Hello everybody, I'm interested in morality...

[Jebus]

Welcome smc.

I totally agree with you that the world is a complete shit hole. The thing that keeps me functioning as a reasonably happy person is the knowledge that I have the ability to make the world a better place.

[AlexanderVeganTheist]

Hi smc,

I'm touched by you sharing your feelings here. It kind of reminds me of some of the feelings of depression I had in the past. I think before you take a plunge into psycho-active medicine - that in my experience with them will just numb you more to pleasure than you already are - you should try to experience anger. That would be my advice. Scream into a pillow until your throat hurts, connecting to the frustration you feel about existing. Hit the pillow and connect to the anger you have about existence and you personally existing. Make sure you do it in a safe way, (where your safe to lose control a bit) but actually connect to your true feelings. Then after that top layer of anger - that you're suppressing right now - is at least brought to your awareness, you might connect to deeper feelings. I just think you need to have a big cry before reaching to pharmaceuticals.


I saw a butterfly today, sure it will die someday and possibly suffer a little bit, but it gave me quite a bit of pleasure while I was watching it while it existed, and I'm sure it was experiencing pleasure too, in its own limited way.


There is also at least one illogicality in your thinking - if you care about minimizing suffering and maximizing pleasure in the world, you should also care about minimizing suffering and maximizing pleasure for yourself. You are just as well a part of the world as anything else. But because your behavior affects you yourself the most, you have the most responsibility towards yourself. That is not selfish - that is simply a very effective way of creating pleasure and happiness in the world - taking care of yourself.

Take care, I love you,

[Jebus]

you should try to experience anger. That would be my advice. Scream into a pillow until your throat hurts, connecting to the frustration you feel about existing. Hit the pillow and connect to the anger you have about existence and you personally existing.

This is bullshit advice. I have a Master's degree in Psychology and one of the things I do recall from my studies is that a full release of your anger does not help. In fact, it often has the opposite effect.

[brimstoneSalad]

This is bullshit advice. I have a Master's degree in Psychology and one of the things I do recall from my studies is that a full release of your anger does not help. In fact, it often has the opposite effect.

I think this comes from his belief that emotions are substances that can be bottled, or flow from place to place.

Which is a great example of how his pseudoscientific beliefs (not founded on reality) can do harm to the real world.

Because emotions are generated internally, expressing and fixating on overwhelming anger like that creates just more anger. It's not being released and gotten rid of, it's being generated de novo from an unlimited source. And it doesn't come out of you either; you just stew in it.

Anger begets anger. You're just reinforcing your own behaviors.

That said, there are reasons it can be good to shift from a state of wallowing in depression to anger; anger is a much more active and functionally motivating emotion. Depression just makes you useless. I would be wary of what you might actually do in that state, though.

I would only see it as useful for a temporary measure of transition. Are you in a shit situation? Well, then maybe you should get angry. Tear down the walls. It is the destructive potential of anger, in certain limited situations, that yields its utility. Focusing it on a pillow might be... fruitless, at best.

There is also at least one illogicality in your thinking - if you care about minimizing suffering and maximizing pleasure in the world, you should also care about minimizing suffering and maximizing pleasure for yourself.

Well, that's utilitarian reasoning (hi utility monster), and I don't agree with that. I don't think we should consider ourselves as being moral for pleasing ourselves; that's just default selfish human behavior. Morality is what goes beyond that.

HOWEVER, he should pay more attention to how he is seen by others, and serve as a better example of a vegan. Being happy is an important part of that. Nobody is going to be interested in being moral if it just makes you miserable. And there's no reason it should. As EquALLity said, you being happy likely does no harm. Enjoy the beauty in life, and let it motivate you even more.

Our wills aren't impervious machines, churning on at maximal efficiency no matter what. They're more like hungry dogs who do tricks for treats. Do something good? Then reward yourself for it by listening to some music. That kind of habit will make you MORE productive, not less.

[Cirion Spellbinder]

Welcome smc!
You remind me a lot of myself. I'd definitely recommend taking the antidepressants and continue your discussion with brimstoneSalad. Taking the antidepressants gave me a better grasp of how I was wrong and helped me better engage in discussion to prove my other ideas wrong.

[AlexanderVeganTheist]

This is bullshit advice. I have a Master's degree in Psychology and one of the things I do recall from my studies is that a full release of your anger does not help. In fact, it often has the opposite effect.

Just because you got taught this in your Master of Psychology doesn't make it true obviously. Basically that education acts as a shill for the pharmaceutical industry, a multi-billion dollar industry. Psycho-pharmaceuticals are made to cause dependence, psychiatry doesn't offer cures, but describes life long, or multi-year long usage of drugs to make the person more acceptable to society, all the while doing nothing about the historic and emotional causes of the persons illness. It's the reduction of man to machine, really.
About the idea that expressing anger just will create more anger, from experience, that's BS. It all depends on your intention with it. More below...

I think this comes from his belief that emotions are substances that can be bottled, or flow from place to place.

I do see it that way.

Which is a great example of how his pseudoscientific beliefs (not founded on reality) can do harm to the real world.

Your endorsement of antidepressants and neuroleptics (antipsychotics) no less, shows how a mechanistical, materialist conception of man does damage to real people. I've basically conquered schizo-affective disorder (which is basically a combination between manic-depression and schizophrenia), without medication for 6 years now, which according to the DSM is supposed to be a degenerative illness, and is supposed to be treated with 5 year long series of mind-numbing, affect-destroying medication that makes you fat and anhedonic, simply by: 1, understanding how spirits influence me based on my (repressed) emotions, and treating my interactions with them as real 2, deciding to become emotionally expressive, instead of repressive. All my friends that I remember that did decide to follow the psychiatric authorities, don't have a life basically, are really fat, numb, have no expression of emotions, no joy, no enthusiasm.

By the way, you can believe that being emotionally expressive is good for your mental health, even if you don't believe emotions are substances or that spirits exist.

Because emotions are generated internally, expressing and fixating on overwhelming anger like that creates just more anger. It's not being released and gotten rid of, it's being generated de novo from an unlimited source. And it doesn't come out of you either; you just stew in it.

Anger begets anger. You're just reinforcing your own behaviors.

That said, there are reasons it can be good to shift from a state of wallowing in depression to anger; anger is a much more active and functionally motivating emotion. Depression just makes you useless. I would be wary of what you might actually do in that state, though.

I would only see it as useful for a temporary measure of transition. Are you in a shit situation? Well, then maybe you should get angry. Tear down the walls. It is the destructive potential of anger, in certain limited situations, that yields its utility. Focusing it on a pillow might be... fruitless, at best.

It depends on your intention with getting angry: if the intention is to get out of your insipid state of depression, and into expressing grief, than it can only work. It shouldn't be your intention to be angry all the time.

This theory that you and Jebus seem to subscribe, that deciding to express a certain feeling just reinforces that feeling, is not true at all. Admitting to yourself you are frustrated (which is a form of anger), if you are, is the first step to understanding yourself better. If you deny your feelings, it will just create bigger problems in the future - you can see this without subscribing to a soul or "emotions are substances" belief. You will feel a sense of relief after the emotion is gone from you. It is possible to generate feelings de novo, but you can also get to the bottom of them and exhaust them, if you desire to see the truth about them. I'm not saying he should generate anger all the time, but investigate and express what's already there. To consciously direct this at a pillow is a whole lot better than unwittingly directing it at people around you, obviously.

The best thing to do is allow what comes up, after coming out of your passive-agressive state that is depression. I think smc has a lot of fear(s) too. Fear is a really unpleasant emotions to feel/express/release, but it's really worth it. Once you become softened (not angry anymore) towards your own sadness, than the journey to happiness can really begin.

After you've cried real tears of sadness, you often feel relieved (at least I do). After I've cried, I feel, "whew, that's a relief", and I feel so soft and gentle I couldn't hurt a fly. From a brain chemistry perspective you can see how after a big cry, some chemical rebalancing might occur.

[Jebus]

Just because you got taught this in your Master of Psychology doesn't make it true obviously. Basically that education acts as a shill for the pharmaceutical industry, a multi-billion dollar industry. Psycho-pharmaceuticals are made to cause dependence, psychiatry doesn't offer cures, but describes life long, or multi-year long usage of drugs to make the person more acceptable to society, all the while doing nothing about the historic and emotional causes of the persons illness. It's the reduction of man to machine, really.
About the idea that expressing anger just will create more anger, from experience, that's BS. It all depends on your intention with it. More below...

Oh goodness! I don't even know where to start. Your experience obviously trumps all the research that has been done over the years.

[AlexanderVeganTheist]

Just because you got taught this in your Master of Psychology doesn't make it true obviously. Basically that education acts as a shill for the pharmaceutical industry, a multi-billion dollar industry. Psycho-pharmaceuticals are made to cause dependence, psychiatry doesn't offer cures, but describes life long, or multi-year long usage of drugs to make the person more acceptable to society, all the while doing nothing about the historic and emotional causes of the persons illness. It's the reduction of man to machine, really.
About the idea that expressing anger just will create more anger, from experience, that's BS. It all depends on your intention with it. More below...

Oh goodness! I don't even know where to start. Your experience obviously trumps all the research that has been done over the years.

Modern psychiatry has a pretty bad record of helping people with emotional problems. If you don't think monetary investments play a role in medicine, I don't know what to tell you either. Or do you trust the pharmaceutical/medical profession to come clean about the relationship between heart disease and cancers and the consumption of meat as well? That would make a difference in billions of dollars in profit per year.

[Jebus]

Modern psychiatry has a pretty bad record of helping people with emotional problems. If you don't think monetary investments play a role in medicine, I don't know what to tell you either. Or do you trust the pharmaceutical/medical profession to come clean about the relationship between heart disease and cancers and the consumption of meat as well? That would make a difference in billions of dollars in profit per year.

Why are you writing about psychiatry? I agree they have a bad record (albeit improving) but that is so irrelevant to the discussion. It is quite evident that you haven't learned the difference between psychology and psychiatry and therefore mesh them into one and the same.

[AlexanderVeganTheist]

OK, it was a bit off topic. But you implied that to release anger would not result into a person getting to a deeper emotion, but rather would 'fortify' their anger. There's a difference between generating anger and holding on to it, choosing it, and being truthful to what is currently there. Such general conclusions as "expressing anger just begets more anger" from studies that have experimented in a particular manner with anger, seem unwarranted.