Recent content by cicerolion

Only if what you want is to not be bothered by any of this anymore. But, then, you have to ask yourself, is oblivion really preferable? If what you want is to live a better life, then, its pretty simple, no. If you are dead, there is no opportunity of any kind. As long as you are alive, your...

University has been a huge disappointment for me. If you are hoping for people to be more intellectual, then forget it. They will fetishize intellectualism, but that is all style. Most still don't give a honeysuckle.

Do people react to you like you are ugly? That, I guess, would be the best way to tell if it is BDD or just depression over a reality. Either way, even if you are unattractive, the fact that its ambiguous to you means it isn't that bad. Take it from someone legitimately disfigured, it could be...

Can't say much about the driving test, it didn't give me any problems, but I don't think you have to feel guilty about feeling like you are being socially marginalized. That you do feel that guilt means there is some self-awareness going on, which means that the actual situation is probably...

Completely abolish is a little too far. People will always have some contrived notion in their head. Even decidedly non-racists occasionally act on a racial judgement. The better question is how to diminish it as an institutional, systemic problem. The biggest force combating that is interracial...

My plans are largely dependent on advancements in modern medicine. For example, if regenerative medicine doesn't produce a functioning heart by the time I'm 35, I'm likely a goner. But, I have a lot of confidence that I will be able to overcome many of my natural limitations. That being said...

Being the friend people go to for advice is not an advantageous position if you want them to like you. More often than not, people come to resent you when you help them.

Read either Predictably Irrational or Upside of Irrationality by Dan Ariely. They are both good explorations of human behavior.

I could have sworn that I didn't name this thread "Did Einstein have Autism".

Isn't it on you to provide the evidence?

In the case of social networking, I think the problem is that the tech grows faster than the culture. If you are around my age (I'm 20), then you are part of the first generation to grow up entirely with the internet, especially social media. So, its not surprising that social networking isn't...

Its hard to argue the specific reasons not to kill yourself, because, at the end of the day, its such an internal struggle that the person will ultimately convince themself, one way or the other. But, I think that you can create a self-fulfilling prophecy by just convincing yourself that you are...

When worse comes to worse, as long as you keep a calm about yourself, silence can be less off putting than over performing.

I think is has disrupted etiquette and made people a little more defensive, but I'm skeptical that is was so much better before digital communication. As it is probably relevant to most people on this forum, there was always a system by which certain people were outcasts because they were weird...

Wow, this feedback is overwhelmingly negative. I find that culture, technology, social structures are more beneficial to me today than they would have been had I been born even a decade earlier. Also, I like how some are saying that culture hasn't changed much with time, considering that we are...