DocWatts

If you want to imagine a scary alternate history scenario, swap out JFK for Trump during the Cuban Missile Crisis. It's almost hard to imagine a worse person to shoulder the weight of responsibility that being the leader of the largest military and economic power on the planet entails.

Right on. When you look back, do you see you time in the Games Industry as positive on the whole, or did burnout and corportatization leave a bad taste in your mouth? I know the industry has a (deservedly) bad rap for shitty labor practices and working conditions, essentially taking advantage of people's passion and framing it as a priveledge to work crunch time to meet a deadline. I was incredibly fortunate to land a gig with a smaller studio that has more Green aligned values, hopefully we'll see more of that over time, as people get burned out and end up leaving the industry.

Hey Leo, I remember you mentioning in your vids that you worked in the games industry at one point, just wondering what your role was? Artist? Producer? Programmer? Been a bit curious about this for awhile, since I've been in the industry as well.

If fictional quotes qualify for this thread, I always thought Sisko's "it's easy to be a saint in paradise" speech from the Star Trek spin off Deep Space 9 was really insightful both in the way it deconstructed Star Trek and in its understanding of human nature.

"People need more than to be scolded, more than to be made to feel stupid and guilty. They need more than a vision of doom. They need a vision of the world and of themselves that inspires them." - quote from Ishamel by Daniel Quinn

As someone who thought Biden was one of the worst picks among a handful of really promising candidates (Bernie, Yang, Warren, Tulsi), he's at least amenable to popular pressure for progressive reforms; Bernie's doing some tangible good here, as can be seen with the massive investments in Infrastructure and Green Energy that Biden was nudged to be on board with. And you know, for all his problems, at worst he's more of the same prior to 2016, rather than an authoritarian who's actively damaging Democratic institutions to avoid being prosecuted on corruption charges.

Ranked Choice voting is a system that can help avoid the lesser of two evils dilemma, and give third parties and independents a more fair opportunity to win elections. It could also be implemented when voting in primary elections for our two political parties. Really should have been implemented a long time ago in the States, as there's no real downsides to using a system like this.

For presidential elections this is certainly true, but on a smaller scale third parties have won governorship in a number of states in our lifetimes (Minnesota comes to mind). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_third_party_and_independent_United_States_state_governors I'm all for pushing the Democratic party towards a more progressive policy platform, and on a tactical level what you're saying makes a lot of sense; but don't totally discount the idea of Independents or Third Parties winning small, more local elections, even up to and including Governor.

Anyone who's still supporting Trump after everything that's happened in the last four years would find a way to rationalize a chainsaw massacre if Trump praised the people doing it. The election will be decided by how many otherwise apathetic people in swing states put the time and effort in to Vote against a guy that only a third of the country likes.

If there any other literary nerds out there, Dostoevsky is about as Blue as they come. Crime and Punishment is particularly interesting, as it's a Blue critique of a Red worldview.

Still an interesting read even after transitioning out of Orange.

Thought I'd pop in here real quick and give a mention to Daniel Quinn's work, as it was a big influence for my transition in worldview from Orange to Green. "Ishmael is a 1992 philosophical novel by Daniel Quinn. The novel examines the hidden cultural biases driving modern civilization and explores themes of ethics, sustainability, and global catastrophe. Largely framed as a Socratic conversation between two characters,[1] Ishmael aims to expose that several widely accepted assumptions of modern society, such as human supremacy, are actually cultural myths that produce catastrophic consequences for humankind and the environment." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ishmael_(novel)

Just my perspective, so take it with a grain or two of salt, but I see a pragmatic approach to ethics as the best way forward if your goal is to actually leave a lasting impact on the world, and moralizing can be counter productive to that goal. Metaphysical issues aside, for ethics and morality to serve any practical purpose, we need some axiomatic principles that just have to be taken as a given, even if it's something as simple and basic as "we should reduce needless suffering in the world." While I'm still very much interested in why people believe the things they do, I think it's easy to get hung up on promoting your own worldview, and that its worthwhile to try and find common ground with people from different backgrounds and beliefs where possible. Coming from an American point of view, to get any actual legislation passed that can begin to address systemic problems in our society, you need to make your ideas palatable enough for Middle America, so to speak. Leo's multipart "Conscious Politics" serious is a great resource that makes a convincing case as to why politics matter, and why its worth your time to engage with the political process.

I think that the modus operandi of blue is a collectivist 'One Right Way' mindset. Atheism isn't incompatible with Blue, but religion maps much more easily onto that mindset than Atheism does, which becomes much more prominent at Orange. Again that's not to say Atheism can't also be dogmatic, but it doesn't map as easily on to institutions as religion does. (I'd argue that examples like Nazi Germany or Stalinist Russia map more neatly on to Red than Blue, but it's a debatable point). Where Blue and Atheism do coexist, I've noticed that belief in a God tends to get replaced by an equally strong belief in some other ideology or institution (such as Marxism or the military). Since the nature of Blue is a one right way mindset mapped onto a strong belief in something, be it religion, institutions, traditions, or family values, I would think that the healthier the ideology or institution that forms the core beliefs of Blue, the healthier a Blue individual will tend to be. From my own experience, I've seen healthy Blue in my own life from my own grandparents, who've worked hard all thier lives, and are genuinely kind loving people, despite being outdated in their outlook on the world. I also think of friends I've had who joined the military but never saw active combat, and were fortunate enough to come back and have a relatively normal life.

I guess a question I would have is are there actual healthy versions of Red in an industrialized democracy like the United States, that would perhaps be superior in some ways to Blue fundamentalism? One interesting example was one brought up by Tamler Sommers (of the Very Bad Wizards podcast), who makes a somewhat convincing argument that contained Honor systems seen in Sports are a healthy and functional version of Red (he doesn't frame his argument in terms of Spiral Dynamics, but the parallels are pretty clear).

Also this is just my personal experience, so take it with a grain of salt, but in my own life I've seen many more examples of healthy and functional people at Blue, and very few examples of someone in stage Red who has their shit together and seems happy with their life.

Fair point, and of course Blue comes with its own train of baggage, but for the individual in question, even an unhealthy version of Blue can curtail alot of the self destructive qualities of Red which can land someone in prison or in an early grave. Maybe I'm off base here, but I'd imagine the individual in question has a better chance of someday leaving an organized religion they've gotten indoctrinated into, than they would at getting their lives back together after getting roped into the revolving door prison system in the United States. Keep in mind this is coming from someone who's highly sensitive to the harms of stage Blue fundamentalism, but looking at this from a harm reduction standpoint for the hypothetical individual in this situation, there's no question that they're going to be better off in Blue than they were in Red.

While I don't have find alot that I can personally connect with in Jordan Peterson's work, I can still see how others might find his work meaningful and relevant in their own lives. I'm by no means an expert on Jordan Peterson and I'll admit upfront that much of what I know of his work comes from podcasts he's made appearances on that I listen to (plus a few lectures), but it seems like at least one big aspect of his message is emphasizing the need to grow up, and accept some responsibility in your life. And you know what? I don't see that as a bad message. There really are some people who really do need to hear that, and I can imagine that at least a portion of the people who's he's made an impact on, he probably helped facilitate the jump from Spiral Dynamics stage Red to Blue.

Reminds me of how the platonic ideal for socially conservative people in America, Ronald Reagan, started pushing for an end to open carry laws as the governor of California after Black Panthers started showing up in public spaces with rifles slung across thier backs. Anyone who denies that the ability to carry a gun in America isn't a privelege of race and socioeconomic status is deluding themselves.

Maybe we could use a megathread of healthy vs unhealthy real world examples for all stages of the spiral.

Campaign Zero is an advocacy group that's using an evidence based approach to find realistic policy proposals to address the issue of police reform in the United States. I'd encourage anyone who's serious about addressing police abuse in a systemic manner to consider supporting this organization. They also provide updates on their website as to tangible progress that's been made in various cities across the country about reforms that have been passed, or are being considered. https://www.joincampaignzero.org/solutions#solutionsoverview

So I'm not sure if this is the best Discussion Board for this topic, or if it would be more at home somewhere else, but I thought it might be an interesting topic of discussion. With Leo (correctly in my view) pointing out that our culture's stage development sees a large chunk of the entertainment and media we consume being low consciousness junk that's highly commodified, it might be worthwhile to point out positive examples of higher consciousness entertainment that goes against this trend. For my part, I would kick this list off with Michael Schur's 'The Good Place.' which is an incredibly heartfelt, humorous, and thought provoking show about the afterlife which deals with important philosophical questions like 'what does it mean to be a good person?', which is still somewhat rare in a lot of popular entertainment. The show can be seen as a refutation of the play 'No Exit' by existentialist philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre, who opined that "Hell is other people." Over the course of the show we see how our show's four protagonists lift each other up, and help each other to become healthier, more caring people. And despite the weight of some of the questions it asks, the show still managed to be playful and humourous, and lacks the sort of pretentiousness one might expect from a show that deals with weighty ethical questions.

To add to that, your point reminds me of a character in 'The Good Place'. One of the characters in the show, Chidi, is a moral philosophy professor, who's personality flaw is decision paralysis because he over analyzes every mundane decision in his life.

@Apparition of Jack I realize that the question was directed at the OP, but I think you make a good point. What generally happens is that ethics is inculcated into a value system that becomes second nature at some point, and in real life we don't have the time or inclination to deliberate the ethical merits of every (or even most) decisions we make. Perhaps virtue ethics has a point here then, as ethics can build in someone a set of foundational principles that they act on as part of their nature. Of course in the real world there are a handful of decisions where we can and should deliberate the ethics of (public policy, who to support for office, long term plans for an organization you're part of), but your point still stands.

@tuckerwphotography Primarily I was thinking more higher than the average/mainstream, as I would think entertainment embodying yellow or turquoise values would be quite rare. Thanks for the suggestion by the way.