Leo's Blog: Infinite Insights — Page 31

Watch the following discussion with an ambassador from China. It is an absolute masterclass in the human's ability for bullshit. The discipline and skill with which he bullshits is just awesome:

With that said, a deeper issue is still being missed by everyone watching.

The reality is that China cannot have free speech, liberalism, or democracy because it is not at a stage of development that allows such freedoms and luxuries. The problem is that a leftist like Mehdi Hasan does not understand this. Leftists and liberals take freedom for granted. When in fact such freedom can only exist under suitable collective survival conditions and centuries of development. China does not have free speech because it cannot have free speech. This is not a mistake. This is their reality. And to not understand and appreciate that is ignorant.

The reason humans bullshit with such skill is because God holds a gun to their head.

Here's what this Chinese ambassador should have said to Medhi and the audience:

"Let us be serious and stop playing games. You in the Western liberal democracies look at China and criticize us for our lack of freedom and strict policies. You are shocked that we are not as free as you. But we are not as free as you because we cannot be as free as you given our stage of development, given our history. Every country must go through stages of development at its own pace, just as every child must go through school at his own pace. Some move faster, some move slower. Do not be so short-sighted to forget your own country's rocky and bloody histories and illiberal repressions. You are liberal now, but only relatively so, and you were not always this way. Liberalism is a luxury that the Chinese people cannot yet afford, but we have made much progress over the last 70 years. One day we will be as free as you, but that will take time, and I hope you will be as patient with us as you were with yourselves. This is the truth which you do not wish to admit to yourselves and this is why you are perplexed by the situation in China. China is doing what we must do to one day have the freedoms which your forefathers gifted to you with their blood. Everything of value has its cost. What you see in China is us paying the cost to one day have your freedoms."

Mike drop.

JP is engaged in some heavy denial of climate change. He's so convincing at it that when I listen to him enough in good faith, he almost has me convinced. It's really quite something.

It is useful to study Jordan Peterson's mind for examples of self-deception mechanisms. If you watch enough of his videos you can spot self-deception mechanism after self-deception mechanism being employed without his awareness of them.

What are some of those mechanisms?

• Projection
• Bias
• Lack of construct-awareness
• Survival
• Mental attachment
• Rationalization
• Demonization
• Denial
• Cherrypicking
• Whataboutism
• Misuse of skepticism
• Selective application of relativity and post-modernism
• Gross double-standards
• Dodging questions and key issues
• Strawmanning, misrepresenting alternative perspectives
• Moralistic crusading, moralistic self-righteousness
• Speaking on topics outside his area of expertise
• Obfuscation and conflation

Here's some killer advice for you: look for highly intelligent speakers and minds (like Jordan Peterson) and study their talks for self-deception mechanisms, and then contemplate how you will avoid that yourself in your own exercise of rationality and sense-making.

There is nothing more dangerous than human reason.

Someone sent me an email saying that they had a dream of me swimming calmly in a bathtub full of crocodiles.

That's my life in a nutshell. But I'm not always so calm.

There exists an entire profession called Philosophical Counseling.

It's when an academically trained philosopher (with a masters or PhD in philosophy) is employed as a consultant or coach to help you think through existential problems in your life. For example, maybe you're confused about whether there are only two genders, or more. So you hire a philosophical counselor who will help you contemplate through the issue and reach some kind of conclusion that will put your mind at ease.

According to Wikipedia, here's what philosophical counseling involves:

"A philosophical practitioner helps clients to clarify, articulate, explore and comprehend philosophical aspects of their belief systems or world views. Clients may consult philosophical practitioners for help in exploring philosophical problems related to such matters as mid-life crises, career changes, stress, emotions, assertiveness, physical illness, death and dying, aging, meaning of life, and morality. On the other side philosophical practitioners also initiate projects in common life worlds with various goals that are related to essential problems of life, such as sustainable energy, direct democracy, etc.

Activities common to philosophical practice include:

1. The examination of clients' arguments and justifications
2. The clarification, analysis, and definition of important terms and concepts
3. The exposure and examination of underlying assumptions and logical implications
4. The exposure of conflicts and inconsistencies
5. The exploration of traditional philosophical theories and their significance for client issues
6. The initiation of projects for common goods
7. All other related activities that have historically been identified as philosophical."

I just wanted to share this because I thought it was a really cool application of philosophy and I'm sure some of you who follow my work would be interested in such a unique profession as a life purpose.

In light of this profession, I am like a Philosophical Drillmaster — where I bludgeon you with practical philosophy until you change how you live your life.

"Hey, Johnny, who do you want to be when you grow up? An astronaut? A firefighter?"

"A philosophical counselor!"

"Time and space are unreal, matter is an illusion, and the world consists of nothing but mind."

-- Bertrand Russell's summary of Hegel's philosophy

If you want to get really nerdy and develop a profound understanding of what fundamentalism is, I've got just the resource for you! It's called The Fundamentalism Project. This was a 10-year academic research project into the empirical study and analysis of fundamentalist movements around the world. It produced a series of 6 books on the subject which you can find at the link below:

https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/series/FP.html

It's heavy reading, so this is not for the laymen, but if you're nerdy enough you might like it, and there's some gold in those books. Frankly, just one of the books should be enough. I recommend buying one with the newest date.

These are not self-help books, these books are for people who want an academic understanding of fundamentalism.

First, watch this clip of Musk and Rogan talking about how the left is a "death cult" because Musk found one radical leftist in the New York Times who said that mankind is a cancer upon the planet:

So because of this Musk (and Rogan's fanbase) support Trump and the right.

But the right's base are Christian Nationalists. They worked for Trump and wrote a 900 page manifesto for Trump's next term. Now observe that these Christian Nationalists literally pray for the End Times:

You see? This is the bullshit that the human mind spins up when it comes to rationalizing its own political biases and positions. This is what I mean when I warn about Double-Standards, Self-Bias, and Self-Deception.

By any objective measure, the American MAGA right is a Christian death cult. They write national policy based on this. They nominate Federal judges based on this. Yet Musk eagerly funds and supports them on the grounds that leftists are the death cult. This is the level of absurdity that our politics has produced.

It is galling when right-wingers and Trump supporters dare to claim that the Trump administration is anti-war and pro peace. These people pray for Armageddon. These people believe that Muslims are demons. These are the people staffing Trump's next administration. Don't ever speak to me about "anti-war" MAGA. Such people are incapable of being anti-war.

And at the same time, leftists whine about how bad Biden is on Gaza. Meanwhile Trumpists literally believe that Gaza is run by demons and Satan. How do you think Christian Nationalists will handle Gaza?

This is disturbingly accurate:

Intelligent talk by the wise Daniel Schmachtenberger:

Schmachtenberger is one of the only impressive public intellectuals. Everyone else is playing a lower game.

One of the most disappointing things I've realized in understanding how governments work and how politics works, is that every intelligence agency in the world is basically a collection of clinical psychopaths and sociopaths.

Intelligence agencies are based in pure selfishness and survival, not truth or consciousness. Many of the world's problems stem from this. When I was younger I was naive in assuming that intelligence agencies cared about being fair and honest. They don't. It's just a raw exercise in power and self-bias.

If the world is to be a fair, decent, and peaceful place, intelligence agencies would have to place truth and fairness as their top priority. Until that happens there will be conflict, exploitation, domination, and war.