Alternatives to mindless pleasure

[Time Curator 23]

I thought of some loose ends on dopamine addiction. At the moment, through porn, games, and drugs, anyone in the industrialized world has the option to slide into unproductive pleasure. Without these technologies, some people can still do this, but only if they have very strong imaginations. In civilized culture, these are the "dreamers", and a few become great artists and philosophers. In primitive culture, these must be the people who become shamans.

Some questions: If you use your own imagination to self-administer dopamine, in what ways does this make you stronger than if you were to do the same thing with external tools? In industrial society, is it better to get pleasure through solitary daydreaming, than by engaging with other people in "useful" activities that are mostly harmful? Is there anything we get pleasure from anymore, that is unquestionably good? And now that everyone can get dopamine-addicted, how do we play the advantage of having a strong imagination?

- Ran Prieur

Porn? Don't need it because my girlfriend is amazing. Games? Play them with my siblings but not excessively. Drugs? Do them with close friends or alone but only once in a while.

Never thought I'd experience this personally, but recently being in touch with the "creative" and "interesting" people I knew in high school and college ("artists", "musicians", "thinkers"), most of them now:

* Have not been in a sexual relationship for over four years (what the fuck?)
* Play games or watch movies way too much
* Smoke weed every single day and become bored or irritated like little brats if the social night's agenda is something other than sitting around smoking weed
* Have produced little

This is not another "I'm / we're so well behaved and everyone else is going down hill!" thread. This is a "how do we have a social life if the people to socialize with are becoming bitter burnouts?" thread.

How do we get people to be constructive again? Am I expecting too much? Am I being too optimistic? Am I being too "liberal"? Time to start community events / organizations? Any thoughts?

[Cargést]

Kill the weak.  Simple.

[nothingnowhere]

Kill the weak.  Simple.

Have fun changing the world.

I mean, sitting moodily in your room.

[Dinaric Leather]

* Have not been in a sexual relationship for over four years (what the fuck?)

All of that list applied to a lot of friends I had in High School except this one. Most of my peers had excessive sex with people they barely knew.

[Chessnut]

Time to start community events / organizations? Any thoughts?

I've recently jumped into the whole "community" thing with my university. I'll be a leader doing orientation week for first year engineering students. The other leaders I've met within the engineering faculty are nothing short of intelligent, natural born leaders and I can safely admit that I barely can compare with them. I think a big issue with people on the forum is that they don't interact with people outside metal is because they are too turned off by the idea of exposing themselves to top 40 music and very liberal/humanitarian paradigms. Well, from my experience, by getting to know these people realized that they aren't much different than myself. Sure, they may not realize that most people are sheep, are unaware of the coming "apocalypse" and listen to bad music, but at least at my stage of life, those things are very insignificant. Student life persists in a bubble, so exposure to the perverse lesser men is minimal, making it a very fostering environment, which means it's more simple than not to work toward a goal.

[devolved]

Chessnut: I've had the same experience at church.

[dawn]

I thought of some loose ends on dopamine addiction. At the moment, through porn, games, and drugs, anyone in the industrialized world has the option to slide into unproductive pleasure. Without these technologies, some people can still do this, but only if they have very strong imaginations. In civilized culture, these are the "dreamers", and a few become great artists and philosophers. In primitive culture, these must be the people who become shamans.

Some questions: If you use your own imagination to self-administer dopamine, in what ways does this make you stronger than if you were to do the same thing with external tools? In industrial society, is it better to get pleasure through solitary daydreaming, than by engaging with other people in "useful" activities that are mostly harmful? Is there anything we get pleasure from anymore, that is unquestionably good? And now that everyone can get dopamine-addicted, how do we play the advantage of having a strong imagination?

- Ran Prieur

Porn? Don't need it because my girlfriend is amazing. Games? Play them with my siblings but not excessively. Drugs? Do them with close friends or alone but only once in a while.

Never thought I'd experience this personally, but recently being in touch with the "creative" and "interesting" people I knew in high school and college ("artists", "musicians", "thinkers"), most of them now:

* Have not been in a sexual relationship for over four years (what the fuck?)
* Play games or watch movies way too much
* Smoke weed every single day and become bored or irritated like little brats if the social night's agenda is something other than sitting around smoking weed
* Have produced little

This is not another "I'm / we're so well behaved and everyone else is going down hill!" thread. This is a "how do we have a social life if the people to socialize with are becoming bitter burnouts?" thread.

How do we get people to be constructive again? Am I expecting too much? Am I being too optimistic? Am I being too "liberal"? Time to start community events / organizations? Any thoughts?

You need to do a little spring cleaning; stop associating with anyone who fits this bill. I used to be surrounded by "friends" like this until I realized they were dragging me down and quickly cut them out of my life. My life has greatly improved in every way imaginable.

[Cargést]

Kill the weak.  Simple.

Have fun changing the world.

I mean, sitting moodily in your room.

Learn to metaphor.

To spell it out for you:

You need to do a little spring cleaning; stop associating with anyone who fits this bill. I used to be surrounded by "friends" like this until I realized they were dragging me down and quickly cut them out of my life. My life has greatly improved in every way imaginable.

[nothingnowhere]

Kill the weak.  Simple.

Have fun changing the world.

I mean, sitting moodily in your room.

Learn to metaphor.

To spell it out for you:

You need to do a little spring cleaning; stop associating with anyone who fits this bill. I used to be surrounded by "friends" like this until I realized they were dragging me down and quickly cut them out of my life. My life has greatly improved in every way imaginable.

There's a difference between making a metaphor and trying to show off how bad ass you are. You don't need to prove to anyone here how "metal" you are. I get the sentiment and I do appreciate a lot of the things you contribute here, and I'm only saying this to help you realize it, but when you say shit like that you only come off as childish and bitter.

It's obvious there was no metaphor in your words, don't try and change the meaning of what you said.

[scourge]

He's saying kill the weak as a revived cultural value that can take many forms including simple exclusion, not kill the weak as an individual action to take right now.

[Cargést]

He's saying kill the weak as a revived cultural value that can take many forms including simple exclusion, not kill the weak as an individual action to take right now.

This.

[Umbrage]

* Have not been in a sexual relationship for over four years (what the fuck?)
* Play games or watch movies way too much
* Smoke weed every single day and become bored or irritated like little brats if the social night's agenda is something other than sitting around smoking weed
* Have produced little
* Spend all day on internet forums talking about "killing the weak"

How do we get people to be constructive again? Am I expecting too much? Am I being too optimistic? Am I being too "liberal"? Time to start community events / organizations? Any thoughts?

Fix'd that for you

[reasonable]

I have had this sort of problem with friends before. In fact, it's sort of the case right now. I fix that by finding new friends. I don't care to waste my time trying to fix negative people. They bring my mood down, which I really don't need because I'm moody by nature and try my best to stay positive. Let them rot. If they ever decide to get out of whatever funk they're in, they can get in touch with you.

[istaros]

Yes, let's just wait for the world to fix itself! The Second Coming is nigh!

[Demiurge94]

I'm teenager in high school and I have such a small circle of friends because everybody else pretty much waste their time with relationship problems that are simple to fix, or the most common, doing drugs. Most of them smoke weed and drink alcohol and even worse, listen to ska. So most kids in school are a waste of my time.