Calm

Just checked and Social is open until Aug 3, 2022

Iirc, Social don’t automatically lock after a certain number of months. Not sure the main forum does anymore. editing can sometimes seem restricted as it says “this post can no longer be edited”, but if you wait a few minutes, generally you can then try to edit again and it lets you in…or it does me.

I love AI, I am always using it to track health and give me ideas for tweaking…with the understanding that if something really matters, I research it. (Because you know it creates stuff and makes mistakes, including simple calculations….always doublecheck when doubling or halving a recipe as sometimes it gets mixed up which it is doing, especially with tablespoons and teaspoons). My phone chat doesn’t talk to my IPad Chat as far as I can tell (not the same topics in menu). Sometimes I use one to check the other. I have very little background in this area, so in the spirit of time saving ventures, I submitted the summary to Chat and asked if it was an accurate summation. It assumed it was mine, which it usually does. Makes me wonder what politics it thinks I have because I often post more fringe comments I find online and ask if it’s accurate. Maybe I will ask it, lol. Here is its response: I have no clue what civic-virtue is. These were its reservations (won’t post what it agreed with to save time): Adams: Jefferson: Washington: American Experment: My very limited own analysis….limited because I have never been that interested in American history. I don’t think the analysis in Emily’s post takes into account the overall varied beliefs of the Founders and attempts to make their ideas more coherent than they actually were. That is one thing I have noticed with the Founders over the decades, they are often presented as having more monolithic or even just similar ideas than they really do. They were not that unified, lot of debate and outright contention, lots of it, iirc.

I don’t believe that is an accurate picture of what Rod said. I think he sees the villain as the system that sets up no motivation for the poor, which includes penalizing them when they work hard to improve their situation. I had an acquaintance that was in subsidized housing that had to quit her part time nursing training job as her rent was raised with her new paycheck to more money that she was earning (she was just barely over the limit). He also does seem critical of those who he sees as taking advantage of the system and disrespecting others. Perhaps he sees a percentage of the poor who have essentially been bullied by the system as turning into bullies themselves, which unfortunately is sometimes a result of being abused. I believe when people are not respected, they get burned out, too tired to put effort into the nicer things of life and for some, that means losing respect for others…especially if one sees them as part of the system that takes advantage of them, getting their efforts and resources while giving the minimal back…or less than the minimal. How does it make sense that someone can work full time or more and still not be able to afford rent or even their own small home (even just a one room apartment with working utilities)? The poor rarely are treated with respect imo by our economic system as even when there is help from what I have seen it’s pretty dehumanizing to apply to get it and keep it, especially when you lack resources to begin with. Imagine what it must be like to depend on a public library where anyone can walk by and see and hear what one is doing. How hard to keep track of all the information one needs when one doesn’t have a home or even a car to keep them in. It’s difficult enough to apply online to government programs in the comfort of one’s own home. We have had to do so for our daughter and trying to get the right information is so time consuming and costly, one instruction that was wrong took us months of phone calls and reapplications and has probably cost us about 10,000$ that we weren’t expecting because insurance first told us everything was paid and then they reassessed it and each procedure we had then gone ahead with was thousands on top of a ‘low’ premium of $500). And we can’t do anything about it because their reps aren’t ‘official’ in determining actual costs. The poor have little motivation to save when there is no safety net for them that doesn’t send them back to square one…that is if they could save. They have little motivation to set down roots when they can’t afford rent and will never be able to afford a home. I can see why squatters resist having to move on yet again to delay as long as possible having to enter the struggle of finding a safe(ish) place to stay that they can afford even as my heart breaks for Rod having to deal with the squatters while mourning his father and dealing with all the crap that comes with trying to resolve an estate (what a nightmare that can be). Our economic culture is awful for the poor and crappy for the low income, not that great for the true middle class and for the upper middle class..if anyone has health issues or other difficulties it can feel like a minefield just walking through it even if the anxiety is more about the unknown than actual fear one if going to be homeless or unable to get basic healthcare (we can always downsize). Even with our comfortable income there is still some what I see as pretty basic healthcare for myself and my daughter can’t afford and it’s so frustrating knowing there is something out there that would help, but is beyond our reach. For us it’s two drugs that insurance won’t cover, but we both get the drugs we need to actually survive. She doesn’t have to risk living with her blood sugars too high so her insulin lasts longer. There are too many in our society who live that way. I don’t understand how the power people and very wealthy can stand to live with themselves (at the very least they could insist higher wages for the lower income people that work for them even if the change was pretty insignificant per person). I get the masses who feel their voice wouldn’t be heard so they don’t make the effort. I feel that way myself.

Then if you don’t really care, it seems it is all about making sure the other guy isn’t happy. (I don’t understand your reasoning based on what you said…you are good with using both, but you are critical of others using Mormon…why is it a problem for them if not for you, so I am trying to be very clear on how it comes across, not attack you)

So you knowing their preference is exMormon, are you weaponizing exLDS every time you engage with former LDS? ”Usinglanguage not to communicate, but to score a tactical point.” How are you not doing the same thing? Serious question since you are directly responding to them in what feels like an offensive (as in the opposite of defensive, not insulting) intent. I don’t want to use aggressive as that adds an emotional connotation I don’t think is there. You are being assertive, but more in my view…not just holding your own, but trying to diminish their effect. BTW, the vast majority of former LDS (I am using LDS here to differentiate from other Mormon communities as I don’t have experience with others) do not hang out on sites critical of the Church in my experience. Why do you believe it is important to extrapolate from the minority to the majority?

This, it’s most likely habit and seeing it everywhere maintains the habit. Why would someone that was no longer a member change what they use as nomenclature when that takes a lot of mental energy to break the habit?

Not really when you clearly have no solid data that those you are discussing view it that way. Maybe no one does, maybe a minority do. Should a minority’s behaviour cause less civil behaviour to the majority? (If it’s a majority, you should be able to document this motivation rather than speculate.) You have chosen to view the use of exmormon, etc as a political stance. You have therefore imported emotion yourself into the conversation. This reminds me of why I couldn’t use Ms instead Mrs back when I was first married even though it had nothing to do with politics and all to do with me just feeling like they were confusing me with my mother in law and detesting the constant breaking into song of “here’s to you, Mrs. Robinson…” Mind reading people’s motivations is never wise. It only leads to misunderstanding and too often unnecessary conflict and resentment. If they have actually intentionally weaponized the label,, that’s on them. Why should it bother you if you can maintain a calm, clinical approach yourself?

Since you asked for opinions, it comes across as a chaotic and confusing mosaic like puzzle pieces from different puzzles being stuck together, but if you enjoy it, I guess as long as you are not offended by people going ‘huh?’, that’s not a problem.

Have you seen someone identify as exMormon? (I know you probably have online, but maybe you are thinking differently about it than I am?) If so, do you see a difference? PS: I was curious if there was an exLDS.org. I got redirected to exMormon.org, so it seems someone thinks others might use the term even if not as common as exmormon. I redid it with ex-LDS.org and that didn’t come up (can you have a dash in an address?). There is also quite a few ex-LDS sites online though most are drowned by exmormon. You need to put quotes around it for them to come up.

Since the discussion on how women should prepare themselves to be around men went not too far, how about we change the discussion to focus on men’s POV. Men here….what do you think you can do personally to help women feel safer so that ideas like “every man is a potential rapist” become ancient history and how would you change the general conversation among men in our cultures to create an overall safer environment? Iow, what do men believe men can and should do about violence, including sexual violence in our cultures?

Alright. I will rephrase my belief as accurately as I can without excessive detail. You are not processing what I am saying/meaning, but likely focusing on what you are thinking/meaning in response to what you assume I will be saying because otherwise it seems to me you wouldn’t be repeating certain irrelevant points. I suspect there are some of your comments I am not getting as well. I agree. PS: just want to be clear I don’t believe your misunderstanding my points and I suspect others’ comments is malicious or anything, but a strong focus on your understandable concern, which I believe is demonstrated in your response to bluebell that started the subtopic on the phrase (you brought it up expressing your opinion—as I interpreted it—that it showed inappropriate chronic anxiety and hyper vigilance in your acquaintance) in response to bluebell’s comment about a study that showed men typically struggled to believe accusations about other men because they relate—understandably so—to other men. It was your third point in disagreeing with the study (or at least her memory of it) about how men being concerned with being falsely accused might make them reluctant to accept accusations of others that led to the further discussion…though now I think about it, that kind of goes along with the study as the men are putting themselves in the place of the accused in the sense of their own worry about being falsely accused, not being correctly accused…what if it happened to them? They would of course hope that someone would not assume they were guilty because they wouldn’t be guilty. It’s very understandable why any man would be concerned about being falsely accused by a woman even if the stats on false accusations are much, much lower than the stats on women being assaulted by men. And it’s not uncommon to misunderstand what others say because of a preoccupation with an appropriate concern. Pretty much has happened to everyone I know where I have been able to observe both sides of a conversation.

This is not listening. This is having a conversation with yourself. Maybe try again reading what I and others said and responding to that instead of your own personal focus? If you want another example of listening, try webbles’ posts.

And if the point of teaching caution if to avoid harm, then doesn’t it make sense to spend the most time on talking about what causes the most harm and being prepared for it? And the reality is

Are you suggesting people aren’t having discussions about teacher abuse? There has been a discussion about it as long as I have had kids and grandkids in school in my experience. And it’s not just or primarily about male teachers. Not only that, but extensive measures have been put in place. Mandatory reporting includes reporting of other teachers, for example. There are ongoing discussions of how to improve child safety. I don’t believe I have ever seen someone use the argument ‘but look, mothers assault their kids too, why aren’t you talking about them’ when someone says we need safety measures for all teachers, not just some.

Same here. It is just smart. I see it as comparable to teaching safety around stoves and knives and food in general when teaching cooking. Teaching awareness of potential issues with raw meat, for example (any meat has potential toxins/parasites) does not inherently imply one should erect barriers or avoid food. Or be overly anxious around it. In fact, the goal is to increase confidence and allow a person to have greater skill in engaging with it…similar to defensive driving. It is just teaching how to wisely treat potentially dangerous ingredients so one is less likely to get sick or kill someone accidentally. It is smart when one has a limited time to teach to spend more time on the more potentially dangerous aspects of cooking or begin with the most dangerous. That’s wisdom, not prejudice. Being completely clueless about the dangers of food may mean you have no anxiety, but it doesn’t protect you. And once you become familiar with getting food poisoning or sick in other ways or cut a finger or burn oneself, it makes more sense to learn the ways to protect yourself rather than just ignore the possibilities. The latter will more likely lead to greater anxiety and avoidance then actual preparation. Added: Will there be some that react to the teaching by becoming too anxious and start avoiding cooking, sure. But should that mean we stop emphasizing the necessity of food safety of the more potentially dangerous practices or items? That would be foolish.

If you are open to learning, perhaps you should spend more time asking and listening rather than defending your own POV. For example you could ask what women mean by the phrase and then discuss those ideas rather than latching on to a potential, but pretty much unproven, just assumed problem with it and then trying to prove it’s illogical or prejudicial (by using it in ways women here aren’t using).

Given that every woman I know has similar experiences to MustardSeed and myself (and most women don’t share them very often, my husband doesn’t know them all in my case), how do you know the chronic anxiety and hyper vigilance is not from experience, but rather the messaging?

Except that’s not what you accomplished and I am rather surprised you weren’t aware apparently that it wouldn’t do that as your argument is not a logical rebuttal of the point of view, it is just another restatement of your own POV that the presence of wrongdoing is not a reason to be cautious with everyone until there is sufficient reason not to be. If it didn’t work by pointing out not all men were perpetrators, why would it work be more reasonable to point out not lots of women are predators to? There are many women who may not feel threatened in the same way by other women, but there is a category difference with men that makes your point useless: women are not inherently stronger or faster or more aggressive than other women, there is therefore much less chance that one can be physically controlled by another woman while the chance is very high that almost every man a woman will encounter will be able to physically overpower them. Which is what most women are doing when they say “every man is a potential witness” so why are you arguing against it? No, I am not. You are simply going there even though I specifically say I do not. Since you seem to approve of Chat, this was its response when I asked it “what is the meaning of “every man is a potential rapist”? If you want to promote shared understanding, you need to pay attention to what others are saying and that doesn’t mean just their most recent post in the conversation. Which why I wonder why you claim I am not doing it to women and instead have a double standard? I have said over and over, including in that post that I believe was women (and men) should view anyone as a potential threat, Iow always be prepared. I mentioned earlier my most violent experience was with a woman (a near relative in fact). It appears you continue to make assumptions about what I believe and this misinterpret me. Maybe you should consider this is happening with other women in this context. Yes, there is a small segment of women who intentionally use this and other phrases to attack all men as inherently violent. I have no problem if you want to critique that particular usage, but to dismiss the phrase outright as problematic is inappropriate imo. Find out first how women are using it rather than critiquing it immediately. Then critique what they actually mean if that’s problematic. Just because you think it’s making women inappropriate hyper vigilante and interfering with forming decent attachments to men (as opposed to actual experiences of being assaulted by men) and creating inappropriate discrimination against men in general doesn’t mean it’s actually happening. I have seen benefit from teaching women to be aware that one can’t tell who will be violent just by looking at them, so I want to see evidencd the downside is higher than the benefits of helping people be better prepared and therefore safe before I start promoting the complete retirement of the phrase. As long as our culture emphasizes the woman’s role in preventing sexual violence and does not address effectively the man’s role, we will continue to get such maxims in our culture to help spread awareness among women. If we want to avoid violence, education is the best way. Ignoring the problem or downplaying it certainly hasn’t worked. I myself would not use the phrase “every man is a potential rapist” (it’s too close to becoming a cliche which are too easy to ignore, imo) when counseling others to adopt safety routines and increase awareness, but I won’t tell others not to use it unless I know they are doing it to ascribe blame to all men (have never talked to a woman who does that, btw). I would instead stress how even though there are red flags out there and we need to be aware of them, there is not guarantee when it comes to predicting who will be violent or where assaults will happen for individuals or their loved ones, so it’s best to be prepared. And I would give examples of the most ‘unlikely’ predators…and I would definitely include women and juveniles in those examples. I would also encourage rehearsing in one’s mind the worst scenarios and even perhaps role playing with one’s children what one should do when in a dangerous situation so we are less likely to freeze or be clueless about how to react.

You really need to stop and think why you felt the need to point to women doing wrong to defend against the idea that men can do wrong. This is a serious suggestion. All you did at most is justify women being viewed as potential rapists as well. Was that your intent? If not, then why did you do it? Because whatever purpose you had, it likely didn’t work and it should have been obvious it wouldn’t. And it would be useful to seriously think why that didn’t happen for you where it did happen with Nehor and has happened with others on the board in the past (and failed not only with you but other posters, so you are not an exception). My view: Boys (because they are also physically vulnerable being significantly smaller and slower until adulthood and some even then) and men should be getting the same lessons on safety as well even if in most cases for men with women, they can’t and aren’t physically forced because women are not stronger than they are…though women no doubt have used knives and guns and counted on surprise and being able to exit the situation quickly to grope a man (suspect most men will just freeze to begin with, but some could get violent in response). And juveniles are abused about a third of the time by other juveniles, so age may lower the risk, but does not remove it. Parents need to consider this when thinking about sleepovers, it’s not just the adults that are the issue. I know one therapist who never let his kids have sleepovers even with us because he had heard too many stories….turned out a distant relative of my husband every adult thought was great had been abusing kids for decades, mostly very young ones. Between the two of them, I am antisleepovers now as well because that would have been a case of I ‘knew better’, I would have felt secure in letting my kids sleep at that pervert’s house because his wife was fantastic and is fantastic. A lovely woman who was completely fooled by her husband, I am certain…because no one told her to look for red flags, but that her feelings of trust and love would be enough (she is 30 years older than me, so it’s understandable why she missed it as her generation never talked about it and emphasized loyalty and love and trust towards one’s spouse, so my guess is if she ever felt uncomfortable, she unwittingly suppressed it).. Lessons for all youth need to be about preparing oneself so one can be safer in the presence of other men and women as well. Smac, you have now have justified a world where everyone needs to be vigilant towards anyone else until they know better…and even then need to still remember stress and trauma may change people, so probably best never to think such is impossible to happen, but keep in mind somewhere an awareness of red flags. Guess we can end this conversation on this note: You, Smac, are quite right that women should not be thinking “every man is a potential rapist” as that is a potentially harmful belief. It should be “every person is a potential rapist” instead and not just women, but men as well. Welcome to reality. Good luck.

The dangerous situations I have been in were while I was trying to be nice and not let the guy think I didn’t see him as a friend. In these cases they restricted my movement, preventing me from leaving the situation (in one case the guy had even disabled my car, so after work I had to be alone with him in an almost empty parking lot, I had told him I didn’t want to go on dates with him any more because he made me uncomfortable, but I had been gentle in doing so and just said I didn’t want to waste his time as I didn’t see it going anywhere; he was attempting to persuade me otherwise by forcing me to listen to him, he even blocked me from closing the car door).

I can see some maybe willing after retirement, but this could develop into something that is equivalent to a bishop’s job if they cover a large number of wards, but without counselors and other supports to help out. Plus there may be no one trained in this field that should be used as a supervisor and this is not something that one should going in as a newbie and gaining experience on, but should start as fully trained. So they may need to get a nonmember, who is unlikely to volunteer. Consistency would be best as well, so being an employee rather than a volunteer seems the wisest course for having professionals advisors assisting bishops with this (though I see it as less assistance and more as a team effort since the pro should be able to overrule a bishop who doesn’t believe safety measures should be taken). It is ridiculous that so many bishops think they are prepared enough to work with offenders, that common sense and love is enough.

There are two descriptions of sifting. The usual biblical interpretation in my experience is the first step of threshing the wheat to remove the chaff and then sifting to remove debris. The technical description has sifting occurs after it’s milled, so I am wondering if the usual biblical interpretation is wrong or the meaning of sifting has changed over the years. (Checked with Chat, it says the modern version is due to change, sifting in the biblical sense is to remove impurities, which makes the idea of Satan sifting rather odd as even if somehow the good wheat got mixed n with chaff and dirt, why wouldn’t he try to corrupt that as well?) The sifting of wheat divides the various parts of the milled wheat into bran, germ, and flour (larger particles get milled again until the right size). Either description refers to sorting….What that has to do with flaxen cords and binding…you have lost me. Satan is binding everyone he can get, not sifting it seems to me in the scripture, even if he starts out gently and gradually ramps up his control. Mixed metaphors are confusing.

He would have hated me. Never even got a parking ticket, let alone a speeding one.

It is not surprising he was already familiar with the Church as there is enough info out there and if I was choosing to do a challenge on living like members of any religious community, I would research it deeply first so I didn’t look like an idiot. And being a YouTuber, if one is used to looking at one’s life for ideas to make videos whether or not one is motivated by money or just enjoy doing it, it’s hardly surprising that if one is considering a major life change to set it up in a way to interest others…thus the challenge. So either past research led to the interest and therefore likely baptism and that led to the challenge or past research led to the idea of the challenge and therefore led to more research and thus either primed him for baptism or he had already decided. The missionary discussions…would be interesting to know if he took them before. Were the discussions themselves recorded? It is good PR for the Church, another opportunity to educate others about what happens so I assume the elders would be happy to go along with it, just hope it wasn’t a fake for them, everyone pretending it was his first time IF he had done them before, especially if he had already decided to be baptized and was not just thinking it might be a possibility or wasn’t planning at all, but had a change of heart after actually doing the challenge (not assuming he did as there is a good chance he decided to do a challenge once he decided he would have the missionaries over or he decided to have the missionaries over because he needed content to make the 30 days more interesting). All the above makes me slightly uncomfortable probably just because I find it very strange to want to document one’s life so publicly, but obviously there are others who feel differently and as far as I know there is nothing inherently wrong with that (will be interesting to see what long term effects it will have on people as I can see lots of potential problems, it certainly adds complications and stress to one’s life but plenty of wonderful things do that too). Then there is my concern of the potential of the financial benefits being a major driver of behaviour rather than doing something purely because one is interested in it or see it as beneficial in non financial ways, but plenty of people make major decisions based on interest in money, such as what to take in college and what career to pursue (and unfortunately often end up not enjoying that part of their life), so that’s likely not that different than before, social media is just another, very accessible option…though I wonder how many actually make enough to balance their investment of time and effort. Hopefully most who are doing it primarily for money or stardom don’t invest money into the setup until they are making enough to cover those costs. It would be disappointing though if I found out he was going so far as expecting to become a popular speaker in the Church because then I worry that baptism is motivated by more than just being captivated by the Spirit and maybe loving the community. There are a lot of valid reasons to join a faith and looking for a place to belong is high up there, imo, but looking to get attention and changing behaviour based on that, I see it as setting oneself up for dissatisfaction later on, especially with our faith as it is high demand.