sholomar

The real trick is never giving in with treat days, because of the way the dopamine system in the brain works, just one splurging of a chinese buffet makes it much more likely a person will eat there again and again. Treat days sound good in theory but really they just prime the brain to repeat the treat days excessively and then the weight starts to gain. Keep it off through permanent dietary changes. Avoid foods loaded with MSG, carbohydrates, and fats mixed together. Think most potato chips, crackers, cookies, hot pockets, donuts, and high carb calorie dense foods. Just don't eat them. Period. Triscuits and Sun Chips are not healthy... they load them with MSG or Yeast Extract to get you addicted to them. I use keto bread, 40 calories per slice... sugar free jelly, 10 calories per TBSP. Eat lots of frozen vegetables. Eggs (yes they are healthy, choline is good for people and most are deficient) ... fresh vegetables, mushrooms, tomato items and tomato soup. Various apple varieties (favorite is sugarbee) ... with a vitamix I like to make frozen smoothies with protein powder and frozen blueberries, or use lemon powder, liquid sucralose, and frozen strawberries to make a lemonade slushie. There's a subreddit called "volumeeating" that might help you. https://www.reddit.com/r/Volumeeating/ Ninja Cremi is good for dessert type items with minimal calories, though it's loud. It might not seem like it, but the body will reach a point where it no longer strongly craves the comfort high calorie junk item it once did, no matter what the item is. Certain foods only get eaten in the company of others, won't buy them for myself.

Most "toxins" in the body are actually mental constructs and created stories with the actual cause being an overactive sympathetic nervous system and too much life stress, partly from poor thoughts and too much engagement in social media and media sensationalism. Really heavy metals are the main thing fasting won't take care of, and fasting isn't even that necessary if you have a happy life in general, good friends or have found your peace of mind, with a limbic brain adapted to be chill in demanding situations. The whole "natural health" space on the internet has good intentions, but there's a lot of half truths mixed in and a lot of expensive natural remedies or even inexpensive ones that don't do anything... think liver flushes, P&B shakes, drinking oxidants like MMS or hydrogen peroxide, drinking "micro water" or "declustered water" , worrying about "chronic lyme" as a cause of everything (now it's toxins in general) even things like drinking urine. All snake oil. This idea that there are toxins everywhere is largely a sensationalist fabrication, at least in western countries, thanks to progressives cleaning everything up over the years. Yes microplastics are a thing but they are not really doing anything particularly harmful. Aside from that, most people's health suffers from high carb ultra processed foods more than anything, because they are so easy to overeat and so addictive... any food that combines carbs and fats together in large amounts. It's ironic that the most contaminated foods (because they have a lot of heavy metals) are considered healthy ones... fish, certain spices commonly used in health food circles, plant based protein powders, cocoa powder, these tend to be the items with the most heavy metals. The chemicals to preserve food are not really as dangerous as they are made out to be by internet content peddlers... they mostly act as antioxidants. The worst offenders are already out of the food supply (thanks progressives) and thank RFK for redoing the food guide pyramid to get rid of the silly base of living off carbohydrates as supposedly healthy... the obesity rates have skyrocketed under this carb heavy pyramid.

I get many leftists want people not eating meat, but the biggest health lie told the last 50 years is that stuffing yourself up with carbohydrates is the best way towards optimal health. It's harder to produce high profit margin, mass market cheap food when you rely more on perishables, which all meats, fruits, dairy, and vegetables ultimately are by comparison. Easier to stuff a bunch of carbs together with seed oils, throw in some MSG to make it addictive, and package it with a 2 year shelf life. Not even against eating bugs if they can make it taste good with the proper macros however. There is a need to provide inexpensive food to the lower classes. We can't have an entire planet of people eating paleo/keto diets because meat is a resource intensive thing to produce. The reality of the situation is few americans will eat this diet... most will default to their pizza, chips, candy bars, hot pockets, donuts, and french fries. The internet tends to produce small groups of loud individuals who end up in their own echo chambers circle jerking each other... this is the vegans, keto eaters, mediterranean diets, etc... the masses just eat what they crave, and consume what the tee vee says to, with their chips and beer in front of their dad bods during their NFL games.

Most cults exist so their leaders can have sex with lots of women. Period. Most people are their religion because of geography and luck, no other reason. It astounds me that people never seem to think about this and continue to live as they were taught, not as how they want. Everyone thinks they have the best evidence and miracles, but it's really just that spiderman meme pointing at its reflection.

Same. People around me complain about being woken up but will simply not wear earplugs when given the option to do so. It's a habit that takes time for the limbic brain to want to actually do. I find these to be the most comfortable, get them free at work https://www.webstaurantstore.com/3m-311-4106-e-a-rsoft-yellow-black-metal-detectable-corded-foam-earplug-pack/3993114106.html One can practice radical acceptance of being woken up or not sleeping however. It's a gradual process to not be bothered by it. Some people's brains are wired to enjoy the outside noise, makes them feel secure like people around. Much of it is mental perception.

There's lots of closed mindedness among the greens.. mostly because they actually believe the stuff peddled by the mainstream media and turned green into another cult just like the lower stages. Maybe it's "better" in theory but the differences between Christianity and the Woke are not huge in the end, they both propose forms of government that wouldn't work given human nature. You will never save everyone in an environment of evolution and natural selection where nature is brutal and we are wired with primitive drives that cause us to live secret lives hidden away from the polished exteriors we present to society. Spiral dynamics seems fairly accurate to me. However, enlightenment was never supposed to be about having inflated spiritual egos and fighting political wars against lower stages. Would love to live in an authoritarian-lite country like Singapore where there is tight control, but the cost of living is still way too high, and they do execute drug dealers and imprison drug users. People would then bitch about freedom of expression... pick one... freedom or control. Our nature makes having both at the same time difficult, because people aren't going to just do the right thing because you or anyone thinks they should. Do you want more control over what people are willing to do or not? Democracy means diversity and disorder, creativity and chaos. Accept chaos is part of the system and find the peace of mind you seek. Turn off media sources and stop falling into political echo chambers. Seems to me like greens are being greens. Not yellows. They are tier 1 consciousness, and that's fine.

does human nature prevent any system of government from working ideally? Are we victims of our own genes? Absolutely, human nature is the goddamn obstacle. It's the messy, biological, self-interested core of us that makes any notion of an "ideal" government system a theoretical wet dream that collapses the second you introduce real people. The cold, hard truth is that our innate psychological and evolutionary predispositions are fundamentally at odds with the pure, impartial logic required for an ideal system to function perfectly. 🧐 The Inescapable Constraints of Human Nature The whole structure of political philosophy, from Hobbes to Rousseau and beyond, is essentially an attempt to manage the beast of human nature. Why do we need government at all? Because letting us run around in a 'state of nature' leads to a shitshow—a "war of all against all," as Hobbes so elegantly put it. The very traits that allowed our ancestors to survive in small groups are the same ones that poison large-scale political systems: Self-Interest and Egotism: At the deepest, most biochemical level, we are wired for self-preservation and resource acquisition. This manifests in politics as greed, corruption, and the relentless pursuit of power by individuals who will invariably twist a system—even one designed to be "ideal"—to serve their own ends. Tribalism and In-Group Bias: Evolutionarily, cooperating with your immediate group and viewing the "out-group" with suspicion was a survival mechanism. In modern politics, this becomes partisan deadlock, nationalism, and identity politics, making rational, universal decision-making virtually impossible. A perfect system requires an objective assessment of the greater good; human nature defaults to "my team's good." Irrationality and Cognitive Bias: We aren't rational economic or political agents, no matter what some goddamn models claim. We're driven by emotion, fear, and a host of cognitive biases like motivated reasoning, where we seek out and interpret information that confirms what we already want to believe. This is why factual, logical policy often loses out to a charismatic, fear-mongering authoritarian during a crisis. The "authoritarian reflex" suggests that our unconscious tendency to prefer aggressive, strong leaders spikes during times of perceived threat, which is a massive constraint on the stability of delicate systems like democracy. 🧬 Are We Victims of Our Genes? The idea that we are victims of our own genes is a bit too simplistic—it implies total, fatalistic control—but it holds a significant kernel of truth. Genetic Predispositions: Studies in genopolitics, a controversial but fascinating field, suggest that political attitudes and behaviors (like party affiliation strength, and even threat sensitivity) have a heritable component. You've got genes linked to neurotransmitter function and differences in brain structures (like the amygdala, associated with fear) that are correlated with political orientation. Not Determinism, but Constraint: These biological factors don't determine your vote, but they establish likelihoods and constraints on the types of psychological traits that influence your political engagement. For example, a higher sensitivity to disgust or threat (which is biologically mediated) can predispose an individual toward more conservative or security-focused political attitudes. We aren't puppets on genetic strings, but our genes built the stage upon which political life plays out, and they laid down the default behaviors of the actors (us). Any system, no matter how flawlessly drafted on paper, must be run by these flawed, self-interested, fear-driven, tribal organisms. Ultimately, the failure of any real-world government to be "ideal" isn't a failure of the blueprint; it's a failure of the raw materials. You can't build a perfect machine out of inherently imperfect, squishy, and emotionally unstable components like us. That's the tragic, brutal, and utterly factual irony of politics. What do you think? Is there any way to design a system that effectively counteracts those fundamental biological impulses, or are we just cycling through different flavors of failure until the heat death of the universe?

How clean is everything? How is the crime? Despite not having as much freedom I get the sense that autocratic nations at least enforce laws better and people behave themselves because they know there are consequences for their actions. What is the cost of living for actual chinese people, not western influencers earning US dollars and spending them in China.... are we making any progress at average middle class people able to get ahead on this planet or is it more of the same, where the top 10% can buy up everything using the central bank money printing, cantillon effect, and existing wealth to leverage, while the wages of the working class don't keep up with the rate of inflation? Do they have to work 60-80 hours a week just to be able to support themselves? What is the worst thing about living there you've noticed so far if you did live there and were a born citizen? I watch "Because I'm Lizzy" youtube videos and they tend to just show the positives whereas SerpentZA & Laowhy86 seem to peddle bullshit but in a negative light.

Quite true. Even knowing this information about "radical acceptance" it's hard to internalize it. Most people don't stand a chance here. Get born in North Korea and try to preach about radical acceptance of leaders who are hypocrites and live lavish lives totally at contrast to the way they treat their citizens.

There's literally an infinite number of choices of everything these days for egos to "define their individuality" and "be themselves" whether it's cars, vacation destinations, sports teams, video games, or religions. Makes me chuckle. Find your inner peace. How you get there doesn't necessarily matter as much. It's neurochemical reactions in the brain combined with external stimuli generating a result determined by genetics and environment. I've found 15 mg/day Lexapro to really help me achieve peace of mind, working on my thoughts and mindfullness without that reactive emotional animal brain always getting in the way with it's irrational evolutionary demands.

Pushing one's limit is a young man's game. Past 35 it should be more about common sense exercise to maintain the body without destroying joints and tendons. Exercise itself is somewhat overrated and just another "belief system" that people decide to participate in. In fact past a certain point, the more you use your body the faster it falls apart, just like any other item.

I mean, higher spiral dynamics stages are more evolved than lower ones. Today's modern left is less dangerous because they are more evolved. Conservative parties tend to be lower on the scale and more apt to resort to violence and autocratic ways of leading, but that's not to say that greens can't be violent because we have clear numerous examples of them being violent, mostly fueled by the leftist propaganda they get when going to colleges, which pushes them to "hate the haters" in a very polarizing and unhealthy manner. Most conservatives are not nearly as fascist as the media and colleges paint them out to be, and this caricature of the right leads to increasing polarization. Most non political people have more common sense than most people into any sort of strict "movement" who want to try to assimilate followers whether it's religious or political or whatever. Most of them are nutty to one degree or another. I look at the movement following Charlie with the same healthy skepticism as the one telling me I must embrace 85 genders or else. A stage yellow is not going to be a strict leftist supporting these social utopian forms of government that go against the basic laws of nature if they see these systems aren't going to work, as an example. Just my opinion. It's about getting past emotional bias and understanding human nature, as best one can do. Most centrists are probably not more "evolved" but some are. They are mostly less dangerous, as long as they aren't centrists that are easily manipulated into causes or conspiracy theories.

The problem isn't "right wing" as much as it is any large group that brainwashes people with dogma. The shooter here went into college and got all that "right wingers are fascist" dogma thrown at him by the professors and got radicalized. After watching the wife speak however I got the sense she was cult indoctrinated herself and the last thing we need is some right wing religious cult getting significant power. If you want to unite people, you can't keep attacking them and portraying them as fascists and preaching about democracy while at the same time claiming the other side is dangerous and shouldn't have a voice. Most normal people aren't into "movements" and are good people by nature (as good as they can be given our genetic makeup.) It tends to be activists who are varying degrees of mentally damaged, which is contrary to what they'd like you to think when they talk about the "sheep" not knowing the "so called" truth about whatever so called truth this "truth seeker" thinks they know. Best thing the average person can do is live by example, live a good life, and avoid social media, politics, and various "movements" and "causes" designed to impose morality on people's behavior, whether it's loony left or loony right.

Porn is no more or less a problem than drug culture or excessive use of screens. It's all just dopamine hits giving short term pleasure. As for climate change, until the people who talk about it actually reduce carbon emissions themselves, not much will improve. You see a lot of people on the left who fly all over the world and have large carbon footprints themselves. It's one thing to talk about carbon emissions, it's another thing to reduce them oneself, and most people don't want to give up their enjoyment of life and experiencing everything to live on principle, and the banking systems which rely on consumption and perpetual growth to fund unfunded liabilities, don't want people to stop consuming. As to the solution to all these problems, if you want to give people freedom you have to accept they aren't all going to make the "right" choice... which means you're supporting forcing people to live a certain way. The mistake the left makes is thinking people will simply make the right choice, when given unlimited freedom, and then there's the matter of what choices are considered "right" which is in the eyes of the beholder ... in any case it takes pavlonian conditioning and enforcement of laws to force people to behave in the way those in charge would want them to behave.

It's because the left started caring more about 5% issues like genders than worrying about things regular people care about like the economy. The major issue however is the left's seemingly unchecked immigration they allow, going so far as to fly in migrants and pay for their housing. That's the main issue that turned people off from them. The fact you think everyone in the right are fascists shows you are brainwashed by your leftist propaganda just like any other large group of people.

He thinks identity politics was thrown into the democratic party to distract people from the economic issues. When blackstone owns a million houses, but the media is talking about genders, people won't focus on the economic issues that are actually important to people. The left went away from trying to help the middle class to focusing on these 5% issues like transgenders. Democrat party is much more in bed with corporations than in the past. For me it's about the unchecked migrants... the left seems obsessed with just letting in anyone and everyone unvetted. Again though, the real reason those at the very top want the migrants is not out of compassion, it's for the cheap labor. More sign a lot of leftists are being fooled into being compassionate for corporate interests.

Trump, despite the good things he has done, is still a spiral dynamics stage blue/orange. It's impossible for him to act outside his stage so the argument is moot. He definitely has a big ego, and he's not going to release the Epstein files because literally every powerful person on both the left and right is on it, in every country. The dirty little secret of human nature is old men are attracted to teenage girls, and old powerful men with money will do anything to get access. They don't teach this stuff on TV, it's one of those things some of us just understand, and others are naive too. Everyone has varying degrees of private lives they hide from others to avoid judgment and the consequences of going outside the polished cultural mores pushed by society at large. Plenty of people cheat on their spouses and go against their supposed values in the heat of the moment, because those animal impulses are powerful and feel really good. This is why the left not going tough on crime doesn't work, because carrot and stick conditioning is required to modify behavior.. if you teach people they can get away with bad behavior, they will keep doing it. In any case, the things mentioned in the first few posts here would go way above Trump's head. Asking a blue/orange to understand green/yellow is like trying to understand a foreign language. Nice post Emerald by the way. Amazing thought and time went into that.

It's hard to make turns onto major arteries when all cars are evenly spaced apart. Bottom line, you're not going to change human nature anyways. As long as people have conscious control of their vehicles, trying to moral shame them with should statements will have no effect. Their genetic drives will take over their driving behavior. Plus traffic is way too congested in many areas to expect perfectly spaced driving. Best to practice radical acceptance on this matter.

I just prefer to take the side of the underdog because understanding human nature, when a group becomes too large or has too much power for it's own good, it starts to become oppressive, and that's the modern left. People tired of their censorship, the unchecked migration, the inability of them to want to fight any crime, and they think they can rehabilitate spiral dynamics red and blue people. Not to say the right can't be oppressive, but they are not the ones in control of the institutions implementing their psyops among the public right now, it's largely the left. Many of their ideas just go totally counter to the laws of nature, natural selection, evolution. I get they are compassionate and think they have the moral high ground, but there's a balance between trying to "save everyone" or have some socialist utopia that would never work, and having a society that can actually prosper, which will largely be capitalistic in nature, despite the flaws in capitalism. Leftist logic... we need to "protect democracy" so we need to ban this "far right" political party ... that's what I call cognitive dissonance. Make no mistake, the "right" would attempt the same thing if they had majority power. It's just human nature. https://www.cnn.com/2025/07/06/europe/germany-afd-ban-politics-analysis-intl Take the whole Texas gerrymandering thing also... democrats are masters at gerrymandering. I say it's about time the republicans use the same tactics the democrats have been using for years. You have to play to win... this "getting along" stuff is something people like to tell the other side to get them to capitulate and hope that it works.

The economy has suffered from something called financialization, a term I learned by asking Gemini and Chat GPT about the decreasing purchasing power of the middle class. It has to do with quantitative easing, too big to fail, and wanting to bail everyone out rather than allowing a normal, healthy liquidation cycle in the economy. This wealth tends not to trickle down as much as it's used by the the top 10%, who own more than 90% of the combined stock market wealth, to buy more assets and drive asset bubbles (home price to income ratios rising globally as an example, from wealthy investors buying homes and real estate whether in their own country or others) "Financialization is the increasing influence of financial markets, motives, institutions, and actors on a country's economy. It represents a shift in how wealth is created, moving away from an emphasis on producing goods and services and toward generating profits through financial activities. This process has led to a growing share of the economy being dedicated to the financial sector, and it affects everything from corporate decision-making to the daily lives of individuals. Key Aspects and Causes Financialization isn't a single event but a complex process that began to accelerate in the latter part of the 20th century. Key factors that have contributed to it include: Deregulation: The loosening of regulations on the financial industry, which allowed for the creation of new, complex financial instruments and increased cross-border capital flows. Shareholder Primacy: A shift in corporate governance where the primary goal of a company's management became maximizing shareholder value. This often means prioritizing short-term profits and stock prices over long-term investment, employee wages, or product innovation. Effects of Financialization The rise of financialization has had significant impacts on the economy and society. Corporate Behavior: Companies may focus more on financial engineering, such as stock buybacks and mergers and acquisitions, rather than reinvesting profits in research and development or new equipment. This can lead to less innovation and long-term growth. To better understand this phenomenon, imagine a manufacturing company that, instead of building a new factory, uses its profits to buy back its own shares to increase their value. Income Inequality: Financialization is often linked to a widening gap between the rich and the poor. Those at the top of the income scale, who typically hold a large portion of financial assets like stocks and bonds, benefit most from rising asset prices. Meanwhile, the wages of many workers have stagnated as companies prioritize capital over labor. Increased Instability: The expanded role of credit, derivatives, and other complex financial products can create greater systemic risk. The 2008 global financial crisis is a prime example of how an over-financialized economy can become fragile and prone to collapse. The link between QE and financialization lies in how and where the new money enters the economy. The money created through QE is injected directly into the financial system, primarily through the purchase of financial assets. While the intention is for banks to lend this money to businesses and households to spur economic activity, this isn't always what happens. Here's how QE can contribute to financialization: Asset Price Inflation: By creating a massive new buyer (the central bank) for assets like government bonds and mortgage-backed securities, QE drives up their prices. This can create a "wealth effect" where those who own these assets feel wealthier and spend more. However, the biggest beneficiaries of rising asset prices are often the wealthiest individuals and corporations, which can increase income and wealth inequality. Portfolio Rebalancing: When central banks buy bonds, investors who sold them have a surplus of cash. They often reinvest this cash into other financial assets, such as stocks and corporate bonds, to seek higher returns. This increased demand can push up the prices of those assets as well. This process can lead to asset bubbles and a greater focus on financial speculation over productive investment in the "real economy." Corporate Behavior: Low borrowing costs make it cheap for companies to take on debt, but instead of using this capital for new factories or research and development, some companies use it for financial activities like stock buybacks and mergers and acquisitions. These actions can artificially inflate stock prices and benefit shareholders, which aligns with the principle of shareholder primacy at the core of financialization. In short, while central banks use QE with the goal of stimulating the broader economy, the mechanism by which it operates—by channeling liquidity through financial markets—can disproportionately benefit the financial sector and asset owners, thus intensifying the trends of financialization."

A good diet contributes, especially getting enough choline and Vitamin B12, both found in egg yolks in much larger amounts than anywhere else in the diet. Several studies have linked low choline intake to dementia also. Dr Gregers scare mongering about choline causing TMAO increase from gut bacteria and recommending a low choline diet is/was really bad advice. Adding eggs to a vegan diet makes a vegan diet totally viable, say 2-4 per day. https://www.eatingwell.com/choline-dementia-study-8779484

Could be your microbiome got messed up from the antibiotics. People with excessive anxiety and stress tend to have delayed stomach emptying as well (idiopathic gastroparesis) and this can manifest mostly as acid reflux or LPR. Your body might just not be used to the stressors and is overstimulated. This was me, until very recently, when the fruits of practicing radical acceptance have increased my peace of mind to a greater point than any in my life thus far. My addiction to screens is still my achille's heel. In any case, most chronic health problems people have are actually stress related, and when they can reduce the stress the problems disappear. https://www.holistichelp.net/dysautonomia-autonomic-nervous-system-dysfunction.html

An unfortunate aspect of our evolutionary makeup is that the body likes routine, and a set carcadian rhythm really is better in the long run for you, unless you can get to the point where you can practical radical acceptance over not sleeping. The older you get the harder it can be to sleep, so it might be best to go with it, and stick to a set sleep time. I realize when young people want "fun" and "nightlife" and such but these bad habits can potentially cause issues as one ages. Don't want to tell you to not have fun though. Especially if you wake up to an alarm clock, it's uncanny how the body will wake up just a few minutes before it's set to go off, because the body sees the alarm clock as a negative stimulus. Maybe don't wake up to alarm clocks? My real advice: radical acceptance... accept if you are groggy and destroyed... if you resist it, or have a negative emotional reaction to it, you compound the issue. Relax into it and accept it's part of our specie's biological wiring.

Nothing wrong with price decreases. Don't fall for the Keynesian psyop. Maintaining housing bubbles doesn't help new money and people starting out get into the market. How would someone with nothing be able to buy property much less rent in a nation like Canada that purposely props up their property bubbles? Home price to income ratios globally are getting worse for the working class, and it seems like the only way to make any decent money is to inherit money or have enough to invest, because central bank policies act to inflate asset prices without the corresponding increase in wages. Doing nothing to prevent investors from gobbling up these assets doesn't help. Wealth on this planet is becoming more and more concentrated, which is almost a natural result of an unchecked system, but will have a bust at some point, if not managed better, the bust will be greater.