Forestluv

It seems you are looking for a particular type of science that supports your pre-conceived views. That doesn’t allow for an open-minded exploration, since only science that supports that view will be deemed worthy and science contrary to that view will be debated. As well, partial truths become miscontextualized.

I’ve noticed a lot of minds have difficulty seeing that Everything = Nothing. Here is a simple example I noticed today. . . I bought some new Vegan protein powder. I noticed there was a warning label that read “This product contains a substance known to the State of California to cause birth defects or other reproductive harm”. This surprised me since the Vegan powder was supposed to be organic and the ingredients were: Organic peas, brown rice, pumpkin seeds and natural flavors. Perhaps the toxic substance was one of the “natural flavors”. Or perhaps there were contaminants from the factory processing. So I researched the product and manufacturer. Not a single negative comment about the manufacturers or product related to this. . . . Well. . . it turns out that every food manufacturer in California is worried that their product may have an ingredient that is later found out to be associated with a birth defect or reproductive harm. They are worried that they could potentially be liable in the future without the label, so every food manufacturer puts this label on their products to protect themselves just in case. All food products in California have this label. Nobody takes the warning label seriously because all food products have it. I then realized “Every food product having the warning label is the same as no food product having the warning label”. The warning label becomes useless. Everything = Nothing.

Of course that framework won’t make sense. That frame has an external god. It has a creator that is separate from that which is created. A nondual frame is very different, yet also very difficult for a mind that perceives in duality. For example, you could contextualize God as Everything or ISness. This is a very different context.

@Apparition of Jack I like your car analogy. To add into it. . . A few decades ago, driving drunk in the U.S. was not a big deal. If a drunk driver got pulled over by police, they cop often gave the person a ride home. There were no legal or social consequences. In the 1980s, a group of mothers created the group Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) and they completely changed the social consciousness of drunk driving. They exposed all the harm caused. At first there was pushback and a lot of people thought MADD was over-reacting. Yet overtime their was a consciousness shift. Drunk driving became a bad thing. There was a new social stigma with drunk driving. People no longer could say to their co-workers “What a great party! I drove home so wasted that I actually parked my car on my front lawn” and everyone laughs. Those days were over. And new legal consequences arose. People lost their “freedom” to drink at parties and drive home drunk, yet this benefited society.

I don’t mean to invalidate it. I’m saying context matters. It depends on the situation. A Nazi organizer that has his feelings hurt because he is marginalized from mainstream social media is different than someone supporting Thomas Jefferson statues on social media. And in cases in which someone is marginalized for their views, is that really akin to someone getting lynched by an angry mob? People have a tendency to equalize their self hurts to much greater hurts.This elevates the significance of their self hurt. I agree I think it depends on the situation. There are cases of excess. If I stated support for a Thomas Jefferson statue and people started threatening me - that is excessive. Yet there are situations I think pushback is appropriate. For example, Germany took a hard stance prohibiting pro-Nazi speech and expression. Look how far they have come relative to the “anything goes“ pro-Confederate free expression in the U.S. Germany has made more progress in a few decades a few decades than the U.S. has made in over 140 years! The U.S. is still struggling with white supremacy expressed through pro-confederate symbolism. Germany is not debating wether to take down statues honoring Hitler, yet the U.S. is debating wether to take down studs honoring those who fought for slavery. . . .In this situation, I think it’s for the better to marginalize and stigmatize this type of toxicity. It’s not simple an “alternative perspective”. Yet I also think things can be taken to far in which non-toxic alternative perspectives get caught up in the purge. I think Green should be mindful of over-reaching.

If a mind interprets through a lens of “It’s materialistic scientific bull shit”, it will perceive everything as materialist science bull shit. We can draw a distinction between criticizing from below vs criticizing from above. From a meta view that sees both immaterial and material, it’s not all materialist science bull shit. Identifying as a immaterialist and calling it all materialist science bull shit is similar to a materialist calling the immaterial “woo woo” bull shit. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7293495/

It depends on what you consider an “alternative perspective”. Yes, there are a lot of knee-jerk reactions. However, there are also situations in which pushback can be helpful. For example, promoting Nazi ideology and formation of Nazi groups. And to call someone getting criticized on social media a “lynching by a mob” seems like excessive victim mentality to me. Consider what an actual lynching by a mob is and put things in perspective.

https://www.ucsf.edu/news/2020/06/417906/still-confused-about-masks-heres-science-behind-how-face-masks-prevent

I think there are a lot of caveats about who gets to define what intelligence is, write the tests and what the tests are actually testing. For example, IQ tests also test for motivation and the ability to focus on their questions and their answers.. Those are aspects of “Intelligence” to them. I’ve taken an IQ test in which I started to deconstruct the question structure, the relativity of points, how certain parts could be interpreted differently, how multiple answers could be partially correct and how unintelligent the test writers were. Of course this type of intelligence doesn’t count and I ended up scoring relatively poorly. As well, I get bored taking those tests. I’m not motivated. I would much rather construct my own models or recontextualize existing models. Yet this doesn’t count as “intelligence” according to the tests.

The song “Lift Every Voice” will be played at the start of every NFL game week 1. It is an important song within black culture and has been called a black anthem. Here is Beyoncé performing the song at a concert.

Alabama University football is a religion in Alabama. The Crimson Tide are the best program in college football history. The state has no professional sports teams and they are obsessed with Alabama football. . . . Alabama is also a deep red conservative state with an abundance of confederate flags and monuments. Trump destroyed Hilary in Alabama by a massive 28%. I find it interesting that the Alabama football program put out a video supporting BLM. There was no racist incident anywhere near campus or the city that the program was forced to respond to. The students aren’t even on campus now. Why would the football program release a BLM video featuring their Hall of Fame coach? I doubt it was motivated by a hunger for Green racial equality. The Alabama coaches, staff, administration and Board of Trustees ain’t Green. They are Blue/Orange. And this video got approval from the very top. I speculate that the main motivation was Orange: desire for winning and making huge profits. The coaches realize that if they want to recruit players of color, they better get on board, and the players know it too. Saban’s success has been attributable to the Black players he has recruited for his teams. About 80% of Alabama's starting football players are Black. Some fans are infuriated with the BLM video, yet my hunch is that the vast majority of fans will prioritize winning and stomach a BLM video from their beloved football team. I think it’s another example of Orange indirectly assistIng Green.

Here is a post-fight interview with Bellator champion Rory MacDonald. To reach this championship level, a fighter needs to have a killer instinct. When the opponent is hurt, they need to immediately brutalize him to the finish. Rory had recently begun with blue level religion. This was his first fight that he didn’t have the killer instinct to finish a wounded opponent with brutal violence. Notice how he has knocked his opponent partially unconscious, yet can’t “pull the trigger” and finish him off. His interview is very telling and beautifully shows him transitioning from red to blue.

@Twega It seems like you are asking “how can I trust experience”? And that is a different question. Another frame would be “How can I trust ISness?”. It doesn’t really make sense because ISness is prior to trust. To add in trust, we have to start constructing. We need to create constructs of what is ISness? Is it sensations? Is it material or immaterial? How do I know I am accurately perceiving ISness? That is all second order. ISness is first order and prior to those constructs. Also consider “what is experience”. Is not experience a contextualization? The mind makes up a story like “I just ate a ham sandwich. It was delicious”. That is one of many contextualizations we can create. As well, it is occurring now and is also ISness yet the mind creates a thing called “trust” to help protect it’s self interests and wellbeing. Can I trust the stories I am creating? Can I trust my feelings?. Let’s say I am gazing at a tree and an entity appears. I see it’s aura and feel it’s essence. . . It is what it is. . . We can then go second order and ask “Can I trust the experience I just had? Was that a real spirit entity? Was that a paranormal event? Maybe I have psychic powers. Or maybe it was just a bird. Maybe I’m losing my mind and need to go on medication.” Whether to trust a particular contextualization of ISness into experience is second order, yet it can be important and useful at the personal level. If I go around thinking birds are spirit entities from another dimension that are spying on me. . . trusting in that story may cause difficulties in my life.

Individualistic competition is at the core of red and orange, yet their expressions differ. There is a difference between a red-level gang member that kills others so he can be the best vs. an orange-level basketball player that practices a lot so he can be the best. I would consider most UFC fighters to have a mix of red and orange. Most have orange-level desires for fame and money, yet you also need to be very physically violent to have success in the UFC. The whole point is exerting the maximum amount of violence into your opponent.

I don’t think that is a fair description. The Lincoln Project is a coalition of ex-republicans and conservative democrats. They are a mix of blue and orange with some green sprinkles. Most of their ads have to do with things like integrity (blue), financial success (orange) and some ads have promoted unity, equality (green). Many of the members have a traditional “strong on military defense” mindset. And some of the members, like Bill Kristol, could be considered new-conservative and hawkish. Yet I think it is a gross mischaracterization to label the group as “warmongering new-conservatives”. That ad is not warmongering. It’s more like fear mongering. It depicts Russia having control over the U.S. The ad isn’t saying we need to bomb Russia and start a war. We could respond via diplomacy, building alliances, imposing sanctions on Russia etc. They are not sneakily trying to overthrow Trump to push a war mongering new-conservative agenda. I welcome their help since I see Trump as a much bigger threat than LP. Yet I am concerned that they will have a lot of influence on Biden if he wins. I would like that balanced with some green influence on Biden.

Of course it is preferable to remove the statues via the governing body. Yet can you not see the frustration when the political officials don’t do there jobs and the statues remain year after year? You mention that you are disappointed in the State of Tennessee and the Republicans for not removing the Nathan Bedford Forrest statue. Actually, there are many of them as well as a state holiday. Imagine being a black person and having statues honoring this despicable person. I’m not even black and it would both me if my public parks had statues honoring sadistic man that brutalized innocent people. Imagine how that community feels. At what point would your “disappointment” turn to “frustration”? Two years of dealing with this? Five years? At what point does frustration turn to “enough is enough”? . . It’s much easily to simply be “disappointed” and tell others to continue waiting if one doesn’t have to deal with it and doesn’t have to carry the burden. Yes, removing the statues via the proper channels is best and most of them are being removed that way. However, I understand the extreme frustration community members are feeling. If that statue was in my local park, I would feel the same way. And if my city council failed to act year after year, I could see a boiling point in which I join my community to take down the sadistic statue ourselves. I can’t see myself actually pulling it down. Yet I could see myself in the crowd watching and feeling relieved when it came down.

Thanks.

Not in this human lifetime. I probably have less than 50 years left in this human body and won’t see it? It gives me greater appreciation for old people when I hear them say: “I never thought I’d see this in my lifetime” - in regards to big cultural changes.

It seems like we are far away from that ideal. How many Americans would want to help underdeveloped Central American countries? I’d say a minority. Even for countries that would be beneficial to us. For example, helping Brazil move along would be beneficial, especially with preserving the rainforest and global climate health. Often the U.S. talks about good intentions after invading a foreign country. Giving them democracy, building infrastructure etc. Yet it only seems like a half-hearted ideal. And there are conflicts of interest, such as wanting influence over oil or using their country for geographic strategy purposes. Do you think there is a dynamic in which someone that is a leading horse believes that they want every horse to do well. Yet when the other horses catch up , or pass them, they get uncomfortable. For example, a white progressive person may genuinely advocate for more racial equality at their work. Yet when when upper leadership actually become people of color that are calling the shots, that changes things.

I’ve noticed a vague sense that white western civilization is better outside of white western civilization. In my travels through central and South America, I noticed vague senses that white western civilization is better. For example, in somewhat remote areas of Peru there would be a billboard of a woman that was sorta white woman and sorta western looking. Her skin was much lighter than any Peruvian woman I saw, yet she still sorta looked Peruvian. I don’t know if she had skin whitening treatment or they brushed the photograph. And there was a glorification of western culture: the makeup, jewelry and and clothing. As if to say “This is beautiful and successful”. There was a vague sense of admiration of this, yet also a sense that our culture is better - their music, history, heritage, traditions etc. There was a lot of pride in it. Wherever I went, I would say that I really liked their culture’s way of speaking Spanish. The majority of people would agree with and be proud of it.

No, I haven’t. I read a synopsis and this looks to be light on science and heavy on a political agenda. I haven’t read the book, yet my initial impression is that it seems to be the type of thing I’m talking about. I don’t like modeling that misrepresents to create frames toward an agenda. I get super frustrated with it.

The white race as having superior IQ / intelligence is not a prevalent view in science and there is not an area of scientific research. Yet I’m sure white supremacists would say that this is a bias of politically correct liberal academia - similar to climate change deniers. I haven’t listened specifically to Stefan’s arguments, yet I’ve heard others. I think it’s likely that Stefan is an intelligent person with an ideology and agenda he thinks is correct. From what I’ve seen of similar people, I speculate that a lot of what Stefan says is true. He would not be able to be convincing and have millions of followers if his ideology was devoid of truth. The problem is half-truths, twisting truths out of context, manipulations of statistical significance, error bars, confidence levels and leaving out information. Sometimes it’s helpful to simplify, such that it’s not technically correct, yet it gets a more basic point across. Yet people can use all of this to be misleading and to support an agenda. As well, when you start digging deep into the genetics and social constructs, things like race starts to unravel and becomes subjective and arbitrary. For example, what aspects of the human genome is relevant to consider as “race”? All regions of the genome? Non-coding regions? Gene coding regions? And who gets to decide the significance that should be given to specific regions? . . Once you get into the weeds and see how someone is prioritizing certain aspects of the genome and allelic frequencies in populations it’s often obvious of “Oh, you keep prioritizing in a way that favors a construct of a superior white race”. It’s not a coincidence. They have a conclusion and want to use data and modeling toward that conclusion. This also happens with scientists and it’s really bad science. As well, there are questions of what IQ tests actually test for, if they are the best methods to test for that, test bias, genetic and environmental factors and what counts as intelligence. I could cherry pick data, define what is relevant, twist some facts, leave out some points and create a very compelling model of a white race that is superior for intelligence. Intellectual white supremacists can create very convoluted models that take a lot of time to deconstruct and correct. Over and over it’s “Yes, that’s sorta correct. Yet the way you are representing it, it isn’t entirely correct and it’s misleading”. However, their goal is not to have an exploration about genetics, the various models we can create and creating the most accurate models. Their agenda is to force pieces through holes to end up with a model of white supremacy. I’ve tried to converse with them a bit, yet found it incredibly frustrating and pointless. Just as a simple example: suppose there was a study that showed tribe A was statistically taller than tribe B. We then use the conclusion that Tribe A is taller, to support a model in which Tribe A is has better fitness and is the superior tribe. After an hour of deconstruction, it becomes obvious that the data showing tribe A is statistically taller than tribe B is a foundational study and this pice of evidence is critical to the model. We find the original research article and find out that there was a statistical difference, yet that difference was only 1mm. It was statistically significant, yet a 1mm difference is trivial. It is highly misleading to say that Tribe A is taller. The person used a trivial difference that was statistically significant, to suggest there was a meaningful difference relevant to their hypothesis that tribe A is superior. A regular lay person is not going to pick this up. It’s true in one context, yet not true in the context they are using it. Their arguments are filled with this type of thing. It gets so frustrating untangling it. And all the misleading distortions are oriented toward their ideology. They don’t care about building the most accurate model. The only way they are ok with the path toward the most accurate model is if that path kept leading to their desired conclusion. Otherwise, things get distorted and misrepresented toward their conclusion. Yet not everything is misrepresented, only the parts they need to be misrepresented.

Do you really think roughly half the country agrees with Molyneux? From what I’m reading he seems alt-right with a heavy emphasis on white supremacy, conspiracy theories like white genocide, Star Wars movies persecuting white people, an obsession with white superiority of IQ etc. . . Yet perhaps I’m underestimating white supremacy popularity.

@Akemrelax I don’t find racism to be Alex Jone’s main Schtick. He is more into conspiracy theories. Yet he can cause harm. His conspiracy theory that the Sandy Hook massacre was staged caused a lot of harm. He has also disseminated conspiracy theories that have eroded public trust in government.

@Epikur Superheroes are manifestations of our values. The superhero protects us from evil doers that want to harm us. Good and evil are relative constructs and who/what a “superhero” is is also relative. The article makes a good point about how we perceive superheroes and who gets to decide what has value and should be protected. Who is the superhero? It depends on the era in history, the culture and perspective. Let’s say the early 1800s. Who would be a superhero? In the early 1800s, the vast majority of white people owned and supported slavery. Yet there were some murmurings arising of abolitionists arising. As well, western cultures were very misogynist and patriarchal. From the perspective of a white person, the “superhero” at this time would be a white man that destroyed the evil abolitionists and protected women and children from runaway violent slaves. . . . To a black slave, the superhero would be an abolitionist that saved them from the torment of slavery. In the modern era of the U.S. a “superhero” to a conservative may be a white male super cop that saves capitalism and “our way of life” from the evil socialists and communists invading the country. That’s fine, yet this is a bias. Who would the superhero be for an inner city black people that have to endure stop and frisk, police biases and an unjust justice and economic system? From their perspective, who is the superhero? It ain’t gonna be a white supercop saving wealthy white capitalists from evil socialists that want to give them medical care and basic income. I haven’t read the article, yet my impression from the first few minutes of the video, the article is raising this issue. That is: who decides how to portray as “superhero” and who decides which people and values the superhero defends? In a lot of literature and movies, the superhero is portrayed through the lens of white people. It was only two years ago that the first major movie with a black super hero came out “Black Panther” in which the superhero had the interests and values of black people in mind.