Hi there. Just joined so figured Id put my views and feelings out there. Lets exchang

[donquixote99]

Try, i will give you a left source I think you will appreciate. It's a blog, published once a week. Every Monday he publishes a 'teaser' and two articles. Here's a link to last Monday's teaser; links to the two articles are at the bottom of it. I'd call this guy center-left, btw, accent on the center.

https://weeklysift.com/2020/06/08/th...ng-teaser-376/

Here is the text of his 'who am I' page.

The Weekly Sift is written by Doug Muder, a 50-something ex-mathematician who lives in Nashua, NH and hates writing about himself in the third person. (So enough of that.)

Writing and journalism were my original ambition from back when I was editor of my high-school paper and had an after-school job at my hometown daily, the Quincy Herald-Whig. (I ran pieces of paper from the newsroom to the composing room, where skilled workers operated linotype machines. I also tore sheets from teletypes and matched them with the paper tapes that ran the linotype equivalent of a player piano. Don’t get me started.)

In college I fell in love with another subject — mathematics — and went on to get a Ph.D. at the University of Chicago. My thesis was on algebraic geometry. (You don’t really want to know what that is.) I later did work on codes and information theory for the MITRE Corporation, where my wife Deb still works. (The only relevance mathematics has to the Sift is that Supreme Court opinions are easy reading to anybody who is used to mathematical proofs.)

My mid-life crisis didn’t involve co-eds and sports cars. Instead, I went back to writing. I co-authored some Dummies books and some massive tomes about how to use Windows and the new-fangled Internet.

Eventually I started getting articles published on more interesting subjects like politics and religion (though I still haven’t managed to publish any fiction to speak of, unless you count this). It hardly paid anything, but Deb was OK with that. She is the behind-the-scenes hero of the Weekly Sift.

I got into blogging because we moved to New Hampshire. Let me unpack that a little. Early in 2003, I realized that Democratic presidential candidates were just begging for my attention. As voter in the First Primary, I had a level of access that my friends could only dream about. So I made a project out of seeing all the candidates. And then it occurred to me that if I wrote about it, I could take my friends on a vicarious journey.

It started as email, but (to anyone who has the genetic predisposition to write) email is just a gateway drug. Before long I was blogging on Daily Kos as Pericles. (In his heyday of 2004-2005, Pericles was a mid-level Kossack. My posts made the Recommended List occasionally, but not consistently.)

The Weekly Sift started as a way to get some momentum on Monday mornings. The idea was that I’d bookmark interesting links during the week, and then on Monday I’d do a post about them. Those posts kept getting longer and longer, until finally capped them at 3000 words a week and gave them their own blog — this blog.

[TryToFindmid]

Originally Posted by Pio1980

Alabama is now home ground, I don't socialize much primarily due to high functioning autism and the social awkwardness that goes with it, inability to"read" people and independent thought process.
I try to be empathetic and considerate but it's difficult not to know when one offends without intention.
Still, I tend not to follow the flock and call things as I see them.

Wow can I relate to you for a number of reasons.

I swear Im not BSing when I say I feel Im "on the spectrum" as is often said these days.

I hate filters and feel they are a big part of the down fall of civil discourse. And Im not bashful about it. What a shock.

I often substitute autism and asperger unintentionally and feel in reading the various definitions they seem to share a fair amount in common. But clearly there are differences.

When you wrote that to me it instantly reminded me of a story Penn Jillette told on a Rogan sit down. Im going to butcher it as its been so long. But I loved it as much as Penn did. In a nut shell an assistant of his who had one of said conditions wrote him a get well card that within he said something to the effect of, Id say I was worried of your getting back to normal but I know you hate dishonesty so I look forward to you getting back.

I do apologize if this in any comes off odd to you. But I love Penn's love of his honesty. And feel the same way. I just spent the last 15 mins trying to find said moment in this clip I wanna say he told this story in. Penn is one of the most interesting people to have sit downs with Rogan. The conversation goes all over the road map and it never gets dull. I encourage all here to have a listen. And he dives into his experience being on Apprentice with Trump. It doesnt matter if you hate or are a supporter. Penn's description is a real eye opener. And I totally get what he is saying and the actions seem apparent.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1OnBVqeW5JA

My now 5+ year relationship with my girlfriend who suffers major social anxiety disorders has also taught me allot. She absolutely HATES having to be around crowds/people and is super insecure of many things. Its so funny in its own way as Im the total opposite and enjoy such things to a point. And talk about anything with anyone. Id say Im allot like Larry David in his show Curb your Enthusiasm. And Im fully aware I dont fit in the norm. But Im ok with it. So me and the GF are an odd pairing indeed. But we both love each other and enjoy each others social anomalies.

[donquixote99]

If a person is lucky, they love their own uniqueness--and have at least one other person who also loves it.

Part of my uniqueness is I read social situations poorly, and don't like parties, though I'm no where close to 'hating' them. Much prefer the written word, and am fairly fluent in it.

[TryToFindmid]

Originally Posted by donquixote99

Try, i will give you a left source I think you will appreciate. It's a blog, published once a week. Every Monday he publishes a 'teaser' and two articles. Here's a link to last Monday's teaser; links to the two articles are at the bottom of it. I'd call this guy center-left, btw, accent on the center.

https://weeklysift.com/2020/06/08/th...ng-teaser-376/

Here is the text of his 'who am I' page.

Thanks Don.

Yeah when I read teletype and early days of internet I thought, this fellow nerd has to be in his LATE 50s min at this point.

After reading that bio and the one post in the link I didnt really get much insight into the fellow. I didnt dive deeper yet but will do tomorrow.

I laid ALLOT out to get an idea of my mindset and view of things in this introduction.

You strike me as an intelligent person and I as someone who read a fair amount here see you clearly have a hard felt point of view.

What would you summarize Im seeing and feeling and what am I missing?
As a center leaning right individual and what Ive said thus far.

Personally I feel if we could strip away our own "personal" and "thats not right" agenda and purely look at things from a law and governmental control aspect allot more headway could be made to work out the issues at play.

Id love to read a fleshed out left leaning point of view of how this might happen. Really! Not being coy just love to compare notes and see what I might be missing.

Thanks for engaging me and I really do look forward to having an exchange. Im certain there are bright points of view that should be looked at.

[TryToFindmid]

Originally Posted by donquixote99

If a person is lucky, they love their own uniqueness--and have at least one other person who also loves it.

Part of my uniqueness is I read social situations poorly, and don't like parties, though I'm no where close to 'hating' them. Much prefer the written word, and am fairly fluent in it.

Man I love this declaration of yours here. I feel the exact same way.

Only part I disagree with is I much prefer in person interactions. Written word only conveys a fraction of what can be conveyed person to person.

Watch/listen to that Daryl sit down with Rogan to fully appreciate how important it is. There was a black man at gun point trying to have such a discussion and it almost went towards death without eye contact. His story is AMAZING

[Pio1980]

Originally Posted by TryToFindmid

Wow can I relate to you for a number of reasons.

I swear Im not BSing when I say I feel Im "on the spectrum" as is often said these days.

I hate filters and feel they are a big part of the down fall of civil discourse. And Im not bashful about it. What a shock.

I often substitute autism and asperger unintentionally and feel in reading the various definitions they seem to share a fair amount in common. But clearly there are differences.

When you wrote that to me it instantly reminded me of a story Penn Jillette told on a Rogan sit down. Im going to butcher it as its been so long. But I loved it as much as Penn did. In a nut shell an assistant of his who had one of said conditions wrote him a get well card that within he said something to the effect of, Id say I was worried of your getting back to normal but I know you hate dishonesty so I look forward to you getting back.

I do apologize if this in any comes off odd to you. But I love Penn's love of his honesty. And feel the same way. I just spent the last 15 mins trying to find said moment in this clip I wanna say he told this story in. Penn is one of the most interesting people to have sit downs with Rogan. The conversation goes all over the road map and it never gets dull. I encourage all here to have a listen. And he dives into his experience being on Apprentice with Trump. It doesnt matter if you hate or are a supporter. Penn's description is a real eye opener. And I totally get what he is saying and the actions seem apparent.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1OnBVqeW5JA

My now 5+ year relationship with my girlfriend who suffers major social anxiety disorders has also taught me allot. She absolutely HATES having to be around crowds/people and is super insecure of many things. Its so funny in its own way as Im the total opposite and enjoy such things to a point. And talk about anything with anyone. Id say Im allot like Larry David in his show Curb your Enthusiasm. And Im fully aware I dont fit in the norm. But Im ok with it. So me and the GF are an odd pairing indeed. But we both love each other and enjoy each others social anomalies.

Summary of Penn Jillette commentary.
https://www.lamag.com/culturefiles/p...-donald-trump/

[donquixote99]

Originally Posted by TryToFindmid

Thanks Don.

Yeah when I read teletype and early days of internet I thought, this fellow nerd has to be in his LATE 50s min at this point.

After reading that bio and the one post in the link I didnt really get much insight into the fellow. I didnt dive deeper yet but will do tomorrow.

I laid ALLOT out to get an idea of my mindset and view of things in this introduction.

You strike me as an intelligent person and I as someone who read a fair amount here see you clearly have a hard felt point of view.

What would you summarize Im seeing and feeling and what am I missing?
As a center leaning right individual and what Ive said thus far.

Personally I feel if we could strip away our own "personal" and "thats not right" agenda and purely look at things from a law and governmental control aspect allot more headway could be made to work out the issues at play.

Id love to read a fleshed out left leaning point of view of how this might happen. Really! Not being coy just love to compare notes and see what I might be missing.

Thanks for engaging me and I really do look forward to having an exchange. Im certain there are bright points of view that should be looked at.

That one linked post was just his 'teaser,' not the substance of what he does, which is a weekly current events summary/analysis.

I would analyze the difference between left and right as actually existing on several dimensions. Probably the most fundamental is that of values and morality. People of all cultures in general have similar moral values, but different sets of people emphasize different things. Liberals put emphasis on Caring, and Fairness. Conservatives also value these things, but may place more emphasis on Loyalty, Authority, and Purity, value dimensions that Liberals often de-emphasize or even reject.

On top of that is the dimension of ideology, a set of ideas by which people try to justify their value preferences and explain how the world works. Liberals tend to be more open to non-traditional explanations, and in some cases are open-minded and empirical in their world views; conservative more traditional and dogmatic. This is not to say that liberals can't be dogmatic!

Finally, not strictly a left/right split, but very relevant now, is the normative/corrupt dimension. I'm afraid the current administration is horribly corrupt. Dishonesty and demagogic propaganda are instruments the right has embraced, in it's current incarnation. This has made the civil give-and-take of normative politics just about impossible, which seems likely to have grave consequences. Polarization and outright hate have erupted, and civil conflict may actually become very widespread and destructive.

All this is a first gloss, at a high level of abstraction. Some parts may well be unclear. Please question and comment, we can dig deeper, expand, clarify together!

[TryToFindmid]

Originally Posted by Pio1980

Summary of Penn Jillette commentary.
https://www.lamag.com/culturefiles/p...-donald-trump/

Yeah but thats a cherry picking mission.

Theres a beauty to how Penn both paints Trump as a human with anomalies and beautifully paints his deficiencies and narcissism with the same brush.

A less than one page snip it simply doesn't do any justice to a 1.48 hr sit down.

And Im saying this with the view that if one actually listens to the 15 min portion that Penn talks about his experience it conveys much more concern and alarm for Trump's state of mind.

The snip its do no where near as much in terms of inner thought IMO.

[TryToFindmid]

Originally Posted by donquixote99

That one linked post was just his 'teaser,' not the substance of what he does, which is a weekly current events summary/analysis.

I would analyze the difference between left and right as actually existing on several dimensions. Probably the most fundamental is that of values and morality. People of all cultures in general have similar moral values, but different sets of people emphasize different things. Liberals put emphasis on Caring, and Fairness. Conservatives also value these things, but may place more emphasis on Loyalty, Authority, and Purity, value dimensions that Liberals often de-emphasize or even reject.

On top of that is the dimension of ideology, a set of ideas by which people try to justify their value preferences and explain how the world works. Liberals tend to be more open to non-traditional explanations, and in some cases are open-minded and empirical in their world views; conservative more traditional and dogmatic. This is not to say that liberals can't be dogmatic!

Finally, not strictly a left/right split, but very relevant now, is the normative/corrupt dimension. I'm afraid the current administration is horribly corrupt. Dishonesty and demagogic propaganda are instruments the right has embraced, in it's current incarnation. This has made the civil give-and-take of normative politics just about impossible, which seems likely to have grave consequences. Polarization and outright hate have erupted, and civil conflict may actually become very widespread and destructive.

All this is a first gloss, at a high level of abstraction. Some parts may well be unclear. Please question and comment, we can dig deeper, expand, clarify together!

Thanks for the response.

And I agree with a HUGE part of what you wrote. And feel its spot on. Id simply like to flesh it out more.

And this is where I must say I wake up at 5am without my effort. My GF wakes up at 8-10am given the chance. And I sleep in when I get up at 7am. In my early mid 20s sleep never mattered. About to turn 40 within months Im seeing I catch up with my age now.

Let me respond in more meaningful depth tomorrow.

And again I thank you for engaging and talking.

The more I get to know folks here the more I feel I get it.

And please do anyone reading this look into the Dupont insane scenarios I mentioned in current events. I cant believe it.

[donquixote99]

Originally Posted by TryToFindmid

Man I love this declaration of yours here. I feel the exact same way.

Only part I disagree with is I much prefer in person interactions. Written word only conveys a fraction of what can be conveyed person to person.

Watch/listen to that Daryl sit down with Rogan to fully appreciate how important it is. There was a black man at gun point trying to have such a discussion and it almost went towards death without eye contact. His story is AMAZING

I recognize the richness of in-person interaction, but I nonetheless often feel uneasy about it. There are these 'contingent and immediate' characteristics--a glance, a joke, an insult, and it all can instantly go this way or that, and never be retrieved. This unease is likely born of some sorts of personal limitations, and I don't recount this as any claim of what is the right or best way for people to be. Just sort of musing about how I am.