Forestluv

This is Orange looking at red/blue and assumes a low level of consciousness. You haven't seen or embodied Green yet. It is a higher level of consciousness.

The problem with this is that power/wealth becomes hyper concentrated in corporations and becomes toxic. I am not advocating the opposite extreme. yet, I think your view is way off-balance and leads to extreme power/wealth inequality.

I think you are seeing this from an unbalanced corporate perspective, such that corporate profit becomes excessively valued. For example, pharmaceutical companies placed profits over people as the pushed opiods into the midwest. They misrepresented the harm and risks. They were aware of the damage they were causing and that addiction rates, suicides, homelessness was skyrocketing. Yet they didn't care because profits were also soaring and CEOs/shareholders were happy. This is an example of excessive emphasis on corporate profits.

Imagine there are 100 members on the board for Walmart. How many seats to you think should be from the employee side and how many seats should be from the CEO/stockholder side? That's not what I was referring to. I was referring to placing implementation over prioritization. Quite often, people will argue for the impracticality of implementation to obfuscate and derail prioritization.

This is a common tactic to obfuscate and dismiss. Priority is primary to implementation. We would first need to agree on priority. Imagine a current distribution is 5% social and 95% capital. Do you believe a better distribution would 40% social and 60% capital? What would be your ideal balance?

You seem to have a very narrow definition of "steal". For example, pharmaceutical companies base their drug manufacture on publically-funded academic drug research and design. The pharmaceutical companies then sell the drug back to the public at huge profit motives. The concentrated power in the pharmaceutical company allows them to *steal* public money and to sell the drug back to them at high prices - due to corporate influence in politics. That is a form of theft and an example of toxicity when power becomes to concentrated.

Warren: Boards would be composed of 40% social and 60% capital Bernie: Democracy dollars

There may be helpful and practical aspects to theories of Tier 3. Personally, I don't find it particularly useful, yet others may.

Yes, at the extreme end that becomes a concern. Yet we are super far away from that extreme. We are at the other extreme in which wealth/power is extremely concentrated toward corporations. It's like being in a room that is 120 degrees and people ask if we can turn down the heat and someone objects and says "if we turn down the heat, we will all freeze to death!!". Yes, that can be a concern - yet it is not the immediate concern at hand. . . . If we were currently shifted to the extreme of socialism, I would be arguing to shift more toward capitalism - yet that is not the current state of affairs. As well, capitalists want to frame the debate as binary: either capitalism or socialism. That framework will hinder progress and maintain the status quo. Nobody is arguing for 100% socialism. Progressives are arguing for a balance between democratic socialism and capitalism, yet believe that the balance is currently shifted too far to corporatism. Warren wants to balance this inequality, while Bernie wants to shift the balance toward the people.

I am not referring to socialist platforms. I am referring to democratic socialist platforms. It would be extremely challenging to implement due to the development of 100+ years of capitalist/corporatist infrastructure, conditioning and inequality. So, your question of "on a voluntary basis" is nuanced. To me, voluntary means well-informed. If elitist corporation-driven media convince the populace that democratic socialism is the same as stalinistic socialism - I would not consider that a voluntary basis. Similarly, misrepresenting tax bills so the populace believes that they will benefit and the uber wealthy will not is also not a voluntary decision. It is similar to giving consent. If you volunteered for a clinical study and were told it was a sedative already approved in the EU and consented, yet it was actually a new anti-psychotic drug that had never been tested in humans - that is not consent. You did not consent for the experiment - regardless of whether or not you were aware of the lie. Regarding "forcing" a population. The source of the force is very important. Are powerful corporations applying the force? Or are people applying the force? Top-down force is very different than bottom-up force. For example, "democracy dollars" gives more power to the people - this will lead toward bottom-up forces in which the people express themselves through the government. This would be a major structural change in the U.S. government and it is what Bernie Sanders advocates. This is the "democracy" component of democratic socialism and it is very important to distinguish it from old-school socialism.

Forum community: please stop creating new threads on this. Multiple threads on this have already been started. As well, rationalwiki is a hyper rational delusional religion. Leo has requested that it not be cited on the forum. Yet it is ok to post it in the Orange mega thread for people to laugh at.

Hmmm. . . the OP opened a new account, started a thread promoting sex dolls, left and hasn't returned in days. Perhaps he entered a sex doll nirvana. . .

That is an authoritarian/totalitarian government in which people lack power. Empowering government does not assume an authoritarian/totalitarian government. In democratic socialism, it is a democracy in which people have the majority of power and use government as a tool to express the public power.

There is a natural tendency for humans to think "yea, yea I've got this stage - I want something new". Part of the desire is to create new concepts - another desire is social hierarchies and a sense of going higher - it can give one's self image a boost. In terms of SD, the so-called "Tier 3" above Turquoise is poorly developed and mostly conjecture. It is dominated by cognition, symbols, concepts and intellect. I think most people speculating about stages like Coral and Teal are mostly Orange level theorists, with some yellow mixed in. Very very few people have transcended the personality construct and embodied Yellow and Turquoise. It is very rare. I've spent about 15 years working on Green/Yellow/Turquoise - and have barely scratched the surface. Very few people have embodied Green/Yellow/Turquoise. I've only met a few people in my life. If only a handful of people have embodied Green/Yellow/Turquoise - who is Coral and Teal being revealed to? Who is describing Coral and Teal? I'm not buying it. I don't think those describing "Tier 3" have embodied "Tier 2". Their descriptions are far too cognitive, intellectual, conceptual - indicators of lower stages. As well, when one goes deep into Yellow and Turquoise, they will realize there are distinctions and substages in Yellow and Turquoise. When people start seeing distinctions within Yellow and Turquoise and start creating sub-stages within Yellow and Turquiose, I will know that a critical mass of people have entered and are embodying Tier 2. Yet this hasn't happened yet, imo.

@ShugendoRa It seems like RSD is relatively healthy Orange, such a personal accountability, responsibility, personal development, personal goals etc. Yet Orange will be limited in the same that at it's core, it is two individuals in a transnational relationship. Aspects of Orange is great in a relationship, yet there is much more to be explored in Green. I think people/organizations that promote healthy Orange without demonizing Green is healthy. If a group encouraged men to be accountable, take personal responsibility, set personal goals etc. thats great. Yet if a group taught that men that expressed emotions were pussies and a real man is alpha and must set and enforce the rules within a relationship - that is going to cause problems when the listeners eventually want to evolve upward into Green.

Be aware of false equivalencies. From one perspective there can be equivalency, yet from another perspective it is a false equivalency. Conflating the two creates a mess. It is context-dependent. Leo addresses this in his videos "Sameness vs Difference" and "Recontextualization" As a simple example: a being pisses in the punch bowl at a wedding. Let's consider context: 1) A puppy pisses in the punchbowl 2) A two year old boy pisses in the punchbowl 3) Drunken Uncle Ted pisses in the punchbowl From one perspective, there is equivalency - yet it is context dependent. This equivalency will not necessarily translate to other contexts. We could say the three scenarios are equivalent in the sense that a being pissed in the punchbowl. Yet in another context, it is not equivalent. A puppy pissing in the punchbowl is not equivalent to drunken Uncle Ted pissing in the punchbowl and we would not react the same. For the puppy, we might laugh and put him on a leash. For drunken Uncle Ted we might reprimand him, kick him out of the wedding and send him to an AA meeting. To conflate the equivalency and non-equivalency perspectives would seem ludicrious. One might say "When the puppy did it, you laughed. Yet when Uncle Ted did it, you yelled at him and sent him to an AA meeting! You are a biased hypocrite!!". This is an exaggerated example to highlight the point, so it seems silly. Yet people do this all the time. They say things like "we should be open to all ideas". In one context, all ideas are equivalent - in another context all ideas are not equivalent. In the case of Alex Jones - in one context he is not mentally ill, because his reality is equivalent to any other reality. From another relative context, Alex Jones is mentally ill. He is way outside the collective consensus reality. Mixing up these two contexts creates false equivalencies and leads to all sorts of misunderstanding, miscommunication and turmoil. This is super common in society. Watch how often people recontextualize and create false equivalencies - it's all over the place. This is not to say that true equivalencies and hypocrites don't exist. If a politician speaks out that extra-marital affairs are immoral and is caught having an extra-marital affair, that is a direct equivalency and he would be considered a hypocrite. It's important to be aware of context, sameness and difference to make these distinctions.

Generally, humans desire to let go of unpleasant thoughts and feelings. We want to avoid pain and we like pleasure. I've never heard of someone trying to "let go" of bliss during amazing sex. Or someone trying to let go of their curiosity, fascination and joy. The desire is to let go of things we find unpleasant. Bad habits, OCD, resentments, bad memories, anger, insecurity, fear etc. It's easy to let go of someone sneezing because it is inconsequential. Yet if a stranger walked up to you on a bus and sneezed in your face, that would be a lot harder to let go of. I'd say the most relevant aspect of letting go for humans involves attachment and identification. If there is a thought or feeling without any attachment/identification, it's no big deal. There is no desire to let go of it. A thought might arise "I'm so annoyed she hasn't texted me back yet. After all I do for her, this is how she treats me. . .". There is a ton of attachment/identification there. It's not so much getting rid of the thought - it's getting rid of the attachment/identification. If the thought occurred without attachment/identification it's no problem. There is nothing to let go of, because there is nothing being held onto. The thoughts become like bird chirps. We don't wonder how to let go of bird chirps, because we are not attached/identified with bird chirps. Bird chirps can be happening and all is well, no need to let go of anything.

@Avi Tal At times, it can be hard to care for loved ones in need. When my dad was in critical condition, I felt so powerless. I asked myself/universe what I could do to help. Then I tried to get in touch with my intuition. For my dad, physical presence was deeply meaningful to him. I drove 700 miles twice to visit him in the hospital and it had a huge impact on him. Then I just took cues from him. He wanted to talk about family memories and stories. That was love for him. He wanted to talk about planning future family events when he recovers - that was love for him. It lifted his spirits and gave him hope and energy. It gave him reason and meaning to recover. Your situation and relative may be different. And you may resonate with what I write, or maybe not. Someone else may offer different insight that resonates stronger. I would trust your intuition.

@Yog Look at his underlying orientation. It is a defeatest attitude with an intention of undercutting efforts to reduce global warming/climate change. Here are the points he made. All but one undercut efforts. 1. We cannot unite regarding catastrophic climate change. 2. It is difficult to separate science and politics (we should actually be integrating science and politics and have the two fields communicating) 3. “Radical Claims, if true. . . (“Radical Claims” is a long used trope to undercut efforts toward a goal and has been used for decades to delegitimize and hinder climate progress). 4. We have no idea of consequences (we actually have a very good idea. Predictive models have been quite accurate). 5. We can’t unite on this 6. Climate change projections are unreliable (not true. JP then focuses on 50 yr forecasts to leverage his position) 7. We can’t measure effectiveness (not true) 8. Wind and solar are essentially useless (not tru) 9. Germany has failed with their efforts, so why should we bother. 10. Nuclear is not a solution. 11. Cutting back on consumption won’t work. 12. There are no no solutions for global warming. 13. The best we can do is bring people out of poverty and get them to care about the environment (yet he made clear this is not a solution, because there are no solutions) 14. It is not possible to prioritize climate change or implement initiatives for climate change 15. A team of economists led by Nobel Prize winners to determine how to improve the world didn’t even list climate change as being important. 16. We can’t figure it out. Maybe a future generation will find a solution, but we can’t 17. Global warming is just a feel good issue for some people (and who might “some people” be?) 18. Good luck reducing global warming. Our resolution of thinking is too low. 19. Burning coal has helped forests grow over the last 100 years in the U.S. 20. No one will change their lifestyle to help improve climate. These are the 20 points JP makes. Here is clearly oriented toward undercutting efforts. 19 of his 20 points are defeatist and undercutting. Only one point could be interpreted as supportive, yet he also undercut this point into a neutral point. This is the new resistance to climate progress. JP is a contemporary poster boy for corporations and fossil fuel industry trying to undercut climate progress. Full on climate change denial and obscuration is losing effectiveness. We are transitioning away from 20 years of Koch-funded “debate” on whether global warming/climate change is real and influenced by humans. We are transitioning into the next stage in which the resistance will acknowledge climate change, then resist with defeatest and undercutting efforts. JP gives a blueprint on how to do this in the posted video. And this isn’t simply JP spouting off. This plants seeds. Notice the applause and admiration the young crowd gives JP. They are getting conditioned by him. There have been studies with small groups of people that are assigned a challenging project. One person in the group pretended to be a team member, yet was actually hired to intentionally express defeatism and to undercut efforts - similar to JP in that video. This contaminated the entire group and their progress was much less than control groups. It’s a type of poison.

There is more to it than that. I agree that JP often derails threads. In this case, the video was JP on climate and I think it’s relevant since his resistance is representative of a lot of people that hinder progress on climate. Yet I think you make a good point about how JP can move threads off-topic. Also, you can make your points without passive aggressive pokes.

I realize you have good intentions and sincerely want to help your relative in a way you think will benefit her. Yet to me it seems like you are trying to force an idea you have about enlightenment onto to her - and it isn’t resonating with her. I would look at intent and impact. You say your intention is to help her recover quicker, yet the impact is the opposite. She has told you it is causing her stress and humiliation - and that she is a simple person. I would trust her on this and re-orient. I would focus on one thing: Love. Not conditional love. Unconditional Love for who she is. Visit her with unconditional Love in your heart, not conditional love for what you think she should be. Listen to her. She is trying to teach you how to love others unconditionally. This is an awakening of the heart. To sit with someone with unconditional Love is a beautiful gift. No agenda, no expectations, no judgement, no pressure. Just pure presence and Love.

At an individual, personal level, I have the privilege of being unaffected and I don't have to burden the weight. I also have the privilege of saying it's just imagined and it's not really happening. I can blow it all off if I want to. Yet I choose not to do that. You are seeing this from your perspective. You seem to put a lot of value on entertainment. That is not the only skill and it is not the only area that moves people. For example, someone could have low entertainment skills, yet may be able to move people through fear. Or a person may have high intellectual skills and manipulate a situation through intellect. JP has a type of communication skill and rhetoric that resonates with certain people. It doesn't resonate with you, yet it resonates with others. I don't find him credible, because I can see underlying dynamics. However, I understand other mindsets and how he has credibility with certain minds. In particular, those that value intellect, logic and reasoning. As well, JP has a certain level of knowledge, education and career experience that will give him credibility in some minds. Perhaps not your mind, yet other minds will. This is clearly obvious in all the speaking and media engagements JP has. He is consistently invited to Town Halls and mainstream media interviews and commands high speaking fees. This is reflective of credibility. JP is not just a guy with a YouTube channel. He has a higher platform than that. JP is not operating in the same territory as some of us on this forum. Yet, it can be hard to see these distinctions.

Yes, now that I think about it - Trump has had more populist rhetoric than I gave him credit for. During the 2016 his rhetoric was much more populist. His mantra "Drain the Swamp" was very populist. Yet he seems to have drifted off his populist rhetoric since 2016. Part of that might be that he now has power and he is now "The Swamp". As well, his "Fake News" rhetoric has some populist appeal. If he shifts populist for 2020, I think it would be "the people vs. the media" and "the people vs. the FBI" - for example, the FBI is corrupt and they may come after you like they came after me. If Warren is the nominee, he will likely go with "the people against elites". I think these are hard sells, yet Republicans are very good at framing rhetoric and democrats suck at it. For decades Republicans have convinced lower/middle class to vote against their own economic interests. For example, Trump's tax cut was heavily in favor in the ultra wealthy - the lower/middle class got peanuts and many people paid more. With an effective populist message, 90% of the population would realize they didn't benefit and the ultra wealthy benefited. Yet republicans are so good at framing economics and taxes that about half the population don't realize this. Bernie and Warren have a much stronger economic populism , yet they need to do work to overcome prior economic conditioning. For example, about half the country doesn't understand that out-of-pocket expenses can decrease in spite of a tax increase.

"Is there not even a tiny bit of free will?" This reminds me of holding an empty tube of toothpaste and trying my darndest to squeeze out just a tiny bit of toothpaste.

@SFRL I understand that from your perspective JP is boring. Yet in the bigger picture, I don't think it's just about being boring, intriguing, entertaining etc. My concern with JP is the influence he has with a large cohort of men. Other YouTuber's may have similar views. I would have concerns about them as well. Yet my concern is higher for JP because he has credibility and skills in which he can wrap toxicity. He is an academic with a doctorate in clinical psychology. This gives him an elevated stature, authority and platform. With this comes a higher standard of responsibility and I think he is using his authority and platform irresponsibly in some contexts. You may categorize people as "boring" and "not boring". That's fine. Yet, there is more to it than that. Imagine someone was undercutting you in a very "boring" way. This person created YT videos that undercut you in intellectually sneaky ways. Before long, the community turned on you. Your neighbors are petitioning that you be kicked out of the neighborhood and lose your job. You are receiving threats to you and your family. And it all stems from the boring YouTube guy. My guess is that you would become interested in neutralizing his "boring" rhetoric against you. You have the privilege of finding JP boring and irrelevant - you don't have to burden the consequences.