Basman

Vlad Vexler on his YT channel reacts to a lot of current news that relate to authoritarianism (Trump and Russia mostly), which I judge to be quiet insightful and educational when it comes to understanding the perspective of authoritarians and how it relates to democratic institutions.

It is impossible to trust AI to be factual because it will always be making up shit to a certain extent. It's not what it is for in my opinion and I think it is problematic how eager people are to outsource their thinking ChatGPT. I think it's beneficial for you to read the news yourself. Besides, you don't need to be all that attentive to the news in my opinion nor should you rely on a single source at that. A myriad of different sources and perspectives is more optimal epistemologically.

I don't think anyone who paid attention is surprised by this. The Elon-Trump crash-out is as close to being prophecy as you could get.

Japanese are so ethnocentric that they used to have rules mandating black hair at their schools until recently (2022). If your natural hair color is something else you had to dye it and they would forcefully dye it at school if you didn't do it yourself.

Even contemplating our doom has been taken over by AI.

Is this the same Nazism ideologically from 1940s Germany or more like an inspired hyper-conservative counter-culture thing?

The right tends to be perceived as more actionable whereas the left is perceived as more idealistic and more like a collection of broad moral statements that don't have clear actionable steps. A bunch of "shoulds" essentially. In my opinion, identity politics has soiled the image of the left as identity politics isn't actual politics with clear steps but a broad debate over norms and definitions. In multi-party systems, the furthest left parties tend to be ungrounded, ineffective, unwilling to cooperate across aisle and are overly concerned with their optics relative to their moral convictions (in my opinion). The US has less opportunity to distinguish between pragmatic economic leftism and far-left ideology because of the two-party system in my opinion. The far-left isn't concerned with political pragmatism and could perhaps be considered as more experimental if given a gracious treatment. I think economic insecurity is making people lean more conservative as well as people tend to become more conservative during times of hardship at the same time that they are not seeing a strong presence of actionable left-wing calls to action.

At least in this example you lack full context to what you mean. You could easily read this as sexism being good in of itself since you don't seem to fully explain how social construction relates to survival. Like a sort of naturalism argument which is an ethical justification, but is of course not what you meant at all. It is worth remembering that for non-philosophy freaks like us concepts like levels of development, moral relativity, how the mind creates reality, etc. are completely foreign. It took years of watching Actualized stuff and your own contemplation to reach your level of understanding, so without presenting the whole context of your ideas they will tend to get lost in translation with people who's philosophy is predicated largely on cultural memes. I hope I didn't come off as too preachy. This is a suggestion as much for myself as it is for others.

Israel can't be expected to acknowledge Palestine as legitimate on a politically fundamental level due to Zionist ideology. It has to be policed by a greater power to not ethnically cleanse Palestine which is impossible. It's like a rat stuck in a room with a large cat.

He's too far gone. It's not possible to end up in Trump's state without cutting yourself off spiritually.

Tony Robbins is about self-improvement, not political analysis or collective struggle. It's about what you can do individually. What you could do collectively is a different matter entirely. He's right in that creating massive value and wealth to a certain extent depends on having certain qualities, like discipline and vision. Most people have very little vision and aren't ambitious. Individually you can accomplish a lot irrespective of your culture's center of gravity, especially if you live in a first world country. Most won't because they don't have the inkling that they even could.

No, because autism is a kind of disability depending on the severity. A lack of affect is a kind of mild disability at least since we are a social species. Severe forms of autism on the other hand are debilitating. Specialized treatment is how society accommodates for disabilities. I've seen autistic people not being able to hold a job because it was "too dusty" where they worked. How is society supposed to accommodate sensitivity to that level? By the way, when I wrote "acceptance" in my previous post, I was mainly referring to self-acceptance as a result of better self-understanding ("why am I such a weirdo?" etc.)

Try wiggling your toes to be more present. If you are more present it is easier to break the chain reaction of your thoughts causing you to feel bad. You have to recognize that thoughts themselves aren't real even though they can effect your mood and actions.

How people form relationships is reflective of a societies survival needs. Monogamy came to culturally when inheritance became a thing. In our modern society there is less strict need for monogamy which I think just means more casual situationships/boyfriend-girlfriend relationships rather than direct marriage or deliberate polyamory.

The cost of tariffs are just going to be passed on to the customer. The silver-lining is that it will hopefully lead to disillusionment with Trump and authoritarian grandstanding as people's quality of life are noticeably worsened. Everyone in the know knows it is a disaster but for Trump it is about creating an atmosphere of control where you have to bend and kiss the ring or get punished.

"Karmic justice" is the urban legend of the original Indian idea of karma. It's basically bullshit and shouldn't be taken seriously. It's a meme essentially.

The original meaning of karma has nothing to do with cosmic justice but is about the cause and effect of one's internal reality. It has more to do with how we create our own reality by the way we perceive things, the trauma we hold in our body. That is where the notion of past lives get slotted in. Trumps actions definitely has backfired on him, like the attempts that have been made on his life (though that has also benefited in him in terms of polling), but that is more cause and effect and less that he did a "baddie" and god then punishing him accordingly. When Trump creates an atmosphere of antagonism with his rhetoric then it's not surprising when certain people then act on that with violence, but that is not "karma". Trumps need for narcissistic supply also backfires on him as he loses the support of the public with his insane tariff war. Or another example, Putins lack of interest in peace is making Trump look stupid on the global stage after all his boasting about swiftly ending the war which infuriates him. These are all cause and effect and the bad things that happen to Trump is because of his delusions and narcissism is driving him to act in ineffective and dangerous ways.

I think vlogging would be more effective. People don't really read anymore.

The pros of getting a diagnosis is predominately about acceptance, unmasking and access to support and accommodation, but if those are all things that you don't feel you need you'll probably just find it stigmatizing I bet. In that case it is better do without in my opinion. You don't need specialized treatment if you don't have debilitating symptoms if it stigmatizes more than it helps. Just treat whatever issues you have as is.

Agreeableness. The negative consequences are just supposed side-effect of regimentation. Society and survival isn't about happiness.

I'd argue survival incentives is more consequential for social change. Women where a valuable source of capital so giving them more freedom was natural. In modern times you could make the argument that softer men is beneficial for a regimented and highly bureaucratic society. In comparison, I can't imagine there being that many soft men in Ukraine currently, which has a completely different survival situation. They are one step away from toddlers yelling "fuck the patriarchy". Freaky stuff. I don't understand why boys and girls aren't equally taught assertiveness and sensitivity though. Both are good, but neglecting teaching boys to be men in particular sets them up for a dissatisfied life in my opinion. I know that my life would be better if I was taught to be more assertive and confident when I was little. It's not a given but they act like it is and therefor you need to "compensate" by teaching boys to be girls and vice versa. It's also not even about equality either but equity. This is an attempt at making people more uniform. Also, the fact that it is predominately the elite managerial class that pays for this program says everything.

Medieval civilization was quiet advanced for its time actually. Grand cathedrals still inspire awe. Preaching to the choir is one thing but what do you think would meaningfully change our culture for the better?

@zazen It's not an expansion. It's a defense pact. This is a fact. And it is appropriate to take those measures since appeasing Putin only leads to escalation. Russia has to be stonewalled militarily in order to maintain security. Europe is in fact very slow to act on Russian aggression. They hope that it all will just blow over if anything and go back to business as usual, something that gives Putin the confidence that there won't be a significant European response. Your not acknowledging that Russian aggression is largely ideologically motivated. It's not about security for Russia but the freedom to set terms on the global stage and be a "great power". Being at war is actually beneficial for Russia because the world pays attention to them. When the war is resolved they go back to being a regional power. Russia also seeks to destabilize democracies since democratic institution undermine Russian authority, which is why you see them engaging in so much disinformation, like with Brexit. People have an ideological interest in ambiguity about the war. I find that most people who support the Russian invasion are predominately anti-west and/or think Russia represents some kind of alternative to western capitalism. I don't find these views to be grounded because Russia is a corrupt capitalist oligarchy. It's more libertarian than the US.

We live in a farmer's society that rewards regimentation and agreeableness. The benefits largely outweigh the cons, but I believe that this sense of anxiety, insecurity and lack of spontaneity is due to being taught to reject new experiences. You have to teach young boys to not kick over sand castles. This whole thread comes of as somewhat performative, whiny and lacking in substance though. You could just mind your own business.

In terms of self-learning art, in my experience you mostly need to just practice with the occasional theory to help you create particular distinctions that make your art and your understanding of what you are drawing better. And you practice by mostly drawing the things that you are interested in, as opposed to thing you think you should draw. You also need a large collection of references and inspiration to draw from.