Courtney Brown, The Future of Scientific Remote Viewing |421|

Sorry Americans, that was mean of me, and I know it isn't. There are plenty of ignorant people in the UK, Australia and NZ too. We were all pommies once so we share the same invasive, acquisitive, selfish traits. We cannot deny that we 'white westerners' live so well because other people, some still slaves, are poor and go without. We took (at gun-point) and still take their wealth. We should acknowledge the cost, and pay for it.
Perhaps the most potent adaptation was the lens, with which we made the telescopes and microscopes that transformed how we saw the world.
I wonder how much these inventions have influenced our collective cultural perception and directed our obsessive interest in Space (God and ETs) and our own DNA? Which, if one considers the mix, we are all actually diverse -sans frontiers- cousins!
There may well be retrospective claims that a whole nation 'belonged' to indigenous people as if those people were a unified entity at the time.
The older generation of aboriginal people I have met do not presume to talk on behalf of other Aboriginal tribes. The contradiction to that was when talking to young aboriginal people at the Tent Embassy, pitched outside Australia's Government buildings in Canberra, concerning non recognition of Aboriginal land rights. It was necessary to form a collective identity to be recognised, seen or heard, including creating an official Aboriginal flag.
 
Now you can correct my misinterpretation.:)
"TES, if tomorrow a bunch of ETs arrived in UFOs and said to us they had come to claim this planet as part of their empire, what do you think our objections would be?"

This would be an inequivalency - we do bear an innate claim to the entirety of the globe as a species, whereas a race or culture cannot lay legitimate claim to an entire continent.

My context was not ancient times. Rather today where the problem resides. The anachronistic fallacy wherein academic progressives assume that an indigenous people owned an entire continent and therefore all other races are illegitimate oppressors by their mere presence and color of skin (guilty of being alive and having a skin color). This is an intellectual fraud today. It is unjust in its core ethic.
 
My context was not ancient times. Rather today where the problem resides. The anachronistic fallacy wherein academic progressives assume that an indigenous people owned an entire continent and therefore all other races are illegitimate oppressors by their mere presence and color of skin (guilty of being alive and having a skin color). This is an intellectual fraud today. It is unjust in its core ethic.

Now I agree with you on this point in essence, but not entirely in substance. The politicisation of history does tend to reduce complex matters to stupid, and so perform a disservice to all stakeholders.

I had an issue with Eric's claim that indigenous peoples were/would have been as bad as Europeans because that was a claim of some complexity not sustained by argument or evidence. Its not a case of simple equivalence - saying all humans are the same, so what applies to us applies also to them. There is certainly a level at which that is true, but some people are psychopaths and others are monks.

Humans have used invasion and conquest as instruments of expression. So I agree that there is no fair argument that invasion is fundamentally illegimate. We must accept that we are the fruits of invasion. I was born in Northern Ireland, so I have the Romans, Vikings, Normans, and (apparently) Spaniards to thank for adding to my DNA, and creating the culture my parents lived in. Now, in Australia, I have the British to thank for making this land a place where I can live, Hitler for causing so many post WW2 European migrants, the US for the Vietnamese migrants - and so on - to make the culture I enjoy. Yes, some of us are true children of invasion, with trauma baked into our souls. When we are only hammers everything is a nail.

But there's the other side that is utterly lost on academic progressives. There is a persistent trauma (caused by the invasions that give us the good we enjoy) that remains in indigenous peoples to this day. It is civilised and compassionate to respect and honour the vanquished. And here, I can speak only as an Australian, we have utterly misrepresented the truth and profoundly insulted an entire culture - and we continue to do so because we still persist with the lies and the insults.

Eric made the point about intergenerational guilt - and we should get over it. I have no guilt about being here, so the argument is without merit. Its a choice whether we belittle our foes when they are defeated. That's a choice some make, and I do not judge that. But its not the only good choice to make. I am not a warrior, so I do not think of feel the way warriors may feel necessary.

I work in social policy, so I see how the 'losers' live, and its not good. We can do better than that. Your point about progressive academics and Eric's point about intergenerational guilt indicate ways in which what is true (multi-faceted) can be focused on a single narrative and so create not just intellectual fraud, and what amounts to unethical policy and practice (that fails constantly) - but to moral confusion and real harm through ignorant and confused thought.

Here we celebrate Australia Day on January 26. It marks the arrival of the 'First Fleet' to 'settle' this country that had no people in it - or people who had no concept of ownership of land. Aboriginal people call January 26 'Invasion Day' and we are offended - because we were raised believing that our 'settlement' was peaceful and the Aboriginal people did nothing much to resist. That's a total lie.

That's my issue. Dare to see the truth. As a grown up human I think daring to see the truth is a duty. In fact it is the first duty in really protecting freedom of any real kind. I am always taken aback when somebody disagrees with that proposition. And then I get curious. Why?
 
Now I agree with you on this point in essence, but not entirely in substance. The politicisation of history does tend to reduce complex matters to stupid, and so perform a disservice to all stakeholders.

I had an issue with Eric's claim that indigenous peoples were/would have been as bad as Europeans because that was a claim of some complexity not sustained by argument or evidence. Its not a case of simple equivalence - saying all humans are the same, so what applies to us applies also to them. There is certainly a level at which that is true, but some people are psychopaths and others are monks.

Humans have used invasion and conquest as instruments of expression. So I agree that there is no fair argument that invasion is fundamentally illegimate. We must accept that we are the fruits of invasion. I was born in Northern Ireland, so I have the Romans, Vikings, Normans, and (apparently) Spaniards to thank for adding to my DNA, and creating the culture my parents lived in. Now, in Australia, I have the British to thank for making this land a place where I can live, Hitler for causing so many post WW2 European migrants, the US for the Vietnamese migrants - and so on - to make the culture I enjoy. Yes, some of us are true children of invasion, with trauma baked into our souls. When we are only hammers everything is a nail.

But there's the other side that is utterly lost on academic progressives. There is a persistent trauma (caused by the invasions that give us the good we enjoy) that remains in indigenous peoples to this day. It is civilised and compassionate to respect and honour the vanquished. And here, I can speak only as an Australian, we have utterly misrepresented the truth and profoundly insulted an entire culture - and we continue to do so because we still persist with the lies and the insults.

Eric made the point about intergenerational guilt - and we should get over it. I have no guilt about being here, so the argument is without merit. Its a choice whether we belittle our foes when they are defeated. That's a choice some make, and I do not judge that. But its not the only good choice to make. I am not a warrior, so I do not think of feel the way warriors may feel necessary.

I work in social policy, so I see how the 'losers' live, and its not good. We can do better than that. Your point about progressive academics and Eric's point about intergenerational guilt indicate ways in which what is true (multi-faceted) can be focused on a single narrative and so create not just intellectual fraud, and what amounts to unethical policy and practice (that fails constantly) - but to moral confusion and real harm through ignorant and confused thought.

Here we celebrate Australia Day on January 26. It marks the arrival of the 'First Fleet' to 'settle' this country that had no people in it - or people who had no concept of ownership of land. Aboriginal people call January 26 'Invasion Day' and we are offended - because we were raised believing that our 'settlement' was peaceful and the Aboriginal people did nothing much to resist. That's a total lie.

That's my issue. Dare to see the truth. As a grown up human I think daring to see the truth is a duty. In fact it is the first duty in really protecting freedom of any real kind. I am always taken aback when somebody disagrees with that proposition. And then I get curious. Why?

Michael,
The US did not cause Vietnamese refugees. The communist North Vietnamese caused people to flee. The communists killed perhaps a million of their own people in the South; the educators, the administrators, anyone who didn't like communism. Indeed they even did this during the war. Observe what they did when the briefly held the city of Hue during the Tet offensive. They performed mass executions of civilians. This happened, though, throughout the war.

See? That's what I talking about; your insistence that the US and Euros are responsible for most all societal catastrophes around the globe.

My issue is not with recognizing that indigenous people had problems after the arrival of Europeans. My issue is with dwelling on it (as you seem to do) and then taking it further to create policies based on multigenerational guilt that that can never be overcome; something that progressives are doing a lot of these days.

BTW, The US totally smashed Japan and helped the Russians to totally smash Germany. Yet Japan is a thriving country today and is friends with the US. Point being that some responsibility lies with the indigs to pick themselves up and get with the new game. Your obsession doesn't help the indigs. Rather, it makes them weak with a perpetual victim mentality.

The truth that you dare not see is that indigs were plenty screwed up themselves all on their own and the US and Euros did a lot of good in the world; so much good as to outweigh the bad.

You seem unable to deal with the fact that natives fought each other, enslaves each other, hunted each for heads and for meat, often lived short brutish lives. I don't know much Australian aboriginals, but I know that was a fact in the US and Africa and the South Pacific.

History is multifaceted and multidimensional. There is always more than one truth about it. You are stuck on one layer/one dimension/one narrative.
 
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This seems to me to be exactly what white Americans, Australians and New Zealanders have done.

No. Like anyone else in history, we are saying now that we're here it's ours and if you think differently, then come and try and take it. We are just way better at defending it than others.

Now you will start whining and crying again about "But... but... that....that....is a might makes right outlook". To which I will reply that you need to recognize that that is how the world actually works and that if you can't see it, then you're a way overly protected idiealist. Then you make another comment that I'm a monster. Then I say that I'm just a realist and that you can't handle reality. Then you go pouting off thinking I should be banded for the discussion - or that I should be allowed to stay only because I serve as such a good example of the enemy thinks.
 
See? That's what I talking about; your insistence that the US and Euros are responsible for most all societal catastrophes around the globe.

Eric, who invaded Vietnam? The French and the Americans and their idiot allies. Of course the North Vietnamese were ruthless. But do please read their account of what happened, not just ours.

See? That's what I talking about; your insistence that the US and Euros are responsible for most all societal catastrophes around the globe.

Okay, I didn't say that - but let me be clear by listing the list of culprits - all of us - European, US, Australian, Russian, Chinese, Indian etc until we get through the whole list. But also let us be really very clear - over the past 500 years or so the most disproportionally significant agents of radical societal change have been the English, followed the Spanish - and a few other European nations.

You make a fair point that this might be a necessity of evolution and I confess I cannot contrive a convincing argument against that proposition. But that is not my point in any case. You can argue against intergenerational guilt - and here I am also compelled to admit an insufficiently compelling counter argument.

But my focus is on intergenerational trauma, which is real, profound and deeply destructive. Here you and I fundamentally differ. I do not want to turn my back on people whose trauma arises from what I now benefit from. I do not want the truth of their suffering erased from history because it has become an inconvenient truth that should not be told to generations who 'don't have to feel guilty'. Compassion has nothing to do with guilt.

I do not want to persuade you to my way of seeing things. But I would like you to acknowledge that I can hold my point of view without it threatening you.

The hard reality is that maybe our cultures need people like you and people like me.

I see a madness gripping your country, and increasingly mine, that forces irredeemable polarity - as if we must choose between one POV or another. That's not real, and its not good.

BTW, The US totally smashed Japan and helped the Russians to totally smash Germany. Yet Japan is a thriving country today and is friends with the US. Point being that some responsibility lies with the indigs to pick themselves up and get with the new game. Your obsession doesn't help the indigs. Rather, it makes them weak with a perpetual victim mentality.

Yes, but do please explore the investments from the victors into the vanquished. Neither the Germans nor the Japanese picked themselves up after their defeats entirely on their own account. Not only did the victors contribute to the rebuilding of their respective economies, they also embraced them within a global trading system. For a long time Germany was the economic powerhouse of Europe and Japan the economic powerhouse of Asia, post WW2.

We have not treated our respective indigenous people in like manner - and that's because we presumed from the outset that they were inferior and without standing in any way. I do not accept this interpretation, so I do not accept the response.

The role of perpetual victim is trauma based and requires denial and exclusion as well. Trauma is intergenerational in families and it is worse if we bake it into cultures - and we did this with indigenous peoples. I am not obsessed. I am just owning up to a truth. I don't have conditioning that inures me to brutality, so I have a choice of turning away or looking it in the face. I gave chosen the latter. Handle it.

The truth that you dare not see is that indigs were plenty screwed up themselves all on their own and the US and Euros did a lot of good in the world; so much good as to outweigh the bad.

Actually, Eric, this is precisely what I had believed for a great deal of my life, until I started to digging into history. The ideas that indigenous people were "plenty screwed up" seems more like propaganda than anything else. But then, I have been reading in the fields of ethnography, anthropology, mythology and history for decades. I wrote a thesis looking into animism. So I am pretty comfortable that I have covered most bases in a comprehensive and critical way.

As for you last comment, let me tell you that in 200 years Europeans have royally screwed up Australia's ecology. Not only have we brutalised the indigenous people, we have wrecked the ecology through introduced animals and plants, dried up the rivers and destroyed the soil. This isn't white guilt - the is just plan, bare, ugly fact. Our fragile ecology was managed for tens of thousands of years and in 200 years we have crapped all over it. The US is very different, so I make no inferences. I am just saying that the good outweighing the bad is not an easy measure here.

You seem unable to deal with the fact that natives fought each other, enslaves each other, hunted each for heads and for meat, often lived short brutish lives. I don't know much Australian aboriginals, but I know that was a fact in the US and Africa and the South Pacific.

I am entirely aware of the fact that indigenous people around the world were tough on their neighbours. So are we whites. I am not sure I agree completely with your comments about "hunting" each other for heads and meat. While cannibalism was an element of warfare in some cultures (and not always warfare) I think it was rarely the goal of a 'hunt'. I'd be interested to be directed to instances otherwise.

History is multifaceted and multidimensional. There is always more than one truth about it. You are stuck on one layer/one dimension/one narrative.

Totally agree with the first 2 sentences. As to the last, what can I say? I read in history, sociology, ethnography, psychology, anthropology, mythology, cultural studies, religious history, economics, politics. I don't do single perspective anything. I have two passions - the nature of religion and the nature of belief. I have Masters and Masters Honours degrees in Social Ecology.

If I am stuck on anything it is that I am informed by a presumption of the duty of love and compassion as a foundation for inquiry. All inquiry must have a moral foundation to it (it does in any case whether we are conscious of it or not). So yes - I have one layer, one dimension, one narrative as a foundation of my inquiry. That's what grounds me. I can look at the other side of human conduct because of that.

I think we are fundamentally grounded in different moral perspectives. That's okay. Reality is big enough for both of us. We don't have to be foes - there's plenty of room for us both. :)
 
Eric, who invaded Vietnam? The French and the Americans and their idiot allies. Of course the North Vietnamese were ruthless. But do please read their account of what happened, not just ours.

You are so far off base factually that I am actually kind of worried about you and it makes me a little suspect of other things you say. The South Vietnamese government begged the US to come to VN and protect the South from the communist North's invasion of it. The VN refugee problem didn't begin until the US had left and the North took over the South. I mean just look at the year the "boat people" took to the seas. These were people fleeing the communists - and with good reason. There is no other way to read this history. This is a fact. You're either making stuff up or you read a single book or article by someone who is making stuff up.

There is an interesting side story in VN. The Montagnards were a tribal hill people not of VN genetics, but who lived in VN. The communists hated them and they hated the communists. The communists sought to wipe them out. US special forces helped trained them, gave them medical care, etc. Someone like you should applaud US attempts to help these simple people. Yet you seem to side with the communists. I guess maybe communism is a form of "progress" that you accept? You wouldn't lift a finger to assist the Montagnards despite your professed love for tribal people?

See? That's what I talking about; your insistence that the US and Euros are responsible for most all societal catastrophes around the globe.
Okay, I didn't say that - but let me be clear by listing the list of culprits - all of us - European, US, Australian, Russian, Chinese, Indian etc until we get through the whole list. But also let us be really very clear - over the past 500 years or so the most disproportionally significant agents of radical societal change have been the English, followed the Spanish - and a few other European nations..

Yes. Because the Europeans developed a way of thinking - and applications of that way of thinking - that allowed for material progress to occur. So, you hate change? We should all be living in caves? Why don't we take a vote and see how many people prefer what you think is the desired static state? As I have said before, even tribal people want what we have technologically. As soon as they see it, they recognize its goodness and seek to obtain it. But you want to deny people these things because of some romantic fixation and an academic philosophy of how life should be.


But my focus is on intergenerational trauma, which is real, profound and deeply destructive. Here you and I fundamentally differ. I do not want to turn my back on people whose trauma arises from what I now benefit from. I do not want the truth of their suffering erased from history because it has become an inconvenient truth that should not be told to generations who 'don't have to feel guilty'. Compassion has nothing to do with guilt...

Jews and Armenians have done just fine in America and elsewhere post genocides. Intelligent hard people can always get past traumas if they have to. If a people (or individual) keep looking backwards and focusing on all of the perceived injustice done to them, they will never be ok. They will, instead, be defined by the trauma for ever. Not healthy.

I do not want to persuade you to my way of seeing things. But I would like you to acknowledge that I can hold my point of view without it threatening you. ...

I am not in the least bit threatened by your viewpoint on an individual basis. Why would I be? I do not understand you (when it comes to this topic) in the least and think your outlook is addled, to be honest. I'm just exploring how far/deep it goes and what kind of addled results in believing in historical fantasies.

The hard reality is that maybe our cultures need people like you and people like me....

Without people like me, our culture would be destroyed by barbarians sooner or later. That is an historic fact. Barbarians are always seeking to invade and subjugate. Hitler would be running Europe and The imperial Japanese would be running the Pacific, including Australia and NZ. Without you there'd be some fragile people not getting emotional support. I guess we don't want our culture to become like that of Sparta. So some soft sensitive applications within our society are needed. I don't want to live in a society where the weak are left on a hillside for the ravens. I also think that your open mind adds some good to society as long as it doesn't become so open and accepting that it allows bad ideas to be accepted as moral equivalences.

I see a madness gripping your country, and increasingly mine, that forces irredeemable polarity - as if we must choose between one POV or another. That's not real, and its not good.....

Yes there is a madness gripping my country. It's a mob of people that apparently have thinking similar to yours that have gone way too far. They hate America and Western civ generally. They want a borderless, global, socialist, One World under an authoritative government and they hate that a bunch of us voted for Trump and resist their nefarious plans. So they lie and spew hate and threaten the very foundations of my country. - all of the things that made it great.
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The role of perpetual victim is trauma based and requires denial and exclusion as well. Trauma is intergenerational in families and it is worse if we bake it into cultures - and we did this with indigenous peoples. I am not obsessed. I am just owning up to a truth. I don't have conditioning that inures me to brutality, so I have a choice of turning away or looking it in the face. I gave chosen the latter. Handle it......

Cry baby stuff. Jews and Armenians have done just fine in America and elsewhere post genocides. Intelligent hard people can always get past traumas if they have to.

You don't have a choice to look away from brutality for ever. You may not be interested in facing brutality, but sooner or later it will be interested in you. Such is the human condition. Handle it or perish...or become an irrelevant complainer critic sitting on the sideline of life heckling those that are trying to keep things as safe and just as possible given the vast number of variables impacting - in some cases, threatening - the system every day.


I am entirely aware of the fact that indigenous people around the world were tough on their neighbours. So are we whites. I am not sure I agree completely with your comments about "hunting" each other for heads and meat. While cannibalism was an element of warfare in some cultures (and not always warfare) I think it was rarely the goal of a 'hunt'. I'd be interested to be directed to instances otherwise. ......

Look. When your position forces you to hand wave away or outright defend headhunting, human sacrifice and cannibalism, you should probably think about altering your position, especially when you're trying to argue from a point of moral superiority.

History is multifaceted and multidimensional. There is always more than one truth about it. You are stuck on one layer/one dimension/one narrative.
Totally agree with the first 2 sentences. As to the last, what can I say? I read in history, sociology, ethnography, psychology, anthropology, mythology, cultural studies, religious history, economics, politics. I don't do single perspective anything. I have two passions - the nature of religion and the nature of belief. I have Masters and Masters Honours degrees in Social Ecology.

If I am stuck on anything it is that I am informed by a presumption of the duty of love and compassion as a foundation for inquiry. All inquiry must have a moral foundation to it (it does in any case whether we are conscious of it or not). So yes - I have one layer, one dimension, one narrative as a foundation of my inquiry. That's what grounds me. I can look at the other side of human conduct because of that.......

Me too. That's is why I am so baffled by the conclusions you have drawn.

I think we are fundamentally grounded in different moral perspectives. That's okay. Reality is big enough for both of us. We don't have to be foes - there's plenty of room for us both. :)

You have no idea what my moral perspective is. One aspect of it is that we cannot allow the utopian vision of The Perfect to be the enemy of The Good.
 
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again, I don't feel totally comfortable being cast in the role of defending courtney brown... I just don't know enough one way or another. but here's a guy who's advanced the ball way down the field when it comes to remote viewing. he's a respected academic with an impressive publications in his field. he's open about his protocols... and those protocols sound very well thought-out for my perspective.
plus, he spends a considerable amount of money running his lab and producing his videos (he says it's $20K/mo and there's no reason to assume it's not in that range). he's hired and trained professional remote viewers as well as working with respected RVers whom he didn't train.

think about all that for a minute... where's the problem here? what would you have him do differently? no one else is doing extensive remote viewing sessions with three blinded remote viewers and publishing the results on youtube -- for FREE. I say hurrah-the-fuck for Courtney Brown. I'll keep my mouth shut about the level 3 concerns I have because the big picture message is being lost.

I know Courtney on a personal basis, well before he was deeply into RV and when he began delving into the RV field. Followed him since. He's a promoter, producer, father, educator and deserves the praise showed him.
 
You are so far off base factually that I am actually kind of worried about you and it makes me a little suspect of other things you say. The South Vietnamese government begged the US to come to VN and protect the South from the communist North's invasion of it.

Eric, that's the PR spin and propaganda. Dig deeper.

Cry baby stuff. Jews and Armenians have done just fine in America and elsewhere post genocides. Intelligent hard people can always get past traumas if they have to.

No Eric, that is simply not true. They don't get past the trauma, it gets baked into cultures and psyches as normal. There's even a clue in your own words here 'hard'. Jews have been persecuted for millennia - unjustly. That may be the reason, along with their faith, why they are disproportionately represented in so many fields of high endeavour in our culture. They are not 'hard' in the sense you mean. They have faith and community and the tradition of memory that drives deep self reflection. There's a reason why most of the greatest psychologists in our culture are Jews.

But the Jews have been opposed and oppressed for a long time and have had the means to develop a robust culture that has survived in history. Its a culture way older than what was inflicted upon the peoples of the Americas and Australia. I do not ignore the Armenians. I just know nothing about them.

Look. When your position forces you to hand wave away or outright defend headhunting, human sacrifice and cannibalism, you should probably think about altering your position, especially when you're trying to argue from a point of moral superiority.

I neither wave away nor defend practices that have meaning in context and which are now rightly repugnant to us. I simply observe that we don't have the luxury of imposing our moral censure upon circumstances about which we have insufficient intimate knowledge. I am not sure how you thing I am arguing from a position of moral superiority here.

[QUOTE="Eric Newhill, post: 132743, member: 4146"]You have no idea what my moral perspective is. One aspect of it is that we cannot allow the utopian vision of The Perfect to be the enemy of The Good.[/QUOTE]

You are right here. I don't. I am trying to discern it, but I am struggling. I do want to know. But I do get the impression that you feel as if your or my perspective must prevail - and I do not see this as a contest.
 
Eric, that's the PR spin and propaganda. Dig deeper.

No. You're just plain wrong. Millions of Vietnamese in the South did not want to be subjected to a brutal and oppressive communist rule. You said the US caused VN refugees by "invading" VN. I said the communists caused the refugees. You side stepped my factual observation, hand waved away the murderous brutality of the communists and then pretended to some secret knowledge of the cause of the US participation in the war that, of course, makes the US sinister.

Your presumption that I am unaware of the Japanese invasion during WW2 and the French colonization and Ho Chi Min's flirting with the US is a bad one to make (assuming that's what you're referring to and not some far out theory). I know all about it. None of it negates the fact the communist North invaded the South, the South asked for US aid and the US provided it because it wanted to stop the spread of communism - a good idea because communism had killed and oppressed untold million by that point.

Cry baby stuff. Jews and Armenians have done just fine in America and elsewhere post genocides. Intelligent hard people can always get past traumas if they have to............

No Eric, that is simply not true. They don't get past the trauma, it gets baked into cultures and psyches as normal. There's even a clue in your own words here 'hard'. Jews have been persecuted for millennia - unjustly. That may be the reason, along with their faith, why they are disproportionately represented in so many fields of high endeavour in our culture. They are not 'hard' in the sense you mean. They have faith and community and the tradition of memory that drives deep self reflection. There's a reason why most of the greatest psychologists in our culture are Jews. .

My point is that people can succeed despite trauma. You made my point for me. What kind of person can't get past trauma? If trauma was debilitating for all who experienced it, the human species would have ceased to exist a long time ago. Who's life and who's culture never experienced trauma?

But the Jews have been opposed and oppressed for a long time and have had the means to develop a robust culture that has survived in history. Its a culture way older than what was inflicted upon the peoples of the Americas and Australia. I do not ignore the Armenians. I just know nothing about them..

What are you talking about? Jews have succeeded in exactly the same culture that was "inflicted" upon the peoples of the Americas and Australia. In fact, Jews were oftentimes part of the inflicted culture.

You have no idea what my moral perspective is. One aspect of it is that we cannot allow the utopian vision of The Perfect to be the enemy of The Good.

You are right here. I don't. I am trying to discern it, but I am struggling. I do want to know. But I do get the impression that you feel as if your or my perspective must prevail - and I do not see this as a contest.

I'm not trying to have my perspective prevail. I do insist that we at least get the facts right before we can talk about the deeper issue (e.g. you being wildly off the mark regarding VN). I also take offense over your insistence that my culture and society is evil and inferior to cannibals and head hunters because they allegedly had some vague "contract with the cosmos" (whatever that is) that my culture allegedly doesn't and because my culture is allegedly uniquely guilty of "traumatizing" people whereas cultures that waged war on neighbors to capture slaves and sacrificial victims allegedly, based on what you're saying, didn't traumatize people - nor did all of the early deaths in those cultures by war, disease, child birth, malnutrition. Do you seriously think that a Native American warrior wasn't a "hard" man? Do you think that anyone back then could not be hard?

Other than that, I am curious about an alien view point as you are.
 
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I'm not trying to have my perspective prevail. I do insist that we at least get the facts right before we can talk about the deeper issue. I also take offense over your insistence that my culture and society is evil and inferior to cannibals and head hunters
your culture/our culture...cannibals and headhunters, will you get real?! you quote some arbitrary accusation of a long extinct event, that quite probably came out of one of your cowboys and injuns books you read while 'playing on the reservations' and use it to defend the behaviour of a brutal selfish society that claims entitlement on grounds of cultural superiority and a bigger arsenal than the rest of the world.

This is classic them vs us psychology. American politics, currently in particular, supported by the govts of Australia, UK and NZ, funding and enacting the "smashing" of other people's lives and countries, how can you defend it? You justify this because some native people had cultural practices in societies you barely understand, of a time when history was written by the victors, and you're afraid you've got a lot to lose if we practice some fair recognition and compensation.

This forum, Skeptiko, is said to be for 'intelligent discussion on science and spirituality'. Your arguments fulfil none of these. You seem to be using it as an opportunity to abuse and accuse.
 
Eric,
having said that, I liked hearing about your experiences with remote viewing, and I appreciate your support in my barely-researched criticism of Courtney Brown's work. We're all a mix of good and bad, I know that's not very profound, but still true?
 
your culture/our culture...cannibals and headhunters, will you get real?! you quote some arbitrary accusation of a long extinct event, that quite probably came out of one of your cowboys and injuns books you read while 'playing on the reservations' and use it to defend the behaviour of a brutal selfish society that claims entitlement on grounds of cultural superiority and a bigger arsenal than the rest of the world.

This is classic them vs us psychology. American politics, currently in particular, supported by the govts of Australia, UK and NZ, funding and enacting the "smashing" of other people's lives and countries, how can you defend it? You justify this because some native people had cultural practices in societies you barely understand, of a time when history was written by the victors, and you're afraid you've got a lot to lose if we practice some fair recognition and compensation.

This forum, Skeptiko, is said to be for 'intelligent discussion on science and spirituality'. Your arguments fulfil none of these. You seem to be using it as an opportunity to abuse and accuse.

I disagree. It's all about spirituality.

Michael thinks that headhunters were somehow more spiritual than modern Europeans/Americans. I think that's rubbish.

People like you and Michael want modern people to feel guilty about their heritage. I think that is also rubbish and I think that is a case of people like you and Michael setting themselves as the arbiters of spiritual truth to the point of condemning others (talk about abuse and accuse!).

Guilt is a profoundly effective way to control people. Indeed, in the US political scene the liberals are using the same "guilt" that you and Michael declare to control and alter society. Blacks (and now Hispanics) can be perpetual recipients of govt services and money (very bad for their soul development) and whites are to pay for it all in increasing amounts (even to the point of open borders with lots of free stuff for all the new arrivals). It's the guilt that keeps the whites from saying "no - enough!". Those of us who have said "No - enough" are labeled "racist", "haters" "divisive" by people like you who either think money and other resources grow on trees or who want to punish and control wide segments of society (aka "white people", which is racist, btw).

So your perspective not only makes primitive people out to be better than Euros; it also makes them victims, but is based on fantasies of what these people and their societies were actually like. If you want to live a silly fantasy, that's fine with me. The problem is it doesn't stop there. It becomes a political movement that involves racism and oppression and, ultimately, the destruction of modern society in favor of people and ways of life that you wouldn't last in for more than a year or two. So it's ultimately bad for you too, even if you're too deluded to know it.
 
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People like you
Eric, you don't know me, my politics or spiritual practice, yet you despise it.
You use this forum to declare entrenched, prejudiced assumptions about 'people like me' and condemn whole sectors of the world's population as if you are right, and anyone who disagrees must be wrong.
It doesn't do me any good to be spoken to or about like this. So I'm outie. I will say this, before I leave you to your out-of-date xenophobic ideology. Are we not all equals? If so, then the distribution of wealth (Earth and all her raw materials) is not over until we all have an equal share.
You won't understand spirituality until you get this vital point.
Good luck with that
Alice
 
Are we not all equals? If so, then the distribution of wealth (Earth and all her raw materials) is not over until we all have an equal share.
You won't understand spirituality until you get this vital point.

Respectfully, I don't agree Alice :) - distribution of the wealth equally to all - is probably the lowest state of spiritual development humanity, or its participants therein, can achieve. The struggle, and recognition of laying down one's ass for his fellow man, is essential to our spiritual development. While we all share equality of responsibility and opportunity, we should not be equal in outcomes under any scenario. Wealth is an outcome first, an input second.

There is no more vile of a person, childish and prone to evil - than that dark spirit which has been afforded every outcome it needs with little or no struggle. Crony or Collectivist - ample history has shown without exception that both are spoiled and will eventually introduce violence in order to enforce their will.

What you are protesting is the unfair sequestration of access to wealth, at the Crony level. In this I think we are all allies. Let me give you an example.

I was tasked with a nation's infrastructure strategy back in 2013. We observed the development of mineral resources by the Western powers, China and Russia. The export market for mineral wealth was on the order of $6 billion per year. Yet the country drew down only a $300 million total economic strength, and a $600 million sovereign debt capacity (which had already been tied up). The $6 billion alone should have generated $1.5 billion in activity for schools, roads, power, food, healthcare, tradeschools etc. But corrupt socialist ministers had to ensure that 'everyone was equal in outcomes'. And the way to make sure of that is to enforce the rule that no one had access to wealth, save for the ministers or outsiders - and to that end, they entered into under the table agreements with the Chinese and Russians to extract wealth 'outside the context of a nation'. The ministers were paid off to allow all this to occur. Had they been able to regulate the extraction of wealth, the leveraging for the nation would have been

$1,600,000,000 x 10x Swiss exchange multiple = $16 billion in sovereign debt available for development of schools, roads, ports, police, health clinics, agriculture, etc. Instead, they were impoverished from a $600 M sovereign debt which was locked up inside worthless Chinese directed projects.​
But because the presence of that $16 billion would have made the citizens who developed the infrastructure 'unequal' (and 'unequal' was a no-no) then no one was allowed to conduct development work, because that would make some of them suddenly own money, = a threat to the Chinese and Russians. They would have demanded human rights, set royalty and taxation charters in place, developed a constitution, developed a free press, etc. All kinds of threats to the socialist Sino-Russian profit gravy train.

My team recommended a 15% royalty and 10% excise tax structure for the nation (very reasonable). I was almost killed by the Chinese for doing this.

If a man takes a risk, places his ass, his family and his living on the line - as the wager which will allow an improvement in the lot of his fellow human beings:

1. That man (woman) will suffer​
2. That nation's people will reap the unheralded legacy of his (her) ethical will​
3. That man is spiritually advanced, far and above the spoiled recipient of equality in outcomes.
4. That man will be unequal in outcome wealth - however, then need re-invest his earned capital in similar projects, lest he become a Crony himself.​
This is the riddle of wealth. Of this understanding and burden, we all bear equal responsibility.
 
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distribution of the wealth equally to all - is probably the lowest state of spiritual development humanity, or its participants therein, can achieve. The struggle, and recognition of laying down one's ass for his fellow man, is essential to our spiritual development.
Obviously that's where I think Eric is, so I have to start somewhere.
Wealth as money is an outcome, but there are other forms of wealth. To let go of the need for money, for purposes of spiritual development, is a step many of us are not ready to attempt. Undoubtably, if for the benefit of others, it is an act of spiritual advance. Equality of responsibility depends on benefit accrued, and the opportunity relies on a self-regulated act. Unless political regulation (external govt) is imposed.

"laying down one's ass" if you mean in a military sense, is only valid, or advisable, if you concur with the motive and means. I don't, so I would not do it. If you mean in the rare and spontaneous events when a crisis occurs, the laying down of one's ass is of the highest, as it is motivated by an impulse mysterious and deep. That is spirituality to me. To find that which is already within, honour it and bring it forth.

That's really interesting hearing of you in your professional capacity. Yes, I despise collectivism and cronyism, whether in capitalist or communist.
Our culture's promoting of individualism without the clarity of selfless, self-government is where the corruption lies.
 
"laying down one's ass" if you mean in a military sense, is only valid, or advisable, if you concur with the motive and means.

No, I mean in the opposition/neutralization of incompetence, chaos and malevolence - all three of which are the essential fabric of this realm. If you are to improve the lot of your fellow person, you will suffer. Money holds accountable - and with the exception of the condition of greed of course, the removal of accountability, is rarely a spiritual event.

However, what I have found is - Greed is: The desire to gain something for nothing, regardless of the price paid by someone else in such gain. So one can be rich or poor, and yet still be greedy.
 
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