trenton

First of all Leo made a video on Islam. Secondly, as for my opinion, I will start with my direct experience with Islam. I went to Washington D.C. and met a Muslim family. I feel sorry for Muslim women because it was a very hot summer day. Her big black dress was making her sweaty, and she could not tolerate walking around like that. Eventually she ran out of the elevator frustrated and her husband, who was dressed much more lightly, chased after her. I then continued my vacation. One thing I don't like about Islam is the fact that women are not allowed to wear lighter clothing when it is 100 degrees outside. They could be hurt by heat strokes walking around like that. My next experience loosely related to Islam was my conversation with a Mormon. I used what I learned in AP art history when I studied different religions and their art work. We both made comparisons to other religions to see the similarities. I discovered that modern religion is aware of the deep similarities it has with other religions. We discussed paradise, nirvana, and heaven. Further comparisons were prayer and mediation, and Yahweh, Allah, teotle, and others, and the true self, no self, and Self. Mormons acknowledge some validity in Islam which is helpful for spiral dynamics stage blue by resolving xenophobia and violence caused by religious bigotry. Speaking of violence caused by religious bigotry, according to my art history class, there are Muslim terrorists destroying the art work of other cultures. Their idea is that if they destroy a cultures history, they have no power and no force to unify their people. It is pretty dark. They don't speak English in the video. Just remember that terrorists are not representative of all of Islam. The vast majority of them are peaceful and in some Muslim cultures they are very welcoming of visitors. Most victims of Muslim terrorism are themselves Muslims, but with a different interpretation. In less developed parts of the world, I hope that there is some way to resolve these disputes without needing one faction of Islam to win out over the others in order to create a unified people. The violence that is motivated by Islam is a dispute over who the descendants of Muhammad were. I am agnostic on this issue, but extremists seem to know how to tell who the descendants were.

@Leo Gura I heard that the Reddit users are at it again in other parts of the market, not just GameStop. This market manipulation is happening constantly. I would love clarification about what would happen if these Reddit stunts continued. Do you think it could cause many economic recessions, or even a depression? If these stunts continue, how could it hurt me? Is there anything that can be done to stop these stunts? They seem to happening too fast. Meanwhile, plots like the Reddit users could pop up all over the internet, over a phone, ect. It does not look like they can be stopped fast enough.

@Leo Gura I am very curious. Why is it that you make so many comparisons to rapists? You make these comparisons in many threads. How can you tell when rape is a valid analogy?

I think the United States needs a third viable political party. I have some ideas as to how this could happen. First 38% of American voters identify as independent. This could occur when people are dissatisfied with both democrats and republicans. During the presidential elections American voters often feel like they are trying to choose the lesser of two evils. If they get sick of this pattern, it could give rise to the third party. I remember trump ran on anti corruption in 2016 seeking term limits, but did not deliver. Seeing how anti corruption is a bipartisan issue, it could unify the third party under a common cause, similar to the Republican party being created to abolish slavery. The goal of this party would be an anti corruption amendment to the constitution. In order to help a party like this again power, a coalition between many independent parties would be useful. In other counties this is how a party with the most votes could lose because of coalition of other parties that add up to more. One example of a coalition being attempted is in Spain. One it's own, one independent party does not have a chance of gaining significant influence. The only way to do that would be through a massive coalition untied to create an anti-corruption amendment.

I have been dealing with this problem for a long time sense before discovering this website. I am still struggling to end the fear surrounding the implications that my entire worldview and sense of reality is maintained through self deception. It means I lie more than I consciously comprehend. This problem of self deception has bothered me since I was eight when I tried to lie to myself by white washing my memories so I could accept a false version of myself. This means that I don't really love myself at all. I then struggled to love myself, but ended up being very anxious the whole time. It lead to racing thoughts, fear of my own thoughts, and self hatred. One problem I ran into is that I said that I would not let myself lie to myself because I was afraid of what would be exposed if I did lie to myself. My life becomes a challenge to convince myself that I am not self deceived in order to avoid confronting my biggest fear. My entire worldview is a defense mechanism. This fear comes up when I contemplate ideology. I see Christian vs. Muslims, science vs. Religion, democrats vs. Republicans, and so forth. People hate each other and end up killing each other. I was drawn to religion a lot as a child. I couldn't tell what drew me towards it, but I didn't like the prospects of locking myself in a narrow worldview without the freedom to explore many perspectives until I die while putting on an act of being religious while hating people who make me doubt my decisions. I am now 22 and I have still yet to resolve this intense fear. I think my life could be amazing if I could resolve this issue somehow. I think I do pretty good at not hating other people. The problem is that I direct it inwards when I detect a quality about myself which I constantly struggle to change. In this thread I hope I can clarify what is the exact quality about myself I want to change, and what do I want to change it to? My main question is how do I stop any inner turmoil associated with relativism and all implications which follow relativism?

@Mu_ my understanding of relativism is that my world view is imaginary, very partial, and false. All beliefs are false from the point of view that my real goal is survival, and I must convince myself that my beliefs are objective. In this way I would be lying. As for what role I am playing, it is very significant. I want to hurt myself. There is an underlying pleasure in many inner conflicts. One example is where I tell myself I am lying in order to make me less effective at it which I view as an improvement. I know that hating myself fuels the fire further and it is the point of beating myself up. I get disgusted with myself to the point that I struggle to admit all of this to myself. It leads to suicidal thoughts when blame myself. Blaming myself also leads to an underlying pleasure. I don't know what to do with this part of me. I wasn't sure if I should put this in serious emotional problems or spirituality. This should probably be moved.

@BipolarGrowth that is pretty accurate and helpful. You are bringing up the lie that I should not lie. The goal of this lie is to convince me that I am not lying. If I am not lying, then I am not self deceived, therefore I can trust myself. Less self deception is useful for understanding what reality is actually like, as a lie would be an inaccurate representation of reality. I don't know any human being who was ever free from self deception entirely. I would probably have to die. I don't want to beat myself up for being alive.

@Leo Gura I mentioned that most of them were actually overwhelmed by the attackers and that the double standard is with some police. I'm aware of the poor framing in BLM saying "all cops are racist" which is a racist way of thinking. What I am trying to say is that in the BLM protests the police arrested and killed for less. One counter argument is that these protesters were not actually treated worse because there were many protests across the nation, so it is likely that there would be more violence. It is possible that my community is framing the issue in completely the wrong way again. Do you think it is fair to say that BLM would have been treated worse for doing the same thing as the maga rioters? At the very least, maybe fewer officers would have been sympathetic.

Wow. Those police officers did nothing. It is completely fair to say BLM would have been treated worse. There is an obvious double standard with some police even though most of them were actually overwhelmed by the attackers.

@Hardkill I watched most of the video you sent. About 50 minutes. First, Shapiro used the democrats agenda to impeach Trump as a means of overlooking all of the other legitimate charges against him that have been overshadowed by the riot. Using the words "Russian nonsense" he appears to be unaware of the fact that there was a witness that the democrats failed to call forward who could have confirmed their claims easily. Here is one of many of the impeachment charges. Secondly, I think Giuliani is more obviously responsible for inciting violence, calling for "trial by combat". I read through Trump's speech and did not find anything that directly incited violence, giving him plausible deniability. I think Trump's banned Twitter posts would be relevant here, but I can't find them. If they are recovered, maybe they should be used against him. He expressed support for the rioters calling them American patriots. Trump was also complicit in the insurrection by not calling the national guard. If you are looking for incitement of violence, I don't think you can legally get trump just by the words before the riot. Trump helping the rioters to attack the capital and kill officers is where Trump was silently responsible. I think Shapiro's best argument was time. Trump may have to be charged criminally after he leaves office instead. Meanwhile, Shapiro is stuck in the original usage of the constitution. The constitution was meant to be flexible in order to account for situations the founding fathers could not foresee. I think the 14th amendment is appropriate and does not need to be limited to the civil war.

First, I want to clarify that it is dangerous to simplify a criticism of Shapiro to he is a jew. It sounds antisemitic, and it is necessary to be more specific in your critics. The problem is not Judaism itself, but the absolutistic worldview that arises from it. You don't have to be Jewish, you could be a Christian, a philosopher, or someone who lacks self reflection. Judaism is one way of building an inflexible worldview. The consequences of an inflexible worldview include biased interpretation, moralizing, a lack of appreciation for the complexity of political issues, close mindedness, and in the case of Shapiro he under values the significance of his own emotions. Although he was hyper disciplined in school, it does not work when attempting to build oneself into a hyper rationalist. By thinking that facts are valued greater than his feelings, he becomes blind to his own emotional biases and becomes what he condemns. Secondly, as for how he naturally speaks, this is a partial defense for his act to fool people. The problem is when this is combined with a massive number of poor arguments in order to win debates. This results in a disregard for truth which people can't catch if he overwhelms his opponents with bad arguments. I just learned that gish galloping is the term. If you debate somebody like this, you need to be prepared for all of the lies and misinterpretations to debunk them in advance. I don't think we should waste our time debating him because even if one person makes a good point, he goes on as if they never existed the next day. There were actually many people who he spoke to in person that debunked his arguments about systemic racism and they may as well have been talking to a wall. One of many was joe Rogan

I call it rapid fire cherry picking. One criticism is that if you were to debate Shapiro, you could lose because he puts out so much falsehood in a short time span that you can't keep up. You need to make many pauses and challenge him point by point. One problem with persuasion is that it has nothing to do with truth. The more truthful side could lose a debate to somebody who is good at tricking people. Shapiro is a very skilled debater and he won many times, but he is not a good source of you are concerned with the truth.

@Hardkill I will tell you about my experience from when I used to follow this guy. At first he seems witty and addicting, but you are greatly underestimating his biases. This was what led me to seeking out better media sources than the daily wire. First of all, he constantly demonizes the left. His biases become obvious when he uses the term "leftist" attempting to make people look bad without understanding them. Shapiro is very poor on issues such as science vs. Religion. Sam Harris is considered more evolved and it is clear when these two are against each other that Shapiro is out classed. Shapiro constantly cherry picks and misinterpreted information about systemic racism. There are several videos criticizing Shapiro in depth. You can see that he sights many sources, but misrepresents them constantly. His bias is very obvious here. Among many other things, his moral absolutism makes him inflexible and incapable of looking at an issue from other perspectives. This can lead to naive libertarian arguments like pulling yourself up by your bootstraps, underestimating the terrible conditions people could have. In fact he sited Martin Luther king to argue the opposite of what he would say. I could go on for a long time so I will just add one more. "Facts don't care about your feelings" is a problematic way to view the world. It does not help you to master your emotions, rather you unconsciously act out emotional biases while pretending to be hyper rational. Ideas like these could hinder your ability to live a happy and fulfilling life. I was hurt by operating under similar ideas before by failing to recognize that hyper rationalism is a consequence of a completely emotional bias. Shapiro is a poor teacher of self love. I ultimately stopped watching Shapiro in favor of this website because it is more worthwhile to listen to. Leo posted a list of better conservatives somewhere in the first half of the mega thread about trump supporters storming the capitol.

I am concerned about the future prospects of this country. It looks like the national deficit is always a background issue waiting with serious consequences. It has worsened substantially since COVID-19. Given how this issue is not being effectively tackled, it looks like the only alternative is to know what is coming if the United States continues to overspend. Is there a realistic way to balance the budget? If not, what are the consequences of ignoring this issue? Are the consequences bad enough to justify moving to another country and converting to a different currency? Interesting fact: the U.S. Was once free of debt thanks to Alexander Hamilton raising taxes, curtailing government spending, and selling federal land. The deficit started up again with the civil war and became more severe with the great depression and world wars. These events were the start of overspending.

A couple years ago I used to follow the conservative media. One day I had the sudden idea that I should cross reference it with other news sources. I was concerned about media bias and thought that I was being misled. After comparing different sources, I found drastic contradictions. I watched the conservative media laugh and make fun of the left for being insane babies. I remember the idea "facts don't care about feelings.". the worst idea was "make them cry again." I can never take these ideas seriously. These mobs are worse than the mobs they condemned before. I started buying into this media when I thought they were smart. Sometimes I think I am stupid because of ever thinking they were smart. This was when I only saw what they wanted me to see. I am worried about what other people would think if they realized that at some point I followed this media. I judge myself because I think others would judge me. I also don't express my thoughts very often because I am worried that my thoughts would hurt people. As a result I was usually silent with my thoughts. For some reason I don't want to forgive myself. I will keep working on this because it doesn't make sense to not forgive my ignorance and it is counter productive to not love myself. At least I am ready to be grateful that my intuition stopped from going any further down that rabbit hole I found in 2017. I felt that there was more value in studying spirituality than in consuming the conservative media.

I would like to know how call it when one side is clearly better. If I say Trump is clearly far worse than Biden, I will sound biased in this judgement. People will tell you that you are the biased one. Is it possible to not sound biased in these conclusions in spite of all of the false equivalences being drawn?

@Nyseto I think you make an interesting point. Spiral dynamics can be turned into a ideology. This is problematic if the limitations are not fully acknowledged. Maybe if Leo has an episode detailing the limits of the model, it will change how these discussions take place. Another interesting idea is that a military soldier might be considered stage blue, but he can be very developed and disciplined. The soldier can be compared to an ordinary citizen who could be considered orange, green, or even yellow. If you start questioning what should people be developing toward, then in a way stage blue can be considered more developed than stage yellow for a given purpose. It therefore does not make sense to say I am better than stage blue because I am stage yellow. Most developmental models assume that people evolve toward higher wisdom. Given a different purpose, the assumption is limited. I think it is important to understand the limitations of the models we use when participating in politics.

One last note. I heard that monopoly is good at teaching businessmen how to make money. I never heard of the strategy games you mentioned, but I like strategy games like chess. These games look like they might be fun, but I never heard of using them to teach politics.

I do have some aspirations to act politically, but I ran into some problems. I am from the United States, so it is difficult for me to say what you should do in Germany or Bulgaria because the college systems in those countries might be different. There were several reasons why I was interested in politics. The first was the principle of the greatest good for the greatest number. I felt that in order to detect the greatest good for the greatest number, I would have to observe my own corruption constantly. This would help to build me into the best person I could be, making me more effective at finding the best course of action for a country. The second reason is because I think the truth reduces suffering. If I become a corrupt politician, I could mislead many people and contribute to the confusion of mankind. One thing I observed about myself is that I am never actually happy when I am being ideological about anything. There could be some truth to what I am saying, but I could hurt myself and others if I turn an educational perspective into a universal prescription. Some people will react badly. One reason I become dishonest is because I don't know how else to represent myself in a comprehensible way. The first problem I ran into was how to become a politician. Nearly 40% of Americans are unsure about the value of their college degree. Some of them don't even use the degree and work in customer service anyway. Jobs in politics can be very competitive, and require a lot of education. I was worried that I might fail and was discouraged from pursuing this education further because it is a gamble that I will get a job in this field. College can also be very expensive and take a lot of time for a master's degree. If I failed, I would be worse off than when I started working at Kroger anyway. The consequences of being discouraged from politics are noticeable. In order to be any good at politics, I need a lot of education, but it is a gamble that my education would be worth it. I thus see less value in learning about politics even though I find it interesting to learn about what major decisions were made and how to predict the consequences. The reasons I had for pursuing politics are no longer being appreciated as deeply as they could be, and I could become part of the problem if I don't know what kind of changes need to be made to our government. Being an under educated voter in the United States is part of the problem. I am a little more educated than some Americans, but it is not enough. The specific type of politics I would be interested in would be the field that best reflects the greatest good for the greatest number. I was discouraged from studying war because diplomacy failed to dissuade Kim Jong Un from building nuclear weapons. This make me doubt how effective I would be at stopping wars. The field I am most interested in is public policy because it is where I can focus on making the lives of many people as easy as possible. I want to detect the consequences of different policies and select the best one. This work would be meaningful to me. To answer some of your questions, it may be necessary to start in local politics to gain experience. I would reason that you should do this in Bulgaria because working in Germany places a limit on you that you can otherwise avoid. I assume that you have purchased the book list from this website already. I found some useful books on it that I read. Part of it relates to politics, but it is not the entire list. The rest of your questions I am not as confident in my answers. One question I have is what is college like in Germany and Bulgaria? If these colleges are different from the United States, it could be less expensive to become a politician. This could work on your favor. The jobs will probably be competitive still, so it might not eliminate the gamble entirely for this major life decision.

I don't want to encourage you to go to prison because there are dangerous people there. I will mention for the sake of being impartial that there was a criminal who went to prison, meditated constantly, and came out reformed as a Buddhist. It is possible, but there are much more dangers involved in prison including, but not limited to, violence, punishments by guards, and infections from poorly cleaned toilets if the prison is over populated. There was another man who went to prison because he was caught with marihuana. He spent most of his time reading, but it was not worth it because the objective of prison is to waste your life. Although you can read and meditate, it is not worth the trade offs especially if you have a family. I should also mention your long term criminal record when you get out. It can make it hard to get a job, leading to poverty. Please reconsider before you get yourself arrested. If you really want to be enlightened, become a monk in a Zen temple and scrub toilets before and after you meditate. This beats prison if you can still access Leo's videos.

I am at a loss for words. I don't know how to respond to what I just watched. I am even further stumped on how I would convince somebody that this video is true proof. The United States is divided to the point that information obtained from the news can instantly be rejected as fake. If this is real, then how would you convince somebody this is real? What would count as proof to somebody thoroughly bought into Trump's ideologies that Trump is not the kind of person who should be President? What should we do about this?

There are a couple of things I am confused about in this thread. First of all, I want to make sure I am interpreting the statistics correctly. When saying "the United States is the worst" it looks like news outlets and politicians are referring to the total deaths. The conclusion I am reaching from this forum is that I am supposed to look at deaths per million instead. I found that the United States has 979 deaths per million, but some countries have over 1000 deaths per million. The UK could be interpreted as worse because it has 990 deaths per million. The United States is the 12th worst country. Am I looking at reliable stats? https://epidemic-stats.com Secondly, I see multiple people agreeing that this news is misleading. How do you sort misleading news from a reliable interpretation of what is happening with COVID-19? What sources should I use for reliable information? So far the most reliable information I found about politics would be in books, but this does not work for current events. Thank you for clarifying that this news is misleading.

@Willie I have seen this idea on both sides. The idea that we must convince a significant portion of another group to change their minds. I hear the phrase "it isn't going to be easy" on both sides. One question I have is historically how successful has this strategy actually been? Is it even a realistic goal to sway 10 million Trump supporters into believing Trump was unsuccessful as President? I doubt these partisan maneuvers would be effective.

I think the government would be affected beyond recognition if it were required to be more transparent about its strategies. This would not pass democratically if people would die needlessly. This is the opposite of the greatest good for the greatest number. I have no idea how long this information can be kept secret among politicians.

I know I skipped many days by this point. It is still bothering me that I am not doing something on this blog similar to chessable. I could come back to this after I am done with my psychologist to see the difference. I also find it annoying to type everything twice since I am doing it for the psychologist already. I want to resolve any anxiety I have that comes up in relation to this blog. I am not sure what else can be done yet.