Joshe

😂😂😂 Shit... I'm exorcising these demons! You gotta keep them around though. Give them just enough sustenance for survival and terrorize them from time to time... show them who's boss.

😂

In the betting markets? I didn't know that.

@Reciprocality Thanks for explaining. Is this summary inaccurate, too broad, or would you add anything to it? "There’s a natural human tendency to impose order on chaos. This ordering is achieved by linking disparate experiences through associative memories. Over time, as these connections accumulate, they exist within a conceptual emptiness and thus require anchoring. The self or ego is formed as this anchoring mechanism, serving as the ultimate safe harbor that structures and stabilizes our experiences amidst chaos." Also, in reply to this: How does "curiosity" fit into your thinking? Is curiosity a tool of the ego? Couldn't I just as easily say curiosity is the driver to acquire knowledge, as opposed to an ego in search of coherence? When the mind stops its mentation, it gets irritated/distressed. It seeks to move. It wants to move. What is the driving force pushing for expression here? It seems to me, the same force is pushing for expression in the baby when the cradle stops rocking but I'm not sure the best way to conceptualize this.

Yeah, Theosophy was strange. I didn't dive very deep though. I've put spirituality on the back burner for the time being. I actually liked Alice Bailey's book "Glamour - a World Problem". It's not really spiritual but it had a lot interesting perspectives. Yeah, those definitely play a role. I have a theory that the vast majority (~90%) of people aren't born stupid, but rather, the ego boxes them into certain ways of thinking, which we might call stupid. I don't think it's inherent to most. The reason you can't fix stupid is because you can't make them surrender their cherished ways. If it weren't for that, you could fix it, as far as I can tell. For example, Joe Rogan's cognition is better than mine, in at least a couple of ways, but he's much more prone to believing falsehoods than I am. He's not mentally lazy, he loves to explore and question things. He has access to a mental apparatus that can be used to explore and inquire, just like I do, but he uses his in service to his ego, which first and foremost seeks thrills. If he had some experience in his life where he saw the truth of this, he could turn over a new leaf and just as easily start using his mind to seek the truth, which would manifest the appearance of him not being duped by kitty litter box stories. The only way for him to not be "gullible" is for him to understand why he is gullible. And that's a bitter pill. He'd have to admit his immaturity AND he'd have to let go of the payoffs/thrills. I get the sense that if you could show them their error and as long as they had the courage to admit and own it, they could correct themselves, thus, move closer towards non-error / "intelligence", but, they resist and resist. But yeah... I've rambled on enough for one day. Thanks for the conversation man!

When I first read the question "why does the baby start crying when the cradle stops rocking?", I was like "Ok, that seems like gold.". I am not as deep into these things as you but let's see what I can come up with: Stimulation keeps one distracted from the emptiness. If you go back to a time when you've experienced excruciating pain, that seems to be the same state the baby is in when the cradle stops. There's a "closeness". You get very close to the fabric of reality. Since the babies prefrontal cortex is not developed, all it knows is this closeness. The closer you get, the more vulnerable you are. The cradle rock is a distraction from the closeness. I've long believed that this emptiness is a big factor in forging identity. It drives us to get in where we fit in. Niche-filling. I could possibly dive deeper if it seems an interesting idea but I'm just pulling all of this from my intuition and not sure how valuable it is. What do you make of these ideas? Feel free to steer me in the right direction if I've strayed too far away.

8 days after debate: Kamala: +6 (45 to 51) Trump: -6 (53 to 47) To my knowledge (which is fallible), betting markets never had Kamala ahead of of Trump until after the debate. Ha, Kamala just hit 52 after I posted. Edit: Some betting markets did indeed have Harris slightly ahead of Trump at one point before the debate.

Elon explains why he donated his life to humanity: https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1836433725791572330

Totally agree. I've heard wise teachers I respect and admire talk about things like realms, astral, hidden energies with agendas, etc., which I have no direct knowledge of, so all I can do is probe them intellectually and try to find ways to penetrate them. I remain open to their teachings but I can't use them to build on top of or make decisions with, nor do I have any reason to lean towards them being true just because they say they are. Rudolph Steiner and Alice Bailey come to mind. I'm glad I exposed myself to them, even if their ideas are no good. It's valuable experience. One problem with this degree of flexibility is people wind up believing in bullshit. When an egotist considers being open-minded, they end up believing in shit like flat earth. The point of exploration for them (most people) is to find something new to fit them, rather than what is true.

I figured you weren't making a point about that, but I'm like a bored pitbull man! 😂 No, I'm not familiar with that content. What did you get from it?

These are nowhere near comparable IMO, lol. What do you think is going on in this scenario: Persona A: Thinks Democrat rhetoric contributes equally to political polarization and political violence as Republican/Trump rhetoric Persona B: Thinks Donald Trump's rhetoric accounts for the vast majority of political polarization and political violence Now, obviously, any rational, honest, intelligent person would acknowledge Person B is correct. In comes a centrist who doesn't like this and they try to find perspectives that can diminish the truth. If you ask yourself, why would the centrist have a problem with the truth...what answers do you come up with? Why do they seek to balance out the positions? Why not just let the truth be what it is? What motivates them to diminish the truth? Are they just winding up lost when attempting to think critically? Or are they trying to protect vulnerable psychic structures they aren't ready to dispense with? Centrists often seem to fall into the trap of thinking all positions can be understood from this meme. Their mom and dad might reside in the blessed homeland and their best friends might reside in the barbarous wastelands, which is a conflict of interest. My theory is centrists prefer harmony over truth, which is how they usually wind up at their positions. But this is a fallacy. There is a higher perch.

The propaganda machine is effectively operating on all cylinders. It's currently spreading the idea "An attack on Trump is an attack on you. You and your values are under attack, and these attacks are intentionally orchestrated war efforts from a wicked adversary who seeks power above all else. Running this country into the ground is part of their strategy to extinguish your right way of life." The assassination attempts provide abundant opportunity to strengthen conviction that Dems are absolutely evil. The hatred is intensifying now. I anticipate an uptick in anger and heated debate in the next few days as a result of these narratives. "They're not coming after me, they're coming after you. I just so happen to be standing in the way."

I made these demons real. I printed this bitch out on a poster and hung it in my kitchen.

He was a bit late but Kyle got there. He thought Trump was shooting from the hip with the Haitian cats but now thinks it was intentional. He believes it was a stupid move, and it might be, but I wouldn’t discount primal fear just yet. There might even be a new viral immigration story on the horizon.

This post title is misleading. The guy didn’t actually shoot at Trump. When Trump said “there were gunshots in my vicinity” what he meant was, secret service spotted a guy over a football field away and shot towards the guy they spotted.

Tried carnivore for a month. Blood cholesterol skyrocketed. Serum cholesterol levels: Pre-carnivore: 200 1 month on carnivore: 260 3 months after quitting - 190 Lots of butter and eggs though. I couldn't just do straight meat. I was ordering from Butcherbox, which was convenient. If I ever try it again, I would have to exclude eggs and butter because the cholesterol impact was too much. Also, energy levels were shit and it wasn't just from carb depletion acclimation. I've done lots of keto. Hard truth I'm learning to accept about myself: The human organism needs satisfying foods for it to be happy. There's no way around this. I cannot trick or force myself to believe otherwise. The food has to be thoroughly enjoyed. Otherwise, there's a great negative energetic impact, which adds up, IME.

It's funny when people say things like "how come you only became interested in political corruption when Trump came into office?". Our political system has never had its norms shattered the way it has since Trump came in. Because of this, most of us have not been following every potential political scandal. This is not because we're biased hypocrites, it's because the system was healthy enough to take care of itself, or so we thought. Those were the good ole days!

@Fearey Ok bro, here's a synchronicity. I'm INTJ, I think 5w4, software development adjacent (web dev), interested in data science, but this is nothing worth mentioning until I realized you have the same profile picture as my custom chrome extension: I didn't want to fuck around with an icon and so just made a square in figma and colored it #a25698. It's not exact color but c'mon! 😆

Yes, this problem doesn't escape me. This way of thinking is common on the right. They (the ideological right, not JD) think they are stamping out evil. Everyone thinks they know best of how things ought to be ran. The problem is, have you seen how stupid people are? The only way to know what is best is to care about what is best, so much that you devote many years of your life to understanding what is best. If someone does that in earnest and tries to be right, for goodness sake, not their own, and if they have been successful, their ideas of what is good should carry more weight than some power hungry dumbasses who only care about themselves. I doubt you would disagree with that position. BTW, thanks for the article. It gives more weight to my hypothesis. Vance implies he made up stories to get eyeballs on Springfield. Didn't see them admitting it but makes sense.

That is a really interesting idea, but unfortunately, I'm not that creative. lol. I flubbed my words. It's not important though because it led to this new idea for us. 😆 I'm not sure. AFAIK, if immigrants come here legally, they can go wherever they want. It makes sense they'd wind up in smallish towns with low rent prices if jobs are there. Manufacturing plants often spring up where land is cheap, so if immigrants find a honey hole of cheap land + lots of jobs, bingo, call the fam. Seems that's what happened. The local politicians had incentive to let them come and once the problems started cropping up, they realized there was no good mechanism in place to curb population growth, so what are they going to do? It's against federal law for states to reject immigrants that are here legally, AFAIK. That's my best guess as to what happened. I don't think there was a single person or a single group who decided to increase the population by adding 1/3 Haitians.

Yes. I would put a bullet in baby Hitler's brain if given the chance. 100%. And I would likely advocate for the same to someone who did the same to an innocent baby. I'm unapologetically against what I perceive as detrimental to good, aka (evil), and have not yet figured out if it's always or usually best to turn the other cheek. The wise ones say this, but I can't see it yet. Springfield Ohio is a Republican town, in a Republican county, in a Republican state. My guess is the Republicans signed off on it.

I can see how you'd think my approach is morally reprehensible, e.g., not the way people should be, but I see your approach as suboptimal. I prefer your approach, but stakes are currently too high to forgo strategic intervention. I don't believe each voter is sufficiently informed or developed enough to avoid potential catastrophe. When the stakes are low, sure, let the people fuck around, but when the life of the system is in danger, I'm okay with the people being manipulated for their own benefit. You can call that fucked up but I call it caring about the system they comprise. Ideally, people would be intelligent enough to discern for themselves what is right, but they simply aren't. There should be no question that someone who tried to steal the 2020 election is disqualified from consideration for the 2024 election... but that's not the case... is it? If it were the case, I'd probably favor your approach. I don't perceive it as aggressive. I appreciate the feedback! I'm not super informed either. "How" isn't as important to me as "why". The why justifies/informs the how. If you want to know who is to blame, you can't trace that back the way I assume you think you can. I assume you think you can directly trace it back to Democrats, but it's not that simple. When you see people in dire straights and you can afford to help them, you might open your doors to them, and years later, they cause problems you didn't foresee or don't know how to handle. Many right-leaning people like to point the finger and call the Dems stupid pieces of shit because they wanted to help people—and themselves too—but this positionality exists within a very narrow perspective. Much bigger problems exist atm. It's currently possible that an absolute lunatic could take over our government. We can deal with immigration once the very structure of the system is safe.

haha, yeah, I felt little to no impact this time around. Read the story and was like, wtf, next.

@What Am I I'm simply speculating on what I think is most likely going on, and if it's true, it is detrimental to my desired outcome. To what degree, I can't say, but I suspect it will be highly effective and if the race is as close as many people think, it is concerning. The overzealous immigration should be looked at, as it's obviously causing problems, but when the house is on fire, you don't go and replace the smoke detector batteries... you put the fire out. You can maintain the smoke alarms after the fire is out. Some problems are more manageable than others. Another Trump term could wind us up in a problem far worse than solving for immigration.