Hello,
“From what you said, I assume that you have personally decided to not be offended when the other person did not mean to offend.”
Well, yes. My acting policy is that I should not react outwardly or overly emotionally to another person’s statements if the consequences of these statements have no perceived negative effect on those things I value [my reputation in my community, my life, my property, my loved ones]. It is a policy that has served me well in recent years. I just wish I had adhered to it in earlier stages of my life.
“You say you are “large” by which I assume you are overweight(1), well, welcome to the club.”
I am overweight, but what I meant to express in my original comments was the fact that my height [6′2″], body size and race tend to illicit a reaction in some people that are in my immediate vicinity that I jokingly call “negrophobia”. My point was that regardless of these socially awkward situations that I experience in events, organizations and situations that traditionally have little sustained presence of black people in them, I have learned to put them in context; To realize that, again, as long as these situations don’t lead to any ‘rationally’ perceived negative effect, I really should not take offense in them. They are a result of social and psychological phenomena beyond my absolute control, but in which I can influence by becoming a contributing asset in these organizations.
[Sorry for the ranting style of this last comment, but I really wanted to elaborate on my views here.]
“I used to believe that the golden rule gave me license to do anything to other people which I was willing to put up with, and to a certain degree, that still makes sense.”
I don’t express these views from the philosophical perspective of the “Golden Rule”. As a lifelong Southern Gentleman, I tend to favor the sociobiological view of “reciprocal utilitarianism” as my personal guide to ethics… I.E. - “Do unto others as what you feel they may be able to do for you in the near future [or so that they may stop doing against you as soon as possible].”
Hello all,
New rationalist/reader/commenter here.
I originally wrote a rant against PUA culture and then a summation of that rant to post here, but I realized that most, if not all, of my objections to what I perceive to be negative in the PUA community and practice are derived from my biases [and insecurities] rather than a truly rational foundation.
I can object to the PUA sub-culture out of personal distaste, and maybe from a weak ethical point of view, but besides parts of the body of PUA doctrine and rhetoric, there is really nothing irrational about them that I can see.
These men have taken empirical observations and social engineering experiments and created a pragmatic system to utilize for their desired goal in a legal and relatively non-detrimental manner.
So the greater argument seems to be, at least insomuch that the PUA community and their practices are relevant to the original post in this thread, a question of which person-of-interest and group irrationalities/biases are to be sanctioned here for the sake of making certain posters more comfortable.