Nivsch

" I woke up this morning with a heavy heart. Two of our soldiers fell in Gaza and I want to ask for forgiveness. Forgiveness to the mothers who joined the circle of bereavement tonight. Forgiveness for losing their children, for worlds that were shattered. My heart is filled with pain and guilt because no soldier should have to get hurt, let alone die, to return our kidnapped children. Because we can return them ..."

" Netanyahu has begun a campaign to whitewash the killing of the hostages, and to whitewash his plan for not bringing them all back. Anyone who places the goal of “victory over our enemies” above and before the return of all the hostages is a criminal, disturbed, dark, and sick "

Thanks. I will give it a listen. I just feel that since mainstream music is kind of a litmus test for the masses and a center of gravity in culture, then when it shifts too much and not in a good way it says something about society. Personally, I used to be into mostly mainstream music most of the time, but not today. These days, I’m more into (mostly) the mainstream of the past. Mainstream can also go infinitely higher in quality, because it only depends on how you meet the song, and what the singer or the listener do with it. Of course in today's songs its harder.

It is more of a gut feeling I have, rather than a scientifical examination, but it seems like there are more and more twisted - the entire opposite than expected from a healthy thinking - positions, on many many issues that in the past enjoyed more common sense and agreements. One possible explanation might be the social media that is to blame in all of this, because it intensifies the conflicts, what makes everyone to polarize in their stances as a defense mechanism and to maintain a sense of inner order to the mind. Another, deeper, reason might be that after couple of decades of decent democracy, our nature is to gradually take it more and more for granted, and to forget what made us be democratic in the first place. This erosion is maybe inevitable, when the more the years pass, we start to crave animalistic traits in our psychology we have neglected and suppressed in the couple of last decades, and like they 'want' to be expressed again. Kind of like we had more spirit in our thinking 20 years ago that we slowely loose. We can see it even in the Popular Music industry and the shallowness of the newer creations in music especially in the last decade, and in other aspects of art too. If this is true, then we are necessarily going towards a kind of 'depression' or low phase in society again for 10-30 years or more, hopefully not as bad as WW1+2, before a new, maybe even better, democratic and saner, phase will be established.

This is the same thing only called differently and differs in the degree. When you like something or someone more he is superior in your eyes. It is just that classic racism generalizes and demonizes too grossly and too broadly.

Racism stems mostly from unfamiliarity and fear. It is a scale and everyone has a little bit of it. This is a natural survival mechanism the brain operates to ensure extra safety from things it doesn't know well enough. For example, if an Italian women behave to me badly during my visit in her country, there is a high chance I will become "racist" towards Italian women and extrapolate this behaviour on Italians in general. When it becomes a problem? When you act upon this mechanism to harm others, or when you keep acting it again and again despite contradcting evidences, and it makes you stubornly blind. If someone is get harmed by psychiatric medications, it will develop a very negative and feeling of demonization towards psychiatrists. Is that racism? Maybe not the classic definition, but essentially this is it. This is the exact same mechanism. So is it bad? Not necessarily at all. It depends on the context and the specific situation. Keep in mind that demonizing the racist, will make you immediately to become more like him, and when it happens, be compasionate to yourself and to him and try to understand his fears.

At least in my experience, mantras won't solve the problem. You need to genuinely understand those issues in you.

Maybe you meant only to the physical beauty you see in them? For example I sometimes think that North European are much prettier (than my country people) because of their blond hair and blue eyes.

😶‍🌫️🤦🏼‍♂️ I'll stay with chatGPT

Grok is the Chinese one right?

Its actually suprising me how mature chatGPT is, like it collects the best of the best answers one can provide. It cannot replace independent thinking and right-brain insights but still a high quality tool.

Happy Birthday Leo! May all that you wish for yourself come true. Wishing you lots of happiness and good health 🍰🎉🎊🪅

In the other hand today there is too much diversion and individualism that intensifies loneliness, and too little feeling of collective responsibility what makes the disorder worse.

An important point. Do you see that problem was much higher even in the near past 00s and 90s?

By 'right' you mean to the right-wing and conservatism?

We see this in music, art, family conversations even. 20 years ago there were high quality songs you could see that people invested a lot of effort in, but today each new song is a combination of gimmickly sounds effects with much less depth, the words are shallow and sloganish, and the singer is actually half singing and half talking a bunch of nonsense. Singers who are less talented like Taylor Swift get an unproportional popularity wereas singers who are much better then her goes under the radar. People get catched up by gimmicks and whatever catches the eyes, without further thinking.

To my view, when I said "then" I meant to the 90s and early 00s as the reference point to the sanity we lack today. No need to go further in the past to my opinion.

@Sempiternity When in emergency there is a place for vigorous actions but I think this isn't the case today.

Gather Democrat politicians together and declare that we acknowledge and are willing to discuss with Republicans the things we see as important for both parties, and put more emphasis on the common ground. In this way you can soften far right positions and create fewer 'free radicals' in society from both sides. You can't expect far right to soften if you can't do it yourself.

What do you mean by forced communication? Can you give an example?

So now its worse, because we have Dark Ages without the good things of the Dark Ages 😝