If you’ve ever heard stories of sexual abuse and wondered why a survivor didn’t report the abuse, or why they appeased the abusers, or why they just tried to escaped but didn’t go to the police, etc. If this has ever been confusing for you, you need to read Virginia Roberts Giuffre’s memoir Nobody’s Girl. It’s a wildly important book as it details how these things happen and how abusers get away with it. It explains how and why abusers chose those who they will abuse, how they slowly damage their self concept, how they make it clear that they can't go get help, how they set the abused up to not be believed by their community, how they engineer silence, and how abusers give themselves a public image contrary to reality to hide behind. On and on. If you actually care about understanding these thing, all the answers are in that book.

I changed my Facebook settings so that I'd see less posts telling me about horrific things, and how sad is this? It lumps sexual content and violence together. Wow is this a clear example of how messed up our culture is.

Experiencing tragedy makes you a bad person who is undeserving of joy. ...I know, what a fucked up thought. But it’s been core to my understanding of the world since before I can remember and it takes a while to undo that. But I’m curious, is this a lingering effect of my fundamentalist Christian early childhood, or is this a common sentiment in the world?

Happy Thanksgiving y'all.

The problem solving is the living part. We somehow get this insane idea that the happy carefree moments when everything feels right is life, and the rest, the uncomfortable part, is just the waiting to live. But actually, it's the other way around. The tackling problems, the deciding what to do about difficult relationships, the managing a tragic event, the treating depression, the making tough choices on the next phase of life... That's the living part.

We aren’t wired to hurt each other. We are wired for connection & co-operation & when that doesn’t happen, we are damaged. What’s important here is that everyone is damaged, not just those who survive violence/neglect but also those who inflict it. We have a lot of data on this from both directions. One of the best predictors of health-span and lifespan is our loving connections with others. The more loving, connected relationships we have with others the longer we live and the less sick we are. We also know that those who commit violence, solders who killed in war, slaughterhouse workers, perpetrators of domestic violence, etc. all show much worse mental health outcomes and generally reduced health-spam and lifespan. When we experience ugly things it can feel like the world is out to get you. It’s important to remember that no one really wants to hurt you. We aren’t wired for that. It happens, but that is not who we are or what we are built for.

Politicians don't care about you, they care about power. This is a bummer, but as I've already had my heart broken by politicians too many times, I had no faith, and so I am unsurprised and unphased by this one.

It’s what we’ve expected for a long time, but this clip explains it well. Epstein wasn’t really a person, he was a construct. I watched a clip of a podcast between two dudes that I know nothing about, but the conversation was interesting. One dude was arguing that Epstein was a “construct”. His theory went like this… Epstein was too extravagant for the money he actually had, he was working hard to look rich. We don’t know where his money actually came from, he said he was a currency trader or “financier” but there isn’t any evidence of that. He was a sort of fantasy character designed to both intrigue and frighten. This character was designed to gather intelligence or dirt on the rich and powerful. We know that this does happen. For example Eli Cohen. He was an Egyptian Jew that became an Israeli spy. He became Kamel Amin Thabet, a construct. He was given the back story that he was a Syrian businessman who was returning to the country after making a fortune in Argentina. He was extravagantly wealthy and hosted wild parties, orgies. He befriend many Syrian politicians collecting lots of intelligence data. In 1965 Cohen’s cover was blown by Syrian officials. But with Epstein it’s a bit different. Such a well know construct couldn’t survive the internet age. The news papers might have tried to let the story die, but the internet wouldn’t let it go. So, who constructed Epstein? Likely an intelligence agency. Which one? Not sure, but the usual suspects would be Mossad or the FBI… Maybe CIA? Who knows. The clip: Eli Cohen:

Eli Cohen - Wikipedia

It's a sensation that is hard to describe. Sometimes when difficult memories come up or when I feel unsafe, I get the sensation that my body is trying to eject parts of it self to protect the whole and this picture comes to mind.

Wait...I’ve got a new strategy! Tell me if I should actually try it! When I meet a dude that is setting off the red pill alarms instead of waiting for him to launch into a lecture... I’ll beat him to the punch! I’ll just uninvited, unexpectedly, launch into an epic mansplaining rant about the anthropologic study of humans and how patriarchy is just an unfortunate blip on our road map and the result of logistics after the agricultural revolution. I’ll dive into psychology and neuroscience lecturing on the gender differences in the development and activity levels of the prefrontal cortex and how women’s prefrontal development makes them great long term planners and decision makers. I’ll note the mating and child-rearing practices of “pre-history” humans as this represents 95% of our history and describes human’s “natural state”. I’ll explain the significance of lots of animal studies including the famously wildly inaccurate book on wolves from biologist L. David Mech in 1970, and of course the infamous "Forest Troop" Baboon case study showing how the health outcomes for a Baboon troop improved after the aggressive males died off from a tuberculosis outbreak. ...on and on. I’m a nerd with a big vocabulary, I can really filibuster someone in conversation. It’s an asshole move but I can do it. I can throw big words and fancy terms at someone until I exhaust them. ...what do ya think??? What might happen if I do it? 🤔 😁

What scares me the most isn't that some tragedy might come my way, it's that a tragedy might come my way and no one will believe me or help me. That's the part that causes the nightmares.

What I am most hoping will happen as a result of all this, is for people to understand that this is normal. The Epstein story is very unusual only in the sense of just how rich and powerful him and his buddies were. Other than that, the dehumanization, the manipulation, the sea of enablers that look the other way, etc. all of that is the norm of the world. Virginia Roberts Giuffre tells the story of a miscarriage she had at the age of 17 in her book. Epstein and Maxwell brought her to a hospital, but the doctors didn’t talk to her, they didn’t note her real age, they didn’t take accurate records, they just talked to Epstein. The doctors and staff didn’t ask a 17 yr old why she was having a miscarriage and being brought to the hospital by a 47 yr old man who was not related to her. Nope, they looked the other way. She reported her abuse to a psychiatrist who just gave her Xanax. He looked the other way. And so did the drivers, and chef’s, and security guards, and pilots, and maids, and on and on. Because this is the way of the world. And things like the man vs bear, I hope that you can see that this is an attempt to get the world to understand that these stories aren’t once offs. They aren’t wild anomalies. It’s an attempt to get the world to understand that women live their lives as prey. Women live in a world that dehumanizes them and looks the other way when they are abused. I want you to understand that this isn’t a bizarre story, this is just a very dramatic iteration of what is normal in our world.