Joshe

SALT... SALT... Where's the SALT? That's what my dad says at every meal. lol. I don't get what all the hype is about, myself.

To me, wealth is being able to do what you want and buy what you want with money never coming up as a limitation, and never having to do things you don't want in exchange for money. 5 million USD earns about $15k/mo interest from treasury bonds alone. If someone can't relax with 15k/mo, I feel for them.

My goal was not to bash Trump to make me feel good. It was to get you to demystify what you think Trump's "power" is. You're treating outcomes as proof of competence when the structural elements did far more to put Trump in power than anything else. Trump is simply not a strategic mastermind in any sense or any domain, and it's an error to think that he is. There is far, far more to it than "Trump is a political mastermind". I pointed out several of the elements, but there are dozens more. Put them all together and you'll see that Trump is just a rich, lucky dimwit. Also, when I used the word "stupid", I meant it literally. If "stupid" means anything in English, like: shallow reasoning poor abstraction impulsivity inability to model second-order consequences reliance on instinct domination rather than understanding Then Trump is literally "stupid". It's easy to think Trump is stupid and politically brilliant, but it's not true. In general, stupid and "brilliance" doesn't typically mix, right? Can you provide any evidence that suggests it's mixing in this case, aside from "he made it to the top - it must be true"? Because the only skills I can identify are of a predatory nature, but predatory skill doesn't equal political genius. Those predatory skills didn't gain leverage through intelligence, but more so via institutional blind spots, the media landscape, incentives of the rich and powerful, and dozens more things like that.

Some guys get laid like crazy because girls think they're hot AF. It's normal to feel jealousy about this or wish you had it that easy. But it's also normal to call these dudes who abuse it pieces of shit. It's like they're billionaires with monopolies, except sex is the commodity. Most of us think billionaires without morals are pieces of shit. Same thing here. And just like with billionaires without morals, there will be a lot of people who look up to and admire them, seeing them as something to aspire to.

Yes, it's the sum total of everything you notice about them. What they're silent on and what they respond to. How much they need to talk. What topics they respond to and how they respond. You can easily gauge ego development by the things they talk about. A lot is revealed by the eyes. You can often tell if someone is open, defensive, or avoidant just by their eyes. How willing or easy can they shift perspectives. How inquisitive they are. How much does the conversation need to be about them or people vs ideas. How much they complain. Do they tend toward the positive or the negative? Do they like to laugh? When I find someone who I can tell is not shallow and they tend toward the positive and aren't interested in ego, that's a good sign I'll get along with them. I usually bond first over humor and when the depth spills out of me, I track their response to it and balance as needed. You can tell if they like it or not and what their tolerance is for it. That said, I've never found anyone who goes as deep as me IRL, but I have found people who like it, so long as I balance it well. I accept that I'm the oddball and I don't hold any grudges or negativity about it. If someone with some depth comes along, I love it, but if not, no big deal.

It's a consequence of development. I've only found a handful of kindreds in my life. I consider it lucky if you can find one or two. You just have to keep an eye out for your people. They aren't common but you'll often recognize each other almost immediately.

Trump is stupid. Trump is a trust fund baby who was born into so much money that the interest on it alone would pay for dozens of servants. Trump was lucky to win in 2016. He didn’t “architect” and execute a great victory. He was up against an opponent who most people were repulsed by. That’s why he won. After he won, a hundred million people felt cognitive dissonance for having voted for him after seeing who he was, so the right wing media apparatus and Russian troll farms went in full effect to relieve that dissonance and brainwash people. It worked better than anyone could have imagined. That brainwashing was the mechanism that allowed Trump to be himself in public - a bully - threatening people’s careers via tweet, inciting violence, etc. Further, he became the leader of the Republicans and ruled them with fear and threats. Like the cowards they are, they bowed down and transferred their power up to him. The sum of all that power was enormous. if you think all of this happened because Trump just knows how to finagle people politically, you’re the fool. He didn’t get this peace prize donated to him because he’s a political genius. It’s simple power dynamics, and any third rate dictator could achieve it if they had the position of POTUS, which Trump lucked into. Trump is simply the luckiest devil ever, that’s all this is. Narcissistic sociopaths simply don’t have the same moral constraints normal people do. You’re seeing the lack of those constraints as some kind of intelligence - something to behold and admire. Buts it’s actually just de-evolution.

American politics is cooked. Marjorie Taylor Green will get us out of this mess in 2028 when she defeats Gavin.

All internal suffering stems from mind content. Read my signature. You guys clearly have the energy available to figure out how and why you are bound. It’s just that you haven’t figured it out yet. If you t keep trying in earnest, you will eventually see the light at the end of tunnel. Seek and ye shall find. Remove all mind stuff that nurtures your suffering and it will dissipate. If you jumped out of an airplane or went scuba diving, would you suffer during those moments? No, because your mind would be busy with other things. I’m not suggesting suppression, just pointing out an important mechanism. There is right thinking and wrong thinking. Wrong thinking is to continually focus upon things which produce negative emotions such as shame, guilt, fear. Wrong thinking keeps you bound, right thinking frees you. After you map and understand your suffering, often the next thing to do is to forgive yourself and others. Then, focus on right thinking, because it doesn’t make sense to keep yourself bound. Forgive yourself and others so you can move on, then break the habit of wrong thinking.

The fact this this prick made it to my eyeballs is pathetic. Humans have to do better. lol

I can't speak to frequency or vibration - lol - since I've never tried them. As far as I can tell, the key to getting rich is intelligence, determination, and persistence. Intelligence is the maneuvering - it solves path and navigation. Determination is the forward thrust - the energy source. Persistence is the course correction - it keeps you on track and with the signal. These operate in a feedback loop. It's one thing to see a course, it's another to traverse it. Intelligence maps the path but doesn't traverse it. For traversal, you need a stable energetic disposition that sustains movement and corrects drift over time. Drift is the hardest problem. Tons of people have great ideas and the skills necessary to bring them to fruition, but most cannot course correct. They can't hold on to the signal. Once the map is visible, it's just one foot in front of the other until you arrive. But the energy required is usually too high of a cost, and this is where we get lost. It's hard to regulate energy long enough to sustain repeated correction. Basically, after intelligence, the main blocker is a regulation problem. We can map out the exact steps to get rich, we just usually can't walk the path.

It’s very common to crown your ego with a halo when moral development emerges from inner work. There’s a fine line between recognition of it and ego/identity inflation. It’s nothing to be ashamed of, as it’s only natural. But some readers might be ready to see it, which was the impact I was aiming for.

and identity.

Sounds like an identity rule to me. "I'm the type of person who is well-behaved because that's what being aligned with truth entails". Is that what you tell yourself when you're fighting back those urges? 😂 Whatever works I suppose. Just fuckin' widya.

Fa sho. That's the biggest factor with self-development. We have bad habits for a reason - they stabilize us.

Interesting post! There's something about the downtrodden that I'm drawn to and fascinated by. When I'm talking to them, I do feel as if they are giving me lessons and they often seem to indirectly or accidentally address something relevant to me. It feels as if: everything is for me. I'm hesitant to build any metaphysics around it though. Happens all the time when I acknowledge the magic and am coming from that place, but if I'm not coming from that place, the only thing that pulls me into it is when the magic forces me to see it, which is often. I used to be enamored by it, but now, I just smile and keep going. The point of the magic seems to only be about the recognition of it itself. The recognition that this is magic. I no longer try to keep the magical state. It shows up when it does - often in spurts - with no rhyme or reason. It feels inevitable, so I don't feel like I have to grasp for it. Somehow, I can give myself goosebumps on command. This might actually be worth looking into because it suggests a strong link between the prefrontal cortex and the autonomic circuits. Maybe spiritual perception is enhanced when this link is strong. Or maybe that's just another story trying to understand the magic. Or maybe it's both.

Simple. Replace it with something else and don’t think about it. The addiction persists because it’s doing something for your nervous system. You cannot simply use awareness to convince your nervous system that it should no longer need it. The point of replacing the addiction with something else is to retrain the nervous system over time, and it will eventually forget all about it. This is 100x more effective than willpower or mindset.

No. Put all effort into financial stability and worry about self development later. Spirituality and self improvement in general is something that I wish I would have ignored early on. I can’t tell you how much time and energy I squandered trying to “improve” myself.

Truth-orientation = the degree to which a person tolerates local destabilization in order to improve global model accuracy. 😂 I have a pipe dream of building a model of the mind, and this is just one module. It's a huge project though, and other things take priority, but damn, it would be fun to work on this full-time. Cheers!

I torrent shit from time to time. I don't think it would be fair to call me a thief. If I didn't torrent it, they wouldn't get my money anyway because I wouldn't buy it. I don't torrent shit I need. Maybe that's even worse? lol I wouldn't torrent programs though... too risky. Don't become a cog in a Russian botnet.

I'm an INTJ. But I also once wanted to spread spirituality for social harmony, so maybe that has to do with an empathetic trait that MBTI doesn't track. I care about social harmony, I just don't want to be the one to implement it. I would love to architect it though, lol. I am aligned with your ideal and believe that the highest good is peace for all. Yes, I can definitely see how this would be a challenge for an Fe dom, but I'm sure you're better positioned to deal with that challenge than most of us here, lol.

Deep truth can emerge without having a passion for it it directly. And I wonder, if "love of truth" is sometimes a story we tell about a more basic drive, such as just being highly analytical. I was diving into why I seek coherence and I and just realized coherence isn't actually what I seek. I'm after "convergence". Coherence is the mechanism, convergence is the success condition. Truth emerges from convergence. Convergence requires coherence. Coherence requires vigilance. But Convergence is the goal. At least for me, I think. Truth is what you infer when your models stop needing revision. Convergence is when everything keeps pointing the same direction and reinforcing an underlying structure. Truth is what convergence looks like from the inside. Maybe truth isn't even the target. Now, why do I want convergence? 😂

But I was talking about a mechanism, not a value. Also, it's interesting that people are driven to truth by having a passion/love for it. I don't have feelings about truth. I'm driven toward functional coherence and I update my models/beliefs immediately as new evidence crosses my credibility thresholds - regardless of the costs. But I never felt a "passion" or "love" for truth. Truth only matters because non-truth breaks functionality.