So you’re saying that psychology is based on subjective values and not facts. But so is everything you’re saying. There’s no factual basis that high intelligence, or physical perfection, are always good things, even if they seem to be on the surface.

This seems a bit ridiculous.

I dunno... as a guy, I've definitely experienced the feeling of thinking a woman was attracted to me when it turned out she wasn't, but I also know I've missed a lot of chances for fun & romance when the opposite was true. Now that I'm older, I just tend to assume that women aren't interested unless they give some…

I haven't heard of Sex at Dawn, but then I also didn't claim any of this information was new. It's well known to anthropologists; just, sadly, not to many other people.

Wow... Thank you for helping me to understand this issue better, for putting it in such human terms. I regret only that I've come to hear it so long after the fact.

Please, indeed. Grind your own damn Gnoles, screw the achievements, and to hell with the dungeons. Of all the RPG's ever invented, D&D might have been the first—but it is also one of the crappiest, and its imitators are even worse. I get that you're joking, sort of, but the thought of the cosmos as a repeating…

Yes, thanks, I'm aware of that. Nick Bostrom is pretty famous by now. But think about what you just said: if we are living in a simulation, then maybe there really is an afterlife—a world beyond the simulation. Maybe dying is really just like waking up from a long dream, or logging off from a highly immersive…

I'm not sure what point you're trying to make, but insults and poor grammar really don't help your cause.

Thanks for the suggestion Ad19 — I'll give that a try; especially writing the first draft in pen instead of on the computer. I hadn't really thought about it before, but now that you mention it, I would definitely be less prone to edit as I write when it's not so easy to change things (like it is in a word…

Indeed—I think our pre-modern ancestors knew how intelligent many animals could be—especially the larger wild canines. I think that's the reason for the many myths and tales about fox, wolf, and coyote spirits, and other types of animals. These animals are often regarded as "trickster" spirits, or as shapeshifters…

At no point did I claim or pretend to have read all of Rand's work. My only claim was that what I *have* read of her work, and what I've seen from her followers, is nothing I find worthwhile, or indeed, rational, as a way of life.

Seriously? Are you still on about this?

I think Atheism is often described as a religion by its critics because, while it's not a religion exactly, it's certainly a religious position (positing "no god" is still a theological position) , and it's not merely a "lack of belief" but rather in most cases a strong belief in Newtonian Materialism (i.e. the idea…

Thanks! That's exactly what I was going for.

Kinja seems to have eaten my first reply. Anyway—yes, that's definitely true. People with extremes on any of the personality scales tend to have difficulty. In the case of agreeableness, there's definitely such a thing as being too nice.

Oh yeah—people with high agreeableness often have difficulties in our culture. There's definitely such a thing as being too nice. The research seems to indicate that anyone at the extreme ends of the five personality scales tend to have difficulty.

Your ability to do that, and other's lack of ability, depends on personality—a lot of which is genetic and very difficult to change. It's just the way people are wired. The people you say you hate aren't trying to be annoying—it's quite the opposite: they can't stand the thought of letting someone down, so they…

When you factor out the amount of time spent thinking through complex and unfamiliar concepts—a rarity when people read for pleasure...

Tragic, what happened to the Takeda clan, after Shingen died.

I think Hagbard Celine already got there...