Forestluv

@cetus Wow, that is a great vocal performance by Madonna. It would have been fun to see Trump serenading a MAGA crowd with signs.

Not in the context I'm using. I'm drawing a distinction between being immersed in a psychological personal construct and consciousness transcendent to that. I can only speak for myself. I meditated relatively seriously for 20+ years. I've been involved with various buddhist groups and retreats. My first trip blew it all away. I expanded much more in my first 5 hr trip than thousands of hours meditating for 20+ years. That's how strongly I resonated with psychedelics. I've met some high level spiritual people within certain 'realms', yet I've never met anyone in person who has realized Nothing/Everything through traditional meditation. "The present moment" is a concept that needs a construct of a timeline for contrast. Without the construct of a past and future, there is no present moment. It's a great realization and has practical value, yet I don't get too hung up on it. Similar to "no-self". Not every mind resonates with psychedelics. I've had extreme fortune with them. In terms of SD, they took me from Orange/Green to Yellow/Turquoise. It was temporarily rocketing up at first, yet after a couple years it's been stably integrated and embodied. And of course this is all a story happening in the present moment

Yea, in the context of everything. Every state of consciousness is a state of consciousness. I'm speaking in the context of a personal perspective in which the 'person' dissolves and there is 'trans-personal' awareness. From the perspective of the person this may seem like 'another world'. Most novices see a sober state and psychedelic state as being very different - like two different worlds / realities. Ime and observations, it takes a lot of psychedelic experience for those 'two worlds' to merge such that there is sober tripping and psychedelic sobriety. Who/what is this 'my' that is spoken of? Psychedelics can have great benefits at the personal / human level. I'm referring to the magic trick being revealed.

That's similar to the "eye test" in college football playoff rankings. Even if the computer algorithm ranks Baylor slightly higher than Alabama, the eye test clearly shows Alabama is the better team and would crush Baylor.

It was an estimate. I read a 538 article a few weeks ago when Trump had about a 25% chance of winning. The article made clear that most of that chance was uncertainty in time - something could happen to change the dynamic. Similar to buying options in the stock market - they degrade in value over time. The statisticians gave an estimate of what the chance would be today. I remember it was about half as much, so I just estimated. Perhaps 538 is now giving that prediction. As we get closer to the election, the uncertainty due to time will decrease, since there is less time and the "election today" vs "election day" odds will get closer and closer.

@Hardkill Click and read the whole twitter thread. He explains the how 2016 is nothing like 2020

Biden is doing MUCH better than Hilary in the polls. Hilary and Trump went back and forth in the polls. Biden has had the largest, most consistent lead in the modern history of presidential polling. Trump is not improving in the polls. He is slowly falling. The latest national polls have Trump down 14 and 16 points. That is landslide territory. Of course, Trump could win, yet the forecast is only about a 17% chance. And most of that chance is due to uncertainty over the next few weeks. If the election was today, it would be more like an 8% chance. The closer contest is who takes control of the Senate. A 6% Biden win might be a 50-50 Senate. A 12% Biden win could be a 55-45 Dem senate.

Be cautious about putting Ohio in the Trump column. Early voting started today in Ohio and there are reports in urban areas throughout the state of mile-long lines and people waiting 2+ hours to vote.

A consensus is a shared perspective of a majority. For example, the scientific consensus is that humans are accelerating Climate Change. This is a 'consensus' scientific view because the majority of scientists hold this view. The electoral college is not necessarily a consensus. For example, in 2016 Trump was not the consensus choice for Americans since he won a minority of the American votes. The term 'consensus' can also be used as a 'general' agreement. Yet even with this looser definition, Trump would still fall short of consensus since he won a minority of votes and Clinton won a plurality of votes. The electoral college is not structured for consensus. The winner of the electoral college can be either a consensus winner or a non-consensus winner. It depends on context. In the context of democracy, the popular vote is sacred. In the context of non-democracy the popular vote is not sacred.

Great question. We can describe "consciousness" many different ways. Each way has value. When I see someone use the term "consciousness", I don't assume I know the meaning they are giving it. I try to understand their context and meaning. This takes a fluid mind that doesn't get snagged or seek solid grounding. I've never said that. Sounds like a fun exploration though. Sure, we can say all there is the wall. We can create a construct of a wall that is separate from the floor, ceiling, trees, clouds etc. and call it a "wall". We can also see that the "wall" is inter-connected to all things and call the inter-connectivity of everything the "wall". I'm cool with either definition. When I contracted into ideas of separation, I zoom into the thing in question such as a separate wall. I ask where exactly does the wall start and end? The mind may say "Duh!! It starts at the floor and ends at the ceiling!!". Yet the question is where does it start and end exactly. If we zoom into the "start" of the wall, the floor and ceiling are in contact with each other. If we zoom in even more, there are a bunch of atoms zooming around and we can't tell which atoms are "floor" or "wall". I don't say that is the point of life. Sounds like a fun adventure though. To me, it seems like you are digging deep enough that relative meanings of words becomes an issue. Words are limited, there is much more. You might be interested in investigating word and symbolic relativity. I recently watched a Patterson video about how words don't have objective definitions. I think he uses logic well to explain relativity.

It depends on how you define "controlled". I work in higher education and the government does not control the content of what I teach.

Spitfire breaks the dog jump world record of 31+ feet. Naturally graceful and aerodynamic. This is a bit further than the human record of 29.4 feet.

Obama is the most politically skilled democratic politician in the modern era. Arnold Schwarzenegger could easily bench press 300 pounds. That doesn't mean it's not a barrier. And should we accept any barrier at all? Democrats need to win the popular vote by over 2% to have a decent chance at winning. Why should Republicans start off with a 2 pt lead. If a baseball team started off with a 2 run lead, would we say "Oh, that's not a big barrier" or would we say "Why does one team start off with a 2 run lead? That doesn't seem fair".

The is one of many definitions of "consciousness". As well, each definition is relative since all words and concepts are relative. Nonduality is "not two". There are two things here 'illusion' and 'real' The definition of "consciousness" you are using does indeed imply separation. You are using a concept you call 'consciousness' as an entity aware of a separate object. Yes, that concept of "conscioiusness" also involves separation There is no end to infinity. Beginning and end is a construct of a human mind. It depends on your definitions of "consciousness" and "ISness" and "illusion". Imagine a definition of "Consciousness is anything I can sense here and now" - then there are no such thing as elephants (I don't sense any elephants here and now). If we define "illusion" as: "Anything I can't sense here and now", then elephants are an illusion. If we define consciousness as "all there is", then we need to define "IS". There are assumptions of "real" and "imaginary". To get grounded, one would not to back up the bus and define "real" and "imaginary". Yet doing so gets very messy since we create category boxes called "real" and "imagined". Upon deep inspection, those boxes crumble and there is a realization that real = imagined - we create things called "real" and "imagined". This gets into areas of ambiguity, uncertainty and paradox. Most minds are very uncomfortable with this and want definitive concrete answers. Other minds are very fluid and love to explore ambiguity, uncertainty, paradox. And we create this as well. It's a loop one cannot escape as long as they are immersed within the inescapable loop they created.

Trump sought a cost estimate for digging a moat and filling it with alligators at the Mexico border

And the insanity hits just keep on coming. Their efforts to keep the reality show going is astounding. He gave you covid, babe.

So smooth. I'm pointing to structure, not content.

@Preety_India Something isn't right. I don't know what's going on - I don't have enough info and trusted sources. This video just came out. These two videos seem to suggest it's more serious than Trump's team is projecting. This is just my speculation: Trump's condition is worse than doctor's are letting on and they are using aggressive medication. Yet Trump clearly isn't bedridden and struggling to survive on a ventilator. I was leaning toward Trump faking it until I saw these two videos. These look like a genuine unscripted moment in which Trump is putting in effort to breath and winced in pain. And if they have him on potent pain killers, thats a new level of bad. I now think he has covid disease and doesn't want to look weak.

Spoken like an Orange Champion of intellectual prowess! Defend your castle!

A great example of a strong intellect contracted within Orange debate mode in this thread.

One version of Blue vs. another version of Blue

He has repeatedly failed at businesses and has declared bankruptcy many times. He hides his financial statements for a reason. He likely has some serious debts. He lost the popular election by millions of votes. He won an archaic "electoral college" system in which the loser of the popular vote can actually win. Yes, there was some strategy involved, yet the strategy is so simple a high school student can understand it. Mostly stage red/blue Trump has some Orange in market based economies - yet most of it is toxic and focused on exploitation of others. His MAGA base is red/blue centered, yet also has significant Orange level capitalism and libertarianism. Yet I think most of this is brainwashing by FoxNews, Briebert etc scaring them with polarized dualities that capitalism is good and all Democrats are scary communists. Biden has both similarities and differences with Trump. They have some overlap with orange-level market based economies which is problematic - yet Biden doesn't have any toxic Red or Blue like Trump. You English is great. Much better than my Spanish. Thank you for putting in the effort to write it out well. I've heard English is harder to write than Spanish. Especially spelling.

Yea, most of the world is immersed within immediate needs of survival for themself and family. And most people are only thinking days to months ahead. They don't have the luxury of taking meta views of sociological-ecological-economic integrated systems. Yet I question whether that is the biggest barrier. In the context of SD, serious crises drive upward evolution to the next level for survival. As well, problems become too complex for simpler systems to handle - which necessitates upward evolution. I see the main problems as being a lack of imagination and maturity due to too many people being in Tier 1 as well as infrastructure that limits us. In particular, infrastructure that support a market based economy. A market based economy based on profit taking has become a social pathology and has corrupted various areas - including science, politics, global trade, technology and more. Imagine an isolated Tribe 1,000 years ago. Could they imagine the field of science, industry and a market based economy? No way. Likewise, people in Tier 1 cannot imagine what a Tier 2 system would look like. And those with power at Orange will stronger resist higher order systems like a Resource Based Economy. I think technology will be a key in creating more effective systems, yet technology is developing faster than human consciousness. Technology will reflect the conscious level of the society that creates and uses it. Red/Blue will want to develop technology for war against their enemies and rival nations. Orange will want to use technology for profiteering. We see this today with the military industrial complex in the U.S., corporations like Facebook, and innovators like Elon Musk. The underlying motivation is to develop and use technology in a way that increases profit, personal power and national power. With a massive crisis, more people may open up for new visions. Yet we need more Yellow level minds to articulate such visions in a way Tier 1 can understand and support. Regular people seem divided, yet they are also desperate. My hope is that we will hit a critical mass of Tier 2 thinkers that can break through all the resistance of distraction we have today. Yet the yellow minds in this area like Said Dawlabani and Peter Joseph are obscure youtuber and speakers. I've noticed Deepak Chopra and Sadhguru entered this area with some practical meta insights, which I think helps - yet the winds of historical infrastructure, norms, markets, corporations, social media etc. is really hard to break through. I've tried to explain this in a college course I'm teaching and nearly all the students are more concerned about their social life, social media, cultural stuff and what will be on the test. Social conditioning runs deep.

You are giving waaay too much credit to Simpleton's. It goes more like this: "What explains black behavior?", Simpleton: "personal responsibility", "What explains the lack of personal responsibility?", Simpleton: "their choices", "What explains their choices?". Simpleton: "the choices they make"