Thread: Power

Originally Posted by Arutad

That's the same as you do with your life philosophy of challenge

I never denied that. But I am not sacrificing myself for something irrational, like religion or following a way someone points to me. So I am living for myself, for my pleasure, for my own needs. Egoistic, yes, but also somewhat the purest form of existence.

That was an unexpected twist. But I would only do it for a very special kind of power that would considerably level up the quality of my life. So you could say it's about pleasure and not power.

Then we don't have much difference here. As might noticed, I never said I am not pleasure centered. For me, power is just a mean to get pleasure and also a way to instantly generate pleasure by achieving more power. If life gives you no pleasure, it loses it's meaning completely. Please, do tell : What is something that considerably levels up your life quality? Even if it is something that is a bit unrealistic. I have given up many things, which I consider as worthless and I have gotten much in return. Sometimes I have given less and received more, sometimes vice versa.

That's only a preference. For me things aren't permanent just as well, I know that eventually either I will die or a severe illness will take me even before that happens. But my choice is to seek out as much pleasure as I can as long as it's possible. Denying pleasure to yourself because of the inevitable loss of it is futile, you can't prevent the loss anyway.

We both agree this, but let me clarify. You know that nothing is permanent, but have you already accepted it? My mindstate is so attuned with chaos and change that I accept things that change as part of life, without resistance or yelling. Majority of people cannot do that. They cannot accept events, which they have no ways of affecting and still they feel quilty or angry. My grandmother died couple weeks ago and I was very fond of her. I didn't cry at the funeral though. Only reason I see as fit for mourning is egoistic tears for me never seeing her again. For me there is no other reason for mourning. But as you said, you want to seek pleasure as long as possible. How does that differ to my choice of continuing life if I am crippled? I can enjoy life in many ways, thanks to my wide range of skills, which I keep on practicing.

I think about it as the same as the process of comparison to other people, but in a slightly more hidden form.

It is the same process as you said, but by psychological perspective a lot different because the inward nature of it. Humans usually compare themselves a lot more to outer enviroment.

You know that the old you is "worse" because you evaluated yourself and that evaluation even separated you into two different people, the "old you" and the "new you". This process of evaluation was done by usage of other people's evaluative opinions. There are no evaluative opinions that are strictly yours, they're developed during interactions with others and you need to refer to past memories for self-evaluation to function.

An interesting view. It has only a tiny flaw in it, at least in my case. Let's think of scenario, which is very common to me. I have drawn pictures or paintings for last month and I decide to keep a break for all the things I have learned to sink in. After another month I decide to paint a couple pictures just to see what I come up with. I notice that for example shading is a lot better than in my last month's works. Also, the pictures at whole are a lot better technically. I have evaluated it all alone with nobody else helping me. I'd consider them my opinions, even if I am re-using my memories, since they are my memories about me.

Of course, I doubt anyone can live with zero comparison with other people and neither do I. In cases, where I just cannot improve without comparing myself to others i.e martial arts, I do that.

That sounds wrong. I came around to think as standard about soft-cover novels 200 pages long, or 450 for a single normal hardcover book. 1500-1700 pages wouldn't even even fit into a single hardcover book, that would have to be three books.

Which I think was the amount of books I said I read in a day before Well as example, I read Kundera's Unbearable Lightness of Being in under three hours and I wasn't in particular rush In Finnish there are singe books for over 1000 pages easily.

A conscious choice to face death is far more difficult than facing life, which you don't have to apply an effort to. Suicide is a deed that needs a lot of courage.

A common opinion and the one I disagree. Suicide isn't a feat. You can just take overdose of sleeping pills and that's it. You just need swallow. In life you have to do a lot more. You have to endure and prevail. The other choice is the death, which those who are too weak to endure the life will choose. The easier choice. If one should kill oneself, at least they should apply there some challenge, like traditional Japanese seppuku. It requires you to keep your mettle and not show signs of weakness or pain as you die.

Let's think of some sects of Islam. They say that if you kill yourself in the sake of Holy War, you will get into the paradise instantly. The suicider deeply believes so. He has no fear. Now that is easy. You are slumbered in the thought that someone will save you after you kill yourself, you get to the better place. Now, think of traditional samurai, who has no religion or afterlife. He believes in nothing and still commits a ritual suicide, a very gruesome death, where you rip your own stomach with a dagger, for the sake of his honor or his master. There is a great difference in there. Both commit suicide because of their ideals, but still the deaths do vary. Now take a typical modern man killing himself. Divorce, alcohol problems, low on money, rent unpaid and such. Heavy drinking on the day and decides to pull the trigger in the night, drunk. Where is the courage? He has only problems, he is doing it out of despair. He doesn't want to live, to solve his problems. He fears there is no other outcome, he fears life. For me that is even more pathetic.

"Anyone desperate enough for suicide...should be desperate enough to go to creative extremes to solve problems: elope at midnight, stow away on the boat to New Zealand and start over, do what they always wanted to do but were afraid to try.” -Richard Bach

Would you be able to jump from the roof in cold blood? Not paying attention to all your senses panicking and protesting like mad?

I wouldn't jump of the roof if I wanted to kill myself. Too easy. Just one step and no going back. Same as the thing I mentioned before. I have trained myself for my whole life not to let my feelings distract me. I have done many things in cold blood and most importantly, I have casted aside fear and replaced it with deep focus. From rational point of view, suicide is actually never answer. It is call of heart. I am rational person as I have said. But if I wanted to kill myself, I'd rip my stomach open. If ancient warriors did it, this modern warrior does not want to be second to them ^^

Why do you think that what you say in this way amounts to a free way of speaking?

I don't know. Mostly because I cannot understand the subject in English. Or at least I am thinking back here "free speech" means a ability to say whatever you want without fear of punishment? Is that right? If it is, I don't fear to express my opinions, because someone would get mad at me.

What an interesting difference that got created by different life styles.

Mine is heavily influenced by my security work. Better solve things talking first before giving a knuckle-sandwich. Prolongs your life.

How can you know that something is right if it doesn't even exist outside of your mind? I think it's not a matter of arguing that power is a mind-created idea, just like "weather" or "beauty". We already can see that we have different notions about it, it's an idea that can't have a right or wrong meaning.

At the moment I don't know if we are talking about same things, since I feel a bit confused. But this far I have known most of the time. Deduction, reading people coupled with good intuition takes you far. People aren't that hard to read when it comes to extreme feelings like fear, despair, doubt, joy, excitement and anger. For example, in the ring, everytime when I have won, I have sensed the moment my opponent wavers and starts to doubt. After that moment the match is practically over in 10 seconds. Every single time. It is just the feeling, the knowledge that when I throw this punch, it WILL hit. It is a peculiar feeling, like no other. That is the kind of moment when I refer I am "right".

This is passage is what I'd call an illusion. These are your subjective thoughts and conclusions that you made from them. For others they might either not exist or be wrong.

Everything is pretty much subjective. Can we read people thoughts accuratetly? I think not. If they tell us, they can lie or fail to express their feelings accuratetly. So what is more objective then? We are just have to be correct with our hypothesis, then it turns to knowledge. That is the basis of science too. What is your reality in this?

Originally Posted by Unelias

But I am not sacrificing myself for something irrational, like religion or following a way someone points to me. So I am living for myself, for my pleasure, for my own needs. Egoistic, yes, but also somewhat the purest form of existence.

You started by saying that many people sacrifice their lives to something that will crumble and be destroyed. Then you agreed that your life is in no way better in this respect, but now you add that it's better in another one. I don't understand why you add that. Are you comparing yourself to other people now, a thing that you said you rarely do?

As might noticed, I never said I am not pleasure centered. For me, power is just a mean to get pleasure and also a way to instantly generate pleasure by achieving more power. If life gives you no pleasure, it loses it's meaning completely.

I fail to deduce that from your previous passages. You said that you would like to go blind or become crippled. What kind of pleasure would it give to you, a masochistic one?

Please, do tell : What is something that considerably levels up your life quality? Even if it is something that is a bit unrealistic. I have given up many things, which I consider as worthless and I have gotten much in return. Sometimes I have given less and received more, sometimes vice versa.

I can't think up a name for this kind of thing. Displeasure comes from your body and feelings, a thing that would considerably reduce it would be an ability to rule over body and feelings. Body should simply stay healthy, feelings are a more complex matter. You should be able to rewarp the whole of your personality in any way you'd like, as it's hard to say beforehand what kind of personality would be better at reducing discomfort from feelings. For this kind of power I could kill or die myself.

You're not being clear about your own preferable powers, however. What is it that you get only in return for giving something up?

My mindstate is so attuned with chaos and change that I accept things that change as part of life, without resistance or yelling. Majority of people cannot do that. They cannot accept events, which they have no ways of affecting and still they feel quilty or angry. My grandmother died couple weeks ago and I was very fond of her. I didn't cry at the funeral though. Only reason I see as fit for mourning is egoistic tears for me never seeing her again. For me there is no other reason for mourning.

Are you saying that in your opinion once the changes are accepted you'd stop wanting to shed tears out of egoistic feelings of never seeing somebody again? I can't see a big contradiction between the two. When people cry they already know that tears won't bring others back to life, they've accepted their death. But they cry. Maybe from egoistic feelings, but not from an unnaccepted change.

The kind of situation that you describe happens when somebody dies in front of you. Then it's unnaccepted and feelings like guilt and anger can be present.

But as you said, you want to seek pleasure as long as possible. How does that differ to my choice of continuing life if I am crippled? I can enjoy life in many ways, thanks to my wide range of skills, which I keep on practicing.

It would seem that for you pleasure is equal to making yourself better than you were. In this case it's very different from mine.

It is the same process as you said, but by psychological perspective a lot different because the inward nature of it. Humans usually compare themselves a lot more to outer enviroment.

The perspective is different, but it's the same process.

I have drawn pictures or paintings for last month and I decide to keep a break for all the things I have learned to sink in. After another month I decide to paint a couple pictures just to see what I come up with. I notice that for example shading is a lot better than in my last month's works. Also, the pictures at whole are a lot better technically. I have evaluated it all alone with nobody else helping me. I'd consider them my opinions, even if I am re-using my memories, since they are my memories about me.

Of course I wasn't saying that the comparing-to-others process is constant. But it's hard to find instances when it isn't present for sure. For example, why does it matter to you that now you draw better pictures, can you swear that there are no fleeting images in your mind about other people drawing worse than you do now? For myself I find that the feeling that comes from an achievement comes from this deeply hidden comparison. No comparison no feeling. Maybe for you things are different, but as I can only judge psyches of others by my own I'm going to assume that they're not.

In cases, where I just cannot improve without comparing myself to others i.e martial arts, I do that.

Mostly I wasn't talking about conscious comparison to others. It's easy to see it. The one that is hidden is more difficult to see and especially to be sure that you're seeing it and not making it up.

Which I think was the amount of books I said I read in a day before Well as example, I read Kundera's Unbearable Lightness of Being in under two hours and I wasn't in particular rush In Finnish there are singe books for over 1000 pages easily.

I met people who could read a book per day, but not three.

Suicide isn't a feat. You can just take overdose of sleeping pills and that's it. You just need swallow. In life you have to do a lot more You have to endure and prevail. The other choice is the death, which those who are too weak to endure the life will choose. The easier choice.

What is special about endurance, why does it make people who don't have it weak and inferior to you?

And I feel like facing death is a thing you underestimate even in your own philosophy. It's not something easy to face. Some people would endure anything just to avoid it. I know people who fear it so much that they're unable to talk about it, and others who can but feel apprehensive about doing it.

If one should kill oneself, at least they should apply there some challenge, like traditional Japanese seppuku. It requires you to keep your mettle and not show signs of weakness or pain as you die.

If you decided to die then what does it matter in what way you do it, with challenge or quickly? I fail to see why it would matter for a next-minute-I'll-be-dead guy to care whether he dies along his life philosophy or not. Next minute it will stop to matter anyway.

Let's think of some sects of Islam. They say that if you kill yourself in the sake of Holy War, you will get into the paradise instantly. The suicider deeply believes so. He has no fear. Now that is easy. You are slumbered in the thought that someone will save you after you kill yourself, you get to the better place. Now, think of traditional samurai, who has no religion or afterlife. He believes in nothing and still commits a ritual suicide, a very gruesome death, where you rip your own stomach with a dagger, for the sake of his honor or his master. There is a great difference in there. Both commit suicide because of their ideals, but still the deaths do vary. Now take a typical modern man killing himself. Divorce, alcohol problems, low on money, rent unpaid and such. Heavy drinking on the day and decides to pull the trigger in the night, drunk. Where is the courage? He has only problems, he is doing it out of despair. He doesn't want to live, to solve his problems. He fears there is no other outcome, he fears life. For me that is even more pathetic.

Life is more diverse than that. If you judge by a couple of stereotypical examples, create your own motivations for them and then evaluate those made-up motivations, it is unlikely to yield an objective picture of the suicide topic.

I wouldn't jump of the roof if I wanted to kill myself. Too easy.

You talk like a guy from the TV show who seeks a way to kill himself in a most impressive way . The question is for whom? For yourself it can't be, as you're going to be dead anyway. Not for others either. I think that it's for your own life philosophy, if you died in a difficult way then while dying you would feel superior to other weaklings who died in easy ways I honestly can see no point in it, but it does sound like it.

I don't even believe that you'd still care for your life philosophy if you decided to die. It's incompatible with this kind of choice.

I have trained myself for my whole life not to let my feelings distract me. I have done many things in cold blood and most importantly, I have casted aside fear and replaced it with deep focus.

Yep so much effort and next minute it ceases to exist. Doesn't it render it meaningless.

Or at least I am thinking back here "free speech" means a ability to say whatever you want without fear of punishment? Is that right? If it is, I don't fear to express my opinions, because someone would get mad at me.

I think that it's right. I just fail to believe that you're speaking in a totally free way. Maybe in as free a way as you can evaluate at the moment, but there's bound to be a lot hidden stuff that you distort without being aware of that.

At the moment I don't know if we are talking about same things, since I feel a bit confused. But this far I have known most of the time. Deduction, reading people coupled with good intuition takes you far. People aren't that hard to read when it comes to extreme feelings like fear, despair, doubt, joy, excitement and anger. For example, in the ring, everytime when I have won, I have sensed the moment my opponent wavers and starts to doubt. After that moment the match is practically over in 10 seconds. Every single time. It is just the feeling, the knowledge that when I throw this punch, it WILL hit. It is a peculiar feeling, like no other. That is the kind of moment when I refer I am "right".

Hm I was talking about your other conclusions about what people feel and how their psyches work. You wrote a few and called that knowledge and the usage of it you called power, as if that knowledge was necessarily objective and not coming from imagination...

I understand what you mean by making a difference between normal knowledge and intuitive knowledge, however. But it's only "intuitive" as long as you're not very aware of what makes you draw conclusions. There's no saying when it would fail you, too, just like normal knowledge. Mostly this kind of knowledge comes from having subconsciously recognized patterns and signs, and it relies on these patterns and signs being the same. Once somebody does things in a slightly different way, you'll fool yourself completely with this intuitive knowledge.

So what is more objective then? We are just have to be correct with our hypothesis, then it turns to knowledge. That is the basis of science too. What is your reality in this?

I'm not sure that objectivity exists, do you think it does? Common sense says it should, as we both happen to agree than we can walk and talk, these abilities and many other things in life should be objective.

But I think that most hypotheses in life turn to fake, imaginary knowledge. There are no tools to check them. Even if you've observed something happen all the time, you might've had a bias and evaluated its meaning incorrectly. In this way only observation can be trusted, as long as there are no conclusions drawn about its meaning.

Originally Posted by Unelias

I don't recall calling anyone's fantasy an utopia. I am just thinking rationally. I am still pretty sure you are writing into wrong thread since I cannot find a way how anything you posted makes any relevance to this matter.



Most people just don't care about real freedom. They live in illusion that they have freedom, but in the end they are caged birds. In order to live in freedom, you must leave many things behind and break all outside restrictions.

Well I do plan to leave it all behind and build a self providing way of life elsewhere. And by the way relax a bit maybe. No need to be so sharp.

Being self providing, which my breakaway plan mentions, has everything to do with power.

Because it feels good. Some people crave control. Power can come with respect/appreciation. It also gives you the ability to influence, those underneath you. Power can also mean freedom. It's better to be the master then the slave.

Originally Posted by Bizarre Jester

It's better to be the master then the slave.

Maybe, but it's best to be neither.

Originally Posted by PhilosopherStoned

Maybe, but it's best to be neither.

amen.

I once played an Age of Empires 2 Custom Campaign about a king named Unelias. He was born impoverished and was abandoned by his mother during a long war that destroyed much of his homeland. He was rescued by a small military battalion that found him near a broken wagon after many of the villagers had fled the area. He was raised by a rogue captain who taught him to fight, and ended up re-conquering his homeland by burning down several outlying villages and carrying out a genocide of his own people. He then married his cousin, had two deformed children by her, and committed suicide by throwing himself off of a Frigate and being eaten by sharks. this is all, of course, completely off topic, but I thought I should just let you all know

Every single human being desires for power pretty much equally. All that differs is where a particular individual has learned to seek power.

Originally Posted by A Roxxor

I once played an Age of Empires 2 Custom Campaign about a king named Unelias. He was born impoverished and was abandoned by his mother during a long war that destroyed much of his homeland. He was rescued by a small military battalion that found him near a broken wagon after many of the villagers had fled the area. He was raised by a rogue captain who taught him to fight, and ended up re-conquering his homeland by burning down several outlying villages and carrying out a genocide of his own people. He then married his cousin, had two deformed children by her, and committed suicide by throwing himself off of a Frigate and being eaten by sharks. this is all, of course, completely off topic, but I thought I should just let you all know

Well good riddance of a man that commited a genocide and destruction against his own people, his brothers and sisters. He got the fate he deserved.

It's called Karma. The ultimate power. Balance.

They really casn stuff such details into an Age of Empires 2 custom campaign? Did they make their own movies?