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extreme


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Philosophy for millennia vs. contemporary Psychology - meaning and men
#28578777 - 12/11/23 03:28 PM (1 month, 16 days ago) |
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I've struggled against nihilism and the loss of meaning since like 2007 or so, when those "new atheist" people were blowing up and while I never really liked any of them personally (some I find extremely annoying *cough*Dawkins*cough*) I couldn't help but realize that they make some convincing arguments. I was a pretty strong Christian, the way I was raised, up until that point. I'd been relatively sheltered until then, so I never thought there were any alternatives until I started hearing about them through some people in my school.
I had a bit of an existential crisis back then, and that angst has lasted into what I consider an early-onset mid-life crisis, and through reading and talking to experts and learning, I find I'm still not much further along now than I was as a teen.
On top of different philosophies, I've considered Buddhism, tried therapy and different medications numerous times, to little success. I've been diagnosed with fluctuating levels of clinical depression and anxiety, but I'm fairly convinced I have at least a mild form of OCD (which would likely be further helped if I could stomach standard antidepressants) as well as some sort of unresolved trauma, social issue, or other. Some would say to suck it up, some would say I have a chemical imbalance or atypical neuro-convergence, some would say just keep trying to find the right meds, therapist, or other. It gets exhausting, and with some issues, I don't really really don't want to know what's wrong with me. I think a very modern approach in mental health is to try to help society adjust to certain individuals, instead of trying to help certain individuals conform to society as it is. I honestly think this has a lot of merits, but can still sequester people in a way that prevents them from finding what they need in common struggle as humans. Sometimes I just want that person that I work with to tell me "good job," or give me a fist bump or a hug, or tell me they care. Not too often, as I normally want nothing to do with some flavor of over-sentimentality.
Being a man can be rough. I was bullied in middle school, but once my body started filling out, people stopped fucking with me - at least not directly. There is indeed an epidemic of male loneliness, increased rates of drug and alcohol abuse, etc. We are taught not to be vulnerable, not to cry unless it's a funeral, and often to not even be overly expressive of who you are. Watching some war movies recently, it was interesting to see men in terrifying, horrible, deadly situations, facing the music and carrying out their duties, but when one of their comrades dies, they all are allowed to share in that moment of emotional release. They hold and comfort each other, cry, sing, tell each other they'll be OK, offer an extra swig from the flask or another shot of morphine.
In those truly harrowing moments, Men are just allowed to be Human. Any expectation of how we are "supposed" to be is set aside briefly with how we truly "need" to be. It feels cliché to mention Fight Club but there is a good quote that fits into this somewhat "We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our Great War's a spiritual war; our Great Depression is our lives." In those major periods of change, strife and struggle throughout history, I think men struggled enough with horrible things, like war, to the extent that having those few, but necessary, moments of emotional release was validated. Nowadays, if you live some working or middle class life in America, things aren't "bad enough" to allow for those moments. And of course, I think it's safe to say that REALLY isn't as bad as having your friend walking next to you step on a mine and get his legs blown off. But we're all human, and we all have our moments. Also, everything is relative. In something like war, there is usually a greater goal that helps provide meaning to people. You fight extra hard against the hideousness of it, because you care about your country, the cause, or kids at home, whatever. As a millennial, I've been struggling for years just to afford a goddamn home for myself. Not my girlfriend, not my kids - just fucking me. It isn't war, but without any meaning given to my own struggle, it feels like my pain tolerance is double that of the average person, but I still can't hold up, because instead of getting shot in the gut, I'm being slowly tortured to death, intentionally kept alive longer just to suffer longer. The more you have to live for, the easier it is to keep going through the pain.
Anyway, this has led me into a very long period of walling myself off from virtually everyone in life, to spare them the pain of having to deal with me, and myself the pain of being used or dismissed by allowing myself to be vulnerable. Then when I can't take it anymore, I burst into an overly sentimental, maudlin drunkard, or, (many moons ago) a tweaky meth-head who says a million words of zero substance or meaning whatsoever, just to know someone is there, listening, caring. I can't seem to find a middle-ground of both safety and vulnerability.
(actual thesis below) To return to my original point, I've immersed myself into a lot of philosophy from the likes of Schopenhauer, Nietzsche and Kierkegaard, to Sartre, Camus and the rest. Many of these iconic figures are often critical even of each other. From the first chapter in the Myth of Sisyphus, Camus says of Schopenhauer, "Schopenhauer is often cited, as a fit subject for laughter, because he praised suicide while seated at a well-set table." I can't help but both agree to an extent with Camus, or at least see where he's coming from, but at the same time, I think if Schopenhauer were alive today, he'd almost certainly be diagnosed with a depressive disorder. Herein lies a major conflict between philosophy as a form of self knowledge or a tool for the cultivation of meaning and living (I'm sure countless stoic ideals are fantastic, until they come by a person with a major mental illness). I'm not a fan of the bootstraps method as a solution to everything, but simultaneously, I don't think it is wise to give in completely to a psychiatric disorder that a random doctor in maybe only one visit says you have. There has to be some way to synthesize these ostensible contradictions.
What do you guys think? I have a whole lot more I want to say, but it's mostly just more personal stuff that I'd be spewing cathartically and would likely deviate from the main point of this thread. Maybe I'll add more later.
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redgreenvines
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Re: Philosophy for millennia vs. contemporary Psychology - meaning and men [Re: extreme] 1
#28578940 - 12/11/23 05:05 PM (1 month, 16 days ago) |
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The good thing is that you are reading, but I think you must reorient to what you enjoy, as you are not enjoying being nihilistic, and honestly rattling on about Nietzsche is not going to help you socially either - miserable millenials drinking one beer all night because it's too expensive and talking about hopelessness.
Buddha was OK, but you probably read enough about him already. but it is a bit easier bar talk, and the light sometimes shines through.
no. you have to treat yourself. Start to read fun stuff, stuff you enjoy, fantasies, histories, mysteries, stuff you don't mind being caught reading - go for what you like, how you want to spend time.
If you had a dog you would get it treats, you have to become your own pet until you meet someone else and start caring for them in the same way.
the be kind to animals (including yourself) and the environment thing can be a foundation for the rest of your life, without changing anything except your library, and what page you are on.
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extreme


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Re: Philosophy for millennia vs. contemporary Psychology - meaning and men [Re: redgreenvines]
#28578995 - 12/11/23 05:42 PM (1 month, 16 days ago) |
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redgreenvines said: The good thing is that you are reading, but I think you must reorient to what you enjoy, as you are not enjoying being nihilistic, and honestly rattling on about Nietzsche is not going to help you socially either - miserable millenials drinking one beer all night because it's too expensive and talking about hopelessness.
Buddha was OK, but you probably read enough about him already. but it is a bit easier bar talk, and the light sometimes shines through.
I can't imagine anyone enjoys nihilism, but the problem is what to replace it with. True though, maybe that is more in action than in thought. More on that in a second. But yea I know ranting about any philosophy really, or negativity in general, is generally a buzzkill. I've known that for a long time which is why I have a hard time connecting with people. I think other people are just built differently, but I find meaning in the struggle itself. It's not so much "oh doesn't life suck, woe is me" as it is "hey this thing kinda sucks in my life, what about your life? What should we do to help the things we struggle with? Can we help each other, or even just empathize and feel better through that somehow?" From experience, I know this comes across as weird, but it's not merely complaining or sadness alone, or anything like that.
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You have to treat yourself. Start to read fun stuff, stuff you enjoy, fantasies, histories, mysteries, stuff you don't mind being caught reading - go for what you like, how you want to spend time.
If you had a dog you would get it treats, you have to become your own pet until you meet someone else and start caring for them in the same way.
the be kind to animals (including yourself) and the environment thing can be a foundation for the rest of your life, without changing anything except your library, and what page you are on
I agree with this wholeheartedly. I've been in a joy drought for a while though, and I'm kinda trying to find things I like, but so far it feels like I keep coming up empty. I don't know what I really enjoy anymore, and sometimes it feels like I can't feel joy for anything at all. I'm not in an opportunity to own pets right now, but when the time comes I'd love to get a dog or cat. I think that would help. I've "treated myself" mostly with drugs and alcohol, so it's hard figuring out healthier things to bring me joy.
Well I guess I've watched a bunch of good movies lately and bought some books, but sometimes different pleasures in life feel like they only contain that same, temporary escape that drugs do. I need to go further than a treat... true passion or immersion.
Thanks for the post
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Freedom
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Re: Philosophy for millennia vs. contemporary Psychology - meaning and men [Re: extreme]
#28579037 - 12/11/23 06:08 PM (1 month, 16 days ago) |
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Nihlism is just intellectual. It can fool you into believing it. But if you were really nihilistic, you'd just stop moving till you die. The body feels pain or discomfort and motivates you to move. hunger comes. You can't have an intellectual debate about nihlism with hunger, or pain, or love, or curiosity, or wonder or lust. These things have zero regard for meaning or justification, yet they exist and move us.
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redgreenvines
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Re: Philosophy for millennia vs. contemporary Psychology - meaning and men [Re: extreme]
#28579044 - 12/11/23 06:12 PM (1 month, 16 days ago) |
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Well you can always immerse in the moment by following the breath.
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extreme


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Re: Philosophy for millennia vs. contemporary Psychology - meaning and men [Re: redgreenvines]
#28579128 - 12/11/23 07:21 PM (1 month, 16 days ago) |
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Freedom said: Nihlism is just intellectual. It can fool you into believing it. But if you were really nihilistic, you'd just stop moving till you die. The body feels pain or discomfort and motivates you to move. hunger comes. You can't have an intellectual debate about nihlism with hunger, or pain, or love, or curiosity, or wonder or lust. These things have zero regard for meaning or justification, yet they exist and move us.
Are you kind of saying, allow yourself to be moved by the things that we want to be moved by, and don't worry so much about ascribing some kind of meaning to it? To me this is sort of where the philosophy meets psychology. I think for those less depressed, meaning doesn't mean as much, but it makes me wonder how much help one can find through philosophy, or if you should be working on things from a more grounded, psychological perspective.
I was thinking earlier about like, skateboarders, or for one of my family members who is good at golf. Nike it up... just do it, whatever it is you like? I find the skateboard ethos interesting in this regard, cuz even though my feet have no coordination despite myself being relatively athletic, maybe I felt that way with some activities I was good at. But like, I imagine a lot of skaters as being free-spirited, stoner types who when asked about the meaning of life, they'd look at you funny and respond "I like skating, and so I go and do it when I can. That makes me happy and that's it, why ask more?" For the golf thing, I never got into it like my family member, but I still like going to the range. It breaks it down to the fun part. I don't wanna keep score, or putt, or hit out of the sandtrap. But take a swing, if you shank it, fuck it, tee up another one and just enjoy whacking the ball, regardless of where it goes or ends up.
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redgreenvines said: Well you can always immerse in the moment by following the breath.
I think that is the ultimate "breaking down" of a human need to its most fundamental. I'm glad you mentioned it because it was in the back of my mind earlier anyway. From the moment you're born, that is the first thing I assume ever baby wants to do. If you hold it for even a little while, it's uncomfortable. It's one of those things we are constantly doing and can control, yet never think about. I assume that's why it's such a good focal point for meditation. I always find a way to say "I'm too busy/tired/bored/engaged/whatever to meditate" but that seems pretty senseless. For one it's usually not true, but also you can do it any time, for as long or little as you want, for any reason. I think this is a good starting point for me and I'll take some time for it tonight. If I can't do that for two minutes... yikes.
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redgreenvines
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Re: Philosophy for millennia vs. contemporary Psychology - meaning and men [Re: extreme]
#28579153 - 12/11/23 07:30 PM (1 month, 16 days ago) |
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you can, you already know all about it. and you can do it with other things, I was doing it reading your post, and am trying to do it while typing but it is choppy.
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BrendanFlock
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Re: Philosophy for millennia vs. contemporary Psychology - meaning and men [Re: redgreenvines]
#28579464 - 12/12/23 12:46 AM (1 month, 16 days ago) |
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Nihilistic locomotion?
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Freedom
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Re: Philosophy for millennia vs. contemporary Psychology - meaning and men [Re: extreme]
#28579840 - 12/12/23 11:06 AM (1 month, 16 days ago) |
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Quote:
extreme said:
Are you kind of saying, allow yourself to be moved by the things that we want to be moved by, and don't worry so much about ascribing some kind of meaning to it? To me this is sort of where the philosophy meets psychology. I think for those less depressed, meaning doesn't mean as much, but it makes me wonder how much help one can find through philosophy, or if you should be working on things from a more grounded, psychological perspective.
yes
I think we often get things backwards, we have thoughts and then try to see ourselves and the world through those thoughts, rather than seeing ourselves and the world and having sane thoughts inspired by simple observation.
When I take a week to sit in silent meditation, I focus primarily on the body. I just feel it. Its so simple. When I do that, every moment feels full of the meaning I would be missing if I was primarily paying attention to thought. I am also much more aware of my impulses. For example through the difficulties of life my heart can close up, and so much of the perception of meaning comes through the heart for me. Things like caring about the people around me, sharing in their joys, feeling my own joy. Sometimes I have to feel my shame to then feel whats under it, or feel my anger to feel whats under it.
I've encountererd a lot of fear in my attempts to find meaning and live a meaningful life. I learned not to trust myself in some fundamental way. I imagine its like maybe as a kid i couldn't cross the road without my mothers hand, or was always told how to be or not to be by others. But anothers meaning, or view of the world will always be second hand and unsatisfying. I think this happens a lot in the world. we come up with ideas about who or what we should be, and we try to force ourselves into that mold. and then we become unfamilliar with our own authentic meaning (which is dynamic and not an absolute truth but just our own meaning, like how getting thirsty and drinking whater has meaning for you personally
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Freedom
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Re: Philosophy for millennia vs. contemporary Psychology - meaning and men [Re: Freedom]
#28580105 - 12/12/23 03:01 PM (1 month, 15 days ago) |
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RJ Tubs 202



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Re: Philosophy for millennia vs. contemporary Psychology - meaning and men [Re: Freedom]
#28580782 - 12/13/23 05:18 AM (1 month, 15 days ago) |
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Quote:
Freedom said:
I've encountered a lot of fear in my attempts to find meaning and live a meaningful life.
Maybe this type of craving is fueling our suffering.
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redgreenvines
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Re: Philosophy for millennia vs. contemporary Psychology - meaning and men [Re: RJ Tubs 202]
#28580823 - 12/13/23 06:16 AM (1 month, 15 days ago) |
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RJ Tubs 202 said:
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Freedom said:
I've encountered a lot of fear in my attempts to find meaning and live a meaningful life.
Maybe this type of craving is fueling our suffering.
It is just natural to encounter facets of fear in anything unfamiliar, and progress definitely involves going new places.
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Freedom
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Re: Philosophy for millennia vs. contemporary Psychology - meaning and men [Re: redgreenvines]
#28581476 - 12/13/23 03:41 PM (1 month, 14 days ago) |
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redgreenvines said:
Quote:
RJ Tubs 202 said:
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Freedom said:
I've encountered a lot of fear in my attempts to find meaning and live a meaningful life.
Maybe this type of craving is fueling our suffering.
It is just natural to encounter facets of fear in anything unfamiliar, and progress definitely involves going new places.
I'm pretty sure this is conditioned associatve fear
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redgreenvines
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Re: Philosophy for millennia vs. contemporary Psychology - meaning and men [Re: Freedom]
#28581568 - 12/13/23 04:54 PM (1 month, 14 days ago) |
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association with the unfamiliar is what I am saying
It takes maturity and practice to be calm in facing the unfamiliar
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Freedom
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Re: Philosophy for millennia vs. contemporary Psychology - meaning and men [Re: redgreenvines]
#28581824 - 12/13/23 07:58 PM (1 month, 14 days ago) |
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It seems like your commenting on my comment, which has to do with associating self choice with fear through experiences like running into trafic as a child and the parents response
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redgreenvines
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Re: Philosophy for millennia vs. contemporary Psychology - meaning and men [Re: Freedom]
#28582140 - 12/14/23 04:31 AM (1 month, 14 days ago) |
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Freedom said: It seems like your commenting on my comment, which has to do with associating self choice with fear through experiences like running into trafic as a child and the parents response
when you use associating this way as a transitive action, it sounds like a deliberate effort. In that scenario I would use arranging things together, so that the mind which naturally associates what happens together in an experience, can do it's thing. there is a chance what you want associated in memory will happen so that later one thing will reflexively imply the other, you might hope.
you have done nothing wrong, the english language permits that usage. However, from my point of view 99.9999% of associating is what happens continuously in consciousness during the ongoing process of memory formation (without any personal direction, except for studying1 a subject or doing practice which are self directed activities involving the cultivation of the natural background association process towards the contents or details of a subject).
when it comes right down to it, except for putting your eyes and ears and body in front of something, we have no control at all about what gets associated with what.
1to arrange things for learning something new, you have to arrange the things to be linked together several times in different contexts. eg. on blackboard, and in note book, and on screen in a puzzle, and embedded in some other subject, and on a field trip. Even when things are associatively linked in memory, access to that memory is context related.
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Freedom
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Re: Philosophy for millennia vs. contemporary Psychology - meaning and men [Re: redgreenvines]
#28582255 - 12/14/23 07:10 AM (1 month, 14 days ago) |
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I'm not talking about trying to control association.
Look at the example, do you think the reason children run into the road is because they want to have a conditioned fear response to self choice?
grammer never made sense to me but transitive verbs have objects right? like bellow?
"Fear Conditioning (FC) is a type of associative learning task in which mice learn to associate a particular neutral Conditional Stimulus (CS; often a tone) with an aversive Unconditional Stimulus (US; often a mild electrical foot shock) and show a Conditional Response (CR; often as freezing)."
Edited by Freedom (12/14/23 07:35 AM)
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redgreenvines
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Re: Philosophy for millennia vs. contemporary Psychology - meaning and men [Re: Freedom]
#28582263 - 12/14/23 07:21 AM (1 month, 14 days ago) |
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Quote:
Freedom said: I'm not talking about wanting or trying to control association.
Look at the example, do you think the reason children run into the road is because they want to have a conditioned fear response to self choice?
No of course not, they are spontaneous and not aware of cars. If fear conditioning happens in my example, its obviously not intentional (right? )
I think this is a very general kind of example. fear conditioning happens, but it is not a good way of learning.
with children and traffic other means besides fear conditioning are better, like fences and commanding them not to go out of the fenced in area because of several kinds of danger for unaccompanied children. when out of the safe area, hold hands, or strap them into seats, or together and keep watch.
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Freedom
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Re: Philosophy for millennia vs. contemporary Psychology - meaning and men [Re: redgreenvines]
#28582276 - 12/14/23 07:38 AM (1 month, 14 days ago) |
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You think the reason parents stop their kids from running into the road is to try to create a conditioned fear response?
I alsways thought it was to stop their kids from dying
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Re: Philosophy for millennia vs. contemporary Psychology - meaning and men [Re: redgreenvines]
#28582310 - 12/14/23 08:10 AM (1 month, 14 days ago) |
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Quote:
redgreenvines said:
with children and traffic other means besides fear conditioning are better, like fences and commanding them not to go out of the fenced in area because of several kinds of danger for unaccompanied children. when out of the safe area, hold hands, or strap them into seats, or together and keep watch.
so in your example the way I see fear conditioning working is the parent (repeatedly probably many times before the child 'learns') tells the child or shows the child they cannot use their own judgement, make their own choices, or protect themselves. Fear association is caused by the parents own emotions at times, even subtly, or through stories of danger like in your example
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