depression is a biological disease (as real as diabetes) with a genetic component, triggered by environmental stressors, and so on. Perspectives do not cure other diseases.


There are certain types of making fun of that are clearly distinct from hating. But where does ridicule fit in, etc. Optimism it always good when it works (which in your case it seems it did - realizing that there were worse alternatives, and that the attention of those laughing at you was at least that - attention). But I am sort of skeptical that perspective shifts are actually viable solutions to problems. Maybe someone didn't get happy because they changed their perspective - maybe getting happier allowed them to feel more optimistic.