Forestluv

Peace and happiness are components within a greater expansion. For there to be peace and happiness there must, at the very least, be non-peace and unhappiness. And there is much more. In a relative sense, searching for everlasting peace and happiness Is a fools errand and is highly restrictive. In an absolute sense, once Peace and Happiness is realized it no longer matters since there is Nothing to contrast it.

You are assuming the two are mutually exclusive.

Psychedelics can be a powerful tool in healing and awakenings. I recommend integrating psychedelics into a holistic spiritual life that also includes things like meditation, yoga, spiritual readings, nonduality, creativity and time in nature. Also give yourself plenty of time to integrate the sights of psychedelics and be mindful about chasing experiences. The same can be said about meditation and yoga. They also alter neurotransmitter levels. Do an fMRI while I’m in a yin yoga zone and it will be waaay ‘out there‘. Substances and spiritual practices aren’t limited to chasing feel good experiences. That is just scratching the surface. As well, there are bigger fish to fry than searching for “permanent everlasting peace and happiness”.

That is pre-emptive. From one perspective, this is a good thing. But by the same rationale, the assassination of U.S. leaders is justified. Bush makes Soleimani look like a choir boy. You are not seeing how vicious U.S. foreign policy has been. For every assassination of a foreign leader you think is jUstified, their is a U.S. leader that fits that justification. It’s just harder to see when “our team” is doing it. Imo, the U.S. resorts far too much on an industrial military. Our military is far more advanced than our diplomacy , cyber interventions and altruistic efforts. The U,.S. Military budget is a ridiculous 751 billion dollars. We can blow up the world 20 times over. I would take 100 billion and invest it into high level diplomacy, game theory, cyber technology and altruism to help countries. People shouldn’t be getting filthy rich off of warfare. It is a conflict of interest.

I would say poking a bear would have a high chance of triggering an immediate attack from the bear. Yet stirring up hills of fire ants also inflames conflict. It’s just a different type of attack. The U.S. assassinating world leaders as a “pre-emptive“ attack, reduces the global standing of the U.S. and plants seeds of hatred against the U.S. How do you think our previous allies such as France, Germany, Canada etc, perceive the U.S. after the U.S. assassinates world leaders? Remember, those countries are not being fed U.S. propaganda. They can have a very different perspective. And after seeing the U.S. assassinate world leaders, doesn’t that make it more reasonable for countries like Russia, North Korea, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia etc. to assassinate foreign leaders as a “pre-emptive” attack? And this isn’t the first time. The U.S. invaded Iraq as a “pre-emptive” attack and it turned out there weren’t any WMDs there. . . If the U.S. can do it, why can’t they do it? A country could call any grievance a “pre-emptive” attack and point to the U.S. as justification. This is one way that a country can lose global standing. And how might the citizens of those foreign countries perceive the U.S. after the U.S. has assassinated their leader and they are suffering due to U.S. sanctions? Wouldn’t that cause anti-U.S. sentiment and desire for retaliation? Imagine you and your family were starving and suffering due to the sanctions of a foreign country. I think most Americans would be pretty pissed off at that foreign country, especially if U.S. propaganda blamed all the problems on the foreign country.

Title of thread: “I need advice about being God please someone”. First line of OP: Same answer: Within Enlightenment, the Tom Cruise character has no more relevance than an ant in Uruguay.

How would you feel about Iraqis assassinating Mike Pompeo as a warning shot to prevent war? You are seeing things from the perspective of American interests.

This is conflating two modes. Being in Tom Cruise mode is not God mode. In God mode, the Tom Cruise character has no more relevance than an ant in Uruguay.

Yes, and police also need to make quick decisions. This is why I would suck as a police officer. I don’t like making quick decisions on limited data. In some contexts this is good, in other contexts this is bad. I appreciate these types of exploratory, contemplative questions. It’s something I love to see on the forum. However. . . I could literally spend hours contemplating this and could write pages worth in this thread. Unfortunately, I need to go to bed now and I don’t want to totally derail the thread. Thanks for your thoughts. You got me thinking in new ways and I like that.

Bolton is loved by hawkish neo-cons. His words will carry weight with them. Trumpers will brush it off and the rest of us are not at all surprised by Bolton’s tells.

My point is that I can’t give an answer to the question “What is a fair sentence for a murder?”. It depends on the situation. There are various forms of murder. That is why there are different degrees of murder in law. There are a lot of facts to consider. Even in the examples above, we still need more information. What if the guy who killed his wife was mentally ill and had been tortured by his wife for years? . . . What if this was the fourth DUI for the drunk driver and he had previously killed someone and already had served 5 years? . . Sentencing is not cut and dry. It involves variables. We also likely have different personality types. I take a long time to make decisions. I like to consider lots of different possibilities, perspectives, options etc. Other personalities are more decisive-oriented and prefer to make quick decisions. . . . For those playing at home, I usually type as an INFP, which is definitely not “The Decider” personality type.

I gave an answer, it’s just not how you want it to be answered. My answer is that determining fairness for murder sentences has many variables and I gave examples. It would be like asking “what’s the best way to get to New York City?”. It depends on many variables. For example, someone in Paris asking that question will get a different answer than someone in Philadelphia asking that question. Similarly, a guy who planned out and killed his wife is very different than a drunk driver that killed someone in a crash. That’s why there are various degrees of murder and manslaughter.

Bolton may appear to be the good guy here as he tattles on Trump, yet keep in mind that Bolton has been a bloodthirsty warmonger most of his life.

Determining fairness is a complex and nuanced topic, imo. For example, what is a fair sentence for a murder? There are all sorts of variables. Was the murder intentional? Was the murder in self defense? Was the person who got murdered also a murderer? Does the murderer have a previous criminal record? Is he mentally ill? What are the chances for rehabilitation? Should we factor in extra time to discourage other people from committing murder? People in ethics literally spend their careers contemplating and debating these questions. The question of wether the sentences should be different for females, males, blacks, whites, gays, straights adds in new variables and I would consider this discrimination between different types of murderers. Here is the standard definition of “discrimination” as per the dictionary: ”the unjust or prejudicial treatment of different categories of people or things, especially on the grounds of race, age, or sex.”

That is not how I would use the term “discrimination” and I don’t consider that to be the common usage of the term. The common use of the term “discrimination” involves TWO different groups and one group is being treated differently relative to another group based on a particular characteristic. It makes no sense to say the murderers are being discriminated against relative to other murderers. There is no distinguishing characteristic to base the discrimination upon.If a society gives a murderer a 50 year prison sentence and then thinks it may be an excessive length of time, I don’t consider that “discrimination”. I consider this to be re-considering what is a fair consequence for a crime. An example of discrimination would be to be give black murderers 50 yr. prison sentences and white murderers 40 yr. prison sentences. Here there is a characteristic upon which to discriminate. There is no longer simply murderers. There are now two groups to base the discrimination: black murderers and white murderers. The discrimination isn’t the murderer part, since that is common between the two groups. The discrimination is based on skin color. There needs to be a differing characteristic on which to base the discrimination. As well, I think it’s counter-productive to use terms non-traditionally. It introduces ambiguity and confusion. I don’t consider disagreement on the definition of terms to be “different perspectives”. For example, if one person said a vegetable is something astronauts travel in and another person said a vegetable is something worn on the feet, I wouldn’t consider it “different perspectives”. I would consider it miscommunication due to poorly defined terms. Again, there is no distinguishing characteristic as the basis of discrimination. For discrimination, we need at least two groups with at least one different characteristic. For example, we could discriminate against male murderers relative to female murderers. In this context. I would use the term “fair”. I consider determining fair prison sentences to be highly complex and nuanced. There are many factors involved such as intention, prior convictions, rehabilitation etc.

I may be interpreting your sentence structure incorrectly. Yet to me, you are making assumptions of “discrimination”. If your basis of discrimination is inaccurate, the question of how much of X constitutes discrimination no longer holds. If we ask “How much laughter constitutes a candle”, it doesn’t make sense. The statement “How much freedom should someone get when he murdered many people so he does not discriminated?”. This is illogical because there is no discrimination in imprisoning a murderer. The murderer is subjected to a prison sentence as a consequence of his actions. It would be like asking “How much freedom should someone get when he murdered many people so he does not get scuba dived”. Scuba diving is irrelevant to the situation. We could rephrase the question and ask “What policies can we enact so someone convicted of a crime is not subjected to racial discrimination while being sentenced?”. Yet this is a different context. I don’t think this was the context of your original statement. Yet I could be interpreting it incorrectly. For example, in the United States, black people are given longer sentences for drug possession than white people (on average). We could ask the question “How can we remove this racial discrimination so all races are subjected to the same jail sentence for the same crime?”.

You are conflating discrimination, personal preference and consequences. If a boss fires a lazy person that won’t show up for work, that is a consequence - not discrimination. People are not taxed at a higher rate for working 20 hrs a day. Rich people are taxed at a higher tax rate to reduce wealth inequality. A person not wanting to date someone from a particular ethnic group is a personal preference. A manager who refuses to hire someone from a particular ethnic group is discrimination. A murderer that is imprisoned is facing consequences for their actions. It is not discrimination. A black person that receives a longer prison sentence for the same crime as a white person is discrimination. As well, money alone will not fix discrimination. There needs to be anti-discrimination laws, education and a rise in consciousness. However, moving toward a more just economic system is important to mitigate some of the impacts of discrimination. Within your framing, consider this: a man was wrongly convicted for murdering a woman. DNA evidence revealed he was innocent and the police made several mistakes in the investigation. He spent 15 years in prison. Should this man receive any financial compensation? Or is it ok for the police and judges to say “Oops, our bad. Sorry about that”.

Great. So you are saying there are some aspects of 1950s family structure you think are positive and some aspects of 1950s family structure you think is negative. I agree. For example, wealth inequality was much lower in the 1950s than it is today. Today’s extreme wealth inequality is a negative for lower and middle class families. I’m all for cohesive families. I think it’s great to have families with two healthy, loving parents. I don’t care if they are straight, gay, same race or inter-racial. I would also advocate for having community resources for families such as pregnancy support, family counseling and assistance with things like alcoholism and drug addiction. I would much rather invest in families than invest in billionaires. I would rather use taxpayer money to create a community recreation center for families than use taxpayer money to buy a billionaire his third yacht that he won’t even use. I disagree. For example, the government needed to create laws to give LGBTQ people equal rights and government is needed to enforce those laws. Hopefully, the conscious level of society will rise high enough that people will naturally live with inclusion and the government won’t be needed for enforcement. Yet in the meantime, we need government intervention in this area. You seem to value winners and winning. . . Would you support removing statues that honor confederate generals? (They were the losers). And replacing them with Union generals? (They were the winners).

I understand all the points you made and I am not arguing against your points. I’m asking a simple question to clarify your statement. You’ve stated that family structure was better in the 1950s. I’m not arguing your points. I’m asking you if you think these three aspects of 1950s family structure is better than today: 1) Inter-racial marriage is illegal. 2) Same-sex marriage is illegal. 3) Children are segregated into different schools based on race. . . Would you support re-enstating these aspects of family structure?

In the 1950s: Inter-racial marriage was illegal. Same-sex marriage was illegal. Children were segregated into different schools based on race. Do you think it’s a good idea to return to those aspects of the 1950s?

@Consept Unequal access to education and skill development is an issue. I also have an issue with who gets to decide what counts as “skill” and “achievement”. For example, in an academic institution hiring new faculty, who gets to decide what counts as “skill” and “achievement” In the hiring process? Ime, a committee of white men aged 60+ have a very different idea of “skill” and “achievement” than a committee with diverse ages, ethnicities and genders. During one of our hires, there was actually a committee of old white crusty men that evaluated job candidates in the biology department. For one candidate, they spent about 30 minutes with her and didn’t even go to her job talk. In their written report, they recommended that we do not hire her because she was “too motherly”. In their meritocratic ideology, “fatherly” attributes count as skills and “motherly” attributes count as unskilled and disqualify an applicant.

Again, you are over-estimating meritocracy and under-estimating inequality. By “inequality”, I am not referring to differences in genetics. I am referring to inequalities imposed by society. You seem to like imagery of competition and winning. Consider this scenario. Imagine we have a running race of 20 kilometers. Of course some people will have certain advantages. Some people may be a good height for running. People that are super short or super tall will be at a disadvantage. As well, some people will have an advantage because they had a healthier diet and exercised regularly. People that are overweight will be at a disadvantage. . . I’m not talking about those inequalities. Now imagine that we say “Anyone who has a name starting with the letter ‘R’ will have to carry a 10 kilo backpack during the race. That is unequal discrimination. If the people with names starting with the letter ‘R’ say “This isn’t fair. Why should I have to carry this burden and not the others?”. That is NOT playing the victim. Of course they could exaggerate and say “It’s not fair I have to carry a 30 kilo backpack” - yet that exaggeration does not nullify that they have to carry a 10 kilo backpack. The “alternative” is that we create a fairer system by removing systemic biased weights AND encouraging people to take individual responsibility, work hard etc. I agree with you regarding certain aspects of meritocracy. Yet we cannot have a fair meritocracy when there are underlying systemic / institutional biases. If people whose names start with ‘R’ are burdened with extra weight, that is not fair. Are some people with ‘R’ names lazy, stupid and irresponsible? Of course!! Just like people with names starting with any other letter can be lazy, stupid and irresponsible. The unfair part is adding an extra 10 kilo backpack to people with ‘R’ names.

We could have a discussion on what “family values” are. To me, “family values” include things like having loving parents that support the children. They help the children with their homework. They encourage their children to explore their interests in pursue their passions. They don’t abuse their children. To me, “family values” has very little to do with wether one parent sticks his penis into a vagina of another parent. Using “family values” in that context would be disingenuous, imo. A heterosexual couple can have “family values” and a gay couple can have “family values”. I think it’s fine if parents decide that they want to participate in a particular religion and live by the values of that religion. Yet it’s not ok for those parents to force other parents to live by their religious values. If a couple believes that homosexuality is unnatural and immoral, that is fine - they can be a heterosexual couple and live in the righteousness of their natural and moral life. However, they don’t get to tell me that I must love and marry someone from the opposite sex. They don’t get to create a two-tiered social system in which heterosexuals are at a higher tier than homosexuals.

You are over-estimating meritocracy and under-estimating inequality. If we have a bag of seeds and half the seeds go into high quality fertile soil and half the seeds go into low quality clay soil, that inequality will have a profound impact on the growth of the plants. The seeds in the low quality clay soil are at a disadvantage. A system of meritocracy will give an advantage to the seeds in the high quality fertile soil.

I’m not saying it’s a conservative statement. I wrote: ”In one context, this has truth. For minds that are paradigm-locked in a conservative mindset, this partial truth will be easily to see and will be contextualized within a conservative framework.” I am not pointing to the accuracy of the statement. I am pointing to the contextualization of the statement within one’s larger worldview. A mind with a conservative mindset will contextualize that statement within a larger conservative framework. A mind with a progressive mindset will contextualize that statement within a progressive mindset. Notice how your mind keeps interpreting statements to maintain a conservative ideology. It’s not the statement itself, it’s how you are using the statement to re-enforce the conservative ideology you hold. Again. . . I’m not saying that this point doesn’t have value. I’m saying that you are not seeing this within a larger picture. In the decathlon training example. . . You keep saying that it’s important to practice jumping over hurdles. OF COURSE that’s important!!! It’s one of the events!!! Yet you are not seeing how it relates to the bigger picture because you don’t want to acknowledge some of those elements. For example, imagine you are coaching a decathlete and are encouraging him to have a strong work ethic and to practice jumping over the hurdles each day. Yet one day you realize that he has 10 pound weights locked to his ankles that he cannot remove. This will interfere with developing proper hurdling form and could cause injury. Is it important that he practices jumping over hurdles? Of course. Yet it’s also important to remove the weights from his ankles. As well, it’s important to identify all your athletes that have weights locked to their ankles, who/what is locking those weights to their ankles and how to correct the system locking those weights to some athletes’ ankles. One problem with the conservative view is that they refuse to see the weights on some of their athletes. They refuse to see that there is a system locking weights to some of the athletes ankles. They hold tightly to a false belief that all athletes have equal opportunity and they just need to train hard to be successful. You can say 1 million times that it is important to practice jumping over hurdles to be a successful decathlete and I will agree with you every time. And each time, I will point out that that is necessary, yet insufficient. It is also necessary to unlock and remove weights locked to some athletes’ ankles. The belief that “things were better back in the 1950s” is a great example. It myopically focuses on a narrow subset of societal dynamics and turns a blind eye to the 10 pound weights strapped to minorities ankles (such as Jim Crow laws). Now imagine you have 10 pound weights locked to your ankles and your competitors do not. How motivated would you be to train? And imagine when you say it’s not fair that you have 10 pound weights locked to your ankles and others without those weights tell you that you are “playing the victim and just being lazy”. . . Do some athletes with 10 lb weights exagerrate and complain they are carrying 30 lb weights? Of course, yet this does not nullify the 10 lb weights they are actually burdened with. . . You will not be able to have a broad understanding if you cannot see and acknowledge these biased weights. Yet to see these biased weights, you would need to let go of certain conservative beliefs that you are attached/identified with.