u/Hatrct

I will start off with an easy example. "Karens". It has been many years that the term "Karen" has been a thing. Yet, even today, there are many Karens in the wild, and they are completely oblivious as to how they are perceived. Even before the term "Karen" was popularized, people already knew the concept/type of person, it was mostly referred to as the "I want to see the manager" type. So even before the term Karen, how were these people so oblivious as to not realize who/how they were?

There are tons of other stereotypical characters and most people fall under one of them. Yet again, they seem completely oblivious to it. I mean how can you go your entire life not realizing this? How can you not put 2 and 2 together? How can you not use your eyes and ears and not detect such basic patterns and ask yourself even once after years/decades "am I being like that?" or "how do others perceive me"?

I just find it bizarre: most people fall into a stereotypical way of being/thinking, and they remain completely oblivious to this. I don't get how you can go your entire life and the question "is what I am believing in/how I am acting right? Where did it come from? How does it come across to others? The stuff I find bad or annoying in others, is it possible that there is even one thing about me that evokes this same perception in others? Do I need to change?" Yet bizarrely for the vast majority, they are like NPCs and go their entire life never once having one of these questions even pop up in their mind, or if it does, they certainly let it fade away without give it another thought.

I heard with the new movie about backrooms that it all started with a picture of an empty furniture warehouse. But I think video games started liminality. In particular, games like Doom and Wolfenstein 3d. You were one guy having to fight many enemies stuck in a distant/enclosed place. You had to go from room to room and before meeting enemies the rooms and corridors were empty and liminal and you had dread because you know enemies or monsters would be lurking around the corner. And again, you were all alone and away from home. And the early 90s video games had weak graphics, which was all that was needed for walls and rooms. The weak graphics also were good enough to make out what it was, but not enough to be realistic. So you were in a sort of weird limbo, as if you were in another world that was real but unreal. I even remember as a kid going to liminal real life spaces alone and pretending I was playing doom. Then even games like Mario, Half-life, Tomb Raider, Zelda Ocarina of time, etc... all inherently had liminal qualities and vibes.

What are your views of how the internet has progressed?

I think in general millenials and xennelials are in a unique position in this regard. They grew up with the internet. Older people may have also been using the internet since its beginning, but it is different because they were already adults.

Do you remember the mid to late 90s, Windows 95, the first operating system for many people, going on paint for the first time=mid blown. Or, those colored big round mac monitor/computers. Remember AOL 28.8 and 56.6 free dial up trial CDs? Being cut off when someone picked up the phone? Internet explorer and netscape navigator? Geocities? HTML websites with view counts on them? Ask Jeeves? Yahoo in all its glory? Then "guys there is this new search engine it is even better than Yahoo it is called google". Cool and interesting/unique websites (unlike now when there are only a few websites everyone goes to). The little gifs that seemed so revolutionary and technologically advanced at the time? Wordart titles? Microsoft Clippy? Morpheus and Napster? And on a darker note, the internet was not regulated so even children ended up on websites like ogrish.

Then around the turn of the millenium, windows XP came and it looked so colorful and cool and experimental (frutiger aero anyone?), with optimism of the new millenium and people were feeling like technology would significantly advance. Do you remember the original msn messenger? And how it progressed throughout the 2000s? The feeling when your best friend or crush would sign in with the sound on the bottom right of the screen? Later on the nudge feature and animations. Some may have used yahoo messenger. Also pidgin allowed you to use microsoft and yahoo interchat. Remember when opening a gmail account was based on invites only and people felt special for having a gmail account?

Remember Kazaa, then bearshare/limewire? Then bittorrent? Waiting an hour to download a song? Remember Yahoo Launch music videos before youtube? Remember those bars at the top of your browser that would be installed by spyware? Remember spybot search and destroy? Websites like funnyjunk and ebaumsworld. You kicked my dog. End of Zeh world. Flash games like Candystand minigolf.

Then in the mid 2000s Wikipedia and Youtube came. Then the original youtubers, Charlie candy mountain, salad fingers. Original youtube pranksters replacing candid camera. Internet forums. Myspace was the first social media.

Late 2000s/early 2010s was start of things like f7u12 and 4chan. Windows 7 have come out and it was a better version of windows XP: better functionality while also looking even nicer/cooler. Smart phones became mainstream, and more people started using their phone for internet. Omegle had just come out. It was still good, it coincided with end of msn messenger so you went from chatting with real life friends to strangers. Memes started exploding. Took an arrow to the knee meme. Reddit was still for "nerds". Facebook became mainstream. People were still downloading songs from youtube.

By mid/late 2010s reddit became mainstream. Windows 10 came and had good functionality but did not look as cool as windows xp/7, it was more minimalist. Many things in society began to lose color and become minimalist too around this time. Internet forums had all but ended. Facebook started being replaced by instagram. Everybody used whatsapp to chat. Most people shift to using internet on their phones rather than desktop/laptop. The main way to listen to songs was streaming. Youtubers became less creative and started parroting each other, and hyper-famous youtubers became a thing. Children started watching cartoons on ipads and youtube rather than television. In general everything became centralized, a few corporations run the internet. Flash ended and so too did flash games. Now, you need to download an app to play games, and it would typically be on your phone, not desktop/laptop. Some stores even force you to download an app for basic functionality. Some cars even started to require online subscriptions to use features of the car. People's homes began incorporating internet, like Alexa. People's lights, laundry machines, etc.. became connected to the internet. Also, around this time internet began to become more censored, for example even liveleak eventually shut down and there is no alternative.

And the pandemic further solidified the changes described above in mid/late 2010s. And AI replaced google search.

Which era did you like best? I think the mid-late 2000s was a nice balance of practicality/technological advancement while still being novel/experimental. And I liked the desktop era in general compared to smartphone era also because it was before social media. I also liked internet forums more than reddit.

What are your views of how the internet has progressed?

I think in general millenials and xennelials are in a unique position in this regard. They grew up with the internet. Older people may have also been using the internet since its beginning, but it is different because they were already adults.

Do you remember the mid to late 90s, Windows 95, the first operating system for many people, going on paint for the first time=mid blown. Or, those colored big round mac monitor/computers. Remember AOL 28.8 and 56.6 free dial up trial CDs? Being cut off when someone picked up the phone? Internet explorer and netscape navigator? Geocities? HTML websites with view counts on them? Ask Jeeves? Yahoo in all its glory? Then "guys there is this new search engine it is even better than Yahoo it is called google". Cool and interesting/unique websites (unlike now when there are only a few websites everyone goes to). The little gifs that seemed so revolutionary and technologically advanced at the time? Wordart titles? Microsoft Clippy? Morpheus and Napster? And on a darker note, the internet was not regulated so even children ended up on websites like ogrish.

Then around the turn of the millenium, windows XP came and it looked so colorful and cool and experimental (frutiger aero anyone?), with optimism of the new millenium and people were feeling like technology would significantly advance. Do you remember the original msn messenger? And how it progressed throughout the 2000s? The feeling when your best friend or crush would sign in with the sound on the bottom right of the screen? Later on the nudge feature and animations. Some may have used yahoo messenger. Also pidgin allowed you to use microsoft and yahoo interchat. Remember when opening a gmail account was based on invites only and people felt special for having a gmail account?

Remember Kazaa, then bearshare/limewire? Then bittorrent? Waiting an hour to download a song? Remember Yahoo Launch music videos before youtube? Remember those bars at the top of your browser that would be installed by spyware? Remember spybot search and destroy? Websites like funnyjunk and ebaumsworld. You kicked my dog. End of Zeh world. Flash games like Candystand minigolf.

Then in the mid 2000s Wikipedia and Youtube came. Then the original youtubers, Charlie candy mountain, salad fingers. Original youtube pranksters replacing candid camera. Internet forums. Myspace was the first social media.

Late 2000s/early 2010s was start of things like f7u12 and 4chan. Windows 7 have come out and it was a better version of windows XP: better functionality while also looking even nicer/cooler. Smart phones became mainstream, and more people started using their phone for internet. Omegle had just come out. It was still good, it coincided with end of msn messenger so you went from chatting with real life friends to strangers. Memes started exploding. Took an arrow to the meme. Reddit was still for "nerds". Facebook became mainstream. People were still downloading songs from youtube.

By mid/late 2010s reddit became mainstream. Windows 10 came and had good functionality but did not look as cool as windows xp/7, it was more minimalist. Many things in society began to lose color and become minimalist too around this time. Internet forums had all but ended. Facebook started being replaced by instagram. Everybody used whatsapp to chat. Most people shift to using internet on their phones rather than desktop/laptop. The main way to listen to songs was streaming. Youtubers became less creative and started parroting each other, and hyper-famous youtubers became a thing. Children started watching cartoons on ipads and youtube rather than television. In general everything became centralized, a few corporations run the internet. Flash ended and so too did flash games. Now, you need to download an app to play games, and it would typically be on your phone, not desktop/laptop. Some stores even force you to download an app for basic functionality. Some cars even started to require online subscriptions to use features of the car. People's homes began incorporating internet, like Alexa. People's lights, laundry machines, etc.. became connected to the internet. Also, around this time internet began to become more censored, for example even liveleak eventually shut down and there is no alternative.

And the pandemic further solidified the changes described above in mid/late 2010s. And AI replaced google search.

Which era did you like best? I think the mid-late 2000s was a nice balance of practicality/technological advancement while still being novel/experimental. And I liked the desktop era in general compared to smartphone era also because it was before social media. I also liked internet forums more than reddit.

This is nothing new.

Basically, this documentary shows that some whisteblower found that a bunch of rich people from around the world were hiding money/evading taxes in Liechtenstein. A bunch of countries like Germany used this info to prosecute their tax fraudsters. But Canada made a deal with Liechtenstein in a manner to ensure that this would not longer be allowed for new Canadians, but the existing 100+ Canadian millionaires who did this were allowed to keep anonymity and continue this practice not just for themselves, but there was a clause that this would be generational: their children would get to perpetually continue this practice anonymously as well. I wonder why? Could it possibly be that some of those Canadians implicated were directly or indirectly related to the Canadian govt?

The documentary also shows how Canada's tax agency broke its own rules and erroneously went after 2 honest citizens, and their lives were ruined for years trying to defend themselves.

Canada goes after the middle/working class, but does not seem to touch the wealthy class. A true neoliberal oligarchy.

For more context: Canada is still collecting back pandemic benefits from those who were locked down by the government from working and who apparently did not qualify, while they also had another program for businesses that was taken advantage of big corporations: of course, no collection action ever commenced against those. They got to pocket middle/working class tax payer's money to the tune of millions of dollars:

https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/cra-covid-cews-complaints-1.5991108

Canada was also the worst at collecting money from its tax cheats who were exposed in Panama papers:

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/tax-evasion-paradise-papers-1.4941931

EDIT/UPDATE: this post got more popular than I thought: unfortunately, our days of even being able to openly post this stuff is numbered, watch out for legislations that they are trying to sneak through that curbs freedom of speech under the guise of things like "protecting the children" or curbing subjectively-determined (by them) "hate speech". They realize that the tide is turning and this is their response. We have to be aware.

Social interaction is pretty good if things line up well. But they often don't. People usually find a way to ruin it.

If it is friendship, it will always be ruined by things like jealousy, one side disproportionately using the other, backstabbing, etc...

If it is playing team sports, there will always be 1 or more who ruin things because they put themselves ahead of the team.

If it is making plans, someone will find a way to ruin it by changing plans last second, being late, etc...

If on online forums like this one there will always be people who ruin it by downvoting/censoring things for no rational reason and stifling discussion as a result. I had posted something innocent and it was generating good discussion but a few people who subjectively disliked some parts downvoted it and buried it and stifled the discussion or they say insults: if you don't like it move on, why do you have to ruin it for others? This is why we can't have nice things. And in real life it is difficult to find people who like to discuss the same things you do, so your only practical option is to come here. But then it is ruined due to those people.

Ever notice almost all movements get ruined because people will find a way to infight. The only time this is not the case if there is strong leadership with rules. But in non formal setting this is not practically going to happen.

I don't think I am being overly negative, I just think this is how it is objectively, unfortunately. Again, social interactions can be great, and in rare cases if you get lucky they are. But practically speaking, one or a few always find a way to ruin it. So it is like chasing unicorns. After a certain amount of life experience you get tired and realize its not worth it. So naturally, you learn to withdraw and try to enjoy being on your own.

When do you think was the golden era? I think every generation will have some bias, but I think objectively some things were better during certain times.

I am sure times like 50-80s definitely had their charm and were in amazing in many sense, but I would say overall the 90s/2000s were the best, especially mid 90s to mid 2000s. Tons of legendary tv shows/movies/music/video games/cartoons/toys. It was simply ridiculous: it was like every show was a banger, like you turned on tv what do you wanna watch friends, sienfeld, fresh prince, etc... you wanted to play video games, classic after classic, going from 2d games to 3d games in late 90s was like sorcery, you want to read a book how about harry potter, etc... it is like that was "normal" for us but we did not realize that it was not going to last.. I am not saying there is no good media now (for example, to be fair, now pranks are better, in the past there was stuff like candid camera that was kinda lame but now some of the youtube pranksters do more raw stuff and its funnier) but it seems like it is far and few in between compared to the past.

It was before social media and smartphones so there was less polarization. Having said that, to be fair, I think in other/certain ways people have recently actually become more relaxed... that is, in some ways people have become more polarized and angry, but at at individual level it seems like people are more "chill" in recent years. For example, people just used to be more "serious" back then, but now people are like "bruh" even older people and they smile or laugh more but back then people would take things more seriously such as physically fighting over girls or insults, and younger people were more likely to be in gangs, but this happens less these days.

But overall 90s/2000s still seemed magical. There was more color everywhere, but now it is mostly about grey practical box designs for stores. It also seemed like there was still a lot of novelty around technology and other things back then, it seems like now everything has already been done and there is nothing really new or innovative anymore, and even when there is such as AI it is typically not in a good direction overall.

I used to play a lot of games. But as I got older I have less energy and motivation. I might still pick up the odd game if it is really good, for example, the last game I played was RDR2 because how can you miss that. But that is how good a game has to be now for me to be motivated to play it. I think it is a mixture of "been there done that" + age + changing nature of games (that I don't like). Anyone else like this? Also, now instead of playing games I find myself watching youtube playthroughs of other people playing my childhood games. I even sometimes watch playthroughs of newer games, like the new Resident Evil Requiem game, it seemed like watching a movie, but sometimes I fast forward some of the gameplay until it reaches the next cutscene.

I used to play a lot of games. But as I got older I have less energy and motivation. I might still pick up the odd game if it is really good, for example, the last game I played was RDR2 because how can you miss that. But that is how good a game has to be now for me to be motivated to play it. I think it is a mixture of "been there done that" + decreasing quality of games + age. Anyone else like this? Also, now instead of playing games I find myself watching youtube playthroughs of other people playing my childhood games. I even sometimes watch playthroughs of newer games, like the new Resident Evil Requiem game, it seemed like watching a movie, but sometimes I fast forward some of the gameplay until it reaches the next cutscene.

Personally, I loved the 90s/2000s for gaming. More specifically, late 90s to mid 2000s. I played and saw older games (before 90s) and there are definitely some good games in that era and they have their own charm, but I think the 3d revolution in the late 90s was a mindblowing leap in terms of graphics, gameplay, and immersion. But since 2010ish, there seems to have been diminishing returns in terms of all these aspects. A game from 2020+ will only slightly look better than a game from 2010. I mean look at Crysis (2007), it still looks "modern". Even look at some of the games as early as 2000, they still look reasonably good/3d. I find the late 90s to mid 2000s had the perfect mix of technological novelty, graphics, storytelling, and gameplay. I also found those games to be more immersive: while modern games look better, I find them less immersive, because now the graphics are so good that you feel like you watch watching a movie/you do not identify with the character you play as, it seems like you are "watching" the character you are playing as. But in the late 90s to mid 2000s, there was a perfect balance: games looked reasonably nice graphically, but also the graphics were weak enough to create this sort of fantasy world as opposed to a movie.. in that sense you got drawn into that fantasy world and felt like you were literally in that world and were the character you were playing as.

The older games also did not handhold and instead of having a script that says "press x" you would actually have to find out what to do yourself, which made it more immersive and fun and less passive. Also, older games gave you better control over movement, which again increased immersion. What I mean by this is, if you pressed left, right, forward, back, jump, etc... there was the same exact degree of movement each time. Yes, it was less "realistic", but I think that modern games, by making the movement random/move like real life (e.g,, in a sport game you click left, and the athlete moves to their left like real life/with a set of realistic motions that is not always the same, sometimes you click left and they move a certain way, other times they slightly move to the left more differently), they limit the direct 1:1 control-feedback you have, and in this sense actually make the experience more passive and you feel less immersed.

I thank god and feel blessed that I got to experience the golden era. playing pac man, nibbles (snake) on DOS then snake on nokia cell phones, hugos house of horror (type: f u... hugo: f u too, loser), those educational games in school like math blaster, duke nukem 2d then 3d, megaman, prince of persia 1 and 2 on DOS, shareware version of epic pinball anderoid level, tyrian 2000 (epic music and final bosses), doom and wolfenstein 3d on DOS, microsoft hellbender that came with windows 95 playing it with that classic joystick, maria kart 64 and goldeneye 007 on nintendo 64 splitscreen, Zelda ocarina of time, mortal kombat, tekken 3, metal gear solid, tomb raider 1 and 2, quake 1 and 2, ps2 era and pc equivalent first time feeling vibration on the controller like if you crash your car in a racing game, mind blown, unreal and unreal tournament, half life 1 and 2, diablo 1 and 2, age of empires age of kings 2, command and conquer red alert 1 and 2 and generals, pokemon gold/silver on game boy, minsweeper (did not know how to play and just clicked, you know you did this too at first) and solitaire (epic blue/black castle image) on windows 98 and xp, windows xp pinball game when you did not have internet, WOW 3, age of mythology, the sims 1 and 2, rollercoaster tycoon, driver 1 and 2, hitman 1 to 3, splinter cell 1 to 3, POP sands of time on PS2, Tony Hawks pro skater 2 on ps1, gta3/vice city/san andreas, mafia 1 and 2, medal of honor allied assault on pc (d day mission), return to castle wolfenstein (don't lie you got scared at the first crypts mission), COD 1 to 3 (potato mission, shooting through pipes mission, on cod 2), Far Cry 1 then Crysis, the first modern warfare then mw2, battlefield 1942/vietnam/2, max payne 1 and 2 then 3, original need for speeds nfs 3 hot pursuit (car and track display, amazing soundtrack, first time cops chasing) then porsche unleashed, underground 1 (to the window to the wall to the sweatdrop down my)+2, most wanted, then nfs hot pursuit 2010, gran turismo series, Dirt 2. These games were so novel and legendary. There are of course more but those are just off the top of my head. And I will give some love to flash games too like candystand mini golf. Then even on mobile angry birds and flappy bird, and 8 ball pool. Man, it feels like the world died in the early 2010s. We were there, Gandalph.

Did you keep any changes since the pandemic or go back to normal?

Since I work from home and am an introvert, I am still living like lockdown days. I very seldom leave the house, if I do it is things like going in nature. I hardly ever go to any indoor place outside my house. I have not gotten sick in years. I also stopped buying fast food/going to restaurants (not that I did this that much before the pandemic but it is close to zero since then) as it is healthier/cheaper, I don't even crave outside food now. All of this has been amazing for my mental health: it allowed me to be a mindful individual, I don't really need anything in life to be happy. I have very little cravings for material things/experiences. And I noticed that the vast majority of what was bothering me prior to the pandemic was other people/society's lack of basic rationality, but now I am largely shielded from it. As long as I am home and not bothered by others and can read books and develop theories and think about stuff, I am mainly happy. Sure, I would say that some socializing was good prior to the pandemic, but on balance I like it better this way. I would say I am at Maslow's "self-actualization" stage, thanks to largely being shielded from the irrationality and destructive effects of society.

Attachment styles are formed during infancy, up to around age 3. I agree that they can manifest in issues like anxious or avoidant attachment in adulthood.

However, aren't attachment patterns (with parents and other important life figures) from the ages of 4 and on, i.e.,, during childhood and adolescent, also important in terms of causing core beliefs and behavioral patterns, both attachment/relationship related and non attachment related, in adulthood?

Furthermore, there is no practical way of directly measuring or assessing any patient's actual attachment patterns from ages 0-3. There therapist can ask questions, or through therapy, pick up on someone's attachment style (e.g., if they are anxious or avoidant): but that would not prove that that is due to what happened at ages 0-3, it could very well be due to what happened age 4-18 for example. Or, in all likelihood, probably a mix of both.

Yet, "attachment-informed psychotherapy" logically means that it has to be based on what happened during ages 0-3, because that is when attachment styles are formed according to attachment theory.

What is the psychodynamic view on all this? On one hand, Freud's theories were more in line with Bowlby's in that more early (e.g., ages 0-3) childhood matters in terms of adult behavior. But it appears that more recent psychodynamic perspectives focus more on what happened during the cognitive-aware part of childhood, that is, age 4 and on?

I am not saying this does not happen at all, but I am skeptical of/I think the whole "corrective emotional experience" thing is overrated. Basically, it is saying that the patient realizes over time that their core beliefs/patterns/assumptions about the world and other people are untrue, because the therapist's behavior is inconsistent with them. I mean, the obvious counter to this is that a patient would think "they are just being nice/different because they are a therapist/it is their job/they are a professional". Also, you have have patients who are in general quick to get angry, but they may not get angry with the therapist because the therapist, being a therapist, is calm and understanding unlike others, so it would not allow for transference in the first place. So I still think cognitive-behavioral interventions are relatively stronger in terms of creating changes in this regard.

I remember the first time I was ever shown that sensitivity vs specificity chart (true/false positive/negative), despite it being so simple, something just felt "off" about it. It simply did not make intrinsic sense to me. As if there was something missing, but I could not explain what it was. I felt like I was being gaslighted: how could teachers/professors/textbooks all be wrong about something so elementary? But I still could not come to truly believe or understand it.

Later on, my suspicions were confirmed after I discovered base rate fallacy. By this point I was at stage 2: I now know what the problem was. But at the same time I thought that as long as you are mindful of base rate fallacy, sensitivity/specificity could still have some utility.

However, I think right now I am at stage 3. That is, I am thinking that base rate fallacy complete negates the utility/any meaning of specificity vs sensitivity. I now think the entire specificity vs sensitivity process is useless and erroneous. The reason is that you never know the actual base rate of anything in the population. So you can never create a meaningful sample to begin with. And your sample would actually be meaningless in terms of predicting sensitivity or specificity in the population, because the sample is not representative of the population. It is like a chicken vs egg paradox, a Catch-22. So why is it that sensitivity and specificity studies are still routinely done at the highest levels?

I will explain how I came to this conclusion. If you have a test with 100% sensitivity and 0% specificity, and the total sample that was used to determine that sensitivity and specificity was 100, that means in terms of sensitivity: "the test identified" 50 true positive (i.e., people who actual have the disease) and 0 false negatives (i.e., people who actually have the disease but were not identified as having the disease by the test). In terms of specificity, it means that "the test identifies" 50 false positives (i.e., people identified by the test as having the disease but who don't actually have the disease), and 0 true negatives (i.e., people that the test identifies as not having the disease and in actuality they indeed do not have the disease). But the issue with this is that if you add up the rows and columns, you will see that a total of 0 people actually score high enough/above of the cutoff on the test (i.e., false negatives + true negatives). That means a test with 100% sensitivity and 0% specificity NEGATES THE POSSIBILITY of anyone BEING ABLE to score above the cutoff point on the test. But how does this logically make sense in terms of causality?

Why would the TEST dictate the total number of people who scored high or low on the test? Shouldn't it be the other way around: there are going to be people in the population, some may score high, and some may score low, and when determining how accurate the test is in terms of its classification of both high and low scores (below/above the cutoff score) THAT is when the ACTUAL sensitivity/specificity of the test matters? But that is not what is happening: the sensitivity/specificity is being instead based ON the sample. WHY would a 100% sensitivity and 0% specificity REQUIRE that 0 people in the population are allowed/will not score above the cutoff score in the test? WHAT happens if you give such a test to the population: it means if it truly has 100% sensitivity and 0% specificity, NOBODY IN THE GENERAL POPULATION CAN POSSIBLY score above the cutoff point: this makes no logical sense. Shouldn't the sensitivity/specificity be used to INTERPRET a person from the population's score on the test, WHETHER OR NOT they happen to score below or under the cutoff point?

So are there any alternatives to sensitivity/specificity? I have heard of bayesian equations. Is there any specific ones you recommend? Do they truly make up for this paradox, or are they just more complicated/fancy formulas that still do not genuinely escape this paradox?