Pietro

One thing is the theory, one is the practice. The existance of datins sites does not mean they are succesful, statistically. Statistically you will find in dating sites many more males, and very few females.

he would remain single. This is what would happen. Sorry.

That's always such a great idea!

Non, you sound quite confused. Why don't you just wait a second. Take a cup of tea. ANd clarify your mind. Then you write a single post, with what you want to say.

Which part of "genetic studies on animals" did you not get? By checking the genetic material they could find that cuckoldry was present also in birds. No, that never happened. The alpha males have always been a rare commodity. There is always the best ones, and they are usually very few. This is why it makes sense for the female to take the genetic material of the alpha, and the time (and money) of the beta. Go around with women and ask them which men would they have sex with and which would they marry. It is a silly game, but it has a deep implication. The men they really want to fuck are rarely the one they want to marry. And you know why? (I asked them, that's why I know). Because those men are not going to be faithful. With all the women wanting to have sex with them, they will betray them. So women needed to learn how to cheat, and needed to evolve to be able to do it in the best way. Without feeling guilt, for example.

ever heard of instant karma? ;-)

I don't know who criticized you, but please accept my support. For what it's worth. You were absolutely correct in your critic.

Non, the fact that you consider something disgusting or attractive is irrelevant. And the fact that you consider something unnatural is even less important. Especially since there are studies on it. There are countless of studies made on sperm, and how the sperm of multiple males in the same vagina sort themselves out. Look out for books on sperm wars. There should also be a book available from gigapedia. In fact the amount of Sperm that is produced is proportional to the size of the society. Poligamous species have bigger balls. But also in human society, husbands that leave their wife for longer periods tend to shoot more sperm (just in case it might have to compete, you never know...). In poligamous society kids are either grown up together or by the mother. Many people think that growing up a kid in a commune is actually much better for the kid.

This is very interesting. First of all many animals that we believed being monogamous seem to chat themselves too. Do you know about birds who sing to attract a mate, right. Well, in many cases they keep on singing even after having found the mate. Why do it? Since it puts them at risk of being eaten by predators? Because in this way they are raising the chances that they will reproduce also with someone else. This is some of the results that are coming out of genetic studies on animals. We did not know about it before. To me it blew my mind when I read it the first time. AT the time I believed that we should have gone back to a natural harmony state. The discovery that animals chat too was a big blow to the philosophical framework that led me to reconsider the whole structure.

There is a big myth in our society. The myth that nature and morality form a dichotomy. And that we must chose in this dichotomy. And in some special cases it might even have been true. But it is not the general situation. This "dichotomy" took many names in the centuries, nature vs nurture; Love vs Duty; Roma vs Amor; etc... And of course you are right that nature also include such behaviours as rape and killing, and all sort of abuses, on the other hand the most recent acceptance speech from the latest peace Nobel Prize winner shows that what exactly forms an ethical (or moral) behaviour, and what doesn't is not always that clear. If it becomes ethic to have war to stop evil, then it makes us wander if it is moral to have sex to make sure your genes are not wiped out of existence. I am not saying this is the case, I am saying the jury is still out. We are not moral because it is cute, or because God wanted us so. We are moral because it makes sense evolutionarily. And for the same reason animals are also moral. There is a growing amount of literature on how we are discovering apes, primates, and animals in general to be able to have moral and altruistic behaviour (for a popularized article see this). Personally I reject the dichotomy between being moral and being natural as a false dichotomy. Morality evolved inside a natural environment, as the winning strategy in particular situations. The illusion of a dichotomy comes from having a false understanding of what is real. Essentially living inside an illusion. But don't feel too bad about living inside an illusion, because we all do live inside an illusion. This society is based on us telling ourselves lies on what is real and what is not real. And science is just a tentative way, with all its limits, in which we are trying to shed this illusion. So in the next posts I will try to confront what is real, in this regard.

I agree (provided she swore it, not just said it). But who cares. They both want to do it. I will not criticize him for having sex with someone who is happy to oblige. As a female friend once told me: yes we both cheat, but men are potato, and they tell it. That's the whole point. I am not saying it is good to tell it. I am saying we are wired differently. And about the fact of saying "banging" instead of "fucking", instead of "having sex", instead of "making love". Oh my God! As if I never heard women speaking between them. You have internalized your mother (or whoever female figure raised you, no offense meant) critic a bit too much. Men say they banged a chick. So what? Never sign up for a course from Bruce. I don't think you would survive.

That's good. I take another position. I think his description is quite precise of the state of things. What is lacking is an explanation why things are so. And things are so because this is the way with which nature have the highest probability of having a next generation with a good genetic mixture. Nature doesn't give a fuck about broken hearts. Nature doesn't give a fuck about child raised by someone who is not their biological father. The aim of nature is not to have you happy. The aim of nature is to have your grandchildren (notice that I say grandchildren, and not children) alive. If the aim was to be happy it would have been really easy. Make sure that men and women are similar, and you have it. Same way to take decisions, same way to process information, same desires. But this is not who we are. I think that we are not so, because a population of happy hippy chimps do not produce enough viable offspring, with enough genetic variability, to survive a few generations (if we are all monogamous). While a population of non monogamous runs the risk that no one takes care of the kids (my kids? I saw you fucking with that other chimp over there, ask him to protect you). While it is exactly this mixture of monogamy and polygamy, faithfulness and un-faithfullness that makes rises the probability to have viable ofsprin so much. And the Tao follows Nature.

I admit I feel ok in having sex with 8+ women who are under 25; call me weird. But being the article anonymous, and being the article there from a long time, much before the actual craze about PU came out, I don't think the guy is trying to sell something. I think he is genuinely sharing something from his life.

I personally tend not to have sex with women when they are cheating with their husbands. If I know about it before. But there have been exceptions. And in a couple of cases I still stand that I did the right thing accepting. But what I do not understand is, the women knows she is cheating, and it is ok for her. He (the author) will have sex regardless if she is married or not. He does not have a problem with the fact that she is married. So they both want to do it. What I do not understand is, why are you so bothered by it? You know in some countries women who are being unfaithful are being stoned to death. In the same countries the man is usually let go. You seem to have an opposite, but similar, reaction: he should have his balls fried (for as much as 12V can fry, but doesn't matter), while she innocent. Why? Why can't two people who want to have sex, just have sex? Who are you to enter in their bedroom? You know, jealousy is considered one of the things that should be dissolved in Daoism. A sort of common sin in relationships. But you are not being jealous. It's like you want the whole world to behave in a particular way. Why? I don't get it.

I think it's one of those things which can't be added, but can be lost or covered up. So I would suggest to dissolve everything which is stopping you from (recovering your innocence/being innocent).

Actually I did not want to have your point of view, but Non's. Anyway, since you posted let me answer. geez, how violent! Do you think it never happened to me to have sex with a woman, and discover, immediately after, right on her bed, that she was married because her boyfriend husband phoned? And she spoke with him... exactly like the guy in the article describes? So, he is describing some facts about femmale behaviour, here. And I can confirm you that those facts happen, because they happened to me, as well. And he is bringing on the point that women follow their emotions, and men their word. And this seem to be making you very unconfortable. Even angry. Why? He is not the person lying. And the women he is describing seem to be happy to lie, because she is doing what her heart/feelings/emotions tell her. But you are angry. Why so?

Non, can you give me a review of this article? I ask you this because the way in which it starts is so similar to the way you seem to be reasoning. But the author describes a process he went through, and I would like to know your position on such a process. Here is how it starts: Thanks, Pietro

yeah, a woman can lose energy if she has sex with a men that has sensibly more energy than her. Generally after a sexual exchange the partner with a deeper practice will walk out with more energy. "To who has shall be given". And from a weird point of view, it does feel right.

Did I got it right that you don't like the voting :P There are indeed a few problems with the voting. The first problem is a general problem. When there is voting people tend to vote up their friends. And it tend to create some sort of group of people who rise to the top. But the positive side is that really it is a way to effectively sort out the post with content, from silly useless crap (and let's be honest we have our fair share of those here). The way this is usually solved is by giving to few random people the possibility to vote. Only once in a while. And no possibility to store your voting possibility for later. This produces a system where people cannot vote their friends, and are effectively gently pushed toward judging effective quality. The second problem is an onthological problem. What does it constitute a good post. Because in places like stackoverflow there is some real measurable result that can be obtained. Or not. Either the program does what it should or it doesn't. Here we have a problem. Most of us even disagree about what constitute reality, and even more do we disagree on what have to be done to achieve a "salvation". Whatever that means for you. This makes the whole voting very shacky. The solution would be to split the voting into: is this grammatically correct (yes/no)? (are there many grammatical errors that makes it hard to understand) is this meaningful (yes/no)? (does the author explain what he means clearly? Is it internally consistent) Is this true (yes/no)? (does the author tell things that are true or false) Essentially every post can be measured in terms of those three measures (there are probably others, but those cover a huge ground). Then each person can just pick its threashold on each dimension. Now the most confusing one will be the third. If something is grammatically incorrect, or internally inconsistent, that's easy to judge. But if you have a bunch of taoists and buddhists discussing about what is real, we are essentially having a pissing contests between two schools, where everybody pushes the posts of its own school. This is dangerous. But interestingly if someone was able to write a post that pleases both he would pop up. So it is still possible to be used. In any case maybe we can just rename the voting as is this grammatically correct and semantically meaningful? or (more elegant) "does this makes sense?"

Hi Sean, so happy you are back among us! Here are a few things I found: 1) What version are we using? It looks like we are using a "3.0.5". Except that in the forum of IPS they don't speak about this. It is all 2.... or 3.1.... . This might become an issue in future, as new things are rolled out. But usually they are rolled out for the latest version. I wonder, because before suggesting to make changes in the code it is always better to see if someone have already done those changes in the official version. So you don't have to work on them again at every update. In this regard, why did we move to the 3.0 instead of the 3.1? If it's a matter of money I am sure among the whole community we can cover whatever expense they ask. Which brings me to the next point: 2) We now have a status update, which I think it's extra cool. The reason for this is because soon people can use it to write what are their most recent focus in the practice. This can bring the community really together. But for this to happen the status needs to be echoed in every post. Like a line under the avatar. Would this be naturally possible, or do you need to code for that? There is already the code (which also includes the call to the DB) for the location, so probably just by duplicating that code, and changing the name of the info taken from the DB can work. But we go back here to the issue of the version. Is it worth to mess up with the code. 3) this is easy. We have an rss for the board. But right now it only shows 5 posts, and no name of the author of the post. Can this be changed to at least 100 posts (but would be better to have all the posts in the last 48 hours) and adding the name of the author of the post? This would permit to build services downstream with yahoo pipes that permit to someone to only follow posts by a certain author. I think this is definitly just something that can be changed in the settings. 4) less urgent, but potentially more groundbreaking. Tags. We have spoken abut tags many times before. We also had a tag plugin installed. That plugin did not work very well. I wonder if anyone used it to recover old posts. The first problem was that only the author could write tags, and the second was that the posts were echoed outside of the board. The fact that only the author could write tags was disruptive because each operson have very different views of the world, different understanding of how tags work, and different desire to fill them in. The result was too uneven to be used. The way broad folksonomy work (u can google it, but Sean knows what I am talking about) is that this uneavennes is balanced by having everybody tag the same material, and then taking the sum of the tags. This result in a very elegant way to categorise all the material. On the other side we know that you can't ask people to tag each single post (they are too many). So tags need to be thread centered. Also setting up a broad folksonomy (as explained before) system would be too complex. So it has to be a narrow folksonomy system, with a set of tags for each thread. The way to move forward here would be the one done by stackoverflow. Although we are not going to set up such a complex system. How does it work there? Only people with at least x reputation can add tags. People with y>x reputation can add tags to a post from someone else. People with z>y>x reputation can invent new tags. So the result is few tags, used by everybody, and that effectively categorise the threads. This is not the same system as I was planning long time ago (I am sure you remember my blog posts). But it is something that would work. And considering how we have so many threads, but only few topics (kunlun, celibacy, review of teachers, yoga, taoism, religious taoism, ...), it would really help to let people find previous work on the same topic. Ok, so this is the theory. The practice is that I have lookd through all the plugins, and there is none that let people add tags. (the only one that mentions tags is this one. But it is actually related to tags for the board, not for the single thread). SO I think this suggestion should be archived for now. It can only work if we program it from scratch. But if you want to do it, I am happy to help. So my suggestion would be 4 things: clarify the version, echo the status, extend the rss and in time program the tags (or we all pay someone to program them for us). I do not comment on the look and feel of the board, because I am not good in that. Cheers, Pietro

Thank you Sean, this is very appreciated. Let me add one thing, since I am a developer too: if you have requests... NOW is the moment to present it. It is not just that the webmaster is working on this, it is also that in this job there are few burst of work. And then, after it, a lot of the details get fogotten. Which makes making small changes very long. But the moment you are editing the code, and adding plugins, and so on, doing 1 or doing 10 takes little extra time. Today I have no more time, but tomorrow I will give a full testing, with ideas, and suggestions. I love the full width. Thumbs up!

oooooooOooo... look! now we can set up our status: http://www.thetaobum...user/15-pietro/ Up, above! Anybody have discovered where does the status appear (how do we see the status of the others)? Free meditation tip via PM to the first person that finds out! Also we can set up a picture different from the Avatar. SO now I have a pic of me, and an avatar. Also there is a place where you can delete the attachment you inserted long time ago. This makes a lot of sense, since the amount of memory is limited! This is really good. btw, Sean, attention, because when you "preview the post" the newlines are all lost. Except that the second time this did not happen. Boh!