Romanov

Right, and so far we are apparently experiencing turnout akin to a presidential election. I’m just curious to see what people care about more here: abortion and democracy or inflation. If right wingers win, it’s also going to be bad for Ukraine and good for Putin.

I guess it’s not solely about your video here, I just thought there would be a connection because I’m seeing many people shift a bit towards the right recently. You can kind of feel which side is going to ‘win’ by what form the mainstream narrative is taking. Almost every time when one side is “in the spotlight” for long enough, it’s as if people get bored with it or become more critical of it and this creates a pendulum-like effect. All I can say about those people is, “Congratulations, you found out that politicians suck without finding out that politicians suck.”

I am not saying that the left can’t or is not objective, but I prefer to stay true to the stereotype of the left being more about subjectivity and the right being more about objectivity since there is some truth to it and is usually how most people perceive it to be anyways. In fact, I would go as far as saying that it is in the left’s best interest to double down on the subjectivity/consciousness aspect rather than to make objective arguments against other objective arguments which only muddies the water more. Anyways, when I see right wing propaganda, I usually see very objective statements being made which gets their own riled up. Examples are, “There are only two genders”, “Men can’t get pregnant.” What astounds me is that the people who believe men can’t get pregnant, are also the same people who believe a woman is ‘wearing the pants and being the man’ when she makes all the decisions in a relationship. It’s as if that there is actually some overlap in beliefs between the right and the left, except that the intention behind them is different. For example, believing that a woman is being a man by making all the decisions, further lends itself to men blaming women and avoiding personal responsibility (which is actually not very masculine after all) and is one of the reasons we end up with ‘fake alphas’. I used to be very conservative at one point, because I was raised in a conservative family. However, I have found people such as Eckhart Tolle, Osho, etc. to deeply influence me for the longest time. It just left a bad taste in my mouth conforming to all these conservative views whilst having this strong inclination towards spirituality, love, consciousness. I have also naturally opposed Christian fundamentalism growing up, so all of these Christian motives coming from the right wing such as being against abortion, was always a turn off for me. The right is for the most part, so focused on being confined to its ‘thought box’, that I can’t find a shred of creativity in its propaganda. Even their comedy is straight ranting most of the time. Thoughts?

I don’t equate self-expression and subjectivity with selfishness, but rather consciousness. The formless aspect of existence. I see nothing wrong with the rhetoric of global compassion, but more as something that’s been long overdue and even more dire given what’s happening in Eastern Europe. If the true right stands for eternal values, what are those values and where do they come from? If they come from a god….well to that I’d say that the assertion of a god is an unfalsifiable claim. It’s a lot like me saying there is a dragon in my garage which can’t be seen, but it’s there. I can’t prove it, but no one can disprove it either. So my question is, eternal values according to whom?

They claim the U.S. is a Christian nation, yet the Treaty of Tripoli with a unanimous Senate vote has John Adams literally saying that the U.S. is not a Christian nation. “In God We Trust” on currency and “One nation under God” for the pledge wasn’t even added until the 50s. And then there’s the front of patriotism yet there is cowering when it comes to Putin and his threats under the guise of “worrying about our own people” instead. I have a student loan that’s been looming over my head for over a decade and definitely stopped paying it off as soon as Biden took office. It was not due to “making a poor decision that I’m responsible for”, but because my father told me it was either college or be homeless at the men’s shelter. Conservatives oppose student loans yet when pressed about social security and Medicare, they claim it’s their own money. It seems pretty backwards for someone else to withhold your money only to give it back to you later unless…the entire thing was implemented in order for the elderly to have some sort of assistance. They’ll also support PPP business loans as if a business’s success is a right (while they argue that healthcare and education is not).

Right, and even psychologists associate black/white, absolutist thinking with negative behaviors. You would think that the party which touts individualism would also promote subjectivity and consciousness.

I’m a relativist, truth is a paradox to me. What’s absolute is the relativity of the absolute. As such, I have pondered this question for a while…Is math truly objective? I haven’t arrived to a conclusion as to what math is, but I have arrived at the conclusion that math is not objective. I started off with first asking something silly such as, “Is 2 plus 2 always 4?” Upon further investigation I came across the concept of, ‘axiom’. I then asked, “What is an axiom exactly?” And everywhere I looked, I kept seeing an axiom being defined as an assumption, a postulate. In fact many mathematicians define an axiom as exactly that. Axioms serve as a starting point for further reasoning and this is how math can get very complex at higher levels. Alright so if an axiom is only an assumption, what is the root of that assumption? Human observation. It’s the same observation that leads to the belief in a separate self, the ego. Humans try to not be biased but so long as subjectivity exists, there will be bias. Math cannot be ‘bias-free’ and neither can science. Math cannot be absolute because to consciousness there is no difference between 2+2=4 and 2+2=5.

I guess I meant science in the conventional sense that hinges on a materialistic paradigm, that there is a world outside of consciousness comprised of stuff called matter

Paranoid Putin knows he’s losing. His regular military has been struggling for the past 7 months. What are a bunch of reservists who haven’t fired a gun in a long time going to do? He probably also said partial mobilization so he doesn’t look as desperate as saying full mobilization

Exactly. And by no means am I trying to say math is useless, it’s very useful. Buttttt, useful≠absolute truth. I just think that math is the strongest argument for objectivity, and for that reason alone I focused on challenging it. One cannot believe in an absolute truth without believing math is absolute. I don’t find belief in a god to be the problem, but belief in absolute truth. The idea that there is truly something material outside of consciousness. How in the world can anything be perceived without the perceiver?

Totally forgot about this thread. Someone asked me how I define postmodernism, individualism, and collectivism. Postmodernism for me is funny because it even refutes itself. Postmodernism to me is having the stance of no stance. It goes against all claims of absolute truth from so called ‘facts’ to math, religion, science, etc. The reason I tie that to individualism and collectivism is because a postmodernist would refute both concepts as existing separately from one another. I see conservatives worshipping individualism and liberals worshipping collectivism, I worship neither. For me if I had to pick between the two, it would be more like deciding on what I’m going to eat for breakfast. I view absolute truth as a paradox. Everything I say is both absolute and relative. If I say that there is no absolute truth, it is a statement of absolute truth. And since it’s self contradictory, that’s perfectly ok! I think people are so afraid of contradicting themselves that it causes them to be unaware of their hypocrisy. As long as I can admit that I contradict myself, I am no longer contradicting myself. People think in terms of being a hypocrite vs. not being a hypocrite. I think in terms of admitting you are a hypocrite vs. not admitting it. It’s not about never contradicting oneself, it’s about being aware that you do it all the time. Like Leo has mentioned in his devilry video, it’s about seeing that YOU are the devil himself. And Leo I guess what I meant by collectivism being at the top of SD, I meant that you mentioned it was at least ‘higher up’ than individualism. You have said that liberals tend to be higher up than conservatives when it comes to SD or level of consciousness. Am I confused and lost? Hell yes I am. But one thing I am not confused about is the awareness of my confusion. I have people telling me, “But what you said doesn’t make any sense! It’s illogical! It’s fallacious!” And my only answer to that is, “Why does anything have to make sense?” Or I get told that if I don’t believe in anything, then I end up with nothing. I see nothing wrong with having nothing. That means one has nothing to lose, they are free.

This is only my take, it’s not absolute truth. I’ve heard Leo and many others say that collectivism always wins, it’s at the top of spiral dynamics, etc. The thing is that you can’t have a collective without individuals or an individual without the collective; they are two sides of the same coin. Even if an individual was stranded on an island by themselves, they would rely on the food sources there. Collective can also include the environment. Liberals usually stand for collectivism but if their individual rights got threatened-they would quickly become conservative. Having the right to abortion is a very individual right, “my body, my choice.” Even if globalization was to fully triumph and we all became one nation…if we end up finding other civilizations out in the galaxy…then we could end up being nationalistic as the entire human race among different alien civilizations. I don’t think individualism can be separated out from collectivism anymore than a wave can be separated from the ocean. Spiritually speaking, one can say the collective represents universal consciousness and individualism represents ego. But like Leo has mentioned in many of his videos, the ego is is there to help with navigation and survival. This universal consciousness would not experience itself or get to know itself very effectively if there is no ego to help you survive. The other issue I see is that since universal consciousness is nondual in nature, people will pit nonduality against duality. And non duality vs. duality is yet another duality! How can we know what selflessness is without knowing selfishness? I’ve also heard people say that progress always wins and that the liberals of yesterday are the conservatives of today. However, I don’t think either side wins…because I see them as complimentary to one another. Progress needs a foundation in order for progress to happen. I think the reason that we are so politically gridlocked is that both parties are compromised, in other words there are two parties within each party…causing both to be constipated with hardly much bipartisan support on many issues. The majority of atheists are liberal but to me atheism aligns more with conservatism because it’s very individualistic and skeptical, no worship of gods and generally prioritizes feelings over facts. Since there is no worship of gods, it makes sense to also not worship the government. And Christianity in the other hand, I view as very liberal given Jesus’ teachings. The GOP’s ideology goes against the teachings of Jesus, they would never get behind Jesus if Jesus could be president. As former Soviet Union president Mikhail Gorbachev has said, “Jesus was the first socialist. The first to seek a better life for mankind.” Politically I’m centrist and I feel like both sides misunderstand centrism. They’ll use an example such as, “If one side wants to abolish slavery and the other doesn’t, the centrist will say to just have less slaves.” Centrism to me is where both sides have valid points in the entire political landscape, not on every single individual issue. That’s the misunderstanding. They see centrists as cowards but whose to say both sides can also cowards for succumbing to an extremist view over the other and not having the courage to listen beyond their echo chambers. Or people will vote for something only because their side does as this sort of unwavering loyalty. I support Ukraine and many conservatives won’t support Ukraine for the simple reason that the left does which makes no sense. Or people will sometimes say that sometimes extreme measures are needed for change and centrism defeats that purpose. I can’t agree because I don’t mind being extreme when it comes to certain issues. One does not have to be extreme across the board on every issue, it could just be on a few issues instead. Conservatism and liberalism to me are a lot like driving while following the speed limit.

Because per Leo’s ‘power of not knowing video’, you don’t know.

Why not need to know what a woman is?

Hm, interesting. Never heard of atomism before. I don’t think atomism is something I fully agree with because while individual choices play a role where one ends up, so does the collective. If the system is rigged against you, you’re at a disadvantage for example. Or the collective can also help the individual by protecting basic rights. We have a Bill of Rights here, I don’t think there’s one in Afghanistan