Hi Rachel and welcome to TPF.

I don't have any links to the relevant studies, but there is evidence in psychology suggesting that stating publicly what you're going to do makes it less likely that you will do it, and also that positive thinking doesn't work, at least for some people. Your friend could be making things hard for himself.

Aside from that, if your friend's social media posts are anything like the ones I see on Facebook, then there isn't anything very philosophical in them, even if he includes quotations from famous philosophers. It sounds like your friend might be uncritical of himself and dismissive of the criticism of others. This is very unphilosophical.

I like to be realistic, so I would agree with you that the steps towards a goal don't just magically transpire without a lot of work. I find positivity of the kind you describe humourless and dishonest, and that has brought me into conflict with people like your friend. It's not much to do with philosophy--more to do with the fashions of self-help, the law of attraction and all that stuff.

Is sex as idolized elsewhere as in the West? I don't know about is, but it certainly was. The sculptures below are in India, on a temple built around 930-950 CE. I think there are many others like them.

I noticed in the navigation bar that there was a response to one of my posts, and when I opened the mentions drop-down I saw it was from you, saying "Excellent post, I largely agree." I was deeply shocked for a moment, but then deeply relieved when I clicked through to the discussion to see that you had actually said it to someone else. :D

Sex is often a requirement in modern relationships because most people, in my experience at least, are in fact mortified at the thought of having true intimacy with someone because it means that they must expose the worst in them, which forces them to expose themselves to themselves, as well, often for the first time. — Heister Eggcart

You're saying that many people want to avoid intimacy, therefore sex is a requirement in modern relationships? Do you mean sexual or romantic relationships? I'm pretty sure that sex has been essential to a very large portion of human relationships for a very long time. And you assume, without any justification, that sex is not a part of being intimate with someone, but is rather a way of avoiding intimacy. As I think this goes against the experience of most people--certainly my own--I think you have to properly explain what you mean.

I'm open to the idea that there might be a new and increasingly widespread way of relating to people sexually that excludes intimacy--a kind of relationship that we might call pornographical, both because it is primarily objectifying and also because pornography increasingly shapes our sexualities--but this is a long way from saying that sex per se is an avoidance of intimacy.

This is one reason why successful marriages in the West have rapidly deteriorated because spouses realize too late that they do not know who really is next to them when they go to bed each night.

This is simply not credible. Do you think that when divorce was taboo and women were subjected to the authority of the husband, "true intimacy" flourished? Do you think that when marriage was more openly and uncontroversially about property and status, couples really got to know each other? Do you not realize that it's only recently that romantic love has become the primary reason for getting married?

Modern relationships have gone about creating a culture that overemphasizes the gruff physicality of the body, and therefore of sex, as being the foundation for the growth of a relationship between two people. No one gives a hot damn about virtue, only whether you like fleshy dicks or plastic dicks, if you like it in the butt, in the mouth, or in the nose, whether you like black hair over blonde hair, tan skin instead of pale skin - honesty, though? Attentiveness, understanding, compassion? Meh.

This demonstrates prudishness and little else. You do realize that attentiveness, understanding, and compassion, along with gruff physicality, are often essential to good sex?

(Y)

I'm not going to get into a detailed debate over it, — Maw

I personally wouldn't mind, but as you haven't made any clear or detailed criticisms except for the profile pics, preferring just to express your dislike, I guess that's that.

jamalrob, freerepublic.com is an example of great forum design — Michael

Yikes.

Totally forgot about Clients from Hell. I used to read it all the time. And don't get me wrong: I've had some horrible clients myself, and I have complained about them very vigorously. Part of the problem might be precisely the fact that we are not professionals in the strict sense that Agustino is using; some clients think it's okay to treat web designers and developers disrespectfully, in a way that they would probably not treat their lawyer.

I hope not. I don't even have an IT GCSE. — Michael

Yes, it'll be back to school for most of us.

I saw enough evidence to suggest that Landru could never get tired of saying "conservative meme". He must be saying it somewhere else.

It's because it's a young profession, and maybe also because nobody (usually) dies or goes to jail if things go wrong. Some people think we should be moving to full professionalization, with a professional body and mandatory qualifications. Mature professions need the educational and regulatory paraphernalia to ensure those claiming to be a certain kind of professional can actually do the job.

I want to agree with you, but what you're talking about is maybe just a different kind of professionalization anyway. To "demonstrate the capacity to do it" for the surgeon cannot just be a portfolio of past successful operations, because the next operation is the one that could expose the gaping hole in his knowledge.

Did some programming at university but mostly self-taught.

Could be a mild case of it, I'm an audio engineer, but I was more referring to anechoic chambers where supposedly you can hear the sound of your nervous system because it's so quiet :-O may very well just be bullshit! I think I heard that in a music course in college...which doesn't mean it's not bullshit... — Noble Dust

I did wonder if that's what you meant, because I'd heard the story that John Cage tells about one of his inspirations for creating 4'33":

"It was after I got to Boston that I went into the anechoic chamber at Harvard University. Anybody who knows me knows this story. I am constantly telling it. Anyway, in that silent room, I heard two sounds, one high and one low. Afterward I asked the engineer in charge why, if the room was so silent, I had heard two sounds. He said, 'Describe them.' I did. He said, 'The high one was your nervous system in operation. The low one was your blood in circulation.' "

But according to others this is impossible, and he could have just been hearing tinnitus.

When I became a developer I vowed I would never become one of those guys who complained to other developers about "the users", treating them as the enemy. So I'll just acknowledge what you say while resisting the temptation to join in. :D

Personally, I think the layout is very bland, and there is also a lot of unused space. — Maw

In my opinion, to say the design is bland is largely a misguided criticism with regard to a web design that exists to optimize the reading of text. And there is no such thing as unused space in a web design, but certain people may, for whatever reason, prefer all or most of the screen space to be filled. This is quite an unusual preference in my experience, aside from clients who want to stuff everything "above the fold". One major problem with the old design was that you had to scan a long way across the screen to read; the importance of limiting line length/characters per line has been recognized for a long time by typographers.

I'm not being defensive: it's not my design and there are several things I would change about it. But when people say they dislike a design it's now second-nature for me as a web developer to find out if there is anything of substance in the complaint so that I can see if I can do something about it, or if it's just people moaning about something unfamiliar or expressing their odd tastes.

But design is a kind of engineering and is certainly not simply a matter of taste. Although we don't have much scope to change things on this software platform, I do want to know what works and doesn't work. PlushForums has been professionally designed to optimize the user-experience, but it's not perfect.

Anyway I'll get off my high horse now.

Wouldn't mind user profile pics being bigger either, but all that is just my 2 cents. — Maw

If you ever want to see a bigger version of anyone's profile image you can click on it to view the profile. And like I say, you can make everything bigger as I do by zooming in.

Yes, that's come up a few times.

In any case, a lack of features has nothing to do with the layout.

The old forums layout was more of a standard internet forum layout, so it was simply easier to navigate. This layout is pretty unusual to me. — Maw

So it's about ease of navigation? Anything in particular? I much prefer this one in almost every way, once it's zoomed to 125% at least.

A traditional forum has more options — Emptyheady

Such as?

Good decision. I think it was the Carcass gig that did it for me.

It's called tinnitus and it affects 10-15% of people. I used to go to heavy metal concerts and I was used to the ringing in my ears afterwards. Usually it would fade away after a day or two, but one time it didn't fade away completely, and I've had it ever since.

If not more appropriate, then preferable or usual. — Sapientia

More preferable, I suppose, for the people who prefer it. Even if "spelled" is less common than "spelt" in British English, it is common enough that it is not unconventional or non-standard. Similarly, "-ize" endings have become less common in British English but are still treated as standard British English by the Oxford and Collins dictionaries, in which "-ize" spellings appear first (see Oxford spelling).

As you can tell, I'm not letting this one go. X-)

And while I really dislike this forums layout — Maw

Same here — Emptyheady

What don't you like about it?

That may be so, but after having gone through the results of a Google search, most of the results affirm that "misspelt" is the preference, or more appropriate, or more usual, in the UK. It is also my preference, and it just sounds better and more natural and appropriate to me. — Sapientia

I don't agree that it's more appropriate, and otherwise what you're saying doesn't go against my point.

Also I'm not sure how to pronounce "happeded".

What took you so long?

Both are common in British English, as reflected in dictionaries such as Oxford's, and to me "spelled" is better anyway.

It's getting to the point that we feel compelled to have sex just for the sake of it. — Question

How awful.

Not if you're protestant. Damn you and your materialist body, save your soul and pray to God and thank Jesus for dying for your carnal sins. (Also, him dying didn't help because you're still a sinful slacker). — Benkei

Please, I'm still struggling to overcome my Calvinist heritage and could do without any setbacks right now.

Which is why the analogy doesn't hold. It fails to capture this "far more complicated" part that is essential to sex. — Agustino

True, it does fail to capture that. It's not perfect. What it does suggest is that sex, stripped of its prudish sacralization, can be a sensual pleasure like any other, and that sex-snacking isn't such a bad thing. This doesn't mean that it's not more difficult or more morally precarious. It certainly is.

Ethics is the answer to the predicament of material human beings. It makes no sense otherwise.

if, for example, I were to find out that the spiritual doesn't exist, I wouldn't cease practicing the virtues, which includes abstinence from casual sex. — Agustino

I dare say if you were to find out that the material doesn't exist, the same thing would happen. Which is to say that a virtuous person is virtuous not in spite of but because of his materiality.

The analogy fails because sex is in no way like eating. There is no psychological effect from eating - at least in the general sense, as there is from sex. — Agustino

I don't think it follows that the analogy fails, but only that sex is far more complicated than food.

It seems you have given up what is noble because the mind is not eternal. That seems absurd. — Agustino

That seems to be an ignorant and prejudiced judgment, and nothing more. I can't see why you think that I have given up on what is noble, unless you're simply regurgitating (though you're in good company) the old prejudice of philosophy and religion, namely that the material world is inferior to--and thus opposed to--the spiritual. I've never gone along with that, but that doesn't mean I have to ditch nobility. It just means I want to redefine it without reference to the dichotomy.

Music to my ears, chorizo to my loins.

Thanks, but if you mean the first line, that's Nietzsche. :D

I entirely disagree. Why do you say this? — Agustino

Body am I entirely, and nothing more; and soul is only the name of something in the body.

It's the tapas thing again (is this a vulgar analogy? perhaps). A snack need not be a sordid indulgence, but rather a brief sensual pleasure taken seriously.

Not much of a step at all if your ethics is ancient Greek, which is about living well (although "immoral" is a troublesome word).

I mean to say that some people - Epicurus for one - found that the sage should abstain from sex, as it leads to potentially damaging emotions more frequently than to pleasure, and avoiding pain is more important than gaining pleasure. Now you can disagree with him, and I do disagree with the idea that one should never have sex, but that doesn't mean it's not rational within its own limited scope. I agree with Epicurus for example - but think there's some other kind of sex, which isn't described accurately in this way - committed, non-casual sex. — Agustino

Yeah, well I'm more of a positive hedonist and a sensualist than Epicurus, but I go for some kind of virtue ethics in which one can judge a person's temperance over the long-term; even Aristotle argued that being moderate was not always the best way, i.e., anger is appropriate on occasion. Thus, I want to say that casual sex is an important or good part of life, but also want to deny that a lifetime of nothing but casual sex is a life lived well; I wouldn't entirely go along with what I imagine others here might say, viz., whatever floats your boat.

Potentially, but it is an argument that has been used by materialists — Agustino

What do you mean by this Agustino?

I think you experience your experiences, and we can distinguish these: memory and first-hand. Memory is part of experience, but the transient experience of seeing a strange shape can be recalled--and become part of the fabric of one's experience--as that time I saw a ghost.

sex may be a pleasure, but the potential risks associated with it, especially in a casual setting, always outweigh the potential benefits — Agustino

Prima facie false, as false as the claim that the risks of rock climbing always outweigh the benefits.

They can't argue they had promiscuous sex in order to gain such an understanding. However, they can argue that, for whatever reason they chose to have promiscuous sex, they have gained such an understanding as a result of it. — Agustino

Fine. I made no claim that people had casual sex in order to educate themselves on monogamy.

If you agreed to it previously then you contradicted yourself when you said "No they couldn't argue so".

No they couldn't argue so, because a one-night stand doesn't intend to be a permanent bond from the beginning. So you no more realise what it takes for a permanent bond than otherwise. — Agustino

But you missed my (rather pedestrian) point, which is that there are different kinds of sexual relationship, including temporary and permanent, and an experience with the former can bring an understanding, by contrast, of the qualities of permanent relationships.