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Recognition is indeed a factor but I suspect we need to find a more precise factor. One can recognise someone in such a way that indicates a total lack of any value placed on the recognition. 'It's not rocket science' is a recognatory phrase but no one would say that it is a positive. Rather the reverse.

The concept I think relevant here is that of affirmation. The assignation of value to a particular position even if that position is disagreed with. When we affirm we not only recognise but also accept the validity of the other side. This to my mind is more important - validity means value.

The example of Hilary Clinton branding Trump supporters as 'deplorables' illustrates the point nicely. To her supporters it was an accurate comment but significantly negated any value the other side might have. They weren't 'wrong' (a judgement which assigns value to the other side) but just not worthy of consideration.

In all human relationships on both the macro and micro scales there is a desire to be valued. It does not necessarily mean to be elevated above all others (though it can lead to that) but the affirmation is important particularly in the current social media environment.

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On the deplorables thing, research from the UK is telling. Any use of the various "...ist" accusations immediately backfires on the candidate making the allegation. Rather than being warned off, independents and swing voters automatically take it as a criticism- because even if they were only thinking about voting for the opposition, this implies a direct personal insult of their judgement. The dynamics do seem to change though, when directed at party rather than a person.

The problem is that affirmation in the social media environment, often involves vilifying the opposition- at least where the affiliation is based along political lines.

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Exactly - instead of a 'yes, but...' or even 'you're wrong because…' commentators play to the gallery. They garner likes or affirmation from their 'group' because that is how social media is structured. The consequence is that you alienate your opponent and create polarization. We may not necessarily expect agreement but we do want our arguments and points to be accepted as worth consideration (the affirmation).

When they aren't we feel rejected and rejection is the opposite side of the affirmation coin. In most cases the rejection is explicit and the way most people handle that is to reject back.

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Rather than worry about right or wrong when it comes to a person's life, choices or beliefs, how about we actually live and let live? We reject the hubris that we have the truth, and that any policy someone claims is based on that truth must therefore be prudent for all.

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This to Sir Spencer and Sir Geary:

How do either of You factor in meditation as a Way of knowing?

I read "Cynical Theories" by Helen Pluckrose and a mathematician. It's an academic approach that's supposedly geared to the layman. I think they missed their mark a fair bit, but I learned a lot about how the social sciences are getting so efft up, by having certain "acceptable" views that are being enforced. They also described, pretty well, how feminism, queer, race Critical THeories have gone off the rails. All this sounds like an academic problem, but the authors saw how these things have actually TAKEN over in society we live in.

If either of You are interested, I can inform You on how corporations are basically a kind of organism, A LOTTA systems can be looked at that Way.

For various reasons, I never got involved in social media. So I would summarize them as propaganda distributers for the masses, like mainstream media is to its consumers, right?

For a WHILE now, at least here in the U.S., the country has come to favor minority opinions/rights over majority opinions/rights. I think it was Sir Spencer who "said" that? So, right now, the only APPROVED narrative is one that is pro-Black, pro-CRT, pro-1619 Project, pro-BLM. I've been reading a little from Black conservatives who are NOT pro-ANY-a that "stuff."

I don't have any data, but I'm fairly sure that the majority of Black Racists are Caucasian. For the influencers, I gather, it's a billion-dollar industry. Fame, fortune, prestige, POWER. What's not to like to these people. As long as they can stamp out ANY and ALL opposition, and they've got a pretty good record going for them, all is well for the Black Racists. For being so decentralized, they're VERY well organized around the principle that anything pro-Black is good, anything of "whiteness" is bad.

The goal is two-fold. 1) Reparations. They may have trouble with that one. 2) Overthrowing Democracy. They actually have a better chance of that, because they're putting pressure on in the courts and have come close, and they're training the next generation of lawyers to be woke.

There's really only one flaw I can see in the plan: As long as the snowball is rolling down the hill unimpeded, it will only get bigger. But if a "rock" of opposition SHOULD rise up outta nowhere, they could have a serious problem. I think You both alluded to the fact that all this is based on scientific UN-facts. But You'll never convince a person, these days, with science. As a PRACTICAL matter. Just won't fly.

But one never knows. Rock COULD come outta nowhere, to everybody's surprise. I think that's the "reset" that was referred to. If the majority WERE to draw a line in the sand, it could get REAL ugly. But MIGHT turn out pretty ugly for the Black Racists, pretty fast. Never know unless it's tried.

I just finished Chapter 2 of "The Master...," Sir Geary.

The last few paragraphs summed up the thesis fairly well. A few sentences:

"However, as I also emphasised at the outset, both hemispheres take part in virtually all ‘functions’ to some extent, and in reality both are always engaged.

"Our talent for division, for seeing the parts, is of staggering importance (left hemisphere) – second only to our capacity to transcend it, in order to see the whole (right hemisphere). These gifts of the left hemisphere have helped us achieve nothing less than civilisation itself.

"But these contributions need to be made in the service of something else, that only the right hemisphere can bring. Alone they are destructive. And right now they may be bringing us close to forfeiting the civilisation they helped to create."

This would be a REAL reset WAY down the road, what he's "talking" about, but he isn't the man to get the job DONE. Or it would be a lot further ALONG than it is, being first published in 2009, right?

All that to say... Enjoyed reading You both. Thing about me is I never heard-a Stoic Religion until about a year ago. But mostly went by the philosophy of Epictetus, due to bizarre circumstances:

"Happiness and freedom begin with a clear understanding of one principle: Some things are within our control, and some things are not. It is only after you have faced up to this fundamental rule and learned to distinguish between what you can and can't control that inner tranquility and outer effectiveness become possible."

"It's not what happens to you, but how you react to it that matters."

The advantage of this approach is it leaves You two, or anybody ELSE the freedom to respond or not, as they see fit. Either Way, that has nothing to do with ME. So I CAN'T be bothered one Way or t'other. WHy would ANYone want their JOY to rely on what somebody ELSE does, or doesn't do?

It doesn't pay, right? Hard discipline, which is impossible to perfect. But as far as controlling Your reaction to what goes on around You? Just takes practice, that one.

TYTY, for the reading pleasure, You guys! On to Chapter 3.

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Primarily, I see meditation as a means of enhancing brain performance rather than a way of knowing in itself, although personally it has given me cause to believe in certain intuitions (so not knowledge). Certain degenerative conditions, such as Alzheimer's have been linked to disrupted sleep patterns over time. Apparently, there is means by which eight hours uninterrupted sleep and filter out certain toxins in the brain that build up over time.

The other thing to consider is stress and adrenal tension. Adrenalin helped keep us out danger when we were historically in imminent fear of death, but it's a short-term benefit which shreds our long-term health. It's why most Presidents look 20 years older by the time they leave office. Meditation can help free us from the constant low-level stress which besets our lives.

Given that even one pint of beer the night before an exam is proven to significantly decrease test scores, I don't think it is too much of a stretch to suggest that brains which are fully rested and unencumbered by systemic stress are likely to achieve higher levels of performance compared to those who simply trundle along without a care for their brains health.

Of course, I can't really talk because I'm a smoker, and improving cardiovascular health is the only known way of consistently improving IQ (more oxygenated blood gets to the brain).

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Ah... Taking a brief break on Chapter 3, I would ask a few more questions, Sir Geary. How long since You read The Master and His Emissary? What do You do for a living, if I may ask.

I would PREFER to know these things before I give a more detailed reply, because i have NO intention to offend You in any way. But I might, by accident.

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TY. Briefly then: Drawing from the first part of "The Master and His Emissary," it would seem You take a left hemisphere approach to meditation, Sir Geary. Where one could look at it as a direct conduit to the right. Just IMHO.

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Hi JT. Sir.

I've just found your reply JT so I apologise for my delayed response. How does one factor in meditation as a way of knowing?

I'd say that to get into the best state of say deep meditation is easiest achieved by those that are either culturally and spiritually inclined toward such an enlightened state (Buddhist nationals and especially Buddhist monks) or the very people who won't or don't need to try. The most difficult task being for those that see it as a way to fix and remedy a state of anxious consciousness.

When I first visited India some thirty years ago, I was surprised at how many times I was invited to join an Ashram, for a Hindu spirituality course. I looked at all those solemn deeply infected souls that had left their privileges in western countries and were now making pilgrimages to another religion within another culture that's own social contract accorded Hinduism and both accepted and encouraged its spiritual education. But I wondered at what great lesson these somewhat miserable looking people would learn from Hinduism that they could extrapolate and make use with within their own culture. If to gain this education as entry into migrating there permanently then I could understand. Of course I was only twenty and I'd come to India to travel, to seek adventure, meet people and climb mountains. I wanted to have fun, not find myself. If I was lost it was because others couldn't see me and that meant I could be selectively happy in just the company of likeminded spirits.

The irony is that I found the answer to the puzzle of Ashrams in Buddhism and Islam and even more so from my own connection to the world in surfing. Travel did this as my natural gregarious nature and search for excitement led me into the pathway of so many interesting and sometimes odd people; but I love people and outside oddities are no less strange than people that hide themselves within themselves and fear that somehow others will find out their great charade. Sometimes this would connect me to the most oddest and often the greatest of finds. I never judge another for obscure thought or for trekking less trod paths. Anybody and everybody will know a whole bunch of stuff that the very smartest do not. Consider the most ardent leftist who has a eureka moment and switches centre-right. It must be from some small snippet of information; some piece of the jigsaw that suddenly in a moment of reflective realisation turns a mans belief system into a totally different direction. A total about turn from only some small obscure thing that nonsenses what has previous been part of a person perhaps for years before.

I've actually considered that most people truly know very little. That is they accrue vast sums of knowledge that confuses and befuddles and merely add and connect biases that formulated in young childhood and merely connect further to the self. I've considered too that I don't truly believe in anything with full confidence and that within such a state of flux can be open to the best of what the left, right, religion, atheism allows me to take and make sense somehow of it all. That some ignorant hedonistic natural state is, as in youth, the most joyous playground. Before the downloads begin.

What I always liked about the Buddhist cultures and I've spent much time in numerous ones; other than that Buddhism is a religion of man and a pathway to peaceful cooperation and coexistence is that it truly works as a way of day to day human life. Your not looking for god, but instead taking and accounting for the actions of yourself and others through the life of the wisest of men. Buddha. So it's nothing in excess and that's from being sociably acceptant to so someone drinking 4 beers and not 10 and being a drunken idiot to not being too greedy, too corrupt, too much funny, sad, too judging or not caring enough to judge. It's balance, perspective and the recognition that we are all essentially the same beings in different bodies, both trapped and free by the hand of fate. For an entire culture to act perfectly on these principles would be asking too much, but Buddhism allows for the folly of man and for redemption too.

My wife is Buddhist. She often remarks that I'm the most Thai man that she's met. I am of course European, but she sees that I behave somewhat unlike many and calmly under pressure and in the way her father who is a Buddhist monk would favour. She often invites me to meditate and when I did I suddenly realized that I've been meditating all of my life.

As a child my restless soul fully exploding with mischief would find sleep a difficult task. I began imagining myself walking out of myself, out my room and then I was outside and I could feel the coldness of the night. Walking slowly in my imagination but still in the reality of the illusion I was being quiet and secretive, making sure not to be found out. Up the path and as I make distance from the house I am no longer careful to keep quiet. I am free to run. I open the gate and make my way to the stables where my horse awaits.......

Then I'd awake and it would be tomorrow. No nightmares to recall.

I've extended this to starting in many places and settings. Perhaps I'm surfing, or on my travels or interestingly a small child. I practiced this one for around a month. Taking my mind to a memory and walking in amongst it. It opened Pandora's box many years ago. Try picturing your schoolbook, your favourite T-shirt at 15 years old, what about walking your mind around your grandmothers kitchen. Your first car, a pair of football boots. You see the imagery is memory and I'd awaken with fresh memories elicited via the dreams that were entered by my imaginary walks. All this did was produce further memories despite this not being the intention but rather the consequence. What I was also doing was a form of meditation. Relaxation and an emptying of thoughts until in another place. One can imagine oneself raising off the floor and into the sky until within nothingness itself. It is limitless.

So no. I don't factor meditation into a factor of knowing in one sense or rather a direct sense, but for myself it indirectly creates a pathway to finding things deep within my mind. I doubt any of us truly forget anything. My grandmother was mnemonic. She could recall instantly anything. I wonder if her brain just had a more developed linkage to the subconscious than that which I've just described.

What about considering the religions as a controlling influence of the self. A self-correctional ideological pathway connected to the self that neutralises our more base and destructive tendencies and keeps us bonded together by a higher being that also punishes us for our sins. In this context one may wonder why Buddhism isn't the highest order of religion and of life. Perhaps even more scientifically acceptable and certainly more humanly so. But it fails in very specific regard. It doesn't construct a nirvana for a life after death. It doesn't wish you to bleed to death killing other human beings or possessing the kind of fortitude a soldier of religion possesses. A man that will live after his death is a far more willing killing machine and that suits the subversions of those few men that would live as gods. Societies that engage in war require a united people with a united aim. It may explain why Christianity is more prevalent in the US than in Europe or Laos. Naturally there are other factors here too.

Another aspect of ridding religion from society is what will fill that void? But what is religion other than an omnipresent powerful and emotive belief system that maintains hierarchical order. Is it creational by psychology? Can a society such as China with its social credit score system produce and maintain a social order with powerfully emotive allegiance to the state. What about Islam. That ones growing, though not in China. These are the sort of questions I ask myself as much as I wonder why the decadent west is imploding in "isms."

When nations abandon a common denominator that bonds all its citizens together no matter in what form then chaos engulfs and then other religions fill such voids. Which one is most supported, which structure will dominate? Is it an anomaly or are we in the middle stages of yet another transformation?

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https://www.persuasion.community/p/theres-no-unified-front-against-china

To me? Unfortunate. Because if China OWNS the euphemistically called "Free World," economically and/or technologically, what then?

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[Part 3 of 3?]

“So no. I don't factor meditation into a factor of knowing in one sense or rather a direct sense, but for myself it indirectly creates a pathway to finding things deep within my mind. I doubt any of us truly forget anything. My grandmother was mnemonic. She could recall instantly anything. I wonder if her brain just had a more developed linkage to the subconscious than that which I've just described.”

Like I told Sir Geary, I think meditation is a direct conduit to the right hemisphere. That from reading “The Master and His Emissary” which I worked and thought on for a long while. And I believe, based on a scientific experiment that was taken to mean that humans, in actual FACT, didn’t have any such-a thing as free will… Well, I’m not at ALL sure but that the subconscious MAY actually direct most everything we DO. Still thinking on that, but am in no particular hurry. That’s just a guess.

But I DO wonder if the subconscious records EVERYTHING we put our attention to. Dunno about that either.

“What about considering the religions as a controlling influence of the self. A self-correctional ideological pathway connected to the self that neutralises our more base and destructive tendencies and keeps us bonded together by a higher being that also punishes us for our sins. In this context one may wonder why Buddhism isn't the highest order of religion and of life. Perhaps even more scientifically acceptable and certainly more humanly so. But it fails in very specific regard. It doesn't construct a nirvana for a life after death. It doesn't wish you to bleed to death killing other human beings or possessing the kind of fortitude a soldier of religion possesses. A man that will live after his death is a far more willing killing machine and that suits the subversions of those few men that would live as gods. Societies that engage in war require a united people with a united aim. It may explain why Christianity is more prevalent in the US than in Europe or Laos. Naturally there are other factors here too.”

This is where I could very WELL be wrong. But doesn’t Buddhism espouse the Law of Karma? What You do in THIS life will determine what You will have in Your NEXT life? I thought that was commonality between Hinduism and Buddhism. I’ll just leave it at that, until You tell me more, anyone.

AFAIK, Christianity hasn’t been a cause of wars, at least in the U.S. WWII? That was just the practical consideration of what the world would look like if Nazi’s ruled the world. ICBW. My memory is a little vague about what’s going on in Myanmar, but I was thinking that Buddhist majority wasn’t being tolerant of a minority there. Again, ICBW. And Hindus? (Who I still associate with Buddhism as far as the Law of Karma.) Well I don’t think Karma is given any THOUGHT when it comes to Muslims in India, right? Islam?

And China? State religion of Atheism won’t stop them, AFAIK.

I guess I’d sum it up as the idea that Christianity is necessarily a source of evil doesn’t add up, to me. No more than any other. Hierarchical? Sure. A lotta the world IS hierarchical. MOSTLY, if You wanna look at things that Way. Seems a lotta people who like THEIR place in the hierarchy don’t much like the idea that there IS a hierarchy. It’s the NUMBERS of people.

“Another aspect of ridding religion from society is what will fill that void? But what is religion other than an omnipresent powerful and emotive belief system that maintains hierarchical order. Is it creational by psychology? Can a society such as China with its social credit score system produce and maintain a social order with powerfully emotive allegiance to the state. What about Islam. That ones growing, though not in China. These are the sort of questions I ask myself as much as I wonder why the decadent west is imploding in "isms."

When nations abandon a common denominator that bonds all its citizens together no matter in what form then chaos engulfs and then other religions fill such voids. Which one is most supported, which structure will dominate? Is it an anomaly or are we in the middle stages of yet another transformation?”

I wrote a term-paper in first semester in four-year college. Science AS a Religion. That seems Truth as much now as it did then. Actually, a lot MORESO.

I spoke on this a bit in my previous post here. And my GUESS is that, yeah, we’re in a state of fairly BIG transformation-S. NO guess on how things will turn out, of course.

WILL put out the notion that the common bonds exist, still, but the intelligentsia on both sides of the aisle have just DECIDED (to me, on a whim) that these bonds that DO exist won’t be of any notice to any-a them. Sign of the times, from what I know. Will that change?

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*** Change Log

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*** 09/12/21 12:16pm Written.

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[Part 2 of 3?]

“The irony is that I found the answer to the puzzle of Ashrams in Buddhism and Islam and even more so from my own connection to the world in surfing.”

For me it was computer programming and designing mundane business systems. In last job before I went freelancing in ’95, I had to use empathy a LOT because people don’t come right out and tell You what they want, except in vague ways. I needed to view myself as those people and how they would WANT to have their job made easier. Long story.

And “flow” doesn’t describe the state I got into sometimes coding the programs.

“Travel did this as my natural gregarious nature and search for excitement led me into the pathway of so many interesting and sometimes odd people; but I love people and outside oddities are no less strange than people that hide themselves within themselves and fear that somehow others will find out their great charade.”

That was me to a large extent, my whole life. I’d been hospitalized with emotional troubles three times in my life. Depression, manic, depression. The second time MAY have been due to having a Spiritual experience in a houseful of Fundamentalist Atheists. At any rate, that was when I was on leave for a week when I went back to programming school and, perversely, took an elective of Abnormal Psychology. The first week, don’t Ya know, someone FROM the hospital came out and talked to the class. She said it was harder for a mental patient to get a job than a felon.

And that became my life’s purpose. Don’t let anyone know I’d been hospitalized, and try to figure out how to be more like “normal people.” I’d actually started looking inward at my unsatisfactory self when I was in eight grade. A lot more in high school. Long stories.

Like coding, that was something like meditation. Looking inward a lot.

“Sometimes this would connect me to the most oddest and often the greatest of finds. I never judge another for obscure thought or for trekking less trod paths. Anybody and everybody will know a whole bunch of stuff that the very smartest do not.”

What Ram Dass “said” was my way of life. EVERYONE was my teacher. They ALL had something I could learn from, if I looked. Granted, a lotta the time I was heads-down just trying to survive.

“Consider the most ardent leftist who has a eureka moment and switches centre-right. It must be from some small snippet of information; some piece of the jigsaw that suddenly in a moment of reflective realisation turns a mans belief system into a totally different direction. A total about turn from only some small obscure thing that nonsenses what has previous been part of a person perhaps for years before.”

Funny You should “say” that, Sir Spencer. That’s what’s happened to me this past six months. I’d like to think I was dead-center, but I may be creeping center-right. For me, it was Critical Race Theory. Finding out that Biden was WOKE. Evidence supplied if needed.

“I've actually considered that most people truly know very little. That is they accrue vast sums of knowledge that confuses and befuddles and merely add and connect biases that formulated in young childhood and merely connect further to the self. I've considered too that I don't truly believe in anything with full confidence and that within such a state of flux can be open to the best of what the left, right, religion, atheism allows me to take and make sense somehow of it all. That some ignorant hedonistic natural state is, as in youth, the most joyous playground. Before the downloads begin.”

Weeel, Sir Spencer, me and hedonism have never met, so can’t say. But I wrote, yesterday I think it was, “I’m EXACTLY 50% Fundamentalist Atheist. That was how I was raised and I’m not ENTIRELY ready to give that up. But I’m EXACTLY 50% Religio-Spiritual, so there is that.”

Past six or seven months I’ve been pretty INTENT on studying a variety of things. Read more books in that time than I EVER have. Setting aside textbooks and programming manuals and magazines, I’m not but sure that I’ve read more in this time than the TOTAL I’d read in the past.

As You would expect, all that’s accomplished is showing me how IGNORANT I am. At least I’m smart enough to know, from years of experience, that this is the nature of human existence. The Truth of “The more You know, the more You know what You DON’T know.”

Can’t say when I’ve had this much fun. Well, I did when I was working and learning about life.

“What I always liked about the Buddhist cultures and I've spent much time in numerous ones; other than that Buddhism is a religion of man and a pathway to peaceful cooperation and coexistence is that it truly works as a way of day to day human life. Your not looking for god, but instead taking and accounting for the actions of yourself and others through the life of the wisest of men. Buddha. So it's nothing in excess and that's from being sociably acceptant to so someone drinking 4 beers and not 10 and being a drunken idiot to not being too greedy, too corrupt, too much funny, sad, too judging or not caring enough to judge. It's balance, perspective and the recognition that we are all essentially the same beings in different bodies, both trapped and free by the hand of fate. For an entire culture to act perfectly on these principles would be asking too much, but Buddhism allows for the folly of man and for redemption too.

My wife is Buddhist. She often remarks that I'm the most Thai man that she's met. I am of course European, but she sees that I behave somewhat unlike many and calmly under pressure and in the way her father who is a Buddhist monk would favour. She often invites me to meditate and when I did I suddenly realized that I've been meditating all of my life.”

Like I said, not muchuva Buddhist. Read some-a the sutras. Know they’re Truth. Read the Bible and the Koran. Know they’re Truth. But I think I’m like You in this, Sir Spencer: All that stuff is nothing to me, if it doesn’t have some practical utility in how to get along day-to-day.

As You might suspect, I’m more of an individualist than prolly most. HAD-ta be. But I’ve only met two people in my life I’ve hated. Wrote this too someplace: “Then I realized I didn’t hate them. Then I realized WHY they’d done what I didn’t much cotton to, personally. Then realized the only one who was harmed by ANY-a that was ME.” So I tend to get along with everybody. Closeness comes and goes, according to the whims of who I run into. I don’t have many people I “correspond” with, on a personal basis, so at this point my door is always open to whoever shows up. I guess tat IS cooperation, come to think of it.

“As a child my restless soul fully exploding with mischief would find sleep a difficult task.”

I’ll just say I’ve always needed a lotta sleep, unless I was manic, of course, and then I needed hardly any. Burnt out pretty quick tho, so there is that.

Not to gloss over all the wonderful experiences You shared, but I wanted to talk a wee bit about meditation.

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I was no good for ANYTHING, so I wrote the following shite. I'm done for the day, as far as DOING much. One person to touch base with, then to bed reading until 6pm EDT. (Cain't hardly WAIT!) I interleaved my comments amongst Yours, Sir Spencer, just because that was easiest Way for me to think today.

===========================

[Part 1 of ?]

“Hi JT. Sir.”

I’m no “Sir” compared to other people. ;)

“I've just found your reply JT so I apologise for my delayed response. How does one factor in meditation as a way of knowing?

“I'd say that to get into the best state of say deep meditation is easiest achieved by those that are either culturally and spiritually inclined toward such an enlightened state (Buddhist nationals and especially Buddhist monks) or the very people who won't or don't need to try. The most difficult task being for those that see it as a way to fix and remedy a state of anxious consciousness.”

Well, I can’t say I’m muchuva Buddhist. I studied Zenism off and on over the years (66), which I consider different from but related to Buddhism. My own personal opinion, now, is that Zen showed how totally corrupted it had become during WWII. And that when meditation hit the West, it was perverted into, precisely, “fixing” and “remedying” various states as well as becoming a self-improvement project for people to feel anointed and be the “perfected human.”

Again, my own opinion is that having ANY kind-a goal, but ESPECIALLY trying to become superior in ANY way, shape, or form (Spiritually or otherwise)… Well, having goals is pretty much the exact OPPOSITE of what meditation is about. Keep in mind I’ve never left the country nor gone on any Spiritual retreats or studied under a Master or ANY-a that. So what all I “say” is just based on my limited experience. And it’s EXCEEDINGLY limited by the fact that most-a my years were spent just trying to make a living. All told, I prolly meditated, in bits and spurts, mebbe five years? Absolutely nowhere near ten.

“When I first visited India some thirty years ago, I was surprised at how many times I was invited to join an Ashram, for a Hindu spirituality course. I looked at all those solemn deeply infected souls that had left their privileges in western countries and were now making pilgrimages to another religion within another culture that's own social contract accorded Hinduism and both accepted and encouraged its spiritual education. But I wondered at what great lesson these somewhat miserable looking people would learn from Hinduism that they could extrapolate and make use with within their own culture. If to gain this education as entry into migrating there permanently then I could understand. Of course I was only twenty and I'd come to India to travel, to seek adventure, meet people and climb mountains. I wanted to have fun, not find myself. If I was lost it was because others couldn't see me and that meant I could be selectively happy in just the company of likeminded spirits.”

I’ve not had much luck finding like-minded spirits. Being a loner, like I “said” didn’t help. Lotta friends I was grew up with, but didn’t know what like-minded spirits were then. Kept in touch with one of them in adulthood.

Moved away from them when I was 14, which was pivotal. I’ve had two brothers for friends for a number years. They were “the brothers I never had” (having two sisters, older and younger). And a couple I knew very closely for a few years. Eventually they all moved away.

Marriage for 12 years. When that fell apart and I quit my career, I went into what-i-call self-imposed solitary confinement for a number of years. COVID had zero effect on my lifestyle. Virtually never went out anyway. Spent too many years laying in bed 24 hours listening to the radio. Slowly started crawling outta the rock I was under, TOTALLY unbeknownst to me.

After that ended, I thought what I’d experienced was pretty close to a Monk in one-a those Silent Communities. Dunno.

I’ve never discussed my religio-Spiritual views except online. Again, for most part, they weren’t central to what I was doing at the time. Now they’re moreso than not. I quit meditating a year ago when I found I had goals, but am thinking on taking it up again, hopefully without.

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I've read this a second time, Sir Spencer, and there's a LOT to take in. First I'll read over the rest You wrote, and what I wrote because I don't wanna repeat myself.

I only got six hours sleep last night, and I'm not worth much at all today. So it may not be today I get back here. But I'd say we are not that far apart, for having traveled on a path at the opposite ends of the Universe. Me, loner. Married at 37, divorced at 49. Ten or eleven years of 12-year marriage platonic, yet I look back at it, after a very long time, as one-a the greatest blessings I've had. Long story. All-in-all, I've had more than my share of Serendipity. Tho I'm not always aware of it as much as I should be.

One area we differ on is war. The religion that would step into a vacuum here in the U.S.? Political or social or religious vacuum? That'd be China. They may anyway in the next three decades. Likely before that the Chinese will first crush us economically, if things go as they are. Of course, ICBW. Would like to be, of course.

TYTY for Your astounding essay, Sir Spencer. Lot to take in. :)

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Ditto to you, JT :)

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Wow, how could I have missed this one- quite profound, sir!

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Online services and applications extend the influencing opportunities of traditional word-of mouth (WOM). Unlike traditional word-of-mouth, the online environment allows for special features such as anonymity in user-generated content. The personality of online users affects their motivation when creating such content. Specific online activities, such as the feedback on product ratings and participation in discussions in online forums, collectivise certain personality traits.

“The findings, based on an online survey with more than 16,900 completed questionnaires, indicate that opinion leaders in the online environment cannot be compared with traditional opinion leaders in terms of their articulation and personality structure. In regard to online activities with a high influencing potential, the results of moderated regression analyses show that persons with an introverted personality are more active as online opinion leaders due to the lack of social recognition they experience. The results have implications for how marketers should present incentive structures to address and integrate potential online opinion leaders, and how scholars should understand the role of opinion leaders in the online environment.”

Here’s a quote from Elsevier- Computers in Human Behavior

Volume 29, Issue 3, May 2013, Pages 997-1006

This study examines the roles of the gratifications sought and of narcissism in content generation in social media and explores the generational differences in motivations and in narcissistic personalities when predicting the usage of Facebook, blogs, and forums. Data were gathered from a probability sample of 596 social media users through a telephone survey in 2010. Factor analysis results showed that content generation using social media was satisfying five socio-psychological needs: showing affection, venting negative feelings, gaining recognition, getting entertainment, and fulfilling cognitive needs. In particular, people who used social media to meet their social needs and their need for affection tended to use Facebook and blogs. In contrast, when users wanted to air out discontent, they often turned to forums. Results also showed that exhibitionists seemed to use social media to show affection, express their negative feelings, and achieve recognition. The study found no generational differences in using Facebook and blogs as a means to satisfy social needs or the need for affection. However, differences in patterns of social media usage were found among Baby Boomers with different narcissistic personalities. The paper includes a discussion of the study’s limitations and suggestions for future research.

In short. Social media are good platforms for narcissists to exert control over self-presentation. • Net Geners are more comfortable and enthusiastic with all forms of social media. • All generations agree forums the preferred social medium for gaining recognition. • Facebook and blogs are normally used for social needs and need for affection. • Forums are preferred to air out discontent and to release negative feelings.

Years ago, in a 1st year class in Philosophy, a particularly smart fellow student raised the observation that people tend to attach a very personal relevance to the ideas which they reason out or choose to believe, and can be quite offended when someone else looks at exactly the same information and forms a different opinion. In many ways, it’s as though you are calling their reasoning powers into question, and oddly, people can often get even more offended and personally affronted when you call into question their ethos and most deeply held belief than they might over their interpretation of particular set of empirical evidence- most likely because our beliefs are more intimate an precious to us, fundamental to us as self-evident proof of our moral nature.

I find this profoundly interesting and disturbing in what I and many must be observing in others. It is a very modern trend in its severity. We have managed to attach our very deepest individuality and personal value system and personalised it to numerous current events and subverted politics. There used to be the concept that politics and religion were not fine mealtime conversations. The idea of course being that these topics are by nature contentious. Intellectuals versed in theoretical objectivity may indeed revel and delight in going toe-to toe and sharpening their argument, but those without this mindset of enjoyable disagreement are best in practice to leave it off the table.

Formerly we took our education of deep issues from institutional scholars. We may have browsed articles and journals and gone on to devour further publications, but be that as it may; the intellectual knowledge was largely kept within the intellectual community with the skillset of containing it academically for digestion and contextualisation and certainly not one of dissemination. That is we trusted real experts.

Over the the past quarter century we are seeing the messenger system and particularly via the MSM and social media outlets, propagate the narrative into the social fabric of both the self and the condition of identity. That is we have introduced arguments into society that actually are especially hard to escape and incredibly difficult to avoid. To make matters worse they have become focal talking points and not surprisingly so either as they are infectious of our everyday lives. They are now attached to our politics and this is a dangerous development.

Politicising everyday life means that any and everybody attaches themselves to the greater self-serving narrative. We’ve introduced CRT, identity politics, ramped up special cause issues, immigrated theologically and culturally opposing religions, created wokism, policing free speech and we’ve done it in lockstep with a policy of victim culture and the focus of giving more than particular emphasis to the special causes and with applied emphasis on subverting policies toward minority interests over the majority interests; giving way to a feeling of frustrated disenfranchisement by the majority in favour of the few. This is a huge slap in the face for all those citizens that afforded charity to such minority causes and is now beginning to sow discord.

One of the aspects of jumbling and bagging all these modern maladies together is the rather peculiar effect of giving rise to personal expertise. The caveat is that it’s mostly second hand gossip via multi-misinformation narrative and it hijacks very successfully most everybody and in a kind of quasi-hierarchical credentialized way. Not only are people searching meaning from the mass-information conflict, but they are being indoctrinated via algorithms that are particularly enticing to their ingroup preferences and then projecting via different degrees of influence via their financial and personal success worth and further influencing their peers. It can create a form of submission. Imagine for one second the very individualistic identity attachments of so much misinformation taken as fact and how it becomes part of everyday conversation and add in the actual fact that we are all in a form of disagreement due to our individual lived experience identity perception over such a large expanse of propagated narrative and we can see how the value of our individual thoughts is chastised and submitted hierarchically from the highest power of influence. It perpetuates a credentialized society and thus the highest and brightest of minds are denigrated and the average Joe with no pedigree in academia is just an added confusion to the narrative. Everybody has become an expert on everything and heterodoxy is as rare as rocking horse shit.

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The other thing to bear in mind is that distance dehumanises. It’s why people are generally happier working for small businesses rather than huge companies, because their is a tendency to feel like a small cog or just a number with the latter. It is also far easier to feel disgruntled and resentful of distant higher ups in large companies, because with a small company you can see your boss and know that he usually works a damn sight harder than you. This process also works both ways, it is far easier to play the hatchet man if the people you are getting rid of are simply numbers and names on a spreadsheet.

In many ways, social media is like an extension of the driver’s rage phenomenon. I’m sure you’ve known people who are perfectly nice and reasonable in most circumstances, yet as soon as they get behind the wheel of a car, and their personal space extends 60 feet in all directions, they begin to swear like a trooper and start to fume. Social media tricks us in the same way, everything which we say is of course perfectly reasonable (because we have our inner monologue to justify rudeness for imagined slights), but as soon as someone else acts in the same way, we are the first to call foul, accuse them of ad hominem and cry bad faith.

I agree with everything you say about experts and the history of epistemology, with one huge caveat. In the more demanding academic disciplines like the sciences people are trained to brutally destroy other people’s ideas. It is, after all, the only way that the scientific method functions. I would highly recommend watching the movie The Man Who Knew Infinity- which like many good films is based upon a true story. It shows exactly how rough and tumble scientific debate, rebuttal and disputation can be.

But the thing is it was never personal, or at least was never meant to be. People were able to understand that bad ideas don’t necessarily equate to bad people. In many ways, the internet has democratised knowledge, but unfortunately it didn’t come with an instruction manual as to how to show generosity and good grace in knocking down bad ideas.

everybody attaches themselves to the greater self-serving narrative. We’ve introduced CRT, identity politics, ramped up special cause issues, immigrated theologically and culturally opposing religions, created wokism, policing free speech and we’ve done it in lockstep with a policy of victim culture

A lot of this is due to discipline envy. Many people in the grievance studies and those other subjects which postmodernism now permeates (such as the humanities and education) were perfectly cognisant of the fact that the sciences have always been of greater utility and benefit to humanity. Many were simply not smart enough or not hardworking enough to participate in these fields.

The other thing is that they don’t like a lot of the conclusions that science reaches. Even psychology (which is on the boundary) has fallen afoul of this tendency. They don’t like the fact that women tend to be interested in people, with men interested in things, or that this means that in more egalitarian countries where people are less economically driven by necessity, even more men become engineers, even more women nurses. To them it’s all social construction, or patriarchy, and they really don’t like being proven emphatically wrong.

This is the reason for their insistence on the elevation of standpoint epistemology, or lived experience, over science and facts. Because they really don’t like the fact that many of their central narratives can easily be disproven with empirical data. They’ve even managed to influence some younger scientists with the viewpoint, with many keen to explore ‘other ways of knowing’ which is code, for non-scientific means of generating knowledge.

A lot of this is political and is major point of contention between liberal (or Leftist) conservative viewpoints. In the old configuration, it was socio-economics or class-based inequality that liberals claimed was at the root of all disparity and lack of social mobility. Today, this has been replaced with the Leftist notion that race is the primary driver of inequality. The truth is that conservatives were largely correct in their assertion that family structure was the most important thing, with the distinction that it is at a community level which fathers are most important: in terms of upward social mobility, crime and educational outcomes.

This presents a quandary, because the solution requires both conservative and liberal thought and areas or domains. The only way that I can see to artificially or externally stimulate the proportion of fathers in a community is through the provision of a higher percentage of responsible and stable income earners- because women sleep with and even get pregnant by attractive men who are popular amongst their peer group, but don’t have reliable earnings, but they will only settle with men who pay their share. It’s called hypergamy and it’s one of immutable laws of stable family formation.

The only way I can see to do this, is to pivot towards vocational training and technical skills in education, preferably at around 14, for kids who do not do well academically. Apart from anything else, most countries need blue collar workers far more than they do more university graduates working as baristas, and the jobs tend to pay a lot more, as well.

The other thing to consider is that by having an education system which values intellect and academic attainment over all else, we are setting up a considerable portion of our young people for failure, in terms of confidence, before their lives have even begun. The last thing any country needs is whole segments of their population believing they are failures or dumb at 16, because this will make boys in particular far more susceptible to gang grooming. One of great things about markets is that it is individual differences which often cause people to thrive- our education systems need to place far greater value and emphasis on caring and practical skills, because apart from anything else this is what the economy needs. We are still operating on a model designed to train young people to become clerical and office workers- these jobs are going the same way as the dodo.

I particularly liked the phrase

rare as rocking horse shit

It’s one I hadn’t come across. In the East of England we generally tend to use the words useful, chocolate and fireguard to construct a sentence which means something similar, but not quite the same.

Great contribution, as usual.

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Miya

Geary2020

36m

Great contribution, as usual.

Thanks for this. I truly go on the assumption that my contribution is minimal academically, but that I will find within the dialogue so many fresh reasons to ask more questions. It is yourself specifically that questions and probes and helps formulate ever increasing circles of ideas, theories and a thirst for more knowledge and sense. You wrote that one of the main reasons in engaging in these spaces was trying to make sense of what the fuck is happening in this world. Well it just so happens that you are especially brilliant at helping my selfish self in understanding it all. I shall continue to speak my bullshit anecdotal(s) and to push and to probe and to question and to formulate more ideas from the influence of yourself and the other great members that spend much time aiding and abetting in my education. I am not some lost soul in a quest to understand the universe. But instead a searcher of understanding of why it may be that with all available resources, that we at this point in time seem to be screwing up the best time in humanity when we could in fact adapt and nudge it to a semblance of perfection.

I particularly liked the phrase

rare as rocking horse shit

Have you heard " It’s as much use as a glass eye with a crack in it?"

What about " You can’t get shit out of a wooden horse?" Trojan of course.

Or for someone who’s always trying to get something for nothing. “You do more tapping than a blind mans stick.”

The other thing to bear in mind is that distance dehumanises.

Very much why I believe that village life is the most natural and normal of human existence and perhaps becoming the monetarily exclusive safe space. Strange that why we push progressivism all the normies run from the cities into the enclaves.

it is far easier to play the hatchet man if the people you are getting rid of are simply numbers and names on a spreadsheet.

Depersonalisation. Corporate ownership of everything destroys.

This is the reason for their insistence on the elevation of standpoint epistemology, or lived experience, over science and facts. Because they really don’t like the fact that many of their central narratives can easily be disproven with empirical data.

This forms a conundrum to my mind Geary. I’ll explain why. Anecdotal is supported by the “us” and the “all” - the collective. So harnessing the lived experience is very un-asymmetrical. If one thus collectivises the narrative and sells it with charm, then it is as equally if not much more powerful than the accepted scientific evidence. That is people will be much more pliable to what they’ve seen and done, than a dismissible proof. The thing is that if one can tap into the shared experience of many via the anecdotal then you have a powerful means of subversion. It would depend upon the intent and persuasion of the narrative. I accept that the science ought to be the status quo, but I also accept that people are stupid however intelligent and reasonable and logical they appear on other levels.

On one level the anecdotal supports the scientific as would be expected. Only recently do we see the contrast. The issue is in that those now sprouting the narrative are not supporting it with evidence, but rather by language and misdirection.

In many ways, social media is like an extension of the driver’s rage phenomenon. I’m sure you’ve known people who are perfectly nice and reasonable in most circumstances, yet as soon as they get behind the wheel of a car, and their personal space extends 60 feet in all directions, they begin to swear like a trooper and start to fume. Social media tricks us in the same way, everything which we say is of course perfectly reasonable (because we have our inner monologue to justify rudeness for imagined slights), but as soon as someone else acts in the same way, we are the first to call foul, accuse them of ad hominem and cry bad faith.

The best of analogies and it’s not lost on how there’s three choices and not two. If given two we take the best one that is closest to our belief system. Driving these forces apart connects us to the same. Sanity rests within taking the best policy or approach of the whole or of each opposite. The thing is and I’m damned sure left or right, that everybody actually wants the same overall outcome. What’s happened over the past generation has been a separation of certain core values amplified in such a way as to excommunicate normal avenues of discourse. It will undoubtedly force a reset in time.

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Great comment, mate.

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Another amazing post man. I'm putting this up on my FB, assuming that's cool. Hopefully someone from my friends list finds their way to your stuff. I keep telling my conservative friends that they can watch you school me on some issues, assuming they'd be dying to see that happen in real time, but so far, no takers. I'm gonna have to edit your stuff down a bit to share in class, simply in terms of vocab and conceptual complexity, at times, but I'll let you know how to students reply to some of your more provocative ideas.

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Cheers, mate. I would have thought it would be great intro to a discussion on the harms of social media. If it divides adults into two warring camps, how does it effect younger people, to make them feel excluded and/or bullied? Does it naturally favour smarter kids, who are able to use ideas more manipulatively?

Broaching the subject through adults I would have hoped would make them more willing to open up on what may be a sensitive subject.

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Do you have an opinion on “critical media literacy”? i was looking for a quote from a media lit course I took in the early/mid 2000s and came across this conservative article - https://www.city-journal.org/critical-media-literacy-pulls-from-same-woke-playbook - but reading it, it occurs to me that this, unlike critical race theory, is something I actually studied back in the day. And I thought it was great stuff man, I really liked the prof, he was challenging, academically, and some Ed profs don't even try to be challenging. anyway, for some reason, I feel we should be talking about my Masters of Ed, which I completed in 2004 or so. I feel I may have been ground zero for some of this woke stuff, at OISE in the early 2000s. like, we were all optimistic about the material and the goals at the time. I've long called it the greatest educational experience of my life, but the more I think about it, that was woke ground zero right there

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I wouldn’t mind the whole DEI industry of it achieved at least some of what it aimed to achieve, by helping talented but disadvantaged individuals reach their potential. But that’s not what it does. According to this Jonathan Haidt podcast "What does 40 years of DEI have to show?" - Featuring Prof. Jonathan Haidt - YouTube DEI now eats up 3% of all corporate budgets. Worse still, it has no metrics for success- and often some of the programs, such as implicit bias training end up having negative effects- creating less diversity or fewer promotions for people from minority groups. Meanwhile, approaches which do work, like voluntary mentoring programs, are left to gather dust on the shelves.

The main issue is though- does achieving equity violate the principal of procedural fairness. This is vital. Does the person who is most able and works hardest get the job? Surveys show everybody wants this- Whites, Latinos, African Americans, Asians- overwhelmingly. People don’t want equal outcomes, but more often than not, if asked, they often want access to the opportunity to prove themselves.

The real problem with woke capitalism is that the companies really don’t care that their DEI programs don’t achieve anything. The programs achieve exactly what they want- which is to provide a liability shield against getting sued and for PR purposes. The other issue is that you can always tell which side is wrong when they shoot their dissenters. And the DEI industry does shoot dissenters- they don’t like it when you point out that their programs don’t work, or try to suggest solutions which might work, minus the overarching narrative.

If I was to design a critical media literacy course, my main when question would be to what extent does media create the myth that we are society in which people from the bottom can rise to the top? The peer group you have growing up, the parental community which forms around the school and whether or not you school has a great headteacher who can create a system of structured, strict low-level discipline are all vital to your kid's future success. But the top 10% of society don't want the other 90% either knowing this or having it, for the simple reason that they don't want the competition for their kids.

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It would, but the only issue with that is every teacher with a woke impulse has raised that conversation before. It's a great convo for the right teacher, but I don't even have a cell phone. Luddite, through and through, I don't have the right questions to ask. if you want the scoop on woke classrooms, I can give you that. Technology? Not so much. Hit me up with a few more questions for them, and I'll use this convo instead. they also generally find it hillarious when I own up to my ineptitude with modern shit, so this is perfect!

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I don't have mobile phone either. I had one for a while, but people kept ringing me- so "I lost it" (sold it at a profit- it was a pay as you go, bought just before they started charging more for them).

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But people kept ringing me. Class.

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Not good when you've got to work Monday morning and your mates are ringing you up on Sunday night, crazing you to come down the pub.

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I focus on individual liberty over group force and control to make individuals submit.

When liberty cannot be maintained, then it must be by a clear law that applies to all equally (and thus cannot target any group for "special" breaks or punishments).

These will give you the best economic results. These will give you the best social outcomes. Those who purport that they can force others to better outcomes are liars and tend to promote some gain in economics or social order while ignoring the harmful side effects.

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Funny you should frame your comment this way- just a few minutes ago I was just finishing watching an UnHerd podcast with Richard Thaler, in which the interviewer asked the question had the use of Nudge Theory by governments gone too far- the word used was 'manipulation'...

Your last sentence reminds me of Thomas Sowell- there are no solutions, only trade-offs.

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Regarding, MSM, social media, Internet access to information and algorithymic indoctrination my focus would be on my child, it would be on those that have never known anything but a life inclusive of being wired to the network and take all comparisons from this.

We humans are crucially developed by our nurturing. Babies and small children learn bonding and connections to others by such close contact. It’s no surprise that women have higher perception in the perceptions of smell and the tiniest of facial expressions and will mimic the baby and the baby will reciprocate. It is an essential development activity and essentially instinctual. Hand your small baby or child to another woman and observe the same close and warm bonding patterns. Or wonder why your wife or partner seems to have some omnipresent mind reading ability to sense your mood with frustrating accuracy. Even though in reality it is a visual recognition she’s just taken from your eyes and small but not quite hidden facial twitches. Then of course we have the joyous interplay that seems to turn fathers into infancy and the evolutionary process of instinctual teaching kicks in. Fathers are teaching their sons the very fine boundaries of fight or flight; creative role play lessons in reacting to physical threat and confrontation. It is essential learning and it kick starts a boys masculinity. As Geary will attest, boys without father are statistically 8 times more likely to find themselves in prison. Personally I wish to extend this topic to include young girls in their development. Kids require both parents if just to imitate male to female interplay and learn developmental skills in personal relationships. Balance. My little girl loves to play fight and I enjoy the bonding. Though not the low blows.

Now let’s consider that important traditional interaction that up to 25 years ago was an essential part of growing up. Anybody not involved was some kind of geeky oddball. I’m talking of course about sport. We engaged in it as soon as we could toddle. When would you have kicked your first football? It may be the case that the more extrovert and socially adept of us tended toward team sport and that the more introverted tended toward individualism in sport. Nevertheless it was essential in our development. What about community and of the pub and club scene, of inter-relationships close and not quite so close? Which of your friends are still your lifetime friends from such early experiences and shared community? It all matters and it has been in and around us forever.

Unsociable media and online gaming creates a kind of addictive shortcut that seems to activate sole atomised individuality, yet giving strong indication that one is in a natural state of community interplay. It is not. It is missing the social aspects of normal human interplay. How do we learn ethics and morals and humanity connections by being transhumanised? Unfortunately this is a recent although transformative process and we don’t yet know fully any real comparative data to reflect upon. So far we’re being evidenced that such activity is strongly linked to suicide, depression and introversion. But what of indoctrination into a new type of humanism? What about that?

My child is seven next week and can type at least four times quicker than myself and I’m neither fast nor slow. I call her “hacker” and it’s amazing to observe her on a keyboard. You undoubtedly will of observed that I do as much as I can to instigate a wide-ranging inter-social environment for her as possible and luckily we live close to other families with children. I actively encourage the whole playing with other kids thing and so do the other parents nearby. Well not all. There are a few that choose to mollycoddle their offspring and as you can imagine they are social outcasts in the making par this group anyways. I’d encourage any parent who doesn’t have other kids nearby to do all they can to facilitate an environment of play for their child; be that sport or some regular home visits.

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That in-person social part of growing up is vital, mate. I had an idyllic childhood- we used to play in the woods, climb trees and generally make a nuisance of ourselves. Sports are important for both boys and girls, but especially for boys- because when paired with the ethos of good sportsmanship it can help socialise the most aggressive 10% how to channel their aggression into socially productive uses.

That's what the feminists missed when they wanted to get rid of competitive sports to make children more cooperative (and more susceptible to socialism). To their shame they didn't realise that removing competitive sports would lead to more antisocial behaviour and uncontrolled aggression.

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I guess some sports don't always help with mental/social health: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/04/sports/tennis/us-open-naomi-osaka.html

I understand your sentiments. Much seems pertinent to me. But I do wonder as complaining about the youth is as old as culture.

No doubt some kids have issues due to social media. Is it better/worse than child farming (without a choice), mining, being sold for profit, succumbing to diseases?

Some kids are abused by those who in personal contact. Some use this tech to learn and keep in contact with others and even build empathy. Social media didn't create zero tolerance, grade inflation, everyone gets a trophy, forced school attendance, forced school closures, mask mandates, an illegal drug trade that finds easy customers among wealthier suburban kids (and sellers who won't have to "do as much time" if caught), CRT/intersectionality, ADD/ADHD and the drugging of youthful giddiness and inattention to boring things, being driven to/from school, stranger danger/safetyism, pollution/climate change, mobility that leads families to split and move far away, easy divorce, abortion on demand, the change in faith in religion to faith in politics, etc.

My guess is we'll muddle through it all and the kids will mostly be all right.

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It's true, M. DOK, that social mediaa didn't create those things You mentioned. But I don't see the connection between the harm social media does and "child farming (without a choice), mining, being sold for profit, succumbing to diseases?" Does this happen ANYWHERE in the Western world?

And the good from participating in sports isn't in fashion today, so much mebbe. I haven't noticed kids being better for using social media like they would be if they involved themselves in sports. ESPECIALLY team sports. Comraderie, sportsmanship, taking wins/losses in stride. Maybe THESE things aren't in fashion anymore either.

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I'm no defender of social media, but all people of all ages and abilities can be on social media, across the world, including adults, as if the worse social media offenses come from children and not adults (all of cancel culture, fake news, conspiracy theories, pump and dump, left-right hatred).

And of course lots of social media content isn't harmful at all and allows for greater human communications in a time when we're not limited by our location or station in life or even country.

Far fewer people can participate in sports, which clearly has its own issues of physical injury/death and mental injury and even corruption in gambling.

Lastly, anything you blame on children, blame on the generation(s) that allowed their government to operate as it does, the schools as they do, the wars as they do, the environmental degradation as they do, the policing as they do, and of course the ones who raised them in fear, safetyism, zero tolerance, racism/anti-racism (so similar), groups over individuals, and victimhood, all while somehow all believing their children are above average.

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Ah, M. Spencer. Now *I* must apologize for the delay. I read Your essays once, but didn't fully take them in. This one stands well. I emphasized my opinion in my reply to M. DOK.

Thing I have against the TWYGs ("Two Worthless Younger Generations")... Well, it's the Millennials and the Gen-Zers, AFAIK, who have had their brains tethered to the computer in their phones for so long... Well, always looking for the "NEXT GREAT THING" will prolly lead them to think that transhumanism is surely IT. Leastways, I haven't noticed looking at long-term ramifications being a strength. But if YOU'RE in the TWYGs, Yourself, M. Spencer, then I have a lot more hope. :)

P.S. Me an the next? The TW-Older-Gs? Culpable, if anyone was. IMHO.

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Argh... ALWAYS mistakes. If You don't know ANYTHING about "The Master and His Emissary" by Iain McGilchrist, the quote below won't make ANY sense.

He's a brain scientist who's done 20 years research on left and right hemispheres of the brain. He's laying OUTSTANDING case that these two hemispheres are involved in just about EVERYTHING we think, say, or do. Perceive the world and ourselves.

But they have two ENTIRELY different WAYS of perceiving the world. That's what the research points to, as far as Sir Iain knows. Ten years of further research doesn't seem to have poked any holes in his theory. And, in a nutshell, his idea is that the right, holistic, empathic hemisphere, which is BIGGER along most of the length of the brain, should be relied on.

As opposed to how EVERYBODY's been trained how to think, almost exclusively by the left hemisphere. The last half of the book will point out how efft up the world's societies are, as a result of this. There's almost NOTHING in this book that I'll disagree with. I'd bet MONEY on it, and I'm NOT a bettin' man. (Chapter 3 looks to be interesting. On "Language, Truth and Music."

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Great comment. My thoughts exactly when I came across Iain McGilchrist. In fact, I would posit that belief in unfounded superstitions occur when the logical side of the brain fixes upon a particular hypothesis without sufficient proof.

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Prolly so.

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As I posted to Your Quillette reply to "Mrs. Dalloway:" TYS! (Long story. Means "thank You SIR!")

Enjoyed IMMENSELY! TYTY.

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My own personal method is to focus on the ambient sound of very low, high pitched hum which ears generate, and then pair that with the mindfulness of breathing technique. Once you have this method 'fixed', with several seasons, it's especially useful to employ the technique when you are tired, in bed and it is late at night- and imagine a positive energetic force somewhere outside your window (I get more of a sense of it from larger, wide open spaces), and which also surrounds you, comforting you. Sometimes it can feel like an encapsulating duvet of air and energy.

I've felt the presence more strongly at moments of great upset in my life, and have also noticed that the positive lift-affirming source seems to exist on the same range as the more entropic destructive force- it is simply a matter of different frequencies. I suspect that certain religious practices and rituals, such as confession, naturally attune people to higher frequencies, but have no evidence for this suspicion.

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Oh! SHOULD-a said a LOTTA things, but said too MUCH as it was.

I've meditated in spurts. Very little total. Have not meditated for past year, I thin'. But when I DID meditate, at least I was able to do deeply. MIxed results, tho that really defeats the purpose, right? TYTY AGAIN for recommendation of book. Or, actually, TYTY for first time, now second. ;) = 😉

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I should apologize, Sir Geary, if I shared too much at once. Lately, I've had a tendency to do that. Should mention I don't have an artistic bone in my body, although I was told writing is artistic. I dunno.

All that to say... I'm just weird. Bizarre circumstances just made me weirder than I started out, is all. And in high school, I was pretty cotton-pickin' weird. Just finished reading the Introduction, is why I bothered You again, M. Johansen. At same time, don't ASSUME You've read any-a this, either.

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This: "Understanding hemisphere difference offers a perspective on the structure of mind which is not available merely by introspection." In my 20s and 30s i was computer logic, personified. Programmer. Disgusting in a lotta respects, looking back. But I become more in tune with people as I moved into managing the dept. I purposefully married (and later divorced) a woman in my dept who was a GRAND people-person.

44 years ago I studied Eastern Ways and heard, "rational mind is perfect servant, but lousy master."

Now? I'd written that I write 100% by intuition, which I described as balanced-edge between logic and emotion, I think it was. Mebbe as edge between conscious and subconscious. No matter. I think this book will inform me GREATLY on details. NEVER would-a guessed that sustained attention was right-brain. Had that in my 20s and 30s. Was SURE is was left-brain.

As far as You wise words, I've heard similar. It's just not my Way. I'm not very connected to my body, unfortunately. Can't dance. NEVER! THinking mebbe Tai Chi would help? I'm lousy on visualizations. I just don't get a FEELING from it. Dunno.

Not saying I WON'T try what You suggested, Sir Geary. Just that it hasn't helped me in the past. And most-a my day, at present, signifies what Shunryu Suzuki (who was not ALL that enlightened) said:

“Everything IS perfect, but there is a LOT of room for IMPROVEMENT.” (emphasis added)

LOTTA work to do on THAT, and I'm 66, white, male, divorced, smoker. Dunno about time, but know at THIS time that on the totem pole of life, there's nobody lower. ;) = 😉

Back to reading!

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TYTY for Your reply. Just this moment finished the Preface to The Mastery and His Emmisarry. WHew! I could only find one thing that I disagreed with, and that's, wait, lemme find the quote.

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Hi, Mr. Johansen. Although I don't always agree with you on everything, I like your topic selection and writing--I plan to put it on my "rounds", so to speak. Your work put me in mind of Dan Kahan (Cultural Cognition) and Jonathan Haidt. You may also find Aristotelian/Thomistic psychology interesting: https://escholarship.org/uc/item/74d658bt.

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