Jodistrict

Robert Kennedy, Jr is not an anti-vaxer. He believes in vaccines. His issue with covid was safety. In his book, he argues like a lawyer and provides references to back up everything he says. I haven't heard anyone seriously argue his points with reason. Instead they call him names. The ruling class and media lackies don't want him to run on real issues and actually change the country, because the present system is very profitable for them.

He's the only politician talking about the real issue - the kleptocracy - rather than this fake culture wars left/right nonsense that diverts attention away from the bad actions of the ruling class. If Kennedy catches fire there will be no stopping him. He transcends the fake paradigm and will attract Trump voters as well as traditional democrats and even progressives.

All the spiritual traditions agree that a prerequisite to awakening (or connection with God) requires a purification process. This is the work of transcending the lower self. Sufism has the Tazkiyatun Nafs. In Christianity, there is sanctification. In Hinduism, Karma Yoga. In the Amazon, they equate purification with vomiting, coming from a jungle environment, and they have dozens of plant medicines to do this. It is considered to be even more important than taking ayahuasca. If you have a powerful 5-meo experience where you experience non duality, but then the next day you blow up because someone stepped in front of you in line, then what did you actually experience? What good did it do since you are still back in ego? Is this evidence that is was a false experience or a simulation? In a spiritual journey, the soul becomes more calm after years of letting go, transcending into higher vibrations. Can we shortcut the work with psychedelics? Is the ego that easily dislodged? Observation of humans tells us no. Psychedelics gives you a temporary “get out of jail” card, but in the morning you go back to prison. Getting out permanently has its own time and rhythm and can’t be rushed. I’m a completely different person now than I was four years ago, but it took time.

I see it like this. Medititation = long term neuronal change (i.e., rewiring). Psychedelics = add new memory to memory store. I have heard the claim from faciliators that there is a neuroplasticity in effect for a week after a trip which makes it easier to change ingrained patterns and habits. But the actual change work is being done after the trip.

Meditation is effective because it changes the brain over the long term. It takes time and repeated repetition for the brain to develop new synapses. Psychedelics gives you an intense experience over a brief period of time which fades the next day. Say, for example, at that moment you have an intense experience of love, but as soon as the chemical wears off it is gone. Having a consistent experience of joy and love takes series spiritual work on a daily basis. Are we being fooled by the feeling of “deep” which is an intense feeling state, but nothing changes over the long term?

I have done alot of psychedelics in the past four years, but i believe that a solid meditation and mindfulness practice is the way to go.

I admit that I don't understand the trans issue. But there seems to be some biological truth for a small number of people. But I totally don't get the spreading social hysteria over this and why it has become such a big issue.

Do you think Jimmy Hendrix was black? He was actually African-American, Irish, and Cherokee. Why don't we call Jimmy Hendrix Irish? Race is in the eye of the beholder. Being worked up over someone's race is a mental illness.

This is actually a good question. For example, if someone is adopted into a family of a different "race", they are going to fully identify with their parents. Since "race" itself is not biological, but a social construct - the person is in fact of the same culture even though he is not biologically related to his parents. This would be traumatic when you are being told by people that you shouldn't be what you know you are.

What he admits to in the video violates Islam and Sharia law, which he says he has converted to. So does he now repudiate these practices? Or is he just using Islam like he uses everything else?

Isn’t Don Beck known for expressing support for Donald Trump? Spiral Dynamics is value laden and provides justification for neoliberal economics. Indigenous people who are fighting to keep their land from multinational developers are “purple” at the lower end of the spiral, who need to be “civilized” (i.e., accept that there land was stolen) . Academics don’t take Spiral Dynamics seriously because of the lack of empirical evidence and the heavy reliance on subjective observation. The theory comes from popular books and articles, and not peer-reviewed publications.

These businesses are garbage. They know how to create hope through their cleaver marketing, in a way that is approved by their lawyers to avoid fraud laws. They create an “image” of being an “expert” through social manipulation of the Internet. This increase the perceived value of their product, and the ridiculous price furthers the false perception. Shills also further increase perceived value. The quality of the actual product sold doesn’t matter. Paying money for some Internet course or zoom room is a waste of money. If you are going to pay money at least get personal face attention. But good luck finding anyone qualified.

Spiral dynamics is looking at the world with the implicit values of a modern, capitalistic society. It’s a spiral with a direction moving upwards implying that the “higher” levels are better than the “lower levels”. In my opinion, it is psuedo science. But the “red, green, orange, blue” categories seem to be a semi useful shorthand explanation for the purposes of facilitating discussion. But do these catagories trivialize the complexity of society?

Psymposia is a psychedelic watchdog group. This is a good source that cuts through the mass marketing hypeing of psychedelics, so that you can get more accurate information. The “power trip” episodes expose abuse in the psychedelic community. https://www.psymposia.com/powertrip/

This is a thought provoking article which challenges psychedelic overbeliefs and discusses risk of long-term harm. "Do psychedelics really always 'give us what we need'? https://psychedelicsociety.org.uk/media/0ov5pc3xqbx24wwb56e4m0kfj15dkl?fbclid=IwAR0ZXlCPsCrzcCenuA8TLI9Q5yJ8jmg-KOBhkcN6HsJcgLv1j83KSgLT-ec

Correct. The desire for liberation is what keeps us on the spiritual path. This is a wholesome desire.

The Buddha made the distinction between wholesome desires an unwholesome desires. Curiosity is a wholesome desire. It is unwholesome desires, such as greed, hatred, and delusion that cause suffering. These are desires because they are rooted in craving and attachment. Greed is the desire to acquire more, while hatred is the desire to push away or destroy. Delusion is a strong attachment to our opinions and views. Unwholesome desires lead to attachment and ultimately suffering.

It's cultural conditioning. Buddhists have hot hells and cold hells. But Christians always just happen to see hell as hot.

I find Arthur Janov’s explanation to be interesting. Hallucinations are a manifestation of the user’s repressed emotions and unresolved psychological pain being brought to the surface. The left brain is always trying to make sense of the world in terms of symbols, language, images. When the left brain receives the deep pain signals unlocked by the psychedelic, it forms ideation to reduce the pain to a level that won’t damage the nervous system. An example, would be fully feeling never having been loved as a child. Since these feelings are unbearable, the left brain responds with the ideation of a God who loves you or a mystical experience.

Some are suggesting that this interview with Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. could have gotten Tucker Carlson fired. Kennedy starts out talking about corporate kleptocracy in America and then shifts to criticism of the US support of Ukraine, suggesting that Ukraine is being used as a pawn by the Biden administration.

But is it still an improvement over talking to a human, even if the human is an expert? A human in not all knowing and susceptible to error. But with the AI bot you can keep posing different questions with different scenarios and it never loses patience and doesn't have an ego.

The past still exists in your body. If you lost an arm when you were 6 years old, you still have a missing arm in the present. Psychological trauma is imprinted on your brainstem and forms your core beliefs.

The enteric nervous system which regulates the gut uses 95 % of the body's serotonin. So psychedelics which affect serotonin are going to affect the gut. I stick to natural substances, since they are part of our evolution and more likely to be compatible with and easily metabolized by the body.

What we really have to worry about is a nuclear war between the US and China. The fact that the US corporate media has decided to demonize China and the government is contemplating sanctions is not a good sign. According to Harvard professor Graham Allison, in 12 of the 16 cases in which a rising power emerged in the past 500 years, the result was war. He argues that this is because the established power sees the rising power as a threat to its position and is willing to go to war to maintain its dominance. The rising power, meanwhile, may feel it has no choice but to challenge the established power to achieve its own security and status. https://www.unz.com/runz/did-the-neocons-save-the-world-from-the-thucydides-trap/

I mentioned the US to show the contrast. China realized it screwed up invading Vietnam and was out in 1 month. In contrast, the US stayed in Afghanistan for 20 years.