Apparition of Jack

@The Blind Sage Red respects confidence and self-control, so if you can display you have both of those Red will be convinced to listen to you. Of course, since Red is full of itself to begin with you have to be very upfront and brutal with them, but do so in such a way that doesn't threaten their ego too much and gives them room to understand that what you're saying is wise and true. It's a very difficult balancing act and requires a lot of discipline and courage, which is why so many people can't do it effectively and end up feeling intimidated by Red.

@Leo Gura Come on man, you can’t leave us hanging like that...

@Leo Gura Do you think paying police officers more would help reduce a lot of the stress and insecurity that causes them to be so ready to resort to excessive violence? In the sense that even if they're putting themselves in harm's way, at least they know they're getting decent compensation for it, so don't have to worry about bills / paying for family needs / etc. I've always found it slightly absurd how we pay the people who prevent the physical destruction of society (cops, nurses, etc.) so little, considering how crucial their work is and how stressful these jobs can be. I've met a few nurses in my life for instance and they're all very compassionate and hard working people, but I always feel sorry for them because they always have some sort of sob story about not being able to make rent or having to look after sick family members and so on. I imagine for cops it's similar (not saying cops are the same as nurses but they have similar-ish lines of work and come from similar pay brackets.) If a cop who had to deal with violent criminals every day at least knew his daughter would be able to afford college no problem, would he be as likely to use excessive force?

In his Conscious Politics series Leo talks about promotion and creation of a singular world government as part of his policy ideas, and it's been something I've been mulling over for the last while. Like many people I used to think such an idea was just a pie-in-the-sky fantasy that sounds nice on paper but ultimately wouldn't work and would cause more problems than it solves, but as I've been increasing my consciousness and looking at world issues on a deeper level, I've come to see the wisdom in such an idea. Think about it - as we move forward in the 21st century, the processes of globalisation, technology, immigration and so on are only going to increase, not decrease. Yes there will be obvious backlashes to these things, as we've already seen to some extent, but the conditions are such that the set-up for increasing global integration is more or less inevitable at this point. Plus, the collective issues the world faces - climate change, income inequality, national tensions - need to have broad, inter-national co-operation in order to solve, not just local governments trying to fix these things piecemeal. Not only that, but, based on what I've observed, a unified "global culture" is already starting to emerge, depending on the places you live and the people you interact with. You could meet, for instance, a woman born in India, raised in Spain, educated in the UK and now living with a Japanese husband in the US, and it will feel completely natural. The old idea of "solid," distinct nation-states that served humanity in the 19th and 20th centuries is starting to lose its cultural hegemony, IMO. So then let's talk about the benefits of increasing government integration between nations. If nations start to come together and operate in a more unified manner, the ability to distribute resources where they're needed will increase massively. For instance, if Canada and the US unite, you could drastically improve the health standards in Alberta by getting rid of the expensive taxes on imported medical technology from the US, which would do a lot to reduce the rates of cancer, heart disease, and so on in that province. Or if France and Germany united, then access to well-built German electric cars would improve dramatically for French drivers, which would do a lot to reduce emissions for France. Plus, if we are to get serious about space travel and colonising other planets, then the only realistic way to do that would be to have as much co-operation between countries as possible, and to share the most amount of resources, time, expertise, etc. possible, because such an undertaking will require these things on a level that a single nation alone wouldn't be able to accomplish. Another benefit would be the obvious reduced risk of war and conflict between nations. If, say, eventually India and Pakistan unite, then the threat of armed conflict between those two countries - as well as the endless blaming each other from both sides, and all the cultural tensions that exist between them - would disappear, as instead arguments over land and resources become mediated through the unified India-Pakistan authority, rather than through trying to negotiate between two different authorities. Of course there are downsides to this too. As national identity is still a key part of most people's psyches, telling people that they will now live in a nation with people who (for the time being) have a distinct language and culture to them won't go over well with a lot of people. Plus, the fact of the matter is that distinct local cultures will be hurt by this - for instance, using the France-Germany scenario, French people will begin to see more German beer, more German words, more German songs in the places they live, and in Germany people will begin to see more French wine, French words, French songs and so on. The ideas of "Frenchness" and "Germanness" would get muddied, and for a lot of people that will seem very alien and confusing, especially in the short term. But the benefits of this over the long-term would be that people begin to feel a sense of connectedness with people they previously didn't - after 50 years of France and Germany being one country, a person born to French parents would no longer see a person born to German parents as an "other", and would at that point probably share the same values, ideas, and even language (a French-German hybrid.) Plus, the two cultures coming together would create benefits too - Germans would learn to appreciate taking life easy and leisurely from French people, and French people would learn punctuality and industriousness from the Germans, which would improve the lives of both peoples. Or, to put it in other words, this new French-German synthesis would be greater than the sum of its parts. Now, obviously such ideas are still relatively far off in the future from happening in real life, but I think for us here at Actualized.org it's a good thing to start thinking about, since it'll help us clearly navigate the direction the world is headed. Prior to WW1 and 2, the idea of an international organisation that works to prevent wars and promote harmony wouldn't have been possible - the two most powerful countries in the world before this - the British Empire and the Germany Empire - would have never agreed to solve their disputes through an impartial international organistion, especially since they had such great success previously using force of arms instead, and the result was the two most destructive wars in human history. But then, the UN was created, and the mechanisms it utilises has helped prevent the two newest most powerful countries on the planet - the USA and the USSR - from going to war with each other. Instead, the UN helped the USA and USSR resolve its disputes diplomatically instead of military, and ended up presiding over the most peaceful and prosperous time in human history (despite some wars in hotspot regions during this time.) So if a Unified World Government seems unlikely or impractical, then just remember so did the UN, and the massive period of peace and prosperity it created. Yes, there will be problems with greater international integration, and no one is saying it will be an easy or straightforward process, but for the sake of humanity's long-term evolution and consciousness, I think it's actually one of the most realistic and practical things we can help create. What is everyone's thoughts on this?

Are you sure that’s real? Obviously the reduced human activity will allow nature to slowly come back, but that’s a huge amount of Australia - which is very sparsely populated - growing back in such a short time. I think it’s fake.

Hi all, hope all are staying safe and well in these confusing times. Time for another thread. In my last thread I talked about how the effects of this virus will represent a shift away from left-brain masculine dominant being towards more right-brain feminine dominant being [or rather a synthesis of the two.] In this thread I'd like to talk about how this virus will break down a lot of our anthropocentric assumptions about the nature of the world and society. In short, anthropocentrism is the ideological assumption that humanity is fundamentally the most important thing about nature, and/or that we are essentially in total control of the world around us, using our minds and our technology. This ideology gained the most traction during the industrial revolution, when it seemed like there was no limit to the amount of control over the natural world we could achieve, compared to earlier eras when we were seemingly more at the mercy of nature. Since that time, this assumption has only gotten stronger and stronger, so much so that it's now seen as basically an undeniable fact of life for most people on earth, and especially most people in modern urbanised countries. While we have obviously had to deal with periods of drought, extreme weather, and so on in this time period, it always seemed like we had enough money and the right tools to fix these problems without major social and economic upheavals. Even the modern Green [in environmentalist terms not SD terms] parties, as beautiful and progressive as they are, still err on the side of talking about protecting nature for the sake of humanity's ability to live in it, rather than protecting nature for it's own sake. Perhaps the greatest encapsulation of this sort thinking is the 1930s Diego Rivera mural ''Man, Controller of the Universe'', which I'll post at the bottom of this thread. The problem with this assumption, of course, is that it ignores just how dependent on nature we actually are for everything [I mean, your bones and organs are just rearranged plant and animal life essentially] which causes all sorts of mass illusions about politics, society, etc. In its most egregious forms, it can be stuff like driving a big, toxic truck that shoots black smoke into the air with a bumper stick that says ''Get Lost Hippies!", or digging mines for fossil fuels that will contribute greenhouse gas emissions knowingly, and so on. In it's more subtle versions, it can simply be an alienation from the natural processes of life, instead assuming that whatever ecological problems we have can just be fixed with ''enough technology'' or ''enough funding'', rather than a restructuring of the basic ways we operate in and view the planet. So what we are seeing today, then, is an end to this very simple yet very widespread and frankly very ignorant assumption about humanity and its place in the world. For humanity to really make sense of this pandemic and to move forward in rebuilding when its done, we are going to have to wake up to the fact that we are not, in fact, ''controllers of the universe'', but instead are just one aspect of it; are part of a greater, inter-connected whole that has to always be taken into consideration when planning our politics, economics, societies, even our music, movies, and so on. And just because I don't like to leave people without anything practical, here's a basic tool you can use in order to navigate these trying times. If you find yourself freaking out, if you find yourself feeling trapped or catastrophising or anything like that, no matter where you are, simply do this - close your eyes and breathe in, being consciously aware that what you are breathing is Nature, and not, in fact, anything man-made. Visualise strongly somewhere in nature you've been. Visualise the sights, sounds, smells, animals, plants, atmosphere, and just sit there in this pleasant environement. You might do this for 30 seconds or 30 minutes, for however long it takes. Notice how despite having no government, no president, no corporations or ideology or economic system, it is in complete, loving balance. Notice that you feel calm and loved in it, despite it not granting you legal rights, or air conditioning, or delivery pizza, or anything else we take for granted for comfort. Notice that this calmness and love is a fundamental aspect of reality which can never leave you. Do this for as long as it takes to let the negative emotions ailing you wash over you, and awake with clearer eyes. You'll have calmed down and recentered yourself. Anyway that's all from me today. I think I might make these threads a regular thing, if people want me to keep posting them. They help me make sense of this situation and I hope that others can take something from them too. This is a time we all have to reach out to one another in order to pull us through it. Here's the mural BTW, don't be like these guys:

Such devilry!! Your ego can't handle being told to go against it's conditioning, so you lash out like a cornered rat and do utterly stupid things like this. The solution - go against your conditioning anyway. Accept that lockdown is what you have to do right now. Will it be frustrating? Will it be boring? Will you feel like a cuck, a loser, a nerd, a simp, for being told what to do for the good of the collective? YES! But that's precisely the point. That's Self-Actualization in a nutshell. It was always meant to be difficult, because that's where all the growth comes from. See this time as a source of growth. In fact, right now is like a fucking goldmine in opportunities to increase awareness, development, Love, etc. You'd be a fool to miss out on it

I feel this is going to be bigger than both of them.

First, I hope everyone is staying healthy and keeping themselves occupied, especially as countries move towards lockdown. This will be an interesting experience for all of us to say the least. If there was ever a chance to meditate, do art, self-actualise, start a blog, catch up on movies, now is the time. Anyway, moving onto my main point. One way to look at this situation is essentially the global shift from left-brain, Masculine-dominant consciousness towards a more right-brain, Feminine dominant consciousness. We in the modern world - and especially in the modern West - are very masculine-dominant in our outlook and activities. We value control, progress, delineation, movement, industrialism, individualism - all very masculine-heavy aspects. However, what this Covid virus will expose to us is the aspect of reality that is instead about being receptive/dependent (instead of in control), cycles of time, connection, stillness, environmentalism, collectivism - things we have either suppressed or ignored for a long time now and is now being made clear to us. Because this is the basic truth - as much as one can stock up on food, take supplements, follow the news, practice social distancing, and so on (and I highly encourage everyone to do all these things, except maybe the news part too much), there's still only so much you can do, and odds are you, or someone close to you, will end up catching the virus anyway. This is nothing to say of the collective consequences of this - despite our best efforts, we will have a recession, politics will be shaken up, old ways of thinking will die, public institutions will fail to meet the demands, you catch my drift. I'm not saying this to make you afraid or angry, quite the opposite actually. I'm saying this because the way to be able to navigate and come out of these collective processes we will go through is to get acquainted with the Feminine. Instead of compulsively reaching for the news app every time you feel a negative emotion about the virus, invoke the Feminine and do a piece of art on how you're feeling instead (bored, nervous, sad, doesn't matter). Instead of getting neurotic about every little thing you eat, invoke the Feminine and trust that so long as you are healthy and have been taking dietary precautions, your body will do the rest of the work. Instead of catastrophising about the end of days, about people fighting over scraps and nations falling into anarchy, invoke the Feminine, let yourself experience these emotions, and trust that the world is more secure than that and the way forward for humanity will be shown, so long as you let the Feminine help you let go of your obsession for control. Also, I say this a lot in my posts, but cultivating Love and reaching out to others is always a valuable and uplifting thing to do, since it binds your being to another and helps take you out of whatever internal distress you were feeling. The Feminine thrives in these connections. How you imagine the Feminine doesn't really matter IMO. I visualise her as Sophia, the Goddess/Spirit of Wisdom that the ancient philosophers, gnostics and Christians have devoted themselves to for millennia. For you it might be another Goddess, maybe St. Mary, or Gaia, or Shakti, or Tara. It might just be "the Feminine" aspect of God/Truth/Reality without having to put too much labels on it. Maybe it could be your Anima, if you're a guy and are into Jungian psychology. Be creative, whatever one appeals to you the most - however you conceive of the Feminine aspect of your True Self/God/the Universe is 100% fine if it works for you. Also, how you interact with her is up to you to. I know Leo doesn't speak too highly of bhakti but if you're so aesthetically-inclined, a shrine to the Feminine might help keep your mind grounded during uncertain times, so long as you don't start mistaking it as something "outside of" yourself (she is just You, after all. Just a part of You that you might not be familiar with). I know I have a little shrine to her in my room. Or, you might just "feel" her when you need guidance/support/wisdom and leave it at that. Maybe you could watch YouTube videos by wise women who speak with a very truthful and reassuring energy. Again, whatever works for you is good. If you do all this and let the process unfold, many wonderful things could happen. I wish to reiterate that I'm not saying any of this is a replacement to doing the nitty-gritty Masculine work that needs done, nor is it a solution to whatever problems arise, just that it is the emotional, psychological and spiritual framework we will increasingly have to get used to in order to give us the individual and collective space and security we need to deal with this thing. The Feminine is the aspect of Reality that loves, accepts and connects unconditionally, no matter what is going on on the surface. She will be here throughout this thing entirely.

Listen man, it's good that you don't need external circumstances to get you to self-actualise, but you're still very much dependent on those external circumstances regardless. You say something like WW3 might bring beneficial change in the long run, which is a possibility, but in the short-run it would involve a lot of chaos and suffering, even for yourself. You might tell yourself "I'm in a safe area, I won't be affected" or "I'm self-actualising, I don't want to get involved", but things like wars and diseases are bigger than any one single man or woman. Odds are way more likely that you will be affected, and affected for the much worse. This is what I'm saying - are you prepared to suffer through the hardships that the things will bring to the earth? Because the things you're talking about will force you to suffer those hardships.

This is Stage Orange in a nutshell IMO, everything from the desire to make a lot of money, to playing devil’s advocate and making fun of traditions, and indulging in materialistic hedonism:

@jimwell Are you prepared to die for society to evolve? Because that’s what you’re asking of other people.

@YoungSingh I have it on good authority that the virus will last 400 billion years, will mutate to turn every victim's skin into a shade of neon green, and is actually a cosmic joke sent by Loki the norse trickster god to get us all to buy overwhelming amounts of toilet paper

This has me wondering if this is the sort of language he should've used from the very start. I understand that his rhetoric of political revolution appealed to many disenfranchised people, myself included, and you can't say it hasn't given him a lot of clout, but it seems to be hitting a solid wall in how far it would take him. Perhaps if he had used the language of moderation and sensibility from the start to promote his social policies he could've picked up more of the vote. But then, at the same time, if he HAD used more moderate language, would he have built up the base that he did? Would he have managed to shift the conversation so much? Would the journalists and media even listened to him if he hadn't been so standoffish and instead tried to present himself as just like every other politician? He may have been easier to ignore. Maybe voters would've liked his ideas but not enough people would've heard of him. It's hard to say. The primaries are still ongoing so we'll see if he can get the nom.

@Roy Uruguay seems to be an oasis of humanistic ideas in a sea of a lot of dehumanising corruption. I remember one of their presidents refused to drive a fancy car and took on a very cheap salary because his loyalty was to the people, not money. I could be wrong but the things I've heard from that country tend to be positive.

@Hansu The purpose of this is symbolic, not pragmatic. Clearly no one believes that a single politician cutting their salary is going to make any significant contributions to the state budget, not even her. The point is to make people aware that politicans are paid so much in the first place, especially when compared to the people they're supposedly trying to represent. And it's working - the very fact that we're having a discussions about this is proof that awareness around politicians salaries is being generated, and the hypocrisy of earning too much while trying to serve the people is being highlighted. It alone won't do everything, but it's an important step in building the energy needed to get rid of corrupt money interests in politics and making the political process more human and holistic for everyone.

If I had to posit a guess, it would be because cubism, expressionism etc. was a reaction of the stuffy formalism of the stage Blue society it came form, and was used to express things like individualism, self-identity, one's own passion, the absurdity of excessive formalism such that was found in classical art, and so on. It's not really Green because it's not expressing feelings of love, humanity, ecology, etc and its not Turquoise because it wasn't really about mystical insights and oneness, although it may have had some Green elements to it.

To me "The Invention of Lying" is a perfect encapsulation of stage Orange attitudes religion/spirituality. In the movie Ricky Gervais' character is the first human in history to be able to lie, and so he uses this ability to "make up" stories of God, the afterlife and so on.

It exists, but I personally feel one of the problems with it is simply a matter of language - saying that White Privilege exists is accurate, but a lot of people will respond negatively to the phrase, because they don't understand what it actually means and they have will become defensive claiming that they don't experience privilege in much of their own lives, which would be accurate for a lot of them (for instance, being poor.) I prefer the term "privilege of Whiteness", since rather than saying some immutable thing about you (being white) is privileged, rather one of the factors that you possess (having whiteness) is privileged, which is a much less controversial thing to accept. White Privilege - or Privilege of Whiteness - is the phenomenon that when stripped of all other elements (class, health, etc.), someone with whiteness will be unfairly advantaged over someone with blackness, or someone of colour, and so on. Yes, a poor, working class white person might not feel privileged in their day-to-day life of poverty and financial stress, but that white person is far less likely to have a negative interaction with a police offer than the exact same person if instead they were black, for instance. Of course, many white people aren't aware of this, and due to self-bias assume that their cordial interactions with police officers are the "norm" for everybody else, so they will not accept that they get treated better than others based on one aspect of their being. Of course, the problem with getting too caught up in white privilege dynamics is that, if not met with Yellow-level integral thinking, it can become an ideology unto itself, and people can build up whole worldviews around taking down white privilege and seeing every interaction through that specific lens (when another lens may be more useful), and can create an "us vs. them" mentality. For instance, it's true that Bill Gates benefited from white privilege in his quest to become super wealthy and develop a revolutionary technology company - (would Microsoft have taken off if it was headed by a couple of black or Latino college students instead? Perhaps not, and even less likely so during the early days of the 80s and 90s when it was being founded) - but does that mean that every bit of hard work and personal insight that Bill Gates used in order to manifest Microsoft is now discredited because he had this one particular area of unfair advantage? I would say no. Bill Gates is still a visionary in his own right, ignoring the race he was born into. Honestly it's a complex subject, and I don't want to dismiss the very real concerns that non-white people have with it. It's still a very real phenomena and it does create a lot of social injustice that doesn't otherwise have to exist. Being aware that exists and and taking conscious steps to counter-act it is very beneficial, but it doesn't have to become an all-encompassing worldview too. There are greater dynamics in society, politics, economics, etc. than just whiteness vs. non-whiteness, but it is still an important one that has to be considered. EDIT: Just to clarify, the solution to solving it is, as with most other things in life, increasing consciousness and cultivating Love / Truth / Awareness and so on. As you grow and develop in consciousness, you will begin to identify with more and more of the world, and you will begin to recognise that any benefits or injustices other people experience due to their race are intimately tied with your own well-being. From that period onwards, the dynamics of privilege will become increasingly untenable to you and you will want to do whatever you can to help elevate society beyond them.

You know, I just had a thought as to might be healthy Red. A self-disciplined bouncer or bodyguard might make a good example of Red. Someone who doesn't necessarily have qualms overstepping boundaries in order to achieve their goal but isn't necessarily vindictive or vicious about. They will be restrained and respectful and will resort to violence only as a last resort, but when they do there's no hesitation is seeing the fight to its completion.

I've thought about this, and to me an example of healthy stage Red might be something like a journalist breaking the law in order to get a scoop that exposes widespread corruption. The journalist themself might be at Green, but that desire to expose the truth no matter the legal consequences to me would be them utilising a healthy Red aspect. I'm not sure what a healthy example of someone centered at Red would look like though. From the POV of our modern societies that moved up to Orange and even Green Red can seem violent and backwards, but I'm sure there are examples of it being healthy and useful. Maybe a tribal leader in India who has seen their tribe succumb to poverty and in-fighting due to exploitation / discrimination uses their wits and cunning to bring the disparate parts of the tribe together and push for their rights on the legal stage might be an example of healthy Red. I don't know.

Was the Black Death also an effort to move the world towards a cashless society?

I just watched the video to see what all the fuss is about. I really don't see the issue. From what I can tell it's poking fun at the structural prejudice against women in the high-flying world of achievers and doers, which absolutely exists. If you want to rise up in the corporate world, or become a famous director, or become a producer, or anything else like that, then being a woman is a hindrance to you. In this regard I think the message makes a fair point, since it is frustrating for the countless hard-working women out there who find their dreams harder to manifest due to structural sexism. If there's one thing you could criticise this song for it would be that it promotes code-Orange success/status/wealth as something desirable to achieve, but considering this is the pop music industry we're talking about then this is par for the course. It's really here nor there with regards to the controversy.

@Leo Gura My bad You've got me hooked on him!

Anand is at it again! He spells out in very clear terms what the 2020 election means and why billionaires don't grasp what's happening on the ground, as well as the necessity for a hybrid of both capitalism and socialism.