trenton

This issue seems to get a lot of attention and brings a lot of controversy and division. People become very ideological when one side argues that they are "free speech absolutists" almost like a religious moral argument, a second side argues that the issue of regulating misinformation is misguided and backfires, and a third side argues that "free speech" is a stalking horse for violence, hate speech, defamation, slander, libel, and other forms of baseless conspiracy theories which are illegal. It reminds me a little bit of the abortion debate in which people become very heated while framing the issue in drastically different ways. One side says it is about stopping murder and the other says it is about women's rights and public health. In the case of free speech, the issue is being framed as a moral dispute regarding censorship of what one side calls truth and the other side calls lies. I can see why this issue is deeply misguided if it provokes these kinds of responses, thereby amplifying the problem rather than solving it. I'm trying to imagine a more conscious approach to this kind of discussion, but I am not seeing a way at the moment. I think the issue is that people are sitting at different levels of self awareness and are trying to bring others to that same level. If I were to describe low consciousness, I would say that it feels light and pleasant. This pleasantness often comes from the sense that we are in control of other people's emotions and we choose to make them upset because we can. It is a little smug as we get what we want by pretending to be something we are not. A few examples include people seemingly forcing themselves to say the n word, call trans people by the incorrect name of pronoun, or taking out assumptions for granted as if everyone else should hold them. This would be something like "owning the libs" or the schadenfreude of the fact that republicans are dying of covid. If people are unwilling to see this low consciousness and evolve beyond it, then arguing becomes fruitless, controversial, and divisive. In the case of free speech, the problem is that low consciousness is very addicting hence Tucker Carlson is the most watched news host and the daily wire is the fastest growing conservative podcast while white supremacy is on the rise with over 600 white supremacy organizations active in America today. I would say this controversy concerning free speech is perfectly designed to serve low consciousness, hence it looks so much like a stalking horse to me. It creates an alternative fact or reality that they are being oppressed and it is difficult to argue with these absolutistic positions. Could there be a different way of framing this issue? What would higher consciousness look like In this discussion? I'm not sure of the answers at the moment, but I can see how devilry and selfishness flourishes in the framing, assumptions, hidden motives, and implicit manipulations of other people and the context of the issue.

@Manusia I have recently been contemplating my judgements of religion and How it creates a shadow. I have gathered some good insights which have helped me to relax my judgements as I become more peaceful and happy. At the root of my judgements there is an image I am attempting to survive. When I thought of something like religion, I would think of things like conformity. This conformity would strip away our authentic self as we become vehicles of an ideology rather than what makes us most happy. This is a well meaning approach of pointing to God by sacrificing the ego self. Furthermore, religion tries to lock you into one perspective. This dogmatism rubbed me the wrong way since I was a child. I felt that in order to live a beautiful life, it requires looking at the world from many different perspectives. This would enrich your experience whereas in the case of a fundamentalist Christian for example, he would be locked into on perspective until he dies. In many cases he may only be pretending to be religious anyway because he thinks it's good for a number of reasons. It seemed somewhat tragic and saddening when a fundamentalist lives out someone else's life. I should mention that I was sceptical of the genocides as well. I reasoned that Christians believed they were good and Muslims were evil and Muslims felt likewise. This would be moral relativism and it became more foundational to how I think about reality when I looked at people fighting In politics. My brother feels this way as well In that politics could be a good and interesting educational opportunity, but it just gets so heated. In response to this possibility, I decided that my values would be things like open-mindedness, creativity, individuality, and other things like this. Perhaps these are good values to have, but a lot of This is coming from negative motivation, and only some of it is the positive motivation of seeing the beauty of life from many angles. This creates a shadow out of state blue religions in that they stunt creativity through a conformist paradigm lock. This becomes the root of all kinds of different judgements we have of religion. Most of the judgements we have of stage blue are surface level issues which are only for convenience. The reason I call them convenience arguments is because we give plausible reasons as to why we dislike religion, but they are not out true reasons for our judgements. For example, suppose the Catholics get busted for a sex scandal. If someone was a Catholic all his life and divorced himself from his religion after discovering his six year old daughter was molested by a priest, then for him the sex scandal is the true reason why he judges religion. Meanwhile, the simplistic ego mind wants to just say Catholics are bad because of the sex scandals and I want nothing to do with religion. In this case the sex scandals are retroactive. My true reason for judging religion is that threatens to strip away my originality. Other convenience arguments include religious intolerance and persecution, indoctrination in public schools, righteous anger in response to these things like my atheist friend, the stupid arguments Jehovah's witnesses make, and many more. These reasons are plausible, but they are critical of surface level corruptions and are only manifestations of dogmatism. This low consciousness arguments are likely not your true reasons for judging religion. A similar example in politics just to give more examples would be to say "I hate Trump because of x incident." If this is coming from a progressive, then they probably hated Trump long before whatever else he did and their true reasons are probably deeper than this surface judgement. The problem my psyche is trying to cope with stems from the fact that I have good values, but for negative reasons and it snowballs further and further into the inauthentic self. We could almost say it is analogous to a fundamentalist Christian who became that way because he didn't want to go to hell, rather than because of beauty of being a Christian. this can spiral into all kinds of fraud and hiding skeletons in his closet while wall papering of his doubts. From this level of self awareness, I started thinking I hold these values, but it is as an anti-conformist. What if I could hold these values, but as something other than an anti-conformist? This opened my mind in this not knowing and as I began to wonder, "what could This something else be?" I felt more peaceful, happy, joyful, and playful. This is closer to why I find my values beautiful and it does not require judging religion in order to maintain the self image of an anti-conformist. I would like to expand one how this anti-conformist image influenced my life and behavior. It would come up in school where I would want to stand out and be weird. I was creative in many ways, but there was a neurotic underpinning to this creativity. One example would be the outlandish stories I wrote for school projects. This would catch your attention as you witness my imagination explode in all kinds of ways. Another example is my fear of mediocrity. It makes me judge myself harshly for not living up to my full potential and working a job that does not fit my passion. It makes me bitter and resenting of my life as I regret my indecisiveness in pursuing a life purpose or making one that works. For example, I wanted to be a chess master, but it is hard to make it and hold down a job that exhausts you. My family wanted me to go to college, but there was nothing in college about becoming a chess master so I was indecisive. My resentment in my job and life situation comes from the sense that I am failing to live life to the fullest and it is linked to suicidal thoughts. We could say that judging religion serves an image of an anti-conformist, but this is not who I really feel I am. The judgements which stem from this identity burn on the inside because it does not best represent who I am. But rather the not knowing and mystery of this "something else" makes me fascinated with reality and points me to my authentic self and to who I really am. Of course I don't have to be a conformist an i can still be creative, but what I truly want is something beyond this image. I wonder what my life purpose would look like if I lived like this. I hope you found my story and input helpful.

@Hardkill true that is a risk. There are many great movements that failed through history like MLK and his poor people's march. Many of the failed movements are rarely discussed in the educational system today because these movements are still incomplete and threaten the status quo. Perhaps you think that I am being too idealistic with the progressive movement. At the very least there are a couple of issues that will soon enough chip away at the evils of corporate greed, the Republican party, and religious bigotry. If these ideals are too grand for you, here is my alternative. The Republican party is starting to have some In fighting with "woke corporations" who are lobbying them. This is happening because of the culture war against LGBTQ. Corporations are currently evolving toward progressive values because their profits improve by separating themselves from bigotry. Unfortunately for them, this attracts progressively minded workers. These are the kinds of people who want to unionize in order to improve their wages and working conditions. These corporations which have been feigning progressive values are being strongly pressured to keep their word. Starbucks and Amazon for example have been backed into a corner and have broken hundreds of laws in their anti-union campaign. Even so the workers are coming out on top. If you feel pessimistic because of my idealistic approach, then I should mention that I actually feel optimistic about the progressive movement at this slower rate. The Republican party failed in their culture war against homosexuality, and they will fail again in their transgender bigotry. Meanwhile, if we continue to unionize across the nation, then corporations will evolve and wages will improve. On this front corporate greed and religious bigotry are losing to progress. The issue I am most pessimistic on is climate change and environmental issues. There are so many geo political factors at play and deep governmental corruption because of oil companies and the CIA. In terms of getting money out of politics and making the several necessary constitutional amendments, progress is coming at a snails pace in climate change and it will lead to water wars. If there is any hope on these issues, then just maybe, by pushing corporations to evolve into progressive values through mass unionization, we could get more concessions out of these companies by exposing their green washing campaigns to cover up all of their pollution. Does this make you more optimistic? Progress may be slow this way, but we might have a realistic chance if we are not discussing movements on the scale of the civil war.

@Hardkill unfortunately, I think this is the case. When I think of a movement, I am thinking on the scale of MLK, Ghandi, and others. Another example of bringing about change, although a bad change would be the events of January 6th. I am not saying that we should be violent, but if you look at the scale, how many people showed up in that massive hoard united under one purpose, then that is roughly what the size of the progressive movement should look like across the country. Another idea for a movement I have in mind is about climate change and the rampant human rights violations of oil companies who are responsible for many tragedies across the globe. Chevron owes over 50 billion dollars in lawsuits for their environmental destruction, they pretend nothing is happening, and they use judicial harassment on prosecutors trying to hold them accountable for their actions. Meanwhile, Shell is manipulating entire governments and militaries in order to kill environmental activists in South eastern Nigeria. This oil companies will stop at nothing to slit your throat if you get in the way of their profits. You can just look at the history of union busting and How they used to use machine guns and WW1 planes to bomb protesters. There is even the use of financial terrorism to remove people from their homes using PMCs to damage cameras arguing that you owe them money when you don't. Even the judges will ignore these blatant crimes because they fail to recuse themselves when they hold stock in the companies involved. This atrocities are not gonna be fixed with a couple of protests because there is way too much money and political corruption tied to environmental issues. As MLK would put it, humanity needs a revolution of moral values. We have subordinated the well being of mankind to the dollar and by tying the dollar to oil we have locked ourselves in endless militarization to place puppet governments in power across the globe. America is using its military power to subvert democracy in many nations which would otherwise flourish. The CIA admits all of these things as they use the pretense of stopping the commies all to maintain global domination by monopolizing oil and water to maximize profits. This is the attitude that the progressive movement needs, and this is roughly the scale of the movement we should be thinking of if we want change. These are the kinds of politicians we need to be supporting. Minutes 10-11 are what I'm talking about. https://reason.com/volokh/2021/09/28/federal-judges-failed-to-recuse-in-hundreds-of-cases/#:~:text=Over 100 federal judges failed to recuse themselves,a company involved in a case before them. If you want change, this is the scale I have in mind. Of course dont be violent and murder people, but we need a "revolution of moral values" as we properly confront these crimes against humanity.

There are multiple websites on this issue. Not only is there PTSD, but there is also PITS. Here is one of the sites and quotes. https://www.surgeactivism.org/articles/slaughterhouse-workers-and-ptsd “Perpetrator-Induced Traumatic Stress” (PITS) syndrome, such as increasing dissociation and nightmares: “One day I dream that the cow gets out at the stunning box. It was alive. Then, I think that I am crying and running, and that time I am not running. Down here! Down here! [motioning that he fell down]. The cow is coming and you fall down! You fall down!” “I dream about the cattle, when you stun it, it just fall down, after falling down, when you open the door it will ask you: ‘Why are you killing me?’” I see what you mean about the psychopaths being dissociated with what they are doing, and there are many ways in which this unusual way of thinking could be a talent. Perhaps working in a slaughterhouse is another way if they love it. Interesting idea. Glad to hear it! Good for you! This is the balance we need to strike with such ugly realities. This is a misunderstanding of what I meant. When I mean framing this as a health issue, I don't mean we should become vegans. There are some people in this forum like that, but not me. I am referring to the fact that the EPA and FDA guidelines are outdated and poorly enforced. The food industry is deeply corrupt and responsible for all kinds of health issues aside from just meat. I am not saying we should get rid of meat, but if you want to improve the quality of meat, then we can start by not feeding animals plastic garbage. As for a meat alternative, I don't know what that would be, I never looked into that so much. What do you have in mind? Other ways to reform the food industry require a widespread movement to challenge the lobbyists who stand to gain from the lead, mercury, pfas, arsenic, and micro plastics in our food and water. The treatment of animals is only a small portion of what I mean by health issues, as the concern is about putting cameras in factory farms and not feeding animals what we are feeding them. The rest is well beyond animal treatment, but such a movement would likely improve animal treatment a little. Sorry if I was not clear about all of this.

One way I think of government is that it never brings about deep systemic itself. The best you will get is policy reform. The government is naturally resistant to change because it is stuck in previous survival strategies that and must demonize the "radical left" in order to maintain its sense of order. In many of the examples you mentioned, these changes were not thanks to the government, but rather the mass mobilization of millions. Real change comes from changing how people think, rather than fighting in the futile back and forth of passing progressive policies only for it to be stripped away by the next conservative in office. Perhaps abortion is an example of this with roe vs wade. And remember the abolition movement was only successful thanks to a very bloody civil war, not peaceful election and persuasion. If you look at progressive members of Congress, you will find further proof that government is not designed for deep systemic change and it has a heavy bias toward the status quo. Many progressive members still take money from oil companies, this causing them to over promise on environmental issues and there are pressures on place causing most progressives to vote on favor of military spending, security, and the war on terror which is rarely referred to as the oil wars or water wars. Most progressives in office are limited in the kinds of changes they are able to make because of these pressures. I can think of many necessary movements to bring about change beyond public policy. Challenging the FDA and EPA guidelines on pfas, heavy metals, and micro plastics, arguing that the food industry is responsible for 80% of American health issues comes to mind. There is so much money on the line that change will never come from the government hence the safety guidelines are both dated and poorly enforced. Only wide spread mobilization can challenge money in politics. Mass polarization in America does not help as we are the most polarized nation in the world and it makes it impossible to reason with a very partisan Trump supporter.

@RendHeaven gen 5 music is amazing. There are a few relaxing themes from gen 4 I like. Gyarados could probably be added to a rain team with Milotic. The flying type kind of confuses me on Gyarados. You probably enjoy the convenient evolution timing with Gyarados. This is like when James kicked the magikarp and called it useless only to evolve at that second, it is a common joke. Perhaps there is a deeper story that could be made around this evolution line. When everybody thinks your pathetic and worthless, you never stop struggling until you prove your true potential which comes from always believing in yourself no matter what odds are stacked against you. I never played reborn or rejuvenation, and I might check it out. In the meantime here is some music. This is an interesting on. It is nice and peaceful until 1:10-1:16. The end of this song has the creepy ringing sound from the old chateau and it always bothered me in this otherwise relaxing theme. You can find that same ringing noise at the start of the old chateau theme. Other nice themes are like eterna forest, the early routes are playful, jubilife city is relaxing, and of course the starting town in many different games are fun. I like a lot to them. I love gen 5 music and there are a ton of themes I might not mention. This last one is simple, peaceful, and almost makes me want to cry. It speaks to my heart somehow. There are a ton of other themes from gen 5 I like. I could not name them all.

I tested Leo's claims about the hospitals and I discovered that he was right about their behavior. I asked them "how much do you charge for the emergency room?" They answered "it depends on your insurance." I asked "what if I don't have insurance?" They then said "it depends on your injuries." I asked "how much do you charge if my eye is torn out?" She then shrugged. What questions should I ask the hospitals in my area to get a straight answer on what they actually charge for these services? My doctor also underestimates the dangers of heavy metals, pfas, and micro plastics. He also advised against using psychedelics to see if they prove the existence of God. The last one makes sense if he would get in trouble for saying otherwise.

This has been happening to me since I was a kid. I would isolate myself from other people and be quiet. I was able to intuit why I don't like socializing but I did not know how to explain it nor did I want to. Basically, when I socialize with people they influence me. I then begin to change in the process and mimic what I am influenced by. The same happens with the influence of my culture. I change to match what they are and in doing so something is lost in the process and that would be who I was previously. In order to minimize influence I isolated myself from other people at home and school. I would instead pace back and forth at a distance from others. An analogy would be the collective identity of a nation. The reason there is so much fear regarding foreigners is because they influence the collective demographic and thus our national identity. The United States is a great example because it used to have a strong isolationist policy. This is designed to minimize influence of other nations through communicating with them on global affairs. This lead to the collective punishment of other races through things like the Chinese exclusion act. This racist history was the struggle to maintain the former identity which would be lost. Similarly, the hesitancy of Sweden when asked to join NATO was a manifestation of the goal to maintain the neutral identity. When the goal is to maintain who we are, then this can lead to a lot of misconceptions, lies, and fears that prevents us from seeing clearly. I hope some of you find this helpful. One way to twist spiritual truths like those in quietism would be to become a recluse. This can be a front of spirituality, but in fact it is a method of preserving the ego identity. Spirituality is doomed to fail if one fears the influence others as it entails ego death. What is it like to not fear the loss of my identity? I imagine that it would be more truthful as it does not stem from fear and emotional reactions to a possible change.

@Inliytened1 @LastThursday I think you both put this pretty nicely. I would like to make an analogy to how I approach chess because it works very well. I think of it as if I know that there are many things I don't know. Because of this there are many ways in which my judgement could be flawed. There is nothing wrong with this per say because over time experience will change my judgement as new knowledge comes to me. The idea that I'm getting is that if I could some how apply this logic to other areas of my life, then I would solve a lot of inner conflict and self doubt. In the case of socializing it could be that my identity changes in the process because other people will teach me something i don't know. Yes I am socially awkward now, but my judgement and behavior should change over time if I were not afraid of the appearance that there are so many ways to go wrong and make a bad situation. If I could somehow apply this growth mindset to my entire worldview, then I could have a lot of potential for self improvement.

@RendHeaven thank you for telling me I'm awesome. I saw that your a Pokemon fan too. I stopped playing the main stream games after generation 7. Unlike my sister I didn't want to buy new game consoles just to keep up with everything. I managed to collect nearly every Pokemon up to that point aside from a couple of event only pokemon. My first Pokemon game was gold version on the game boy color. I tried playing silver, but something was wrong with the game and it didn't save properly. Yellow version worked just fine though. I never played the third generation games because I didn't have a game boy advance and I stopped at sun and moon. I played with my sister and helped her get deoxys alpha sapphire though which was fun. I spent over one hundred hours on Pokemon platinum. I had finally gotten the villa toward the end of the post game. I remember that feeling or impulse I had which said "get them all." I then played everyday catching every Pokemon I could except for a couple of event pokemon. I transferred all of it to Pokemon white and I have well over 600 pokemon, I don't remember the exact number. I have over a hundred hours on that game as well. The only pokemon I didn't catch were mew, celebi, jirachi, darkrai, arceus, and melloetta. I have darkrai, arceus, and mew in another game now though. In later games I got everything but magerna and marshadow. I believe I finished the kalos dex. My favorite one to play might be black two and white two. These versions give you a lot to do like joy avenue, the championship matches, and so on. Some of my favorite Pokemon are mew, sylveon, gardevoir,( I was attracted to its trainer loyalty in platinum when it created a black hole to defend its trainer. I thought it was cool so I put it on my team, unaware of the porn.), Murkrow has a nice hat, Scolopede looks cool, zorua is cute, and a bunch of others. I once killed an arceus in a competitive battle with a level one rattata. I never saw my opponent's reaction so I can only imagine. If I had to choose a competitive team, I would use a sand storm team like tyranitar and metagross, set up spikes and stealth rock, something like this looks interesting. Rain teams are interesting too, especially with thunder and hurricane never missing.

I enjoyed Pokemon mystery dungeon explorers of sky. There are so many potential fan fictions of this master piece. Basically, your a human who travelled from the future and transformed into a Pokemon on a mission to stop the planet's paralysis. In this process you intend to change history, therefore causing you to disappear. The game says it is for like 10 year olds, but you are constantly on a suicide mission to defeat the God of time. It is an emotional roller coaster and fun to play. There are a couple of plot holes like the visions that are never fully explained though, and it looks like they are there just to conveniently advance the plot. PMDgang makes a lot of fan fictions on YouTube and there is some good music from this game and fan made music. The biggest disappointment is that the animated series of this only lasted 4 episodes instead of 200 episodes. there was so much potential for all the missions and stories. This is more disappointing than the Zelda animated series which could have been so much cooler. Imagine an episode of link gathering the chickens. The guard in front of death mountain recommends that He prepares himself by getting an empty bottle and filling it with a red potion. He climbs up the windmill as it pours down rain and the building is struck by lightning. He holds into some ropes like In the intro to links awakening. Finally he jumps off the windmill as the clouds part and the sunlight shines on link flying down with the chicken he caught. He then fills the empty bottle with a red potion to help him right king dodongo, so the filler episodes would actually be relevant. Pokemon mystery dungeon could do this with the side mission rewards such as max elixers, reviver seeds, and other useful items. These items are used in later dungeons against bosses.

I notice a common pattern in my thinking is to call myself names. This is often to cover up my embarrassment related to a thought I previously thought was smart but now think is not. The names include monster, idiot, genius, and more. I want to write this down because I am curious about how much better I would be off if I stopped this. I'd imagine that I would get better at detecting suppressed emotions and releasing them. This is key to mastery in chess and probably other parts of life as well. I also have a tournament coming up in a couple of days. It is the Indy 3500. I will be playing in the championship section of 1800+. I am about 1830 or so. This should be interesting if most players are higher rates than me. One challenge is that this is a one day tournament. There are four games back to back each about two hours. I need to wake up at about five o'clock to start going to Indianapolis. These two aspects make it seem more difficult, especially since I work Friday. I think I will be able to handle it. On a related note I am letting go of becoming a grandmaster. I asked other gms and they told me that if I have to hold down a job and I don't have the money to travel to a lot of tournaments then this kills the idea. It seems that something has to fall your way to get that far. This includes upbringing such as having a father who is rated 2000 train you since you were five. When it comes to my chess development I was mostly on my own with this interest as most of the family did not want to study these things. My chess development was slower and I may not get As far. I am not upset about these things and it feels almost relieving. It helps me to have a greater understanding for those who are slower in development as much of it depends on circumstances and upbringing. This way I can look at someone rate 1100 for instance and know that they are doing their best given their life circumstances. I am also careful to not turn this into a limiting belief. I know I am capable of becoming at least a life master because I defeated candidate masters and play very well in my peak form. I trained the first chess team at walnut hills and was the first in the history of the school to win the scholastic chess series. I still have a lot to learn and it can get overwhelming, but I am making steady progress.

I notice a common pattern in my thinking is to call myself names. This is often to cover up my embarrassment related to a thought I previously thought was smart but now think is not. The names include monster, idiot, genius, and more. I want to write this down because I am curious about how much better I would be off if I stopped this. I'd imagine that I would get better at detecting suppressed emotions and releasing them. This is key to mastery in chess and probably other parts of life as well. Meanwhile I started backsliding on my diet again and I am staying up later. I will perform better if I get back on track.

May 1 I am coming with an update from a chess tournament it was the 81st Indiana state championship. I was playing up in the open against much stronger opponents. I performed well in spite of my lower rating and went up by 100 points. I drove up to Indiana with mom and Dave. We checked into my hotel room where I would stay alone for two days. I was thrilled and this was a dream come true. Staying in a hotel in an unfamiliar location playing chess against strong opponents. This is the life! I did my best to eat healthy because there is an obvious difference in my performance when I eat fruit smoothies and tuna over sugar. Chess is a great motivator for personal development when it comes to emotional mastery and health. In round one I played a candidate master rated 300 points higher than me and won. He played an old variation of the Nimzo Indian Defense and I allowed him a few chances to equalize, but I was never in serious trouble. He was tempted to fudge the results after the game, but I didn't let him. I spent my time between rounds either practicing the najdorf variation or observing the emotions in my body. I didn't have much good so I had to order fast food from door dash. Ideally I would avoid this junk food too, but I didn't have enough to eat. That night I cried because I noticed that my mind was doing its best to understand itself but only being partially successful. It seems to be part of OCD and autism, and if I manage to grow and cope with some of the symptoms that effect my thinking system, then I can become an extremely powerful chess player. For example, I might think for less time and play equally powerful moves. This would be on the level of a life master of I accomplished this. I am working on all of this as I write this. I slept well in spite of the McDonald's. In round two I played another candidate master. I was kicking his butt early on, but I failed to convert the full point. He put up a stubborn resistance and drew. I need some work on converting won games. Round three I played a life master. I played aggressively early on, but I messed up and was on the back foot. Eventually I nearly drew, but my opponent looked at me and decided to take a risk because I was nervous. Since I was not confident he decided that I would probably make mistake and lose later on. My nervous bladder played a role in this game. Ultimately I lost even though I could have drawn had I been more confident. This was my Most instructive game of all. That night door dash canceled my dinner and I did not have enough to eat. This lead to an obvious difference in my state of mind for the rest of the tournament. I could not focus and I was making silly mistakes. Round 4 I trusted my memory over my concrete analysis and got a worse position out of the opening. I was then forced to improvise for the rest of the game, proving only partial compensation for the material sacrifice. I never took back the pawn if it meant giving white a position with better placed pieces as my pieces would be uncoordinated after winning back the pawn. Finally, after 40 moves won back the pawn and set up a snare. My opponent in his time trouble fell for the snare and realized it when it was too late. This allowed me to swindle the win and he was pissed. I made an enemy that day. Round five was poor. I was exhausted and had a better position out of the opening and dropped it to a knight tactic. I lost quickly in that game. I need to anticipate my fatigue and work to prevent it. Maybe if I had more and better food to eat last night I would have maintained higher performance. This moves themselves in an analysis are only one small part of the chess game. The real chess game includes all of the personal development that goes into diet, exercises, emotional mastery, and more. Of course I need to improve in every aspect of the game, but there is more to chess than just memorizing moves. You need to build yourself up as well, not just win the quiz show. A couple of interesting experiences included running into chess players who were studying the same thing as me. The champion and I were both using Chessable which was kind of funny. The guy I drew was the former champion of this tournament. Finally, I ran into Christians and it was interesting. First they were talking about Moses and discussing some of the prayers that Jews do. Next they started talking about bible studies and fear of God. I was familiar with this last time I went to church and there was a theme of fear. Those who fear God go to heaven. The man leading the bible study said that fear does not necessarily mean be afraid of God, he could mean have respect for God. This would avoid punishment and wrath without being paranoid and terrified. That seems a little new it reminds me of having respect for psychedelics versus being scared of them because of the war on drugs. one woman mentioned that we often get stuck in every day life trying to make ends meet and we fail to see the beauty of life. She then went on to say that she hears the birds more often and it helps her remember the infinite intelligence with which all of existence is designed. I walked outside and looked at the geese and noticed more intricate patterns on the feathers as if they are each unique like our faces or a leopards spots. It reminds me of racism when I feel like black people look more similar to each other than white people. It happens because I don't see the deep intelligence with which all of existence is designed and I thus focus on the obvious difference of skin tone. If I were exposed to more black people I would be better at spotting differences and getting used to names I am not used to. This is how mankind can be taught unconditional love through the appreciation of uniqueness in every aspect of creation. All in all a very fun experience. I look forward to future tournaments. In the meantime I will continue working to understand my mind and the effects of autism, OCD, and other mental conditions to master my life.

@Reciprocality explaining moral relativism in this way seems like a very straight forward way of avoiding an opinionated outcome. I was worried that trying to point to a bad influence would keep a child stuck in the same endless back and forth. I remember I used to make sense of this by looking at the holy wars. When judging from different moral values you reach different conclusions about who the bad guy is.

It seems that polarization is a going to remain a part of the heated discourse in American or Australian politics. A response I see in children is that they don't like the fighting at the dinner table when the family starts arguing over various political issues and they may quietly leave the room. This can include wealth inequality, elections, abortion, LGBTQ, and so on. Some children will leave the room and hide from the rest of the family because they see no way to stop the fighting. Imagine that five year old Jimmy is worried about all of the fighting in family. For example, mom and his sisters are fighting over abortion as grandma and grandpa insist that the election was stolen while using the N-word. Jimmy wants the fighting to stop so his family can be happy. Jimmy does not understand why the family is fighting so much. Your task is to explain polarization to Jimmy and teach him to navigate the situation. If I were to try this, I would start by informing the family that Jimmy is uncomfortable with all of this fighting and he wants the family to be happy. By first telling them that you are uncomfortable with the situation, the family should immediately become more aware of the fact that they are yelling and getting angry with each other. This alone should stop some of the fighting. I would also point out that the grandparents are a terrible influence and Jimmy should probably be removed the situation. This would probably cause more fighting, and it does not seem ideal if Jimmy wants his family to be happy rather than separated by political ideologies. If for some reason there is no way to stop the fighting, then I have never found a good answer to this scenario. I would try to tell Jimmy to avoid contributing the situation and making it worse. A common cause of this fighting comes from people looking at only one news source. People then repeat what they heard from that news source without comparing it to other sources. The problem with this is that it is a bit complicated to ask a five year old to do independent research and compare a dozen different sources to figure out what is actually happening in the world. The approach I am attempting to use is to teach children to value open mindedness so they don't get stuck in one point of view and thus contribute to the polarization. In fact there is likely not much that can be done to stop this fighting if the family is not open minded to new sources and they don't care about the child's feelings. At that point the best Jimmy could do is focus on doing better in school and try to let his family sort this out themselves. His family needs to learn that this kind of fighting can go on and on and on and they will not be happy. Maybe there is a better approach you could give young children on these sorts of issues. How would you explain polarization to a five year old?

Oh my God this is relatively true. There is a logical fallacy about appealing to authority, but in practice this is useless. I don't see a point in trying to convince people unless I find some celebrity they like. This becomes very frustrating and I lose interest in sharing cool ideas like colonizing mars in reaction to climate change. Everybody thought the idea was stupid until Stephen hawking came out and said that we should colonize mars in reaction to climate change. Now the idea is brilliant because a scientific celebrity said it. This is a major problem in science as well because if a big name scientist promotes simulation theory then everybody will think it is brilliant without thinking critically. How do you even calculate the probability that God created the universe? This is just silly. There might be a better way, but I have given up on talking to people who refuse to look at any research when I present the sources to them. I can't change willful ignorance.

Most of my family was interested in how I explained spiral dynamics and demonstrated the conflicts of mankind. I try to be very careful about leaving the impression that some states are better than others, but my sister still thinks of it as liberals are better than conservatives. Meanwhile, my grandma was interested in learning spiral dynamics, but she interpreted the model as Donald Trump being stage yellow. My brother is more interested in understanding how societies evolve, the implications in geopolitics, and what to expect in the future. He noticed that societies often evolve by the older worldviews dying off and becoming irrelevant. Then the younger generation repeats The cycle. My brother, two cousins, and my grandma on my mother's side seem to get The most benefit from research and development theories and we don't argue much at all. The interesting part is when I tried to apply spiral dynamics to the conflicts in my family. I strongly hesitate to say that I'm stage yellow as if I am the most developed in the family, as that would be an obvious sign of self bias. I also found that individuals can be very mixed and it is hard to say that they are just at x stage. They seem to be a mix of stage blue and green. Much of this is caused by our family's history of drug dealing. My family reacts strongly to psychedelics because of this, but on the other hand they also practice yoga, are open to other religions, and appear mostly liberal. Most of the conflicts in my family are the parts which are stage blue vs the parts which are stage green. For example, my grandma on my father's side is still saying the n word and calling Obama a Muslim. My grandma on my mother's side looks at her like she is stupid because we can have whatever religion we want. Most of my family is close minded to research into psychedelics, so I only discuss it with three people in my family. My transgender cousin appreciates me saying "him" as this becomes a point of conflict sometimes. My family seems to have very mixed feelings about abortion when they argue about it. I tried to tell my family that I would rather have a quieter discussion of politics as we compare and contrast many different sources to see what can find. My mom said that would be no fun and she just wants to make my sister upset. Meanwhile my sister thinks that the research isn't worth her time. So far the best I have managed to do is change the topic from politics. My brother is often disappointed in politics because it devolves into people shouting rather than learning. We share our research with each other and don't really argue. How would you approach this kind of family?

Today was interesting. I am noticing more and more how badly sugar years up my brain for chess. My family is still giving me candy for holidays and I don't want it anymore. I took my Easter candy and gave it away to a random kid near a park. I told him that I had a bunch of candy in my backpack but it made me sick to my stomach. I asked him if he wants all the candy. His eyes widened in disbelief as he said yes. I then unzipped the bag and gave him the candy. He was thrilled and the other kids got jealous when they found out. I noticed the kid backed away from me for a second as if uncomfortable. I told him that if his parents asked where he got the candy, then make sure they know I didn't tell him to jump into the back of my white van or anything of that nature. The candy was his no strings attached. I then left the area, but looked back when I saw the kids fighting over the candy. "My candy!" The boy yelled as he held the bag away from the other kids. Eventually they stopped and nobody was hurt. Anyway I'm glad I made his day. I decided to keep this from my family because they would probably chastise me for being a creepy man at the park and giving a kid some candy. I'm happy with myself though. Meanwhile with Chess I have been practicing a lot of najdorf variations on Chessable. I purchased a full course, but this one is not panning out as well as I would hope. The thing is that most players don't follow the theory of najdorf. I hope it works well for learning typical patterns which I have already picked up a couple, but the main thing I need is calculating the resulting positions when out of book. A gm can show me all the best moves, but without the ability to find such moves I am left with memorization. So far I have mixed feelings on the course but it is okay. I devised a better training method for my purposes. I found a list of games in the najdorf and started playing through those with my tournament board. This helps me much more when I sit down and practice calculating the positions. I will see a lot of typical patterns for white and black this way, but I also train how I think about it without just memory. So far my opinion of the najdorf somewhat favors white, but I will keep practicing. About a week ago I tried practicing the French, but found that black can easily stumble into a strategically losing position because of the bad bishop. I felt that the risk was not worth the potential queenside pressure which seemed promising at first. I did get a little better playing the French with both sides anyway. I think the key is not to get fixed on one color, and see how these games pan out in practice. I have a special gift in my enthusiasm, inner joy, and flow which make can make me play as well as a 2300. I am going to hone this gift by feeding my brain the right foods and getting rid of the things that make me groggy. Tuna and eggs are start. Smoothies will help for lunch or breakfast. Beyond that my options start to seem limited unless I stop saving the fruits for lunch and eat them as snacks. There are some veggies that I take as snacks too sometimes. But for lunch and dinner? I usually just cook something out of a box, or some oatmeal or something. I typically just go for convenience, but this just will not do for a chess brain. Neither will skipping exercise. If I want to hone this gift, I must treat it with care so I can tap into my inner genius.

https://www.globalslaveryindex.org Of course we have slavery and it never went away. 1. The 13th amendment bans slavery except as punishment for a crime. Slavery is still legal in prisons. 2. Developed countries merely externalize slave labor by importing from other countries and sending jobs overseas. The U.S.for example imports 91 billions dollars of electronic slave products. By the way Apple sometimes refused its sweatshop workers a minimum wage resulting in riots. 3. Human trafficking counts in Slavery and most of the victims are sex slaves. One tactic for solving this is to legalize prostitution, thus preventing people from turning to the black market where it becomes forced prostitution. 4. Some consider wage slavery a less overt form of slavery in that you are paid enough to survive. If you think about slave masters had to pay for your food and shelter any way, but this time it comes as a wage. 5. Open your eyes Sometimes the conditions of slavery are even worse because of overpopulation. It makes it easier to replace slaves with new victims rather than giving slaves medical care. When slaves had to be transferred from Africa, it was a long, difficult, and expensive process to get a slave. Now the process is easier, hence slaves are worked to death and replaced. For example, fishing boats may work you 23 hours a day because they don't care if you die. It is absolutely brutal.

To quote Wikipedia. "Sumerian and Akkadian texts from 4500 years ago document transgender or transvestite priests known as gala. Likely depictions occur in art around the Mediterranean from 9000 to 3700 years ago. In Ancient Greece, Phrygia, and Rome, there were galli priests that some scholars believe to have been trans women." apparently some trans women were priests. Perhaps they proved their dedication to God by cutting off their private parts and becoming female. The olden days were intense for religious faith. I guess that's one way to abstain from sex. Transgenderism would be an honor if used in this way to prove dedication and integrity. I remember some ancient emperors were afraid of their guards having sex with the harem of women. These guards were castrated to prevent them from having sex. I believe that was in Rome. They were called Eunuch.

All of that seems so astounding that I would have to see it to believe it. Life would be incredible if I discovered that the miracles of Jesus were more than just embellished fairy tales. I should probably check out that biography you mentioned. I'm immediately skeptical of these claims, but if they turn out to be true then it will blow my mind wide open. I remember a trap is to value gaining powers over actually seeking truth. It just makes my mind wonder what else in the universe could be possible. It is a little bit like the psychological benefits of religion when someone believes that miracles are possible. It makes me enthusiastic about exploring spirituality. It is not about getting powers and using them per say, I just want to know what else is possible that I assumed was impossible. If people can seriously levitate, walk on water, or live for 200 years through spiritual energy, then my paradigm which tells me what is possible or not would be shattered.

@Rokazulu I remember Neald Walsh wrote that God gave us bodies meant to last forever and a perfect God would give us no less. Just imagine what the world would look like if nobody needed food. It seems crazy to think about, but if it were possible it would make a world beyond recognition. Where did you hear about this ability to live without food? What is a higher source of alternative? How can I tap into it? Immortality is a fascinating topic.

I agree that the bear had beautiful eyes. I want you to not guilt yourself too hard for failing to live up to a vegan ideal. Remember, people who work in slaughter houses end up with all kinds of mental problems like ptsd. They must insist to themselves that animals are less valuable than humans in order to keep doing such a job. With your attitude, you probably would not work in a slaughter house, and most people don't want that kind of job. Sometimes factory farms have a hard time hiring people. Equating yourself to a deeply evil or unconscious person will only lead you to tearing yourself down and it is not resourceful. Keep in mind that humans could not have made it this far without killing fish and squirrels and cooking them over fire. If you want to help animals, then I think it would be most effective to frame it as an issue of human health. Yes it is selfish and biased, but this is how most people think. If we have more research done on the damages caused by micro plastics for instance, then we would have more proof that we are killing ourselves through feeding factory farm animals literal plastic garbage. I told my doctor about these things and he just assumed that there was not too much of it and we would be fine. Pushing science further in understanding human health and our relationship to the environment would ultimately translate into better treatment of some animals. As for poachers, it looks like some animals need to be moved to zoos for protection even though this is depressing for them. They walk back and forth in an anxious manner if you look at them long enough. They don't like being out of their natural habitat and they start going crazy. This is the dark reality underlying an innocent child laughing and saying "look at that cool tiger!". My grandfather used to be in prison for his drug deals and he never enjoyed the zoo after that because he could feel the animals were trapped like he was.