Should we Inject Skepticism Into The Way of Peat?

[Rayser]

[centre]"Welcome to the Peat Belief Forum!
We hope you will make a new and cozy home for yourself here!

At Peat Belief Forum we understand that many of you come to us
after rocky routes through other destructive diet programs.
This can truly be stressful, depressing, and even disabling.

Here, as we say, we hope you will find a sheltering haven and home.
Here, you know you will be surrounded by fellow believers.
We know this, because no Peat disbelievers are allowed!

At Peat Belief Forum we promote and trust in the ideas of the great man, Ray Peat.
Trust, belief, and optimism are our watchwords!
If you don't want to share in the spirit of those watchwords,
Peat Belief Forum is not for you.

At Peat Belief Forum, this is what we believe:
The Peat diet is clearly the most delicious diet ever invented by man.
And it is an easy, almost effortless diet:
no fussy restrictions, no limits, no suffering.
His diet is almost unlimited and is as varied as the paradise of nature's bounty!
The diet redefines the concept of "satisfaction":
when you eat this diet, you will have no other wants or desires or cravings.
Almost as soon as the first gelatin package melts in your mouth,
you will begin to get in touch with your natural, instinctual appetites.
All the evil foods of your past will quickly become repulsive to you!
The Ray Peat diet is a limitless garden of sensual and aesthetic delight.
Everyone at this forum agrees to this--in advance!
We like to say here at Peat Belief Forum,
if you can't say something nice about Peat,
don't say anything at all!

At Peat Belief Forum, you will never experience negativity, doubt, or confusion--
and the resulting stress those mental states incur.
We encourage optimism, positivity, devotion, trust and hope.
Not only do we encourage it, we demand it!
It is the least we can do in our mission to provide you with a Peat haven and home.
We are a place of healing--not rancor and doubt!

Let's get started!
Let's begin the journey to PeatDom together, unified as brothers and sisters!
Let us always keep the light of belief firmly in front of us as our goal,
and banish to the wasteland any doubts or uncertainty!
May Peat be with you![/centre]

Does anybody else think this looks like the obituary of a priest?

Here li(v)es Narouz.
But he is not happy about it.
After some suffering he succumbed to
a severe case of Ray Peat.
One day he will follow his comrades
who where lost along the way and
forgotten by many but fondly remembered
and thoroughly mourned by him alone:

smoked salmon, fried hamburger, pork loins, broccoli and many, many others.
May they rest in peace and everybody be called a liar who claims to have a good life without them.
Amen.

 

[narouz]

By the way: I live in Europe and I have never seen anyone starve to death and never said I did.

Rayser, you wrote this earlier:

I still don't understand why anybody would complain about the choices he made for himself. Either you make them and they are worth the obstacles or they are not and you let it be. I am sure that sounds harsh but I have seen people suffer and die from terrible diseases. If they (or I) had known about Ray Peat then, about some simple changes (yes, I know - they are unbearable for you) in diet which could have helped them stay healthy, see their kids grow up, avoid the agony and pain and degradation of their suffering ... It sounds ridiculous (again I apologize) when somebody whines about how hard it is to drink milk. Babys do it.

--------------

"I never said or wrote anywhere that I thought you or anything you thought or wrote was stupid."

Rayser, here are some your comments about my posts:

Why not engage in a more intellectually challenging discussion?

A little I meant it like that: Shut up and stop complaining. There are so many more important things to discuss.

With j. you shared an assessment of my posts:

...reading everything [Narouz] writes would be a huge, huge waste of time....He is very repetitive and talks a lot about things that are irrelevant or unimportant.

Dear j...I agree about narouz' good points and I wish he would put his energy and time into something a little less ... I can't really think of not offensive word so I will not use one.

Rayser, if you complain that my posts are "not intellectually challenging," and not "important," and amount simply to "whining," and you "can't really think of not offensive word" to characterize them...well, I think "stupid" is probably a reasonable interpretation of how you feel about my posts. Don't you? I stand ready to be corrected.

It's okay with me, by the way, that you would seem to think that.
Just pointing out that you do.

---------

I find it tiresome that you attack me for (as you believe) attacking you - which I never did.

Rayser, I have not "attacked" you,
and I never said you "attacked" me.
That is your language and spin.
I would say that you made some rather ungenerous, let us say, suggestions to me that I wanted to respond to:

As harsh as your summary of my words sounds ... you are not that wrong. A little I meant it like that: Shut up and stop complaining. There are so many more important things to discuss.

You are a smart person - why not talk about things you can still discover instead of whining...

Why not engage in a more intellectually challenging discussion?

I would sure like to read you there instead of having you lurking behind every diet-thread to lure people into discussing their obstacles with Ray Peat' diet.

I wouldn't describe those as "attacks" by you.
They are criticisms.
They aren't "shadows."
And it's fine with me for you to say those things about me.
I simply wished to respond.

 

[j.]

narouz, are you an academic?

 

[Rayser]

Re: A Toolkit for Censorship

Yes, that is one beneficial result of not censoring critical portrayals of a Peat diet.

Would you really say that after more than a dozen threads discussing your obstacles that you are being censored by anybody? Do you know what censoring means? I can tell you a thing or two about it. It has nothing to do with being asked why one complains all the time. I grew up in a country ruled by censorship. You ended in jail when you said or wrote what wasn't supposed to be even thought. Maybe you could stop thinking of yourself as being persecuted.

For me, I just don't like being part of a propaganda effort-- even if that propaganda supports the team I'm playing on. I have this attraction to truth, for some reason.

Your attraction to truth doesn't go so far as to study experiences and facts, does it? Your truth is assuming that everybody else is wrong or lying. That's why you are so skeptical, right? I don't know about English but in German being skeptical of somebody or something is to regard it with distrust and assume on some level that what you experience is wrong. Ray Peat is not like that. You confuse him with Wittgenstein. You don't mean "propaganda" either - maybe "conversion" or "missionary work" since you always try to find some religious analogies and never political ones.

Then: "There are so many more important things to discuss."
Diverse toolkit there, Ms. Ratchet--I mean Ms. Rayser!

Are you telling me you think of yourself as insane? It's Mrs. anyway or Dipl. Ing. or Mag. as you prefer.

But presuming to speak for some consensus of Importantness gives it a higher, more righteous tone.

I do not understand that sentence.

Now this is great one--I don't run across this repressive gambit very often. In such a gambit, the player presumes to speak for Peat himself and says that discussions about diet--well, critical discussions of a Peat diet--
are out of order, contemptible because they reveal a gross misunderstanding of Peat, and, in fact, offensive to Peat himself. Nice try.

You don't "run across this repressive gambit very often"?
I suggest you re-read your own posts. Just stick to this one thread.

* Peat is very skeptical himself, and urges others to be.

Really? Would you like to let him know that? He might be skeptical of governments and authorities but only because his experiences taught him about them not because of a general principle.

* Peat says it is always good to be mindful of our thinking.

This sentence is so vague it could mean anything and is not by Ray Peat.

* For example: has Peat ever said that his dietary suggestions represent the most delicious or varied diet? Set aside the "most": Has he even said that his diet is delicious or varied? Not that I know of.

There is no Ray Peat diet, a regimen or a protocol. He has talked about diets and about his diet (meaning what he eats) but he does not talk about the Ray Peat diet. Of course he doesn't tell people what he finds delicious, why would he? He doesn't tell us his favorite color either, does he?
Why don't you let him speak in his own words instead of putting them in his mouth?

RP: I think I try to make people aware of the importance of perceiving complexity and the incompleteness of tentative conclusions.

If you are really and truly interested in what Ray Peat thinks about skepticism or Bertrand Russell or believes - I suggest you do join those of us who study his writings or read the books he suggests - for instance those by Bertrand Russel.


Here to, if we clear out the fancy language, I think you're simply saying you don't like what I'm saying.
You think it sounds more convincing if you couch your charge in pseudo-scholarly language: not "intellectually challenging."

I appologize for any mistakes I make with this language. I don't know what "pseudo-scholarly" means or why my language is "fancy". I have been learning English for 8 years now since I had French and Italian at school. So I am sorry if this offended you.

Honestly, I think this thread could be a contender for Most Intellectually Challenging.
The issues of skepticism vs belief, faith vs doubt; the contemplation of the ideas of Peat and Russell in light of those topics;
the self-reflective exploration of forum tendencies like group-think, tendencies to censor dissent, etc....those, to me, are pretty heavy-duty subjects, and ones we seldom get into here.

Yes, this thread is very interesting. But not because of one your posts. Everything you brag about above was written by 4peatssake or one of the other posters.

Oh yes, I forgot! Of course there are j.'s posts. How could I forget them?! Those gems of deep thought and intellectual inquiry. Well...I still say this post is up there--after his, of course! :)

You do not like his posts? Today I read his post about the relation between vitamin K2 and testosterone. I found that highly interesting and will do more research on that.

"Lurking," "luring"... Ah yes, the hidden menace, the creeping threat which must be uprooted and extirpated for the good of the group!

Do you think I was trying to kick you out of "the group"? How would I do that? Why would I do that? Whom are you fighting?

 

[narouz]

Re: A Toolkit for Censorship

Would you really say that after more than a dozen threads discussing your obstacles that you are being censored by anybody?

I would say that some have resented my skeptical viewpoints
and have implied or stated that those sorts of views don't belong on our forum.

----

Do you know what censoring means?

Definition of CENSOR

1: a person who supervises conduct and morals: as
a : an official who examines materials (as publications or films) for objectionable matter
b : an official (as in time of war) who reads communications (as letters) and deletes material considered sensitive or harmful

----

Your attraction to truth doesn't go so far as to study experiences and facts, does it?

Yes, it does.
Why? Were you under the impression you had the corner on that?

----

Your truth is assuming that everybody else is wrong or lying.

Um, nope.

----

That's why you are so skeptical, right? I don't know about English but in German being skeptical of somebody or something is to regard it with distrust and assume on some level that what you experience is wrong. Ray Peat is not like that.

I do believe Dr. Peat is skeptical.
I don't mean to say that that is ALL that he is.
But I think he is very skeptical.

Skepticism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skepticism

Skepticism or scepticism (see spelling differences) is generally any questioning attitude towards knowledge, facts, or opinions/beliefs stated as facts,[1] or doubt regarding claims that are taken for granted elsewhere.[2]
Philosophical skepticism is an overall approach that requires all information to be well supported by evidence.[3] Classical philosophical skepticism derives from the 'Skeptikoi', a school who "asserted nothing".[4] Adherents of Pyrrhonism, for instance, suspend judgment in investigations.[5] Skeptics may even doubt the reliability of their own senses.[6] Religious skepticism, on the other hand is "doubt concerning basic religious principles (such as immortality, providence, and revelation)".[7]

Definition

In ordinary usage, skepticism (US) or scepticism (UK) (Greek: 'σκέπτομαι' skeptomai, to think, to look about, to consider; see also spelling differences) refers to:
(a) an attitude of doubt or a disposition to incredulity either in general or toward a particular object;
(b) the doctrine that true knowledge or knowledge in a particular area is uncertain; or
(c) the method of suspended judgment, systematic doubt, or criticism that is characteristic of skeptics (Merriam–Webster).
In philosophy, scepticism refers more specifically to any one of several propositions. These include propositions about:
(a) an inquiry,
(b) a method of obtaining knowledge through systematic doubt and continual testing,
(c) the arbitrariness, relativity, or subjectivity of moral values,
(d) the limitations of knowledge,
(e) a method of intellectual caution and suspended judgment.

----

But presuming to speak for some consensus of Importantness gives it a higher, more righteous tone.

I do not understand that sentence.

I meant that, when you said of my posts,
"A little I meant it like that: Shut up and stop complaining.
There are so many more important things to discuss,"
you were asserting that you are the best judge of what is important,
and judge my posts to be unimportant.
I suspect your aversion has less to do with "importance,"
and more to do with the fact that you simply don't like my posts.
You object to me expressing negative views about things Peatian, it would seem.

----

Peat is very skeptical himself, and urges others to be.

Really? Would you like to let him know that?

Not really. Why would I want to tell him that?

----

He might be skeptical of governments and authorities but only because his experiences taught him about them not because of a general principle.

In an interview with Peat I was listening to within that last month or so,
someone called in and submitted a question to the host to ask Dr. Peat.
The question went something like this:
"Dr. Peat, what things in life would you recommend that we question
[and, my memory is not perfect here, but the question might have also used this specific language...]
or be skeptical about?"
Peat hesitated, gave a sort of surprised chuckle, then said: "Why...everything."

----

Peat says it is always good to be mindful of our thinking.

This sentence is so vague it could mean anything and is not by Ray Peat.

In another Peat interview--perhaps the same one--I listened to fairly recently,
a caller asked Peat:
"Do you think meditation is a good idea?"

Peat paused a bit, thought, then answered:
"Well, yes--if by "meditation" you mean being mindful of our own thinking.
That is always a good idea."

----

There is no Ray Peat diet...

A can of worms here to be sure,
but let me ask you, Rayser:
If there is no Peat diet,
what would you say all of us here on this forum are eating?

----

Why don't you let him speak in his own words instead of putting them in his mouth?

I don't believe I have put words in Dr. Peat's mouth.
On the other hand, you do seem to consider yourself his spokesperson:

After all "diet" is not even a quarter of what Ray Peat's work is about and it offends him to be reduced to this. He says he knows people don't know the first thing about him when they talk about his "diet" or "regimen" or "program".

----

If you are really and truly interested in what Ray Peat thinks about skepticism...

I would suggest to you that the existence of this thread and my contributions to it--
whatever your own personal feeling about about those--
should meet your threshold for qualification as a "real and true interest."

----

I suggest you do join those of us who study his writings or read the books he suggests...

I wasn't aware that you were a member of an exclusively qualified Ray Peat Study Group.
Perhaps after some years of dedicated study I shall approach you and your group's level of Peat knowledge.
But at this time, I'm sure I'm not worthy of such membership.
Thank you, though.

----

Yes, this thread is very interesting. But not because of one your posts. Everything you brag about above was written by 4peatssake or one of the other posters.

I wasn't "bragging" and I don't claim ownership of the thread.
I was simply defending the thread against your criticism:
"Why not engage in a more intellectually challenging discussion?"

----

Oh yes, I forgot! Of course there are j.'s posts. How could I forget them?! Those gems of deep thought and intellectual inquiry. Well...I still say this post is up there--after his, of course! :)

You do not like his posts? Today I read his post about the relation between vitamin K2 and testosterone. I found that highly interesting and will do more research on that.

I believe I said that his posts are way ahead of mine in terms of depth of thought and intellectual inquiry. :)

----

"Lurking," "luring"... Ah yes, the hidden menace, the creeping threat which must be uprooted and extirpated for the good of the group!

Do you think I was trying to kick you out of "the group"? How would I do that? Why would I do that? Whom are you fighting?

1. No
2. Don't know
3. Don't know
4. No one, that I am aware of.

 

[j.]

Dear God...

 

[narouz]

Dear God...

Your prayers answered, j.!

"How Faith Engenders Doubt"
http://dish.andrewsullivan.com/2009/03/01/rational-faith/
Richard Grant, a British post-doc, ponders:

The beauty of faith is that it’s not an intellectual exercise. Anyone can join in, at whatever level they like. It doesn’t require you to be clever—or rich, or middle-class, or college-educated. But it doesn’t have to stop there—faith can expand according to your ability. Indeed, as someone’s faith grows they will find that it permeates more and more of their life and outlook. In fact, they will probably find themselves becoming a sceptic.

A sceptic, despite what the internets tell you, isn’t necessarily an unbeliever. A sceptic is one who questions, one who doesn’t take anything on faith (and I must piss off my friends mightily because it’s naturally difficult for me to take what anyone says without wanting to verify it myself). Someone who, in fact, might make a reasonable scientist. Now, you might say that my definition negates the possibility of a sceptic having faith: but that would be because you misunderstand the nature of ‘faith’.

 

[4peatssake]

Re: A Toolkit for Censorship

"Lurking," "luring"...
Ah yes, the hidden menace,
the creeping threat which must be uprooted and extirpated
for the good of the group!

That's a little extreme don't you think? None of us who have expressed any objections to or disagreement with your posts has gone even close to there.

"If you think your diet is not the healthiest possible for you, I suggest you do your research and try to improve it. I have done mine and after many years I found Ray Peat and found him to be right every single time."

Just to note: an argument for Peat inerrancy or infallibility.
Interesting and significant perhaps within the general drift of your complaints.
For the record, I've been pretty strictly following a Peat diet for over a year now,
and I place an extremely high degree of confidence in his views.
But I seldom find it necessary to argue that he is inerrant.
That is something I generally leave to certain fundamentalists in commenting upon the Bible.

Sigh. Narouz, Rayser's statement is about her own experience. She does not make any claim that Ray is infallabile or inerrant. You have drawn a conclusion to which there is simply no evidence.

This is what j. has correctly pointed out, you have made a straw man.

I'll point another, and in my view more serious, example.

Rayser never said she saw anyone die of starvation, she said she had seen many people die from diseases. These are two very different things. And where you took this is deplorable, the making of yet another straw man. You used your falsehood as a springboard to accuse her of shaming you.

Here are her actual words.

By the way: I live in Europe and I have never seen anyone starve to death and never said I did."

I have seen people suffer and die from terrible diseases.

Furthermore, her actual point is that if some of those people had found Ray Peat they may not have died.
But here is where you took it, using words she never even said.

You noted in your previous post that you had watched people die from lack of food
and that milk would've been a blessing to those (or something to that effect).

I don't think that is a very helpful way of exploring whether or not a Peat diet is enjoyable.

First of all, she is not now, nor has ever been that I have observed, exploring whether or not a Peat diet is enjoyable. I think she has expressed clearly both enjoyment and satisfaction with it.

Compared to the diet of a person dying because they have nothing to eat:
yes, by all means, the Peat diet looks luxuriant indeed!
But where does that insight take us?

Really, what I sense behind your way of exploring the question,
is an intention to shame.
You wish to shame me for not being grateful that I have anything to eat at all.

Shame is just one of the many subtle coercive tactics employed by those who aren't comfortable with dissent.
"Shame on you for being so selfish and ungrateful!
You have a wonderful Peat diet and yet you dare to speak ill of it.
Shut your sniveling mouth and slug back your milk and gelatin--and be thankful you've got it!"

It is a way of stamping out and eradicating doubt
in an effort to achieve a protected cocoon of Belief.

This is utter falsehood.

I think you need to realize Narouz that there are people on this forum who are far too smart to fall for this and will call you on it.

And this thread will stand as testimony of that and will offer new people coming here an opportunity to decide for themselves whose voices they choose to listen to.

It is only for this reason - providing other perspectives and ideas - that I spoke up in the first place and made a public objection to what I felt was a jacking of someone's thread. Where you once again, injected the same argument you have been making over and over again on this forum for 8 months.

I spoke up and questioned you because I care about this forum and the wonderful people here (as well as those to come) and I truly felt there needed to be another voice to counterbalance an enormous amount of pessimism, negativity and yes, skepticism that sometimes pervades this forum and yes, from what I have seen and read, a vast amount of this is contained in posts written by you.

You and Charlie both know I expressed privately having regret for that initial objection, from which this thread started, however, I have since changed my mind and continue to contribute to this thread as I have seen fit, because other views on this issue I now consider to be important and necessary for the greater good of the forum.

Do I see myself as some sort of champion for a cause? No. So please don't accuse me of it.

For me, I disagree more with your approach and the conclusions you draw because you come into so many discussions with an incredible bias and many preconceived notions.

Now, let me state very clearly and publicly that this does not mean that I do not see you as a valuable member of this community who has made numerous contributions. I do.

But I honestly feel Narouz that it would do you a world of good to stop and consider - just even for a minute - what has been said to you, rather than continuing to take offense and run away with my or others' word and misuse them.

Perhaps consider suspending your judgement for but a moment and dip your toe into the world of Bertrand Russell and others who warn against the mindset you cling to so fiercely. I promise no sharks are going to bite you!

I see virtually no good in engendering divisiveness in the name of science or - insert here - whatever else it is you think you must protect from the rest of us "positive people."

I have seen you express an enormous amount of "bias against" and this is what I find disagreeable - perhaps others do as well.

It is doubtful that one can ever find and fully embrace the greatness of something and how it works, if they spend all of their time looking for the bad in it and how it doesn't work.

Now, here I am expressing skepticism - for a specific idea. I would hate to have this as my prevailing attitude and general outlook on life. It would create such unhappiness in me.

There are many members here who have expressed openly what hasn't worked for them - how milk is difficult or OJ, or a negative reaction to a supplement or whatever - but they don't throw the baby out with the bathwater nor do they then say Ray is wrong or the entire diet is difficult or not varied or not delicious. No, they just go back to the lab (their own body) and start experimenting further.

If people find it lacking or not working for them, they can stop following Ray's recommendations and go find something that does work for them. So many of us did that, after Paleo or raw vegan or the numerous other diets we have tried. I don't go on to Paleo boards and protest, so why would I do that here - especially when I have finally found something that works for me and that I enjoy.

In the end, I do hope that we can all learn and grow from our experiences together here, honoring and respecting our differing views and opinions without forcing them down each others' throats or making others wrong, inept or less than.

I am and will always be a positive, forward moving being no matter what befalls me and I do very much believe in the possibility of us all achieving higher ground on this and other challenges we may face together.

My favorite smilie wouldn't you know!

 

[4peatssake]

Re: A Toolkit for Censorship

I do believe that some immediately and even rapturously fall in love with the Peat diet and crave nothing else.
But I am skeptical, in general, about what seems to me
a strong current of spinning or massaging or rationalizing
about the deliciousness, satisfaction, variety, ease (etc).

The only person on this forum I have observed wanting to discuss Ray's recommendations from the vantage of the food not being delicious, satisfying, varied and easy Narouz, is you.

You continue to maintain that the forum contains a "current of spinning, massaging or rationalizing about the food being deliciousness, satisfying, varied and easy." I certainly don't see this current. Perhaps you could simply accept that the rest of us, or most of us or even just some of us simply don't agree with you about this.

Clearly, I don't agree with you, but more than that, none of it is what I even care about. I suppose I might care if I didn't find the food delicious, satisfying, easy and varied but for the life of me, I cannot understand why you can't just take us at our word.

You maintain over and over that as a whole we are all lying to ourselves if we consider that it is all those things that you maintain it is not. I find your argument tiresome, annoying and quite disrespectful.

I think if we all actually felt that way, we would say so and the forum would reflect that clearly.

In the original thread which spawned this one, for instance,
a poster was saying that she had come to think of the lack of variety in a Peat diet
as a virtue.
And others were posting to congratulate her on this way of looking at things.

It's not that I doubt such a poster's truthfulness.
I don't.
I was just highlighting an instance of our tendency on this forum
to want
to view or interpret or rationalize our experience of a Peat diet positively.
And, conversely, our tendency to want to censor critical viewpoints.

What is wrong expressing our experiences positively if our experience is positive? There are many members who have expressed difficulty or dissatisfaction with various components of some of the dietary recommendations. There are others who don't. Why can't you just leave it at that?

You make a lot of things up narouz. I do not see any such tendencies that you go on about. I haven't see others see them either.

I also do not see you being censored at all, disagreed with yes. Rayser covered that beautifully in a response to you about that.

Now, am I saying it is wrong to be positive here?
Not at all, and I think one can find many instances of me posting in a positive way here.

But I think we need to careful about that.
I think we need to be skeptical about it.

I couldn't disagree with you more! And I would NEVER deign to make such a statement that "we" should all be anything. Why? Because I honor people's right to choose for themselves.

Who is the censor here? Who is telling people how to think?

On a forum like this there is a natural, human tendency
to drift into an insular, us-against-the-world mindset.
There is a tendency to feel pride and affirmation in belonging.
There is a tendency towards feelings of superiority:
"99.99% of the world is stupid and I don't pay any attention to what they say."
And there is tendency to want to portray
our diet and path in rosy ways.

Says who? You. Can you not give any of us the benefit of the doubt? Oh gee, look what I just said.

Can you not consider for a minute that members of this forum can actually think for themselves and are perhaps not a group of gullible "joiners" seeking to feel superior to others? I find this argument offensive and unjust. None of us need a babysitter to make sure we are thinking along the right lines.

Who appointed you?

All those tendencies are not scientific
in the sense that they are not skeptical.
When one wants to see the outcome of an experiment turn out in a pre-determined way,
this can lead to trouble with the science.

Your claim that there even exists "tendencies" toward anything on this forum that are in effect untrue has no basis in fact. In fact, your view is not scientific. You have no proof. You are just loud.

Here's another thing.

You have predetermined that this forum is going to slide into a abyss of an "insular, us-against-the-world mindset...(with) a tendency towards feeling of superority" unless we embrace skepticism as our savior. Thanks, but no thanks. I can and will think for myself.

I have this attraction to truth, for some reason.

Sadly narouz, I don't believe that you do.

 

[narouz]

The Heroine Returns!

I spoke up and questioned you because I care about this forum and the wonderful people here (as well as those to come) and I truly felt there needed to be another voice to counterbalance an enormous amount of pessimism, negativity and yes, skepticism that sometimes pervades this forum and yes, from what I have seen and read, a vast amount of this is contained in posts written by you.

You and Charlie both know I expressed privately having regret for that initial objection, from which this thread started, however, I have since changed my mind and continue to contribute to this thread as I have seen fit, because other views on this issue I now consider to be important and necessary for the greater good of the forum.

Quite an eye-opener for me, 4peats.
I confess, I really hadn't noticed that enormous shadow
of pessimism, negativity, and skepticism
which--now it is clear to me!--stalks our forum.
I'm indebted to you for opening our eyes to this shocking reality!

It gave me goosebumps to hear you describe
how you have come to consider your input here
"to be important and necessary for the greater good of the forum"
because you "care about this forum and the wonderful people here"
and have returned "to counterbalance" all that enormity of negativity and skepticism.

Thank God somebody, somewhere, finally Cares about this forum!
The near-complete absence of caring around here has been heartbreaking.
The total tonnage of your caring, 4peats, astounds and humbles me.
You have more caring in the tip of your pinky finger
than I have in my entire sterile, hardened, and heartless body!

I salute you, 4peats!
I for one think you're up to this urgent challenge.
The biggest reason I have tremendous confidence in you in this crucial role
is that you do not underestimate your own importance.
You recognized that this is a job nobody else had the guts to tackle,
and you stepped up!

Thank you so much--for bringing this threat to the attention of all of us here.
For my part, I now feel ashamed of any particle of skepticism I have voiced.
I see now that I have unwittingly contributed
to the massive slide into negativity and doubt here
which you and you alone
were clear-eyed and brave enough to speak out against.

I'm sure I speak for all here in wishing you the best in this valiant fight!

 

[4peatssake]

Re: The Heroine Returns!

It gave me goosebumps to hear you describe
how you have come to consider your input here
"to be important and necessary for the greater good of the forum"
because you "care about this forum and the wonderful people here"
and have returned "to counterbalance" all that enormity of negativity and skepticism.

Thank God somebody, somewhere, finally Cares about this forum!
The near-complete absence of caring around here has been heartbreaking.
The total tonnage of your caring, 4peats, astounds and humbles me.
You have more caring in the tip of your pinky finger
than I have in my entire sterile, hardened, and heartless body!

I salute you, 4peats!
I for one think you're up to this urgent challenge.
The biggest reason I have tremendous confidence in you in this crucial role
is that you do not underestimate your own importance.
You recognized that this is a job nobody else had the guts to tackle,
and you stepped up!

Thank you so much--for bringing this threat to the attention of all of us here.
For my part, I now feel ashamed of any particle of skepticism I have voiced.
I see now that I have unwittingly contributed
to the massive slide into negativity and doubt here
which you and you alone
were clear-eyed and brave enough to speak out against.

I'm sure I speak for all here in wishing you the best in this valiant fight!

Your response, narouz, is exactly as expected - which is why I headed it off when I told you I was not a champion for a cause.

Do I see myself as some sort of champion for a cause? No. So please don't accuse me of it.

It is too bad really, that you do not bother to truly listen and hear what people are saying and instead react like a child who has been rebuked.

 

[Jenn]

Re: A Toolkit for Censorship

"You find the diet you chose difficult and don't seem to believe others who say they don't."

I do believe that some immediately and even rapturously fall in love with the Peat diet and crave nothing else.
But I am skeptical, in general, about what seems to me
a strong current of spinning or massaging or rationalizing
about the deliciousness, satisfaction, variety, ease (etc).

In the original thread which spawned this one, for instance,
a poster was saying that she had come to think of the lack of variety in a Peat diet
as a virtue.
And others were posting to congratulate her on this way of looking at things.

It's not that I doubt such a poster's truthfulness.
I don't.
I was just highlighting an instance of our tendency on this forum
to want
to view or interpret or rationalize our experience of a Peat diet positively.
And, conversely, our tendency to want to censor critical viewpoints.

Now, am I saying it is wrong to be positive here?
Not at all, and I think one can find many instances of me posting in a positive way here.

But I think we need to careful about that.
I think we need to be skeptical about it.

Ahhh, but the difference is and what we are reacting too, is the skepticism of our feelings and experiences.
You can be skeptical of a claim that saturated fats are better. You can not be skeptical of a claim that doing XYZ has been easier to manage that originally anticipated. It's a little rude. :2cents

 

[juanitacarlos]

I'm not sure if this came through in my original post, but I think the Peat Diet (you know the one) is the most delicious and satsifying diet that has, or will ever exist. And I don't give a f*** if anyone thinks differently. Variety is hell. Ray Peat is God. The End.

 

[4peatssake]

I'm not sure if this came through in my original post, but I think the Peat Diet (you know the one) is the most delicious and satsifying diet that has, or will ever exist. And I don't give a f*** if anyone thinks differently. Variety is hell. Ray Peat is God. The End.

 

[Rayser]

@ 4peatssake - I loved your last two posts and thought they were both honest and conciliatory. I wish I could have said it that clearly and still kind and I am disappointed that the response is the same sulking, narrow-minded sarcasm j. and I prompted.

Is there any chance you might get back to what the thread was initially about? I would not have posted in one of narouz' threads to confront him. But this one interested me and I was irritated when it once again turned into the familiar lamentation.

 

[j.]

Re: The Heroine Returns!

It is too bad really, that you do not bother to truly listen and hear what people are saying and instead react like a child who has been rebuked.

He is a freaking 59-year old acting like a 14-year old brat. The last few posts are making me wonder if it's not him that's making all his posts, but maybe it's senility. Or he has deep issues.

 

[narouz]

On Threats Real and Imagined

When you step back from it and think about it,
here's the funny thing:

I am, myself, a pretty intense Peat believer.

I make it a point to note, even if I have something skeptical to say,
that I have been on a fairly strict Peat diet for over a year now.
As you know all too well, I have not been one of those
who found the diet easy and wonderful.
I haven't even experienced any really dramatic improvements.
And yet I am still on the diet and I am still here.
This, I think, testifies to my confidence--my belief--in Peat's dietary ideas.

So in terms of my skepticism about Peat,
I am just a tiny, toothless minnow nibbling around the edges of PeatDom.
My forays into skeptical challenges here
have almost entirely been limited to questioning
the purported ease, satisfaction, variety (etc) of the diet.

And those spins/interpretations are not even made by Peat.
He does not much speak about how delicious, varied, satisfying, easy his diet is.
Those spins are things we here at the forum tend to want to attach to his diet.
And those are the kinds of things I've questioned.

The point is: I don't think I've ever even challenged a singleDr. Peat idea here.
I've just challenged, from time to time,
what I see as rosy and facile spins about the diet's putative ease/deliciousness.
I don't think I've ever challenged the nutritional values of the diet.

That is what I mean when I say that I am an extremely--even pathetically--mildskeptic
about things Peatian.

And yet:
even such tepid and softball skeptical questioning by me
inspires--
as anyone can plainly see illustrated here in this thread--
a frothing rage of righteous indignation
and claims that the forum is in imminent peril
from Mordor-like forces of negativity, doubt, and skepticism!
Troops are rallied!
Sisters unite!
Emails to Charlie sent!
Defend the Realm! Defend the Realm!!

Holy HyperVentilating Over-reaction, Batman!

Lord help us if a poster actually dared to challenge an important Peat proposition!!
We'd be paralyzed with outrage and fear!

Consider this:
If you subscribe to the dark- and doom- and fear-laden portrait of our forum
painted by 4peats in her recent post,
you would have to think that hundreds
of savage and vicious critics of Peat's core ideas
are now surging out of the woodwork,
on the brink of plunging the forum into some Dark Shadow of Doubt, Negativity, and Skepticism!

But take a look around:
Where are these armies of skeptics and doubters?

Let's count their numbers:
Okay...moi...
That's 1.
Yes, and there's tobieeagle...so 2.
...hmmm....

That's about it.

Now let's look at the numbers of those who have rallied to Defend the Realm:
Well, I see The Three Sisters.
So 3.
j., so 4.
kiran, I believer...that's 5.
ttramone...6.
burtlancaster...7.
gretchen, I guess...8.
Even our esteemed and beleaguered Admin lent you guys some support.
That's 9.

So 9 against 2.

Think you guys can handle me and tobe?
I would hope so,
and preferably without feeling the need
to cry foul and call out Homeland Security at every turn.
Or to paint risible pictures of dark evil forces on the verge of taking over the forum.

What are y'all so threatened by?

Guys (and Gals!):
Peat is skeptical.
Peat is questioning.
That is not even Peat 101.
That's Peat 1.
If you can't accept that,
and if you can't accept even the mildest form of skepticism here on the forum...
well...I think you gotta go back and re-read yer Peat.

 

[narouz]

Re: The Heroine Returns!

It is too bad really, that you do not bother to truly listen and hear what people are saying and instead react like a child who has been rebuked.

He is a freaking 59-year old acting like a 14-year old brat. The last few posts are making me wonder if it's not him that's making all his posts, but maybe it's senility. Or he has deep issues.

I will not exploit for rhetorical advantage my fellow poster's youth and inexperience!

 

[juanitacarlos]

Re: On Threats Real and Imagined

The point is: I don't think I've ever even challenged a singleDr. Peat idea here.
I've just challenged, from time to time,
what I see as rosy and facile spins about the diet's putative ease/deliciousness.
I don't think I've ever challenged the nutritional values of the diet.

Narouz - why do you think you have the right to judge other people's experience? It comes across as quite arrogant to assume that you are somehow seeing the truth and other people are being fools with no insight into their own experience. Not cool. Why don't you challenge Peat's ideas, instead of something you know nothing about: how another person feels about their own life and undertakings.

And yet:
even such tepid and softball skeptical questioning by me
inspires--
as anyone can plainly see illustrated here in this thread--
a frothing rage of righteous indignation
and claims that the forum is in imminent peril
from Mordor-like forces of negativity, doubt, and skepticism!
Troops are rallied!
Sisters unite!
Emails to Charlie sent!
Defend the Realm! Defend the Realm!!

Drama much? I see a lot of frustration in responses to you because you seem unwilling to sincerely take on what other people are saying and look at your behaviour. In my opinion, you misread the original post by viewing it through your own lens and not actually seeing it for what it is, nor the other responses. You got called on it and have been like a dog with a marrow/broth bone ever since.

Holy HyperVentilating Over-reaction, Batman!

Yes, exactly.

What are y'all so threatened by?

I can't speak for others, but I'm not threatened. Just frustrated that you can't own your stuff.

Guys (and Gals!):
Peat is skeptical.
Peat is questioning.
That is not even Peat 101.
That's Peat 1.
If you can't accept that,
and if you can't accept even the mildest form of skepticism here on the forum...
well...I think you gotta go back and re-read yer Peat.

narouz - do you think Peat would assume he knows more about how you feel, or how I feel, or what works for me, or what works for you? I really doubt that. Ooooh look, me skepticalz!! It's catching!

 

[j.]

Re: On Threats Real and Imagined

The point is: I don't think I've ever even challenged a singleDr. Peat idea here.

Oh My God! You think Peat is infallible and inerrant? You're clueless. Not even the Pope is that.

*insert here a thousand more paragraphs emphasizing in different ways how clueless Narouz is for thinking that Peat is infallible and inerrant*