DocWatts

Sadly this was far from uncommon in that era; people like Henry Ford, Winston Churchill, and the American Progressive movement of the 1910s and 20s bought in to the pseudoscience of eugenics. Hitler just took that ideology to its logical and horrific conclusion.

Borg doesn't map cleanly onto the SD-model in my view, similar to how you wouldn't map an AI on to Spiral Dynamics. Unlike a lot of the other races which are meant to be rough analogues of various Earth cultures, the Borg are meant to be, well, Alien. Borg arguably doesn't have what can be considered a Culture, though thematically there are some interesting parallels you could draw to ideas like Utilitarianism, Communism, or Capitalism taken to thier logical and horrific endpoints, but throwing an SD meme at the Borg is a pretty big stretch.

One aspect of Hitler's rise to power that I don't see emphasized enough is the incredibly dangerous nature of Conspiracy Theories, and how Hitler's worldview was largely that of Conspiracy Theorist. The basis of Hitler's political philosophy was founded in a number of Conspiracy Theories that were prevalent in his day. First and foremost was a baseless conspiracy propagated by German Military leadership in the wake of WW1, which refused to take responsibility for losing the war, and claimed that the German Army was 'stabbed in the back' by Jews and Socialists just as Germany was about to turn the tide. The true nature of how badly the war was going for Germany was concealed from the population, and because Allied troops never really occupied German soil, the German Military was able to spin this as a war they were on the verge of winning, when this wasn't at all the case. Second was the idea that a Cabal of Jews and Socialists comprised a hidden Elite that were the ones pulling the strings of the world's governments. Much of this can be traced back to an anti-Semitic hoax Document called 'The Protocols of the Elders of Zion', which was a fictional first-hand account of a Jewish console detailing their plans for world domination. Important to note that this portrayed the Jewish Elite as sneaky and vulnerable rather than intimidating, as this made it easier to scapegoat and intimidate Jews without fear of retribution. In many ways this was the culmination of Centuries of fear and suspicion of Jewish Outsiders, and a more modern take on The Jews poisoning the Village Well. These views were far from uncommon at the time, and in fact Hitler took great inspiration from the anti-Semitism of Henry Ford. Hitler was able to intertwine this Conspiratorial belief with a widespread fear of Communism to great effect. If you take Hitler's Conspiratorial mindset into consideration, some of the seemingly irrational decisions that Nazi Germany took during the course of WW2 makes more sense, such as declaring war on the United States after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, when it wasn't immediately obvious whether the United States would get involved in the European theatre or not. From Hitler's point of view, a hidden Elite of Jewish Socialists who happened to be in control of most of the governments of the world was Germany's real enemy, and with that in mind, and with this in mind Germany was already at war with the United States, so to speak.

I think Nietzsche probably would have been more of a Putin fanboy than a Trump Cultist, since I think he would at least prefer his autocrats to be competent. But alas... I would quibble with the Orange label for Bertrand Russel though; if you're unfamiliar with Bertrand Russel, just take a look at the wikipedia entry for him sometime, certainly doesn't read at all like someone at Orange. Probably much closer to someone like Noam Chomskey if you're looking for someone who's kind of similar. From Wikipedia (Bold here is mine for emphasis): Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell OM FRS[68] (18 May 1872 – 2 February 1970) was a British polymath, philosopher, logician, mathematician, historian, writer, social critic, political activist, and Nobel laureate.[69][70] Throughout his life, Russell considered himself a liberal, a socialist and a pacifist, although he also sometimes suggested that his sceptical nature had led him to feel that he had "never been any of these things, in any profound sense".[71] His work has had a considerable influence on mathematics, logic, set theory, linguistics, artificial intelligence, cognitive science, computer science (see type theory and type system) and philosophy, especially the philosophy of language, epistemology and metaphysics. Russell was a prominent anti-war activist, championed anti-imperialism, and chaired the India League.[75][76][77] Occasionally, he advocated preventive nuclear war, before the opportunity provided by the atomic monopoly had passed and he decided he would "welcome with enthusiasm" world government.[78] He went to prison for his pacifism during World War I.[79] Later, Russell concluded that the war against Adolf Hitler's Nazi Germany was a necessary "lesser of two evils" and also criticised Stalinist totalitarianism, condemned the involvement of the United States in the Vietnam War and was an outspoken proponent of nuclear disarmament.[80]

Eh, my problem comes less from them killing Joel, and more from the fact that a revenge story is one of the less interesting things they could have done in the setting they created. I would have preferred something that further fleshed out the world they created, and that spent more time exploring Joel and Ellie's complicated relationship. I'll give them points for taking a huge creative risk at least, even if the end results weren't what I would have liked to explore thematically in a TLOU sequel.

A few things. (1) Saying Time is an Illusion is somewhat Reductive, but what is True is that the nature of Time is highly counter intuitive to our common sense notions. I'd suggest reading up on Relativity Theory if you're interested in the subject, but in short the fundamental nature of the Universe is that the flow of Time is not the same for all Observers. A realworld example of this is GPS, which has to account for Relativistic Time Distortions when calculating your position, because Time slows down for an object traveling at a very high speed. (2) The human perception of Time is highly variable. Anyone who's experienced altered states of consciousness can tell you first hand how differently Time is experienced when under the chemical influence of psychedelics such as psilocybin. For a more mundane example, think how much more quickly time passes when you're doing something you enjoy, vs how slowly it passed the last time you were in a boring or unpleasant situation.

@Happy Lizard That's going to be tricky, because Yellow hasn't become predominant in the Culture yet. I think the closest we can get are works that embody some aspect of Yellow, be that Perspectivism, Systems Thinking, or thinking about the World's problems in Novel ways. These aren't a perfect fit, but here's one or two that embody one or more aspect of Yellow (in my view):

The philosopher Hegel comes to mind as arguably an early Systems Thinker.

It's actually very, very difficult to unseat an Incumbent President. I guess we should be thankful that Trump is as incompetent as he is, since it's not hard to imagine the Republican Party running another proto-fascist in 8 or 12 years who's halfway competent and more subtle in thier attempts to replace Democracy with an Authoritarian ethno-state.

@Cocolove Vaush said it better than I could so I'll just paraphrase the way he put it, but the idea that someone can call themselves a Conscious Capitalist, while at the same time suppressing his employees' legally protected Right to Unionize, makes that claim laughable.

As for Don Beck, the Cognitive Dissonance and Compartmentalization for someone contributing to a field of knowledge like Spiral Dynamics, then being duped in to becoming a Trump supporter later in life, must be extreme. Reminds me a bit of the whole Orson Scott Card debacle, who wrote some wonderful science fiction novels with a thematic focus on empathy and tolerance for other people and cultures, yet was pretty openly homophobic on social media some twenty years later.

I remember Don Beck mentioning at some point that he would probably characterize himself as Blue in the SD-model, but alas... Good reminder not to put people on a pedestal, and remember that just because someone contributed in an important way to to a field of knowledge doesn't make them an Earthly sage of Wisdom, or make them immune to cognitive compartmentalizing just like anyone else. Ditto for Ken Wilber for using what at times reads like a Straw-man characterization of Green, where he completely overestimates the influence of Academia on the broader Culture. For someone who writes about Boomeritis, he sure seems blind to the ways that having a Boomer vantage point distorts his perceptions on some things.

Noticed some overlap on our two lists; I'll second Jorge Luis Borges, the man can cram more interesting ideas into a ten page short story than some other authors can in an entire novel, with the Library of Babel being my favorite. Strange how relevant it feels in 2020.

Partly due to getting furloughed for four months due to Covid, I happened to get quite a bit of reading done this year. _____________________________________ Philosophy The View From Nowhere - Thomas Nagel https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/257867.The_View_from_Nowhere Mind and Cosmos - Thomas Nagel https://www.amazon.com/Mind-Cosmos-Materialist-Neo-Darwinian-Conception/dp/0199919755 A Theory of Justice - John Rawls https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/129237.A_Theory_of_Justice The Seven Mysteries of Life - Guy Murchie https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/390786.The_Seven_Mysteries_of_Life The Republic - Plato https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/30289.The_Republic A Theory of Everything - Ken Wilber https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/177152.A_Theory_of_Everything The Life You Can Save - Peter Singer https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4722934-the-life-you-can-save History Making of the Atomic Bomb - Richard Rhodes https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/16884.The_Making_of_the_Atomic_Bomb Sapiens : A Brief History of Mankind - Yuval Noah Harari https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23692271-sapiens Politics Trump and a Post Truth World - Ken Wilber https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/34089867-trump-and-a-post-truth-world Science A Brief History of Time - Stephen Hawking https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17352.Stephen_Hawking_s_a_Brief_History_of_Time

Because Ad Blockers screw over Content Creators who depend on Ad Revenue to survive.

I tend to listen to Youtube videos in the same way I listen to podcasts while doing other things (such as driving), so I haven't really looked back since they introduced the feature to skip ads for ten bucks. That said, I'm not sure I could justify using the service if content creators were getting screwed out of Ad Revenue, so I'm very glad I'm still supporting the channels I watch regularly. On a related note, I remember hearing a while back that Netflix was considering maybe allowing ads on its platforms, and something like %60 of users said they'd cancel their subscription if it ever came to that. And honestly good riddance, most advertising is highly manipulative and unethical (and not to mention annoying). Much better to just pay eight or ten bucks a month; still pennies in the bucket compared o the highway robbery that is cable. Hey Leo, any chance you might consider doing a video on How to Run an Ethical ( or Conscious ) Business at some point, that would include Principles on ethical Marketing (assuming that isn't an oxymoron)?

John Mackey is a good example of why having broad knowledge of a model and internalizing what it has to teach are two very different things. While it would be one thing if he were to just own the fact that his worldview is at (relatively Healthy) Orange, trying to frame ethical Corporate behavior as a matter of Libertarian volunteerism without any sort of enforcement mechanism isn't fooling anyone further up the Spiral. It's clear he lacks the ego-awareness to see the self-serving nature of his arguments. That said, if Orange is going to be the dominant force in the World, I'd much rather it be a relatively Healthy Orange which believes that acting in at least somewhat socially responsible ways can be in its self interest. Don't forget how much worse than John Mackey corporations at Orange can be.

Not sure if anyone here was a fan of the Next Generation spinoff show Deep Space 9, but an interesting thing to note is how that show explores alot of these Cultures with a lot more nuance. The Ferengi and Cardassians cultures in particular are given much more depth, to the point where thier TNG counterparts almost feel like caricatures of thier DS9 counterparts. Even the Federation is shown to be a much more nuanced take of a stage Yellow culture, one that has done alot to uplift Humanity but still has problems that it's struggling with.

Framing issues of Social Justice (such as a handful of billionaires owning more wealth than the bottom half of the country) as a matter of Consumer Choice seems like fundamentally the wrong mindset to take, and feels illustrative of how disempowered we've become as Citizens to get public policy passed to correct for this.

If you want a real example of a conscious capitalist, look to someone like Bill Gates, who's using the immense wealth he's made under Capitalism to make conditions better for some of the poorest people in the world, and is in fact planning on giving away almost all of his Wealth. John Mackey doesn't strike me as really that different from other extremely wealthy people who come up with self-serving reasons to prop up a system that they happen to be benefiting from.

Fair enough, I'll redact my previous assumption about the socio-political context I had assumed you were trying to evoke then

As a side note, I do recognize the political situation / country that you're likely alluding to in your example (the way you framed it seemed like it was meant to evoke Israeli immigration into Palestine and the displacement of the people living there, but correct me if I'm wrong here). If so, what happened there was due to fairly unique Circumstances that are a bit harder to generalize, I would argue. But that's such a complicated and loaded topic that it could probably take up a whole Thread all on its own

From the example you mention, it ends up reading as if from the perspective of how someone at an ethno-centric (or Blue) stage of development would frame the issue of Immigration, where the person in question sees the world as groups fighting against groups, and prosperity for some means deprivation for others. In fact, this is very similar to how successful minority communities have been demonized in ethno-centric Cultures across a wide range of countries, with successful Jewish communities being the most obvious example here. People at an ethno-centric stage of development become threatened when they see a community of Outsiders doing well (due to the minority group's Cultural Values and sense of Community that help them to succeed despite the obstacles placed in their way). This often gets misconstrued as Foul Play and the group in question becomes resented by the Dominant group. But as for the broader principle between Survival and sticking to one's Principles, well there's a lot to unpack there. Your answer will probably depend on how your frame the issue of Justice. For my part, I see public policy decisions through a Harm Reduction perspective, I would have to rank your proposed choices in the following order ( # 1 ) Survival of the entire society as a starting place, pretty much a non-negotiable (assuming the society in question is worth saving; not every society is, and the answer to this will vary depending on who's perspective you're taking. A slave living in the Antebellum South would not see the Confederacy as worth saving, while a white slaveholder likely would). ( # 2 ) Application of First Principles such as justice, fairness, equality of opportunity etc. Societal collapse is an ugly thing that causes a great deal of harm, and there are very few situations where that will be preferable to making the minimum level of sacrifice to one's Principles that's needed to ensure the survival of a society. At the same time though the vast majority of challenges a nation will face are not Existential Threats, and it's very tempting to frame issues that way when it's not really warranted. Things that actually cause Societies to collapse tend to be systemic in nature, where any one cause is very rarely responsible on its own. In the example you mention, perhaps the Systemic issue is that the Political and Socio-Economic Systems are vulnerable to a small Elite who are able to monopolize power and impose its will on the majority. Or it could be that the Immigration issue you mention is indicative of another country imposing its will on the nation in question, and forcing it to take in more immigrants than it can reasonably assimilate into its society. Perhaps there's a lack of a Social Safety net, so that people who end up the socio-economic Losers are driven in to desperate circumstances.

A real world example of the Thought Experiment you brought up exists through something known as 'Finlandization'. What it refers to is a smaller nation having to sacrifice some of its sovereignty to avoid being swallowed up by larger, more powerful neighbor. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finlandization Typically this takes the form of a conscious effort on the part of the disadvantaged nation to make itself indispensable in some way to the nation that's threatening it, and thereby make the loss of said benefits more costly than what would be gained if the domineering power were to take over its weaker neighbor. Typically this involves economic and/or foreign policy concessions, and can involve a curtailment of Democratic freedoms such as freedom of the press. As such, nations who go down this path tend to do so because it's the least harmful path available to it at the time, and as such I wouldn't say thay they're wrong for doing so, when you consider that the alternatives are far worse. If you're interested in the subject, Jared Diamond writes a really compelling account of the precarious situation that Finland found itself in during the Cold War in his most recent book, 'Upheavel'. The fact that they came out of it in one piece with Democracy still in tact, rather than becoming a Soviet puppet state, makes the concessions they had to make at the time worth it.