Emerald

It's not an ideology. It's something that can be observed. And the reason why Western countries were able to innovate is because they had the resources and were able to free up enough human potential to make those innovations. It's pretty impossible to do that, if you live in a poor country with few resources... and under the boot of an imperial power. But no, there are zero non-barbarous countries as humanity is not fully developed yet... but some are more or less barbarous than others. And the most barbarous in terms of foreign policy tend to dominate on the world stage... but also confer a bump in the standard of living and access to resources for its own people. And this enables more human potential to be freed up and put towards greater levels of societal development. Think of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. If you live in a place where the infrastructure is underdeveloped and there's little access to clean water... or there's no grocery stores... or you don't have access to a lot of medicine... or there's no affordable school in you're region... or your country is occupied by an imperial power... or you live in a place with an unstable government... ALL of the human potential will have to go to the bottom rungs of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs (Physiological Needs and Safety Needs). And having to hyper-focus only on these bottom rungs, doesn't give a lot of opportunity to focus on Esteem and Self-Actualization needs, which must be collectively engaged for a society to move forward towards Community Actualization. So, what I'm saying is that living in an imperialist nation enables its citizens to Self-Actualize more. But at this juncture in history and all times before it, the way that a populace gets freed up to pursue Self-Actualization and Community-Actualization is through these extreme imbalances in power. And I have hope that we will grow past this with the development of new technologies, economic systems, and collective paradigms. But we must all first become aware of how all the positive things that those in "1st world nations" have access to has come at the expense of people from other nations. It's at once recognizing that human development is a bloody and barbarous process with lots of human sacrifice of human will and human life... while also aspiring to something greater and more holistic.

You guys don't know why Leo prefers what he prefers. It's like if I asked Leo "What's your favorite food?" And then one of you chimes in "Pizza." And the other of you chimes in "There are people who enjoy Mediterranean food and others who enjoy Indian food. One finds more joy in certain spices while others find joy in other types of spices." I'm asking Leo in particular because I want to know something about him in particular. It's a personality question.

I know lots of people all over the world. And while my travel experiences are minimal, I have been to a few other countries. And I don't sense that the US is uniquely under-developed compared to other places in terms of the experience of the average person living in the US. It's still probably in the top 20-30 countries on the planet in terms of quality of life for its citizens in most facets. Though it does have its uniquely terrible things like lack of universal healthcare and lack of paid vacation and maternity leave policies. And it's hyper-Capitalist and cut-throat. And its foreign policy is atrocious. Gun violence is also horrible here because of how easily accessible guns are. And there are many things that I disagree with and dislike. I'm very open in my critiques of the US.... in terms of both domestic and foreign policy. You seem to assume that I'm some hyper-nationalist USA defender. I'm definitely not. But my perspective on the US is nuanced and calibrated to what I know about the current state of the world, which is something that I'm always open to learning about. I have no attachment to the idea to any nationalist ideals. And I do resonate more with the societal supports that Scandinavian countries have. I wish that the US would move more in the direction if Social Democracy. But terror attacks rarely happen... and when they do, they're one-off situations. And I don't feel unsafe because I know that I'm a million times more likely to die in a car accident than I am in a terror attack. Only conservatives who watch Fox News get paranoid about things like that... and the same people get scared of the guy with he beard on the plane. And the War on Terror is just a way to get the people whipped into a frenzy of fear and xenophobia to support the government to have more control, wage profitable wars, and have more ability to skirt around due process as long as they label someone a terrorist. And next to NO ONE is better off with a foreign government toppling their own. Maybe in a really domestically authoritarian place with tons of human rights abuses, having a foreign country come in and take over could be preferable to the status quo. But that's so much instability... and the populace would be so vulnerable to the new power structure. Lots of unrest. And I trust that the US won't selectively attack some section of its own country because 1. It has no power-based interests to do that and 2. That would cause a genuine uproar in the populace which would create a lot more resistance to the powers that be... which is something that large power structures try to domestically avoid and only do outside the bounds of the country. And yes, there's definitely lots of economic warfare going on. It's definitely shifting to shrinking middle class and bigger gaps between the rich a poor... and that comes from a government that's in the pocket of billionaires and major industries. Now, in terms of my way of life... I do like my way of life. I wouldn't necessarily want to change that. Or if I did, I'd want to on my own terms. This is a very hyper-individualistic society, and I am pretty well adapted to that and really appreciate the achievement-focus. I find that very exciting. I also love having the support of my family and really like our little single-family home. But I intend later on in my life to create intentional community, because we do lack in terms of community connection. That said, I would not trade my freedom and authenticity for community connection. And it seems like people from cultures who emphasize collectivism over individualism have to sacrifice a lot of agency and authenticity to make that orientation to the world work. So, my goal is to eventually organize a small intentional community of like-minded folks to commune with so that more of those community and connection needs are met. And I don't care if the top 0.0001% have it better than me. I only care if they're impacting others negatively... which they are. But I don't care if someone has a lifestyle that's a zillion times better than mine... as long as I have everything I need. I don't like a lot of things about the US and how it functions. But that doesn't mean I want to leave. I like my life here. And I feel pretty lucky in many ways to live here, despite the shortcomings. But I'm still going to speak my mind about my issues with the US domestic and foreign policy... despite US nationalists saying "If you don't like it, then leave!"

Here's a meta-analysis on food groups associated with higher and lower risks of all-cause mortality... https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28446499/ With the exception of fish, meat consumption was associated with higher risk of all-cause mortality and plant consumption was associated with lower risk of all-cause mortality. Also, you can look up more yourself on Pub-Med and type in keywords and phrases like "diet and all-cause mortality" or "diet and stroke risk" or "diet and heart attack risk" etc.

Here's a study about plant based diets and their inverse relationship with all-cause mortality... https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33951994/ But there was a very large meta-analysis where they cross referenced thousands of individual studies on the impact of diet on all-cause mortality (and maybe some other factors). And they found that the fewer animal products and the more plants are in someone's diet, the lower the risk of all-cause mortality. I'll try to track that one down again.

I never said that no one would have negative effects on a Vegan diet. That would be an unsubstantiated claim. Any diet could potentially react negatively with someone's individual make-up. What I said was that the scientific consensus is that the Vegan diet is a diet where you can get all your nutritional needs met at any phase of life... and that's its associated with better health and longevity according to various studies and meta-analyses. And it's associated with lower risk of all-cause mortality... and lower risk of heart disease and stroke. And these are all scientifically based claims. And I said that Integral's perspective was making unsubstantiated alarmist claims that Vegans are generally unhealthy and start looking like skulls and have all these health problems. And I said that his perspective is not holistic because he is valuing personal anecdotes from people who agree with him over the scientific consensus to maintain his unsubstantiated 'Veganism inherently causes health problems' claim. But I'm sure that some people could react negatively to a Vegan diet. It's just not common that people do. There has to be something really specific going on... like a particular condition. Like I know that people with epilepsy often benefit from a Ketogenic diet, which would be much more difficult on a Vegan diet compared to an animal-based diet. There are also cases where people who already have auto-immune issues could have a negative reaction to quite a lot of plants. So, that might make a Vegan diet more challenging. But for most people, Veganism doesn't create any health problems. That said, it's really common when someone quits Veganism that they come up with ways to rationalize their decision to themselves... and adopting beliefs that Veganism is unhealthy can be one such rationalization. That's what I think is going on with Integral.

100% I find that applying Spiral Dynamics on the individual level is totally counter-productive for the reasons you mentioned. It's incredibly helpful for understanding collectives. But everyone starts identifying themselves as a "Tier 2" multi-perspectival thinker without understanding what being multi-perspectival really entails. And it locks them in place in the mono-lens perspective they're coming from.

I never said you were crazy. I was saying that you were saying untrue things... and that what you were saying negates the scientific consensus and is thus not a holistic perspective. To me, given what you've said about once being Vegan... it comes across to me that you're defending your choice to stop being Vegan to yourself by creating these narratives and convincing yourself that your perspectives is a higher perspectives based in health concerns. And you could just make that personal decision without having to go on such a mission about it.... which indicates to me that your views are more based in your own guilt about your dietary change and feeling like you need to narrativize (in lieu of real evidence) that Veganism is this horrible unhealthy diet that makes people look like skulls. And my bet is that it could be a way of assuaging personal guilt around making choices that are against your own values. So, really be honest with yourself and question why you're holding onto these fear-mongery "Veganism kills" ideas. But regarding your point about getting perspectives from individual people about their experiences and lifting that up above the scientific consensus... the thing is that you could find all sorts of personal anecdotes of people touting the benefits or drawbacks of any diet. And hearing others talk about a diet that happen to agree with you, just is not an accurate measure of how healthy or unhealthy a diet is. I could find a tons of personal anecdotes from people who are experiencing tons of health benefits from the Vegan diet and who had all sorts of health problems from an omnivorous diet. I hear them often because I watch a lot of pro-Vegan content. And you probably hear a lot of anti-Vegan anecdotes and perspectives because you watch a lot of anti-Vegan content that probably touts the benefits of other diets. But these personal anecdotes don't hold any objective weight over how healthy a diet is because you can't possible hear every single anecdote in the world. You're going to be mostly listening to the ones that already agree with your worldview. And you cant's chalk that up to "Well I'm coming from a more holistic perspective... so in that holistic perspective personal anecdotes can be better than scientific studies ". You have to actually study it in a more controlled way to get a real empirical sense of what's going on. And if your perspective is that personal anecdotes hold more weight than peer reviewed double blind studies, that's just a negation of the scientific perspective. And for your perspective to be holistic, it can't negate science or any other perspective. Holistic means whole. If you're negating empiricism and science to uphold your views, then you're not being holistic. You're just lying to yourself and doing mental gymnastics to find a way to square the circle. And it comes across as silly and pompous that you view your perspective as more holistic just because you view selective anecdotes from people who agree with you as more reflective of truth than controlled studies and meta-analyses that directly measure the physiological impacts of different diets on a variety of people.

Certainly all societies steal a lot of a human potentials from their constituents. And undoubtedly that's true across the board including in the US... we're all limited by the level of infrastructure that our society has developed. But I am privileged in the sense that my country is highly unlikely to be invaded by another imperialist nation, because the US is the main imperializer of the world with the biggest military budget. I'm also unlikely to have a foreign government topple my government. As a US citizen, I'm 100% sure that we'll never be in a Gaza-like situation. There are just certain military-related safety concerns that I don't have to consider, just because of where I live. I also have access to resources (like food, clean water, medicine, hospitals, roads. public schools, public libraries, public fire departments, etc.) that some places just don't have. And they don't have them because of the imperialism-based imbalances between countries. So, just on these dynamics alone that's a CRAZY amount of privilege. And it would be a lie to not admit that to myself. And I'm grateful for these privileges... but I don't like the fact that these are privileges that many people around the world don't have access to.

Thank you

I have been down these rabbit holes of questioning many times. This line of questioning is not new to me... and sounds like my inner voice on a day where I can't quite narrow the aperture of my awareness to focus on what's in my power. It has tended to torture me quite a bit since childhood because I've never been able to be 100% unconscious or numb to these imbalances... and I go around and around in my head recognizing that my existence is propped up by lots of suffering of other sentient beings. It's this constant powerless spinning of the wheels of wanting desperately to change how things are but not being able to. And I've only recently come to more of an acceptance/resignation to it to realize that I cannot change the fact that my life is only as good as it is because of tremendous amounts of historical and present human suffering. The reality of the matter is that I don't have much personal power to change these dynamics in a real way other than to raise awareness about how these power structures are functioning or perhaps boycotting companies that are supporting these dynamics... and donating to funds that help people in precarious situations. But if I did have the power and it was in a real trolley problem where if I sacrifice myself then an entire society of people get to have a better life, then I'd probably have to work up the courage to die for a worthy cause. I would do my best to embrace being a sacrificial lamb if it was clear that my death and sacrifice would lead to a better world. Though I know I would not be able to sacrifice my children for any cause, no matter how noble. Don't expect any higher conscious sacrificial behavior from a mother bear protecting her cubs. I hate imperialism and all the corrupt power structures. But I'm also grateful that my children are in a position within the current state of the world where their suffering isn't so great. And I wish that for other people's children as well. But I recognize that my children's lack of suffering in many ways comes from other children's suffering. So, it's a mixture of relief, guilt, and inner turmoil.

But you could've chosen any game to play while you're here. The medicine experience that I mentioned indicates to me that God itself doesn't seem to prefer playing the Truth-seeking game over other games. It's not like the Truth-seeking game is superior to other games. It plays lot of games. It's perfectly fine incarnating as a sea urchin and playing the sea urchin game as it is to incarnate as a human who's in the process of awakening to higher Truths. It showed me that it values the limitations of incarnation. And it's okay with any limits... including and especially limits on Truth. So let me ask the question from another angle... God... why are you choosing to focus on Truth in this lifetime?

What I'm saying is that I'm more objectively correct about the barbaric ways and reasons that countries develop more power over other countries. But I'm talking about it from a very distant perspective without acknowledging the pain and the suffering and the sacrifice of human life and potential that it entails. I'm talking about it like I'm a scientist observing the behaviors of ants on an anthill... where the scientist is not impacted at all by the actions of the ants. And I can pretend to that detached perspective because I'm not on the chopping block in this instance. My life and human potential isn't being threatened by imperialism because I am receiving the benefits and privileges of being a citizen of a highly developed wealthy imperialist nations that enacts all sort of barbarisms to other nations and the people who inhabit them. From one angle, that is the nature of humanity at these earlier stages of development (as humanity is generally not very well developed at this juncture in time nor any past time). All women have had to be sacrificial lambs up until the past 100 years or so because all of our human potential had to be wrapped up in rearing many many children and having to do all the household sustenance tasks from scratch without modern inventions. Similar could be said of any peasant (male or female) in certain ways as they had to waste human potential on toiling the field for a landlord. And then, of course countless young men have died in war as sacrificial lambs. Human development only grows out of lots of suffering and lots of sacrifice of human life and human will. And through that sacrifice later enables a world with less human sacrifice. And we all benefit in varying degrees by the sacrifices made by earlier people. But in this particular case, the sacrifice comes from powerful countries imperializing less powerful countries and curtailing the development of those societies and lessening the quality (and often quantity) of life of the people in them. And this development of dominance comes about through geographic factors and greater access to specific resources at earlier points in human history, which have enabled certain imperial powers to curtail the developmental potential of certain countries and peoples which has a cascading effect into modern day in our current geopolitical climate. And it is an unfortunate developmental phase that humanity goes through. But we likely won't be rid of it in our lifetimes. And I admit that I am on the receiving end of the benefits of said imperialism. My life is better because other people's lives are worse even though that's a bitter pill for me because I value mercy. There's been a lot of human sacrifice and continues to be human sacrifice just so that me and my children can be safe... and we have more opportunities to self-actualize because of the context we live in. And I'm grateful that my children don't have to suffer as much... but I know that the children of others are suffering tremendously. There's no getting around that. It's just a fact. That's why this objective distant view of things, when used as a justification can be 1. lacking heart-wisdom, 2. enabling of the powers that be when the populace needs to put pressure on our institutions to be better, 3. insensitive to those who are directly harmed by these patterns.

That's also true. I am in an incredibly privileged position to be able to make this observation... like an anthropologist studying the human situation from and objective but distant place. And it is only in my position of privilege that I can observe it from a more detached and less heart-centered place. And that creates more objectivity but less heart-wisdom if I leave it at that. This happens often in the way that men can think of women. And men can be more detached because they are not on the chopping block. And I cannot stand it when they think they are more correct because they can look at the situation from a detached more objective view because they do not recognize that they're lacking in the empathy and heart-wisdom. And it is certainly short-sighted if it's used to excuse these acts of barbarism. It's always negative to treat people as sacrificial lambs. And we should always be against it as individuals as we need the individuals of a populace to always be pro-people and pro-human development. Only then, can we actually put the adequate pressure needed to change these imperialist dominator tendencies. That said, it is true how these dynamics tend to work. Lots of human sacrifice of life and potentials along many factions of the species goes into growing as a species. And I am not on the chopping block in this particular instance because I am from the imperial power with the greatest degree of military might. So, I do apologize if my perspective is insensitive as I am giving a very detached objective view of the gnarly ways that human societies use and gain power... and how individual people end up as sacrificial lambs of the process.

@zazen It isn't just Zionism. That's just the Stage Blue reasoning that's used to get Israeli Stage Blue people on board with the barbarisms of the US and Israel. You need a story to sell barbarism to the people so that they can rationalize to themselves why it's okay. And Zionism is just the wrapping paper that's being used. It's similar to how the US used the idea of Manifest Destiny to create a pretty narrative around Native American genocide. That way, the average people could romanticize it and support it without focusing on the reality. The US also did the same thing with slavery and created a narrative that black people were 3/5 of a person and needed the white masters to civilize and employ and help them through giving them work. This enabled liberal-minded people of the time to rationalize to themselves why slavery is okay. There's always a narratives you have to feed the people to get them on board so that they don't have to question their own goodness and so that they don't challenge the state's agenda. But the people in the government are typically focused on maintaining power and control. And they may use the stories to rationalize their evils to themselves. I'm sure that many people in the Israeli government truly are 'dyed in the wool' Zionists. But I have no doubt in my mind that the US and most of the government officials aren't the slightest bit interested or invested in Zionist ideology. Though, they'll pretend to it to convince Americans that they just care about "securing a homeland for Jewish people" and "fighting antisemitism" or the variety of ways they justify it. But that's just to justify it to the people. The US and Israel have other power-based imperial agendas... which likely have to do with taking control of trade routes and interrupting the potential formation of an Arab empire (of many nations with a common tongue) by having an American ally right in the center of the Middle East. And the interests of the US are national defense, acquisition of resources, and maintaining it top imperial status... not Zionism.