Stage Green Excesses Not Mentioned in Leo's Video

[Hardkill]

Lately, I’ve been feeling so pessimistic about the US ever reaching solid Green or passing any solid Green policies because ever since the dawn of the republic most Americans have always been too proud of its hyper free market system. Progressives since the mid 1900s have always failed with getting any of their policies or ideas come to fruition.

I even fear that our country may never go through another major transformation like it did during Jefferson’s era, Jackson’s era, Lincoln’s era, Teddy Roosevelt’s era, Wilson’s era, FDR’s era, Eisenhower's era, JFK/LBJ’s era. Even with someone like who wasn’t able to positively reform the country nearly as much as the above-mentioned presidents we were able to, we may never have another president who was as successful as he was ever again.?

Edited April 30, 2022 by Hardkill

[Eph75]

@Hardkill

Maybe you're looking at this from an unfavorable perspective, which brings about a frustration of change not happening fast enough, rather than bringing acceptance that change cannot happen as fast as one might like. 

Change is inevitable. It always was. It always will be. But change doesn't happen fast, and not in pretty little sets of undisputable improvements. It's slow, messy, iterative, occasionally regressive, but always moves forward from a larger perspective. 

It's not about someone passing something that is green that will make a country this or that - which could be done by force, but would never be sustainable. 

It's not about something controlling the whole, the whole needs to maintain that control on its own. 

Something green may very well be passed, but that doesn't mean that the people have developed into green. 

It would rather result in polarization, conflict and excessive resistance that either delays progression, or increases the pressure in the system until parts of it collapses, pushing more people towards changing how they think, while others up their resistance and keep on fighting change. 

So, differentiate between content - what is, and structure - how that system functions and the parts of that system functions.

To be green, and not just to act green because some people in power make "greener" choices, it require a large enough portion of the population to develop into stage green perspectives, values and beliefs, so that green values emerges as the expression of the larger system/whole. 

It's not about controlling, its about the whole allowing for green to emerge as the unified expression of the values and beliefs that is the sum of the individuals within that ecosystem. 

The problem with the US, for example is that there is a vast spread of stages.

It's a set of more or less separate ecosystems that come together as "The United States", but is less unified or conformed than the appearance of there being "one country" implies. 

Different parts of the country are very different, greener on the west coast and bluer in say the bible belt, and even red in that mix.

It doesn't matter so much, as people are what they are and it shifts focus onto the system itself. 

The vastness of that spread creates larger challenges than, let say, the country was divided into 5 part.

Part 1, assuming being the most progressive lot, would no longer be held back by the 4 other parts, and would also not feel entitled to push part 1 values and beliefs onto the least progressive parts, in order to progress their own sub-ecosystem. 

Looking at the most progressive part of US and using that as the metric for where the US "should be" is flawed, or "dreamy".

Dreamy in the sense that it creates and illusion of the country being close to breaking free and into that stage, but reality is different.

But looking at the whole, and you could use Trump election results as one metric, implies something else.

The US has a long way to go before "green" can come true. If you'll live to see it, remains to be seen. Solid green? Dreamy. 

Developmemt isn't clean, it's messy, and doesn't move from one clear state to another, but from one messy state to another messy state. And in that progress, the mess we're in, right now, will be relatively less "dysfunctional" than a messes of the past.

The presidential situation in the US is an example of this. It's a mess. The polarities are growing, one part wanting to move forward, wanting change that they desire, and one holding back, resisting being changed.

The gap grows, and expressions like "Trump" emerges. Interestingly "Trump" is an expression of the time, of the change resistence of the system. He's not a separate phenomena that isn't related to the system. He's a product and expression of the system itself. It's just so easy to make him out to be the devil, for representing the resistence to change. 

Maybe in the past, the great presidents were truly different, or just appears different because of a more unified or less widely polarized society, or fewer and stronger polarities, great causes to surge around, or them being products of time and space, where the system was ready and set up for a larger, noticeable shift. Making it so easy to make them out to be the heros, representing the drive for change. 

Sorry that was long way to say that it comes down to being impatient, and my early morning rants tend to be longer than otherwise 

When the time is right, new, and great leaders will emerge, making the shift happen, and by being there, at that tipping point, also appearing greater because of the system's readiness to shift. 

Anyways.. 

All you can do, is to tend to you own development and try get ahead. Then use that to influence anyone within your sphere of influence, and to expand that sphere of influence, to be the catalyzer that best helps others to develop themselves. So that they can change themselves, not you trying to change them. Their change, and what to change into, it theirs to own. Development, or increasing the cognitive complexity that produces our values and beliefs is what's important, and increasingly healitier values and beliefs will emerge as the product of that development. 

Do that, and it will spread. It's gritty, messy, takes effort, and you're not likely to be depicted on a future statue somewhere, but these kind of people, that relentlessly work the system from the inside, are the true heros that allowed president like the ones you name to be remembered as great people. 

We all stand on the shoulders of giants.

Edit: Just realized this wasn't the OP and went OT  Oh the morning haze

Edited April 30, 2022 by Eph75

[Happy Lizard]

8 hours ago, Eph75 said:

The presidential situation in the US is an example of this. It's a mess. The polarities are growing, one part wanting to move forward, wanting change that they desire, and one holding back, resisting being changed.

My take is that Green wouldn’t even have a voice anywhere and especially in the elections, if the country on the whole (at least in some aspects, political or social) was not at the least moving towards green or has touched on it. 

people in the southern part have historically been behind and resisting advancement in culture, politics and social change. Not to say that they are bad, it’s just how it has been though out the entire history of the US. 

Last time this happened, the north and the south fought a civil war; the agenda of the most liberal (the union) won that war, and American emerged into orange through the next century. I believe we are in a similar situation at the moment.

I’m hoping that green advances from now on, even with some of it’s problematic world-views thats just a part of it, because this country really needs some change to happen.

with all this said, this is just my own personal take, and would be glad to hear what you think.
 

 

[sholomar]

On 4/29/2022 at 1:55 PM, SeaMonster said:

Green is fine in small doses.  You need some environmental regulations and accommodations for the disabled, e.g.  At a certain point Green becomes a monster that destroys everything in its path, making a society unlivable.  It is notoriously bad at large scale social engineering, like attempting to mandate equality of outcomes (which exists virtually nowhere in nature.)

My main issue with green is that on the one hand this is a forum focused on personal development, and on another hand many of these same stage greens want to have lifetime entitlements for people and try to save everyone. I'm of the opinion you should teach people to fish, and not give them fish, and that we reward bad behavior in society these days. The american left encourage people to "live in the moment" and do whatever one "feels" like and then rewards bad behavior with handouts. I believe in operant/pavlonian conditioning where good (responsible) behavior should be rewarded and things like equity, lifetime welfare, entitlements, bailouts, etc. do the opposite of help to grow a person, they keep them in a state of perpetual victim-hood and give them an entitlement mentality. They don't learn their lesson and by getting bailed out are encouraged to repeat said behavior.

You can't save everyone. We can't take in every refugee, feed every starving person, for no other reason than they will breed like rabbits and in a generation we will have to feed three times as many. People need to be taught to be self sufficient and independent. This can be done while still maintaining a community mindset. I just don't support giving people free stuff for nothing for long periods of time. It doesn't help them grow in any way, and burdens the people who are working and paying for these people who don't contribute.

Neither political party is worthy of my support in 2022, but I can't vote democrat in their current state. I don't understand for example not giving violent criminals high bails, and the increasing violence they are allowed to get away with in large cities, much less the promotion of prepubescents changing their genders, among other questionable social policy. Basically it's our species that is the problem. Like I've said on city-data I don't have much respect for any of the leadership in any nation right now that the blinders are off to human nature. I see corruption... everywhere. I see people who want to tell each other what to do and have no tolerance for differences. I see increased authoritarian mindset among politicians. I see late stage capitalism making people soft to evolutionary nature.. life is hard, it's not meant to be easy, and people aren't supposed to be coddled. Coddling people doesn't help them grow. I guess I see what I want to see.

Edited April 30, 2022 by sholomar

[Hardkill]

3 hours ago, sholomar said:

My main issue with green is that on the one hand this is a forum focused on personal development, and on another hand many of these same stage greens want to have lifetime entitlements for people and try to save everyone. I'm of the opinion you should teach people to fish, and not give them fish, and that we reward bad behavior in society these days. The american left encourage people to "live in the moment" and do whatever one "feels" like and then rewards bad behavior with handouts. I believe in operant/pavlonian conditioning where good (responsible) behavior should be rewarded and things like equity, lifetime welfare, entitlements, bailouts, etc. do the opposite of help to grow a person, they keep them in a state of perpetual victim-hood and give them an entitlement mentality. They don't learn their lesson and by getting bailed out are encouraged to repeat said behavior.

You can't save everyone. We can't take in every refugee, feed every starving person, for no other reason than they will breed like rabbits and in a generation we will have to feed three times as many. People need to be taught to be self sufficient and independent. This can be done while still maintaining a community mindset. I just don't support giving people free stuff for nothing for long periods of time. It doesn't help them grow in any way, and burdens the people who are working and paying for these people who don't contribute.

Neither political party is worthy of my support in 2022, but I can't vote democrat in their current state. I don't understand for example not giving violent criminals high bails, and the increasing violence they are allowed to get away with in large cities, much less the promotion of prepubescents changing their genders, among other questionable social policy. Basically it's our species that is the problem. Like I've said on city-data I don't have much respect for any of the leadership in any nation right now that the blinders are off to human nature. I see corruption... everywhere. I see people who want to tell each other what to do and have no tolerance for differences. I see increased authoritarian mindset among politicians. I see late stage capitalism making people soft to evolutionary nature.. life is hard, it's not meant to be easy, and people aren't supposed to be coddled. Coddling people doesn't help them grow. I guess I see what I want to see.

What about the corporate elites and rich folks? 

Why are corporate lobbyists entitled to corrupt the entire political system and government?

You want to talk about bailouts, equity, lifetime welfare? Why are those who were always incredibly spoiled throughout their entire lives like Donald Trump always completely entitled to getting free bailouts from his father, sleazy lawyers, criminal loaners?

Why are billionaires entitled to not give a fraction of their wealth to much needed social resources for those suffering poor individuals who no matter how hard they've tried have never been able to make it through no fault of their own?

Why are many big business owners, executives, and Wall Street to constantly exploit their workers and customers financially and also get away with not paying their fair share of taxes for all of the public works that have been constructed, maintained, and will continually need to be improved throughout the entire country? 

Btw, why aren't members of the military, law enforcement, firefighters, construction workers, and teachers entitled to a much better pay than what they get despite the fact that they work just as hard as most of the highly successful individuals out there in the world.

Leo mentioned a while ago in the pertinent question on taxation on billionaires thread that:

 

On 7/8/2021 at 5:09 AM, Leo Gura said:

$10 million is literally plenty of reward for ANY job on the planet.

You know what feels really shitty? Paying someone who works in the hot sun picking strawberries all day long $20/day. How about rewarding them? Why do you not care about properly rewarding 99% of the workforce, but you are so passionate about rewarding the top 0.01% who are already so highly rewarded that literally they cannot feel the difference when we add an extra billion to their bank account?

Do you see how fucked up your priorities are?

How about rewarding teachers, police, firefighters, soldiers, mothers, construction workers, fast food workers, Amazon warehouse workers, delivery drivers? See, you don't give a fuck about these people who are being exploited to make Jeff Bezos a billionaire.

Billionaires are a lot more analogous to kings than to the existence of money itself.

Money is a necessary and important technology. Billionaires are not necessary, like kings.

All this is true of slavery.

In the 1850s you'd be in a public forum shouting that our society is not evolved enough to abolish slavery and that we cannot function without slaves. Out of slaves, massive wealth creation, etc. We can even fuck them for free. How can a man live without having slaves to fuck? Our society cannot handle it.

 

On 7/8/2021 at 5:20 AM, Leo Gura said:

.....billionaires create all their wealth is purely a social construction.

Again, according to your logic, kings and slavemasters come by their wealth through value creation too, therefore it is immoral to take away kingdoms and slave plantations.

This is, in fact, exactly what kings and slavemasters said.

Billionaires do not create their wealth. They leech it from workers. It is not possible to create a billion dollars in value otherwise.

Don't even start quoting consciousness at me. Your devil mind will use "consciousness" to justify whatever selfish thing you believe.

As for his take on the necessity of billionaire businessmen:

On 7/8/2021 at 5:24 AM, Leo Gura said:

You are confusing two things: their work is necessary, but their wealth is not.

If a school teacher can do a good job on $50k/yr, then so can a CEO.

Just because you make necessary contributions to mankind does not mean you are entitled to charge a billion dollars for it.

Here's what you're missing about the psychology of billionaires. If we took away all of Elon Musk's money, he would still do his work. Because money is not what motivates him. These people are workaholics. They will work even if you tax them 100%.

 

I am not trying to suck up to Leo, but from both a totally ethical and practical stand point, he's absolutely right.

Your view on how a society should function is quite frankly very short-sighted, simple-minded, and genuinely uncaring of others.

Edited April 30, 2022 by Hardkill

[bejapuskas]

Thank you for sharing this. Really eye-opening post and finally some critique of green from above. Rarely available on this forum.

[Leo Gura]

On 4/29/2022 at 6:55 AM, SeaMonster said:

It is notoriously bad at large scale social engineering, like attempting to mandate equality of outcomes (which exists virtually nowhere in nature.)

If Green works so bad, why are the happiest, healthiest, and fairest countries in the world closest to Green?

[Hardkill]

2 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

If Green works so bad, why are the happiest, healthiest, and fairest countries in the world closest to Green?

Then, are hippies and idealists also some of the happiest people in the world? 

Are liberals generally happier than conservatives?

Edited April 30, 2022 by Hardkill

[Leo Gura]

@Hardkill Genuine hippies are pretty happy and evolved people.

Most people have a lot of growing to do before they deserve to be called hippies.

[Hardkill]

10 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

@Hardkill Genuine hippies are pretty happy and evolved people.

Most people have a lot of growing to do before they deserve to be called hippies.

Ah, so not the phony ones who are either addicted druggies or bullshiters pretending to be "spiritual."

But what about very Green individuals like the progressives who are always so incredibly frustrated and unsatisfied with the amount of change that gets made in societies? Don't you think that Kyle Kulinski, the entire TYT group, Bernie, Warren, AOC and others like them don't really seem happy because of the way things have always been in our world?

Edited April 30, 2022 by Hardkill

[Leo Gura]

1 hour ago, Hardkill said:

Don't you think that Kyle Kulinski, the entire TYT group, Bernie, Warren, AOC and others like them don't really seem happy

They are happier than Fox News and other right-wing asshole pundits like Charlie Kirk.

It's hard to seem happy when your job is to commentate on news every day and you have strong political beliefs.

All else being equal, Green should be happier than Orange and Blue. Which is what Scandinavian countries shows relative to the US and Iran.

[Husseinisdoingfine]

On the subject of who's happier:

 

[Hardkill]

37 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

They are happier than Fox News and other right-wing asshole pundits like Charlie Kirk.

It's hard to seem happy when your job is to commentate on news every day and you have strong political beliefs.

All else being equal, Green should be happier than Orange and Blue. Which is what Scandinavian countries shows relative to the US and Iran.

Why are all of the right-wing asshole pundits necessarily happier than the liberals and progressives?

[Husseinisdoingfine]

Just now, Hardkill said:

Why are all of the right-wing asshole pundits necessarily happier than the liberals and progressives?

He said the opposite, the progressives were happier.

[Hardkill]

2 minutes ago, Husseinisdoingfine said:

He said the opposite, the progressives were happier.

Oh yeah, my bad. I meant to ask the opposite.

I wonder why progressives and liberals would be generally happier if the right-wing is usually much more successful? Just because the further to the left you are the more selfless you are?

Edited May 1, 2022 by Hardkill

[Joel3102]

Traditionally conservatives measure as happier than liberals on studies that have been carried out. Here’s an interesting article on it

https://www.science.org/content/article/new-study-questions-trope-conservatives-are-happier-liberals

Here it’s argued to not really be a real gap, but at best it seems leftists aren’t any happier but about the same. 

[Nivsch]

Green does not respect the inner logic and the intelligence of the thinking and actions of other people and their connection to one's authentic self and inner child.

They only respect them if they come from green's values.

"I think you should try to do this and that"

No. He needs to do exactly what he does right now and make his conclusions for himself (the only exception is a dangerous situation).

Edited May 1, 2022 by Nivsch

[Michal__]

19 minutes ago, Nivsch said:

Green does not respect the inner logic and the intelligence of the thinking and actions of other people and their connection to one's authentic self and inner child.

They only respect them if they come from green's values.

"I think you should try to do this and that"

No. He needs to do exactly what he does right now and make his conclusions for himself (the only exception is a dangerous situation).

Everyone below yellow respects only people from their own / almost their own value system.

[Danioover9000]

   What do you mean stage green is overall more happier than stage orange? I agree if we're comparing Scandinavian countries to western and middle estern countries like the USA and Iran, but when we scale down to the individual level, we can come across people, who're stage orange and below,  who lean more to right wing politics, happier than an individual who has stage green values depending on their cognitiive and moral development, states of consciousness, personality typing and life experiences so far. Any differences in those factors, plus any factor that gets in, will change one's experiences of happiness almost no matter how highly developed your value system is, in certain contexts that highly evolved individual, maybe even the group, will experience varying degrees of happiness.

   

[Eph75]

@Danioover9000

Shifting from looking for happiness in say orange value base, through success, money, status, job titles, your material possessions and so on, and towards looking for happiness by making a difference for people, nature, climate, the world, and so on, is a deeper and "truer" gratification.

That doesn't mean that later stage people are immune to mental pathology.

Managing your inner processes to be more resilient and less needing of pursuing happiness, finding happiness in being, is more a spiritual journey than related to cognitive and perspectives development as SD stages imply.

It doesn't mean that people in each stage wouldn't claim to be happy, by their standards, just that your sense of what happiness is keeps changing as you develop. 

Looking at happiness indeces and mental illness indices for Scandinavian countries, they show up high for both.

Less survival, less "real" problems, and we make up problems in our minds. 

Edited May 1, 2022 by Eph75