I still don't know how to start. Or is it just a train of thought that momentarily inspired me to write something? I want to see where it leads. Or I want it to lead somewhere meaningful. Not talking just about this post but the whole project. I think I am onto something. And that there is a necessity to get that something out there.
I can kinda see some avenues and have identified certain goals. I know where this might be going, but the main issue is that I am always chaotic and low in conscientiousness. I jump from subject to subject. From finalizing my thoughts to other creative activities. Meanwhile I don't work on this everyday. Maybe it's because I have other priorities or I don't think it will reach an audience. But I don't mind much about the second, I can just deploy my thoughts here and there. But there should be structure and some good goals.
The first strategy is to write more structured essays on specific concepts that I deem important. Especially to identify blind spots that not many people talk about in society. It all reflects back of course on my own life and worries. It's like how I heard from Uberboyo maybe, that Nietzsche was lamenting other thinkers who born their philosophical thoughts out of their own misery. Which might lock you in an echochamber of how you see reality but not being relevant to the average person. However, I might be identifying certain things that matter to me and they might also be relevant to certain categories of men. They won't make sense to the average normie, but only people with similar worries and anxieties. Where the mainstream wisdom from society just doesn't cut it, and we need something more.
Let's make a leap and write down a concept to remember I just identified today as I was coming from home. Evasion.
I had a vague understanding of that word before, first heard in a title of a book The Human Evasion. I might just be having a poor understanding what it was all about, but I've used it in an other context for a concept I was calling "coder's evasion". That one is different as it had to do something with my programming hobby and behaviours I noticed in some coders in the field. Evade is to avoid, but in a subtle less obvious way, maybe with an excuse or simple justification. I realized as I was thinking of several other issues, of course relating to my struggles (pathetic as Nietzsche would say), how when you are trying to understand some of your issues but it's not the issues of others, some people still don't accept them, but somehow want to minimize them. And I realized many examples of this. I am not angry on people for evading, I am just trying to understand what the psychology behind them is. Evasion is a subject I will put some thought in the future as I sense that there is something important there. It might be related with some other concepts I might have briefly mentioned but need to expand onto.
Let's continue from before the leap above. I am thinking of certain men and women who might have been lost in similar thinking pathways. Back in the day I thought I was lost and alone, but now I see other people's thoughts are forming and leading somewhere. They are onto something in the same way as I feel I am. Listening to certain people on the internet made me realize I am not alone. I know what one will say, "it's dangerous, it's parasocial relationships" but I am trying to be conscious and aware here. You need the connections, especially with others whose thought finally align with yours or their paths might be similar in certain ways. Maybe this is a way to communicate and spread some inspiration and slightly different insight too. It might also be that certain people who are lost, their unique perspectives might not be as well known in the mainstream as it should be, especially neurotic and introverted people. Or people who are not as convinced of mainstream beliefs and understand we need a new perspective that is less visited.
For example, somehow organically after diving into the rabbit hole of cultural wars, since gamergate, I was hooked by various discussions in podcasts and new perspectives, regardless fearing of guilt by association (so it was mostly secret and not discussed with real life people). But at the end, there were few that sticked out to me and were close to my thought process. From all the weird groups in these various spaces, whether it's mainstream woke criticism or the so called and misunderstood "manosphere", I mainly ended up with the few people on the men's rights side that get it. I am not sure how much I am into certain subjects discussed, but there is a perspective of having empathy for men, especially the ones that are struggling and are seen by the mainstream (even conservatives or certain sections of the manosphere) as losers. And there is a different way of viewing things, where you are neither expected to be some pro-feminist male, nor an alpha male chad, but find worth in other aspects of life that doesn't necessary have to do with women. Brief mentions to Honey Badger Radio and Thinking-Ape (Stardusk) as they are good examples of the less heard channels that give me hope that there is a unique perspective out there, relevant to my (or other men's) pathways of thinking.
There are also other cultural issues that will cast certain men as weak or losers, even outside women. Some of my perspectives I sense right now, I hope it will add to the subject and give different avenues to those men who are struggling no matter the pathways that are presented to them. I'd also like to expand on what we universally do wrong as a society, the unsolvable problems of the fact that there will always be a hierarchy of losers and winners, yet I don't propose any "levelling of the field" as we have already seen how bad it goes. But we need new perspectives and we need awareness. People don't seem to have at least the awareness and empathy and try to minimize things or belittle the losers (think of the Evasion concept I mentioned). And more parallel thinkers, from the unknown channels to the higher ups. I think I will speak more about my relation to these ideas and people in the future and let that go for now.
I said above that one goal would be to be more conscientious and structured in presenting ideas, certain focus thought, not like this here. I also want to grasp a specific subject and do deeper research. The problem is that right now I jump from thing to another thing, I do watch a podcast here, a discussion there, I pause and reflect on random ideas related to my thoughts and worries, but never feel that sure (and the bombardment of conflicting information doesn't help). There could be few subjects I can try to do more research, but also one mega-subject that I would like to focus my strategy and do truly the structured research unlike what I do now. I have identified that this subject is related to my other hobby/special interest/identity of computer programming and geek culture in relation to cultural cliches and the origin of stereotype, which might relate in some ways to other psychological concepts like Evasion or others, how society treats certain people, how people escape into alternative interests seeking for worth, but also the research I haven't done I found clues which is The Origin. I have been reading Hackers, heroes of the computer revolution for a time that is even before me, and was hooked to find similar negative stereotypes about geeks and computers way back in the 60-70s, while I thought they emerged later in the 80s. Some of them don't make sense directly, but I am curious about the origins if I dig deeper. There are some very interesting intermingling with the left-leaning activist groups at the time, and how the hacker's mind had positive views of his creative computer hobby, while the negativity about computers and it's users are cold and lifeless have passed even through some progressive student publications of the time. I even found one of them on the internet archive (I will find and post later in the future), it's pretty interesting. I think there is something there that leads to the origin, and one might demystify the negative stereotypes if pointing out at the origins. In parallel with a lot of other ideas at the time that have become the woke today, origins of the lifeless male computer nerd stereotype were there too.
To note down before closing, I might want to do more research on the other myths considering women and computing. The well regarded factoid that Ada Lovelace was the first computer programmer, turns out to be a romantic myth that is quite far from the truth. I found that surprising fact by accident as I was reading snippets from Robert Sheaffer's criticism of feminism. I have searched for more articles of the history researchers of Baggage analytical machine who also point out how it's a wholesome myth that stayed but isn't the truth. I'll need to collect more information and articles on that. And another factoid that I really want to touch into, is a graph I've seen once about showing women entering computer science raising till it suddenly started dropping during the 70s. This is presented as "men did something wrong and scared the women away" or maybe because of certain commercial adds showing men in computers and sexy women or whatnot. I did found somewhere a refutation of this graph, but I need to do my own research before posting something. I'd also want to tackle entirely the subject of men and women in computing, and all the misunderstandings and blamings related to various issues. Why you would ask? Do you hate women? Do you not want women in computing? Not what you think. This has to be discussed I think and collect all the information and research around it, as it's used as a narrative in my field to make men feel guilty. Like it's done to a lot of other places. But since I am more connected to this field, I need to do the structured work to tackle it in a respectable way. As much as I might be biased, I will try to be honest with whatever I find. Somehow I feel like we used to be male nerds who were just mocked, trying to find some self worth in our own spaces, to be much later invaded by this ideology that comes a bit unfair in my opinion. It might be related to The Origin I discussed above. I think that even if I find there was some "injustice" towards women, the perspective shouldn't be to hate the other half. I need to lay down my findings in all these subjects but in a way that doesn't just cast one sex against the other. I would even try to steelman the women's worries in the field in some of my writings.
There probably want be a video accompanied with this text. Unless I am in the mood at a later day to voice over it. It might be not worth it as my channel is watched by nobody. I had the idea of the channel as an addition, possibly similar to how I enjoy listening to Stardusk, something simple with a backdrop (which few are usually crappy lazy AI generated DALL-E mini images with an ambient sound). I am trying to find my way with this. My other thought is, at least for the structured well researched articles in the future (if I ever make it possible to finally get on my knees and do the work), I could try to open an account in substack. It's very common nowadays and holding complete articles that are more well researched and carefully written than my random blogpost musings. Something I want to achieve too, at least for the few subjects that I find important to release properly. Time will tell and I have good hopes for 2023 but should I?
