Leo's Blog: Infinite Insights — Page 7

This video is an astonishing piece of propaganda. I'd like you to just admire it:

- - - -

"Our adopted term 'Socialist' has nothing to do with Marxian Socialism. Marxism is anti-property; true socialism is not." — Hitler speech, 1923

- - - -

Everything Prager said is ahistorical, misleading, backwards, and ignorant.

Here's the historical reality:

• Hitler was a far-right ultra nationalist.
• As soon as Hitler took power in 1933, that same year he banned the German Communist party, arresting all its members. That same year Hitler banned the Democratic Socialist party. All remaining left-wing parties in Germany were banned or harassed out of existence.
• Hitler ended democracy in Germany. Hitler viewed democracy as against Nature, where Nature meant that the strong must rule the weak.
• Hitler believed that Marxism and Communism were an evil leftist plot by the Jews. Communists and left-wingers were Hitler's top enemy alongside Jews.
• Hitler hated Communists and Marxists just as much as Jews. Because he didn't distinguish between them.
• The "socialism" in National Socialism meant an extreme form of German nationalism. The entire purpose of the movement was to centralize power in a rigid hierarchy to serve a nationalist agenda.
• Hitler's nationalist agenda was similar to Christian Nationalism and Project 2025.
• Hitler's whole movement was deeply ethnocentric and glorified the return of Germany to its traditional roots, values, and glory.
• Nazis held traditional conservative values: masculinity, strongman hyper-masculine leadership, patriarchy, survival of the fittest, traditional family values, religious mysticism, persecution of minorities and deviants, a rigid power hierarchy, conformity to traditional culture, etc.
• Most businesses in Nazi Germany were privately owned. Private property existed.
• Some industries were denationalized and privatized.
• Heavy state control and intervention was implemented in order to make sure that industry fit Nazi nationalist goals and militarization needs.
• Hitler allowed German industrialists to earn huge profits.
• Independent labor unions were banned. Worker rights and strikes were suppressed.
• Hitler and Nazism was closed vs open to diversity of perspectives and peoples. Anti-pluralist.
• Hitler did not divide the world by race, he divided it by ethnicity, privileging German/Aryan ethnicity and blood.
• "Blood and soil" is a classic Nazi slogan which is now adopted by the American far-right/alt-right. Right-wing conservatives chant "Blood and soil", leftists and progressives do not.
• Holocaust denial is largely a racist right-wing phenomenon. The left wing does not engage in Holocaust denial.
• Race IQ and race science is popular on the right, not the left.
• Prager saying that the right-wing is not obsessed with race is ridiculous and false. The KKK is a classic racist right-wing group, and there are many more. Racism is most popular with conservatives. It is conservatives who oppose interracial marriage. It is conservatives who complain about ethnic minorities "invading" the country. It is conservatives who complain about The Great Replacement.
• White supremacists are conservative and right-wing.
• It is conservatives who are caught on video praising Hitler and doing Hail Hitler salutes. It is conservatives who do apologetics for Hitler.
• Hitler did not hate capitalism. He hated Communism. Which is why most businesses in Nazi Germany were privately owned. If Hitler hated capitalism he could have abolished private ownership of businesses. The reason Hitler so-called "hated capitalism" was because he needed organize Germany industry to fuel his insane levels of militarization for war. In this sense it was similar to how the US economy was state-guided during WW2 in order to mobilize for war. A war economy has to be highly coordinated by the state, that doesn't make it socialist or Communist.
• All historians recognize Fascism as right-wing. Hitler is recognized as a Fascist. Hitler was friendly with far-right Fascist leaders like Mussolini.
• Nazism strictly promoted traditional gender roles.
• Nazism was strongly anti-egalitarian and anti-equality. The strong are supposed to rule the weak.
• Nazism was anti-intellectual, with suspicious of university academics and intellectuals.
• Nazism hated "degenerate" unorthodox art. Just like how today's right-wingers hate postmodern art.
• Nazism opposed democracy, liberal values, progressive values, pluralism, and diversity.
• Nazism opposed individual creative self-expression, forcing conformity to traditional roles and values.
• The term "socialism" in National Socialism was used as a strategy to appeal to and attract average working people, who were attracted to Marxist ideals about empowering the working class. Given Marxism's popularity at the time, Hitler wanted to tap into that populist energy in order to gain power.
• For Hitler, the term "socialism" meant a form of national solidarity and collectivism based on race and nation, not class. By this logic, today's Christian Nationalists could be called Christian Socialists because they want to build a nationwide community of Christian domination.
• Hitler and Nazis were extremely hostile to LGBTQ people, sending many of them to concentration camps for extermination. Nazis, like most conservatives around the world, are homophobic, transphobic, and anti-feminist. This holds true globally, across all cultures. The more conservative, the more homophobic and anti-feminist the culture. For example, Afghanistan.
• Hitler and the Nazis sent other minority groups to the gas chambers too. Minorities were treated as weak, inferior, and unworthy of existence.
• Right-wingers today move to 3rd world countries, saying it's better because these places are less feminist and LGBTQ. Today's right-wingers like Andrew Tate glorify subservient women. They also glorify control and domination over women. And hostility towards effeminate men. These are all right-wing values.

- - - -

Quotes from Hitler:

"The problem of how the future of the German nation can be secured is the problem of how Marxism can be exterminated." (Mein Kampf)

"The whole of Judaism is a sworn enemy of National Socialism. The Jew is the incarnation of Marxism, of Bolshevic revolution, of universal subversion." (Speech, 1933)

"The Jewish doctrine of Marxism rejects the aristocratic principle of Nature and replaces the eternal privilege of power and strength by the mass of numbers and their dead weight." (Mein Kampf)

"The Western democracy of today is the forerunner of Marxism which without it would not be thinkable. It provides this world plague with the culture in which its germs can spread." (Mein Kampf)

"The invention of democracy is a crying example of this sort of mind virus, for has anything more mischievous ever been devised than concocting a system wherein a numerical majority of incompetents can outvote a minority of the capable?"

"We must eliminate homosexuals root and branch... We can't permit such danger to the country; the homosexual must be entirely eliminated." (Speech 1934)

- - - -

If a conservative ever tells you that Hitler and Nazism was left-wing, you should call them out on their bullshit by using the facts above.

Dennis Prager is one of the top propagandists of our era. Shamelessly defecating in the epistemic ecosystem by the metric ton.

Prager started a channel called PragerU Kids, which makes fun right-wing propaganda videos for children. A pipeline for teaching kids that Hitler was left-wing. Millions of kids will grow up thinking that Hitler was left-wing. Thanks Dennis.

Behold, pure brilliance:

This video summarized a lot of the stuff I have been talking about over the years. I've even called it a Dark Age myself. It's nice to see that some independent philosophers are actually doing quality philosophy.

The epistemology and metaphysics of the 20th and 21st centuries are profoundly dysfunctional. This leads to all sorts of unrecognized social and cultural problems.

I came up with a new label for our condition:

The Era of Epistemic Quagmire

- - - - -

Torch in hand,

together we wade,

through dark swamp,

of human bullshit,

molested by mosquitos the size of eagles,

in search of dry ground and Light.

If you're into this work it's good for you to know the history of the New Age:

Personally, I don't regard my work as New Age, and I have a hate for most New Age stuff because it's so much group-think, belief, conformity, and larping. But there's no denying that the New Age contains many valid truths. Mostly what I dislike is how it is packaged, promoted, consumed, and adopted as a kind of sub-culture. I hate the style and vibes of it. It lacks rigor and seriousness. It stinks of humanness. Like a wet turd atop a bowl of your favorite ice cream.

But as easy as it is to ridicule the New Age, the truth is that the New Age got a lot of fundamental things right. Those who reject the New Age for being too woo or unscientific, are fooling themselves. Before you trash it you gotta spend 10 years studying it. The New Age is a huge step up from both fundamentalist religion and atheist scientism rationalism materialism.

But to really go far in this work I recommend you put your New Age toys in the closet and begin serious solo contemplation. God forbid you turn into one of those New Age rats.

I have a deep new video coming soon about Post-Modernism. Here's a little appetizer:

Rorty's pragmatic definition of truth:

After Darwin it becomes very hard to say that human beings grasp the true nature of things. It’s much easier to say they’ve developed language to enable them to serve various ends: better food, better sex, better shelter, more interesting lives, and so on. As opposed to doing this thing called ‘knowing what things in themselves really are’. So, don’t ask the question: Which language gets reality right? Just ask the question: Which language serves what human purpose best?

-- Richard Rorty

Pragmatism and post-modernism define truth as whatever can be justified relative to a culture, era, and people. Truth is thus not a matter of whether we got reality right but whether our language serves a certain utility or end.

According to pragmatism, "true" is an adjective which we apply to beliefs which we have sufficiently justified. And justification is relative to an audience, a culture, and other factors. We don't have to know what truth is because we just know how to use it.

So, atomic theory is true not because that's how nature really is but because it allows engineers to successfully manipulate matter and create useful technology and scientists to communicate successfully between each other to sustain academic institutions, publish in journals, and hold functional conferences.

What do you think about this definition of truth?

Is it true?

What is wrong with that definition of truth? What is right about it? How do you know?

If Trump actually did this, he would be greater than Jesus:

Link

Credit: Forum user Moutushi

Crazy? Unscientific? Not at all. There is nothing unscientific about aliens flying around Earth. An alien is no less scientific than a rat. Just because something doesn't meet your standards of proof doesn't make it unscientific. All it means is that proof is a very limited thing. The Universe is much vaster and weirder than anything you can prove.

I hope an alien tickles your butt-hole.

I'm fascinated by pseudo-archaeology and ancient Egypt. I've shared videos about it in the past.

But here I want use pseudo-archaeology in a meta way to teach you some lessons about epistemology and the nature of science. In my foundational series, Deconstructing The Myth Of Science, I pointed out how science doesn't function the way that laymen and even professional scientists assume. I pointed out that there is no such thing as a canonical "scientific method". I pointed out that it is impossible to make a distinction between science and pseudo-science. But those points were all abstract. Now I want to show you a real-world example of how everything I talked about in that series plays out in real life because, of course, all of my philosophy applies to and predicts the real world. If you learned the lessons above you should be able to predict the epistemic and methodological traps that scientists' minds fall into.

The following is a 4-hr long scientific debate that took place on the Joe Rogan podcast on the topic of what counts as valid archaeology. It's a debate between professional archaeologist Flint Dibble and the popular pseudo-archaeologist Graham Hancock. They spend 4 hrs arguing over which of them is doing proper archaeology.

As you watch this, focus on seeing the meta-scientific issues and epistemology under-girding their debate, not the content of their archaeological claims. In this case we don't care whether Hancock's lost Atlantis exists or not, we care about understanding the trickeries of defining valid science. This is essentially a debate between orthodox science (Dibble) and unorthodox science (Hancock). Each claims to be superior to the other. But who is right? Rather than taking a side, I want you to see that there isn't a right answer here because there is in fact no such thing as "scientific method". Scientific method is a myth, a human invention which can be changed at any time in order to get a better handle on phenomena. But of course, there is no guarantee that your new version of the method will lead to truth, it could lead to self-deception and falsehood. But also, there is no guarantee that the old version of the method will lead to truth either!

What is interesting about this debate is that it shows how science really works, with serious scientists accusing others of racism, sexism, charlatanry, bullying, ridicule, slander, etc. in an effort to discredit their work. And it shows how much science is a cultural construction, a marketing game, not merely a presentation of truth or facts. Just the fact that this science debate is taking place in a pop-culture non-academic arena like Joe Rogan is an important point, because it shows that science isn't just a factual matter, it's a marketing matter. This example illustrates the hairiness of science.

Personally, my opinion is that Graham Hancock is doing sloppy and rather irresponsible archaeology/science by jumping excessively to conclusions and seeing things he wants to see. Ordinarily this would get Hancock dismissed and marginalized as a pseudo-scientific crackpot and charlatan — which he is often accused of being. However, the lesson I want you to learn here is that this orthodox scientific perspective is actually wrong, but not because I believe Hancock's lost Atlantis actually exists. It's wrong on meta-scientific grounds. It's wrong to dismiss Hancock as being unscientific because in fact Hancock is engage in science, he's just doing it in an unorthodox and non-academic way. But the key is to realize that no one has a monopoly on science or archaeology. When Hancock goes out and scuba dives to look at ancient underwater ruins or geological formations and reasons about them, he IS doing valid science. Of course that doesn't mean his conclusions will ultimately be valid, but scuba diving around the world to look for Atlantis IS absolutely valid science! This is what people who haven't watched my series on Deconstructing The Myth Of Science misunderstand.

Science can be done in many different ways and it is never clear which ways will yield new discoveries. It is certainly possible that you could go scuba diving and discover Atlantis. And in fact, if Atlantis does exist, this would be one of the best ways to find it.

Notice how serious scientists tend to dismiss unorthodox science by calling it words like pseudo-science or pseudo-archaeology. Understand why this is an epistemic mistake, such that Flint Dibble could be completely right about all the facts of this matter, but still wrong in his epistemic attitude towards Hancock and science at large.

Notice that while Flint Dibble might be a legit archaeologist and scientist, he does not have a deep grasp of epistemology or meta-science. Dibble is a career scientist, which means he's good at doing orthodox science but it does not mean that he understands what science is or how scientific method evolves in meta-scientific ways. As I said in my series, there is a big difference between doing science vs understanding science itself as an epistemic system. You can be great at one and terrible at the other. And while I say that, I don't mean that Hancock has a deep grasp of science or epistemology either. He is not rigorous in this thinking, but at least he is openminded enough to think outside the orthodox box. And when it comes to groundbreaking science, openmindedness can be more important than technical rigor.

Other points to notice and contemplate:

• What counts as the difference between archaeology and pseudo-archaeology?
• Is scuba diving to look for Atlantis a valid scientific method? Why or why not?
• Who gets to say whether an underwater structure is a man-made ruin vs a natural rock formation? Is that an objective fact or an interpretation of one's mind?
• By what objective method can you adjudicate how and where to do legit archaeology?
• Is the age of the Sphinx and the Great Pyramids a scientific fact?
• Is it a scientific fact that the Pyramids were tombs for Pharaohs? Even though no Pharaoh has ever been found inside a pyramid?
• It is a scientific fact that just because a Pharaoh's name is carved on a pyramid that he built that pyramid?
• How much speculation, theorizing, and jumping to conclusions is allowed within legit science? For example, is it legit science to go searching for Atlantis based on the fact that it was mentioned in one of Plato's books?
• Was Heinrich Schliemann, the amateur archaeologist who discovered the lost city of Troy based on reading Homer's Iliad, doing valid science? If not, how come he discovered something of great interest to science? And how it this different in principle from what Hancock is doing?
• Is it legit science to assume or conclude that no advanced civilization could have existed 15,000 years ago even though archaeologists have not even excavated 1% of the Earth?
• What is a "scientist rat"? (as opposed to a visionary scientist like Einstein)

Bonus: Personally, based on the amazingly precise stone cutting I've seen from ancient Egypt, I suspect that there did exist some kind of more advanced ancient peoples than we currently know. I suspect that Plato's account of Atlantis is more likely to be real than fake. But these are just my hunches, not any kind of serious science. But I think that Hancock's theory of a highly technologically advanced ancient global civilization is a fantasy. However, I take seriously the possibility that ancient humans had significant contact with aliens. To me this idea is not crazy at all and aligns well with reports of alien spacecraft in possession by the US government. If the government has alien spacecraft, the chances that ancient humans had significant contact with aliens is very high, and there is nothing unscientific about this theory. Don't let orthodox scientist rats gaslight you about that.

The ultimate lesson from all this is that to do good science you must be intellectually rigorous and simultaneously extremely openminded.

Advaita Vedanta has an interesting term: Ekajivavada

It means, Absolute Solipsism. Which means that nothing exists outside your experience. Your experience is the sum total of reality. If you stopped dreaming, nothing at all would exist, and until you started dreaming, nothing at all existed, because there is only one conscious being in existence: You.

Ilya Ponomerov is a former Russia parliament member who used to work with Putin. Now he is organizing a Russian shadow government overseas to overthrown the Putin regime and replace it with a new constitutional democracy. I was amazed to learn that this is happening in public light. Ilya has some serious balls. This is serious politics:

I am not saying overthrowing Putin is a good idea. I'm just sharing this development with you. In general it's a bad idea to interfere with the internal politics of any nation.

This 2-part podcast is a must-watch if you want a serious understanding of how the CIA works. This is not stupid conspiracy theories but how it really works:

Notice the difference between conspiratorial crap and this. This is real knowledge. Vital, grounded, eye-opened, empowering.