Predictable Irrationality

I've already talked a bit about love and first sight; how we are fooled into loving a fantasy we've invented in our heads of another person we just met. I've also gone on about how 'being yourself' is quite impossible in a sense. But what about our ability to decide things?

Statistics show that countries which have the lowest donor rate have only one vital difference between countries with near 100% donor rates, and it's not a matter of culture for the most part; countries nearby with similar cultures have drastically diferent rates. What it all came down to was the way the DMV form was written. In countries with very low rates, the form said 'check here if you want to join the organ donor program' and the countries with higher rates said 'check here if you do not want to join the organ donor program'. Our decisions came down to how the form was written. In this sense, our decision was completely in the control of the form author. How in control of your decisions do you think you really are?

If our brains were evolved with the occipital lobe to process vision, which we do more of than almost anything else in a day, and we are prone to optical illusions, how horribly must be fail things we were not evolved to do, like making financial decisions? Look at an optical illusion, even with the foresight that this is an illusion, yet your brain cannot see past it. Yet with many of our day-to-day decisions, we do not have a specialized part of the brain governing and dedicating to it, neither do we practice making financial decisions hours each day. It stands to reason that we are prone to making many more mistakes with financial decisions... and without an easy way to see them. With an optical illusion, you can easily see where you went wrong, perhaps by measuring the length of a part of the picture. No so with many other issues we have.

Yet, we go about our day-to-day lives as if we are the absolute decisions maker, when the DMV form designer possess powers over us. We feel we are generally rational yet we commit to fallacies, if not in this aspect, then another aspect of our lives. We are partitioned in our way of thinking.

Here's another interesting study result. This one was given to physicians. Suppose your patient has a hip problem and all medications you've tried didn't work, and following that the natural course of action is a hip replacement surgery. What would you do, if the day before the surgery, you found out you missed on medication? The majority of the doctors ended up halting the operation, which is good. But what happens if you found out you missed two medications? A much higher percentage of doctors simply let the surgery occur. It seems counter-intuitive; missing two medications means a higher chance of success. But the extra burden of decisions and choices we still have to make drives us into inaction. It goes back to my previous blog posts about participation and choices. Jobs with the most employee programs have the lowest participation rates.

Another study was done regarding choices. Suppose you had three choices: To go to Paris or Rome, both with free food and all expenses paid, or you could go to Rome, but you still have to pay for your own coffee. Quite simply put, the last option is useless as far as a rational brain is concerned. But the fact that there is a Rome option with coffee paid, the study finds out, actually pushes people to pick the Rome option.

Here's something a bit unrelated but also about our mental states. You would figure that being offered a higher incentive led to higher success. After all, who doesn't want a big commission? As studies show (and this has been replicated many times for decades), yes, that is indeed true, but only for problems with typically one solution and an obvious road of attack. If the problem requires a creative approach with critical thinking, a higher incentive actually decreases our performance because the higher incentive led to the participants being more near-sighted. it stifles creativity. This must be taken into account in a business, because business and many problems of today are not simple one-answer and done problems, like washing the dishes. The Wright brothers beat the heavy favorites of their time, who were funded and offered tons of money. Wikipedia beat out all other contenders, one notable one from Microsoft who hired proffessors to write articles. Wikipedia offered nothing to its participants. So it seems the ability to do what you want and master it to be part of something larger than yourself is a driving force. A huge chunk of what comes out from Google comes from sessions where employees were given time to work on any project they wanted. A similar approach is employed in Bethesda, who makes the Elder Scrolls series, most notably Skyrim.

Oversimplification, Love at First Sight, Some are More, and More

I thas been a while since my last post, but it also took me a while to write an entire book, which by the way, I plan on revising in the future. I might get around to editing old Minute Logic posts and fixing typos. Anyways, let's get to it!

Some are More
I think in the golden age where everybody gets a trophy for trying, too much emphasis is being placed on making people feel better about themselves. If one can get a ribbon in a contest for not even following the rules, isn't that A) Misleading and B) causing people to be complacent? It's very easy for me to get lost in my own thinking and think of myself as quite intelligent. In fact, the intelligent people are in MIT, studying god-knows-what. They don't have time to blog about their thoughts. Not only are the intelligent, they show amazing persistence. On the other hand, I'm quite undisciplined. Sad face. Some people are literally 'more'. Their life is worth more, their thoughts are generally superior, and their entire existence is of a greater magnitude than some other. People like swallowing this idea, that each person has 'inner beauty' or some other hooey. I think that's false, and the tendency to follow that statement up with 'therefore, each person is priceless' is dangerous. It's complete bullshit.  Some people contribute more to society and are in a better position to fix problems and strengthen humanity. They will know more than we ever will. To huamnity at-large and as it should be for us, these people are better.

Yes, human life is worth something, but we play a numbers game with lives all the time. As I type this, some few children would have died in misery and suffering that could have most likely been preventable. We take this kind of stuff into account every time we design vehicles and anything safety related; sure, it has a chance of saving lives, but we don't want to spend all that money. We weight the cost of the implementation to the cost of the lives saved. I could give away all my money to those who need it more than me, those that would die if I didn't. But I don't. We are all selfish; it is in our nature to not be completely selfless, because you would be the idiot that died more than a hundred-thousand years ago. We cling onto family because it provided a plus to our survivability. We hate incest because it denies gene diversity. So as I've probably stated in an ealier blog post: After evolution and culture, how much left of yourself is truly yourself? The answer is much less than you'd think. No, I do not think we are all zombies of our nature and enviroment, but it has a much larger role than many of us give credit for. When chemicals rush into our brains right before sexual intercourse, we act just like the animals we actually are, as many other organisms in this world do.

Simplification
In major issues, people sometimes like to try to simplify it into one line. Every 'atheism destroyed in 60 seconds video' I see, I lose an eye. (Not literally, or I'd be blind.) Why? This subject is too ocmplex to address in 60 seconds. This reverse also applies; 'religion destroyed in 60 seconds' is pretty dumb, but not as dumb. 'Guns don't people, people kill people.' That's stupid. The most it does is verify your stance on gun control. It's not an actual argument. By that logic, all countries, North Korea included, should be allowed to have a handful of atomic weapons... heck, give random people some too. When the rule of allowing people to bear arms was written, people had muskets. We now have assault weapons with extended magazines to kill more before reloading- a critical factor in killing more people.I'm a bit neutral on the topic of gun control. More people are killed by many causes compared to guns, but the fact that the many victims in gun shootings would have been alive if it were not for guns is unmistakable. I mean, seriously. No, you can't arm teachers. Even trained police officers have a hard time shooting, and they are trained; they hit, accoridng to Time magazine, about 1/5 shots in the heat of combat. Speaking of which, I have a friend that thinks he's all fancy with his purple belt and can beat people up. Riiiight. Come a real fight, you'll turn to putty. The psychological factor is HUGE.

Love at First Sight
I'm a bit cynical on this stuff. But I no longer believe in this kind of stuff. How does one 'love' somebody for who they are before they know them? it's a bit of a non-sequitur. Instead, and as Dean Lyson pointed out, all we are doing is loving the person we've constructed in our minds, of who we assume they are. It is essentially falling in love with a constructed image of a person, a random guess at who they are. We want to believe the world is a nice place despite and because the world is such a cruel place. We want to believe the world has a god watching over us and we will survive if we die. We want to believe we can tell or destinies through our stars. We also want to believe there is that somebody that is utterly perfect for us. The idea of 'soul mates' is complete gargbage. It's based on assumptions for which there is no evidence. While there could potentially, through a sliver of chance, be only one person I will be extremely happy with, chances are there are many people in the world that I would be just as happy with if I had met them... but the world is huge, and I won't meet them. So when you see a 'soul mate', consider how this is faith-based proposition and had you lived somewhere else, you would most likely have found another 'soul mate'.

Settling is Condescending
I'm not the ultimate lady's man, and I openly admit it. I don't want to go into detail online, especially with my face and name attached to it, but I'm not crying over it. But one temptation others may have in my situation is to 'settle for somebody'. That is unfair to the girl. Imagine if you were married, and you found out your partner really only picked you because he or she couldn't find anybody better that liked him or her back. How would you feel? I think even to myself, settling for myself would be condescending to myself. I deserve and should find somebody I feel i am fully compatible with, who thinks I'm amazing. To settle is to judge myself unworthy.

The Truth
If I live under a dogma, the dogma would be that of telling the truth. I don't always tell the truth, but I do it to my friends often when it would annoy them. But in all cases I feel if I were perfectly moral by my own standards, I'd tell the truth. I feel the truth is always preferable to the non-truth. I don't want to live in a fantasy world, removed from reality. To complain when asked an opininon and I told the truth is to be angry somebody took your whiskey away after your obvious addiction. Ask me if you look fat in the jeans, ideally I'd reply, yes. But you know what? I'd notify you of the problem before you embarrass yourself in public, AND I'll help you find a pair that makes you look sexy. So looked at in this light, is it really that bad I try to tell the truth?

Aging: A disease?
One different spin on something that has been around us ever since our sentience: death and aging. Putting aside the psychological and philosophical aspects of this right now, isn't aging a disease? Is dying of 'natural' causes not so natural? Consider aging as a deterioration of our bodies, and our body unable to keep up. As we grow when we were little, we repair faster than the rate which we deterioate, but as time passes, things change. Errors in our DNA occur, and general misinformation along with clutter and garbage appear everywhere.

One argument may be that it is due to our evolution that we die too quickly (on the scale of the universe and even compared to some other animals on this planet, we die in the blink of an eye). If evolution could talk, it would literally look at us and say 'thr trouble of making you alive any longer is too much'. But if we consider that natural, isn't dying to many other diseases also natural?

Sigmund Freud said it was obvious religions were made because we were scared of death. Perhaps the media casts living longer in a negative light. Imagine if Newton and Einstein were alive today. Amazing. The world would be a different place. Would living longer only mean we live in a statement of sickness for a longer period of time? One person on TedTalks responded that his goal is to make people healthy, then make them healthier for a longer period of time, and perhaps one day make them always healthy.

Morality: The Lion
Isn't it more immoral for a lion to kill tons of animals than for a human to scam another person? Morality is a subjective topic because even if we condense morality into what brings the most pleasure (even that is debatable), who is to say what makes more happiness in the end? Anyways, a lion that kills somebody has no choice. The lion does not have the mental capacity we do, and will starve. Us, on the other hand, are given a better mind, and knowledge is power, and with great power comes great responsibility.

My Book
One last note, and this time about my book. I plan on revising it. Try proofreading an entire book that you wrote. When proofreading, often e read what we think we wrote, not what we actually wrote. It's challenging. I want to fix all typos that exist in this version, and beef up the book with even more good content. Perhaps as Hitchens said, I will be writing this book my entire life.

Eric's Top 20

1. Rational thinking will lead to a more enriched life.
2. Religion is a bane of society.
3. Those that cannot handle the heat of a debate and relies upon insults need not associate with me.
4. 99.9% of all species on earth have died. We are but animals struggling to survive, with urges to reproduce. All attraction, love, etc are simply byproducts. The faster you accept the chaotic, un-designed world, the better.
5. There is no such thing as “luck”. That’s an idiot’s way at working with statistics.
6. Don’t judge a gay person and don’t judge a crossdresser.
7. People should learn how to cook.
8. Don’t ignore somebody’s feelings. Who cares if they look unattractive to you? Do their looks diminish the authenticity of their feelings? No. Don’t be a dick.
9. There’s no such thing as “gently” breaking the news. It’s like a band-aid. Rip it off quickly. Prevent further scarring.
10. Don’t lie.
11. Sometimes I look at the past. Sometimes the past is forgotten because of my memories. Faces fade. Things disappear. But once in a while, a song or some other trigger would remind me of the past, of the circumstances back then. Then I look at how I played my life so far, and how I really should have acted.
12. Somebody recently called me a bitter person. Maybe I am.
13. Don’t shit me with your 1000 Facebook friends. They’re not your friends.
14. I’ve been told I possess good intelligence. But I tell you, it means nothing. Frankly, intelligence can be gained, as can knowledge. What matters is how you utilize what you have – the drive you have. The greatest did not achieve what they did without insane work ethic. This is why if I ever note my intellect, it’s not to establish superiority – the exact opposite, and the most ironic thing may occur. That is, you end up more successful than me, because I am lazy and undisciplined.
15. Listen to whatever you like. Quit cussing those that listen to other  bands.
16. Don’t confine yourself to gender roles. Gender is an artificial and social construct.
17. Stop saying you don’t judge. You do. The faster you realize this, the better. You can’t fix it if you can’t recognize it. What’s worse is denial.
18. Stop saying you are yourself. We are all influenced by society and evolution.
19. Time heals all wounds, but it leaves a scar and renders one unfeeling. A few get infected and die, but most survive. Not stronger, just more cautious.
20. Omniscience is the ideal state of being,

Every year I list down what has changed in the past 365 days, I answer a 150 question questionarre, and then I list some points about my thoughts. This is 2013's. :-)

No, the World Isn't Turning Into Shit

Despite what the media tells you and what you have probably been lead to believe, no, the world isn't turning into shit. What does the news report? Shootings, economic problems, abductions, etc. Why? As Marilyn Manson said, it's a culture of fear and consumption. You have pimples? The girls are not going to fuck you. Oh look at what hurricane Sandy did to its victims! Buy our emergency radio! Face it: We want to be scared. The media reacts according to what we respond to, and we don't respond to happy things. I've heard a case of a company trying to do positive news - happy stories only. Nobody watched it. Crime is down, people. We live in a golden era of peace. Statistics don't lie.

The economy is bad? How about mentioning that we live better today than kings up until an eye-blink ago, did? Of course not. There are abductions and shit going on! Nope. Recently in the news, there has been a spike in shootings - a tragedy, to be sure, but also an exercise of stupidity. Because people die on our soil and they were children, it  a national tragedy. But if tons of men die out on the battlefield, it's a statistic and nobody really cares. Crime today is at an all-time low in recent history, and the crime in recent history has been the lowest in recorded history; and it's safe to assume that crime in recorded history is lower than in unrecorded history, before any real society was made.

There's this idea that the past was the best - and often, the idea is wrong. We often look at the past with rose-tinted glasses. The past was predictable. We like that. We were comfortable. Imagine if elders were sucked into an age of simulated shootings, and free sex and drug use. Imagine how shocked they would be. The idealized Victorian ettiquette was anything but. Females were more like extensions of the man; females were to be submissive, nice, kind, and ladylike. Failure to do that would result in being ostracized. It was forced politeness, not politeness out of respect. The idealized farm life of America? Complete bullshit. Life was extremely hard. That's why we moved to the cities in the first place. Oh, the irony! Don't like how animals are being pumped full of hormones? Cool, want to starve to death? If you're going to complain about animal treatement, you better not complain about food prices, because they are going to skyrocket.

Despite all of the wonders technology has given us for free, we think the world is going to hell. What is considered "good" must have a reference to compare to - and if our entire lives are lived in this amazing period of history where the combined human knowledge is accessible to anybody in the matter of 5 seconds, it's hard to be impressed and happy at anything.

The media is turning our kids into zombies! As Marilyn Manson said during the Clinton era - "The president dropped more bombs during the day of Columbine than any other day so far, yet I'm the bad guy because I sing a few rock-and-roll songs. Who do you think has more influence on children? I'd like to think me, but I'm going to go with the president." Somewhere, I think, there is a shift in blame, a reluctance to accept responsibility. Instead of parents being horrible parents, it's the media. No, it's NOT the media. You make the media. Video games were supposed to turn the next generation into murdering psychopaths. Before that, rock-n-roll and the sexual revolution. Before that, television and radio. It seems that every single generation is more doomed than the next. Yet this is far from the case.

The next generation will be smarter and more moral than us. There will be less crime, more techonology, more acceptance. We've nuked a huge chunk of racism, sexism, and slavery. Strides are made to chip away at homophobia. The future is in the future generations, and they will be infinitely more useful and valuable than us. Perhaps older generations have a hard time accepting that. The next generation will stand on our shoulders, from the work we've done to acheive greater things. Of this, I am actually optimistic, which is out-of-character for me.

Normality: Analysis on Crossdressing

What is normal?

Normal? What the fuck does normal even mean? Seriously, think about that. What is normal for you isn't normal for the majority of the world. So are you normal? I would define what is normal to be what is often done by other people. That basically means, normal is boring and it will stay boring. "Normal" does not indicate how rational or moral something is - slavery and homophobia were quite normal in the past.

Next point. To the people that talk about the "disgust" factor with gay people having sex... That's not an excuse to ban gay marriage. Two old, ugly, fat people having sex is even more repulsive to me. Do we ban ugly people from having sex?

Disgust is evolutionary.

Disgust. That's what it is. Disgust was also very important in our evolutionary history. If a member of the opposite sex is disgusting, you'll say YUCK, and not mate. It could be because they have an infection or a deformity. Another yuck would be having sex with your mother - that's not a good way to cause diversity in genetics. Just like most evolutionary traits, some take it too far; our society today is obsessed with cleaning themselves. People shower every day - a concept I have a hard time grasping. Hair was a good thing, now guys prefer girls shaved. But ANYWAYS, I'm here to talk about a specific disgust...

There are many social stigmas and whether we like it or not,.are real. Society acts accordingly, and many of us are affected by it. Take cross-dressing, for example.

A guy wears... panties for example. Panties are suppose to be for girls according to our culture. Ok, cool. Why? It's hard to tell how many people cross-dress, and there isn't any reliable data on this. But think about it. It's clothing. If clothing is weaved this way but not that way, it is acceptable for men to wear it. If it's made that way with that fabric, it's "completely sick and disgusting and repulsive" for a guy to wear it. Question the things your instincts tell you.

Why do guys like crossdressing?

Some may do it because of the comfort. Smooth is good, and women like like smooth undergarments or clothing. Men do, too. Some want to feel feminine. Wearing panties may calm a guy; he no longer has to struggle with his desires, and furthermore, he is put into a more submissive mindset - it's nice to not have to be so man-vs-man dominant when one is home. It gets a man in touch with his feminine side. All people have it, and men who disagree are simply insecure about their masculinity.

"As a woman it's taken me a while to get my head around this fact. After all, being a woman isn't nearly as super as it looks on television. There are the mood swings, the cramps, the monthly onslaught of agony you're supposed to grin and grit through in site of the fact that your insides are melting. (Seriously, who the hell thought that up? The result of design by committee I would guess.)

But to the casual male observer, being female probably appears to be a sweet deal. Women have it easy. They are pretty creatures that flit about being charming and having doors opened for them. They look nice, they smell nice, they smile and giggle their way through life in a way that a man could never hope to.

If you have that sort of outlook on what being a woman is like, there's no wonder that pretending to be a woman would be a great escape from the mundane masculinity of the every day world where you're supposed to lift the heavy thing and happily get shot if push comes to shove.There's nothing wrong with playing dress ups, and there's nothing wrong with playing pretend. They often tell children that imagination is their greatest gift, but I would argue that imagination can be an adult's best friend too."

For other people, panties resemble a person. After all, the panties hug the intimate areas of a woman, and the scent rubs off on it.

"Panties are the item closest to a woman's body. They hold all the scent that makes a woman a woman. Every woman has her favorite pair. Every day they are discarded, dirty, into the hamper. They are seldom handled by anyone other than the woman who owns them. And panties are one of the most intimate items a woman owns. To have a woman's panties is like having a little piece of her."

A man may smell it, as there may be an evolutionary reason to. (Females can smell the similarity of immune systems from a man's armpits.) But for sexual arousal, this is a decent reason too. It hugs the naughty areas.It could be pheromones, but I'm not sure.In some areas of the world, men buy used panties. Still more men, like to crossdress because of the fabrics. Men's undergarments tend to be cotton only, and extremely one-dimentional.

Finally, there is the fact that it is taboo is many societies today. Some men want what they can't have. Transvestic fetishism occurs in some people, and only occurs in straight males. In this case, the person may have liked crossdressing as a kid.

Crossdressing is Just as "Natural".

Why isn't is natural for guys to wear panties?

Of course, the irony is history of clothes changing "genders". Thongs were originally male clothing exclusively, as were silk as a fabric. Pink was once considered a masculine shade of red as recently as a century ago. Yet somehow, for a guy wearing clothing that reflects waves on the visible part of the electromagnetic spectrum we detect in our brains as "pink", we question the sexual preference and sanity of the person wearing the clothing. Score 1 for social conditioning! What counts as feminine clothing is totally arbitrary. Then, can you say, as a moral being, that you should judge people based on these totally arbitrary criteria? NO. I mean, how shallow ARE we?

Because society shuns this behaviour, it turns into a fetish. And why is fetish a dirty word? Fetishes are very, very common. So what if you like leather, or make up scenarios with your boyfriend as foreplay? You're not hurting anybody. Is a crossdresser hurting himself? No. There's no deceiving or false beliefs going on here. Whether wearing a dress is good or not is subjective, not objective. Religion makes factual claims - this is a claim about preference.

"These people lack the empathy to imagine themselves as they would be if their lives had been different. They seem to believe that, had they grown up in a dung hut in Africa, they would have naturally adopted a Western gender appropriate style of dress (without ever having seen it,) worshiped the Christian God they would have never heard of, and followed the model of the one man, one woman nuclear family, in spite of that being rare among many African tribes.

If you honestly believe that the culture and customs you grew up with have some divine moral backing, you're an idiot. Seriously and unequivocally. If you believe the styles of dress which are currently common amongst the people of your local geographic area in this particular era are somehow more moral and proper than any other form of clothing one's body, then I actually wonder how you manage to get through the day without swallowing your own tongue."

If a guy gets boner in lace, let him be! The brain releases chemicals that make one euphoric, etc, etc. It's hard-wired. It's just like judging gay people. Quit it! A guy doesn't choose to be aroused by something any more than a guy chooses to be aroused by other guys. But because gays are actively pushing their rights and have the favor of the media (compared to crossdressers), being gay is more acceptable than crossdressing. Being gay is more acceptable than being transgendered. Employers can discriminate against trans-gendered or crossdressing people.

Normal is Arbitrary.

So, back to normal. If normal is totally arbitrary, then maybe YOU'RE not the normal one. Who even said clothing was NORMAL? Were we designed by evolution to have clothing? No. So, none of this is natural, all of it is arbitrary, and yet some people still harshly judge others. And it can be down to people judging other people's preference; this music is shit, mines is THE shit, etc. But there's more to it this time than just preferences. It's taboo to wear women's clothing as a guy. In 2012, where great strides are being made to open up our minds about homosexuality, I think, we are rational enough to sit down as adults and seriouslly discuss cross-dressing. And no, parents. Don't "fix" your child and convince them to wear clothes of their gender. They get to decide what they put on their bodies and what they like. When you dictate preferences, you're over-stepping your boundaries. You're a guide, not a dictator. Besides, there's nothing TO fix. That would just lead to the person taking their desires underground, which may or may not instill guilt, which is a horrible thing to do to somebody that has done nothing wrong.

"Fashion is always changing and morphing. People who think that 'mens' or 'womens' fashion exist in terms of right or wrong simply don't understand fashion at all. They're living in the bubble of the world as it is at this exact point in time and they have little to no understanding of history."

Crossdressing: Opportunity to Discriminate

The vast majority are actually straight, and according to the DSM, transvestic fetishism is exclusively observed in straight males.It's just another fetish. Come to think of it, it shouldn't really even be a fetish. Female clothing is designed to be attractive to men, so it's not a stretch to see guys wanting to wear what they find attractive. The fabric is soft, many guys like that (guys AND girls), so it's not strange at all for a guy to find the feel of panties or whatnot to be very appealing. I'm a straight guy.  I can say I like touching an attractive female. How far removed is that from a straight guy liking the feeling of some panties? Not very. It's also worth noting that not all men that wear panties wear dresses or want to proceed to handbags and lipstick. Do not try to put people into neat little boxes. A panty-wearer isn't the same as a transgendered person or a transgendered-wannabe. Approaching this issue by making broad, sweeping generalizations seems ok to do for many, but if this were the issue of race, you would be many times more cautious.

I would say that men that are scared of wearing pink or some panties are the ones that are not masculine enough. How manly can you be if soft clothing gives you the butterflies? If you're so confident about your masculinity, what's wrong with trying something? If you think wearing feminine clothes strips you of your masculinity, consider revisitng how masculine you are in the first place, and how secure you are in yourself. How many guys have thought about wearing panties or smelling them? How many guys like them? To ridicule others for thinking the same is hypocritical.

"Men wearing lingerie pushes our ideas of masculinity, and challenges the inbuilt social programming which we are subjected to from an early age. This is not always pleasant, and many people will reject the idea, calling it gross, and even 'wrong'. If they took the time to think about it in a more abstract sense, they might be surprised at the vehemence they reacted with. If we'd been raised from babies to believe that men wore skirts and women wore slacks and that lacy panties were for boys, would we then be disgusted to see a man in a pair of y-fronts? Probably.

The choice then is do we see beyond the artificial constructs which frame society, forcing us all into little boxes denoted by dress, accessories, and toys, or do we look beyond those things to the things that matter, kindness, humanity, love, acceptance, tolerance."

It makes no sense that females get to crossdress, but men don't. It's gender discrimination. First, we need acceptance. Under extreme awkwardness and discomfort, it's easy for people to say and do very discriminatory things and get away with it. Men are more scared of coming off as non-masculine than the exact reverse. By making fun of crossdressers, they feel that they regain their masculinity. All that is justification for cruelty and immorality. 

Since the feminist movement took hold, we've come to accept women demonstrating traditionally masculine qualities like aggression, both mental aggression in the corporate arena and physical aggression on the battlefield. Yet the male expression of feminine traits is still taboo. So taboo that the merest hint of a man embracing a feminine side is often derided by men and even by some women who would be outraged if it were suggested that they were less than feminine for doing 'masculine' things like working outside the home or wearing pants.

But no, one has to be realistic. We live in a society, that even in this day and age, questions and scoffs at cross-dressers. They have to be in the closet. Society isn't at the level of sanity in which we can accept people for who they are. The irony is, crossdressing is more common than people assume. Because crossdressers often don't admit it themselves, they have a hard time finding other crossdressers, so they all assume they are one in a million. I've met and read about girls that worked at female clothing shops - they all say that guys buying panties is more common than you may think. To them, it's mundane.

Frankly, I consider gender as an artificial social construct. Gender is different from sex; sex is your physiology. Gender is the way you act. To act 'feminine' is to put people into boxes, and stifle self-expression as a result.

Merits of Dating a Crossdresser

A guy that crossdresses already has questioned his activities and had to analyze it. He's realized what he wants is more important than playing along with stupid genders (not the same as sex), which are artificial constructs. For him to reveal to you that he crossdresses, he has the confidence and the honesty level of a saint. We all have aspects of ourselves we would rather hide. This guy has the balls to tell you. He'll be able to hold any secrets you may have. He trusts you. He's also more likely to accept any fetish(es) or fantasy/fantasies  you may have. That leads to him being more open-minded as an individual. The man that wear panties won't be so hung up on being so extremely manly to the point that he cannot relate to any of your issues. He's also less likely to stuff the girl in a box labeled "girly" and force you to be girly 24/7. He'll be able to share any secret with you and connect because crossdressing is a huge secret for many men. Because he shops for lingerie, he can buy some killer lingerie for you, and in the right size! Hell, he'll actually notice and appreciate the extra set of special pantie/bra you have on tonight for him! Shopping with a crossdresser is more fun as many guys will simply feel uncomfortable and walk away instead of buying the intimate wear with you, which if you think about it, should be how it goes seeing as how intimate wear affects the entire couple. He won't put your lingerie in the washing machine without putting the proper care. He appreciates lingerie, so he might appreciate the finer things in life (do you want your undergarments in cotton, cotton, or cotton?!) ; he's also likely to be a more sensual lover, and less likely to be a "bam bam, orgasm, thanks, bye" type of guy. Foreplay, people. Foreplay. He'll be willing to take it slower to pleasure you better. A man wearing lingerie is very soft and slidy... which may translate to fun times on the bed. At the risk of over-reaching and seeing things that are not there, every single comment on a blog I read about crossdressing are written in correct English, none of this 'omg lol dats gay' type. The crossdresser mindset may have tendencies torwards some things, some of which are not directly related to fashion.

If a female dumps a guy for wearing panties, the female is close-minded, intolerant, and stupid. She buys into and worships the western, 2012 notions of what a man must be. She wants you for masculinity, not because you are who you are. The clothes you wear outweigh what you do. People are so eager to judge, to call others are weird when they don't conform, and to establish their superiority in taste. By disliking crossdressers, you have become yet another conformer, yet another brainless zombie.

Social Conditioning

What is the extent of social conditioning on males and females? Frankly, I don't have the answer. I don't know how much our genetics affects us in comparison... It drives me nuts though, how judgemental and close-minded people can be when they are products of society and genetics. Those that deviate from the "normal" are ostracized and forced to conform. As a kid, guys that cried are sissies. Girls were allowed to cry. Guys were given trucks, girls were given dolls. Because guys are guys, they are allowed to love their cars almost as much as they love their wives; because women are women, they are allowed to love chocolate as much as they love their husbands. But guys are not allowed to like lingerie. In this day and age, women have the power that men don't have in fashion. The very same women that are so feminist, so about rights (women's rights, not men's), would be yelling at their boyfriends for wearing panties while she herself is wearing jeans. But to even say one can be "too feminine" is to put our behaviour into boxes of "men" and "women", which by itself is limiting and sexist. How ironic that in USA, where we idolize freedom, men live in fear of being found out about! Hell, even Jesus wore a dress!

‎"The freedom which we're all such big fans of evaporates when our preconceived notions are challenged" - Hope Alexander

None of us are one thing. Even the most macho man is occasionally soft, and even the most frailest of women is sometimes amazingle strong. To be one thing is to be one dimensional and boring.

Please, for the love of god, just be more accepting.

Hope Alexander's Message to Those That Want to Start Crossdressing

"Sometimes when we want something that isn't supported by the general media and those around us, we think that there must be something inherently wrong with us. Of course, if we stop to think about things for a few moments, we can soon realize that this is not the case.

If you spend a few hours watching TV, you'll come away with messages like

It's okay for men to sleep around, it's what they do. It's okay for men to be violent, as long as they're beating up the 'bad guy'. No matter how overweight the man is, his partner must be svelte and blonde. (Just my personal tv bugbear there, what on earth is up with that? For some reason when they put sitcoms together it's completely believable that a guy on an average income who hasn't seen his toes in a decade would be married to a woman who looks like she starts each day with a handful of diet pills and a colonic.) Men don't cry. Men are always masculine and manly. They can put up shelves just by looking at them, and not only will they not ask for directions, a real man will wait for nightfall and navigate by the stars.

Men are bombarded with ridiculous masculine stereotypes to the point where they feel guilty if they don't meet them. Women get a little more of a free ride mostly because we've been screaming about equality for the past several decades. We can wear menswear without fear of being called a lesbian, in fact, more often than not, it is regarded as being kind of cute.

Men might not be ready to fight for their own brand of equality yet, but that doesn't mean that its wrong for a man to wear panties or any other item of clothing he feels like putting on. Logically you may know this, but if you're struggling with guilt, it may be time to start living it as a truth. Put those panties on. Notice how you don't immediately become gay. Notice how you are no less of a man. Notice the relief you feel when you work with your own nature instead of fighting against it.

We're so flooded with “supposed to's” and “should do's” that we forget very early on that in all likelihood this is the one life time we will have. Even if you believe that we have more, this is the only lifetime we will have in this condition. To spend it fighting one's own nature is not only futile, but a tragic waste of the precious moments we have on this earth.

And the funny thing? When we finally stop fighting. When we finally accept those parts of ourselves we never wanted to be true, that is when we become free of them. Free to indulge in them, or free to let them go. Free to be whatever we want to be. 

Don't work on denying the parts of yourself that do not fit with whatever image your particular society has pressed upon you. Celebrate those parts, for those are the parts that will ultimately free you. Those are the gifts you were born to express. 

Live free and happy. There is nothing wrong with you or your desires. 

It is okay to be you."

"Be open minded, but not so open-minded, your brain falls out!"

Thank you, Hope Alexander for your articles which I've freely quoted.

15 Reasons Why Society Amuses Me

1. Sue when medicine wasn't tested rigorously enough through FDA, and not care about any evidence for alternative medicines' effectiveness.

2. Why does society judge people based on the undergarments they wear? If a piece of fabric is arranged in this manner, it is perverse for a guy to wear it. I find it pretty hilarious people judge people based on the fabric of their undergarments. Like, how shallow ARE we? It's just fucking cloth!

3. Religious people still exist, and people still believe the world is 6000 years old. We can land on the moon, but we can't all agree on a religion.

4. Girls post half-naked pictures of themselves on Facebook, and don't stop to think about what guys end up doing to those pictures. Either they didn't use their heads, or they want attention.

5. After all the make-up, nice fashion, etc, everything girls subconciously do to attract males, if sexual attention is given from an attractive male, it's hot. If it's from an unattractive male, it's fucking creepy, the guy is a fucking pedophile that eats kids, and probably wants to rape you.

6. Everybody older than me is practically dead and anybody younger than me don't know jackshit.

7. Nobody, I mean, NOBODY, recognizes why they act. They don't realize they are a fucking zombie from the culture they grew up in and are currently surrounded in. Everybody thinks they are themselves and don't always follow the norm. Nobody realizes we are animals, all of our wants comes from evolution, to survive and reproduce.

8. Some people still think that if a coin has been heads the past 10 times, it means there is a very high chance it being tails next time.

9. 80% of people think they are above average.

10. Everybody wants to go to heaven but nobody wants to die.

11. Reproduction is natural, but a naked human body (they way we were evolved to be) is somehow more offensive than lopping somebody's head off in a video game.

12. Everybody is horny, but some don't want to admit they masturbate, and even more reluctantly or do not talk about sex. Nobody discusses the best feeling in the world. Ain't that weird?

13. Nobody is happy, but everybody thinks everybody ELSE is happy.

14. Neo-Nazi Newspaper = 1st amendment right. Say "fuck" over radio, get fined.

15. People want more and more and more money, but that isn't what leads to happiness.

Behavior: Evolution, and Deconstructing Trust

Evolution is real. But that's not the topic of this entry. It affects us as human beings. Our actions are, for a very large part, due to our evolution, which drives our genes.

Pets:
They have larger head to body ratio. Symmetrical faces. Etc. That makes them "cute" because it resembled a human baby. Gotta love how evolutionary traits end up applying to somethings decidedly non-evolutionary in nature. We domesticate wolves into little barkers. We dress them up and in extreme cases even take them to competitions, where they become an extension of a person's status, not even a lovable pet anymore. Pet industry is a multi-billion dollar industry.

Socializing:
Facebook is big. It taps into our need to socialize. Most people on the planet at social people.  Even the not-as-social people can talk on Facebook without the intimidation of real-life social encounters. Facebook has more users than America has people.

Religion:
Worse out of all of them: Billions of people fall victim to this, a simple byproduct of our need to observe patterns. That is a tool for survival in ye' old days. Suppose there are two types of possible errors in pattern seeking.

Type 1 - See false positive
Type 2 - Don't see any pattern even if there is one

You're walking along the African land, and you hear a rustle. Type 1 error - if it was a false positive, no enemies, all you did was waste 5 seconds of your time. Type 2, you're probably dead.


"Be Yourself"

How are you going to do that when clearly you are the product of  millions of  years of evolution? Forget that. What you do, how do you, what you like are all consequences of your surroundings. While a smile is universally recognized, what is "disgusting" as food isn't always agreed upon. For example: Eggs. Who came up with the idea of eating reproductive products from chickens? Or drinking the milk of a cow. WTF? How about, eating spiders or frogs? Quite liked in some places.

Try as you might to "be yourself", you can't. Hell, you're always yourself. But don't act like you have total control over what you like and don't like. You have a sex drive? That's what I thought.

On the flip side, a few things we think are natural and considered as old and good values are... not so old.

Monogamy:
Guys are hard-wired to fuck as many girls as they can, to spread on their genes.

Family Values:
The idea of a mother and father, the "traditional" mother staying home, dad working, is relatively new. For USA people, this is mostly from 20th century after the World Wars.


What about socializing? Not everybody is an extrovert. Yeah. We need some diversity. But today, parents act like a social kid is a healthy kid. And introverted kid is... not normal.First, let's differentiate between introverts and shy people. Introverts prefer less stimulation. Shy people avoid social situations out of fear. What do we do to kids when young? Expose them to endless stimulation. The kid that doesn't talk is worried about.

Yet, we need introverted people. Those are the ones that think quietly and get revelations. Did Newton invent Calculus after chatting with people from Facebook? No. He went into isolation.

Yet, we are victims. We follow the one with the most charisma, not always the one with the best ideas.ial people tend to have their vision already set out, and might not be as willing to change their vision in accordance to the suggestions given.
Western society prefers the man of action rather than the man of contemplation. Self help books used to be 'character, the most important thing'. Now they are 'how to get most friends and manipulate people'.

Trust
Ever had a friend that is a screwup in their life yet you trust them? Yet you could have another person that always does that they've said they would so far, and not trust them. What we need are common beliefs. When we meet people that believe what we believe, we are more willing to experiement and gone where nobody has before, because the people we trust will protect us if needed. Our survival depends on it.

You can't fight a tiger alone. You need a group you trust. The goal isn't to fix your weakness, it is to amplify your strengths so people can do what you can't do. But it's not based on skills and the application of those skills, it's what you believe. Common values.

Say you're from LA and you go to New York. Everything is new and foreign. You hear a guy talk with LA accent. Your turn around, find out you are both from LA. BOOM. You're both friends. Say you meet the same guy from LA. Would you be friends? Hell no.

Hell, your in the French metro. You hear English. Turn around. Ask him where he's from. New York. HEY! I'm from LA! And you're best friends. You're not even from the same state. Are you friends with all the people in New York?
When you are in an unfamiliar enviroemnt, who have different values, you look for those who may share some of your values, and you start to form a bond because they understand your background.

It's not specific differences in opinion. That's diversity and advantages to problem solving. But we both understand our childhoods, we had the same type of issues. There was once a show, Deadliest Catch, or fishermen because it was a very dangerous job. Two boats. Camera caught a random boat from a competing company. Waves came over, a guy fell over. The fishermen on this boat got out, saved that guy. Why? They are not on the same team. Because at the end of the day, they are all fishermen. They understand tyhe risks and they all took it. They have similar values. They might not have the same religious views or particular pokitical views. But they are all fishermen.

If you're on the French Metro again, the guy from New York says 'You gotta try this one restaraunt here..." you're gonna trust him and go. If you're in LA, some random guy tells you to go to this one restaraunt, you're going to think he's a crackpot. The information given presented about either resaraunt is the same. That's the thing: With trust, you don't "NEED" all the information.

Finding who to trust was important to our survival. We know how to do it. You can go outside to look for people you like and trust. You're going to instinctively talk to them. Either you will have a "good" opinion or you won't. It may take a little while, or a long while. But we know how to do it. It's called making friends. You're the only one that had the gut feeling. Every single thing a person does or says is a symbol of who they are, and we look for those symbols to find those who believe what we believe. Our survival depends on it.

So Tiger Woods. He lied. He told us what he wanted us to hear. He broke our trust. He could've said he liked fucking random chicks from day one, and it wouldn't have been bad at all. But he lies. He seemingly had one set of values, and changed them. Good luck getting trust from people again.

People to do what they believe, not what they think other people want them to believe. If you ask your friends, how do you want me to act and dress so you'll like me more, they'll think you're crazy. Just BE YOURSELF. That's why I like you. I like YOUR values. Change your values based on what others want... the word there is 'inauthentic'. Fake. Untrustworthy.

Apple. Under the leadership of Jobs, Apple rose to new heights. Did Apple ask what you want? No. They told you what you wanted. Those who believe in Apple's vision bought Apple's products and spreaded their recommendation. The values are consistent,.

It's equally as ridiculous for a company to ask how they should run their business. Do what you believe. Companies should hire those who believe what they believe. What you push out should show who you are.

Do people get tattoos of Harley's because it looks cool? No, it's a symbol of who they are. Ever seen a person put a sticker of the Apple logo of their Mac? Ever even seen a dirty Mac? NO. Those objects mean more than just the object. It's a statement of who you are.

Fullfilment:
Why are people not happy in their jobs? It's not the pay or their benefits. There are rich, sad people. It's because nobody helps others anymore. When you donate money to a poor guy, you feel good. You're not donating. Your buying that feeling. It's a transaction.

True generosity requires doing something for others, expecting NOTHING in return. Short of that is MANIPULATION.
I did something for him, why won't he do something for me? It's not an equation. It's nature. It feels good. We do it. When we are surrounds by those we trust and hae common values with, our species go up in progress.