zazen

A chick being pumped and dumped by a playa isn’t harmed? Because even if it was risky, it was her choice and he promised her monogamy, marriage and kids. Selling that subprime like so playa: The issue isn’t just the sticker price - but the debt product attached to it. A $200,000 house is unaffordable if the loan is structured to make the payments explode beyond your income. That’s the fraud. They created artificial demand by giving mortgages to anyone with a pulse - little to no income verification or down payment, with adjustable rates that would explode later. That demand drove prices up - then when loans started failing (as expected) the bubble popped. We’ve gone from discussing structural power dynamics to how the 2008 crash harmed people as if that’s a serious question to begin with. Your strawmanning my points then reducing it to “it was their choice”. You have Google and AI to elaborate the obvious - but keep asking questions as if you want to be hand held through the obvious - AI not feeling personable enough for you? You are simply not engaging in good faith or as BlueOak said on the previous page being “deliberately obtuse”.

Don’t be dense dude. You’re either a troll or contrarian cos you get a kick out of it lol. The harm was in setting up loans designed to fail, lying about the risk, dumping the toxic loans onto pension funds, betting against the people they sold them to, and then getting bailed out when the whole thing exploded. If a doctor knowingly gives you a drug that makes you feel good today but destroys your organs over the years, you can’t say “well the doctor gave me medicine” Your charts are showing metrics that go up (cars, coverage) but they don’t show people being squeezed (cost of basics relative to wages). They show activity not affordability. People have more “stuff” because they take on more debt. Show me a chart of how many hours of work it takes to afford a home, healthcare, and college today vs 40 years ago. Watch the videos I shared - worth your while bro. I’m off to debate a superfacist.

Very interesting - I agree with the hollowing out of the vertical dimension. But what kind of structure are we talking of here? It can be structurally facistic even if the justification shifts from biology (quantity) to metaphysics (quality). If it has a rigid hierarchy justified by metaphysics, obedience to that hierarchy as cosmic order, and an elite at the top who are above accountability - we have spiritual facism. I think the issue comes from collapsing the vertical into the horizontal. The vertical dimension is something we are meant to orient ourselves towards - the North Star. But we don’t become the North Star or claim ourselves or the structure as it. Vertical principles can purify the people in power, but shouldn’t be used to justify the power they claim as “the cosmic / sacred order”. There is divinity (oneness, source) and some sort of order in the universe that enables us to exist - but this doesn’t translate into divinely ordaining a particular structure or group of elites as such. Legitimacy should remain institutional, not spiritual - no leader can claim metaphysics as political authority. This doesn’t mean vertical principles or spiritual strength isn’t seen as a virtue or worthy trait for stewardship. It just means the structure of governance should account for selecting for it and removing anyone who fails to live up to it. It shouldn’t be rigid like the Hindu system of old where Brahmins ruled due to cosmic order ordaining them as the highest. Civilization works when horizontal power is guided, limited, and elevated by vertical principles - in a healthy tension. This is abusing the idea of the vertical with the horizontal by claiming one impose itself on the other. If the vertical is about principles and the horizontal is about the structure - then corruption happens if we collapse the two and pretend the structure IS the principle. Vertical truths are being used as horizontal justification. You say we should be guided by transcendent principles - but if one of those are accountability or humility - then the structure would reflect that by having checks and balances. And a rigid structure in which one is beyond accountability due to being “spiritually higher” avoids that. This is where secularism is corrective to any potential tyranny (even spiritual tyranny) but this doesn’t mean a society must be spiritually hollowed out. Secularism shouldn’t need to overextend itself to mean a secular society - which is what’s happened in the West as a overcorrection. The balance is a secular state + spiritual society = civilizational health. The governance structure can remain secular to prevent tyranny and hold power accountable (which is principled) whilst the society remains spiritually alive by cultivating (culture) vertical principles. The important part is that the structure should prevent anyone from claiming divine authority over others - preventing the vertical from being weaponized. Islamic civilization at its best actually struck this balance quite well. AI: ”Islamic civilization separated the source of moral authority from the machinery of governance. The spiritual realm — scripture, law, ethics, scholarship, and community norms — was carried by the ulema, culture, and society, not by the ruler himself. The ruler couldn’t claim to be divine, infallible, or metaphysically superior. His job was worldly: administering justice, managing taxes, keeping peace, protecting borders. Spiritual interpretation and moral authority were outside the state and distributed across independent scholars, jurists, and institutions. This prevented metaphysics from being monopolized by political power. At the same time, the civilization remained deeply spiritual because the culture, ethics, law, and intellectual life were permeated by transcendence. Society was spiritually alive even though the state’s power was administratively grounded. The vertical (divine law, moral principles, spiritual purpose) guided the horizontal (governance, administration, institutions) without fusing into an authoritarian theocracy. In short: the state was practical and accountable, while society and leadership were spiritually oriented — a balance that kept the political structure flexible while keeping the civilization morally anchored.” —————- I think a key distinction to clarify this: Transcendence ≠ Transformation Transcendence is beyond form, ego, human limitation. Transformation is what happens within form when we orient ourselves towards the transcendent. We are shaped by the vertical - we do not become the vertical. If we were to become the transcendent (enlightened or just pure light), we would no longer be in form but in the formless. Transformation happens precisely because we remain in form - orienting ourselves towards the transcendent. The key error is collapsing the vertical into the horizontal. Though the vertical is our source and we are not separate from it (conciousness, oneness, God) we are distinct from it. As long as we are in form, we can only ever trans-form within form, towards the transcendent that is beyond form. Form is a journey and relationship, whilst going back into the formless is a homecoming. - The Vertical is the Absolute Reference Point (God, the Good, Truth). Constant eternal. - The Horizontal is the Field of Application (the self, society, politics) in dynamic motion toward the reference point. The moment the Horizontal declares "I am the Reference Point” the system shatters into either delusion (spiritual ego) or tyranny (spiritual facism). The moment it declares "There is no Reference Point” (secularised society) it drifts into relativism and nihilism. If the vertical is about the North Star and the horizontal is about our transformation towards it - pathologies show up when: - New Agers claim “I am the North Star” (spiritual narcissism) - Evola/Theocracy claims a king or superbeing to be the North Star (tyranny) - Hollow Secularism denies or ignores a North Star to exist (nihilism) The healthy balance is orientation towards, not identification or denial of - the vertical. —- I was talking with AI about this and came upon this: “Islamic metaphysics and political structure embody the distinction between transcendence and transformation with remarkable precision. Tanzīh: God is beyond form Preserves transcendence. No collapse into rulers, saints, or egos. Tashbīh: God is near Allows transformation. The human can be transformed toward the divine without becoming the divine. Human beings reflect the vertical without ever embodying it. We are in form. We can be shaped by the vertical, but never collapse it into ourselves. Islamic governance mirrors this metaphysics: • rulers are not divine • scholars do not wield political power • law is above all • no caste of metaphysical aristocrats • accountability is a sacred duty Islamic civilization keeps transcendence above the political sphere — while allowing society to be transformed by it. This is the principle secular governance was trying to imitate: Humility built into structure. Accountability as a transcendent principle. Islam contains Tanzīh (God's incomparability) and Tashbīh (God's similarity). It provides a counterbalancing theological and philosophical framework. · Tanzīh guards against the collapse. It ensures the Vertical remains Vertical. God is Wholly Other. No creature, no ruler, no saint, can be God. · Tashbīh allows for the relationship. It makes Transformation possible. Because God is also "nearer to you than your jugular vein," we can know Him, love Him, and be shaped by His attributes.”

Didn’t know I had to spell out everything man common. What’s your definition of harm? 8-10million lost their homes, families thrown onto the street, lie savings evaporated. The knock on effects of all that - suicides, divorces, kids pulled out of school etc etc. Entire generation’s wealth vaporized - trillions of € gone. But that’s a bad example of harm cos no one got shot? That’s the same surface level eyeballs saying Dems aren’t bought off - cos you think it must mean they have to have briefcases of cash snuck to them under the table lol cartoonish. You want a name and a boogeyman to make it easy. Goldman Sachs helped create toxic mortgages, sold them to pension funds, bet against them, made billions when people lost homes - then got bailed out. Goldman Sachs and Citigroup alumni staffed the same administration that was supposed to regulate them, right after the crash they helped cause. Nice game of revolving door. Affordability has decreased and is squeezing everyone on the fundamentals - housing, healthcare and education have increased multiples more than wages. My parents generation could afford a home on a single income, today’s generations can’t barely on two without a mortgage - etymology is mort-mortality (death) gage (pledge). Death pledge maxxing. Housing - vulture funds buy entire neighbourhoods, jack up rents, outbid families, convert homes into permanent rental stock, reduce homeownership into a financial asset ie financialization. Blackrock, Blackstone etc. Healthcare - medical bankruptcies, $100k+ cancer treatments, insulin price gouging (€12 in Canada vs €98 in US). UnitedHealth made $22 billion in profit last year while denying claims left and right. Education - from AI “Sallie Mae lobbied to make student debt non-dischargeable in bankruptcy (making it inescapable), aggressively pushed private high-interest loans on students, lobbied for higher federal lending limits while funding groups that advocated for tuition increases, and securitized the debt into Wall Street financial products—creating a self-reinforcing system where schools could charge infinite amounts because students could borrow infinite amounts with loans they could never escape, while Sallie Mae faced zero risk and extracted maximum profit through interest payments that lasted decades.“ Read the following: https://www.epi.org/productivity-pay-gap/ But don’t worry - people got Instagram, lots of ice cream flavours and like a gazzilion porn vids at their disposal - “consumer choices”.

Your missing the forest for the tree's. No ones saying people are zombies with no agency or they don't have choices - it's that their agency is limited within structural constraints by a few key players who you think ''serve people'' over themselves. Over the decades living standards have gone down and the middle class has been hollowed out due to the point we now have populism on the right and the left emerging - if the system and status quo served the people we wouldn't have wide spread discontent. Tobacco was a pure vice good - it isn't a utility, infrastructure or essential the way housing or healthcare are. You can quit smoking and suffer no functional loss in your ability to participate in society - try cutting out the major tech giants from your life. Tobacoo didn't just fall due to the market - although pressure was applied from there. The state clamped down via lawsuits, taxes and advertising bans. Tobacco is dispensable in a way a lot of these modern giants aren't which are fused with the state. Your focusing on small fish. BlackRock is the backbone of the retirement system - the system will defend its vital organs in a way it never defended tobacco. Corporations have a fiduciary duty to serve private shareholder value - not people. People are served as as secondary order effect, but not as a primary motive. If a corporation can cut costs, hike prices and lobby for regulations that favor it at the expense of the consumer - they will. This is legally mandated - this is what I mean by the system being structurally rigged in favor of capital. I also already pointed out 2008. People lost out, the big guys didn't and still go their bonuses. It's not capitalism or socialism - its capital socializing its losses and privatizing its gains - despite whatever we want to call it, its parasitic and extractive. Housing, healthcare, food and education - essentials wielded by a handful of corporations, who's directive is to maximize shareholder value, and not the value it provides to the customer. We can point to the illusion of choice in non-essential goods to ignore the tyranny of a lack of or limited choice in essentials we can't opt out of. If people had the choice they would opt out of crushing student debt to educate themselves, mortgages to house themselves which blow up in their face as in 2008, and not be medical emergency away from bankruptcy.

@Elliott From AI to explain what I mean by financial architecture and ''plumbing of the system'' being structurally designed in favor of capital. ''The Index Fund Mechanism (Passive Investing) How it works: Most Americans don't pick individual stocks. 401(k)s, pensions, IRAs default into index funds. Index funds (S&P 500, total market) are market-cap weighted This means: the bigger a company already is, the more money automatically flows into it The feedback loop: Company gets big → enters S&P 500 Trillions in passive funds must buy it (they track the index). Stock price goes up (from forced buying, not fundamentals). Market cap increases → gets even more weight in the index. More passive money flows in → stock goes higher. Repeat. Nobody chose this individually: Your 401(k) automatically buys Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Google, Meta. You didn't "vote with your dollars" for Big Tech dominance. The structure of retirement savings mechanically concentrates capital into whatever's already biggest. It's structural, not democratic The Big Three own everything: BlackRock, Vanguard, State Street manage $20+ trillion in passive index funds. They're the largest shareholders in virtually every major corporation. Not because of "consumer choice"—because retirement money flows through them by default.They vote the shares (corporate governance) but it's YOUR money. You didn't choose to make Apple the most valuable company. Your retirement account did it automatically.The system is designed to concentrate capital into mega-caps. Consumers aren't steering—the index structure is.'' Another point is Michael Burry (Big Short) who predicted the 2008 crash just closed his fund down because the market is detached from the fundamentals "My estimation of value in securities is not now, and has not been for some time, in sync with the markets," https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/sustainable-finance-reporting/michael-burry-big-short-fame-deregisters-scion-asset-management-2025-11-13/ In plain english : the ''consumer'' can't affect these stock valuations to the degree they think they can with their consumer choices (to buy or not to buy, to empower or not to empower) because the state backstops and pumps liquidity towards these companies that have fused with the state to the point they are considered ''critical''. Their behemoth size underpins the US dollar empire ie too big to fail. This is why there is a divergence between main street and wall street - why is it that as main street suffers (everyday people being squeezed) - but wall street hits all time highs? Because liquidity - money printer goes brrrr and the regular person goes ahhhh ''cost of living crisis''. Traditional value investing becomes impossible. Burry can't find mispriced assets because the market isn't pricing anything properly - it's just channeling flows into whatever the index structure and imperial necessity demand to keep the empire afloat. Capital is the empire. When companies become infrastructure for empire, "consumer choice" becomes completely irrelevant. The state will prop them up regardless of their profitability or fundamentals justifying their valuation. Dollar hegemony requires strong US asset markets which is why i say capital is empire - and it is a financialized one. Michael Hudson is the goat at explaining all of this.

Your looking at how they got rich (consumer spending) but ignoring what they do when rich (regulatory capture, monopoly consolidation, political influence). Corporations start out through consumers choosing, but then they become something different after accumulating wealth from those choices - to the point they can end up shaping consumer choices through advertising and eliminating alternative ''choices'' through monopolistic consolidation. Decisions and desires are also engineered through advertising and algorithms. Even back in the Mad Men era - Edward Bernays influenced women to smoke by associating cigarettes with feminism (torches of freedom.) The advertising industry exists to create demand that doesn't exist - and modern day algorithms are that just ratcheted up. We are in cages influencing us at all times and ''inserting'' desires we didn't know we had. That proves my point - private capital became too powerful and could no longer be ''disciplined'' by the market or individual consumer choices ''in the form of the most direct-democracy possible'' as you put it. If they democratically grew these companies via their choices why can't they democratically tackle them? It took state force to do so. That's where anti-trust laws came from (response to Rockerfeller). These same laws are no longer enforced to the degree they should be due to state capture by capital. Symbolic slap on the wrists for some firms occur - but the core organs aren't harmed ie the structural power dynamic. Lina Khan was obstructed by the structure itself ie structural power. https://www.columbiaspectator.com/news/2025/11/10/lina-khan-former-commissioner-of-ftc-speaks-on-panel-about-divide-in-digital-policy-between-united-states-and-europe/ ''Khan said that Congress has been slow to check the power of tech companies while allowing them to hinder the lawmaking process by lobbying. “Just the endless torrent of money, which has, candidly, influenced both parties, I think has kept things from getting over the finish line” Today’s power isn’t smaller but is more systemic and so is less visible - it's financialized into a financial empire which is why it goes unnoticed if we simply look at the surface. It's structural ie financial plumbing and architecture - not cosmetic ie the house which is visible to all of us in the form of store fronts and ''consumer choices''. This is also why American's saying they have a better living standard than the rest of the world don't understand how - by a financial imperial arrangement maintaining the dollar as reserve currency which offers the US empire it's ''exorbitant privilege''. It's not solely because of market genius and capitalism - dollar dominance subsidizes American affluence and consumption (customer choices). JP Morgan became JP Morgan Chase the institution - Rockefeller became Exxon, BlackRock and a web of energy finance conglomerates. Private capital now upholds US hegemony in a symbiotic relationship - which is why they are treated as ''critical'' and beyond being challenged. State and private interest / capital has fused. If capital has global interests then they can subvert national interests. It's true Americans buy big cars and like big roads. But its also true that oil companies have been for decades lobbying against public transit also. Leverage isn’t overt control but about structural dependency - it' infrastructural and causes mutual capture or inter-dependency. Palantir doesn’t need to rule anything if it’s embedded in the defense, intelligence, and health data infrastructure the state relies on. Same with big tech and finance. So it's not about individual transactions - commerce, communication, and the state operate on privately owned platforms. It's hard to boycott our way out of monopolized infrastructure any more than we can boycott roads ie platforms. When Biden was faced with a standoff between capital vs labor during the rail strike he chose capital : https://www.reuters.com/world/us/biden-signs-bill-block-us-railroad-strike-2022-12-02/ He later brokered a deal, but that was after pressure and backlash - hence, concessions made - pressure release valve policy. But what was the first instinct? In the service of capital. And why is that rail strikers could pressure to the extent they did? Because they could leverage a critical chokepoint ie infrastructure that the economy and country depends on - the same way these corps have infrastructure / platforms. Biden conceding wasn't about the workers but about keeping the machine running. In this sense I agree with you - we do have power, but it must be en mass, strategic and disruptive to the structure of power. Sold out doesn't mean briefcases of cash handed under the table. Money is literally in politics - that money influences politics - politicians depend on a pipeline of funds from their donor class. Lina Khan who Biden appointed (and is now appointed by Zohran) said so herself as I shared earlier. Lobbying isn't charity where no return is expected. Secularism championed separation of Church and state but somehow we just accept that money has become the new Church and that it shouldn't be separated from politics. Instead it corrupts our politics and cannibalizes society. This is why all empire can do is crudely contain rival nations - because it can't compete against them. It's hard to compete globally when your own elite class is feeding on you locally lol so all that's left is saber rattling. Capital elites don't care for national interest because they are a-national, trans-national. And yet they are fused with the nation state to the point that national interest has become code for capital interest. That doesn't mean private capital can't work with national interest or be in alignment - it just means they have dual loyalty and that they can hedge against your demise. They are the real parasites that need containing - so that the nation state can remain strong enough to compete rather than need to default to muscle and bullying tactics to try contain those they can't compete with - which only brings out world closer to WW3. All the videos I shared above explain it all better than I could. Financialization seems like a dense word and kind of abstract but this video is quite clear:

@Elliott The issue isn’t where the money comes from (people), it’s what happens after and as it accumulates (market capture). Once these companies pass a certain threshold they gain structural power by converting their accumulated wealth into a form of control and leverage. They can exert leverage over laws via lobbying, dominate the market by consolidating competitors and supplies, own the platforms and infrastructure everyone including the state depends on. Network affects lock people in - try not using WhatsApp, Amazon’s logistics, Zoom etc. If the government is a customer and a regulator, who has leverage over who? The state runs on Google, Microsoft, Amazon’s AWA, collaborates with big tech for data access, Elon’s starlink is contracted with pentagon, Palantir is embedded in the defence and intel apparatus of the state etc. None of those companies started essential - they became big through discretionary spending, that bigness allowed them to consolidate and entrench themselves with the state. Now their too big to fail or to “sticky” to detach. Democratically funded implies we can democratically defund them. I think what you’re saying is that people can notice themselves feeding into these monopolies in real time, then decide to pull away to counter that monopoly power that will end up exploiting them later (techno-feudalism). Or that free market competition will break them and check their excesses of power. But capital compounds faster than awareness - like a frog boiling in water. People are too distracted and value convenience to care about funding the next monopoly that is yet to exploit their dependence. It becomes increasingly difficult once dependencies get entrenched (especially at a state level) and when the “consumer choices” shrink by being bled out of the market or being bought up and consolidated.

The real question is where has capital shifted, left or right? ...the question doesn't make sense because money has no ideology or party loyalty except to itself - its own accumulation and preservation. Has real power been structurally challenged despite these surface level cultural / political shifts left or right? Every trickle down concession made in the form of a more left leaning policy coming through is a pressure release valve to keep the platform afloat - on which private capital depends - from which it simultaneously extracts from. Capital can cannibalize the host up to the bone, but not the bone itself which is the structure it depends on. Taking a slight hit to profits by re-distributing a slice of the pie doesn't change the core power dynamic where capital influences the state more than the other way round. A lil slice for the proletariat to keep them at bay and the system alive: It's patchwork maintenance (maintaining the status quo / power structure ) like a landlord doing the bare minimum so his building is at least rentable but not kept to such a high standard as to cut into profits. The country can overall be moving left culturally (liberalizing), with a little resurgence of right wing conservatism (not enough to reverse the wider cultural trend), with some minor political concessions (re-distribution) to keep the system afloat and away from total revolt / revolution, whilst maintaining the structural power dynamic (capital-corporatism supremacy) the entire time. The cultural shift absorbs dissent that economics can’t and doesn't fix - its a pacifier until it's not (Zohran - leftist populism). But even leftist populism done at a local level is still operating within a structural framework of capitalist supremacy in which it will be constrained, sabotaged, unsustainable or underwhelming in outcomes. The issue with re-distribution is you need something to re-distribute and to keep on re-distributing int he first place. You can't keep slicing the pie if the people who make the pie leave the kitchen for other kitchens that tell them they can keep more of they pie they make (lower taxes etc). The only thing keeping bakers and makers wanting to keep baking in a certain kitchen over another, beside the incentive of how much of their pie they get to keep - is the quality of the kitchen (ingredients, safety measures, facilities, more customers to sell to). So any increase in hostility towards capital (higher business rates or taxes) can be compensated for by other factors. If a system introduces policies that punishes capital investment but remains open for that same capital to leave - the tax base that re-distribution depends on risks shrinking. So the policy alleviates some pain short term but ends up eroding in the medium-long term. Socialist policies need some containment (of capital) to work to disciplines capital’s flight instinct. But containment only works where cohesion legitimizes it and competence can enforce it. Money needs to keep circulating (contained) long enough to see results - by recycling money back into the system (local investment, welfare) rather than being sucked up to the top and out of the system into tax havens and speculative assets. Enough profits earned within a society are kept to feed into that society, which loops back to private investors as they have a wealthier consumer base to profit from. That needs cohesion and competence (execution, management) - which provide capital the certainty it needs to concede to less profit now for more stable profits long term. This is why China was invested into despite capital having to concede to China's terms (re-investment, joint ventures, capital controls etc) - because investors would take a hit at some profit if they can still gain access to a large market and where their money will be safe. Also why Singapore and Nordic countries do well - small but competent and cohesive so capital doesn't feel the need to vanish to the next highest return jurisdiction if where they are is stable and predictable. A market, city or country need to be ''investable'' and the people need to be cohesive enough to where they don't mind a hit in profit (for the ''collective'' good) - especially if they see visible results of paying higher taxes in the form of better education, infrastructure, safety etc. Cohesion gives legitimacy, competence brings outcomes, containment makes it self-sustaining. All that fails if capital can't be contained due to having more mobility than the state has authority - where cohesion is breaking (larger multi-cultural societies) and where competence is misdirected. The US/UK are competent at serving capital, not citizens. Money enters the system but is routed through parasitic structures that extract before anything trickles down to public life. This is why ''we pay high taxes'' yet see little and end up frustrated, whilst other countries do better with equivalent taxes or low to nothing (UAE etc). Lack of cohesion is obvious (cultural divides, left vs right etc). Containment of capital by the state is difficult because it's structurally captured by the same entity (capital) it needs to discipline in the first place. But also - the US can't discipline capital (contain it in any serious way) because the US is largely a financialized empire dependent on dollar dominance - and the dollars dominance is dependent on the mobility of capital. The reason the world holds dollars, buys treasuries, and treats Wall Street like a global central bank is because of that mobility. Starting to restrict or contain it will unravel US hegemony. Financialization replaced production (to serve private capital), debt became the growth engine (liquidity to keep things afloat, inflate assets, widen inequality), interest on that debt became a parasite that is now cannibalizing the system after the elites already had their share. Containment unravels the US empire, but so does the current status quo which is unsustainable - the unravelling happens either way.

Yeah it's far from a tourist lens but if you want to base your self somewhere strategic where you can reach most regions of the earth then its not 'that bad. Depends how often you need to go to the US, but most of the planet lives within Asia/Middle East/Africa/Europe and its bang in the middle so it works well for European's. This is why Europe is so appealing compared newer cities like Dubai or in the US. Europe was designed for humans before cars, the modern cities were made around cars and for efficiency and function. Dubai has the old town (Deira) and souk Madinat + old Arabian style architecture which is much warmer. Also, there's plenty of alcohol and nightlife / beach parties. All the top DJ's headlining in Vegas, Ibiza, Mykonos etc are in Dubai October-May before summer starts in Europe/US. Cringe Vegas style pool parties too:

😂 Destiny actually had the better takes. Hijab diluted his own points by getting personal and trying to throw him off - making him look foolish. But also Destiny didn’t make an argument for atheism - he kept smuggling in liberalism and secularism which are related but distinct.

I agree. A good way to look at it is container (structure, construct) vs consciousness. Religions and government structures (democracy vs monarchy) are containers - that the peoples conciousness within them is distinct from. Although there is a relationship between the two also. So it’s not about the doctrine alone but about the development of those engaging with it. Some containers are perhaps better than others at elevating our conciousness - because some containers have more trappings than others. This is why non-duality and actualized (Leo’s body of work) is better at elevating conciousness - it just has way less trappings than religion does. For example in Islam the idea of jihad (struggle) or in Judaism - the chosen people. Both of these can be approached form a lower or higher place. A lower conciousness turns jihad into ISIS and the notion of chosen people into candy for the ego. A higher conciousness turns jihad into struggle against ego/impulses and chosen people into a burden or responsibility to embody good virtues. These trappings are higher risk than a neutralised scientific approach to spirituality which has less baggage, words or ideas that can be conflated or confused. Osho actually did this and said it was his intention - he spoke from a higher place on all the world religions. He drew in people of all walks by doing this, and then he went onto the next step and said to even drop those containers (religions) and approach spirituality without them ie more scientifically. But like I said to breakingthewall - there is a place for both the scientific approach to spirituality, and the art of spirituality which is more colourful and localised to where people are from. We don’t necessarily have to drop our identity - otherwise how do we culturally “belong” with everyone around us without feeling alien. We need to synthesise the two approaches and view the scientific approach like a formal universal language and the artful approach like a local cultural language. In other words transcend the container but live within it - the same way we’re told to be in the world but not of it.

Remember when you and BlueOak thought BRICS is trying to end global democracy and turn the world authoritarian lol as if there aren’t larger and internal forces causing that. Brazil, India and South Africa are democracies - that’s 3/5 of the BRICS nations. You guys don’t even know what BRICS is or what brings them together. You guys think they’re exporting an ideology rather than pragmatically coming together to equalise the global order in such a way as to not have 15% of the world population dictate to 85% of the world through the institutional leverage these colonial legacy powers have. This 40min video is a great watch: Ignore the few biased takes and comments - the video has much to learn from. Adults don’t get triggered at trigger words or comments and can extract value when value is there. Just like we could learn from Hitler when he spoke of the parasitic rentier elites back in the day. Trumps now floating a 50 year mortgage at 2% - I hope everyone understands the implications of that ie a trillion dollar bailout for the banksters while the ordinary person pays to keep a dying system afloat. Socialised losses, privatised gains.

@Breakingthewall Sharing a old comment that goes into what we’r talking about. I think your after purity of essence and against anything that can dilute it ie institutions. But that’s the nature of the beast. Once a “real pure mystic” is there - it’s human to build around it to keep that flame alive - and eventually that flame diminishes or dies down. That doesn’t mean institutions (religions or structures) shouldn’t exist - it’s just a baked in flaw that they are bound to diminish the spirit of whatever value they were inspired by or hoping to keep alive down the ages. We can start to judge who’s more “enlightened” than another - again being puritanical about it. But just like in sports where we have gold, silver and bronze medals - and everyone else who tries. Do we then say the whole institution of sports (training, coaches, camps etc) aren’t correct because not everyone will be 1st or not everyone can be taught by the best? This is a good short from Ram Dass on the trap of structures, methods, gurus:

Correct (humans are flawed) - but I said the core flaw in this system is such and such. Feudalism was corrupt too but we don't say "what to do, all systems are corrupt anyway" or ''humans are corrupt bro'' like its a discovery LOL. That's exactly why system design matters. If humans are corruptible (they obviously are) - then the entire point of building political and economic systems is to structure incentives so that corruption is costly and punishable rather than profitable or in the US's case legally mandated. Your asking why blame capitalism for human nature? I'm saying that this specific arrangement of capitalism weaponizes and mandates the worst of human nature. The system is deliberately restructured to make capital accumulation the supreme logic, overriding all other values - and it will legally punish anyone who resists. You can have the most ethical, principled person in the world - like a Buddha. Put them in a C-suite with fiduciary duty to maximize shareholder value, and they either extract wealth or get fired and replaced by someone who will. This is a legal, structural requirement - corruption is literally the operating system. In a better system, labor checks capital, the state checks both. Media checks the state - citizens check the media. Different power centers check each other. This is also why in multi-polarity we have powers checking one another - and today we have China checking the US telling it to pipe down or it'll nuke its military industrial complex with rare earth controls. This is why the US is trying to secure the realm by preying on weaker players now (Venezuela, talks of Nigeria now lol). What we have now is: capital checks capital (it doesn't), the state is captured by capital (so it can't check anything), media is owned by capital (so it justifies the status quo), and citizens are too divided and propagandized to check any of it. Check ya self before ya wreck yourself.