DocWatts

In many ways the YouTube radicalization pipeline is just an extension of propaganda outlets such as Fox News, which obviously predate Social Media by a few decades. If you look back to the heyday of for-profit 24-hour Cable News (in the 90s and 2000s), you'll see the beginnings of the Echo Chamber problem that became much worse in the decade or two since. Only one thing to do now, and that's to set up Child Locks on TVs across America to prevent non tech-savvy Boomers from being able to watch Fox News

I don't know a ton about him myself, other than that he was an arch-nemesis of Hegel (who was the most prominent of the German Idealists, and a philosopher whose work I'm much more knowledgeable about). So I'd also be interested for someone more familiar with his work to chime in.

For anyone who hasn't read Hanzi's two books (The Listening Society and Nordic Ideology), I'd consider them necessary and logical extensions to move on to after learning Spiral Dynamics for the added perspective it brings on Developmental Stage Models. Not only do the two books hit upon many of the same points as someone like Ken Wilber, but they do so in a very accessible and engaging way (due to the somewhat disarming tone of sincere irony that the authors give to the fictional Hanzi).

Thanks for the recommendation, not sure how I avoided her channel for so long.

@AtheisticNonduality Perfect. Thanks!

The problem with Nietzsche in this regard was that he was too damned selfish and insecure to become a truly enlightened person. For as insightful as he was at times, much of his philosophical system basically amounted to the Power Fantasy of a weak man.

@AtheisticNonduality If you have a link handy that you'd be willing to share, i'd appreciate it (didn't see a video with Nietzsche in the title on ContraPoint's youtube page). Also interesting to note that the Sith from Star Wars are in many ways a direct refutation of Nietzsche's system of philosophy and ethics (if you're at all interested in using critical examination of pop culture to tease apart popular representations of different philosophical and ethical systems).

@AtheisticNonduality I quite enjoyed the great Bertrand Russel's eviscerating takedown of Nietzsche's system of ethics, which includes a wonderful section near the end where he portrays an imagined conversation between Nietzsche and The Buddha. For myself, I think there's still enough that's worthwhile in Nietzsche if you're a bit older and already have a worldview or philosophical principles grounded in compassion, and aren't tempted to adopt Nietzsche's deliberately amoral system of ethics (which are indefensible in my view). There's a reason why Nietzsche's philosophy is so easily appropriated by SD-Red ideologies, namely that if one doesn't come in to it with a grounding in compassion, you'll find nothing in Nietzsche's philosophy which makes an affirmative case why other people are deserving of dignity and respect. I think Nietzsche shares some similarities to Marx in that both are valuable primarily for sketching the outlines of a very real problem, rather than for the problematic solutions they offer.

A ton to unpack here for a figure as complex and culturally important as Nietzsche, but the thrust of his work was that he was an early deconstructionist who teased apart the hidden motivations and assumptions behind the meta-ideologies that were prevalent in his day (namely Mythic religious values that were being supplanted by Modernity). One of his lasting insights was that the advent of a scientific, rationalist worldview would have massive disruptive changes to society, and not all of them were positive. He was among the first philosophers to foresee that one potential outcome of the 'death of God' (which refers to Mythic belief structures that provide Meaning and Value becoming untenable due to scientific materialism) was the potential for alienation, social fragmentation, and nihilism. He also showed that Morality is something that is Socially Constructed, using the example of a Master and a Slave to demonstrate how the Morality that each one adopts is created ad-hoc to suit thier survival needs. The school of thought that he helped to define came later to be known as Existentialism, which based around the idea that Humans cannot rely on God or on the Universe to provide them with meaning or purpose, so by necessity Humans must create thier own meaning and purpose. So obviously this is just a basic summation of a complex and wide ranging philosophy, one that doesn't get in to the problematic and ethically indefensible aspects of Nietzsche's work, but that is the basic gist of it.

How about the scam where companies which rely on the ruthless exploitation of labor try to sell employees on the idea that if they work hard and apply themselves, they'll be taken care of. On several occasions I could have been killed (or been very seriously injured) during a few year stint as a low wage, non-Union Utility worker who regularly had to access people's property in rough, low income neighborhoods. Quickly learned that if one is in a disadvantaged socio-economic position, you will almost certainly be exploited unless you take deliberate steps to prevent that from happening. Not my story, but the shameful way that this Frito-Lay employee was treated also seems relevant here.

As far as things an ordinary person can actually do in the face of global systemic problem, putting pressure on governments to treat this problem with the seriousness it deserves (as an existential threat to human civilization), is a start. Which means that high consciousness people need to do more to take responsibility for societal problems, and work to shift the center of gravity for thier societies towards Green as quickly as possible. In places like the United States, it means working to fix a faltering democracy that's been severely weakened by Bad Actors who are eroding democracy to further thier self interests, so that the system can become functional enough to deal with systemic issues like Climate Change. While buying an Electric Car or switching to a Vegan diet are great, if you actually want to have a societal impact that means by necessity become engaged in politics and interfacing with the rest of society.

Might be in the minority here, but 20 minute meditation sessions for an absolute beginner who's just learning the practice might be a little much. For my part, I might not have stuck with it if I had jumped in to 20 minute sessions from the very beginning, rather than starting with short sessions and adding a minute or so every week. Whatever session length you decide to start with, just make sure that you're consistent about it, and make it part of your routine (working out is a good analogy).

@mandyjw It's more about each Stage having thier own transcendent Truths, which are informed by a particular meta-ideology, that can speak to people from beyond the context it was created in. Which is why something like The Brothers Karamazov, created close to two centuries ago from an SD-Blue paradigm, is still a powerful work that speaks to people to this day. But at the same time, being able to actually understand the work requires some knowledge of the context it was created in (18th century Russia), so knowledge of Spiral Dynamics can still be very informative. Obviously using Spiral Dynamics as the only lens to look at a work would be highly reductive, but for putting a work in to some sort of a broader context it can be highly valuable. And it's also undeniable that certain works can also be looked at as embodying certain worldviews or meta-ideologies. Something like the Illiad or the Oydessy is a good example of this, as it's almost impossible to make sense of the work in a modern context without knowing the system of values that were present in the Classical Greek world.

Could you imagine if the Republican Party were forced to try to market itself on how its political platform would somehow make life better for ordinary people, or on any policy accomplishments whatsoever. The idea itself is laughable

While the notion of Holons certainly comes from SD-Yellow, Yellow thinking itself can be characterized by the internalization of dialectical thinking (Spiral Dynamics itself being a dialectical model). With both systems thinking and developmental thinking being applications of this dialectic. Or more broadly, Yellow can also be thought of as a successful integration of dialectical thinking to the pluralism and relativism of Green, in a way that makes room for other wordviews by dropping Green's claims to exclusivity and completeness (while at the same time holding on to the compassion that emerges at Green).

Tricky situation. Short of a vaccine mandate (which is a non-starter here in the States), coercive measures which make proof of vaccination a requirement to travel or participate in civic life will likely be the only way to get though to a significant portion of vaccine hesitant people. The rub being that such measures are possible only when and where Republicans (who could care less if their constituents are dying) do not hold political power, and that the upcoming 2022 and 2024 elections are looking incredibly tenuous for the slim majorities that Democrats hold in Congress and throughout much of the country. With the unintended side effect that any sorts of coercive measures to incentive vaccines (or mandate basic safety measures during a pandemic) likely to galvanize more low consciousness Voters to go out to the polls in 2022 and 2024. That's of course in addition to the widespread Voter suppression efforts that have been taking place since the Orange Turd was booted from the White House.

To add to that, it's absolutely possible for a superficial veneer of Green to be co-opted by Red, like a Wolf in Sheep's clothing. And while this isn't nearly as prevalent with contemporary Green as it is with Blue (Trump being the perfect empowerment of Red co-opting naive Blue), someone like Jim Jones and The People's Temple Cult is an instructive case study of example of how a similar sort of dynamic can play out among Green.

Even something like Dungeons and Dragons knows enough to separate Intelligence and Wisdom in to two different stats

Also keep in mind that China is a society with 1.4 billion people (nearly a fifth of the world's population), so it's quite natural that in such a large society that development is going to be spread across a wide spectrum. So it's not at all unexpected that Purple, Red, Blue, and Orange would all be represented in such a large sampling of the human population.

An hour in I'm thinking 'yes, of course, isn't a lot of this rather obvious?' That is of course until I stop and remember that the vast majority of people do not think dialectically as a matter of course, and that the ontological and epistemological assumptions which underlie one's worldview are invisible to most people. And that a dialectical modality itself is highly privileged way of looking at the world, whose availability hinges to a huge extent on getting Lucky when it comes to the Birth Lottery. Not sure where exactly I was going with this, but I do appreciate the obvious effort that Leo puts in to his work, and the craft that it takes to take quite complex ideas and present them in approachable ways.

I think Dostoyevsky's forward in Notes From Underground (which was also quoted at the beginning of American Psycho) seems prescient on how sick social structures and maladjusted cultural values create sociopathic people. "Nevertheless it is clear that such persons as the writer of these notes not only may, but positively must, exist in our society, when we consider the circumstances in the midst of which our society is formed. He is one of the representatives of a generation still living. In this fragment, entitled "Underground," this person introduces himself and his views, and, as it were, tries to explain the causes owing to which he has made his appearance and was bound to make his appearance in our midst."

The fact that this isn't obvious to everyone to everyone on the Progressive Left hurts my brain... Brings to mind something equally silly from a few years back when some outspoken Greens accused AOC of "co-opting" the Green New Deal by trying to include it in the policy platform of Democratic Party, because the Green Party came up with the idea first.

And to add to that, the ability to empathize with forms of mistreatment that one hasn't experienced themselves is directly tied to one's ability to adopt other perspectives. So it's not at all surprising that someone who's at a level of development that's quite limited in its ability to take in other perspectives would find it inconceivable that the nice police officers in thier town are somehow part of a system that treats people who are of different race and socio-economic class very differently than how they themselves are treated. Since they've never had any sort of negative interactions with the Police or the Criminal Justice system, it's quite natural that someone with a limited ability to take on other perspectives would assume that anyone who is mistreated by the police must have done something to deserve it. Either that or the bad behavior is caused by one or two "bad apples", rather than as symptom of a systemic problem (since systems thinking only emerges at later stages of development). Add to that, in the minds of people at this level of development the Police and Criminal Justice system are thought of as a shield to protect one's group from the Other (ie thr scary parts of society that exist outside of one's in-group).

What I was referring to wasn't his depiction of Dominator vs Growth Hierarchies (which is completely on point). Rather, I was referring more broadly to some of his perceptions of contemporary Green outside of an Academic context, which are somewhat biased by his experiences in Academia. He basically admits as much (that he's developed a bit of a Shadow from his experiences in Academia), during an Interview when the subject of Jordan Peterson was brought up, and how they have some of the same criticisms of Green.

While I have great respect for Ken Wilber and largely agree with much of his philosophy and ethics, I do think that his negative experiences within Academia (who were resistant to many of his ideas) created a Shadow that has prevented him from fully Integrating SD-Green, which is why he demonizes it to some degree. In particular, one gets a sense that he conflates a specific form of somewhat extreme Academic Postmodernism as broadly representative of contemporary Green. Not that this is unique to Wilber, it's a common prejudice among Intellectuals who project an exaggerated importance to Academia on the broader Culture. While Ken Wilber's analysis of Hierarchies is on point, using confusion about Hierarchies as the primary focal point to view the Culture Wars is a highly Reductionist way of looking at such a broad issue. It also overlooks the fact that much of the Culture Wars is something that is intentionally being stoked by Bad Actors who have an interest in exasperating social and cultural divisions to further their own Political or Economic aims.