possibilities

People think that comparing an ants life with a humans as a pretty extreme comparison but its really not when you break it down like this. Like you wouldn't choose Adolf Hitler over the ant if you knew for a fact that everything that was said about him was true and that the right decision was indeed to end his life. A trickier question to workout though if you really want a challenge is the decision to drop the atomic bombs on Nagasaki and Hiroshima, because not only were many human lives destroyed, many animals and insects died as well along with a lot of pollution being caused among other ripple effects. THESE are the kinds of decisions you hope you never have to make but you got to contemplate them if you want to reap the benefits of contemplation here.

Its pretty simple to figure out. The human. If you are given time to consider the idea though, like find out more about the person and discover their propensities, then it depends on that outcome. If the outcome is negative, then the ant. Who knows, perhaps the person is planning on murdering good people, so if you could work that out then you'd know who to protect in this situation. Ants like humans, when in the right environment can create a really positive impact. Put in the wrong environment though then those odds go down quite significantly and generally in proportion to the lack of compatibility between the person/ant and the environment.

Not everything is relative - I argue against that here: https://www.quora.com/Does-moral-relativism-offer-a-coherent-and-plausible-description-of-morality/answer/Florence-Rivers Would be happy to elaborate. All in all it seems that moral relativism would be highly misguided if it wasn’t grounded in biological norms. Biological norms are like physics, they don’t just suddenly change (meaning they’re not at all relative unless you have a timescale of millions of years to take evolutionary changes into account). Relativists I’ve found are misguided on this point, they’re analogous to atheists in the atheism versus theism debates. There’s a lack of balance I notice there. @Leo Gura P.S - I forgot in that comment I said I was going to elaborate more, of which I haven’t, so I’ll get to that as soon as I can.

It’s all just about compatibility (which can vary overtime). I don’t understand your situation enough but I don’t see any situation in which a relationship is intrinsically bad between two compatible people. To me at present a true relationship is merely the exchange of oxytocin, followed by stories and summed up by sentimentality (regarding created memories). It’s the nature of a pair bonding relationship. They can be extremely rewarding, true and good but then for unstable relationships the opposite is also true, the latter case reflecting the dark side of oxytocin. So if anything, again I don’t know your situation well enough of course but I’d avoid black/white thinking, judgement, lack of critical thinking and lack of openness. Peace and all the best

It really depends on the level of development of the people, their personality profile and the purpose behind the endeavour. Maybe it’s to save mankind, in which case it might not matter how developed they are or how different their personalities may be, they should probably do it.

This may help you @Nivsch (in relation to various anxieties). https://www.quora.com/What-are-some-exercises-to-build-courage/answer/Florence-Rivers This is a topic I will try and write more about on my Quora in the coming months to help others more. All the best. Body related exercises are probably some you’ve already heard of: - Wim Hof method - weight training - cold showers All of these will likely help a lot, especially in conjunction. Believe in your future potential.

Exactly @Cudin, to me it seems like people underestimate the impact of varied environment and individual genetic profile in the context of psychopathy. A psychopath raised in a Buddhist temple is going to be very different to one raised in Wall Street environment. Two psychopaths, one male and one female that are the exact opposite to one another in every other way genetically will also turn out very differently when raised in the exact same environment, say if they were either BOTH raised in a Buddhist temple or BOTH raised in a Wall Street environment. These are very important nuances to take into consideration for me, being too general is like prescribing medication without listing the side effects and including warnings that are important for people to read if they have other dispositions that lead them more likely to incorrectly use the medication (or perhaps they shouldn't be using the medication at all based on their propensities that leave them more at risk). The environment of the Buddhist temple also has implications for peoples over generalisations here as it pertains to the SD model (in the context of psychopathy).

Can you please elaborate @Shadowraix ? I think that's an interesting observation

@Skanzi Its important to differentiate between genetic demographic and cultural demographic, psychopaths fall into the former category and sociopaths as well as narcissists fall into the latter category where they have expressed characteristics brought about by environmental influences (I've brought these two extra subtypes up of the "Dark Triad" because well, they're all a part of that spectrum, that is, "The Dark Triad of Personality" - you can punch that into google if you like). The clear difference here is that a psychopath was always going to be a psychopath but a sociopath or a narcissist, with the right environmental variables, may never have developed those or enough of the symptoms to be classified as such. All psychopaths have something in common, they all have extremely similar genetic heritage there, however like narcissists and sociopaths they're going to all express themselves extremely differently only overlapping on those core characteristics. Be careful not to confuse correlation with causation (i.e. believing that psychopaths think in terms of survival of the fittest would be evidence of this). In short: if you want to achieve accuracy on this subject you have to ignore most of what you've learned from culture (a lot of misguided notions) and instead examine the latest data on psychopathy, neuroscience and personality. Assumptions on this subject are riddled with error given how poorly culture represents the related ideas. For exaple not all psychopaths are intelligent of course, in fact many could be below some national average, further if we say were able to gather all the brains on Earth and then compare psychopaths across everyone who knows, maybe it would show them to be less able. If the opposite were true then perhaps there might be some cross correlation occurring, meaning for a certain demographic it proved a survival advantage and in saying so was passed onto the next generation among (certain demographic) intelligent people. But for me there's literally no need to believe this, I would have to do more research, moreover I could simulate it occurring in some instances already under some hypothetical conditions, like say there's a class of psychopaths in the US that breed in their own environment (not genetic inbreeding just cultural inbreeding) but this has a few flaws. Firstly, how do you get two psychopaths to fall in love and have children? That would be impossible as psychopaths are incapable of expressing and feeling genuine love. For the sake of argument, the entire relationship would have to be completely transactional for the couple and there aren't too many plausible scenarios where I could see that occurring enough times for a class of people. That would be pretty far fetched.

@Mezanti Of course you'll have to keep in mind that you're not asking this question on a really reliable forum so you'll receive answers ranging from those that are informed to those that are not. I can assure you however that I am pretty well versed and would happy to engage in further questioning if needed. I doubt much others here could say the same or at the very least perform to the same level if called upon. There's a lot of misunderstanding about both SD and psychopathy as a model, mix misunderstanding of two models together and you only get even further away from the truth, of which the model was meant to be at least predictive of. A good analogy in these situations is ask a blind man the way out of a cave he's never ventured out of and you'll only get more lost, ask two blind men at the same time and you'll only get not only more lost but more confused in the process. Its of course why we ask doctors to get a medical degree. Even though we still experience this problem in the medical profession (so we're bound to experience it on a forum like this - we still have plenty of plastic surgery botches, misdiagnoses, wrong prescriptions and so on for example) it was far worse in earlier periods of history. I mean can you imagine the dissonance some patients experienced!

Also psychopathy is just "lack of affective empathy", that's literally pretty much it (in a nutshell, there's more to it though but that to me would be the clear differentiator). Lack of affective empathy leads to many other consequences that we take for granted. SD doesn't have neuroscientific grounding, so an improved model could easily be made if well developed neuroscientists very familiar with SD or people in SD had a high grounding in neuroscience spent the necessary amount of time to create one. There's no reason why a psychopath wouldn't be able to go through various high levels of ego transformation (beyond what you'd normally think or assume) actually in light of understanding the flaws of SD, a flaw in SD or any model is a window of opportunities for all the things that fit through that gap, in this case, the growth of a psychopath which is an important thing to imagine to develop not only ones thoughts on what a psychopath is, firstly its merely another model with its own flaws, but what the limits of ego development are as well as how different sub-types of 'personality' uniquely fit into that realisation.

Leo is right. Venn diagram of various things from psychopathy to MBTI overlap onto spiral dynamics in terms of working out how other things fit in context with this model, which isn't perfect. Cross sections make closer approximations, but again, even then its not perfect. Overlaps here describe sub-expressions, meaning the kinds of expressions of a particular SD stage in the context of other models. There's no reason they couldn't be stage Orange, linear progression from stage to stage as far as I'm aware is something people are assuming as a good rule of thumb as opposed to an absolute truth. For the sake of talking about it, a perfect model of ego development would need to be axiomatic from the context of working out and organising what reality is, at least from the perspective of our perception. This would then allow us to make predictions about not just where humans or a human may fall from a spiral dynamics point of view but where literally any living thing falls including potential future evolutions of humans (based on the assumptions of that evolution and what underpins it).

I don't see any logical perspective that can validate a "non-biased position", so bias is merely one of degrees as opposed to whether there is or isn't bias, what matters more is the reflection on the kind of bias that is present. This contemplation will afford one with a greater opportunity at discovering the utility of their introspections by comparing their inner world with the actuality of what reality is presenting them relative to their capabilities. Thus there is no "objective truth" under this way of thinking, rather there is merely levels of compatibility or incompatibility that exists between what one has conceived in their mind and the feedback that reality is presenting them. To the degree there is discrepancy between what one perceives in the feedback of reality (which is arriving at our senses in every moment) and their conceptions, if intelligence is functioning well adaptation (i.e. re-conceptualisation) should follow. Here's a short diagram I just created to briefly explain myself here. Otherwise feel free to checkout these three posts I've made which relate to this subject and yes, Florence Rivers is my Quora username: Regarding the following post - if you want to cut to the chase scroll down to "We enter into this existence generally from our mother’s womb having little to no knowledge." which is where I begin to describe the real work of personal development, which is the capacity to simulate or rather, mentally time travel. Its a subject I'll expand on more in the future as its a deep and very important subject that many painfully neglect. My first post: https://www.quora.com/What-type-of-book-should-I-read-for-personal-development/answer/Florence-Rivers And the next post: What does it mean to understand? Finally the third post - the game being created in all of our heads (its own deep topic):

Go!

As far as I've reasoned to date, those humans that think of morality only think such because they have empathy. ZERO other reason. An anaconda doesn't contemplate the ramifications of its actions while chowing down a small mammal simply because it can't and even if it possessed great intelligence, if it possessed zero empathy it would probably only become a more prudent killer. Humans have so many bullshit arguments, discussions, feelings, thoughts and so on regarding this subject simply because they do not understand why they even ponder the idea of morality. Once you know the why though for things like this regarding human behaviour you get a small insight into the sheer nonsense humans come up with and spend time on; this places said individuals at a distinct advantage given how ignorant humans are with their actions even if they already comprehend this idea. Ideas are useless a lot of the time if they're not being used to radically alter ones behaviour. To clarify though, morality is different to ethics, intelligence will always come up with ethics in this reality but its empathy that comes up with morality.

Hey @kieranperez I've developed a technique that I believe would definitely be very useful for treating the symptoms of ADHD, its still in experimental mode and will take some months to reliably validate things here but if you're interested in trying it out just shoot me a message and I'll help out. Peace

There probably needs to be a reappraisal of what people understand themselves to be so they don’t beat themselves up about it. Regardless as to you look at it, consciousness requires governance in a cause and effect reality such as our own, this is where inner conscious politics is important. At the inception of experience a conceptual identity is formed between consciousness and the world about the world, as sentience advances it is has a greater propensity and ability to form an idea about oneself, this single seed is the beginning of an inner identity which paves the way forward for psychological development, for better or for worse. Because it is difficult to become conscious of the ideas and corresponding identities we create in this interaction, we are not conscious of the inner maps we travel to navigate how it is we perceive and interact with the world. This leads to inevitable various forms of suffering, all misappropriations shift us ever so slightly off the path of truth and therefore internal liberty through proper governance and instead closer to falsity and therefore imprisonment to the degree that our understanding of this necessity for internal monarchy is threatened. To understand that implicit question I’m still refining my own work here and believe it has several layers (for example I think you also need to try and understand and subsequently frame what reality is simultaneously), but like many things I’d start with what I’m not and end at a place like “localised consciousness (even if we can experience non-local states), localisation of which is physically constrained by the human body. This consciousness constructs reality (I.e. perception) and through this construction as an end point to the behavioural outcomes of its capacity for synthesis here both reality and the contents of that being evolve over time. In this construction, inner identity is shaped by externally assigned identities, together these evolve the contents of its mental maps, that is, perceived terrain of what is. The physical body of consciousness possesses survival imperatives where based on prior interactions with the environment (genetically and over the lifespan), consciousness is generally used as a vehicle of expressing identity imperatives that are designed around its perceived sense of actualised survival... (much more)” All in all, even though I still have much more work ahead of me the better the frame the greater the ease by which I can dispense of faulty ideas and habits (I.e. inner/outer judgements, laziness, etc), etc. Often for me, the incorrect belief, attitude, etc is simply something that lives in an incorrect frame, meaning in this instance, it’s the misunderstanding of what consciousness is, what the brain is, etc that gives rise to other incorrect realisations. So next time I have something holding me back that doesn’t make sense I can ask myself, from what level of consciousness am I viewing this effect, problem, action, etc? In this sense, the frame creates the perceived terrain. So in response to “so I can get personality benefits...”, well it all depends on the frame. The frame sort of determines whether or not that’s going to lead to good outcomes, so if anything, I’d encourage asking questions like that (I.e. what is consciousness? What is purpose? What is the role of consciousness?). In the end, governance is going to be required where a decision needs to be made on what serves or doesn’t serve development like what you’re suggesting and these kinds of questions can aid in generating inner politics that produce more sophisticated identities which facilitate growth rather than take away. So regardless you gotta serve “me”, that’s unavoidable, but what is the frame of “me”? That’s for you to decide ?.

@Bill W Now he needs to work on his authenticity (if he wants to). I don't know what he was like in the past but now it just seems like its potentially transformed into passive aggressiveness and side maneuvering as opposed to approaching things head on.

@Joseph Maynor Lol then go away.

@Joseph MaynorMore assumptions. Move on please, not wasting my time here anymore. All you've been doing is making up stories in this conversation. That's an attack you do towards yourself because you're not learning anything new you're just in defense mode.

@Joseph Maynor you’re full of shit, you’re making it into something it’s not. I asked you questions, you decided not to respond to those questions. This has nothing to do with tolerance or a “perspective I’m trying to enforce”. My perspective is simply one that I’m stating, not one I’m trying to enforce. If I do not inform you of my perspective, which is what you do, you will not have accurate information to build from. Theres literally no need for me to tolerate someone who won’t respond to questions in a genuine way. It’s a total unproductive use of time. Feel free to do what you want to do though I don’t care, I’m just making it clear what my boundaries for interaction are. I’m not going to waste my time with someone that keeps on making needless assumptions about the interaction and forming erroneous conclusions. The subject of this interaction has been simple, an enquiry from me and a lack of tolerance of that enquiry from you given all the walls, scapegoating and reversing of focus from you. And that doesn’t at all bother me I was just calling you out on what I perceive to be bullshit as you’ve literally got nothing to stand on to ground you in your position other than assumptions. That’s as simple as it gets. Move on please you’re just wasting my time. Tolerance this and diversity that, you’re full of shit, it has nothing to do with that.

Firstly I do not feel an “Iness”. In theory, it seems that improvement is a simple byproduct of the human DNA game, I was preloaded with evolutionary generated conditions like the reward centre that facilitate the creation of incentive systems that lead to feelings that lead to thoughts to create improvements. But it was created before this of course, in order for the human to even be created we have to have a planet such as ours that harbours life, this was the beginning of simple cells replicating and self improving via the most rudimentary rules we can imagine. Given that this is a byproduct of life here on earth it stands to reason that the whole generation of the solar system itself not only originated under the same mechanism but that there is even life communicating within itself to self improvement and evolve overtime, albeit, at a much slower pace. Thus the structure and fabric of existence itself could perhaps be referred to at the very least as being composed of sentient micro communicators all interconnected relaying messages between and throughout one another at a phenomenal rate in order to simultaneously bring about, maintain and transform all of existence. None of this is necessarily true of course, it just follows from my first line of reasoning. So why do I self improve? Even though the answer itself needs to simultaneously be answered in conjunction to answering for existence and it’s own imperative towards self improvement, to adhere to and extend the DNA agenda. Put another way, why not self improve? To me it would be illogical relative to the conditions of and utility of an organism. It lives, takes up space, encodes and responds to data, etc, it only makes sense for an organism to get as good as it can get at these things.

@Joseph Maynor I would refer to that as a cop-out. The celebration of diversity and answering questions are completely different things, however if it is your behaviour to make statements and avoid deeper questions from others with responses like "celebrate diversity", then in future I'll just avoid asking the questions as it'll be an unproductive interaction if that's the pattern. See I've posed questions in relation to your claims, you've decided to avoid those questions by simply stating "we're different". To me a more honest answer would simply be: "I don't want to talk about it" as opposed to making assumptions about directions. Once again though, it is your business and I respect that, I'll just talk straight with you and anyone about different responses I receive. I put authenticity first right through to the end. Without authenticity, consciousness cannot know what to do with itself as it does not know itself, it is simply run by unconscious programming.

Could you elaborate on what you mean by that? The only conclusion I can make at present is that you equate advanced personality development work as conditioning oneself. If this is true, where did you get this idea and why do you believe this to be the case? Where would you put being true to being (I'd phrase it more as this than authenticity given authenticity can be a loaded term to some)? (to personality development work in general not just advanced) And that's an interesting way of putting it, what do you mean by the term personality? What is the difference between advanced and beginner here? How is conditioning related to personality?

What I encourage is not to create some imagined character you've created in the mind, know that this is just an illusion, that if there's any attachment here those identity structures can be worked through. From birth, there is always a pushing of DNA to create what it was meant to be, (with respect to us humans) not a lion, fish, duck or some actor in a film but its true essence. I feel you are avoiding the discovery here of the actual origins of what you're talking about. That is okay and I don't mind. It is your business.