[throwaway2331]

Buddy, you're missing the forest for the trees.

This is not technology thoughtlessly trampling over human dignity; this is human nature expressing itself within a certain environment.

This is me realizing I cannot suckle off the financial teet of my parents and the state; and I actually must go out, make money, and keep my "work life" balance in-check -- because I'm a bag of meat with a reward-behavior system that needs certain things to remain functioning.

Online discussion is where I get my "fix." It's one source of stimulation that keeps me functioning at my best, and prevents me from degrading into a certain state of being that my biology considers "not good" -- one where I cannot meet the goals my entire mind and body have decided are "to be done."

I'm not some nobleman's son living in utter luxury and leisure. I do not have the resources available to live in an "ideal" world where I can spend my time worrying about the ultimate repercussions of blocking someone. I live in the "real" world, where I have to manage the repercussions of my own actions against my goals, and take into account how seriously engaging some nitwit on an online shit-flinging message board is going to affect my goals, and therefore my feelings and behaviors.

One could make an argument here that material inequality (and its great disparity between the two ends) has lead us to such a state of affairs; and that man's greatest faults are caused by his greatest sufferings: a system that breaks him down, and grinds away at this soul, preventing him from living a life predicated on ideals, and some greater cultural values.

But to disparage the tools which man made to try and adapt to the circumstances of his environment is silly.

I could choose to become a hermit, and live a life of anarchist pacifism, in order to live an exemplified life of idealism; but I don't want to.

[throwaway2331]

Your characterization of my self, my views, and my soul are correct.

I am a disintegrated man -- lacking any boundary or inkling of personality. I do not have any sense of ego, or self. I do not feel anything. I am an animal; a beast that cares for nothing more than primal urges.

My caricature of "the way things are" is only bleak, fatalistic, and sad if you allow it to be. I don't consider it to be any of those things. I've watched people of all sorts go about life. I've seen the decisions they make, the things they've said, and the consequences of all their actions. My base inclinations were towards optimistic naivete.

After watching humanity, I believe it's foolish to go down that line of being. People are self-interested, and their self-interests do not stray further than "feel good, don't feel bad." Any higher cause, nobility, or substance within people is a mirage: a collection of ideas that only exist in your head, and are forced into "shape" by your mind looking for patterns.

If you strip away the doe-eyed idealism, the youthful fervor that preaches life, and all the human emotion from your words: there is nothing there. You have strung along a very pleasing-to-the-eye harangue (I do like your style. I could read it for days); but it's carried only by your emotion, and not by innate observations or intuitions that stand up on their own two feet.

I do not disagree with anything you've written. I agree with all of it -- except your sense of possibility and your still clinging to emotion.

You are someone whose temperament is full of emotion. It drives you, colors your world, and dictates how you act. It also means you're more likely to gravitate towards the things and thoughts that make you feel good (humanistic, life-affirming, etc.) and away from the the things and thoughts that make you feel bad (pathetic, unimaginative, all that is shit). This gives you much greater power for feats of will and sustained stamina. But this leaves you towards and action bias, and the world becomes painted with your emotions.

My temperament is naturally cool. I'm not driven by much, but rational understanding of the things I must do to keep my homeostasis -- my health, my soundness of mind, and so on. I do not gravitate to things, nor am I repelled from things. Things don't make me feel much, and I do not color them. They appear to me as they are: without assigned incorporeal qualities, and simply as they exist.

Knowing this, I do not suffer from cognitive dissonance, emotional disturbances, or other blockages and ailments of the mind. If something is truly fait-accompli, then I tacitly accept it.

People are driven by self-interest. They are driven by their emotions, those little daemons that have them fritter about, trying to make sense of everything. Your thoughts and feelings are no different. You are a critter, chittering on and on, trying to make sense of the world, and orient yourself. Why? Because you feel like you must -- that is your temperament; you're "holding on" to your emotions, still seeing them as some source of truth -- that they must be satisfied, else (it feels) something terrible will happen.

I have experienced different. I have found a tranquility of soul and mind, by letting go. My emotions are simply biological products of my nervous system -- nothing more. If I don't humor them, they will go away. If I humor them, I most likely drift into the realm of "spiritual violence" against others, trying to influence and touch their souls (as you have here).

The way I view the world does not make me feel anything. I accept the world as it is. I also accept that any "action" I try and take will simply be for the benefit of my emotional state (and not actually result in anything but a temporary shifting of the pressure from one area of society to another -- which will inevitably rebound).

Yet, I am at peace. Can you say the same?