On the other hand a landlord who raises the price of the rent due to a new business opening nearby doesn't do it because otherwise they would be out-competed by the landlords who do.
I think you're wrong. A lot of landlords operate on loan, and other more profitable landlords will bid up the interest rate. Conversely, a self-funded landlord could sell his land, invest the proceeds, and get the same return-in-expectation. And any self-funded capitalist thats still making profit could pay more wages - often not a lot more, but more still. And anyone who owns stock could donate the returns. Why are these morally different from the landlord?
Just curious what you make of this:
Your description of applying equanimity to pain is somewhat familiar. I gained this ability suddenly and seemingly independently of meditation. I agree that "not fighting it" is fitting but incomplete. I think a better one is "don't look away, but straight at it".
Mine is limited to injury- and to some extent fatigue-type pain, it hasn't worked for head- or stomach aches or itches. There's also an element of predictability: it works best when the pain is constant, less when it comes with a movement, and worst when its unpredictable. I still have a startle reaction to injury, and sometimes a short bit of pain before I've "processed it". I also haven't had good sensations become better. I almost wanted to say that it makes them fade too, sort of like you'd expect from equanimity (though that isn't how I think of it) - it used to do that, but I realised it hasn't in a long time.
>I never really figured out the move to relax muscles through meditation.
It's not "through meditation". It's is own kind of mental move, but the way you have to keep returning your attention to it is similar, and that's the main difficulty for me.
>This is an exercise I use to demonstrate it.
Huh. My eyelids feel very definitely behind my nose. I'm not so sure about your formulations, but if you mean you feel like you could look through in between them, I don't have that either.
I did wind up reading a large number of anecdotal reports on Reddit, and found that in aggregate, people tend to report positive subjective effects.
Did you also look for bodybuilder's experiences, especially since you mention trying testosterone also? Here's one I could find again easily. It's quite a brief one but seems mostly consistent with your reports. It (and others I remember) also answers your question if estrogen would feel good to cis men: Yes, some amount above normal does. The story of Dr Powers you link is interesting, but it seems dependent on his knowledge of what continued estrogen would do, rather than how he feels on it. Bodybuilders sometimes freak out over gyno, especially if they didn't know, but unlike him they often have high levels even after it's clear that surgery will/already has addressed the issue.
It's as if I took the entire volumetric representation of the space around me and increased the degree to which every point within that could influence the location of every other point, recursively.
I have no idea what that's supposed to mean. I feel I understand the Fourier explanation later, but I don't see the relation to this so I'm still unsure.
Around the time I transitioned was also the period when I was exploring some quite extreme ketamine-assisted myofascial release techniques in order to shake off a lifetime's worth of accumulated tension from things like bad ergonomics and social anxiety.
This is surprising to me. To me deliberate muscle relaxation requires a similar kind of attention as meditation, which you have far more experience with than me.
I've wondered before if I'm experiencing derealization, but the concrete descriptions here don't really match. I'm not experiencing a lack of amodal volume or thinking something is a render. The only thing that really has an analogy is that I sometimes feel as if I can fly. I can generally trigger this by fasting and then going for a walk. I feel weightless, and the work my feet are doing recedes but I still notice I'm moving. It feels like I'm hovering, and could take off if I wanted, though I'm well aware that's not true.
Any idea how trans men fit into your autism/ketamine theories?
The loans are relevant because they mean theres really a large pool of potential landlords competing with each other to get the loan to buy the land/house with. They're competing on how much interest they can offer the bank, which depends on the profit they'll make.
In any sector, the entrepreneurial part is under molochian pressure, because many people could borrow-to-enter and compete with you. It's only the ultimate owner of the capital who could choose a lower rate of return, and only lose proportionally rather than be outcompeted and ruined. Consider: You think landlords are special because land is limited. But capital as a whole is limited at any given time. If you buy land with someone elses money, you dont "really" control it - you provide the competitive service of being a vehicle for them to invest in land. And by market pricing, converting capital from stocks to land is neutral in expectation.