buaa.........

yknow we do a lot of like stevie realising she's transfem bc of a dare or like robin telling her about queer stuff and having a 'you can do that?' moment, but now im thinking of stevie who figures it out entirely on her own and doesn't know how to tell anyone. like she doesn't fully have the words and even with robin it's like. one thing to be gay but gender stuff is a whole other level and she has no idea where she stands on that

but like, stevie who used to play with his mothers makeup as a child, whose parents would laugh at his antics until he got too old to be so childish, time to act like a Real Boy. and every time he's supposed to act like One Of The Boys he thinks of how it felt when his mom would do his hair for him and comment on how alike they looked, and how much better that felt, and he knows that isn't normal, and he has to be normal

but after the upside down that really seems to matter less. nothings fucking normal anymore, why should steve be? so she starts branching out a little. breaks into her mothers closet again, tries on all the clothes she left behind when she went on her latest trip. slowly amasses a decent collection of makeup by going to several different stores over the course of months with the excuse of 'oh my mom/girlfriend sent me to pick up x'. she doesn't do the Whole Deal often, in case nancy comes over or later in case the kids suddenly ask her to drive them somewhere. doesn't do anything that can't be removed in like three seconds. and she's definitely never telling anyone about this. she doesn't know anyone who would understand.

after starcourt, she wonders about telling robin sometimes. like sure, stevie doesn't like men but she's still like. some kind of queer. robins the only other queer person she knows (and yeah, robin turning her down bc she was only into girls did sort of hurt, but it wasn't robins fault bc she didn't know, and also it turned out stevie just didn't understand what actual friendship felt like so it was for the best anyway), so if she can't tell robin who can she tell?

but something always stops her. robins technically never done anything that makes stevie think she'd be mean about it, but there's something like imposter syndrome keeping her mouth closed. like she's not the right kind of queer. like robins being queer the good and honest way and stevies just being some kind of freak. and yeah, she knows it's dumb to think like that and robin would call her a dingus if she said it out loud, but it sits pretty heavy in her heart

so it's not until after vecna, when stevies on the eddie shift in the hospital and eddie says, while high on possibly every drug in the world, 'man i spent all that time trying to grow my tits and bats ate an entire boob in under five minutes' and stevie goes ??? what???? and eddie, still too high to self-censor, makes some comment like yeah they weren't huge but that black market estrogen i got was finally working its magic, definitely had like an a-cup. rest in peace. and stevies like why were you growing boobs?? 'bc girls are supposed to have boobs, man, keep up'

and eddie passes out again like five seconds later, but stevie just sits there watching her snore with her heart about to beat out of her chest because. holy shit. she's not the only one. eddie might understand, might be able to help her, if she was able to grow her own boobs. stevie would love to grow her own boobs. she'd stuffed some socks down a bra once and they looked lumpy as hell but even just the suggestion of a bust had almost brought her to tears.

and suddenly, looking at the sleeping form of the first person stevie has ever met that she's ever had this so intrinsic thing in common with, everything doesn't seem so scary

What does “metamorphosis” mean to you?

Short answer is rebirth. To be born again.

But I also have a long answer because I really liked this ask:

If I say "tree", we both know what "tree" means, but we see different trees in our minds, right? I love the idea that language is the common ground of understanding. That's why it has rules: it's a convention. Otherwise, we won't understand each other. You say dog, I think tree and answer: soup!, and you bring me a flower. Imagine.

That makes me think of Saussure, who defined a sign as being composed of a signifier (significant) — the form which the sign takes; and the signified (signifi ) — the concept it represents.

But anyway, this was a very long time ago, and it's a crazy subject to do in-depth, I just want to use this idea of two layers: physical (material, visible) x abstract (spiritual, invisible).

So my brief interest in etymology and Latin will tell me the word metamorphosis is composed by the very cool word meta (change) + morpho (form).

To be transfigured? To be changed? But at what levels?

Rebirth fits. It sounds very poetic. It's the old "the caterpillar has to die in order to become a butterfly". But honestly, I think we take this meaning too lightly. In the sense that we might want to change a sign, but we change only its form, and forget its concept — which might be immutable as well. In order for the metamorphosis to happen, I guess both must be changed. It's an all-in game.

If you smash a caterpillar, it will never become a butterfly. If you take a butterfly's wings, it will still be a butterfly. And if we verify the reality that brings the words to life,

"Once a caterpillar has disintegrated all of its tissues except for the imaginal discs, those discs use the protein-rich soup all around them to fuel the rapid cell division required to form the wings, antennae, legs, eyes, genitals and all the other features of an adult butterfly or moth. The imaginal disc for a fruit fly's wing, for example, might begin with only 50 cells and increase to more than 50,000 cells by the end of metamorphosis. Depending on the species, certain caterpillar muscles and sections of the nervous system are largely preserved in the adult butterfly. One study even suggests that moths remember what they learned in later stages of their lives as caterpillars." (Ferris Jabr)

Interesting to point that "imaginal discs" or "sections of the nervous system" will be preserved. In the sense that you can't have something coming out of nothing, ever! A fish can not go through a caterpillar's metamorphosis. So even to disintegrate and be fully transformed, we also need a solid basis.

Sometimes we want to be changed, but we don't want to digest ourselves like the brave caterpillar. We want beautiful wings, but we don't want to die for ourselves. Refusing nature's design that is intrinsic to our core, maybe we will die as silkworms, when we could have been brilliant butterflies.

Rule of First Blood or unnamed chasexniamh baby fic!!! - em <3

I went kookoobabanas and whoopsie I ended up finishing pretty much all the of prologue/opening to this so uh here

———

Rule of First Blood

the unwritten rule: the first Hunter to inflict a fatal wound makes the claim.

—

The thing about Mage Hunters that infuriated her the most, she thought, was that she is not prey.

It was in those early days for Vesper when she heard the term, absorbing all she could, filling in the absence of memory with knowledge, ravenous to simply know. To know anything, to soothe the nothing that made the edges of her mind blur and blacken; some raw, gaping hole in her head and her heart. Anything to stop feeling hollowed out.

It made her brow furrow. Hunters, whose mark consisted of those born with the remains of an old covenant in their blood. Their fellow man, made in the image of Six.

The Viper King thinks we are dangerous, too dangerous to live. The Hunters were created to cull us. Drive us to extinction. Jax said.

“Like wolves.” She finished. But back in that moment,she felt more like a fawn, wide eyed and skittish, quick to flee, slow to fight, curled in a bramble and out of sight from the keen cerulean burn that meant the end.

Bellona was a pretty flower. The sketch in one of the books His Majesty had gifted her showed the petals, painted in blue ink, the thorns and leaves and next to it a description of the plant.

Beautiful. Deadly.

How could someone take something so lovely and turn it into a weapon? How wicked to look at beauty and think it the bane of your enemies. Poison- the venom of the Viper King-in their hands, in the veins, arrows tipped.

The wolf to the common folk, the hart to the hunter.

As she learned, as the intrinsic gift pulled and pushed and called to her, as she became entwined with the ambition of her regent who offered purpose, Vesper grew less resentful of the idea of being The Hunted.

After all, hunters step in their own traps. Fall to friendly fire. Gored on tusks and antlers. To creatures born to render and tear flesh with their teeth, hunger is a powerful thing.

If she is to be the quarry, she will be the quarry with fangs and claws. Quick and powerful, quiet and cunning, and most of all, hard to kill.

——-

Commentary below !!

The title came from google searching something different and I was like I… can’t NOT have this be a fic specifically about Vesper and Arthur (thus dubbed…Vespa), and I don’t know where it’s going besides it’s obviously playing into the fact they are foils of equal and opposing force who eventually fall in love, and I just love a good themed character study so the more we learn about our dear darling Margrave I think the more crazy I will get with this. The wonderful @thegrayascendancy-if WIP is still in its infancy and much is shrouded in delicious mystery, and while sometimes I feel like I have the measure of him, he is still largely enigmatic to me which works for Vesper POV fantastically as both she as the character and me as the writer of fiction and a reader of The Gray Ascendancy. He’s fascinating and I have to restrain myself from asking all the questions about him to his dear author- this may be me just studying him and Ves under a microscope, with some action thrown in there(not just massive introspection). I think when two people are posed to really do some damage to each other as in their nature to do so and are (as I’m interpreting it) pretty evenly matched, it’s just -Chef’s kiss- ;adding tension romantic or sexual or otherwise and raising the emotional stakes is also just a freaking delight. It’s really fun to write fierce and ambitious Vesper and learn more about her through my writing and in the story setting as it progresses too, and I’m salivating at Arthur (and the other 2 that make up the trio) having a meaningful impact on her. I joke that I want Arthur to destroy her wholly, and I think this is the start of it. Teehee.

You are so right when you said tay impacted him in ways he doesn't even realise. Like not only did harry fall in love with her as a person he admired her as an artist. His childhood friend once said h had crush on her after watching 'love story's mv. Knowing he was a music nerd he might've grown up being wonderstruck by her artistry especially after SN.(i cant see hum not appreciating SN esp after knowing she wrote it alone)Then he became part of her world. He saw the behind the scenes of red and 1989 (and maybe beginning of whatever became rep because I lowkey think she wrote atleast something about their fwb(there is a theory of TIWYCF that doesn't strike to me as a CH song) but decided to prioritize her joe songs). He saw her making music out of missing HIM and HIM coming back and falling in love with HIM. I do think at some point he also thought 'what a mind'. Every time he spoke about her artistry he made sure he said 'she's good at it'. I think it also gave Taylor a confidence boost because her previous boyfriend said 'don't write about me' and definitely didn't respect her as a person let alone artist. She also taught him atleast a little about playing guitar and introduced him to a lot of music(sweet disposition). So while the flame had gone out the smoke lingers(stealing your words) through his(and hers) song.

not only did harry fall in love with her as a person he admired her as an artist. right, and in a way the artistic admiration is what's still very present. the relationship fell apart, but that never has. h having a crush on her as a musician before he knew her as a person makes total sense. their respective experiences and dealings with fame then ended up aligning in a particular way where it also made sense that they'd gravitate towards each other and have some understanding and common ground. he's one of the few people who'd even be able to comprehend what that was like for her. i think part of why the gp writes them off as not being that impactful is because most people don't realize how long that situation was ongoing, that it wasn't only a handful of months, but spanned a few years off and on. he was there when red was being written, he was present for at least a bit of its creation, and we know she shared 1989 with him in full before its release. that's why i mentioned she helped teach him about approaching songwriting (and playing guitar, that initially was taylor and niall for him afaik!), plus sharing music together (that winding wheel tweet...). that influence is immediately clear even on midnight memories, and i think he internalized and absorbed it to the point where it's intrinsic now rather than intentional. that was a very formative time in both of their lives, what would be college ages for other people, and it seems they learned quite a bit from one another respectively, as artists and in navigating the press and in what they actually wanted from relationships (even if they never managed to align it). i've never seen that theory about tiwycf, i don't think? but the idea of it linking back to h amuses me since that would doubtless have made crouton livid (he really had such a chip on his shoulder about h). that feeling of falling apart and falling back together weaves in and out of both of their music that they composed about it. ("him" was also...revealing.) i have no doubt he admired her mind, and continues to. no one she'd previously been with had valued her talent and passion in that way, as we know (not only jg, jm OPENLY insulted her, called her songwriting "cheap"), she had been belittled and disrespected so often, and certainly h wasn't perfect (nor was she, it's okay, they're humans and people are flawed and complicated!), but there's no doubt that he valued her skill as an artist beyond being in love with her.

also when i mentioned 1989 isn't as vulnerable outside of this love and clean (and yail), sometimes i feel like even me saying that isn't entirely fair (i have a message, maybe from you! about wonderland in here somewhere that i agree with, i'll have to find it), even though she was trying hard to curate and polish and seem perfect and less attached, there tends to be a knife-edge of emotion in a number of the songs, where if they were stripped back and played acoustically (like her grammy museum performance), that would hit differently. why'd you have to go and lock me out when i let you in?/i wish you knew that i'd never forget you as long as i live/we were lying on your couch, i remember; you took a polaroid of us, then discovered, the rest of the world was black and white, but we were in screaming color/you know for me, it's always you...in the dead of night, your eyes so green...and i know for you, it's always me. it's a different dynamic than what she detailed on red, obviously, not nearly as shattered. but the very real feeling is still there.

while the flame had gone out the smoke lingers - it does, and it's the most interesting thing about that in many ways, and why those songs continue to converse with one another and move us the way they do. the situation ended, but the music lasts.

“But Alina never wanted power, all she wanted was a simple life.”

Ladies and Gentlemen… I present to you the most idiotic and shameful rebuttal to criticism of the Grisha Trilogy/Shadow and Bone ending! Bare witness to the worst counter-argument in YA literary history and watch on as history is made!

This particular argument never ceases to make me unreasonably angry. This rebuttal, Is used often in response to the common complaint that Alina Starkov’s ending in Ruin and Rising was both sexist and dissatisfying conclusion to her character arc. The notion that the Grisha trilogy ending was flaming garbage is one that even people outside of the fandom are aware of. So, I can only imagine that the people making this argument feel rebellious for deviating from the common opinion that the ending was terrible.

There are a few reasons why the statement above is an insufferable response to criticism of the trilogy. Firstly, it is an extremely shallow statement that reveals a surface-level reading of the messages and themes in the text. It is wholly uncritical of the narrative inconsistencies present in the text and chooses to comment on the ending in a way that is devoid of context and refuse to delve any deeper into the actual meaning of the text.

Secondly, when the R&R book came out, whether people could articulate it or not, they knew that something was wrong. Even if they didn’t know the literary terminology to describe the problems in Alina’s arc, they could still understand that the ending was a cop out and didn’t deliver satisfaction to the readers. This response to those criticisms seems to suggest that these critics were simply “reading the text wrong” and that they just didn’t get the TRUE complexity and value of the series. It’s an argument preferred by people with limited literary understanding to gain a false sense of superiority for the most BASIC, SHALLOW AND SURFACE LEVEL interpretations of the trilogy.

Lastly, it demonstrates a lack of understanding regarding the logical narrative progression of Alina’s character arc. To argue that Alina never wanted power and that is why her powers being stripped away is a suitable is one that ignores a key fact about Alina herself: she IS her powers. Alina’s powers were not a holy sword or weapon that was forced upon her but were an intrinsic and long repressed aspect of her identity. For Alina to reject her powers is to reject her full self. This idea is fairly consistent up until the third book when it is called into doubt by Baghra’s nonsensical warnings and criticism.

Sometimes the writing is just bad and sometimes that is something a lot of readers will recognize.

Most of our platitudes notwithstanding, self-deception remains the most difficult deception. The charms that work on others count for nothing in that devastatingly well-lit back alley where one keeps assignations with oneself: no winning smiles will do here, no prettily drawn lists of good intentions.

+

There is a common superstition that "self-respect" is a kind of charm against snakes, something that keeps those who have it locked in some unblighted Eden, out of strange beds, ambivalent conversations, and trouble in general. It does not at all. It has nothing to do with the face of things, but concerns instead a separate peace, a private reconciliation. 

+

People with self-respect have the courage of their mistakes. They know the price of things. [...] Character—the willingness to accept responsibility for one's own life—is the source from which self-respect springs.

+

[People who respect themselves] are willing to invest something of themselves; they may not play at all, but when they do play, they know the odds. That kind of self-respect is a discipline, a habit of mind that can never be faked but can be developed, trained, coaxed forth. 

+

To have that sense of one's intrinsic worth which, for better or for worse, constitutes self-respect, is potentially to have everything: the ability to discriminate, to love and to remain indifferent. To lack it is to be locked within oneself, paradoxically incapable of either love or indifference. If we do not respect ourselves, we are on the one hand forced to despise those who have so few resources as to consort with us, so little perception as to remain blind to our fatal weaknesses. On the other, we are peculiarly in thrall to everyone we see, curiously determined to live out—since our self-image is untenable—their false notions of us. We flatter ourselves by thinking this compulsion to please others an attractive trait: a gift for imaginative empathy, evidence of our willingness to give. Of course we will play Francesca to Paolo, Brett Ashley to Jake, Helen Keller to anyone's Annie Sullivan: no expectation is too misplaced, no rôle too ludicrous. At the mercy of those we can not but hold in contempt, we play rôles doomed to failure before they are begun, each defeat generating fresh despair at the necessity of divining and meeting the next demand made upon us.

It is the phenomenon sometimes called alienation from self. In its advanced stages, we no longer answer the telephone, because someone might want something; that we could say no without drowning in self-reproach is an idea alien to this game. Every encounter demands too much, tears the nerves, drains the will, and the spectre of something as small as an unanswered letter arouses such disproportionate guilt that one's sanity becomes an object of speculation among one's acquaintances. To assign unanswered letters their proper weight, to free us from the expectations of others, to give us back to ourselves—there lies the great, the singular power of self-respect. Without it, one eventually discovers the final turn of the screw: one runs away to find oneself, and finds no one at home.

I've been thinking really hard for a couple days about the definition of hearttype, that it's something you identify with instead of as, and I find that...really unsatisfying and confusing, actually, since 'with' and 'as' are so hard to define in the first place and colloquially are identical; the only place that really makes a hard distinction is the otherkin community.

So, here's a thesis statement, and I'd like to hear what people think about it.

A kintype is an identification of the self as something, whereas a hearttype is an identification of something outside the self.

I was trying to find a common thread in all the explanations I've seen from otherhearted people, and what stood out to me was that almost every one of them comes back to something along the lines of, "[thing] is not me, but [thing] is like family to me." I had some internal debate of what that's even supposed to mean, because 'kin' literally means 'family' so how is that different? I also wondered if it was an intensity thing, and ended up ultimately deciding, not really; there's correlation but no causation there. Then I realized the actual difference is that it's an identity located outside the self.

Along the way I had a few ideas that were somewhat off the mark or not fully formed, so keep that in mind if you're thinking, 'hey, are you straight out contradicting something you posted a couple days ago?' Yeah, probably! It's a process. I don't mind people seeing the process. Anyway...

An identity located within the self can be expressed as a simple "I am" statement. But hearttypes necessarily cannot be expressed that way. They can only be expressed by referencing sometime external to you. So, in my case, I am a faery. I am not a moth; however, moths are especially significant to me. The identity is projected onto moths, who wouldn't know me from Adam even though I feel a strong and very important kinship with them, and my relationship to them through that identity is what is actually called being moth-hearted. I can't word it as "I am," I can only word it as "they are (in relation to me)," which is not how it's generally understood right now. We're trying to fit the wrong part of the equation into a phrase that doesn't suit it to begin with, I think.

Which would explain why it's such a pain to define and nobody seems to be able to put it concisely. We're looking at a thing that isn't even itself the identity in question and trying to go from there.

It probably sounds like an extremely pedantic detail, but I think it's actually one to think about. There are likely other confusing aspects of identity that we might sort out by thinking in terms of identity potentially being something outside oneself, that one projects onto external things.

And on top of that I've been very much having thoughts about the fact that the existence of identity traits implies other identities with the opposite of those traits. For example, what we generally call a kintype we define as serious, intrinsic, and self-oriented. This implies the existence of identities which are casual, extrinsic, and/or other-oriented, in any combination with the original traits. What traits do we value enough to assign to this hypothetical punnet square of a definition system? Could we understand more about ourselves by examining other potential combinations of identity traits? Probably! It's been an interesting exercise at the minimum.

Anyway, hopefully that made sense. I'd very much like to hear thoughts on it, especially from other otherhearted people.

Also at some point I'd like to actually try and come up with a list of aforementioned traits and see what that grid looks like, just as an exercise. I sort of did it once and it was interesting as hell, so a larger scale attempt may be in order.

It seems like it's become a sort of dogma of disability discourse that having different disabilities doesn't affect disabled people's receptions in society in any way. Sometimes this is taken to the extreme of "no disabled person experiences [say] social stigma in any way that differs from any other disabled person." Sometimes it's a vaguer denial that there are any general trends that differ by specific disability or by larger classes of disability.

I do get the frustration with inaccurate sweeping generalizations about how X group does/doesn't experience [thing], but also—for me, someone with a bunch of co-morbidities, this idea that all disabilities evoke basically the same receptions is laughably disconnected from reality.

The mental/physical disability divide is not particularly helpful or accurate here, I will freely admit! It's already an issue because the entire concept of mind-body separation is ... uhhhh, flawed. But also, at least in my experience, the general reception of something like depression is closer to how people respond to my being asthmatic than being autistic, say—I've had very severe episodes of both depression and asthma, and typically they're seen as less significant and less disruptive than my other disabilities, despite this being wildly out of touch with my experience and with much of the scholarly literature around them.

For instance, I have Bipolar II, typically seen as the milder form, though only the mania is milder. Hypomania can still be disruptive, but for me, the depressive episodes are much more so and take up more of my life. Interestingly, there's research suggesting this tends to be true for people with Bipolar I as well—despite the severity of manic episodes, it's depression that tends to be the most pervasive and disabling aspect of being bipolar, yet it's often perceived as less significant than mania, intrinsically less severe, less harmful to quality of life, etc.

And that has pretty obvious ramifications for people with major depression rather than bipolar depression—if bipolar depression is largely perceived as the minor part of being bipolar (despite the contrary evidence of a great deal of personal experience and scholarly literature!), then what about people who have depression without mania at all? And, speaking personally, it was easier to get people to accept that I'm disabled once I was diagnosed as bipolar rather than "just" depressed. I think this was in considerable part because mania (even hypomania) reads as "crazier" to a lot of people than depression.

This has obvious enormous downsides, but sometimes confers a weird sort of Actually Disabled legitimacy. I've experienced this, I've seen other bipolar people talking about experiencing it, I've read it in research, this is a thing.

Yes, there's a reason I use "tends" and "often" and "sometimes" a lot—I'm not saying this is true 100% of the time for everyone. I'm sure there are people out there who find it easier to get depression treated seriously than mania or for whom there's no distinction in the response. But the other way around is in fact much more typical, and sorry, but people are allowed to discuss common trends that reflect their experiences but not yours. You are also allowed to discuss your experiences! There is absolutely a time and place for doing that, but there are points where bringing it into every conversation about large-scale trends verges into Why Are We Not About Me territory.

And I did find it intriguing that the way people shrug off depression is very similar to how people shrug off some chronic illnesses like asthma. There's this pretty widespread idea of asthma as a minor inconvenience, and while asthma is indeed a minor inconvenience for some people, research suggests that most asthma deaths are the result of not treating it seriously enough (whether this comes from medical professionals, asthmatics, and/or family and friends, esp with asthmatic children). Like, this "minor inconvenience" narrative can literally kill and does so regularly, which is also the case with depression, frankly.

At the same time, it can be nice to be seen as relatively "normal." When people find out I'm autistic or bipolar, it tends to shape—even compromise—their view of me as a person in a way that seems different from how it affects their view of me as "merely" a depressed/anxious/asthmatic person. This is not always the case! But it often is, personally and broadly, even among people who have extremely vague ideas of how bipolar disorder or the autism spectrum operate.

This is long, I realize, and a mix of large-scale and personal issues concerning a small handful of the many disabilities out there. But even with just these few, the whole "all disabilities have exactly the same social stigma and reception" thing makes no sense to me at all.

This post is fear-mongering and conspiracy-based thinking:

(Image description: screenshot of tumblr post that reads “fuck it

ice cream listeria outbreak. again. did you know that illness due to listeria has a 20-30% mortality rate?

family dollar recalling a bunch of drugs and supplements because they stored them wrong

lucky charms and cheerios continue to make children and adults sick, the cause is still under investigation, and no recall has been issued. terrifying. that means it is almost definitely not one of the common causes like salmonella...”)

That “ice cream listeria outbreak”? Click the link and it’s ONE creamery specifically in Sarasota FL. Important info for sure but the implications here are very different (the overall vibe of the post is “what is the fda not telling you?” and yet… the fda is literally the ones telling us that) (no link for their “again” statement - has this happened many times or one other time? Where? When? What companies? Who knows! That would be giving real facts instead of spreading conspiracies!)

And then the cereal stuff is just laughable. A) there’s actual articles about the fda investigations but they just linked to “am I being poisoned .com” B) perhaps no recall has been issued bc it’s still under investigation and PERHAPS it’s still under investigation bc they’re only investigating it bc of these weird complaints and there’s actually nothing to find! Sometimes individuals have weird reactions to certain foods! Sometimes you get a stomach bug and it’s not food poisoning!

I for one have found that eating certain cereals can make my tummy hurty bc there’s just a lot of fiber in cereal and I have my personal tummy issues that can be exacerbated by that and you don’t see me out here like “I WAS POISONED BY RAISIN BRAN” bc I have critical thinking skills. Jesus Christ. Also I just had a stomach bug and there’s no way I could possibly pinpoint a food I ate that was responsible bc a) idk if it was food poisoning at all and b) even if it was there’s no way to know which food unless there was a big outbreak and investigation and news about it.

Yet these people are like well I ate nothing out of the ordinary recently except Honey Nut Cheerios so it HAD to be the Cheerios. ummm that’s not how food poisoning works, you can get it from something you eat all the time if it was a bad batch, expired, you cooked it wrong, whatever. But they’re obviously not really talking in scientific medical terms about food poisoning, they have weird ideas about certain foods being intrinsically Poison To The Human Body. Which is nonsense.

Oh you know what let’s talk about this one too:

(image description: screenshot of tumblr post that reads “several honey products are being recalled for having undisclosed, get this...VIAGRA in them. and cialis. sildenafil and tadalafil”)

And here’s the fda explanation (interestingly not the one they linked to, they intentionally chose a much vaguer press release):

(image description: screenshot of an FDA article that reads “When you’re browsing, one of the best ways to protect yourself from fake, and even possibly harmful, products is asking whether a claim sounds too good to be true, or if it contradicts what you’ve heard from reputable sources. 

On July 12, 2022, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration posted warning letters to companies that are violating federal law by selling products marketed as food which contain undisclosed or hidden prescription medication. These products are labeled as honey with herbal ingredients and are marketed with claims to treat disease or improve health. 

These products are promoted and sold for sexual enhancement on various websites and online marketplaces, and possibly in some retail stores. If you are struggling with sexual performance issues, you may have a physical condition that is keeping your body from responding as it normally would. Talk openly with your health care professional before considering any treatments.”)

like. We’re talking a scam product to begin with and op is making it sound like any random honey you pull off the grocery store shelf might have viagra in it!

tl;dr - the FDA’s job is to protect you from dangerous food and drugs and they generally are on top of that job (if it seems like they’re behind or lacking they probably just… didn’t know yet! Shocker they aren’t omniscient!) and anyone trying to tell you otherwise is a conspiracy theorist. Learn how to recognize twisting of info to fit a narrative.

As someone from the "bible belt" of the US, one thing that fascinates me about Christianity is that you really can just tape on whatever you want and while some people are going to no-true-scotsman you for literally anything, it's not like you can ban something from counting as Christian. Both kidnapping and immigration dragged a lot of people into Christianity who were already doing their own thing, too, so you end up in this world where many Christians have mutually incomprehensible practices.

I also grew up in the Bible Belt, anon. *the saddest high-five*

But no, I very much agree. There are some certain ideas that most Christians believe in, but it's kind of impossible to find something that they all believe in, especially when you get to areas where things have gotten really syncretic. Even things that seem basic af like monotheism have been questioned by things like people in India putting Jesus in a home shrine with a bunch of other deities. And people will get in a fucking CAGE FIGHT over the nature of the trinity. It's complicated!!

tbh, I think disagreement and in-fighting is something that's almost an intrinsic part of Christianity; it's certainly happened for as long as the religion was even remotely identifiable as such. (And boy is it fun to tell people that the guy Santa is vaguely based on punched a dude in the FACE over Arianism once.)

I have family members that are very devout in various sects of Protestant Christianity (like, we're talking Lutheran minister vs. Baptist Sunday School teacher) and watching them fight over Real Christianity is... a lot. We've had uhhh outright crying and screaming at the dinner table over transubstantiation as I, the lone gay in the family, just sit there eating my fucking food.

Or I'll have an aunt who's like "oh, Jerry Falwell Jr. isn't a REAL Christian" and like... yes he is, auntie! You don't get to decide what's Christian or not, even if the people in question are garbage! You only get to decide what you wanna do with your own faith!

Sometimes I think the only thing all Christians have in common is telling other Christians that they're not real Christians lmao. But no, it's actually the fringe practices that I often find most interesting. (Or the things that are fringe now but used to be common amongst Christians in the Middle Ages or something.)

I have... let's just say very complicated feelings about religion. But I've always loved watching the way people express their humanity by adopting and adapting mainstream religions to their own private belief systems and needs. It's the variation that I love, and I think that people never feel more human than when they're telling stories.

Question on the relation between drug use & drug harms

There is a phenomenon in drug policy where policymakers see “X causes Y”, then they aim to reduce X (in order to indirectly reduce Y)-- but the result is “the remaining X causes *more* Y” to such a severe degree that the total Y increases.

Is there a name for this? Seems similar-ish to Goodhart’s Law?

Obvious common example-- X = drug use Y = drug-related harms

Some (not all) aspects of prohibition may indeed reduce the amount of drug use-- but at the cost of making drug use more harmful, enough to increase total drug-related harms. Are there formal names & models for this sort of thing?

A few economics-minded anti-harm-reductionists use the term "moral hazard." By this, they mean the idea that reducing drug harms (per instance of drug use) can increase total drug use, to such a severe degree that it increases total drug-related harm.

I'm saying something like the opposite: the *methods* of drug-use-reduction increase the harm-per-use to such a degree that they increase total drug-related harm. And, for this reason, use-reduction is a bad metric of drug policy success.

Not only is use-reduction NOT intrinsically valuable (rather, it is at most instrumentally valuable as a proxy for reduction of drug harms), but it fails as a proxy precisely *because* the methods of use-reduction increase harm-per-use (almost inevitably, sometimes even by design) AND do so enough to increase total harm.

day 129 (thursday, november 9th 2023)

This one is about identity, in particular personal and political identity. I think I remember being interested in the question of personal identity once. The interesting thing about it is that it doesn't satisfy Leibniz's law. In fact almost no versions of what is generally invoked under the name of identity, it would seem, satisfy Leibniz's law in the strict sense of the indiscerniblity of identicals, because you generally want to say that identity is compatible with the possibility of having been different, or changing (or even enduring) over time, but then that means that in different times (or at a different world) X has different properties while remaining identical to X. Or else you might want to resist this, and say identity means you retain all your properties in every context, but at the very minimum it seems you can fold being in a certain context into a property: thus X possesses both the property of existing at time t and having existed at time t', but then at time t' X possessed the property of existing at time t' and future existence at t, for instance. Thus you have tensed or modally indexed properties. But you can't place that sort of property within a temporal context or else you violate the indiscernibility of identicals. You can deny that any such properties exist I guess, or try to restrict your view to something like intrinsic properties (on the view that temporal context is relative to a world or whatever and thus an illegitimate relational property), or you can also argue for a level distinction between the properties denoted by your theory (i.e. as the interpretation of a predicate) and the terms which arise from the machinery of your theory (and would thus be denoted by terms in a second-order theory). Whatever. But anyway I was interested in the question of how you could be the same person as you were years ago when you don't seem to satisfy the criteria for physical identity, even if you do satisfy the conditions for physical continuity. Perhaps the idea is that you're connected by memory, or by some other complex of things like a life history, or that you only really exist over time and not in time, etc.

But this post is about something else, the identity in "identity politics." What's interesting about that is that to have X as your identity is to be part of a group; you're black, you're a woman, etc., and in some sense that's not an identity in the sense that it's something only you have, or a relation everyone has only to themselves, or anything like that. Identities in this social or political sense are thus not these sorts of special objective properties, they are sustained, as it were, by a certain sort of recognition, or claim to recognition. That's another shift I think, from a model in which identity is conferred from outside ("subject identified as a 6'4" black male") to one in which it's declared from within ("I identify as a first-generation immigrant,") even if declared identities issue from externally ascribed traits, they're filtered through one's own interpretation of and relationship to those traits and sometimes in opposition to the common understanding of those traits. (See the many debates about the extent to which people should or shouldn't be classified under X racial category if they're from social context Y and don't "identify" with category X, etc. So some people who are generally understood by others to be of a certain race, or gender, do not identify as that race or gender, and in some cases the self-identification is taken to be primary and in other places the external identification is considered primary, either on the basis of the contingent claim that no one can sincerely and rationally go against their external identification or on the stronger claim that the identity category in question is not the sort on which one can unilaterally cast off one's externally designated identity category.)

I think that on the "I identify as" model, the use of the term "identity" is fundamentally to make a very particular kind of normative claim, and one which is related to its more traditional metaphysical overtones. So traditionally, questions of identity have been related to questions of existence, continuity, change and survival. What makes it the case that something is what it is, that it continues to be what it is in a different context or under a different aspect, that it continues to be, rather than to be something else, or to cease to be. And I think that invocations of identity in this sense involve taking the trait one identifies with and saying "this is who I am, fundamentally." It's a way to fold a certain sort of commitment into one's very essence or being. This isn't to say this sort of claim is generally voluntaristic, not at all. The person making the claim may well believe that this is simply how things are. But the claim is to the effect of "this aspect of me is essential to me." (Or perhaps just is me, although this version of the claim raises the question of how an aspect of you, which would seem to bear an asymmetric, quasi-mereological relation to you, can just be you, where something's being you is a symmetric relation. The point is that something's being part of your identity would seem to be different in that way from its being a mere property you have.) But anyway, "this aspect of me just is me; if you're against this belief, this value, this commitment of mine, this feature of my personality, you're against me; to demand that I give it up is to demand that I no longer exist, or no longer am who I am; if you claim to accept me you must accept this as well, and if you don't accept this you don't accept me." And acceptance of this sort of move in connection with the sanctity of persons raises all sorts of questions, because people have all sorts of things they identify with and it seems like if we only want to accept some claims and not others, we have to admit the voluntaristic foundations of our acceptance of identity claims, or else make the controversial contingent judgment that everyone who makes a certain sort of identification is being insincere or evil, or else judge that some people are making a moral mistake, not a cognitive one, but then that raises the question of whether we can legitimately speak of identity claims in the object mode, saying "it is a fact that these claims are legitimate and these ones aren't," which is what we often do when we're trying to give these moral claims the full weight of objective reality.

Preaching to the fucking choir, but maybe that's really what I came here, to do... in the first place.

DANTE AND VIRGIL UP ON THE HILL, CHECKIN' OUT ALL THE SINNERS!

I really love religious artwork. I think se7en is a really funny movie. My friend Alex brought it up, to me... I remember.... I was making some kind of joke about the homunculus named Greed from fullmetal alchemist, and then she was like, "and then greed from se7en crawls in and joins them" and I WAS LIKE "MORE GREEDS?!?!?!?!!?!?! MORE SINS?!?!?!?!?!?! YES!" Yeah, I was joking about some kind of orgy between incarnations-of-Greed.

I knew this other internet-person who would punctuate their sayings like this, like, "Can't change the way I am! Sexy, naughty, bitchy me!"

Honestly, sometimes I get embarrassed when I say that to myself. CUZ IT'S SUCH A GIRLY SONG!

I don't mean to bring up gender, but from my perspective, it has nothing to do with what gender that someone actually... is, but rather what kind of behaviour they will put up with, from others. That's what I revile, and I have used 'girly' as a shorthand for it... but maybe that's not such a good thing. but it's because these kinds of people, the ones who are women... they care so much about cultivating this image of themselves as 'a real woman', so it's like playing off that.... but at the same time that's just buying into their delusion.

Then I have this problem with like, some of the feminist ideas that get spread around on tumblr.... like, they'll criticize this, but then they'll lean back on this idea of womanhood that's based on being 'less violent' than men, or 'less perverted', less..... strong, less awesome. I mean by the metric of what I think is awesome. Being raunchy and cool and loud and taking up space, and they're like... "we don't do that! We're such good little angels that sit in our places, and it's all men's fault that they get all the attention!" Like, they'll whine about someone else giving them flak because "they're women taking up space", but you have to show them that you're not afraid of getting flak, or pushback. It's a show of dominance. We are apes. Get comfortable. "That sounds like a personal problem. It's not because you're a woman, you just need to develop some core strength. YOU'RE NOT DOOMED TO THIS FATE THAT YOU'VE WRITTEN FOR YOURSELF, JUST BECAUSE YOU'RE A WOMAN! STOP SAYING THAT, BOTH TO YOURSELF AND TO OTHERS! IT IS CRUEL! YOU ARE THE MISOGYNIST IN YOUR OWN HEAD!* IT IS YOUR PERCERPTION! NO ONE ELSE CAN EVER HURT YOU AS MUCH AS YOU CAN HURT YOURSELF! THEY CAN ONLY HURT YOU IF YOU ALLOWED THEM TO, SO DON'T! JUST KEEP ON KEEPIN ON! Maybe that's a jinx..... maybe I got jinxed. Uh oh.

I hate how social-justice shit pretends like there's a problem that you need to solve. There is no problem. I mean, as far as issues like this go.... which are all perception, and self-talk. Maybe those anti-sjws were a little bit right. I think it's better to stay in the center, but I'm a libra, so that's my gig. "Shifting center" Oh yeah, just like the entirety of human history. In ancient greece, it used to be common for men to take up male lovers, and a wife. Then, in some places it became criminal, and now society's different again. It's really all in your head. If you act natural about something, other people will notice your comfortability with it, and they may become more comfortable. I know this, because it's part of fucking life. If you were to act scared and shaky, that can make some other people feel scared and uncertain, too. It's all about presenting your best face to the world. It's psychology. It's what makes a good sales(wo)man!

I mean that people have learned to use this natural skill to deepen their cashflow... It's part of being human, but it's not intrinsically tied to money...... I don't think...... I say that because I get a little buckwild if I feel like someone's telling me what to do.

*Misogynist in their own head. You know what's funny... is the level of almost-self awareness that some feminists have shown about this. There was a brief meme on tumblr about having "a man inside your head watching a woman perform", as in, being your own patriarchal spectator....... like yeah that's exactly what's going on

Even if you point the problem out, that doesn't mean it will fix itself. You have to actually continue to change. Just like I do tarot readings for myself, and just because I look at the cards and say, "oh yeah, this is the problem, and here's the solution", I have to implement the solution, myself... or step back and allow it to implement itself. In some situations, no amount of 'sitting around and talking about the problem' will ever do anything, if it's something that you need to do. Sometimes that's just an excuse not to do anything. Like you're trying to crowdsource your own bravery.... the thing which comes from INSIDE OF YOU! THERE ARE THINGS YOU ARE BORN WITH, WHICH YOU ONLY GET FROM YOU!

It's part of maturing. I also feel like I just have this angry dickheaded side where I hate seeing people talk themselves down into the dirt, and then they say it's because they're women... rather than because they're people who were abused. Not all women go through that. You can say it all you want, but it doesn't make it true. Excuses will always be there for you, but opportunity won't! Excuses are like an ugly wife, lol, and I'm not a lesbian! Maybe it's nice and warm when you're scared and lonely, but everyone's gonna laugh at you if you parade that shit around. and you will get fucking tired of looking at it, too.

Seriosuly, do you think all these brave, strong women whom you hold up as examples of 'female excellence'* were talking down to themselves the way you fucking do? Do you think they ever cared if people were against them? DON'T LIVE IN THE PROBLEM, LIVE IN THE SOLUTION!

Now, some things advertise themselves as solutions, but it's your responsibility to actually do what works best for you. *This also really depends on who you personally would consider a role-model. Some people look for different traits in people... I'm a fucking Aries-moon motherfucker, so I like that Martian get-shit-done kinda shit! If anything, I think these types of women started to see the world from their abusers' point of view, because their abusers would give the excuse: "I'm doing this to you because I'm a man and you're a woman, and that's just what men and women do", and it's like they just took that as face-value, instead of a lie. I have empathy. I understand that. I have reevaluated things in my own life, even if they're different. It's so funny how so many things follow the same patterns.

Philosophy Corner:

Expectations are such an intrinsic part of human nature and compose all the ideas of feelings and sentimental pillars of humanity.

Trust is nothing more than the expectation of kindness and help, as much as having trust issues are a lack of said expectation occupied by the exact opposite.

Humor is a delicate play on the subversion of expectations and the lack of said subversion to subvert the one's that accurately aware of those tactics.

Now think for a moment: What if humanity didn't have any expectations?

Because having no expectations as an individual just makes you immutable and flexible, as well as a person who can't be heartbroken or have a broken trust, but won't be able to connect to anyone on a human level, purely logical.

Obviously, no human is rid of expectations. Most of the so called "Best detectives/spies" are at least able to control their expectations or their expectations are already low from an insecure environment that they are able to see through all the possibilities right in front of them. But does the jaded detective need to be this broken to be the best at their job?

No. There are so many way not to expect anything and still be kind and unbreakable. Nihilism, the active kind, not the Ubermanch, provides the idea of "seeing the blank canvas as a blank canvas" and the WuWei, or inaction, provides a "go with the flow" mentality that "doesn't define things as good or bad".

As I concluded, the difference between the enlightened and the broken is that the broken was forced to arrive at the same conclusion faster than he could assimilate that information. Expectations can be controlled and breaking people's expectations through trust makes them unable to regulate trust later in life, and in some cases that can't be repaired.

Plus, to anyone that actually puts on the work to drive the expectations of society or, like Pirandello puts it, the "masks" many of us put on people, others that don't seem to go with said expectations are called "crazy" or "insane", sometimes with reason sometimes not.

Like anything I've concluded so far in my life, it is ALWAYS necessary to strike a balance. The way of the enlightened towards expectations is a Yin Yang (expect the worse, but hope for the best) and a complete mindfulness of the present at the same time.

It's foolish to expect total control over things and to expect a future like you dream, although dreaming of a future and striving to get there is not wrong what so ever.

It's arrogant of one's part to be certain something will happen and demand that said thing to happen as expected. Expectations are good on their own, but the expectation of certainty is in itself is a problem.

The broken have their dreams shattered in front of them and become passive nihilists for their own detriment.

The common man will follow through the expectations they have put on them because he doesn't know better.

The enlightened, however, knows when said expectations are put on them and is able to decline those however they choose. They are able to make the meaning of their own lives just by deciding what Pirandellian Masks they put on.

Yes, the enlightened can be an evil one, and those should be stoped. Stalin and Hitler were there to show what one can do with this enlightened. That is why kindness is so important.

And for anyone that wants to know what I think: try to understand what is expected of you, discard what you don't want to be responsible of and make your own identity. But above all be kind.

Warren Buffett’s Investment Tips

Have you ever thought, “You know, life is pretty good except I have all this extra money lying around”? Probably not. If there’s one thing people have in common, it’s that we want to have the maximum amount of money with the minimum amount of effort. And people like Warren Buffett, currently the fourth-richest person in the world, have made getting rich on the stock market look easy. The general idea certainly seems simple enough: buy low and sell high.

But unsurprisingly, getting rich off the stock market isn’t as easy as it looks. Luckily, Buffett has left us some clues. When he founded Buffett Partnership, Ltd. in 1956, he began writing reports to his partner. He would give insight into his views on the market, predictions for the future, and his investment ethos. Playing the market still isn’t easy. But Buffett’s wisdom, compiled in 14 years worth of his accessible and humorously written letters, is all you need to start a career in the stocks. And who knows – if you’re lucky, and more importantly, consistent, you might even get rich. 

Be patient. Careful investment, rather than frenetic speculation, is more likely to create value. 

There’s a basic rule Wall Street types don't want us to know. It’s a secret that has helped Warren Buffett amass an $88.9 billion fortune. Are you ready for it?

Investing isn’t rocket science, but there’s a catch. People frequently confuse speculation for investment. But there’s a difference. Speculators obsessively follow unpredictable market fluctuations to buy and sell stocks hoping to get rich quick. Investors, on the other hand, buy businesses based on careful assessment of their inherent value. And then they wait.

The well-known billionaire, Warren Buffett, is an investor. He attended business school in New York, but he hails from the Midwest, and his methodical, straight-talking approach characterizes his letters and overall investment philosophy. 

Inspired by his mentor Ben Graham, Buffett figured that the prices of most financial assets, like stocks, eventually fell in line with their intrinsic values. 

When buying a stock, you’re buying a tiny fraction of a business. Over time, a stock’s price changes to reflect how the business is doing. If profits are good, the business’s value grows, and the share price increases. But, if their business loses value – for example, there’s a big scandal or something  – the share price falls. 

Sometimes, the stock price doesn’t accurately reflect the value of a business. Investors who buy shares in undervalued companies, then patiently wait for the market to correct itself, can’t help but make money. 

The key, though, is to focus on what the market should do, not when it should do it. If you trust that the market price will eventually reflect the actual value of a business, you can expect to eventually make a profit. This will help you to avoid selling just because the market dips. 

And this patience rewards you with compound interest, which is the key driver of value over long-term investments. Compound interest is the process of continuously reinvesting gains so that every new cent begins earning its own returns. Einstein himself called compound interest the eighth wonder of the world, remarking that “people who understand it earn it, and people who don’t understand it pay it.”

 Buffett’s favorite story illustrating the power of compound interest involves the French government’s purchase of the Mona Lisa. King Francis I paid the equivalent of $20,000 for the painting in 1540. If he had instead invested the money at a 6 percent compound interest rate, France would have had $1 quadrillion by 1964. 

Successful investors all have one thing in common – they compulsively measure. 

Warren Buffett has always been a supremely confident investor. Even when he was a relatively inexperienced young fund manager, he saw his main competition as the Dow Jones Industrial Average – the famous New York stock index. His one job was to grow his fund at a faster rate than the market. It wasn’t as easy as it sounded.

We all know the stress of checking your bank balance after a big weekend or stepping on the scale when trying to lose weight. For a lot of people, the anxiety of failure might be too much to handle. But to be a successful investor in the mold of Warren Buffett, you’re going to have to get over those anxieties. Careful measurement, clear-eyed analysis, and a steady hand – even when you’re down – are the only ways to succeed as an investor. 

OK, time for some more Buffett-style straight talk. The difficult truth is that most people aren’t shrewd enough investors to beat the market. It was huge for Buffett to deliver returns greater than 7 percent annually. But the miracle of compound interest means that you only have to do a little better than the market to create the potential for serious financial gains.

Knowing what to measure – and then doing it properly – is the only way to know if you’re on the right track. So how do you compulsively measure? You need to monitor your investments every day, keep track of how they’re doing relative to past performance, and be patient when your chips are down. It takes energy, commitment, and honesty. In short, you’ve got to know when to hold ‘em and when to fold ‘em.

You’re not just measuring your results against past performance, though. Each year’s results should also be measured against the market. This means if the market is down, and you’re slightly less down, this still counts as a win. 

There’s good news, too. When Buffett was a young investor, doing better than the market was a lot harder than it is now. It’s easier today thanks to index funds. Pioneered in 1975, index funds combine slices of many different companies on a given stock exchange. This means their returns broadly match the gains and losses of the overall market. 

Buffett advises those who don’t have the time or energy to devote to their investments to buy the index. Otherwise, compulsive measuring is the only way to determine how you’re doing.

Young investors should focus on buying shares in undervalued companies, which Buffett calls Generals. 

Once you’ve got the measuring part down, you can start developing your personal investing style. Remember, each investor is a unique snowflake. Your investing style should reflect your personality, goals, funds, and especially, your competence set. So, if you’re an alpaca rancher, you shouldn’t try to get rich off computer chips.  

Here’s more good news. If you’re a new investor with less money, you actually have an advantage over investors managing huge funds. This is because you can invest in small companies not listed on the stock exchange, making big percentage gains. Once you’re managing more money, you need much bigger deals to move the needle on your overall results. 

When Warren Buffett started his fund in 1956, he had just over $100,000 to play with. By 1960, his fund had ballooned to $1,900,000. He attributed this incredible rate of return to his focus on small, relatively unimpressive investments.

Along with his patient temperament, Buffett’s best asset as an investor is his skill at determining the value of a company. In the early years, he favored buying Generals, which he defined as “fair businesses at wonderful prices.” This means that the companies were of middling quality, but, for some reason, priced under market value. Once again, Buffett’s patience paid off. Most of the Generals he bought stayed in his portfolio for years.

Buffett also liked buying shares in companies that were worth more dead, that is in liquidation, than they were alive. That way, if the business started failing, he could liquidate it and not lose money. This type of business is called a net-net.

Ultra-cheap stocks and net-nets are not glamorous. In fact, Buffett referred to them as his “cigar butts.” But 12 years into his career as an investor, Buffett looked back and determined that this category of investment had done the best in terms of average returns. 

As his success grew, Buffett’s definition of value changed. He began looking beyond cheap stock prices, toward the quality of a business and whether its earnings could be sustainable. As his experience as an investor grew, he transitioned from buying fair businesses at wonderful prices, to buying wonderful businesses at fair prices. 

Once you have more experience as an investor, you might want to get involved in the management of one of your investments. Go right ahead, Buffett might say, but you’ll need some further guidelines.

Assuming more risk in markets you know well can yield even more reward potential. 

As a kid, Warren Buffett would buy a 25-cent six-pack of Coca Cola from his grandfather’s store. He would then sell individual bottles on to his pals for a nickel each. There was certainly a risk involved: if the neighborhood kids weren’t thirsty that day, he’d have extra bottles on his hands that he couldn’t move. But if he had a good day, he would earn 20 percent on every six-pack. 

Buffett didn’t know it, but with the 25-cent Coca Cola deal, he’d done his first arbitrage. He was capitalizing on the price difference for one product – his Coca Cola – in two different markets – the store, and the neighborhood kids.

Arbitrage is a way to bet on what you think a company will be worth in the near future. Returns on arbitrage bets can be very attractive. But to get it right, you have to know the businesses, and their respective markets, intimately. 

When that product is a piece of a company, this is called merger arbitrage. “Merger arbs” were one of Buffett’s specialties during his years as an early investor. He would buy stock in a company at one price, betting that it would be worth more once it merged with another company. 

Returns on merger arbs may be enticing, but the risk can be great. That’s why arbitrage is usually tricky for the average investor. Unless the deal is in your specialized field and you’ve studied it inside and out, it’s probably best to leave it alone. 

But experienced investors who don’t want to mess with merger arbs can also get their control fix with what Buffett aptly referred to as Controls. That’s when you buy a large enough piece of a company listed on the public stock exchange that you have the right to influence how it’s run. 

As you might imagine, this type of deal can lead to stressful confrontations between company owners and new board members who may demand drastic operational changes. Buffett was vilified for these deals early in his career; he thought he was saving a company by removing the inefficiencies.

But as he matured, Buffett stopped getting involved in Controls, which could turn out to be messy and uncomfortable with layoffs or firings. His core investment principles have never changed, though.

Your methods may change with the market, but your core principles should stay the same.

Following the crowd can be an effective strategy. If everyone’s running away from something you can’t see, it’s probably a good idea to join them. But when it comes to investing, it can be problematic. By definition, the majority can’t do better than the average. So to be a successful investor, you have to train yourself to go against the crowd.

Warren Buffett’s investment style reveals that there’s only one instance in which you should put your money on the line: when you totally understand the whole picture and the best course of action. In all other cases, you should pass. Even if everyone else is making money.

Buffett has always been a cautious investor. When he began his career as a professional investor in 1956, the stock market was generally considered to be too high. But instead of correcting itself, stocks continued to creep up. Buffett not only stayed true to his strategy, but he also doubled down on his ultra-conservative investing approach. He knew a correction was coming, he just didn’t know when. 

Meanwhile, other hotshot investors were making big money. In New York, Jerry Tsai had invented a new kind of investment, which took advantage of the general public’s new appetite for speculation. Tsai’s approach was the opposite of Buffett’s. He’d jump in and out of stocks at the drop of a hat. 

Tsai’s approach worked, for a while. He earned fabulous sums for his firm, even as his fund lost and gained wildly with market swings. But Buffett remained convinced that it wouldn’t last. 

When the market reached a new high in 1966, Buffett finally acted. He announced that he wouldn’t be accepting new partners and halved his performance goal. Miraculously, his fund continued to do very well: 1968 was its best year with a 58.8 percent return. But Buffett knew when to fold his hand. He was done risking his fortune on a market that was bound to crash.

Tsai’s end was imminent, and he ultimately saw it coming too. He sold his fund at just the right moment in 1968. In the early 1970s, the Dow experienced its most spectacular crash since the Great Depression. Buffett’s net worth was unaffected, because he had taken all his money off the market. Tsai barely dodged defeat, but his investors lost 90 percent of their portfolio assets.

Buffett’s courage of conviction is a worthy goal for all investors, if not people more generally. Figure out what you believe in, and when the right opportunity comes along, bet big. You almost can’t lose. 

It’s not impossible to make money on the stock market. In fact, anyone can do it. But it’s not something that will happen overnight, and it won’t happen if you don’t take it seriously. With Buffett’s tips on careful measurement, consistency, and most importantly, patience, you too can become a successful investor.