DocWatts

Yeah I think alot of people see ending the War on Drugs as a magic bullet that will end mass incarceration on its own, when in reality it's just one important part of more systemic reforms that are needed.

Not sure how workable of a System it will end up being, but one really good idea I've heard discussed alongside a Resource Based Economy is to design consumer electronics to be more modular in design, so that you could say replace its CPU when it starts to become outdated, rather than tossing the whole unit in the Trash. Of course that would require a much less wasteful economic system than the one we have, but maybe it could become a possibility one day.

I think Oregon is going in the right direction; decriminalize personal possession, and begin to legalize and regulate substances on a case by case basis, at a sustainable rate and in a controlled way so as not to provoke a societal backlash. Portugal is obviously another Case Study to keep in mind for a successful example of drug decriminalization, I do think though that even if it does work in principle, sadly such a humane policy might be a step large far for a big portion of the country. As far as legalization, I think case by case is definitely the way to go, rather than legalizing everything. Certainty some substances are more benign than others, and we should take in to account if it has any medicinal benefits and also its potential for abuse. Show that legalization works with things like weed and psychedelics, then maybe consider legalizing other drugs if it makes sense.

While I think that evolutionary psychology explanations can sometimes be Reductionist when describing the complexity of the modern world, in this particular case, looking at it from an evolutionary perspective can perhaps explain a great deal. For the vast majority of our history humans were hunter gatherers, and our basic psychology was formed under survival conditions that were much more brutal than the world we find ourselves living in today.

How Violence is Contextualized in the media it's employed in matters a great deal here; using 'Violence' as a catch all term is about as helpful as using 'Drugs' as a catch all category to refer to psychedelics and also to Meth. Professional sports, the Godfather films, and a video game like Space Invaders all employ violence, but in each case its contextualized completely differently, employed for different purposes, and the violence is at different levels of abstraction.

Good example here of what Ken Wilber calls 'Aperspectival Madness'. From an epistemological perspective, no Information source is ever going to be %100 verifiable. The best we can do is pick the best, most reliable sources of information from the choices available to us at the time, and use that as a basis to make decisions. And fact is that if multiple relatively neutral Fact Checking sources conflict with what your professed Conspiracy Theory, it's almost certainly wrong. The problem is that those with a Conspiratorial Mindset never turn that skepticism inward, for example by scrutinizing Conspiratorial information sources with the same effort they use to try and discredit Fact Checking information sources.

I hear the game is kind of a buggy, unstable mess on PC at this time, due to it being rushed to meet its launch deadline. Will probably check back in a few weeks once the game has received some patches.

The problem is that Trump and Republicans are intentionally doing this to undermine faith in electoral Democracy, for purely political and opportunist reasons; none of their concerns are coming from a place of Good Faith, and people are absolutely in the right for pointing this out.

Duncan Trussel and Pendleton Ward's The Midnight Gospel is a great, humorous example that embodies aspects of Turquoise.

To understand why Hitler sent troops in to Russia, you have to understand the Ideological motivations behind Nazi Germany's war aims. Hitler and the Nazis saw the Soviet Union as the beating heart of the Jewish-Socialism that lie at the core of the Conspiracy Theories that their whole ideology was constructed around, and the Nazis saw themselves in a heroic war of annihilation to save Germany and Europe from Communism and Jew-ery. In addition to this, there are a number of strategic reasons that would have pushed Germany into war with the Soviet Union. A big one is geographic, since Germany found itself in the unenviable situation of being in the center of a two front war; ie having Britain and France to the West, and Russia to the East. Another strategic reason is that Germany didn't have the oil production capabilities to sustain their war efforts, so the oil fields and production facilities in Russia were vitally important to Germany; the fact that they just happened to be located in the territory of Nazi Germany's ideological enemy was a nice bonus. And after the war, another of Germany's ultimate goals was to seize Russian terrorizes to provide living space and resources for ethnic Germans, after a horrific extermination campaign of Slavic people that was going to be much larger in scope than the Holocaust. While we can look back with the benefit of foresight and see that Operation Barbarossa was doomed for a variety of reasons, everyone at the time falsely believed that the Soviet Union was on the verge of collapse, and that just one good kick was needed to send the entire structure collapsing down. The campaign was supposed to be over relatively quickly, due to German technological superiority and organization, and due to the previous success of the Blitzkrieg strategy; it was not supposed to last into the Winter, which is why Winter coats and gear were not provided to the German military. Even though some of his advisors warned him that the war might drag on in to the Winter and his troops would freeze to death without Winter gear, Hitler disregarded this because he didn't want the possibility of long, drawn out struggle hurting morale. As far as declaring war on the United States, a few things to keep in mind. The United States was pivotal in keeping Britain in the war due to cash and supply shipments. And from Hitler's Conspiratorial point of view, he saw the United States as under the influence of the same worldwide Jewish Conspiracy that was he was already at war with in Europe and Russia.

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

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