zazen

I’m just commenting that there is a good side and it’s not all backward and bad - that good side is what appeals to many including ThoughtArt. The nuance is Muhammad wasn’t a caricature on either side - def not Ghandi on a camel nor Ghengis Khan with no limit on the worst instincts. Religion / institutions or “constructs” don’t uninstall humanity or its messiness but that doesn’t make the construct itself useless or to be abandoned - the level of conciousness interacting with the construct changes its outcomes. You can have religion approached from above (developed mind) or liberal secularism approached from below (less developed mind) and have vastly different outcomes. We can still have a dogmatic tribal minded person use the liberal lens for harm. The ideological shells change and the human remains flaws n all - Jesus taught turn the other cheek / love and Christians turned entire continents over, same with Communism and liberalism - but doesn’t mean they don’t each have valid and beautiful truths to them which is why people are drawn to them. The kernels of truth gets a lot of false truths added to it, as happens when things are institutionalised over time - the truth is weaponised for harm instead of good. Maybe it’s a category error to compare actualised with religion - actualised isn’t trying to be a OS for a society to run civilization. If it did it would run in to many of the same issues institutions run into. Even a hippie commune can eventually have two guys fighting over who ate the last lentil 😂 or who touched who the wrong way (Oshos commune lol) - because humans are bound to form and it’s survival/shadow bs that comes with it. We got laws against murder and speeding n they still happen - that doesn’t invalidate the ideals / rules / constructs in place trying to regulate them.

Great book man - love how it ties in to wisdom from other traditions too. I think a helpful way of squaring non-duality / spiral dynamics etc with religion is the above shared comments. Islam in particular integrates the horizontal (dunya, worldly affairs) with the vertical (God, whats beyond). Its not just “pure religion” in the sense of only being about awakening to the truth. Prophet Muhammad was deeply involved in worldly affairs - bro came down from the cave and had shit to do 😂 Islam also doesn’t have the notion of original sin (from Christianity) which tilts the psyche towards feeling guilty of human desires etc or that human nature is somehow “wrong”. The orientation is different and because it doesn’t shy away from this world for the “other world”, or our nature - it essentially developed into a religion that seemed to have concluded “we’re bound by form even if seeking the formless, so might aswell regulate human activities in the world of form and systemise it the best we can, including domains of warfare, marriage, economics etc” The world isn’t all there is but we can’t escape it, human nature isn’t evil but it’s also not the ultimate either. Glimpse the formless, don’t forget the formless (pray) but homie we still gotta deal with forms lol

It does oddly enough, UK @Nivsch nice , yeah I agree it’s a tricky road to any settlement as many logistical hurdles to get over - even if a coalition is pro 2 state for example. Intention vs implementation

ah my bad, says “content not viewable in your region” so couldn’t see 👍

How’s it going man? What do you think of the new candidates / coalition and how they’ll approach the Palestine question?

Morroco used Cueta to threaten Spain warming up to Algeria. Morroco / Algeria have tensions over West Sahara so Morocco fears Spain becoming sympathetic to Sahrawis people’s claim to the land who are native to it. Algeria backs Polisario front who are a national liberation group from the Sahrawhi people. Morocco claims the land as theirs (massive Phosphorus resources €€ there) Sanchez visited Algeria just before this happened: https://www.france24.com/en/africa/20260720-spain-pm-sanchez-visits-algeria-first-time-four-years-ties-thaw Morocco did the same in 2021 before Israel/US gave it a reason (orders) to do so due to their displeasure with Spain: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_Morocco–Spain_border_incident “It originated due to a deterioration in diplomatic relations between the governments of Morocco and Spain, after the latter admitted the transfer of the president of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic, Brahim Ghali, to a Spanish hospital in La Rioja, in April 2021.” Anything that legitimates the native struggle over Western Sahara is seen as a threat by Morocco.

A country with little leverage doesn’t issue demands and conditions lol Iran can be weakened massively (conventional army+proxies+proxies degraded) while still having enough asymmetric leverage to deny capitulation (from Hormuz disruption, missiles, nuclear question unsettled) US tried changing facts on the ground during the MOU phase by creating a bypass route near Oman - and Iran whacked them to re-assert control US is failing to wrestle Hormuz out of Irans grip hence tried to dilute its leverage which flopped Irans pain threshold and resilience is high, so how long can oil market prices be manipulated / buffered as reserves drain and pump prices increase US has to intervene in propping up Japans currency which would have a cascading affect on the financial system (Japan carry trade). Pain is starting to show up in the system.

So basically all Iran had to give up on is don’t go for nukes - which they already weren’t going for - and that their supreme leader had a fatwa against, who they assassinated vs everything else Iran got in return. It’s to be seen whether US can discipline Israel or not and put the “Zionists control US” assumption to rest. Iran is making the deal conditional on a ceasefire across all fronts including Lebanon. Iran is disciplining the US via Hormuz, to discipline Israel - what this admin have referred to as their “junior partner” - but Israel atm is a rabid dog only caring for its own maximalist demands at the expense of the goyim. ** @Elliott Goyim lives matter. Goyim avengers assemble.

Not a discussion within Israel but about Israel in relation to the deal: Israel’s hubris is going to bring about one self own after another if it doesn’t stop overplaying its hand. Goyims gonna start uniting and perhaps acting on their rhetoric / criticism which they have so long not acted on. EU-Israel are diplomatically beefing now —— The deal is a fragile one and just a MOU as of now - but Iran-US are eager to reach a settlement whilst Israel is still hawkish and cares only for itself. US learnt a important lesson that is that Iran can impose costs on them they didn’t expect. Beyond the official memorandum of understanding the macro understanding that has settled into the US establishment is that it can no longer fuck around unilaterally and with impunity - because other middle to great powers exist that will make them find out. Seeing neocon war hawks acknowledge this as a misadventure / quagmire and show relief for a deal (MOU) being reached is baffling and telling. John Bolton everyone. Take out the earwax and listen - and someone e-pinch me thx lv u

Drones have really been a asymmetric game changer Whether that translates to territorial gains which still requires manpower or a political solution / negotiated end by strengthening their hand / pressuring Russia - remains to be seen. How Russia responds to this latest strike also remains to be seen. Seems huge.

How’s the discussion this morning? Seems majority of Israelis are frustrated at Trump for this supposed deal if it is to go through and not be derailed (by Israel’s attempts). Too self absorbed and entitled to realise anothers point of view or the costs to the US/global economy if Hormuz were to remain closed for Israel’s maximalist goals of crippling Iran. Whilst there is polarisation on domestic politics there is much less so on their view towards Iran and Palestinians for that matter being “problems” needing to be dealt with. Even Yair Lapid (the opposition) in his latest X post isn’t complaining about the objectives he shares with Netenyahu - but that Netenyahu simply failed to achieve them : https://x.com/yairlapid/status/2066097439048708132?s=46 “3. He failed to convince the Americans to bomb Iran's oil and energy facilities and did not close the matter in advance.“ And ”9.He did not take into account the possibility of bombing the energy facilities of Gulf states and failed to leverage the ties with the Gulf states to bring them into joint combat. 10. He failed to rally global public opinion for a renewed war between democracies and a fundamentalist dictatorship“ Basically - he failed to commit war crimes (energy infrastructure) and drag gulf neighbours into a fight to only get even more fucked up. Then the classic “democracy vs authoritarian” rhetoric lol If Irans a fundamentalist dictatorship then Israel and US are fundamentalist democracies. Saying your a democracy also isn’t the automatic win liberals think it is if the demos (people of that democracy) are too narrow minded geopolitically to the point they don’t realise how hawkish they come across to the world outside. Let’s not forget that the US also isn’t happy with the outcome.

Quite tense in the UK atm where two incidents have become racialised and politicised similar to George Floyd. First one was the murder of Henry Novak. A British Sikh man stabbed him after they got into an argument and the police responded with incompetence caught on bodycam. Henry said he’d been stabbed and couldn’t breathe multiple times which the police didn’t take seriously. Then in Belfast, Ireland a Sudanese asylum seeker attempted beheading a white Irish man who’s now in critical condition. Both cases have caused outrage and Elon Musk stoking the fire on X, with JD Vance also commenting on Henry Novaks case. Both cases involve a white “native” being attacked violently - the first from a British non-white (Sikh) and the second from an asylum seeking immigrant (Sudanese). I only mention their backgrounds as despite their legal status the rhetoric is leaning towards both perpetrators being “other” than white and connecting the violence to migration as a key issue. Quite a bit of scapegoating going on over at X, lot of Fuentesmaxxing

You'd think for such a small country / population + global negative opinion about that country / population = they'd learn to tone down or hide their behaviour / rhetoric a little better. The ratio of negative content : population is ridiculous , its like they haven't learnt anything or simply double down ie '' the world hates us, its true they are anti-semitic, fuck it lets be genocidal ''

True - the brutal thing is physical reality has asymmetries and inequalities. Men and women have largely been trying to survive reality with trade offs that have changed as advancements / developments came about. But not all asymmetries or inequalities exist due to ill intent of the other sex imposing it on the other - society's job is to minimize the impact or negative affects of those asymmetries the best tit can and create protections / cultural norms around them. Divorce laws for example remedy the fact of unearned income / wealth being built during motherhood for example. It's also not like men working in hard jobs which are much more risky then desk jobs are self actualizing or enlightenment maxxing while sweat runs down their ass crack. That's another asymmetry - physically hard / dangerous jobs are done by more men than women - but men don't claim that this is due to matriarchal malice - its simply that physical reality matches men better to certain jobs. Once you frame any act by man as misogyny even if its done with neutral or positive intent simply because its a man doing it or the ''system'' is patriarchal then you've surrendered yourself to ideological framing that is toxic and can only result in making you bitter against half the population you share the planet with and with who the opposite sex is trying to survive with. Even good acts are deemed ''benevolent misogny'' lol common. What is Leo's work on this forum and his courses/videos..benevolent misogny?

Empathy and sympathy usually get conflated. If I’m not mistaken - empathy is simply putting yourself in another’s shoes to understand them - the purpose of which in this context is to figure out causes to the heinous act and prevent it. Sympathy is an extension - feeling for the person only because you’re able to empathise (put yourself in their shoes). So empathy is about clarity (analytical) and sympathy about warmth (emotional). Sympathy in this case would only be extended conditionally to those that genuinely suffer against the urge which is there for whatever reason and they had little control over. Like battling an addiction - it’s more of a condition rather than a situational thing as commented on the previous page. But there is zero sympathy for the act itself or towards those that don’t restraint themselves from this urge, or even those that don’t have an burning urge for it yet still engage in it due to the situation/opportunity arising. See here - empathy extended into sympathy: See here - some things are straight up just Haram Bruv: Because many people conflate empathy with sympathy - the message that gets taken is minimising or normalising of something that shouldn’t be. Having intellectual clarity of a situation doesn’t mean not having moral clarity on a situation being haram. You can understand fuckery whilst seeing it as fuckery - not creating false equivalence’s to minimise things or float into some spiritual blob of relativity and oneness. OP - “And to those of you who think being a pedophile and raping children is the worst thing imaginable, you truly have a low level of consciousness.”

Understanding something doesn’t erase moral judgement of that thing being wrong. To empathise requires moral clarity - otherwise what are we empathising around? The complexity is around understanding the mechanisms behind the act - and the solution for addressing it. There’s little complexity around certain acts itself being morally wrong. The disgust response most people have is a signal and shouldn’t be dismissed as “low conciousness”. A child is harmed with cascading effects across society - that’s the foundational moral wrong. The perpetrator suffers their urge for this act - but that suffering is only meaningful enough to empathise with because of the first fact - that it is wrong. Societies drawn a red line to protect the child - which gives weight to perpetrators actions. The flaw is treating the middle level (perpetrators act) in isolation, as if it floats free of the other two (child’s harm - societies norms) - but it doesn’t. The struggle (against the urge) only exists in relation to the harm it causes and norms around minimising that harm and violation. Removing the moral clarity around the act minimises and normalises something that shouldn’t be. It’s just spiritual bypassing to seem holier than thou. Higher conciousness doesn’t mean suspending moral judgement - if anything judgements have more clarity - upon which understanding (mechanisms and solutions) are layered.

Giving me “give em hell” Jordan Peterson vibes lol after which he went silent when Israel committed war crimes en mass. Same way diaspora monarchists have quietened after egging on “US democracy promotion” only to find the US hitting civilian infrastructure (hospitals, universities, a bridge) and a madman threatening a entire civilization. What’s changed? The “regimes” been set back but strategically still has control of Hormuz and has pushed back US basing presence out of fear of Khoobideh missiles. Iran the landlord has served eviction notice among other contortions being negotiated. A country can be set back tactically / operationally and still come out stronger strategically. Everyone should be asking - has Iran gained more or less leverage from this US operation - than they had before? Stay safe azizam

I agree woke leftist utopian politics is untethered from reality and basically ghey - but to leap to the US being afraid of being bullied is a reach. The US is getting relatively weaker against rising powers, but not to the point anyone’s even flirting with threatening it. What’s at threat is the empire state, not the nation state. National security is way less at threat than international supremacy. And if Israel is deemed a 51st state that needs protection in the Middle East then that’s a lot due to its own maximalist security doctrine that ensures its constant insecurity. Threats are inflated due to past historical trauma + desire among a subset (of Israeli and US imperial elites) to dominate the region that weaponise it. That heightened threat perception is laundered and projected absurdly onto “Western civilization” and the US. The problem with a domination based / maximalist security doctrine is it can never be at peace because pre-emptive actions always taken (mowing the lawn) against a possible future threat that doesn’t exit today - it has no limit. But every pushback against that domination provokes a reaction and then becomes proof you were right to dominate in the first place. It becomes a circular circle jerk of who dunnit which is where we are today. “We gotta flex and bully the world or someone else would do it - better us than them. MAGA and MIGA energy” More like FIFA - fuck Israel and fuck America ( the empire state, not the nation state and its people ) This is probably the only chance Israel’s gonna get to subdue Iran and cements its hierarchy into a regional order alongside GCC. Its patrons support is on life support and moving this many assets to the region is highly unlikely in the distant future. For this reason Israel will sabotage every peace effort it can because it has different objectives to US who is trying to maintain the financial system and global empire. Whether it loses it over Israel or not is to be seen - whatever the case - Israel will be hated for influencing the US enough to jump into this conflict and ruin its prestige / global posture. Everyone will be running politics through a lens of whether a candidate or podcast bro is America first or Israel first. The “great filtering”. It’s the new “do you condemn Hamas”.

Israel : “why does everyone hate us” Also Israel : *bombards Lebanon killing hundred within minutes, within a day of a supposed ceasefire to prevent war titling the world towards energy crisis and potentially WW3*

@Elliott We got some calls right early on in Jan. Trickery (attacked during negotiations) + the need to keep any war short due to interceptor stock piles running low. US weren't expecting Iran to shut Hormuz or spread the war to the region as way to impose economic costs. They ran of out military options and had to resort to civilian infrastructure / industrial capacity. But any further hits would be highly escalatory and risk the gulf countries which have reached their limit of tolerance. They expected Iranians to coup the regime but instead they rallied around the flag. US got more desperate from Iran not bending + the economic pressure mounting from the cascading affects of a oil supply shock (oil hitting 140 yesterday) = so Trump had to heat up the rhetoric threatening Iran after which he taco'd a few times. In the latest threat against the power grid / more bridges - Iranians instead made a human chain around the power plants in protest. They flirted with a lowkey ground op on the weekend which also failed and that they tried covering up with attention diverted to the pilot rescue. That means they won't try a proper ground invasion in the future. Had little choice but to find a off ramp and Pakistan helped midwife it. Israel is still acting rogue and hitting Lebanon hard despite it. Not sure if that will flop the negotiations which seem to be difficult already. Iran has gained more leverage after this confrontation instead of less as they still have de facto control over Hormuz which will only make their bargaining position demand even more.

@Nivsch thanks for providing nuanced views. I think the centre has moved right enough for that bill to be passed - so can’t just be pin pointed at Ben Gvir etc although he’s the most vile of the lot. Israel is divided but it’s hard to know how much? I’m just guessing it’s a 1/3 left, middle and right but the left are shrinking whilst the right are increasing. The centre doesn’t have to be far right but simply fear driven enough to tolerate a mobilised right wing to gain momentum especially post October 7th. On some issues or views we see in polling that majority are in agreement ie war on Iran being good or necessary, or after October 7th most agreeing Israel wasn’t going hard enough on Gaza even though a week or two in they had already dropped massive amounts of bombs. It’s tough to know how representative those polls are, but even then - let’s say they are true. I don’t think most Israelis are intently wanting the mass death of Palestinians, but also I think many simply are indifferent and feel whatever needs to happen for survival needs to happen - and that can be equally bad as a result because it enables harmful actions and ends up tolerating the far right due to ‘survival’. The main issue is the threat perception of Israel remaining on high alert and its security doctrine being maximalist in the region which reinforces that perception. The man security dilemma between Israel and Iran needs resolving for things to really settle - and then the Palestinian issue settled too. The issue is we now see Israeli heads talking of a new Sunni axis as a future threat (Turkey, Qatar, Saudi/Pakistan). If threat perception always remains high that will ever ensure insecurity of Israel. This may be partly due to past trauma (understandably) but is being weaponised by other interests (domination / imperialism).

Lets not forget the magical mullahs who want to impose clerical facism on the world lol What makes geopolitics so interesting is how it has multiple domains interacting with each other, but that's also what causes flaws in many analysts if they lack knowledge in certain domains (finance, oil markets etc). I've started seeing finance guys saying how this war was started by financial interests because they have captured the US state totally - thus control its foreign policy. Jiang goes for the more ideological being the driver ie Christian Zionism. But its never one cause - and the US empire state isn't as captured by capital as the nation state which has been much more hollowed out by capital interests. The security state (NSA/Washington) still has its own logic of primacy, national security etc which can hurt capital interests (tariffs, tech containment of China, sanctions etc).

@Ramasta9 The problem with conspiracy theories which may not be conspiracy is that they lack evidence or use half truths as evidence. Many of these conspiracy point to something real enough to have people resonate with it - but then add on layers false truths or overstretch things to the point of not being true. From another thread about Zionist control of the US, I responded to others regarding it: