Forestluv

Are you switching Florida to the Biden?

We are sharing sand, yet you are creating your own sand castle. You get to create your "something else". Guessing what you are creating seems like a silly game to me. But if we are to play a silly game, I guess the "something else" is a Rhinoceros. Am I close?

Hahaha. . . What lies outside the "expansion vs. contraction construct" is everything that lies outside the expansion and contraction construct. These constructs are child's play. It's like building a sand castle and someone says "It looks like you are identified with that sand castle. So tell me, what lies outside that sand castle?". . . How could one respond other than giggling and saying "Everything outside the sand castle of course!!"

Yep. Yep. I recognize that both are constructs and I'm not limited to either. There are an infinite number of constructs we can create. (Including this one). Holding ideas loosely and being fluid is freedom of creation. Yet this is still a surface level of understanding. The phrase "tapping into profundity" is not the actual profundity tapped into. For that understanding, one needs the direct experience of tapping into it.

Trumpers shut down Whitestone Bridge in New York and Garden State Parkway in New Jersey. NY and NJ will obviously go Biden, yet I don't think it's good PR for Trump that his supporters are shutting down bridges, highways and trolling people about it. Regular people that aren't involved in politics find this stuff obnoxious. Even some Trumper's are realizing it isn't the brightest crayon in the box.

Within the construct you are creating of “profundity”, “delusion” and “ego” - yes, that is true. Yet that construct would be a limitation.

Trumpers shut down Mario Cuomo bridge in NYC. I doubt this type of thing helps Trump.

If Biden needs mail in votes that arrived after Nov. 3rd, he is in big trouble

I haven’t seen the polling aggregate tightening. 538 show the polls about the same, with perhaps some slight noise. In his latest podcast, Silver said he hasn’t seen much statistical tightening. I think it’s more of a media narrative for a close horse race. Yet I’m not a pollster. I just checked the latest polls on 538. It looks like FLA and NE-2 are tightening a bit toward Trump and GA is tightening a bit toward Biden. The other swing states look about the same - the Midwest is trending Biden, yet I those don’t seem to be considered swing states anymore. I’m a bit concerned that Trafalger’s methodology may be more accurate is a better methodology in future polling. Yet that would mean all traditional polling is dead and an autopsy needs to be done.

@DocWatts In a recent interview, Nate Silver said that PA popped up as the tipping point state in about 45% of the trials - which was much higher than any other state. If Trump wins PA his chance goes from about a 10% chance to a 50% chance of winning. I’m not sure if you are asking the likelihood of Trump stealing a state before a state is called by suppressing/stopping vote counting or if Trump can steal a state after it’s been called for Biden by overturning the result. In 2000, scotus told FLA to stop the recount. That is very different than ordering stoppage of counting before all the ballots are counted. That’s what Trumps team is pushing for. In general, if it’s close in 1-2 swing states I could see Trump’s team fighting to throw out votes or stop vote counting by claiming fraud. Yet that’s very different than stopping a recount. Yet if Trump is down in 3-4 swing states, it becomes much harder. Saying “There was fraud in Fla, NC, AZ, and PA because I’m down in those states and we should overturn those states, yet not in GA and Tx because I’m narrowly up. I want the vote counting to stop in those states because there will be fraud if the counting continues”. That’s a tough argument to make.

Based on the standards most sober minds create as “delusional”. . . yes most psychedelic users would be considered delusional to a high degree. This is why experience and maturity is so important. Quite often, psychedelic users have tapped into something profound, yet are unable to articulate it. They would seem “out there” and “delusional”. Yet someone with a lot of integrated psychedelic experience would likely be able to understand what they are trying to articulate. For example, my early 5-Meo trips were so “out there”, I had no words to articulate it and I was very ungrounded. I sounded like a delusional person to “normal” people. Yet Leo was able to intuit what I expressed and pretty much said “this part of the puzzle has been revealed, yet it doesn’t seem like this piece has been revealed. You may want to focus on integrating abc and start inquiring about xyz”. After doing so, there was greater clarity and I was able to articulate better. Then I wasn’t seen as “delusional” anymore. One time I was explaining it’s essence and a Buddhist teacher smiled and said “you know understand the heart sutra”. I was like “huh, I forgot. What’s that again?”. After looking it up I was like “Omigosh! The author of this knows!”. I had only heard the sutras words via my intellect. I had never been prior to the words in which the essence tries to express itself through words. Yet I only have my own experience with psychedelics. I resonated well with them as part of a holistic approach, yet not everyone does. Ram Dass reached high spiritual realms and for him his psychedelic use was a distraction. Yet the experience of others only plays a small role in my decisions. I move more with intuition and resonance. I met a woman who did an Aya retreat and the resonance was so strong that I knew I was going to do it and started planning a trip to Peru the next day. The interaction with her carried more weight if 1,000 people without Aya experience told me it was just hallucinations and delusional. That would actually increase my desire to do the Aya retreat.

Are you asking how many states already called for Biden on election night could Trump could reverse? If Biden has been awarded 270+ EVs by consensus (including FoxNews), he won’t be able to declare victory. Trump needs to declare victory before Biden reaches 270. Most likely, Trump will declare victory before either candidate has been awarded 270 EVs. This will be unprecedented, yet Trump doesn’t care about norms. He will go full throttle that the media is corrupted by liberals and that’s why they won’t call states. This is why I think FoxNews will be a key factor. If FoxNews is the only mainstream media outlet to call a swing state for Trump, it would greatly bolster Trump’s claim of biased mainstream media. Yet the price Fox would pay is marginalizing themselves as a biased news agency. They would position themselves with right wing OANN, Briebart, Newsmax etc. They could take a hit on credibility. If Fox doesnt call a close state on election night, it makes it much more difficult for Trump to declare victory. Fox is the only somewhat credible source he has. I’m not sure who will be calling states at Fox on election night. They have a legitimate polling crew - I hope they have independence to make calls. If Murdoch puts his thumb on the scale, Fox will be calling swing states for Trump early and things would get messy. My guess is that they take a somewhat cautious approach - they are very sympathetic to Trump and say things like “Trump is up 1% in PA and it’s looking very good for him. Looks like Trump is gonna take it, yet its’s still “too early to call” - Biden could still win it by a miracle”. Fox would be allowing Trump to claim PA without pushback, yet Fox is hedging their bets and not committing. They could later say “We never officially called the state for Trump”.

It depends on how you characterize “Deep Sleep” and “Ego Death”.Based on my experience, I would use those terms to describe different experiences. Yet I would also say there is some overlap regarding “post ego realms”. This is why direct experience is important. One doesn’t know how to describe the experience of being weightless in outer space without having the experience of being weightless in outer space. A person lacking the experience could parrot what astronauts have said or they could imagine what it’s like, yet that isn’t the experiential understanding.

I’m cool with people creating constructs of “awakening” and saying psychedelics won’t help in achieving that goal. For example, if we define awakening as learning to speak a foreign language fluently, psychedelic use probably won’t help. A better method would be to live within the foreign culture for 3-4 years such that you have to speak the language 24/7. Yet if someone makes rapid progress using psychedelics and is speaking the foreign language fluently in 1 year, it’s silly to say their fluency doesn’t count because they didn’t do it the old fashioned way. Yet if someone tried to use psychedelics to learn the language and was babbling nonsense, then it’s fair to say psychedelics didn’t help. . . And this is based on their own standards. We could create various constructs of “awakening”. We could create constructs of “awakening” that would be extremely difficult to realize without psychedelics. Yet if someone did it sober, my hat is off to him. There are some things spiritualists like Deepak Chopra say and I’m like “Dang, how did he realize that without psychedelics? That’s impressive”. Yet some people are spiritually gifted. I wasn’t one of those people. This is why direct experience is so important. Ten years ago, I was confused by Zen koans, sutras, Rupert Spira, Buddhist dharma talks, nonduality, neo-advaita etc. I didn’t get it and couldn’t speak that language. Now I get it and can have conversations in that language. It’s silly to me for someone to ask what percentage of that understanding came from sober meditation, time in nature, listening to nonduality speakers, psychedelic trips, Kriss yoga, vinyasa yoga, journaling, sensory deprivation tanks etc. And if the percentage of insights that came from psychedelics is over a certain threshold, it means the person who speaks the language isn’t really speaking the language? What percentage would this be? If 27% of my understanding came from psychedelic trips, is that too much? What is I did yoga on a micro-dose of LSD? Does that count as a “yoga-induced insight” or a “psychedelic-inducted insight”? And it’s all inter-connected. Some insights might be seeded during a psychedelic trip, yet appear as a “catchable” insight the next day while walking in nature. Does that count as a psychedelic insight or a sober nature insight? Creating two categories of “sober” or “psychedelic” is overly simplistic. Those that do cannot see how it’s all inter-related.

@cuteguy How could one prove Now is Now? Wouldn’t we consider it irrational for a person to seek rational proof that Now is Now? Imagine asking a physicist to prove it’s Now.

The baseball player is good at swinging a ? I’m not spiritually gifted. I was just an average practitioner in the sangha. When I all of a sudden seemed to get the deeper stuff, it got people’s attention. They didn’t think “He must be using psychedelics”. They thought “Wow, he has turned a corner and his meditation practice has reached a new level”. From a personal perspective, I suppose it could be framed like taking steroids and leaving “marks“. Another way to look at it would be. going on a retreat with an extraordinary spiritual teacher you resonate with. Upon returning to your sangha, the people say: “Wow, you had a great retreat and made amazing progress. You are so fortunate to have a teacher like that. You have advanced to another level”. Yet when they find out the teacher was 5-Meo, they re-contextualize as “That’s like doing steroids. It isn’t real. You are speaking Maya delusions”. At times it goes into bizarro world. Last week I was telling a friend about observations / experiences I’ve had with entanglement. She became intrigued saying things like “Wow, I never imagined it like that before. That opens up a new area for me”. Yet then she pauses and says “Wait a minute. Did you get those insights during sober practice or during a psychedelic trip?”. . . It’s such a silly question to me because it is all integrated and mixed together. I don’t even remember if it was sober or psychedelic. Perhaps fragments arose in different mindsets and synthesized together. Yet for her, it is a standard of realness. If I say “The insights arose sober, while I was meditating all day in nature”, she will say “Omigosh! This is so deep and insightful - tell me more”. Yet if I say “These insights arose while tripping in nature”, she will say “Those aren’t true insights, they are delusions. Let’s talk about something else”. . . It’s a weird filter to me.

@r0ckyreed There is a lot to explore without substances. One of my favorite meditative mindspaces comes after running two hours in a forest. And no substance can being there. Naturally high conscious states are amazing too.

“What's more important, freedom of speech or the feelings or certain individuals/group?” It depends on context. Someone being upset because another person mistakingly used a term like “inter-secionality” is very different than someone being upset because an individual/group is being unfairly harmed. I don’t think “feeling” is the best term because it suggests someone is overly-sensitive and had their feelings hurt by something trivial. In this context, I would place freedom of speech higher than someone overly-sensitive. An example might be a comedian that makes a benign joke, yet someone is waaay too sensitive, throws a fit calling for the comedian racist and demands they lose their job. In this context, I would side with freedom of speech. This is true in some contexts - yet it’s not fair to extrapolate. There are also contexts in which speech is associated with violence and harm. Another way to phrase the question is: “What's more important, freedom of hate speech or protecting individuals/group from suffering violence and harm from that hate speech?” In this context, I would side with limiting free speech. Those that want to maximize free speech and minimize harm understand that targeted limitation of speech is necessary.

@r0ckyreed Ime, using psychedelics as an escape, shortcut or developing dependency can be problematic at a personal level. For example, when I first started using psychedelics, it was like they elevated me to higher states of consciousness and gave me super powers. This wasn’t simply a subjective experience. I had been on a 100% substance-free spiritual journey for 20+ years. People at my sangha had no idea I started using psychedelics - within months, high level practitioners and monks were asking me :”Wow, what happened to you?” Your practice has taken off”. I literally made many years of spiritual progress in weeks - and not by my standards - by the standards of high level teachers and monks. The dynamics completely changed. It was like I had become fluent in the language and was at the same level they were. You seem to suggest that psychedelics are mystical, yet not the “real thing” in terms of sober constructs of enlightenment. That has not been my experience at all. And again, not simply by my subjective constructs of enlightenment - by the enlightenment constructs of life-long spiritual practitioners that teach at spiritual centers and lead spiritual retreats. Reducing psychedelics as simply mystical experiences is similar to those that call psychedelics “altered states of consciousness” or “illusions” - and not the “real” thing. There is some truth to this, yet it’s also contracted. It’s along the lines of Ram Dass’s perspective. The high level practitioners and teachers at my spiritual sangha were telling me that “I got it”. As I spoke about transcendence, ego, nonduality - they nodded their heads “yes”. Yet a funny thing happened when I told them psychedelics helped reveal these insights. All of a sudden, I no longer “got it”. All of a sudden, I was speaking about psychedelic-induced illusions that weren’t true enlightenment. All of a sudden, they stopped nodding their heads “yes” when I spoke and started shaking their heads “no” when I spoke.

100% freedom of speech reduces overall free speech and in some cases increases societal harm. A flat-earthier that no one takes seriously is different than a neo-Nazi group recruiting, expanding and causing harm. If one person disagrees and doesn’t listen, it doesn’t mean that other people will disagree and won’t listen. If someone has a platform of 10 million viewers and invites a neo-Nazi holocaust denier on the show and has a “discussion” in which neo-Nazism is just “another opinion” - the Overton window will shift, giving legitimacy to the views and persuade a portion of the population. “Most people” not taking things like extreme hate speech seriously is insufficient. There is a certain percentage of the population that will take it seriously, get sucked in and cause harm. There is plenty of evidence that hate speech On large platforms increases the incidents of hate crimes. Marginalizing extreme hate groups to underground fringes reduces their capacity to organize, expand and have influence. Those that want to maximize the amount of free speech and minimize harm understand that targeted limits of free speech is necessary.

@Tim R Relativity is threatening to self survival, since self is dependent upon being grounded within an objective, external, universal reality. Any deviations from that reality is in opposition to self survival and is judged as “wrong” or “abnormal”. The closer to self center, the greater the threat and resistance. No one gets upset about different preferences of the best ice cream flavor, because it’s not threatening to self survival. Yet if ice cream flavor determined one’s self survival of identity, career, dating, social status, financial income and power - there would be wars fought over whether strawberry is better than vanilla ice cream. Some people may feel threatened by schizophrenic mind that imagines things that they themself do not image - because addressing that relativity threatens their sense of an objective, external reality. If only 1% of the population perceived colors, it would be threatening to many of the 99% that do not perceive colors. The 1% of color perceivers may be stigmatized. Only a minority of the people unable to perceive colors would be fascinated and curious by color perceivers.

This gets deliciously tricky. The ideas of “Deep Sleep, Ego Death, Ego Death induced by Psychedelics and Consciousness, Awakening, Enlightenment” is not the experience of the beingness, yet is it’s own experience of idea imagination. If I am imagining differences between the experiences of being on Earth, Moon, Venus and Xenon - I am experiencing the creations of those imaginations. Yet that is distinct from the experience of being on Earth, Moon, Venus and Xenon. In some cases, the imaginations of the experiential beingness can become so deep that they are indistinguishable from the being of it. Yet in other cases, the beingness is out of reach of the imagination.

He is operating from a personal / practical level.

The video content works well with Spiral Dynamics theory. Yet one could also look at without using SD theory. SD is just a way to contextualize individual and social phenomena.

I like how he starts off with a yellow tone: "I appreciate synthesis and the ability to hold multiple truths". It's so sad we lost him so young. He was developing into high yellow cognition and would have likely expanded his influence.