If someone, like a tyrant (or an elite), wants to control a certain group of people, they first send out the blue cavalry to destroy their society. Then after four years, the same tyrant send out the red cavalry to "give back" to the people everything that the blue cavalry destroyed. The only thing the tyrant wants in return is their loyalty - which the people accept since they got everything back that was destroyed of the blue cavalry - and hence the people give their loyalty away to a tyrant who destroyed their society but who the people now think is their savour.
That is how dumb people have become in this time and age, at least in my opinion...
You are right that this is a well known tactic, there were many other tactics used as well.
I disagree though about the implication that people have chosen to become dumb in this time and age. People in general are only as skilled, intelligent, etc, as their environment (and its opportunities) lets them be.
The environment has so significantly disadvantaged future generations that the dynamics we are seeing right now are unavoidable, and a consequence of both hubris, and previous generations failing in their responsibilities under the social contract.
All it takes is one bad generation and complacency for evil to win. (i.e. the banality of evil becomes the radical evil).
There is quite a lot of sophisticated thought reform techniques based in torture that have been embedded in just about every process and education since the 70s. To top that off, pollution has reached epic proportions where our own biological systems are being disrupted (microplastics/pfas). This is why many people are greatly concerned, but the majority are unreactive.
Either of these classes of techniques/situations only cause society to become more nonreactive, and swirl the drain towards destruction while at the same time depriving us of our ability to think rationally. Flouride causes neurotoxicity in developing brains, so are many chemicals we use in everyday products without disclosure.
What we are seeing is the standard distribution population curve being shifted to the left with regards to IQ, and once you get below a certain IQ you fail to listen to the smarter people. Intelligence is speed of association, frameworks (and their related efficiencies), and heuristics. The latter two come from education (which largely has failed to deliver competency).
I agree the term "dumb" night not be the best. Indoctrinated might be better. We have or course a huge problem in society.
But have you also realized what happened to the mentality around the election - when I speak to ppl about Trump it is like you can't reach them. It doesn't matter what you say it just rinse of them, they can't accept logical thinking anymore.
It was the same feeling during the pandemic - you couldnt speak common sense with ppl, they was totally brainwashed "shot is good, freedom will come". Now it is the same, whatever questions you raise regarding Trump the answers is like from robots "Trump good, freedom will come". And ironically the ppl who act this way now acts in the exact same way as they critized ppl to act during convid😳
Indoctrinated is the correct word, but I have found that it has become a trigger for a lot of people that lack an appropriate understanding, or perhaps the mental capability for the gymnastics needed to identify such things.
As a result you either end up talking to people who are in complete agreement, or they criticize irrationally, eyes glaze over, and in many respects they act liked caged animals.
There are a small number of people who have realized what is happening, how it is happening, and why, and have taken steps to prepare for what is coming.
Joost Meerloo wrote about it quite extensively with regards to how the Nazi's rose to power, though science in thought reform has progressed quite dramatically since his writing. Reflected appraisal, a core component of our perception is commonly being distorted, and against that there is no true defense other than to reduce harmful exposure to the bare minimum without isolating. Isolation is the mechanism that causes greater involuntary adoption (as it also does in torture [ref Robert Lifton, Thought Reform]).
Democracies can fail to fascism when the social contract breaks, and the society is captive to their leaders. This naturally occurred historically during the fall of the Roman Republic.
When the vast majority of people adopt mass delusion, the only thing ahead for them as a group is shortage, slavery, death, and destruction, as a progressive function of time.
Delusion prevents them from identifying the causes to react or correct, so it becomes inevitable after a point of no return which for us was late 1990s (the political power transfer to the baby boomers, which they still hold today). We are living through a time of ruin, its slow but progressively worsening, and it will become even worse once debt outflows exceed inflows (debt growth>GDP).
To some, we know there is going to be a great dying in the very near future, and a good number of rational people are taking steps needed now to safeguard survival, absent a centralized organization/grid. Shortage right now in some of the non-discretionary goods has already sustained since August, and is worsening.
Anytime you force a population into lockdown, or threat, their psychology warps towards these things we've spoken about.
But if I gonna argue with you at one point, then it is that - ppl are dumb, because you need a certain amount of intelligence to start to question your perceptions, and beliefs etc.
I think all sound and intelligent ppl should question their own beliefs and perceptions everyday.
But the majority aren't even aware of their thinking, they lack that ability.
I can see what you are saying, so you do make sense, but it is a bit incomplete (as you mention this unsupported), all in all interesting discussions usually involve a lot of nuance, or background material to be on firm ground.
What you are talking about here with regards to questioning your perceptions and beliefs is a basic heuristic framework we (as a society based in Western Philosophy and property) have learned to discern truth based in external reality (avoiding delusion).
These basic methods have many variations, but were first formalized and simplified by Descartes in his Rules of Method. It requires very little intelligence (as association speed) to perform, but if you were never taught to use this you may not come up with it on your own without having a high amount of association speed to notice the patterns.
Most people lack this method because our education has been poisoned to produce and promote unthinking loyal workers over anything else. This was the goal of the prussian-model, and centralized education today follows that model. The classical education prior to this model included Rhetoric, Logic, and Philosophy (heavily leaning towards subject matter in epistemology today iirc).
These subjects are no longer covered during the important developmental years, with introduction first coming during college (which not everyone can attend).
The classical model included subjects following the Greek education model, the Trivium, and Quadrivium curricula (afaik). It changed in 1907 to the prussian model.
Some people become more intelligent, as a function of speed, over time because they change out their thought machinery for more efficient methodology (as they discover it, or were taught).
You can be much more intelligent knowing about these things either in heuristics, or mental frameworks(shortcuts) that have been proven than without them.
There is a base level where you don't have the speed of association needed to perform certain complex, or basic tasks, IQ of 82 or below for example will underperform almost everything, and that base speed of association is entirely dependent on genetics and environment during development.
Disciplined heuristics and mental frameworks of thought greatly increase that speed, which we naturally associate with very intelligent people. The same goes for memory and other components. There are methods that can be learned to perform miraculous acts of memory, but it was only through disciplined learning of frameworks that this could be done.
Arguably also, people seem to lose the ability to think when they can no longer communicate. This is documented in literature on torture where isolation is used, tangentially. The most rational people ended up being broken more quickly absent firmly held (on the order of devout religious) beliefs.
Torture at its core is the induction of an involuntary hypnotic state, physicality was required for primitive methods; mental coercion techniques have reached a point where that isn't necessarily needed.
Peterson, while I don't agree with much that he has to say coined a saying in one of his interviews that I think is quite appropriate, but I changed it a bit. His quote is "In order to be able to think, you have to risk being offensive."
I've changed that somewhat to:
In order to be capable of thinking and intelligence, you must risk being offensive.
In order to learn something, you must risk being offended.
When neither are possible in a society, intelligent discussion cannot occur, and when intelligent discussion does not occur rather than the average person's thoughts being pulled up to the higher form of thought by those with more intelligence, it is pulled down to the lowest level, the least common denominator which isn't much better than an animal.
> It is seldom one can have an intellectual discussion which doesn't end up in an argument about being right or wrong.
Thank you. It is rare, and I wish it wasn't so rare.
I'd only add that disagreement understandably, or rather, the withholding of agreement starting out in a conversation is the natural state of things for rational conversation purely from a defensive point-of-view.
Some of the more subtle thought reform tactics rely on inducing agreement of an ambiguity that is then turned into a lie, as a psychological trap. There are many ways we can be influenced unduly by structure. Cialdini covers most of the perceptual blindspots in his book on Influence.
That said, when things are properly supported and truthful following rational principles, agreement is pleasant and I'm glad you found what I had to say of value.
> I have to admit that I haven't read enough philosophy so fall a little short to keel up with your analysis ability.
Ironically, the only reason my ability is where it is at today is because of the pandemic, and I started off from scratch at that time.
It all kind of spontaneously arose from self-study starting with Greek rationalism, then Descartes Method. Not a lot of effort is actually needed to get started. The Method is remarkably simple, only 5-6 steps.
The books/works themselves are often structured so you can take a small chunk at a time and think over it throughout the day during free time.
I'd only preface this with the fact that the language in earlier books (pre-1970s) have most words that have a single common non-contradictory shared meaning at the time they were written. It can be difficult to find the correct meanings today.
Language corruption is a real problem, and without an old dictionary it can sometimes be hard to get the correct single shared meaning. Online dictionaries are actively being revised to introduce ambiguity and contradiction in word meanings.
For example, if you google the definitions for deluded and delusion, and compare those meanings to the actual definitions found at Oxford Dictionary (pre-1970), you'll see they've been subtly changed to allow circular reference/contradictory ambiguity. Google does this, as do many other entities. They also claim to cite the Oxford Dictionary, and they do but very selectively for purpose.
I ended up unknowingly reconstructing parts of the Trivium curricula after failing horribly with modern subject matter based in rote. I hadn't heard of it at the time and only discovered this later when I started reading history from the turn of the century (1900s).
I wonder where I would be today, if I was given this education earlier in life (I only learned it starting when I turned 40). Needless to say, you can start any time if that's something you want, and the benefits are immense but double edged though since it can be somewhat maddening to be surrounded by so many people in varying states of delusion and they are generally unable to self-correct.
If you'd like some reading recommendations I've gone through a lot of books to hone my discernment since I started.
Certain subject areas are so rife with half-truths, deceits, and lies, that discernment really is a necessary skill to build up, both in terms of the foundational material (philosophy) but also in terms of psychology/perceptual traps that influence towards belief in falsity/fallacy.
An example would be, a rational study of Socialism/Communism is needed to understand why and how it fails with regards to political philosophy rationally, but this is one such quagmire I'd suggest avoiding until later.
Many deceits in that subject matter follow a Hegelian-like structure. From philosophy, that type of structure is used narrowly for meta-analysis absent identity(definition) but it is often abused to create convincing lies by abusing the contrast principle. Circular reasoning is an example of this, and contrast is a perceptual blindspot also covered by Cialdini.
Throwaway, that was a very good and sound analysis.
I totally agree about what you are saying.
It is funny, from my perspective, that during convid there was a great breakthrough in the disillusional thinking in ppl. Not so luckily though, most ppl who woke up there seems to get caught in "Trump /Musk will save us" thinking. Likely through subtle psychological warfare from our leaders...
far as I believe and nothing else will move me. 1. Good will triumph over evil. 2. No matter what goes up, must come down. ANYTHING. 3. The people enmasse if you piss them off, will not be overrun. In other words people in glass houses better not throw stones.
...what if the Crypto President was elected and it seem pretty odd the election wasn't close or challenged. Plus 20+ million voters went missing, maybe when Trump takes office the ultimate rug pull in crypto market begins? Along with the collapse of the economy.
Its not odd at all. This was expected as a result of the Covid lockdowns. The cryptomarket won't collapse until the USD collapses. Leverage from the latter underlies the former.
I do get a sense that we are purposefully being set up...but I can't put my finger on anything in particular. I just don't trust anything anymore. I guess we'll find out.
Not trusting anything anymore is a state of delusion, and impossible.
Trust only what can be verified through external observation.
To answer your question, we have been set up, but it is incredibly subtle, and most people were deprived of the education they needed to recognize the how and why (it was done by purposeful intent).
Core teachings from classical education based in rationalism is what is missing, and why you have been blinded to these things. These teachings seek truth based in external observations and repeatability (avoiding delusion), and maintaining the requirements for rational thought. Truth only occurs where everything that composes that statement is also true starting with a definition (identity, from philosophy).
If you would seek to remedy this, I suggest you start with Classical greek works on reasoning (Socrates/Plato), then move to Descartes Method, then logic, a priori reasoning, hegel, and discernment. These were once all covered under philosophy before the adoption of the prussian school model (1907). From there, study the fall of the roman republic. The rise of imperial rome, and its subsequent fall.
There are many dynamics, whose presence when found predictably lead to specific outcomes. These dynamics are often found in recorded histories.
Unfortunately, today we are living in the world of Anathem, or misinformation. Specialist subject matter experts are needed to identify truth, and many experts today don't meet the minimum requirements to be competent (trusting one of these people who are incompetent is subscribing to their delusion, like a cult).
I'll tell you how the political process was set up, and why this outcome was inevitable.
When you have two majority parties (>33% of the voter pool), no third party can win.
The remaining 33% is all other parties, and that mathematically can never unify to overtake the two majority parties. This is referenced as an inherent weakness in pluralities and first-passed the post voting. Ranked choice comes with its own shortcomings.
With an electoral college, not only must that minority party beat the two majority parties (unify), but they must do this for each state totaling up to 270 electoral votes. So it is not a likelihood of it just having to happen once. The likelihood of it happening once (a very small decimal) must be raised exponentially by the number of states totaling 270 votes.
For all intents and purposes it is so close to zero that it cannot happen with any regularity, and historically has not happened as far as I know, in our countries lifetime.
Then you must also consider tweedism. This structurally is an arbitrary filter that is applied pre-voting that limits your choices. This is the money vote coming from the Party's superpacs and other donors, and the costs for access imposed by the shadow state-run media.
These two things taken together create the illusion of a vote, but the only people who have a chance at winning are the majority parties. These dynamics leads to demagogues in those parties, and that is largely considered the real reason Rome fell. Demagogues, Corruption, and Crises exposing weakness within and without.
Finally, there are the indoctrination/psychological factors that most people without training fail to recognize, and firmly believe aren't possible. This flawed belief only makes these outcomes more likely.
Lockdown's inherently warp people psychologically to that of closed societies. Isolation is a structural component of torture, which is the involuntary induction into hypnotic states where rational thinking largely fails. You can read further on this subject matter starting with Joost Meerloo, or Robert Lifton. Both cover what was known from the 1960s. Since then the science of torture, and the current state of art with regards to mental coercion has effectively broken perception, and civilized society (social contract).
This has been warned against in many studies regarding how the Nazi's came to power. You can find much of this material under the names banality of evil, and the radical evil. While they don't go into detail about the how's or why's, they focus study on the repeated dynamics found in the historical record.
If you want to know more about the how's, the gist is we have a number of blindspots as humans. Those perceptual blindspots absent rigorous rational framework, and associative anchoring (operant conditioning) often influence people without them perceiving it.
Cialdini in his book on Influence covers most of these blindspots at a cursory level, but fails to really properly describe the level of influence that language and distorted reflected appraisal play on people. The latter is largely the underlying action for why Harris lost. State-run media provided distorted reflected appraisal that she was doing well, when in fact she had made serious missteps.
When you cannot recognize a problem state, you cannot react to correct it. It underlies our perception generally.
This is the danger of distorting reflected appraisal, or the echo chamber (as it more currently is called). There is no indication other than an absence of a signal, and you often don't know you are in the echo chamber (since its not disclosed).
The reflective appraisal mechanisms used to manipulate (via distortion) are more weaponized versions of the same mechanisms which allow us as children to adopt our cultures, norms, and moors, and form our psychological identities. It happens under the radar, but its impact is great and mostly certain.
Few receive proper education in practice or knowledge of these things, and language has largely been corrupted to skew towards ambiguity and delusion.
Bryan, It will depend on a number of things, in a way that we can't predict (chaotic).
We have been on the precipice of a crash a number of times. We also now have to equally factor in the role of inflation, which now that the Fed has started to drop rates will be a persistent issue moving forward.
The market going sideways while inflation zooms is still functionally a pullback though perceptually might not register as such.
There has been a chance of a crash building since the pandemic. It is snowpack like with an avalanche. The conditions are there, but predicting when is anyone's guess.
A line appears, the order wanes, the family falls and chaos reigns.
What they want is to reap another harvest. The bull will turn bear and the boom become a bust and the rich become richer as they pick up good assets pennies on the dollar. They fully understand the business and social cycles and as Roosevelt is hinting have a hand in them.
In fairness, he may not have 2.5 years. Some of these failure dynamics are decades in the making and we all know whoever the current president is gets to be the bag holder.
I don't think it will happen. It is like the "shot". No matter how much facts or side effects that comes out, some ppl who supported it will support the shot to their grave. Same with Trump, for many I think for as long as they live they will claim Trump is good and that he will send his white hats to free us all. If not this decade so the next.
Many people I know were shocked by what appeared to be a landslide victory for Trump, when everything projected Harris as the winner. These same people generally fail to adequately recognize the power that echo chambers play on politicks, or that almost every person today lives in some form of echo chamber (and has developed schizophrenic delusion as a result, a common end-result in totalitarian regimes).
What happens when you make mistakes, but state-run media doesn't point out those mistakes. Doesn't cover them. You end up not knowing you made mistakes, and not correcting them. Thinking you are doing great (delusionally), when you aren't, right up until the end.
There were many instances of that happening fairly consistently in the last election. That reflected appraisal was denied and distorted. The trusted news initiative cherry-picked what they were putting out by purposeful intent. The very first thing you need to be able to react to something, is a problem signal to react to and through distorted reflective appraisal, that signal was attenuated until the external reality of things became clear.
I am not unhappy with the result, but the selection wasn't a good one, it was the kind of double bind that prevents an open rational choice from being made.
When you can only choose a false dichotomy and both are almost equally destructive that's no real choice at all. That said, Fascism typically is better for countries long-term than Communism (which is unstable and fails in the absence of a Capitalist host nation).
Let's keep our eyes and ears open to see how many campaign promises will be enacted. In my crystal ball, I see the rich getting richer, tax breaks for the wealthy, successful business deals to make DJT and his family richer. He will make sure that he creates personal wealth, then he will be open to doing the FED's bidding. I am sure Elon Musk and Wall Street will be offering their sage advice. Trump is a nationalist. He will be facing the Globalists--IMJF, WEF, NATO, AND CENTRAL BANKS. UNFORTUNATELY, THE MIDDLE CLASS WILL BE THE PAWNS ON THIS CHESS BOARD!
GREG- I wrote you in for PRESIDENT on the ballot!! Since it's a selection like you said I had nothing to loose. I'm so disappointed you didn't win ;-). I tried to send you a photo of my ballot to your substack but it rejected it. Keep up the great work!
A politician is a negotiating compromiser, they test the wind, they test the polls and then vote the greatest largess to themselves, friends, and then possibly the populace. A Statesman, which we don't have anymore, is a person who compares the issue to the law and then votes the law so people's rights are not violated and thereby overturned. We once were a Constitutional Republic, and now, we are ran by the central bank. After the panic of 1873 we became a corporation. In 1913 we lost our republic government by the establishing of the 16th and 17th Amendments. Taxation, stealing from the people, and the upper house can be voted directly by the people, so they can vote themselves largess, and become tyrannical philanthropists, gift givers and everyone will run to the public trough.
If someone, like a tyrant (or an elite), wants to control a certain group of people, they first send out the blue cavalry to destroy their society. Then after four years, the same tyrant send out the red cavalry to "give back" to the people everything that the blue cavalry destroyed. The only thing the tyrant wants in return is their loyalty - which the people accept since they got everything back that was destroyed of the blue cavalry - and hence the people give their loyalty away to a tyrant who destroyed their society but who the people now think is their savour.
That is how dumb people have become in this time and age, at least in my opinion...
You are right that this is a well known tactic, there were many other tactics used as well.
I disagree though about the implication that people have chosen to become dumb in this time and age. People in general are only as skilled, intelligent, etc, as their environment (and its opportunities) lets them be.
The environment has so significantly disadvantaged future generations that the dynamics we are seeing right now are unavoidable, and a consequence of both hubris, and previous generations failing in their responsibilities under the social contract.
All it takes is one bad generation and complacency for evil to win. (i.e. the banality of evil becomes the radical evil).
There is quite a lot of sophisticated thought reform techniques based in torture that have been embedded in just about every process and education since the 70s. To top that off, pollution has reached epic proportions where our own biological systems are being disrupted (microplastics/pfas). This is why many people are greatly concerned, but the majority are unreactive.
Either of these classes of techniques/situations only cause society to become more nonreactive, and swirl the drain towards destruction while at the same time depriving us of our ability to think rationally. Flouride causes neurotoxicity in developing brains, so are many chemicals we use in everyday products without disclosure.
What we are seeing is the standard distribution population curve being shifted to the left with regards to IQ, and once you get below a certain IQ you fail to listen to the smarter people. Intelligence is speed of association, frameworks (and their related efficiencies), and heuristics. The latter two come from education (which largely has failed to deliver competency).
I agree the term "dumb" night not be the best. Indoctrinated might be better. We have or course a huge problem in society.
But have you also realized what happened to the mentality around the election - when I speak to ppl about Trump it is like you can't reach them. It doesn't matter what you say it just rinse of them, they can't accept logical thinking anymore.
It was the same feeling during the pandemic - you couldnt speak common sense with ppl, they was totally brainwashed "shot is good, freedom will come". Now it is the same, whatever questions you raise regarding Trump the answers is like from robots "Trump good, freedom will come". And ironically the ppl who act this way now acts in the exact same way as they critized ppl to act during convid😳
Indoctrinated is the correct word, but I have found that it has become a trigger for a lot of people that lack an appropriate understanding, or perhaps the mental capability for the gymnastics needed to identify such things.
As a result you either end up talking to people who are in complete agreement, or they criticize irrationally, eyes glaze over, and in many respects they act liked caged animals.
There are a small number of people who have realized what is happening, how it is happening, and why, and have taken steps to prepare for what is coming.
Joost Meerloo wrote about it quite extensively with regards to how the Nazi's rose to power, though science in thought reform has progressed quite dramatically since his writing. Reflected appraisal, a core component of our perception is commonly being distorted, and against that there is no true defense other than to reduce harmful exposure to the bare minimum without isolating. Isolation is the mechanism that causes greater involuntary adoption (as it also does in torture [ref Robert Lifton, Thought Reform]).
Democracies can fail to fascism when the social contract breaks, and the society is captive to their leaders. This naturally occurred historically during the fall of the Roman Republic.
When the vast majority of people adopt mass delusion, the only thing ahead for them as a group is shortage, slavery, death, and destruction, as a progressive function of time.
Delusion prevents them from identifying the causes to react or correct, so it becomes inevitable after a point of no return which for us was late 1990s (the political power transfer to the baby boomers, which they still hold today). We are living through a time of ruin, its slow but progressively worsening, and it will become even worse once debt outflows exceed inflows (debt growth>GDP).
To some, we know there is going to be a great dying in the very near future, and a good number of rational people are taking steps needed now to safeguard survival, absent a centralized organization/grid. Shortage right now in some of the non-discretionary goods has already sustained since August, and is worsening.
Anytime you force a population into lockdown, or threat, their psychology warps towards these things we've spoken about.
The filling back up of the Washington D.C. Swamp has begun!:
https://healthimpactnews.com/2024/trump-announces-former-big-pharma-lobbyist-to-run-white-house-staff/
There is a reason the Greek word "pharmakeia" from which we get the English word "pharmacy" is also translated "sorcery" in the book of Revelation!:
https://sumofthyword.com/2021/02/02/pure-from-the-blood-of-all-men/
But if I gonna argue with you at one point, then it is that - ppl are dumb, because you need a certain amount of intelligence to start to question your perceptions, and beliefs etc.
I think all sound and intelligent ppl should question their own beliefs and perceptions everyday.
But the majority aren't even aware of their thinking, they lack that ability.
Do I make sense in what I'm saying?
> Do I make sense in what I'm saying.
I can see what you are saying, so you do make sense, but it is a bit incomplete (as you mention this unsupported), all in all interesting discussions usually involve a lot of nuance, or background material to be on firm ground.
What you are talking about here with regards to questioning your perceptions and beliefs is a basic heuristic framework we (as a society based in Western Philosophy and property) have learned to discern truth based in external reality (avoiding delusion).
These basic methods have many variations, but were first formalized and simplified by Descartes in his Rules of Method. It requires very little intelligence (as association speed) to perform, but if you were never taught to use this you may not come up with it on your own without having a high amount of association speed to notice the patterns.
Most people lack this method because our education has been poisoned to produce and promote unthinking loyal workers over anything else. This was the goal of the prussian-model, and centralized education today follows that model. The classical education prior to this model included Rhetoric, Logic, and Philosophy (heavily leaning towards subject matter in epistemology today iirc).
These subjects are no longer covered during the important developmental years, with introduction first coming during college (which not everyone can attend).
The classical model included subjects following the Greek education model, the Trivium, and Quadrivium curricula (afaik). It changed in 1907 to the prussian model.
Some people become more intelligent, as a function of speed, over time because they change out their thought machinery for more efficient methodology (as they discover it, or were taught).
You can be much more intelligent knowing about these things either in heuristics, or mental frameworks(shortcuts) that have been proven than without them.
There is a base level where you don't have the speed of association needed to perform certain complex, or basic tasks, IQ of 82 or below for example will underperform almost everything, and that base speed of association is entirely dependent on genetics and environment during development.
Disciplined heuristics and mental frameworks of thought greatly increase that speed, which we naturally associate with very intelligent people. The same goes for memory and other components. There are methods that can be learned to perform miraculous acts of memory, but it was only through disciplined learning of frameworks that this could be done.
Arguably also, people seem to lose the ability to think when they can no longer communicate. This is documented in literature on torture where isolation is used, tangentially. The most rational people ended up being broken more quickly absent firmly held (on the order of devout religious) beliefs.
Torture at its core is the induction of an involuntary hypnotic state, physicality was required for primitive methods; mental coercion techniques have reached a point where that isn't necessarily needed.
Peterson, while I don't agree with much that he has to say coined a saying in one of his interviews that I think is quite appropriate, but I changed it a bit. His quote is "In order to be able to think, you have to risk being offensive."
I've changed that somewhat to:
In order to be capable of thinking and intelligence, you must risk being offensive.
In order to learn something, you must risk being offended.
When neither are possible in a society, intelligent discussion cannot occur, and when intelligent discussion does not occur rather than the average person's thoughts being pulled up to the higher form of thought by those with more intelligence, it is pulled down to the lowest level, the least common denominator which isn't much better than an animal.
Throwaway, again, I really like your analysis, and I agree with all you are saying.
It is seldom one can have an intellectual discussion which doesn't end up in an argument about being right or wrong. Cheers for that!! :)
I have to admit that I havent read enough philosophy so fall a little short to keel up with your analysis ability ;)
Enjoy your weekend!!
> It is seldom one can have an intellectual discussion which doesn't end up in an argument about being right or wrong.
Thank you. It is rare, and I wish it wasn't so rare.
I'd only add that disagreement understandably, or rather, the withholding of agreement starting out in a conversation is the natural state of things for rational conversation purely from a defensive point-of-view.
Some of the more subtle thought reform tactics rely on inducing agreement of an ambiguity that is then turned into a lie, as a psychological trap. There are many ways we can be influenced unduly by structure. Cialdini covers most of the perceptual blindspots in his book on Influence.
That said, when things are properly supported and truthful following rational principles, agreement is pleasant and I'm glad you found what I had to say of value.
> I have to admit that I haven't read enough philosophy so fall a little short to keel up with your analysis ability.
Ironically, the only reason my ability is where it is at today is because of the pandemic, and I started off from scratch at that time.
It all kind of spontaneously arose from self-study starting with Greek rationalism, then Descartes Method. Not a lot of effort is actually needed to get started. The Method is remarkably simple, only 5-6 steps.
The books/works themselves are often structured so you can take a small chunk at a time and think over it throughout the day during free time.
I'd only preface this with the fact that the language in earlier books (pre-1970s) have most words that have a single common non-contradictory shared meaning at the time they were written. It can be difficult to find the correct meanings today.
Language corruption is a real problem, and without an old dictionary it can sometimes be hard to get the correct single shared meaning. Online dictionaries are actively being revised to introduce ambiguity and contradiction in word meanings.
For example, if you google the definitions for deluded and delusion, and compare those meanings to the actual definitions found at Oxford Dictionary (pre-1970), you'll see they've been subtly changed to allow circular reference/contradictory ambiguity. Google does this, as do many other entities. They also claim to cite the Oxford Dictionary, and they do but very selectively for purpose.
I ended up unknowingly reconstructing parts of the Trivium curricula after failing horribly with modern subject matter based in rote. I hadn't heard of it at the time and only discovered this later when I started reading history from the turn of the century (1900s).
I wonder where I would be today, if I was given this education earlier in life (I only learned it starting when I turned 40). Needless to say, you can start any time if that's something you want, and the benefits are immense but double edged though since it can be somewhat maddening to be surrounded by so many people in varying states of delusion and they are generally unable to self-correct.
If you'd like some reading recommendations I've gone through a lot of books to hone my discernment since I started.
Certain subject areas are so rife with half-truths, deceits, and lies, that discernment really is a necessary skill to build up, both in terms of the foundational material (philosophy) but also in terms of psychology/perceptual traps that influence towards belief in falsity/fallacy.
An example would be, a rational study of Socialism/Communism is needed to understand why and how it fails with regards to political philosophy rationally, but this is one such quagmire I'd suggest avoiding until later.
Many deceits in that subject matter follow a Hegelian-like structure. From philosophy, that type of structure is used narrowly for meta-analysis absent identity(definition) but it is often abused to create convincing lies by abusing the contrast principle. Circular reasoning is an example of this, and contrast is a perceptual blindspot also covered by Cialdini.
Have a good weekend. I enjoyed our conversation.
Throwaway, that was a very good and sound analysis.
I totally agree about what you are saying.
It is funny, from my perspective, that during convid there was a great breakthrough in the disillusional thinking in ppl. Not so luckily though, most ppl who woke up there seems to get caught in "Trump /Musk will save us" thinking. Likely through subtle psychological warfare from our leaders...
far as I believe and nothing else will move me. 1. Good will triumph over evil. 2. No matter what goes up, must come down. ANYTHING. 3. The people enmasse if you piss them off, will not be overrun. In other words people in glass houses better not throw stones.
Just for fun - go here : https://goldenaudiobook.net/?s=Terry+Pratchett+&id=28332
And you will understand a lot - and have fun at the same time!
Roy, do you mind explain in a few sentences what it is about?
Yep. I don't click unless given a reasonable summary/synopsis
I give you the world ! And you say - " I give a fuck" - Ok for me !
F U N . and Intelect !
That is why he was the architect of Pearl Harbor and selling out Eastern Europe
No coincidences
...what if the Crypto President was elected and it seem pretty odd the election wasn't close or challenged. Plus 20+ million voters went missing, maybe when Trump takes office the ultimate rug pull in crypto market begins? Along with the collapse of the economy.
Its not odd at all. This was expected as a result of the Covid lockdowns. The cryptomarket won't collapse until the USD collapses. Leverage from the latter underlies the former.
I do get a sense that we are purposefully being set up...but I can't put my finger on anything in particular. I just don't trust anything anymore. I guess we'll find out.
Not trusting anything anymore is a state of delusion, and impossible.
Trust only what can be verified through external observation.
To answer your question, we have been set up, but it is incredibly subtle, and most people were deprived of the education they needed to recognize the how and why (it was done by purposeful intent).
Core teachings from classical education based in rationalism is what is missing, and why you have been blinded to these things. These teachings seek truth based in external observations and repeatability (avoiding delusion), and maintaining the requirements for rational thought. Truth only occurs where everything that composes that statement is also true starting with a definition (identity, from philosophy).
If you would seek to remedy this, I suggest you start with Classical greek works on reasoning (Socrates/Plato), then move to Descartes Method, then logic, a priori reasoning, hegel, and discernment. These were once all covered under philosophy before the adoption of the prussian school model (1907). From there, study the fall of the roman republic. The rise of imperial rome, and its subsequent fall.
There are many dynamics, whose presence when found predictably lead to specific outcomes. These dynamics are often found in recorded histories.
Unfortunately, today we are living in the world of Anathem, or misinformation. Specialist subject matter experts are needed to identify truth, and many experts today don't meet the minimum requirements to be competent (trusting one of these people who are incompetent is subscribing to their delusion, like a cult).
I'll tell you how the political process was set up, and why this outcome was inevitable.
When you have two majority parties (>33% of the voter pool), no third party can win.
The remaining 33% is all other parties, and that mathematically can never unify to overtake the two majority parties. This is referenced as an inherent weakness in pluralities and first-passed the post voting. Ranked choice comes with its own shortcomings.
With an electoral college, not only must that minority party beat the two majority parties (unify), but they must do this for each state totaling up to 270 electoral votes. So it is not a likelihood of it just having to happen once. The likelihood of it happening once (a very small decimal) must be raised exponentially by the number of states totaling 270 votes.
For all intents and purposes it is so close to zero that it cannot happen with any regularity, and historically has not happened as far as I know, in our countries lifetime.
Then you must also consider tweedism. This structurally is an arbitrary filter that is applied pre-voting that limits your choices. This is the money vote coming from the Party's superpacs and other donors, and the costs for access imposed by the shadow state-run media.
These two things taken together create the illusion of a vote, but the only people who have a chance at winning are the majority parties. These dynamics leads to demagogues in those parties, and that is largely considered the real reason Rome fell. Demagogues, Corruption, and Crises exposing weakness within and without.
Finally, there are the indoctrination/psychological factors that most people without training fail to recognize, and firmly believe aren't possible. This flawed belief only makes these outcomes more likely.
Lockdown's inherently warp people psychologically to that of closed societies. Isolation is a structural component of torture, which is the involuntary induction into hypnotic states where rational thinking largely fails. You can read further on this subject matter starting with Joost Meerloo, or Robert Lifton. Both cover what was known from the 1960s. Since then the science of torture, and the current state of art with regards to mental coercion has effectively broken perception, and civilized society (social contract).
This has been warned against in many studies regarding how the Nazi's came to power. You can find much of this material under the names banality of evil, and the radical evil. While they don't go into detail about the how's or why's, they focus study on the repeated dynamics found in the historical record.
If you want to know more about the how's, the gist is we have a number of blindspots as humans. Those perceptual blindspots absent rigorous rational framework, and associative anchoring (operant conditioning) often influence people without them perceiving it.
Cialdini in his book on Influence covers most of these blindspots at a cursory level, but fails to really properly describe the level of influence that language and distorted reflected appraisal play on people. The latter is largely the underlying action for why Harris lost. State-run media provided distorted reflected appraisal that she was doing well, when in fact she had made serious missteps.
When you cannot recognize a problem state, you cannot react to correct it. It underlies our perception generally.
This is the danger of distorting reflected appraisal, or the echo chamber (as it more currently is called). There is no indication other than an absence of a signal, and you often don't know you are in the echo chamber (since its not disclosed).
The reflective appraisal mechanisms used to manipulate (via distortion) are more weaponized versions of the same mechanisms which allow us as children to adopt our cultures, norms, and moors, and form our psychological identities. It happens under the radar, but its impact is great and mostly certain.
Few receive proper education in practice or knowledge of these things, and language has largely been corrupted to skew towards ambiguity and delusion.
Is there a chance of a 15-20% pull back over the next several months or has that risk greatly diminished?
Thank you for your response. Makes perfect sense. Enjoy your week!
Bryan, It will depend on a number of things, in a way that we can't predict (chaotic).
We have been on the precipice of a crash a number of times. We also now have to equally factor in the role of inflation, which now that the Fed has started to drop rates will be a persistent issue moving forward.
The market going sideways while inflation zooms is still functionally a pullback though perceptually might not register as such.
There has been a chance of a crash building since the pandemic. It is snowpack like with an avalanche. The conditions are there, but predicting when is anyone's guess.
A line appears, the order wanes, the family falls and chaos reigns.
But what if the oligarchs really wanted to make America viable again
What they want is to reap another harvest. The bull will turn bear and the boom become a bust and the rich become richer as they pick up good assets pennies on the dollar. They fully understand the business and social cycles and as Roosevelt is hinting have a hand in them.
That describes precisely where we are. Be aware 'they' are not on our side; keep your powder dry & your wits about you. Major storms directly ahead.
True, but the only other choice is complete collapse
The filling back up of the Washington D.C. Swamp has begun!:
https://healthimpactnews.com/2024/trump-announces-former-big-pharma-lobbyist-to-run-white-house-staff/
There is a reason the Greek word "pharmakeia" from which we get the English word "pharmacy" is also translated "sorcery" in the book of Revelation!:
https://sumofthyword.com/2021/02/02/pure-from-the-blood-of-all-men/
Spot on. Giant TRUMAN show!!! We are witnessing…. Freaking scripted
You got 2.5 years before the bottom falls out and Trump love is over just saying.
In fairness, he may not have 2.5 years. Some of these failure dynamics are decades in the making and we all know whoever the current president is gets to be the bag holder.
I sure hope so......then I will go all in with my cash...
I don't think it will happen. It is like the "shot". No matter how much facts or side effects that comes out, some ppl who supported it will support the shot to their grave. Same with Trump, for many I think for as long as they live they will claim Trump is good and that he will send his white hats to free us all. If not this decade so the next.
Many people I know were shocked by what appeared to be a landslide victory for Trump, when everything projected Harris as the winner. These same people generally fail to adequately recognize the power that echo chambers play on politicks, or that almost every person today lives in some form of echo chamber (and has developed schizophrenic delusion as a result, a common end-result in totalitarian regimes).
What happens when you make mistakes, but state-run media doesn't point out those mistakes. Doesn't cover them. You end up not knowing you made mistakes, and not correcting them. Thinking you are doing great (delusionally), when you aren't, right up until the end.
There were many instances of that happening fairly consistently in the last election. That reflected appraisal was denied and distorted. The trusted news initiative cherry-picked what they were putting out by purposeful intent. The very first thing you need to be able to react to something, is a problem signal to react to and through distorted reflective appraisal, that signal was attenuated until the external reality of things became clear.
I am not unhappy with the result, but the selection wasn't a good one, it was the kind of double bind that prevents an open rational choice from being made.
When you can only choose a false dichotomy and both are almost equally destructive that's no real choice at all. That said, Fascism typically is better for countries long-term than Communism (which is unstable and fails in the absence of a Capitalist host nation).
The Globalists want, JD, Tulsi, etc.
Globalists are just the more modern name for Fabian.
Let's keep our eyes and ears open to see how many campaign promises will be enacted. In my crystal ball, I see the rich getting richer, tax breaks for the wealthy, successful business deals to make DJT and his family richer. He will make sure that he creates personal wealth, then he will be open to doing the FED's bidding. I am sure Elon Musk and Wall Street will be offering their sage advice. Trump is a nationalist. He will be facing the Globalists--IMJF, WEF, NATO, AND CENTRAL BANKS. UNFORTUNATELY, THE MIDDLE CLASS WILL BE THE PAWNS ON THIS CHESS BOARD!
GREG- I wrote you in for PRESIDENT on the ballot!! Since it's a selection like you said I had nothing to loose. I'm so disappointed you didn't win ;-). I tried to send you a photo of my ballot to your substack but it rejected it. Keep up the great work!
I one million % agree!
A politician is a negotiating compromiser, they test the wind, they test the polls and then vote the greatest largess to themselves, friends, and then possibly the populace. A Statesman, which we don't have anymore, is a person who compares the issue to the law and then votes the law so people's rights are not violated and thereby overturned. We once were a Constitutional Republic, and now, we are ran by the central bank. After the panic of 1873 we became a corporation. In 1913 we lost our republic government by the establishing of the 16th and 17th Amendments. Taxation, stealing from the people, and the upper house can be voted directly by the people, so they can vote themselves largess, and become tyrannical philanthropists, gift givers and everyone will run to the public trough.