Joshe

On the surface, I see at least two issues with his model, which might indicate deeper issues: Social unrest key: Would social unrest always be detrimental to the incumbent? Charisma: Who gets the key if both candidates are equally uncharismatic? He has a seeming arbitrary rule for application here. Just came across the first lefty channel calling it something like a "feel-good thing for Trump haters", which I think is largely accurate. People want to think it's valid.

It depends on your goals. Some truths can be detrimental. For example, pursuing enlightenment is detrimental to my financial goals, so I try to consciously avoid/disengage them. This is not me running from them but choosing to not look at them. You don't have to do anything except what you want to do. Don't conform to what other people say is valuable. You decide what is valuable and then you can know what is detrimental to your values. You can accept truths without embodying them. @Keryo Koffa I like your explanation style better. You should start a blog or something...better yet, make a public obsidian vault. Where did that spreadsheet come from? Is that your own sensemaking or a known model?

@Leo Gura I was afraid of that. lol. Thanks!

@Leo Gura What I really want to know is what determines the quality of a consciousness. For example, why do some people care about reality and others don't. I was trying to answer this question by defining the qualities. David Hawkins has said people are mostly born with a fixed level of awareness. Some are born with high and some low. This may be true but I don't like this answer. Do you think it's true?

I would like to mix it with other fields though, such as data science, but that's just cause I like mining for insights. 1. Big Data in Sociology: - Many sociologists use big data as a tool for understanding social phenomena on a large scale. - It allows them to analyze patterns of behavior, social interactions, and societal trends that might not be visible through traditional research methods. 2. Areas of Application: - Social media analysis: Studying online behaviors, network formations, and information spread. - Urban sociology: Using data from city sensors, mobile phones, and transportation systems to understand urban dynamics. - Cultural sociology: Analyzing large datasets of cultural products (books, movies, music) to identify trends. - Inequality research: Using big data to examine patterns of social and economic inequality. 3. Advantages for Sociological Research: - Scale: Ability to study entire populations rather than small samples. - Real-time data: Access to current, ongoing social processes. - Unobtrusive measures: Studying behavior without directly interfering with subjects. 4. Interdisciplinary Approach: - Many sociologists collaborate with data scientists, computer scientists, and statisticians in big data projects. - This often leads to interdisciplinary work that blends sociology with other fields.

Sociology offers a wide range of fascinating activities and explorations. Here are some interesting ideas: 1. Social experiments: - Conduct small-scale experiments to observe social norms and behaviors - Analyze reactions to breaking social norms in public spaces 2. Ethnographic studies: - Immerse yourself in a subculture or community different from your own - Document observations and interactions over time 3. Survey research: - Design and conduct surveys on various social issues - Analyze trends and correlations in the data 4. Content analysis: - Examine media representation of different social groups - Analyze social media trends and their impact on society 5. Historical comparative research: - Compare social structures and norms across different time periods - Investigate how major events shaped societal changes 6. Case studies: - In-depth examination of specific social phenomena or groups - Explore unique social situations or communities 7. Demographic analysis: - Study population trends and their societal implications - Investigate factors influencing birth rates, migration patterns, etc. 8. Social network analysis: - Map and analyze social connections within communities - Explore how information or behaviors spread through networks 9. Cross-cultural comparisons: - Compare social norms, values, and practices across different cultures - Investigate how cultural differences impact social structures 10. Participatory action research: - Collaborate with community members to address social issues - Implement and evaluate solutions together 11. Visual sociology: - Use photography or video to document social phenomena - Analyze visual representations of society in art and media 12. Oral histories: - Collect and analyze personal narratives from different social groups - Explore how individual experiences relate to broader social trends 13. Social policy analysis: - Evaluate the impact of laws and policies on different social groups - Propose and analyze potential policy solutions to social issues 14. Technology and society studies: - Investigate how new technologies impact social interactions - Analyze the digital divide and its societal implications 15. Environmental sociology: - Study the relationship between society and the environment - Investigate social aspects of climate change and sustainability These activities can provide valuable insights into how societies function, change, and impact individuals.

I need to find a therapist like that.

@Husseinisdoingfine You already made it further than I ever did in academia. I never even took calculus. After I quit high school, I tried community college and then quit that. Then I went on to work construction for 10 years. I felt like a huge loser. Now, I'm glad it went the way it did. If I were to have wound up at some college, I'd probably be working a job that does not suit me and married with children right now... totally fucked. Enduring these hard knocks bring strength and wisdom. They make you strong. No pressure, no diamonds. You have plenty of time to figure it out. Also, sociology is an incredibly interesting field of study. Maybe let it marinate for a while. It might grow on you.

I understand! But I think OP caught a glimpse of this "True knowing" and is wondering how to integrate it or if they even should. They experienced it once and have reflected on the implications of its integration and accurately intuited significant fallout from it. Also, I possibly suppressed this. It's been in the back of my mind for years now and I don't let it come up. If you think about, this suppression serves as an acclimation process. Maybe you suppressed it to some degree as well and if so, that might be what allowed you to ease into or embody it to the degree you have? I think that's what I did so it could be going on with others 🤷‍♂️.

@Keryo Koffa 😂😂😂 you are fuckin lunatic!

😂😂😂 You are hilarious. Logically, I agree with you. Experientially, I have to interact with people. If they found out I think they're not real, I would have a problem. I could ignore the problem and continue on in my enlightenment, but the figments will not forget. I am responsible for how I interact with them. it would negatively impact them if they found out. My family is too afraid to talk to me about not believing in Christ because they can't bare the thought of me burning in hell for all eternity. How do you think they'd react if I told them not only is hell not real, they are not real? 😂 Not good! I can't let them know this. I don't think it's wise. I might be wrong. This is just the best way I know to handle my situation. If someone doesn't have many figments who will be significantly impacted, then it might not be a concern.

@Nemra It's been huge for improving my thinking. Unfortunately, ChatGPT now seems almost useless for longer form inquiries or when you need back and forth collaboration. It's accuracy has been falling at a steady rate over the past few months. Fortunately, Claude has proven to be better than ChatGPT ever was, especially with the "Projects" feature. My AI utilization is spread across ChatGPT, Claude, Meta (free), and Perplexity (search engine, free). I use each for different things and sometimes I use all of them for thoroughness. Perplexity is often more efficient than Google when you need up-to-date info. It's nice. You can get really creative with ChatGPT's custom GPTs. Here are a couple examples: Sometimes, you just have a quick question and you don't want any fluff, no bullshit, Just the answer. For that, I created "Direct GPT". 😂 Then, I created another for quick, broad exploration. I call it "Term-cloud generator". The whole point is to feed it a term and quickly discover related concepts. This is HUGE for exploration. Example: https://i.imgur.com/prMLMzN.png You can create GPTs to explore broad or narrow. You can get REALLY creative with this. For Claude, I've been working on a "Project" which is kind of like a custom GPT in ChatGPT, but you can upload files with instructions for it. I've been working on a set of instructions for what I've poorly named "Holistic Understanding Framework (Concise version)". The idea is to feed it a term and it bring me up to speed on what it is as quickly as possible. This is best used for drilling into specific and complex topics. Example: I can provide the instructions for this prompt if anyone is interested.. just LMK. Also, Claude can do stuff like this: Lastly, it's really good for exploring your own psychology. I've often wondered why, as a child, I was utterly fascinated with certain things like booby traps in movies like Indiana Jones, The Goonies, etc,... or why I loved to sling two marbles into a bathtub and watch them interact. Now I know why! This could be its most powerful use case—to assist you in knowing yourself. Also, when you need to go back and forth with an AI, Claude is the best but I fear it's not going to last. I think AI companies gave us dirt cheap access to the best their tech can offer, but only for purposes of attracting business/enterprise clients. They've invested billions and aren't even close to being profitable. Offering their maximum level of performance for $20 a month isn't anywhere close to being viable, which is why ChatGPT doesn't do it anymore. Only the rich get that kind of power. I hope I'm wrong about this. The ways in which these tools can be utilized for higher thinking and understanding is INSANE. I can't go back.

I was once reading "Love is Letting Go of Fear" (1979 bestseller) and the author said this: Isn't that interesting?

Does a bear shit in the woods? 😂

Game theory 101 - When you're predicting what someone is up to, you don't look at what they say. You look at what their incentives are. Is tens or hundreds of millions of dollars considered an incentive? What about access to one of the most elite and exclusive social clubs on the planet? Would we call that an incentive? Many people would kill just for a 100th of a fraction of either one of these incentives. But not Lex. He's a cool dude! Intelligent analysis would NEVER ignore these variables and would ALWAYS account for them in. This is an embarrassing failure of epistemology. To forget about the elephant in the room, which is millions of fucking dollars, and the social status and social ladder climbing of one of the most elite and exclusive social clubs on the planet... throw ALLL that out, and let's just take the carefully crafted public image Lex shows you, use that exactly as it is, toss out all the elephants from the room, and use the crafted image to project onto reality that which Lex wants you to project onto reality, and call those projections reality. If this is your approach and you fancy yourself a rational, objective, unbiased thinker, here’s a good video:

Meditation has its place in conscious exploration. I'm like you though, not very interested in it. I think it depends on what you're trying to do. It seems like the best modality for gaining control over the body-mind. I'm skeptical of its enlightenment efficacy. Contemplation is king for developing intelligence, understanding, and learning how to mine for insights. I think I heard David Hawkins say something like "meditation is generally thought to be the ultimate practice for enlightenment but contemplation can be just as, if not more effective than traditional meditation". Something like that. The "mind" path isn't for everyone though. For example, I think "feelers" make up the majority of people on the spiritual path. They naturally prefer feeling over thinking and seem to usually have a low Need for Cognition, which makes mining for insights difficult. That said, thinking alone isn't enough. You need some sort of deep feeling thing. IDK how to explain it. Thought should be able to take you to beauty and you be impacted by it. If you can use your mind to find beauty and you are emotionally impacted, and that happens often or if you can do it on cue, I think that is indication that mind path is good. This is all just speculation based on my experience.

Very interesting story. Thanks for sharing! I'm no spiritual master but I've dealt with this dilemma a few times. My strategy was to ignore it and never go back until I'm ready. Thinkin' back, I think this dilemma was the main reason I backed away from enlightenment. I wasn't prepared to deal with the fallout from stepping into it. I think the first question to answer is, is this something you want to embody or not? It obviously has many implications for not only your life, but the lives of those imaginary figments involved. 😂 It would be awkward, indeed, to be in relationship with your fellow humans, family, and friends, seeing them as non-existent figments of Shiva's imagination. People will not like that you've reduced them to nothing, so there will be fallout from that. If you want to embody it, here's a spur-of-the-moment contemplation I would use to comfort myself if I had to deal with this right now. I'm not sure if it will be useful, but it's the best I've got: They're not real I am also not real What is real? The whole thing is real I do love the thing, and they are part of the thing. They make up the thing The same as the whole thing is not just nothing, they too are not just nothing They are just as beautiful as the thing They are the thing This might make you gaze at them with a loving smile, which will make them feel weirded out. If they ask what is wrong with you, do not answer "you are not real" 😂 Let us know how it goes!

I haven't jumped, I've only hypothesized. It might be accurate to characterize Lex as "wanting peace and love for humanity", but his words and mannerisms are not sufficient evidence for me to do that. At worst, he's still a good guy (probably). It's just that I think it's possibly/probably erroneous/overly simplistic to characterize him as someone who wants "peace and love for the world", just as it would be to characterize a Christian televangelists as someone who wants peace and love for the world. If there's something more fundamental that is driving them, it is a bastardization of peace and love, is it not? If I asked you to tell me, fundamentally, what is a Christian televangelists, and you delivered to me: "Decent people who are a bit naive but their intentions are good and they're likely a net-positive." and omitted the elephant in the room that is their self-deception, that would draw my ire. Of course your statement might be true, but it omits important details. Maybe you have details that I don't. I'm taking my ball and going home.

It is indeed in a good place. Even to pay lip service to peace and love is better than not. He's probably a net positive for the world and he may even turn out to be a HUGE net positive. But this has nothing to do with assessing the known variables. I'm not calling him evil or bad. Like, rain isn't bad. Can I call rain, rain, without being told I'm pessimistic?

Thanks, I appreciate that bro!

I don't think he's full of shit on that, I just think it's ok to ask what is driving him. And I have not made a leap, I have it as a likely hypothesis. You believe he's primarily driven by peace and love... but I have not made that leap and will not make that leap without sufficient reason. You are operating on bias here, not me. I have no reason to assume the members of the most popular and exclusive club on the planet are primarily motivated by peace and love. And I don't think you do either. As such, to me, it's an open question as to what is driving him. When I see an authority such as yourself making a claim like this, I get confused.

Well, I said "IMO", but, how do you know what I can and can't know? When I was 4 I saw a wall of books and had a spiritual experience. My Need for Cognition might be beyond your understanding of what is normal for a mind. I consumed more information yesterday than the average person will all year. Not factual consumption, conceptual. Deep shit. I had 10 deep insights into human psychology before lunch time, and that was just yesterday, before lunch. Do you know what it's like to be born intellectually independent, thus, minimizing bias? Do you know what it's like to naturally value the truth, thus minimizing bias even further? Do you know what it's like to have sufficient confidence in your cognition, such that to be wrong is a good thing because that's how you become right? Feel free to show me any error I make, and I will earnestly consider it and correct it. I have been wrong countless times before and am not afraid to be wrong now. Have you ever played poker? You have to make lots of decisions. You will be wrong many times and those errors can be analyzed if you have the courage to ask "why was I wrong?".

@Leo Gura I don't have an agenda for Lex to share. I just don't like when the most fundamental things about an item are obfuscated, especially when that obfuscation turns vice into virtue. Also, I have not said his approach is detrimental, I just pointed to his bias. Whether it's good to push back or not, I do not know and I don't care because it's not my business, nor something I can change. The point of observing and analyzing him is not to judge or finger point. It's to simply understand what is going on.

I agree with all that, including his right to conduct himself how he wants. 100%. I might be projecting my own communication style onto you but not sure. If someone's primary impulse is material gain, with peace and love as secondary, I'd never characterize their core motivation as peace and love without clearly qualifying that distinction. The pursuit of worldly things more fundamentally shapes their actions and decisions. Framing their guiding principle as peace and love, without acknowledging its most likely secondary nature, misrepresents their behavior. To me, this risks elevating a non-primary influence to primary status and distorts understanding, but like I said, this might just be a difference in thinking/communication style. When we're debating someone's potential impact on society, it's important to dig into their real intentions, not just the ones they say they have. There was this study on Prius buyers - turns out their main motivation wasn't actually protecting the environment, but to signal virtue. We need to know the actual drivers (no pun intended) if we're going to observe and assess accurately.

Maybe they're just skeptical about his desire for peace and love because when they look on the surface, the first thing they see is a rich guy who just so happens to be best friends with two of the most influential people on the planet, Rogan and Musk. This "want" Lex has is highly unusual and odd for his station. People are right to be skeptical and if you're not or have not at least worked through the skepticism, you have a huge fucking blindspot, and it's weird. IMO, Lex believes he wants peace and love, but I think he's thoroughly self-deceived. Of course, he wants those, but he wants the lifestyle of the rich and famous first. You seem to be reluctant to touch upon the self-deception mechanisms that are potentially, and IMO, very likely in play here. I don't think Lex is a bad guy. I just think he's living the high life on the lifestyle brand of "peace and love". To assert and characterize the primary intentions of Lex and Musk as "wanting peace and love and what's best for humanity", just seems like a total failure of sense-making. TOTAL FAILURE! That's what galls me!