I consider myself to be the kind of person who can quite easily imagine myself in someone else’s place. I don’t know if I’m actually any better at it than the average person, but judging by the comment sections on social media and the conversations I’ve had with other people, I really struggle to get angry at strangers like many others do, even for things that anger is an appropriate reaction to.
This doesn’t necessarily mean that I don’t condemn their behavior, but that it doesn’t provoke a particularly negative emotional reaction from me. I observe the world from a distance, and when I see someone acting differently, I generally can come up with a charitable story about why they act that way. While it doesn’t usually justify the behavior, it at least helps me imagine why they’re like that and reminds me that if I were in their shoes, I’d likely do the same thing.
This applies to cheating, violence, racism… Name a bad behavior, and I can come up with a story about what a person might be telling themselves to justify it. However, littering is something I simply cannot comprehend. I cannot wrap my mind around what a person is thinking when they’re throwing trash on the ground for someone else to pick up. If it’s something “minor” like a cigarette butt, then okay, I can somewhat understand, but tossing your McDonald’s takeout bag onto the side of the road is completely psychopathic behavior to me. I don’t think even the worst people in the world think of themselves as “bad” because they rationalize their behavior somehow. But if you throw trash into nature, you must know you’re being a massive jerk.
Tl;dr: I want to hear the best justification for littering.
Do I have to break out the crayons for you?
Dr. Benjamin Libet in the 80s did a series of tests on human cognition, involving people reporting when a certain configuration of a clock face occurred. This experiment is literally the watershed moment when psychologists and neurologists misinterpreted the results to be that “Humans actually act before they consciously choose to act” which is what started this entire faddish exploration of a nonexistent corner of the neurology and psychology fields.
Saccades are moments when your brain fills in your visual experience with false and blending data, usually during rapid eye movement. This is why sometimes when you look at a clock the second hand may seem to tick backwards one tick. It is your brain filling in the places where the movement of your eyes or other interruptions (like the hole in your vision your optic nerve makes but you almost never experience).
All of Libet’s ‘surprising’ findings are more reasonably and experimentally explained by saccades during the measurement steps than the explanation being that we are all deterministic self-modifying chemical cascades that can make more of ourselves and bear the illusion of selfhood. This concern was brought up before he published but never again and never since.
The reason why it makes me SO BLINDINGLY INFURIATED is that YOU ARE RIGHT NOW EXPERIENCING THE PROOF OF YOUR SENSE OF SELF’S EXISTENCE!
But because so many self-satisfied academics and rottube ‘surprising facts’ content creator’s careers now depend on that avenue of research being a valid path of study, all based on a near-as-self-disproving-interpretation as could possibly exist, no serious criticism of his methodology or interpretations is allowed in ANY level, academic, layman, or even just a fucking chat over a beer.
And it’s always some knowlessman making calming gestures while having zero basis of understanding other than that it’s the new edgy topic that comes in to quell discussions and both sidesism the whole thread to irrelevance.
Congrats for doing your job, I guess.
150 years from now when we really start to get a firm grasp on consciousness, the academics of that future (if we survive) will consider the denial of consciousness as a curious and misguided fad that led so many bright minds astray.
Jesus, dude, you’re blowing everything I said way out of proportion and also completely missing my point.
I think you just wanted to give someone a lecture while also grinding an axe or two. Have at it, enjoy.
You’ve already completely disregarded what I was talking about and have gone on to just unload whatever crap you’ve been wanting to.
Glad you got the opportunity to vent. I am way beyond done with this because it has never been a conversation. Feel free to keep going, I’m sure some readers will find it entertaining.
P.S. I think you’d benefit from therapy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intermittent_explosive_disorder
You understand condescension, and yet you still do it yourself.
If you punch me, you get punched back. It’s a pretty simple math.
Have you ever heard the story of the snake?
One evening, a man walks along a dimly lit path. He suddenly halts, his heart pounding with fear. Before him, on the ground, lies what appears to be a venomous snake. He freezes, paralyzed with dread. Only when a friend comes by with a lantern does the true nature of the object come to light: it is merely a piece of rope.
I learned this story from Thich Nhat Hanh, a Buddhist author. He would indicate with stories like this that our perceptions shape our reality. Often, we react out of fear and misunderstanding, seeing snakes where there are none. He said that mindfulness and deeper understanding can act like the lantern, illuminating the true nature of our experiences.