Comments by "Susan Mercurio" (@susanmercurio1060) on "Academy of Ideas" channel.

  1. This is why the freedom of Julian Assange isn't a win: he was forced to admit to a crime instead of being freed for freedom of the press.
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  2. 2:00 I have always believed that killing the body isn't the worst moral crime. Killing the spirit is much worse.
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  3. My primary care doctor found a lump in my breast and I just told it to go away. I was on the brink of getting custody of my grandchildren and I just didn't have time to have cancer. The next time I went to the doctor, it was gone. She was completely baffled, but I didn't tell her what I had said because I was afraid that she would think I was crazy.
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  4. 0:32 ...or child
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  5. 1:05 Every time someone wants to oppress others, they tell their victims that it will be "for their own good."
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  6.  @maartjunior23  I didn't say that anyone has the right to take away another person's life. But I also strongly believe that they don't have the right to destroy a person's spirit and then leave them to suffer for the rest of their life.
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  7. I don't think that propaganda is value neutral: 1) you need to present both sides fairly; and 2) you need to allow people to hear other points of view and weigh the evidence. Hitler clearly stated that propaganda isn't value neutral.
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  8. I'm not up on the latest slang. What is "cope"?
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  9. @LilyFlowers-hh3sc  Thank you for explaining it. I can see that it could be used as a way to put someone else down.
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  10. Congratulations on your 7 years of sobriety! 🎉
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  11. I saw a study of pessimism vs optimism which discovered that pessimists have a clearer idea of reality than optimists, because they saw reality more clearly.
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  12. Actually, Dr Peter Salerno said that narcissism is hard-wired in the central nervous system and they aren't insecure at all. He's on YouTube.
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  13. I was cursed by having one for a daughter.
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  14. But, instead of feeling sorry that you didn't have a role model, you could look at it as being freed from the old, toxic model to an open space where you get to create the next model. Flip it around. You may be lucky that you didn't have a dad in your life to teach you bad ways. Maybe you didn't plan to be an entrepreneur. Life thought otherwise.
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  15. Why do you attribute the drive to create something to the "selfish" gene? Why not the "altruistic" gene? You're trapped in your own mindset.
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  16. 4:34 Americans, beware! This is happening in the US now.
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  17. There's a difference between self-confidence and narcissism.
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  18.  @Madasin_Paine  You're accusing ME of insensitivity? I know that Julian was tortured into confessing to a crime. That's my point: he shouldn't have had to confess to anything, since the press is supposedly protected in the United States of America. The people who tortured him should be the ones confessing to a crime.
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  19. In the 19th century, Thorstein Veblen explained that mastery is possible if you don't have to work a grueling job; it's a benefit of being a member of the Leisure Class.
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  20. Finally, an explanation of my mother. She wasn't a narcissist; she was neurotic.
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  21.  @sonnydayz1745  : I don't care if he was a two-headed Martian. He had great ideas. Stop being afraid of Freemasonry.
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  22. ​ @JustinMetanoia Thank you for sharing your struggles with us. You may not know it, but your honesty may help someone else who faces the same difficulty.
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  23. That's a good suggestion. Maybe Academy of Ideas doesn't want to offend powerful forces?
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  24. 1:05 Not 17 or 18, more like 12 3:00 What about the father who abandons the family? In many cases, the mother is left as the only parent. You need to lay the blame at the lack of the father figure. 5:48 What about the son who has no father? 6:50 In the 1980s, in Minneapolis there were billboards that said, "Most men spend more time shaving than they do with their kids."
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  25.  @YeetTheMeat  : In anthropology class, I learned that the more separate the male and female roles, the more violent the society.
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  26. 5:20 Hitler said that you only need to boil your idea down to what we would call now a "soundbite" and repeat it over and over to get the people to believe it.
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  27. I had a childhood like yours as you described it. I too took LSD in 1968. Now, after a difficult adult life, I prefer being alone with my animals, as well.
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  28. You might just be an introvert.
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  29. 1:35 This picture looks like Democrat v Republican.
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  30.  @delcapslock100  : He said "most."
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  31. I have more courage than good sense.
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  32. The late Dr Gene Sharp said that fear breeds submission.
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  33. Could you try relaxing and accepting yourself? Have some compassion for what you go through.
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  34. I personally disliked Rollo May. He examined his own experiences and then extrapolated from this to claim that this applied to everyone. He quoted poets. He had a statistical N of 1 (one), at best.
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  35. Please look up Modern Monetary Theory (MMT), because it explains why your taxes don't fund spending programs at the Federal level. Those of us who understand it want to get the rest of us to learn it also, because it is a tool that helps you to see through the lies that our politicians are telling us. You can find it on The Rogue Scholar, MMT Mondays, Macro'n'Cheese, or Real Progressives on YouTube. Stephanie Kelton also has several great videos on YouTube about it.
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  36. Ann Lembke must be talking about the comfortable suburban bourgeoisie, because any child in a traumatic childhood that feels pain followed by pain. No pleasure followed by pain.
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  37.  @bonnie7898  : My father died before my third birthday. I grew up without a father too.
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  38. I am a hippy, and hippies don't fear death; we considered it to be another stage of life. But we did believe in something beyond ourselves.
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  39. Sadly, my mother, for reasons of family dynamics, didn't want to be pregnant with me but I came along anyway. She was very young (married; my father had just come back from WWII) and she blamed me. My earliest memories were of her gaslighting me. The very earliest memory was of her saying such things about me that, as a tiny girl, I said to myself, "I'm not that little girl. I'm this little girl. I'm...ME." I knew that there was nothing wrong with me. I knew that she was wrong. Psychologists say that the child will always blame themselves because they can't admit that their parents are wrong. That's not true. It didn't happen to me. I am so glad that I was able to see through the bullshit that early in my life. I have kept that belief since then: I am ME.
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  40.  @YeeWhoEnterHere  I also have C-PTSD. I'm glad I didn't blame myself, but I didn't escape harm-free. I don't think I will ever "recover" but I can live without the pain.
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  41. 2:25 Conformity also wastes valuable human resources which could be used to improve society. Look at Thoreau.
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  42. Why would you want to change core features of your psyche, unless you hate yourself? I can understand wanting to change bad habits, even psychological habits such as neuroses. But core ?
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  43. Good for you! I refuse also.
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  44.  @AE-xb9uw  : And making or using a fake ID is illegal, too, but people still do it. Every time They make something illegal, like Prohibition or The War on Drugs, people will do it anyway and find ways to get around it.
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  45. The CIA?? Like the US doesn't brainwash its citizens! 10:10 This is how they do it: create fear and then offer a solution. It's used to divert people's attention from their domestic policy of fleecing the populace.
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  46. Dr Gene Sharp said, "Fear breeds submission."
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  47. Read Alexandr Solzenhitsyn's The Gulag Archipelago. He says a lot of the same things about the Russian people. It crept up on them slowly, then they were too afraid to speak up.
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  48. This was great and very thought-provoking.
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  49. Watch How to Start a Revolution DVD documentary and read From Dictatorship to Democracy the book.
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  50.  @sensi247  : Great! The more people we get on board with this, the easier we can get it going.
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