Leo's Blog: Infinite Insights — Page 2

This is a good, genuine discussion about Karl Mannheim's notion of ideology:

You can see the discussion quickly delves into serious questions of epistemology at large. How can we have objective knowledge of anything? Is everything ideology? Is calling everything ideology, ideology?? These are great questions to contemplate.

A few points, since these two speakers were in way over their heads in this discussion:

• It is very important to understand that ideology is not willy-nilly, it serves the function of survival. That's why power uses ideology. The point of power is to further one's survival. Ideology is often a tool for power, but not exclusively. The powerless and oppressed also invent and use ideology. For example, slaves had an ideology to help them survive slavery. Ideology as a concept should not be limited to serving the status quo, or serving oppression. Slaves also had a liberation ideology that helped them escape slavery.
• Not everything is ideology. In fact, most parts of the mind are not ideology. Although, of course, in deeply ideological people their entire mind is warped and colored by their ideology. For example, most things Orthodox Jews do are colored by ideology. Eating bacon can be colored by ideology. Or not. Is eating bacon ideological? Only if you make it so.
• Is it possible to get outside of ideology? Yes, of course. How? Consciousness. Consciousness exists prior to ideology. Consciousness is what allows all understanding to happen. Pure understanding is not ideology. Although, of course, they can easily be confused.
• Is the child playing with the grasshopper ideological? No. It takes quite a few years/decades of indoctrination before ideology sets in. Assuming the child was not brainwashed, the child's natural state is free of ideology.
• Truth exists independent of ideology. In general, the problem with all these post-modernist schools of philosophy is that they over-emphasize the social domain. Not everything is social. Understanding works independently of the social domain. But since these academics are so mired in social topics, their mind only thinks about social things. But that's their mistake. Stop focusing so much on the social and focus more on the existential and individual. You can understand Reality individually, beyond what any other human thinks or says. Of course that doesn't mean your mind will be entirely free of ideology and cultural conditioning, but, for example, you can understand how a car engine works without ideology just by tinkering with a car engine until you figure it out through trial and error and observation.
• Observation is not ideology. When you observe an ant on the sidewalk, that's not ideology. Unless you add conceptual baggage on top of it, which of course happens easily. But you can also stop it from happening. Just observe the ant. It's uncommon but very doable.
• Notice that ideology has a conservative bias. The more conservative one is, the more ideological one tends to be. Of course leftists and progressives can be ideological too, but right and left are not symmetrical here. The leftist has a bias towards more self-reflection and meta-cognition. Meta-cognition itself makes one more liberal. A hardcore conservative is not even interested in entertaining the notion that his worldview is an ideology. But the leftist is more open to it, even though the leftist still gets lost in ideologies of the left. But this is an important reason why the left is more developed than the right.
• Ideology and utopia are not opposite things. Ideology can be utopian. Neo-Marxism is a utopian ideology. So I would not take this distinction too seriously. It is deeply problematic to say that ideology is conservative but not progressive. There is definitely progressive ideology. For example: radical climate change activists or vegans, or pacifist hippies, or Rastafarians. Lenin and Trotsky were progressive ideologues.
• They say, "You can only understand ideology retrospectively through history". This is not correct. Of course it is easier to spot ideology in retrospect, long after the fervor is gone, but you can also see ideology in the moment. For example, it is obvious today that MAGA is ideology. It is also obvious that many on the far left are operating on ideology — there is an ideology to wokeness. It is also possible to be non-ideological right now. In fact, that's the whole point! Your mind can operate independently. Try it!
• They asked the question: "Is there a way to understand ideology while within ideology? Can anything be absorbed by an individual without it being ideological?" Yes, of course! Through introspection, self-reflection, contemplation, and Consciousness, a Mormon can realize that all of Mormonism is ideological bullshit. And this realization is not itself ideology. Now, just because it isn't ideology does not mean it's automatically true, but at least it's not ideology. Don't forget that you can be non-ideological and wrong! And you can be ideological and right!
• They ask the question: "Is there a way to understand things without ideology?" Yes, of course! Understanding itself is not ideology. You can understand how cats reproduce. This requires no ideology. So they are missing the distinction between beliefs & knowledge versus understanding. They are also missing the notion of insight. Insight is not ideology, although it can easily be blended with ideology. Ideology co-opts insight and understanding to serve itself.
• Is science ideology? Ideally it wouldn't be, however, most of today's science is ideological because it has been turned into beliefs, narratives, and an implicit metaphysics and epistemology. So scientism, materialism, and positivism are ideology, but proper science would transcend ideology. That's why science is superior to religion.
• At the end of this video they both said that no one has solved this epistemic problem. That's false. Of course you can solve it. Solving it does not mean that you become free of all ideology and cultural conditioning, it just means that you learn to distinguish ideology from non-ideology inside your own mind . You solve it through meta-cognitive work, good philosophy, good epistemology, contemplation, and Consciousness. Don't assume a thing is impossible when you haven't even seriously tried yet. That's an epistemic mistake.
• You can do more than just compare various ideologies, your mind can operate entirely outside of ideology. Rare, but doable. That's the point of Actualized.org.
• "How do we evaluate what is true, what is right, what is wrong?" Well... that's the billion dollar epistemic question. The answer is: Intelligence and Consciousness. But it can't be foolproof or guaranteed. You could always be mistaken.
• You can be non-ideological in certain narrow areas of life, but then still couch that non-ideological understanding into an overarching ideology. For example, a Christian can do genuine non-ideological understanding of how cats reproduce, but then couch that understanding into his overall Christian worldview. So even though genuine non-ideological understanding is possible at the micro scale, ideological people are still ideological at the macro scale of worldview or paradigm.
• With all that said, there are still many different perspectives on Truth/Reality. Things can be true from certain points of view, within certain contexts, and not entirely true but capturing some aspect of Truth. For example, Newtonian Mechanics is true from a certain point of view, within a certain frame. And it is false or incomplete from other frames.
• Just because you are non-ideological does not mean that you have transcended your culture. Transcending culture is also possible but takes even more work.
• It would help these two speakers to see that ideology is not a binary but a matter of much degree. The point is to be moving towards less and less ideology. And if you can't eliminate it entirely, it's okay. Don't stress over it.
• Think of it this way: The mind is a general purpose tool that can be put towards many uses. When used sloppily, it gets hijacked by ideology in service of ideology. However, the mind can be used responsibly and consciously for serious truth-seeking. That is the purpose of philosophy. Will you do it perfectly? No. But perfect is not necessary.
• But is Actualized.org an ideology? Not unless you make it so. Actualized.org is a set of observations about how Mind works. Can it be turned into ideology? Of course. That's the danger. That's why I issue so many warnings and point out so many traps. Notice that pointing out traps of the mind is not ideology. When I tell you, "Don't be ideological", that is not ideology. Being non-ideological is not ideological. But I don't mean non-ideological in theory, I mean be non-ideological actually. BE IT.
• "But Leo, isn't the distinction between ideology and non-ideology ultimately going to collapse?" Yes. Don't take any distinction too seriously. We use distinctions because they offer us some utility for making sense of things. Ideological people hold distinctions too rigidly, which limits the mind. That is the practical problem: an ideologue is unteachable. Do not be unteachable. That's not an ideology! Just be teachable! BE IT.

This is how mankind was for most of human history:

Tasmanian devils.

Most people don't understand what colonialism is because a colonial culture whitewashes and obfuscates its own ugly history. Since conservatives are blind defenders of culture, conservatives are not even educated about what colonialism is and how it works.

Here's how colonialism works: We move into your land and start exploiting and abusing your people because we think we're superior, God's chosen people. You are outraged and have no choice but to fight back. We become outraged that you killed a few of our people. How dare you attack us, the civilized ones! We use this to smear your entire population as evil godless barbarians, leaving us no choice but to exterminate you in the name of civilization, otherwise our women and children would be in danger. Oh, and we just so happen to end up with all your land in the end. How fortune for us. But hey, you should not have been so evil. You should have let us rape you without squealing.

Self-bias actualized.

This is classic narcissistic gaslighting, but on a collective scale. All the evil stuff we do, you forced us to do to you by resisting. We didn't do nothing. But even if we did, you deserved it. You brought this on yourself. Look what you made me do.

That's the unconscious playbook. Classic, classic, classic. But also too ugly to ever admit to oneself.

This is very accurate and explains a lot:

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DcAi9p6tEVc

"Cognitive phenotype" is a good phrase. Saving that for future use.

Summary:

• High curiosity: need to close information gaps.
• Strong cognitive control: holding multiple views at once, resisting easy answers.
• Meta-cognition: ability to think about your own thinking.
• Theory of mind: ability to get inside of another's state of mind.
• Tolerance to uncertainty: low reactivity to not-knowing.
• Low automatic conformity: obviously.
• High openness: of course!
• Enjoyment of abstraction

In other words: mental depth. This is an uncommon phenotype.

Note: No, philosophy is not dumb, it just has to be done properly. She didn't do it properly. How do you know if you did it properly? God. You realize God. How do I know she didn't do it properly? Because her channel is called secular spirituality.

This is what happens when you become too famous:

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DZAUnxmSqq7

This isn't merely coincidental. Fame itself is corrupting, leading to sick kinds of behavior.

I posted a reel on Instagram a few weeks ago explaining how I despise the corruption prevalent in the self-help industry. This is exactly what I meant:

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DcWVXDcivvS

These kind of self-help grifters are the norm in the industry. In fact, their grift is to teach others how to do the grift. So the grift spreads like a cancer. If you truly love self-help, this should infuriate you. But this is the Orange norm. Together these grifters invented a whole set of rationalizations for why it is good for you. The rationalizations come for free once you buy their overpriced, rehashed product. Lol

Approaching life like an academic is a very unusual way of approaching life. Most people do not approach life like academics because they are entangled in the survival of it. For example, an academic approaches the study of religion as an abstract, intellectual, philosophical exercise, but most people LIVE their religion. That’s totally different. For an academic, religion is not survival, it’s a curiosity, which completely misses the point of religion. Likewise with politics and many other things. The academic point of view on any issue is itself already biased, biased with aloofness and detachment. It is like the difference between studying dead animals vs live animals. Most people are busy wrangling live animals, not autopsying dead ones. Academics have made careers out of telling you how to tame dead lions.

Of course, non-academics are even more biased, lost in the struggle of wrangling lions. But at least they are closer to the reality of wrangling a lion. The academic does not understand how REAL wrangling a lion is. Although, survival within academia is its own form of lion wrangling, which the successful academic has mastered. Survival within academia is a microcosm of survival in general, and that microcosmic survival game also biases the academic mind. The academic mind is biased both by too little survival and too much survival within an artificial microcosm.

But there's a further wrinkle. Some social justice activist academic will read this post and retort: "But Leo! That's why I'm not one of those detached academics. That's why I'm such a passionate activist for social justice and against oppression!" But this means that your view and understanding is profoundly biased and corrupt. You cannot solve epistemology with social justice warriorism. The more politically activist the academic is, the more biased and corrupt their understanding of reality is. Because survival IS the bias/corruption. But also, not understanding the realities of survival makes the mind ungrounded and quixotic.

The solution is: you have to understand the realities of survival without being lost in survival. That's a fine needle to thread, which is why objective understanding is so rare.

Why elites always rule. Fundamental for understanding politics:

Populism, whether right or left, is a delusion. Populism is the madness of crowds. If you aren't careful, the crowd will take you along for a ride off the cliff.

Since a young age I have been fascinated with the madness of crowds and collective thinking. The key insight for understanding politics is this: crowds do not operate on rationality, they operate entirely on vibes. What leftists get wrong is that they expect policy and logic to matter. No! No! No! Policy does not matter. Only vibes matter. Politics is about vibes. Nobody votes for Trump based on logic, they vote for him because he aligns with their vibes. For a logical person, this sounds insane. But that's how crowds are. Stop resisting it, stop denying it, and deal with the bleak reality of it. Also, be careful not to overlook how much of your political view is based on nothing but vibes. More than you'd like to admit. Most of the leftist policy positions are grounded in vibes, not realism.

"Crowds cannot reason" — that's the key insight. Until you understand that, you will not understand politics. Crowds operate at the pre-rational level, even if the individuals in them are rational.

For example, the Israel-Palestine debate is not about policy, it's about vibes. And so it is with all political debates.

I keep a lot of plants in my house, which leads to fly problems. And lately I got mosquitoes for the first time. So I started researching the best ways to trap them. I found the following traps. I placed half a dozen of them around the house and within a few days caught dozens of flies in each trap. A few mosquitos too. The flies are attracted to purple UV light at night, which these traps emit. Leave them on overnight.

It is harder to catch mosquitoes because they are attracted more to heat and CO2 than UV light. But I found a smelly mosquito bait that draws them in. Mosquitoes are also mildly attracted to the warmth of the lights. They confuse the warm light for a warm body.

I tested the following traps myself and confirm that they really work. I was amazed at how many flies I caught so quickly. I wish I knew about this sooner. If you don't take action the bugs only multiply.

Buy Here - Trap #1

Buy Here - Trap #2

Buy Here - Mosquito Bait (warning: smelly)

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