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Scylla Rhiadra

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Everything posted by Scylla Rhiadra

  1. Scylla Rhiadra
    My "laugh" reaction is an actual laugh, and NOT a giggle. I swear.
  2. Scylla Rhiadra
    Thanks! I was too lazy to look it up. Pretty rich coming from a judgemental POS and arch-satirist like Waugh, but I note that it's from Brideshead Revisited, a particularly and obnoxiously pious novel, and spoken moreover by an intoxicated university student seeking to justify his drunken antics and that of his friends. Agreed. ETA: I think this is what I must have been remembering, from Voltaire's Dictionnaire Philosophique: "What is tolerance? It is the endowment of humanity. We are all steeped in weakness and error; let us forgive each other our stupidities, that is the first law of nature."
  3. Scylla Rhiadra
    Everyone is the way that they are for "reasons." Dig deep enough, and you'll always find causes for why people behave the way they do -- upbringing, past experience, lack of empathy or emotional intelligence, etc. As someone or another (Voltaire?) is reputed to have said once upon a time, "To know all is to forgive all." It's an important reason why our carceral system has generally evolved from one focused upon "punishment," towards one that seeks to produce "rehabilitation." Which is all good and important, but, unless you believe (as some indeed do) that "free will" is an illusion (in which case, "freedom" itself is meaningless), there comes a point at which one has to be held at least somewhat accountable for one's actions. I am full of nasty, anti-social impulses: given free reign, I'd be shoplifting, kicking or slapping people, sleeping around, etc. etc. etc. I acknowledge the existence of these impulses -- and I choose to oppose them. And yes, I'm likely better equipped to do so, for any number of really complex reasons that might include genetics, upbringing, and privilege, than some. Understanding that there are reasons for certain kinds of behaviours should mitigate our responses to them, but it doesn't make those behaviours any less toxic or destructive. So, sure. People are immature for all sorts of reasons. So . . . what next, then? What do we do about that? Tolerate them because there are underlying "reasons"?
  4. Scylla Rhiadra
    Oh, we could do a whole other thread on middle aged "Mean Girls" in SL, and on woman-sponsored "Dramaz." There are seriously times when it feels like I'm back in the lunchroom at high school again. There is absolutely no shortage of immature women here -- but it manifests itself very differently, I think, for the usual reasons: social conditioning and expectations. It's arguable that the immature behaviour of some women in SL is more actually destructive than that of men (although men can be pretty good at being destructive too), just as I've always suspected that the adolescent bullying behaviour of teenage girls, which was (in my day, anyway) more psychological than physical, was quantifiably more cruel than what boys inflicted on each other. I think most women in SL have experienced versions of that at one time or another.
  5. Scylla Rhiadra
    Please, dahlings . . . no pictures! So, I pretty much HAD to buy a new Mondrian dress for my opening today. A gacha "rare" (*groan*), but a girl has to look her best on the red carpet, no? Oh, and the hair from Lamb on sale this weekend, which is pretty much a perfect 60s hairstyle.
  6. Scylla Rhiadra
    I love the composition of this, Nalates!
  7. Scylla Rhiadra
    MAJOR cute! Nice job! (I love the cap -- Magika, is it?)
  8. Scylla Rhiadra
    the "opportunity" . . . 🙄 To answer more fully, I guess -- my point is that you surely have to be a special kind of stupid to believe that a grown-ass woman is going to find that kind of behaviour appealing. I mean seriously, I'd have thought that a serious turn-off when *I* was 14. Yeah, I get that some people are just immature. But surely it should be evident to anyone who's attempted to approach even one woman that this just isn't going to do the trick. It's not going to work. It's spectacularly not going to work, in most cases. How many times do you have to see an eye-roll before you get it?
  9. Scylla Rhiadra
    Oh, they admit it. Ad nauseam.
  10. Scylla Rhiadra
    Wow. Like a U-Boat sneaking up the St. Lawrence. Where is that???
  11. Scylla Rhiadra
    I am quite sure this online phenomenon has been the subject of study . . . . . . but what is it about SL in particular that seems to lead men (and women too certainly, but mostly in my own experience, men) to regress to the maturity level of their early teens? Yeah, I get that pseudonymous identity here gives people the "freedom" to sound like they're early pubescents snickering and leering over a women's lingerie catalogue, but honestly . . . why would they want to sound like this? Who exactly do they think is going to be impressed by their Beavis and Butthead imitation? Do they really think that poop jokes, or yelling "BOOBIES!" in public chat is going to sound "sexy"? No, it's not particularly "offensive," and yes it's easily dealt with using block, but it is soooooooo idiotic and boring. Grow up. No reasonably self-respecting woman wants to hang out with someone who sounds like they're still stashing Playboy mags under their mattress so their mother won't find them.
  12. Scylla Rhiadra
    Oh dear. I quite liked Istelathis. 😢 Has anyone had any thoughts yet about a memorial of some sort?
  13. Scylla Rhiadra
    On a side note: I LOVE LOVE LOVE this pic of you being all dramatic at the bar! I can almost hear your breathy, tear-laden whining! Wonderful!
  14. Scylla Rhiadra
    I actually thought he was, but maybe I'm wrong!
  15. Scylla Rhiadra
    You couldn't possibly be more accident prone than I am! I'm actually fascinated by process pics, and mean to do more. And I'd love see some by other people! I did a few for this pic: Starting with this one. It's "fictionalized" -- I was my own photographer, for instance -- but it's the actual set I used, and it does show some of the changes I made as I took the pic(s) that led to the one above. It would be interesting and fun to do some more elaborate ones. I think I'd keep them "realistic" (no one needs to see a pic of me tinting or texturing a backdrop) but still try to show as much of the process as possible.
  16. Scylla Rhiadra
    Did you just flip the bird at a LINDEN???? 😮
  17. Scylla Rhiadra
    Busy busy busy. God I hate setup. I'm an AHTIST, dahling! Where are my minions???
  18. Scylla Rhiadra
    I'm really sorry to hear this, Ian. Maybe stepping away for a bit might help? I've done that too. Yes, there are . . . "difficult people" whom I wish I could better avoid here. But there is also a lovely community of really nice people who make it all worthwhile. I've made many very real friendships here. The point is, you've got over 1k posts here. You're part of that community, and one of the voices that makes it worthwhile. We're diminished without you, so I hope you'll reconsider.
  19. Scylla Rhiadra
    Kinda. Yeah. I'm not sure it's a really useful definition, unless those norms are themselves well defined.
  20. Scylla Rhiadra
    These aren't terribly useful, because they all suffer from the same lack of context and precision as "sick" and "healthy." "Dysfunctional" suggests a "function" -- what is it? "Unfit" . . . for what? Flawed or broken in what way(s)? I'm not challenging your view, Arielle, I just don't understand what exactly it MEANS.
  21. Scylla Rhiadra
    Define "sick" and "healthy," in this context?
  22. Scylla Rhiadra
    Well, yes. Which is one reason why I put "naturally" in scare quotes. The other reason is that "goodness" is really an entirely abstract and utterly human conception -- or at least it is if you don't believe in a divine being. Hence the origin of terms like "humane." I tend to think of "goodness" as being things that conduce to how well and harmoniously we live with other humans and within communities that are also geared towards that. I don't see it as an "ideal value," something carved on tablets or delivered in a book, but rather (particularly if I am being very cynical, maybe) a recognition of the evolutionary value of living well together.
  23. Scylla Rhiadra
    I too believe that humans are "naturally" good -- in the sense that hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of years of cultural evolution have demonstrated that we recognize the value of community and connection. We have evidence that Neanderthals cared for the aged and the sick, something that in purely evolutionary terms makes no sense whatsoever. And, we have developed the ideas of "right and wrong," of ethics and morality, however we may sometimes distort these. At the same time, of course we are all "mixed." Some of what is "bad" or "immoral" about us as individuals is undoubtedly hard-wired, but a great deal derives from social conditioning, our upbringing and experiences, etc. I know that I have racist or homophobic impulses. Hell, I know that I am sexist and misogynist. Most of us, I suspect, are at some level or another: it would be almost impossible not to harbour such notions given the world in which we live. True "goodness" or "morality," I think, consists not of eradicating these tendencies, which is likely impossible (and maybe even undesirable), but rather in recognizing and acknowledging their existence, and working hard not to give them voice or allow them to dictate how we think or what we do. Which is where critical thinking and critical self-awareness come into play. I don't think "goodness" is a static quality. It comes into being when we actively struggle to be good, in spite of our own demons.
  24. Scylla Rhiadra
    This isn't terrible. And it's obviously by someone who knows Second Life reasonably well, and uses it. But it really doesn't address the things (notably, the unique mode of content creation here) that makes SL unique and, arguably, still successful. https://twitter.com/business/status/1689625896867819520?s=20
  25. Scylla Rhiadra
    Hey! It's not even OPEN yet!!! I still have stuff to add! Thank you, though! 🙂 (And yes, there is a fair bit of nudity in this one. Unusually for me, but I'm interested in the relationship between geometry and the body.)
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