Validity Futility Utility

 

The validity–futility–utility triangle

(a conceptual frame to think clearly when a course of action is simultaneously:

•  strongly justified (valid),

•  almost certainly pointless in any practically meaningful sense (futile),

•  and somewhere on the utility spectrum (useful / neutral / harmful / anti-useful).

)

Core definitions (narrow & sharp)

•  Validity

= There exists at least one complete, non-fallacious, non-self-contradictory normative reason (moral, prudential, aesthetic, epistemic, deontological, virtue-based, contractual, etc.) that speaks in favor of the action.

•  Futility

= The probability that the action produces any non-negligible causal difference toward the end that the valid reason is aiming at is so low that, for practical purposes, we can treat it as ~0.

(Futility is not “zero probability”; it is “probability so small that spending attention & life-energy on it becomes a kind of category error”.)

•  Utility

= Net change in value (however you define value—hedonic, preference-satisfaction, objective-list, cosmic-scoreboard, virtue accrual, etc.) that actually flows from doing the action versus the best realistic alternative use of the same resources (time, attention, emotional energy, money, social capital, risk exposure…).

The central tension

You stand in front of an act A where:

valid(A) = very strong / almost unanswerable

futile(A) ≈ 1

utility(A) ∈ {slightly positive, near-zero, slightly negative, strongly negative}

The question is no longer “is it right?” — the validity already answered that.

The live questions become:

1.  Is the valid reason allowed to be trumped by futility itself?

2.  Even if futility does not trump validity, can utility cost trump both?

Four reasonably defensible positions

Position | Stance on “Should I do it?” | Core reasoning | Typical emotional tone

Pure deontologist / radical integrity | Yes, do it | A valid moral reason is categorical. Futility is irrelevant to obligation. Utility is secondary at best. | Dignified, sometimes tragic, occasionally self-righteous

Futility-absolutist / strong expected-utility view | No, don’t do it | If P(success) ≈ 0 then expected value ≈ 0 regardless of how large the payoff would be if success occurred. Resources should go to higher-leverage interventions. | Cold, pragmatic, sometimes accused of moral cowardice

Symbolic / identity-preserving view | Yes — but mostly for me, not for the world | The act keeps my soul / self-image / lineage-of-value intact. The primary “utility” is identity-integrity, not world-state change. | Quiet, sometimes melancholic, can drift toward performative

Threshold + lexical view (most philosophically subtle) | It depends on how bad the utility cost is | Validity creates a lexical priority or very strong defeasible reason → but futility lowers the effective strength of that reason → and at some point extreme disutility (burnout, destroyed relationships, sacrificed higher-impact opportunities) can defeat even a very strong valid reason. | Agonized but realistic

Practical heuristic table

Situation pattern | Most common reasonable answer | Examples

Valid reason extremely strong + futility near-total + utility cost low | Usually worth doing | Voting in a safe district with 0.0003% pivot probability, small acts of courtesy to strangers you will never meet again, keeping promises that no longer matter to anyone except you

Valid reason strong + futility near-total + utility cost high | Usually not worth doing | Spending 10–15 years of prime life on a political cause whose window has definitively closed, ruining health & family to protest something that will not move 1 mm

Valid reason moderate + futility near-total + utility ≈ 0 | Coin-flip territory, often yes if cheap | Writing the 18th strongly-argued essay against an already hegemonic position, adding yet another star to your private morality constellation

Valid reason weak–moderate + futility high + utility clearly negative | Almost never | Dying on every hill, performative outrage cycles, chronically signaling virtue at the price of actual capacity to do good later

One-sentence synthesis

The more valid the reason, the heavier the futility burden you are entitled to carry — but only up to the point where the utility cost starts eating into your ability to honor equally or more valid reasons in the future.

In other words:

Validity gives you permission to be futile.

Futility gives you no permission to be wasteful.

Utility is the final court of appeal.

Responsible Dom

Guide to Being a Responsible Dominant

Being a Dominant (often called a Dom, Master, Owner, or similar titles depending on the dynamic) in BDSM is fundamentally about consensual power exchange. You take on the role of the leader, decision-maker, guide, and authority figure, while your submissive partner voluntarily surrenders control within negotiated boundaries.

This is not about being a bully, abuser, or inherently superior person in everyday life. A good Dom is responsible, self-aware, empathetic, and skilled at creating safety so the submissive can fully let go.

Core Mindset and Attitudes You Need to Embody

•  Confidence without arrogance — Own your decisions calmly and decisively.

•  Responsibility — You hold the well-being (physical, emotional, psychological) of your submissive in your hands during scenes and often in the dynamic.

•  Empathy and attentiveness — Read body language, check in subtly, and truly care about their experience.

•  Self-control — True dominance is internal mastery first; you never lose your temper or act impulsively.

•  Leadership — Guide, protect, enforce rules, provide structure, and help your submissive grow or feel fulfilled.

•  Humility — You are always learning; admit when you’re wrong or inexperienced.

What the Role Involves (Key Responsibilities)

1.  Negotiation & Consent — Discuss limits, safewords (e.g., Red/Yellow/Green system), hard limits, soft limits, triggers, aftercare needs, and health issues before any play.

2.  Safety & Risk Management — Know anatomy, safe practices (e.g., rope, impact, breath play), and how to spot/respond to problems.

3.  Creating Structure — Set rules, protocols, rituals, tasks, or training that reinforce the dynamic.

4.  Leadership & Decision-Making — Make choices for the submissive within agreed boundaries.

5.  Emotional Care — Provide reassurance, praise, correction, and aftercare to prevent sub drop.

6.  Personal Growth — Continuously educate yourself (books, workshops, experienced mentors) and reflect on scenes.

How to Act and Make It Feel Authentic

•  Body language — Stand/sit tall, use direct (but not aggressive) eye contact, move deliberately, speak in a calm, lower tone.

•  Voice & speech — Be clear, decisive, unhurried. Use commands instead of questions when in role (“Kneel” vs. “Can you kneel?”).

•  Presence — Be fully present; focus on them, not your ego or performance anxiety.

•  Consistency — Follow through on what you say — this builds trust faster than anything.

•  Authenticity for you — Don’t copy porn or someone else’s style. Start with what genuinely excites or feels powerful to you. If strict protocol doesn’t turn you on, don’t force it. The most convincing Dominants are those who are real about their desires and limits.

Things You Should Definitely Do and Say

Do:

•  Negotiate thoroughly and revisit often.

•  Use safewords and honor them instantly — no hesitation, no guilt-tripping.

•  Provide aftercare (cuddling, hydration, talking, reassurance) tailored to their needs.

•  Check in during scenes (“Color?” or “How are you feeling?”).

•  Praise effort and obedience — many submissives thrive on affirmation.

•  Debrief after scenes — what worked, what didn’t, any adjustments.

•  Take responsibility when you make a mistake.

Say (examples that build power, connection, and trust):

•  “You are safe with me.”

•  “I’m proud of you.”

•  “Good girl/boy/pet.” (if they like praise)

•  “This is what I want from you.”

•  “Tell me your color.” (checking in)

•  “You please me so much right now.”

•  “I decide.” or “Because I said so.” (in role)

Things You Should Definitely NOT Do or Say

Never:

•  Ignore a safeword or “yellow” — ever.

•  Play while angry, intoxicated, or emotionally compromised.

•  Assume experience — be honest if you’re new.

•  Skip negotiation or aftercare because you’re “in the zone.”

•  Push past hard limits or use guilt/manipulation to get what you want.

•  Neglect your own aftercare needs (Doms can drop too).

•  Confuse fantasy porn with reality — real dynamics require communication, not silent brooding.

Avoid saying (common newbie pitfalls):

•  “Real subs don’t use safewords.”

•  “You should just know what I want.”

•  “Good subs don’t complain.”

•  Anything that shames them for having limits or needing aftercare.

Helpful Quotes / Affirmations to Stay Focused

These can help center your mindset:

•  “Dominance is not about force — it’s about earning surrender through trust and care.”

•  “I lead with intention, structure, and compassion.”

•  “My control creates their freedom.”

•  “I am responsible for their safety so they can be vulnerable.”

•  “True power is self-mastery first.”

•  “I accept and embrace my role as protector and guide.”

•  “I create space for them to let go — that is my strength.”

Being a good Dom is a skill built over time through communication, practice, self-reflection, and genuine care for your partner. Start slow, stay humble, prioritize consent and safety above everything, and focus on mutual fulfillment rather than performing “Dominance.” When done right, the role can be profoundly rewarding for both people involved.

 

Overpowering Myth

 

The overpowering myth permeates because it is relevant. Used as a pillar to buffer against, to push away from, although we could push away from it in any direction it tends towards the counter-myth is the polarised opposite of the original myth. This leads to chaos which leads to destruction.

—————

This passage describes a recurring pattern in how societies (or individuals) relate to dominant cultural myths—deeply embedded narratives that shape meaning, identity, and behavior.

The “overpowering myth” holds sway not through brute force alone, but because it remains relevant: it addresses real fears, desires, contradictions, or existential needs in the collective psyche. People don’t simply discard it; instead, they treat it as a fixed pillar—something to define themselves against. They buffer, react, rebel, or “push away” from it to establish distance or superiority.

Yet the critique reveals a trap: even though one could depart in countless directions (toward nuance, synthesis, transcendence, or unrelated alternatives), the reaction predictably collapses toward the polarized opposite—the counter-myth. This is the mirror-image inversion: if the original myth is X, the counter-myth becomes anti-X raised to the same dogmatic intensity. Examples abound:

•  A myth of absolute hierarchy and divine order → countered by a myth of radical egalitarianism that demonizes any structure.

•  A myth of inevitable progress and techno-utopia → countered by a myth of inevitable collapse and primitivist return.

•  A myth of pure individualism → countered by a myth of total collectivism that erases the person.

The polarity preserves the original myth’s framing and energy; it just flips the valence. Both sides feed off the same binary axis, amplifying each other in mutual antagonism.

This dynamic breeds chaos because:

•  Energy is spent on endless oscillation or escalation rather than creation/integration.

•  Intermediary positions get crushed or ignored.

•  Institutions, discourse, and psyches become brittle, unable to hold complexity.

Eventually, unchecked polarization erodes shared reality → destruction follows, whether cultural fragmentation, institutional collapse, civil strife, or self-annihilation through fanaticism.

The insight here echoes thinkers like Nietzsche (on ressentiment producing inverted ideals), Girard (mimetic rivalry escalating to scapegoating), or even Jung (enantiodromia—the tendency of extremes to turn into their opposites). It also resonates with contemporary observations of culture-war dynamics, where each “side” claims to be the pure antidote to the other’s poison, yet both reinforce the same underlying split.

Breaking the cycle requires refusing the binary pull: not pushing against the myth as primary orientation, but moving orthogonally—toward what the myth cannot name or contain, toward lived complexity rather than narrative purity.

Rationalism Vs Delusion

 

 

“She cannot cope with reality. They’ve recognise that about her. Part of her fragility is she will be triggered at any suggestion that she cannot handle reality. They describe her as vulnerable. They are agents of her delusion.

I have to live in reality. Immediately this makes me a problem for her. They are protecting her from me by shouting me down. I operate on a very basic system of logic that the delusional should not have control over the rational. It should be that the rational has control over the delusional. It has to be this way for the rational to function. They are choosing to aid the delusional to make sure the delusional can function, at the cost of enabling the rational to function.

These are the principles involved. Our experiences are a manifestation of that struggle.

Her stubbornness, her refusal to accept reality, is what made it that eventually the realistic people pulled out from supporting her. She was only supported by delusional people.

Of course, without stability, and without the donations of rationality to keep her going, she could no longer keep going.

Things got worse and worse for her. She realised the only people who were supporting her were as delusional as herself. The rejection of reality, the rejection of rationality, was ultimately her downfall.

It manifested in the form of self-destruction.

One of the things she could never accept is how stable people do not want to empower self-destruction. Stable people do not want to empower delusion. Only unstable, delusional people resonate with disharmony.

Once rational people decide to stop empowering unstable people, the unstable people will naturally disintegrate. Their chaos will probably increasingly escalate to violence before that happens. 

If a person decides to empower instability and delusion, they are not a rational, stable person.

Unstable people describe that stability as a form of fascism because it is stable, stoic, sustainable, solid, wholesome and functional. The unstable person is using the wrong word to describe the stable people. That is a part of their delusion.”

—————-

The text lays out a stark, almost philosophical framework for a relational or group dynamic: one person (or entity) deeply invested in rejecting reality/delusion, surrounded by enablers who shield her fragility at the expense of rational functioning, while those grounded in logic eventually withdraw support, leading to inevitable collapse or escalation.

This pattern resonates with several well-recognized psychological and interpersonal phenomena, though it’s framed here in binary terms (rational vs. delusional, stable vs. unstable) that can oversimplify complex human motivations and mental health realities.

Key Elements in Psychological Terms

•  Fragility and Triggering Around Reality: People with rigid, defensive beliefs (sometimes delusional in clinical terms) often experience intense distress when those beliefs are challenged. Delusions aren’t always “crazy” hallucinations; they can be fixed false beliefs that serve as protection against overwhelming emotions, low self-esteem, trauma, or existential threats. Confronting them directly often backfires, entrenching the belief further as a defense mechanism.

•  Enabling as Protection: The “agents of her delusion” describe a classic enabling pattern. In relationships (family, romantic, or social), people may avoid confrontation out of compassion, fear of escalation, guilt, or codependency. They shield the person from discomfort, which inadvertently maintains the dysfunctional belief system. This isn’t always malicious—sometimes it’s genuine care gone awry—but it can prevent growth or intervention.

•  Withdrawal of Rational/Supportive People: Stable individuals often set boundaries when enabling self-destruction becomes unsustainable. They stop “donating rationality” (a vivid way to put it) because continued involvement empowers harm. This withdrawal can feel like rejection to the fragile person, accelerating decline. In extreme cases, it mirrors dynamics in addiction, personality disorders, or shared delusional systems (folie à deux/famille), where the delusional person’s reality dominates the group until healthier members exit.

•  Escalation and Self-Destruction: Without external anchors to reality, instability can intensify—emotional spirals, isolation, or even volatile behavior. The text’s point about chaos escalating to violence before disintegration aligns with how untreated severe delusions or personality issues can progress if support networks collapse.

•  Labeling Stability as “Fascism”: This is a common projection in such dynamics. Terms like “control,” “rigidity,” or “authoritarianism” get weaponized against boundaries, logic, or accountability. It’s part of the delusion’s defensive toolkit: reframing healthy limits as oppression preserves the fragile self-view.

Broader Reflection on the Principle

Your core axiom—that rationality must ultimately hold authority over delusion for functional systems to survive—has merit in practical terms. Societies, families, and relationships need shared reality-testing to function sustainably. Pure compassion without boundaries can enable harm; pure rationality without empathy can become callous. The tension lies in balance: how to uphold reality without cruelty, and how to offer support without enabling.

In practice, people rarely fit neatly into “rational/stable” vs. “delusional/unstable” camps. Most exist on spectrums—someone can be highly functional in some areas while deeply defensive in others. Mental health conditions involving delusions (e.g., delusional disorder, aspects of schizophrenia, or severe personality pathology) aren’t chosen stubbornness; they’re often tied to brain chemistry, trauma, or coping gone extreme.

If this describes a real situation you’re navigating (personal relationship, family, or professional context), the healthiest path often involves:

•  Maintaining your own grounding in reality and boundaries.

•  Avoiding direct debates over the core delusion (it rarely persuades and often escalates).

•  Redirecting focus to observable impacts (e.g., “I care about you, but this pattern is harming relationships”).

•  Encouraging professional intervention gently, without ultimatums that trigger more defense.

•  Protecting your own stability—sometimes distance is the most compassionate choice for everyone.

The tragedy in these dynamics is mutual: the fragile person loses support, and the rational one carries the burden of being “the problem” for insisting on reality. But enabling long-term delusion rarely leads to genuine stability—only temporary reprieve before harder reckonings.