Forestluv

This is a great question from a human perspective. The mechanisms of "how" are interesting to study. I spend a lot of time studying mechanisms. Yet I think you are missing something transcendent to the mechanisms. A lot of your questions in recent threads all seem rooted in this transcendence. Questions about cause/effect, mechanisms, time and space are all related to this transcendence. We can add in an entity called "god", yet this isn't much different than adding in an entity like "physical laws". I would say adding in a concept of a god entity would add more complications since it adds in the concept of intention. I'm not saying your questions are wrong or have no value. I'm saying there is another "something". For example, imagine being in Paris and asking how France creates Paris. Then someone replies that France is in Europe. If the person is contracted within France and is unaware of Europe, this will be very confusing. The person will keep saying "No, what I'm asking about is how does France create Paris?". . . There is nothing wrong with asking how France creates Paris. It's a great question we can pursue. Yet if the person is unaware of how France is in Europe, their exploration will be very confusing. One must expand to a higher, more expansive level of consciousness. You essentially start off your question "If Paris is in France. . . " and are restricting yourself in a contraction. Nothing wrong with this, yet you won't expand within this contraction. When you say "If God is not separate from us. . . " Full stop. If God is not separate it is Everything. There is no creator or creation. There is no God and us. There is no God and trees, pencils, animals, etc. I think this is the part that you are missing. There may be a cognitive logical understanding, yet not a deeper embodiment understanding through direct experience. You don't seem satisfied with this. To me, it seems like "Yea, yea. God is Everything. I get that. So how does God create Everything and not know it is creating Everything?". This is missing what Everything is. You've got the separation part down. You are missing the non-separation part. . . If God is Everything, how can God create anything? There is no separation between God and any thing. There is no creator to create. Your confusion about God is God. All mechanistic details of how God creates stuff is God. Whatever is happening is God. There is no way to step outside of God and point to God. Illusion is God. What is real is God. . . This is very dissatisfying at the human level. It is a trans-human level and the human mind will not want to make this transcendence. It requires a surrender. As well, the opposite of everything I wrote is also True. Yet to me you already have that part down. You already have the separation part down - with lots of curiosity about things like cause/effect and mechanism. From my POV, the next big revelation will not come from intellectually figuring out relative "how's", it will come through direct experience of Everything. Then it comes together: Absolute Everything = Nothing = Now. And facets of absolute are revealed. Absolute Perfection, Absolute Peace, Absolute Love, Absolute God etc. It's not an intellectual thing because intellect is within the relative (which paradoxically is also Everything, God etc). . . In other words, it's like you are asking "How can I figure out Absolute through the relative". It doesn't work that way because Relative is within Absolute and Relative is Absolute. Somewhat similar to how France is within Europe. Once cannot awaken to Europe if they are contracted within France. Yet paradoxically, France is not separate from Europe - it is within Europe.

The law states that a president cannot solicit a foreign government for a thing of value toward an election. The term "value" is relative, yet I think most people agree that an investigation into a political opponent in an election would be a thing of "value". So there are two parts, the solicitation part and the value part. No one is debating the solicitation part. Even Trump himself has admitted this. As well, very few people are arguing the value part. The argument that an investigation into Biden is not a thing of value toward Trump's re-election is extremely weak. Republicans aren't even arguing for this. So Trump directly solicited Ukraine (which Trump himself admits) for a thing of value toward his campaign (which virtually noone is arguing against at this point). So, this is a crime - unless one can argue no thing of value to Trump was involved. However, just because it is a crime doesn't mean it wasn't justified. This is a separate issue. One can commit a crime in a justified manner. Or, there can be two opposing laws. The whistleblower Edward Snowden found himself in such a dilemma. There were laws of confidentiality within the NSA as well as laws to uphold the constitution. Edward Snowden broke a confidentiality law to uphold a higher law of the constitution. There can be other situations in which it is justified to break a law. For example, suppose Biden was plotting with Ukranian terrorists to drop nuclear bombs on the United States in a week. Trump could have decided that this matter was so important and urgent he had to call Zelensky and ask for help. He would be breaking the law to do so, yet believe he is justified in doing so, because going through the proper channels of the CIA or Justice Department would take too long. . . Here one could argue that it is justified to break the law to save the country from nuclear destruction. In this context, I would agree. The argument that Trump didn't break this law is incredibly weak. Trump and his defenders are not arguing that there was no thing of value - they are arguing that Trump's behavior was justified. They are also trying to conflate breaking the law with justification. These are two separate issues, yet Trump's team is trying to conflate the issue that justification means no law was broken. However, there is a distinction. . . So, was Trump breaking the law justified? I can see an argument both ways, yet I would lean toward "no". If Trump believed this was a matter of national concern, he could have gone through the proper channels - yet he did not - he called Zelensky and directly solicited. I don't think this is justified. This is not a case of such impeding urgent danger to our national security that Trump could not have worked through proper channels. We are talking about wether Biden's son should have been on a Ukranian gas company board making lots of money. Hunter Biden was obviously unqualified for this position and only received the high paying position due to being the son of the vice president. This is unethical and worthy of investigation, yet imo not at a level of such extreme national urgency to justify Trump breaking a law. . . The second issue is that Biden spoke in favor of firing an Ukranian prosecutor. This Ukranian prosecuter was seen a corrupt by the Western World. All international groups were calling for his termination, including the IMF for goodness sake. One could claim that Biden was speaking on behalf of the international community. There is a lot of support for this - in particular the international community wanted the prosecutor fired and wanted the vice president of the U.S. to speak on behalf of the international community. As well, there are criminal issues regarding extortion and cover ups. In cases of extortion, the power dynamics are very important. The Ukraine is a very small country with a small military (on the level of Sri Lanka) trying to defend itself from it's neighbor - Russia, which is imperialistic and much more powerful. The U.S. is orders of magnitude more powerful than Ukraine. So the context here is that there is an extreme power imbalance. The U.S. is thousands of times more powerful than Ukraine. And Ukraine is in dire need of 400m of U.S. military aid. There survival is dependent on this aid. The House has authority to allocate this aid to the Ukraine. Trump took an unprecedented step and blocked this aid. Again, this is not the proper channel. The House determines foreign aid. Days after blocking the aid, Trump called Zelensky to ask for two favors. The power dynamic is important for determining extortion. . . Trump starts off by saying how good the U.S. has been to the Ukraine and that Ukraine has not reciprocated to the U.S. Zelensky brings up the issue of military aid and Trump pivots toward asking for favors. . . To me, this sounds like a strong case of extortion - which would be a second crime. Extortion cases don't involve the perpetrator specifically saying "I'm going to cut you off from all aid unless you do me a favor". No extortionist is that stupid, including Trump. Extortion cases lay out just like this one. There is a power imbalance and the more powerful player witholds something from the weaker player. Then says something like "We've been good to you and you haven't been doing enough. I want a favor. . . ". Or they may make a "suggestion" or "request". Yet in the larger context it is extortion and this seems to be a strong case of extortion.

Part tongue-in-cheek. Part something deeper. But not in a rational/logical way. More like an intuitive, synchronicity kind of way.

@krockerman Those are some nice insights. One thing I’ve noticed is expecting happiness or peace to look a certain way. One day, I was listening to some sad music and started feeling sad. They were really heartfelt songs - like about loving someone really deeply and the sorrow of losing that person. I felt deep sadness of the human experience in life. Yet it was also really beautiful. I was in this space for hours. Later, I met my girlfriend and she said “Oh no, you look sad. What’s wrong? Let’s get you happy”. . . The weird thing was, that nothing was “wrong” and I didn’t need to get happy. The sadness was really beautiful form of sadness. In a way, I was already happy. I didn’t want to change it. There was a deep form of happiness and peace. Not the kind of happiness like getting a present you want. Something deeper deeper than that. Like a happiness of deeply connecting to other human beings.

No one is advocating a zero diplomacy policy with North Korea. It’s not a good thing for Trump to be cozying up to dictators like jong, Putin and MbS. This sends the wrong message and leads to decay of democratic systems. Dictators that can act oppressively without consequence will be emboldened - as we are seeing now. You say there is no point in just ignoring evil and walking away from it. That is exactly what Trump has done with jong, Putin and MbS. He has even tacitly supported the evil at times.

@Emerald Do you think Bernie’s lack of establishment/corporate support would hurt him in the general? Warren seems to be positioning herself so that she is at least tolerable to establishment/corporate. Under Warren, they would need to get a haircut, yet the main capitalistic power structure would remain. Bernie also has more courage than any other candidate. For example, he held a rally in deep red Kentucky to shame McConnell in his own backyard.

Trump’s non-verbal communication is one of his skills - yet it cuts both ways. It is both attractive and repulsive. And I think you are under-appreciating Bernie’s nonverbal. Bernie also has a non-verbal vibe that will resonate with a large portion of the electorate. He also also good intuition. His spontaneous “I wrote the damn bill” during the debate absolutely flattened Tim Ryan and was inspirational to a lot of people that are fed up. He would do the same to Trump. This may not resonate with you, yet it does with a lot of others. Bernie would get massive energetic crowds that want to be part of a revolution. I don’t see Bernie’s strongest asset as logical arguments. That is Warren’s wheelhouse. Bernie shouts things out like “500,000 people went bankrupt this year because of corrupt health insurance crooks stealing your money!, And we are not going to take it anymore!”. Trump may inspire his base more because he divides people culturally. This will ignite more passion due to fear and hate. One of Trump’s boogeymen are scary Hispanic men that want to steal our jobs and rape our women. “But we won’t let them!!”. Bernie’s boogeyman is a faceless corporate CEO that has too much wealth and power. That’s not going to generate as much fear and emotion.

@Emerald It would be amazing to see the contrast of Bernie’s pure real populism and Trump’s polluted fake populism on a debate stage. Trump can try to paint Bernie as a scary socialist, yet not as a corrupt politician. And trump has recently been quoting as saying beating socialist populism won’t be a slam dunk like originally thought.

I agree, yet I’m not sure about impeachment proceedings. I could see them going toward Clinton or Nixon. Or something in between. My concern is that republicans are much better at messaging than establishment dems. So I can see it benefiting him. Yet I think no impeachment proceedings would benefit him more.

@whoareyou There seems to be a shift since Trump entered the picture. Things seem much more about identity and emotion rather than rational discussions about facts. Theatrics over substance. Reality TV. Trump is a master at this. Dems suck at it. This is my major concern with them bungling impeachment. They will try to make the hearings about substance and have poor theatrics. I have a similar concern with Bernie. He does not have the theatrics. However, there is an energy that he inspires. I think he is the purist candidate and calls it like it is. This was one reason Trump is popular - his supporters feel like he calls it like it is and that he doesn’t try to be politically correct. . . My bigger concern about Bernie is that he is too far from corporations and mainstream media. I actually like that, yet I think it would hurt him in a general. . .

@Emerald In terms of the election, I think there are potential of risk/rewards with impeachment. I lean toward impeachment because I think the risks of no impeachment outweigh potential benefits. As well, I think it is the right thing to do on principles. . . I would place establishment dems a bit further to the left than you do. High Orange on the SD scale - a level lower than progressives. I also see the toxic orange aspects you describe. Yet, I also err toward seeing good in people. At times I’m naive and slow to see the mal intent in others. @Cocolove Thanks. It can be hard to explain some things in a way that connects with people. It is one of my yearnings and I hope to get better at it. I appreciate that you see potential. ?

@Emerald I agree that establishment corporate dems are more concerned about their their electoral power than doing the right thing. By impeaching Trump over this, they get a three for one. They damage Trump by exposing his wrongdoings, they deflect the wrongdoings of Biden and they inhibit interference that would help trump in the 2020 election. If polling had shown 60% of the population supported impeachment, proceedings would have started a long time ago because it would have helped establishment dems. In terms of progress, I think the top priority is to get Sanders or Warren in the WH and fundamentally change the narrative to progressive. And then put the focus on corporate/political corruption. I think Biden will fade on his own without the Ukraine stuff. I think Trump’s wrong doings related to Russia, Ukraine and Saudi Arabia is worth pursuing for various reasons.

@Emerald I’d say it’s a combination of holding Trump accountable and protecting Biden. I think this rises to a higher level than Trump’s other wrong doings because he is directly interfering with an upcoming election. And Trump is hiding evidence on high level coded servers that only a few people can access. The previous Russia investigation was indirect interference by Trump on a previous election. Ukraine is an escalation and much more threatening to democrats - and democratic elections. I agree that some democrats are protecting Trump. In particular Richard Neal on the ways and means committee that refuses to investigate Trumps financial dealings. My hunch is that doing so would expose a lot of shady dealings by corporate democrats, like Neal himself. Unfortunately, we haven’t evolved enough for progressives to be self sufficient and win elections, we still need corporate dem votes. Hopefully SD models are correct and in the future there will be a green-level progressive party and an Orange level corporate party. And the current red/blue Republican Party will dissolve.

There are porn-related ads and redirects to aggressive spam with the link. The video itself looks fine, yet please don’t post links to websites that are unsafe.

I think Biden has been engaged in a lot of generic unethical political behavior. Such as getting his son a high paying position he is unqualified for. Yet I would consider Trump’s behavior two orders of magnitude worse. One of Trump’s strategies is to deflect and muddy waters with false equivalencies. My hope is that Biden falls out of the democratic primary and the focus stays of Trump’s wrongdoing. Biden is is a garden-variety corrupt politician - like 80% of politicians. Trump is much worse. He is the worst corrupt politician in the U.S. right now.

This is some very encouraging polling that came out today. Americans are waking up. This is an enormous shift in public sentiment since last polls. 55% of the public now supports impeachment proceeding. A couple weeks ago, it was about 35%. For those that ask “why impeach if the senate will acquit?”. This is one reason why. Democracy is based on public consent through elections. If the public is unaware what is happening, they cannot give informed consent and it is no longer a democracy. Impeachment proceedings give the House more power to investigate wrongdoing. It gives them more power to attain records and compel witnesses to testify under oath. And it provides information to the public - allowing them to make informed decisions of whether to give consent to the president or withhold consent from the president. And don’t assume the senate will acquit. The majority of senators dislike Trump and think he is unfit - the would much prefer a different conservative as their leader. They are afraid of Trump and suffering Trump’s wrath like others who have spoken out. And they don’t want to get primaried and lose the senate seat. Trump continually reinforces this dynamic of intimidation. For example, Trump recently compared whistleblowers to spies and wished he could deal with them like we used to in the good ole days (we used to execute spies). This sends a clear message that Trump sees any disloyalty to him personally the same as treason to the country. And anyone disloyal to him will suffer extreme consequences. This is red on SD. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-impeachment-inquiry-poll-cbs-news-poll-finds-majority-of-americans-and-democrats-approve/

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Sure, this is related to what you wrote in an earlier thread about left and right. We could consider this on a left vs right axis. Yet there are other axes we could draw as well. In terms of SD, this gets into Yellow. It is the reason why Green level progressives get so frustrated with blue/orange regressives. However, Green is not fully aware of the underlying dynamic. This gets fully revealed at Yellow. It’s not about making a claim and not providing a source to back it up. It’s about the underlying orientation and personal energetics. There are a lot of things going on with attachment/identification, survival, fear etc. Yet to get it simple, one way this is revealed is through the underlying orientation and energetics of “show me”. Those that are in touch with their intuition know this intuitively recognize this dynamic. As well, it becomes obvious to anyone that has introspected and personally worked through it. This isn’t a left or right dynamic. It is on another axis. It is about resistance to development. It commonly occurs in progressive vs regressive discussions due to resistance to evolve. For example with Green and Blue/Orange. I’m willing to have an Orange level discussions, yet when this dynamic pops up it takes precedent over the underlying topic. There can be no discussion of the underlying topic due to orientation and energetics. Trying to engage usually makes things worse and is counter-productive. The personality goes into debate mode and hyper-contracts. Engaging in debate at an Orange level will only intensify the contraction through various defense mechanisms. There needs to be at least a little bit of openness, curious and willingness to make progress. When I see this dynamic, the dynamic itself becomes more important in the contraction the person wants to defend. In terms of developing higher consciousness, if there is a basic level of openness/willingness one can use rational thinking to guide a person through it. Yet this takes an extraordinary amount of patience and skill. There are all sorts of land mines that can get triggered. And I generally don’t like this approach. Imagine someone acting like a dog. You see them on their hands and knees sniffing other dog butts. The person wants to debate with you whether bulldogs have the best smelling butt. They say “show me evidence that bulldog butts aren’t the best”. However, you realize that this person actually thinks they are a dog. You ask: “You realize you are a human and not a dog, right?”. The person then gets defensive and says things like “You think you are at a higher level and better than me. You are being dishonest and won’t show me evidence that bulldog butts don’t smell the best”. At this point, it becomes obvious that they are contracted within a personality dynamic of thinking they are a dog. So. . . What becomes more important: to debate whether bulldog butts smell the best or to reveal to them that they are a human, not a dog? For me, expanding consciousness toward self actualization is much more important. Orders of magnitude more important. So I will pull out a mirror and say “Look. That is you. You are human not dog”. If the person refuses to look and says “You think are some special human calling me a stupid dog. And you haven’t even shown me evidence that bulldog butts don’t smell the best”. There is nothing an do. I can’t force them to self actualize. I may give in and provide evidence that St. Bernard butts smell better than bulldog butts. . . and how will the person respond? “Now way!! That doesn’t validate the superiority of St. Bernard butts!!! How many bulldog butts have you even smelled?? Are long have you studied butt aroma??”. . . .Do you see the problem? Engaging in this debate can cause further contraction into the dog fallacy. The are missing the more important point that they are not a dog - they are human.

Exactly. This is the problem with the “show me” trap I was trying to avoid. There is nothing I can do at this point other than wish you well. . . Leo mentioned the same thing earlier in the thread. However, I thought I’d give it a try. Unfortunately, to no avail. Hopefully, our dialog may be helpful to other people reading the thread. ? If anyone is interested in this “show me” trap, Leo does a great job pointing to it at the end of his “What is Truth” video with the donkey and the mirror. Somewhere in the last 15min or so.

@Hansu You are missing something regarding intention and orientation. Context is important. For example, if someone was lost in a foreign city and asked someone for directions to the train station and the other person starting going into abstract concepts like how train stations are illusions and everywhere is nowhere - it would be crappy in this context. Yet there are other contexts that have very different dynamics. . . For example, there is a particular “show me” dynamic which restricts a person. My effort was to reveal that dynamic, yet I was unable to. At point, I just listed out the statutes. Yet there is something going on deeper than the statutes, which is a much more profound realization. If you saw someone that was unaware they were stuck in a bear trap, what do you think would be more helpful: to show them a map of the train station and walk away . . .or to show the person the trap they are in and help them get out? This is a very different context. In this context, showing them the map and walking away would be the crappy thing to do. However if the person responds “I’m not in a trap!! I’ve been free of traps for years!! You just think you are better than me. Well you are not!!!” - then there is nothing we can do except wish the person the best and move on. . .

Some nice eep insights through direct experience. Thanks for sharing them with us ? ♥️

@samedm9 You don’t seem to be resonating with what I am pointing to. We are not on the same frequency. That happens sometimes. Regarding laws: One of the laws is a campaign finance laws, such as title 52, code 30121. You may also be interested in looking into anti-bribery statutes such as Title 18 code 201 and McDonnell vs. the United Staes, the Hobbs act and obstruction of justice such as Title 18, code 1519. This is more than enough info to get you going on your research into the matter.

@dimitri Hmmm, maybe one side of the coin represents head and the other side represents heart. Or one side intuition and the other side thinking. When the coin is in the air, is does a hope arise that it lands on one side? That may give some insight.

In some regards, we have passed a point of now return. Melted glaciers, destroyed forests, destroyed coral reefs and all the extinct plants and animals aren’t coming back. Old growth forests and coral reefs take hundreds of years to develop. And technology isn’t going to reduce oceanic temperatures. This is one of my concerns with perceptions of climate change. Many people think that it’s something out there that may happening. However, this is it. We are in the process right now. It’s like someone stage 2 cancer wondering if cancer is real and how bad it would be to have cancer - and the doctor is like “You have stage 2 cancer. This is it”. Unfortunately, this view is prevalent in the U.S. Other developed countries are more evolved, on average. I’m hopeful that the U.S. can catch up and become a leader in this area, rather than drag the planet down.

@dimitri How do you determine which option is “heads” and which option is “tails”?