zazen

Of course not man. If anything, Western elites are okay with it. I've literally seen their correspondents say the quiet part out loud ''The Ukraine war is strategically advantageous to us because we just provide the arms and funds without the loss of our own men''ie Ukrainians are their cannon fodder to be used as a thorn in Russia's side. Boris Johnson flopped a possible peace way back in the earlier days of this shit show. I also viewed Russia as a brazen aggressor, but after learning the context and what proceeded it, its a different story. Recommend the following 13 min watch, worth it: If anything, I'm the one who should be worried as I'm in the UK, and its more likely if anything escalates its the UK that would be hit first, not the US. But all I see is escalation and provocation with utter hubris.

A good channel in general, but check out these videos on seed oils and modern wheat:

RFK brings a good paradigm - which is of holistic health, prevention over cure. The status quo so far has been focused on treating diseases rather than fostering health to prevent them. But RFK's trap is to not dismiss the gains and legitimacy of modern medicine all together or to undermine it. Chronic diseases account for approx 90% of annul healthcare costs which is $4.1 trillion - thats $3.6 trillion. A lot of these are preventable through diet and lifestyle fixes. Imagine even a annual $1 trillion cut in expenses - thats better than what ''DOGE'' can achieve - not to mention the cascade of effects that has on productivity and happiness by having a clearer brain and energy to do things. Even from a national security perspective - 77% of young Americans aged 17-24 are ineligible for military service, a significant portion disqualified due to fitness. Regarding awakening (vertical-spiritual) and development (horizontal-material) - just because someone has experienced the absolute, or is aware of it - doesn't mean they have relative knowledge of the world. Even if they do, that doesn't mean they have it in all domains nor grasp all the intricacies involved. I became aware of Mark Hyman a decade ago through Tyler and his book ultra mind solution really helped me on my health journey: RFK speaking on God: People don't always commit bad or cause it to come about due to a bad heart, but due to being wrong minded.

This is how many people have felt regarding the left / Dems / establishment coming after them for not towing the party line or presenting a challenge to the orthodoxy. Jordan Peterson, Bret Weinstein, JK rowling - all their fiascos revolved around this, and these are just the more notable names. The pervasiveness of this stretches from academia to social media, from corporations to mainstream entertainers. Your ''side'' cancel, censor, lecture, and condescend. They wield moral superiority like a hammer, dismissing dissent as ignorant or bigoted. They can get someone memory holed from the internet and destroy careers with a hashtag. They can turn the entire media apparatus into a synchronized chorus singing whatever tune serves the establishment. The left are blind to this cultural authoritarianism, because power not only corrupts but blinds those who have it. The right naturally put their efforts into alternative media because the mainstream platforms were hostile to them. It’s the same reason on a macro geopolitical level - BRICS is forming an alternate financial system parallel to the Western system - because the West abuses and weaponises it through sanctions and seizure of assets - utterly suffocating multipolarity just like how the establishment suffocate domestic political plurality of opinions - causing utter polarity as a result!

He was probably speaking more in the hypothetical - if things were to escalate. The thing is even if these missiles don't do much damage or are countered by Russia - the major difference is this isn't simply providing weapons for Ukraine to use, these missiles require US participation in order to launch them. ATCAMS rely on advanced targeting data that Ukraine doesn't have without Western levels of ISR (intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance). Thats as far as I currently understand it. It's literally declaring war on Russia directly and no longer by proxy. Russia even said this was their red line, and here we are - the red line is shining bright red but the West just walks right past just like the past actions that resulted in where we are today. The hubris, arrogance, delusion and stupidity is on another level. This is Bidens legacy (if presidents even are in control that is) - presiding over a plausible genocide in Gaza he didn't stop but had all the means to (supposedly) and nuclear brinkmanship 2 months before his departure from office. But yeah, this forum can keep worrying about Orange Hitler whilst not a single thread gets started on this major escalation - and barely a mutter from Democrat die hards lol.

@Bobby_2021 @sholomar It ain’t looking good. UK the chihuahuas barking - it’s always the small insecure dogs isn’t it. They think because they got a pitbull (America) in their corner they’re safe.

It’s beautiful to expand our empathy to the marginalised, but to do it at the expense of alienating sizeable segments of society - working class people, rural communities or anyone who doesn’t parrot the same values - is selective empathy. When the circle of concern only extends to those who agree with you, it stops being concern and starts looking like tribalism wrapped in a moral bow. If your circle doesn’t include everyone, it’s not a circle, but a fence. Everyone should have discernment, integrity, and a duty to warn, but the lefts “concern” centers exclusively on denouncing Trump, while ignoring the systemic failures and institutional overreach that created him. Idolising him is misguided but obsessively denouncing him without addressing the broader context isn’t discernment - it’s deflection. True integrity would demand confronting the whole system, not just its most obnoxious byproduct - the orange tinted man. The left are so busy looking through their microscope to psychoanalyse Trump and his deplorable supporters micro aggressions that they forgot to pick up the mirror and check themselves before they wreck themselves - ie lose again in 2028.

When the left try to engineer societal transformation through institutional power, cultural policing, and moral absolutism, they create more toxic soil than fertile ground for lotus flowers. Power blinds those who have it, and their abuses of it. I see very little self-reflection (self actualization anyone?) among leftist Democrats. The left’s problem isn’t their ability to dissect Trump - it’s their inability to see why they keep losing to him - to dissect themselves. They’re like a boxer who’s perfected the jab but keeps getting knocked out because they don’t see the hooks coming. Power is like water to a fish – when you're swimming in it, you stop noticing it's there. That's why the establishment can't understand why people are "voting against their interests." They can't see how their own overreach, their own abuse of power, their own suffocating orthodoxy might feel to people who have to live under it. Real discernment would mean being able to see the whole picture – not just Trump's failures, but the system's failures. Not just the flaws in others thinking, but the fatal flaws in their own. Analyzing micro aggressions and individual failings is narrow band discernment, not wide band discernment of institutional systemic failings that commit macro aggressions on the populace within its borders and beyond in the form of foreign policy. That's the real tragedy here: The people who pride themselves on their ability to spot fascism in others have become blind to the authoritarian impulses in themselves or within their own “side”. The establishment left wield immense power - cultural, institutional, and bureaucratic. It's pervasive and stretches from academia to social media, from corporations to mainstream entertainers. They cancel, censor, lecture, and condescend. They wield moral superiority like a hammer, dismissing dissent as ignorant or bigoted. They can get someone memory holed from the internet and destroy careers with a hashtag. They can turn the entire media apparatus into a synchronized chorus singing whatever tune serves the establishment. When the right put their efforts into alternative media - the left cry about it calling for more censorship of misinformation. It’s the same reason on a macro geopolitical level - BRICS is forming an alternate financial system parallel to the Western system - because the West abuses and weaponises it through sanctions and seizure of assets - utterly suffocating multipolarity just like how the establishment suffocate domestic political plurality - causing utter polarity as a result! Trump’s flaws are obvious to anyone who cares to look - his lies, his ego, his opportunism. But to many he’s not just a man - he’s a battering ram against a system they feel failed them. On some level, people view a individual or a group of them as more nimble and agile, able to change - rather than a behemoth of an establishment. Its easier to turn around a dinghy than a titanic. This gives them hope, and they're willing to bet on it, even if it means the dinghy may be turning towards a ocean without a shore - for the status quo titanic they are currently on feels like its bound for a iceberg. The establishment are so drunk on their own power that they can't see how they're manufacturing their own opposition. They're like a person setting fire to their own house while complaining about the smell of smoke. Trump isn't their problem – he's a symptom of their problem. He's what happens when you convince half the country that they're deplorable, and then act surprised when they embrace it. Trump isn't winning because he's strong. He's winning because the liberal establishment has become everything they claim to oppose – authoritarian lite, elitist, and completely disconnected from the people they performatively champion. The establishment NCP's are too busy polishing their pronouns and perfecting their cancellation techniques to notice they've become exactly what they claim to hate. The people who control the message keep losing to the message they can't control thanks to alternative media.

To add to above: it's harder to turn around a titanic than a dingy. People consciously think or sub-conciously feel - that more change is possible with a individual or a small group of them, than established institutions. The former are more nimble and agile, the latter are frozen by inertia and paralyzed by decades of bureaucratic momentum, interconnected interests, and self-preserving mechanisms that resist change or change too slow in a world requiring the opposite. Change seems more possible in the margins where mavericks, misfits and macho men are than in a massive immovable center resisting it. This is not an endorsement, simply a observation. I'm aware of the dangers of power being held by non-establishment individuals and wild card saviors - they're talk of minimized regulations can seem like a boon for small business until those small fish realize that big fish eat little fish when in the wild (un-regulated market) - and that food doesn't always trickle down to the bottom of the ocean. Also, those ''revolutionaries'' can become the very establishment they rallied against - and so it happens in history. Both global and nationalist modes of power are fundamentally parasitic: One extracts wealth through borderless corporate imperialism, devouring national populations for global profit - this is the faceless establishment machine. The other concentrates power in individual oligarchs who treat nations as personal fiefdoms. Different tactics, same predatory result - same attitudes working on different latitudes.

But isn’t that what “smart” people are voting against (not so much for) - a state or social culture being held hostage to a mainstream narrative that can’t be challenged. We call state overreach authoritarian, and social overreach a social contagion that uses shaming and cancel culture as its weapon to enforce ideological purity. Isn’t policing language and micro aggressions overreach? Isn’t it normal for people to think - “they can take me down any minute”. Didn’t they shut down small-medium business whilst allowing the big fish to stay open in Covid? Didn’t they allow sub-prime mortgages to sink people economically and bail out the same banks that did so - with public money! Is saying that men can give birth - including having a emoji depicting so - Truth! The way we refer to political sides is through their mascots - people just say I’m voting Trump of Kamala - but what if a lot of people aren’t voting for Trump but for the team around him and against the establishment around Kamala - including what they stand for. “He’s afraid of his own freedoms” - is that a bad thing? When a state and society starts being overly restrictive (whether it’s conservatives or wokies doing the restricting) - the natural response is to side with the side one who will unburden them from those restrictions. In the words of Kamala - to be unburdened by what has been 😂 Of course, not all freedom is freeing, nor are all restrictions restricting. Some freedoms are given up for larger freedoms - some restrictions can be more freeing than some so called freedoms. But the general sense among many people is that some essential freedoms have been breached - and so they swing to the side that claims to uphold them.

@hundreth On point. Neither institutions or individuals should get a free pass to exploit peoples trust. Theres tons of snake oils types waiting to make money off people. It's like a feedback loop where when institutions fail, they cause people to look elsewhere and get burned if they aren't careful enough. I think people hold institutions to a higher standard simply due to their role (designed to serve the public good) and scale - corruption that exists among institutions can impact a far greater number of people compared to individuals - though individuals are now punching above their weight thanks to social media. People see the corruption of institutions and their governments then claim to be red pilled - once they then witness the corruption of individuals who promised to offer solutions where institutions didn't - they become black pilled and very cynical. It's utterly destabilising to the health of a society. Perhaps the onus is more on institutions as they have the power, societal mandate and purpose to serve the public - people falling prey to individuals and alternatives is the symptom of institutional failings. Good points. We generally can't rationalise people out of positions they didn't rationalise themselves into - for many people they simply responded to the circumstances. Major institutions failing once in a while in isolated pockets isn't enough to cause people to lose trust - it's a relationship between institutions and individuals which has eroded over time. When breach of trust accumulates over many incidents it's not as irrational to be wary of future claims from those same institutions - but its a error to dismiss them outright as you and hundreth have said. If mamma bear lies about Santa it's one thing, but if she lies about who my real pappa bear is thats a whole other - so the type of lie matters, as well as the number of them. People being lied to about the wars their men get sent out to die for - and to kill and destabilise entire regions is a scale and type of lie so large and egregious it makes one believe evil exists. If someones in a abusive relationship where they are lied to and cheated on many times - which creates a recognisable pattern - it's a a natural outcome to develop a heuristic as a defence mechanism. We'll be skeptical going forward. Ideally people would evaluate the merit of every claim being made - but thats exactly what institutions are there for and serve the function of - because every day people generally don't have the time, expertise or resources to do so. Which is why institutions are held to a higher standard, which is why them failing multiple times disillusioned people enough to look elsewhere then get burned by alternatives.

Surprised how this barely gets much attention on the forum or in general. People starting threads finger wagging at Trump voters and debate about Trump being Hitler but not a single thread on this which seems big enough and concerning. Because they don’t want to criticise Biden/Democrats? Odd to me. Jeffrey Sachs discussing the latest:

Interesting data and points. South Korea’s gap between women / men being lib / conservative is wild.

@zurew I'm not calling for rejection of institutions or experts outright. Just pointing to a broader phenomenon - the erosion of trust in institutions and why so many people feel disillusioned. Some of the breaches of trust aren't just trivial missteps - they’re big enough to have shaped how people view authority. You can’t blame people for being skeptical when the institutions asking for their trust have repeatedly acted against the public’s interests. I said in the post ''the right generally don't trust institutions enough, whilst the left generally trust them too much''. I'm aware that alternative non establishment media can be flawed including RFK. People are simply navigating a broken system where trust is fractured, and they’re piecing together what they can from the information available wherever they can get it. Sometimes that means questioning the institutional narrative - it’s not about blind faith in anyone. Social media isn't perfect but its revealed how manipulative mainstream media can be. For example when we see full clips of speeches that contradict the edited soundbites used to smear someone. If the institutions lying to us are the same ones gatekeeping information, of course people are going to look elsewhere - and once they find that alternative media is flawed too, they will be a bit disillusioned on who to trust and how to trust. This stress makes people fall into camps to avoid nuance - like either trust institutions or don't trust them. The rise of populism isn’t just blind rage - it’s a response to a system that has failed to serve ordinary people. People are desperate enough for change that they’re willing to take risks on populist leaders because the status quo has proven itself untrustworthy. The institutions demanding peoples trust haven’t earned it - or previously had but have betrayed it with a thousand cuts. Skepticism is a natural response and trust needs to be re-built - but it won't be if everyone skeptical gets shut down as a conspiracist.

Before the counting of days, when consciousness first stirred in the vessel of flesh, there walked a being who was both less and more than what you are today. Less, for they had not yet accumulated the layers of thought and memory that now wrap around your minds like silk. More, for they touched reality with naked awareness, unmarred by the fragments and divisions that now scatter your perception. This First One did not know they were first, for such knowing requires an other to be second. They moved through the world as the wind moves through leaves - without separation, without reflection. Their eyes were not yet mirrors but windows, through which the universe gazed at itself in perfect unity. Their breath was the breath of all things. When they inhaled, they drew in not just air but the very essence of existence. When they exhaled, they did not release waste but returned themselves to the whole. Each step was a communion, each gesture a prayer they did not know they were making. They carried within them all that you are now - all possibilities, all futures, all potential forms of consciousness. But these lay dormant, like seeds in winter soil, waiting for the long spring of human becoming. Do not think of this First One as primitive or simple. Their consciousness was not less than yours but different - unified where yours is divided, whole where yours is fragmented. They were the original drop from which the ocean of human awareness would eventually flow. And here is the secret that burns like a star in the night of understanding: You are still this First One. Beneath your layers of thought and memory, beyond your boundaries of self and other, that original unity still breathes. Your fragments yearn to remember their wholeness. This is why you seek. This is why you question. This is why something in you resonates with tales of beginnings. For in understanding the First, you glimpse the Last - the circle completing itself, consciousness returning to unity while retaining all it has learned in its long journey through division. Meditate on this, you who would know yourselves. For in the First lies the seed of your completion, and in your completion lies the meaning of the First. - Anon

Damn this is actually true. From Sky News: - Moscow says Ukraine has hit Russia with US long-range missiles - Putin signs doctrine lowering threshold for nuclear weapons use after US missile decision - Kremlin warns Ukraine's use of Western-supplied missiles against Russia could trigger nuclear response Who is even running the US gov at this point if Biden is the way he is and Kamala is no where to be seen since election..

I think Trumpers put too much faith in Trump - but one thing Bret below says which is what seems to be a driving factor in the shift right and the general rise of populism is this - ''Radical change is very dangerous, anyone who likes the idea of radical change for its own sake is an insane person. I support the idea of radical change because I think our predicament is serious enough that nothing short of radical change can save us.'' After decade of institutions nuking their credibility, with the remains of it dying in the rubble of Gaza - and a general sense of disillusionment, lack of belonging, and lack of optimism for the future as the social contract of a better life for the next generation isn't panning out as is seen in essentials being inflated out of reach for most people (healthcare, housing, education) - people feel nothing short of radical change needs to occur. Someone who's been a Democrat his whole life commenting on how the parties have inverted and how both parties have changed (first few min).

One thing I'm confused about is how much of a final say do Presidents have on foreign policy decisions? Why can they talk of being anti-war etc and then do the opposite when in office or start filling their cabinet with war hawks like Trump is doing now. Is he just playing the people to have gotten votes and win the election (very possible) or is he covering his ass to not get assassinated by keeping ''enemies'' close (conspiratorial but possible), or is it that as Putin once said - once the President comes into office men in blacks suits come to say how things go and they follow along. Even with Israel - Biden states his red line of Rafah and nothing happens when its crossed. What more can they do that they haven't already done - they've choked off Gaza, bombed and destroyed it, gone into Lebanon and bombed Beirut, targeted Iranian assets in the region etc. Perhaps with Trump we can at least bet on change or a deal as the precedent for deals is set in that the Abraham accords happened during his term. A deal to resolve the issue is better than prolonged suffering of the Palestinians - thats a worthy bet rather than Biden and Kamala literally not doing shit. Maybe we can view Trumps narcissism as a benefit in that he cares for his own bloated image - of being seen in a good light as a deal/peace maker.

Thats the thing with experts - they can back different opinions because money can back different opinions. My first experience of disillusionment with the health care system was in my teens when countless doctors told me food doesn't affect acne and just prescribed me antibiotics. I even told them the contrary after doing my own research and they wouldn't say much. I had to learn myself through the internet and books and resolved it via diet and lifestyle. I tested that when I had wheat / sugar / milk / fried foods (seed oils that RFK rallies against) I would break out, feel sluggish and have brain fog the following days. Doctors aren't educated in holistic health or nutrition, they aren't taught prevention - just prescription from a pharma funded education system. Diagnose the issue - prescribe the drug. Drugs and medicine is needed to save lives, but not to make us thrive - its a last resort when we get very ill. The goal isn't simply to increase life span (which medicine has done) but health span - living long and healthily. During Covid and lockdown I remember listening too all kinds of doctors and following them on Youtube and Twitter - I saw first hand one by one they would have their profiles erased and deleted. Surely its un-scientific to not have open debate? Then came the Barrington declaration signed by thousands of ''experts'' agains the Covid response. The fact that vaccine manufacturers have immunity is also concerning. Regardless - it was a confusing time for many which eroded trust in institutions as the situation was weaponised and shady contracts and interests existed. Places that didn't lock down and recommended Vitamin D didn't have such terrible results like Sweden where I have relatives. Health knowledge is so lacking Western governments couldn't even simply advise their populations to take vitamin D / C or some basics to boost immunity. Whitney Webb says it seems as though it was a fiscal policy to crush demand and the economy by shutting down mom and pop shops or small-medium business whilst allowing big retailers to remain open (Walmart, Amazon warehouses etc) and for hedgefunds like Black rock etc to sweep in and buy distressed assets. Make that make sense! This is why the right generally don't trust institutions enough, whilst the left generally trust them too much. Think about what we've gone through the last 20 years - lies regarding wars in early 2000's (and currently diplomatic cover for Israel), lies regarding financial collapse of 2008 and bank bailouts, social media prominence from 2010's providing alternative sources of information to speed run all this exposure to the lies, big tech collusion with elections and 2020 Covid, and now election lies about who would win. And in the UK labour government who promised so much and completely went back on their promises the minute they got in. People are literally getting imprisoned for social media posts (which weren't incitement of hate crimes even) whilst criminals run around in the streets - and then we think we are a democracy and point fingers to dictators in the global south. gtfo. The left are so oblivious to their own power and institutional backing. Their projections are confessions about the other side. That they cancel, de-platform, lawfare against their political rivals, take what is said out of context in a media machine churning out propoganda, that people concerned for borders are racists (although some are) but its simply common sense that a country needs borders that are secure. Common sense is framed as facist - whether done so in hyperbole or not, the intended affect is common sense is perceived as such. Normal people wishing to live normal lives are gas lit about their own views and instincts of survival. They're told their lying about their own very real tangible conditions. As an example from where I am in London, theres a major road called Park Lane in a central area (like fifth avenue in New York) and there has been encampments there for months with tents. The authorities did nothing as it got larger and larger until now when they have finally been cleared. The rents and business get affected by this, which is supposed to be the tourist hub of the city that a string of many employees rely on. This is akin to Californian cities not taking the safety and cleanliness of their streets seriously - and why people feel their needs to be less bureaucracy or a streamlined one which allows for faster decision making and action to occur. In Dubai for example a new road or bridge needs to be built to alleviate traffic pressures - it'll be done in 6 months, in the West it'll take 6 years. Criminals needing swift prosecution - done. In the West - the contradiction of human rights and moral ambiguity paralysis's us with the possible fear of being deemed racist or a dictator for caring about the rights of every day people. Where are their rights to safety, decency? Listen to Bukele of Salvador speak on this - he was gas lit by the West and NGO's for going too hard after the cartels and criminals - but El Salvador has gone from the most dangerous place to one of the safest in short order. So every domain - financial, media, health, politics, foreign policy - we are lied to by the establishment. And people wonder why people are opting for populist leaders - because they would rather bet on change than a status quo they distrust and has failed. It's not as reductive as identity politics ie people not voting for a woman or person of colour.

Didn’t even realise that, I was just banter riffing 😂 @Joshe That comments so cringe lol good case study in cult behaviour for us to observe

Ryan Gosling’s Ken wasn’t just a meme machine: He an absurd mascot for a deeper truth: Masculinity being reclaimed - boundaries, form and order emerging from a time of boundless effeminacy and a formless indulgence that has brought chaos to our lives. Where we debate the need for pronoun police or police to be defunded wholesale! Trumps election win is just a louder version of this truth, a political echo of it - and he’s an even more absurd mascot which replaces kens naivety with corrupting self interest. The vibe shift is real - any bros here feel it? I’m joking but being serious at the same time. Of course this can over correct , but a correction is welcome nonetheless. Daddy’s home. We can’t allow populism to go rogue or dark. But regardless, anyone here watch the above dark MAGA (dark populism?) aesthetic and not feel any sort of way? Can you give me your wrist so I check your pulse? Where’s the thumos bro! Our bones are meant to be made of mountains, our blood is supposed to be red lightning!