Dr. Alexander Wendt and James Corbett Clash Over Inevitable One World State |301|

"Statism: The Most Dangerous Religion (feat. Larken Rose)"

I agree that there are a lot of problems with government. I am wondering what proposals there are for alternatives to the current system? Is the author of the video advocating no federal, state, county, and city/town governments at all, or his he advocating a different, less authoritarian form of government?

I think he's advocating pure unadulterated capitalism. Contracts, not taxes.
 
On the topic of possible futures.....I think it's helpful to explore and imagine alternatives. An alternative future sketched out in narrative fiction by John Michael Greer can be found here: http://thearchdruidreport.blogspot.co.uk/2015/08/retrotopia-dawn-train-from-pittsburgh.html
The future he sketches he calls Retrotopia. It's based on small scale communities who make real stuff, have no internet and wear hats. It's written in instalments and I am finding it really stimulating and enjoyable. He's a novelist as well as being an archdruid so he writes well.....

I think if we don't want to end up in some technocratic, dystopian, world government nightmare then we'd better start imagining alternative futures for ourselves pretty sharpish.

I've been enjoying Greer's take....though it's not clear to me if he's being overly optimistic about the decentralization of power. Nation states would have to break in very specific ways with relative nonviolence to get to the state he seems to desire.

That said, I do agree that we should be looking at different possibilities and Greer at least gives us some positive post-industrial futures. Assuming he's right about peak oil we'll probably need to start thinking along those lines.
 
The ability to be distracted from the focus of trying to pick up signals from the environment?
No I meant that what is called "involuntary distractability" in adhd'ers is a genetic remnant of hunter's ability to pick up more signals because of less filters and greater sensory acuity. This is shown for example in tests where kids with adhd invariably pick up a lot more from the surroundings during exams, while the "normal" ones seem to have tighter filters preventing them from registering anything outside what they have been told to focus on.
 
I've been enjoying Greer's take....though it's not clear to me if he's being overly optimistic about the decentralization of power. Nation states would have to break in very specific ways with relative nonviolence to get to the state he seems to desire.

That said, I do agree that we should be looking at different possibilities and Greer at least gives us some positive post-industrial futures. Assuming he's right about peak oil we'll probably need to start thinking along those lines.

He may well be being overly optimistic. But all this talk of 'inevitability' creeps me out. It's like predictive programming. No one can imagine a future anymore which is better than what we have now........... and really, if we can't even imagine it then we are screwed.
 
"Dr. Alexander Wendt: ... The way I define sovereignty–the way I think about it especially now–is that at the end of the day sovereignty is the right to kill foreigners with no accountability. It’s the right to invade other countries if you think it’s in your national security interest with no accountability."

I don't think it is a good idea to push for a one world government because that kind of ideology is responsible for all sorts of atrocities and crimes against humanity. Consider communism which advocates internationalism under which Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, Che Guevara and others were responsible for uncounted murders in the 20th century. Now in the 21st century we have Moslem's who want a global caliphate, who are murdering, torturing, and raping in the pursuit of a one world government.

I think Dr. Wendt may be faliing to consider the role of religion in the politics of the future. Islam, Christianity, and Hinduism are growing most rapidly and religious conservatives tend to be less supportive of progressive ideals such as a secular one world government.

While I don't think a one world government is likely, of the improbable outcomes, a caliphate is probably the most likely.

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/e...raceptive-pill-is-secularisms-cyanide-tablet/
"Atheism is doomed"

http://www.pewforum.org/2015/04/02/religious-projections-2010-2050/
PF_15.04.02_ProjectionsOverview_populationChange_310px.png


Why is it that people who believe in evolution by natural selection are reproducing at the slowest rate, while religious believers are reproducing at the fastest rates? People who hope to see the end of religion are going to disappear long before religion ever does.

Materialists, because of their belief in Darwinism, should consider religion superior to atheism because religious believers are reproducing rapidly while atheists are not.
 
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Hmmm just going on the growth of Hinduism I do wonder how accurate those projections are. For example I would possibly answer "Hindu" in a survey, depending on my frame of mind despite being agnostic.

It makes me wonder, when there's an increase in information distribution and education, how many people will actually believe in all the tenets of their religion. If I think consciousness has some fundamental metaphysical importance, and this is in accord with the idea of Brahman, is that enough to be "Hindu" though I have no truck with karma and am agnostic on reincarnation?

In my own experience with young Indians I'm not sure how many people who would answer "Hindu" (and in some cases "Muslim") would also qualify as cultural adherents or genuine believers.

Anyways, just a thought.
 
Hmmm just going on the growth of Hinduism I do wonder how accurate those projections are. For example I would possibly answer "Hindu" in a survey, depending on my frame of mind despite being agnostic.

Don't Hindus require a 'pefect living master' that by chance they're supposed to encounter on their life journey? I used to listen to this Indian dude from Chicago on youtube giving sermons or whatever they're called. He wasn't like a guru or anything, just a normal guy, a retired physician or something. Anyway, everything was always 'perfect living master' this and 'perfect living master' that, and how you really ain't shit until your master comes to rescue from the matrix or whatever. And the importance of meditation, of course.
 
Hmmm just going on the growth of Hinduism I do wonder how accurate those projections are. For example I would possibly answer "Hindu" in a survey, depending on my frame of mind despite being agnostic.

Ishwar Puri is who I was referring to. I couldn't think of his name before. I've listened to a lot of his stuff. He's pretty cool-- if anybody is interested. I'm assuming it's Hinduism, but I don't really know. :)
 
Don't Hindus require a 'pefect living master' that by chance they're supposed to encounter on their life journey?

As a student, I can't imagine living under a guru. I have never met anyone who really had their act together who I would give that much power over me. However, there are plenty of people who know more than me that I have learned from despite their own human failings. Just because someone is a screw up doesn't mean he doesn't know something he can teach you. Sometimes people have unrealistic expectations of spiritual teachers. Teachers are human. If a student expects them to be more than human, the mistake is the student's as much as the teacher's. I was never fooled by claims of infallibility, in fact such claims set off my crap detector, so I am not entirely sympathetic to those who are fooled. I've attended meditation retreats because they provide a disciplined environment where you can meditate a lot, but I never fell under the spell of the teachers.

From the point of view of the teacher however, I can understand why someone would want control over a student. In my own life I find there are so many conditions that influence a person, that to really teach what I know, I would need to control a student's lifestyle, diet, etc. If you read the reddit forum on meditation, you see there are posts by many, many people who can't sit still to meditate for even five minutes. Someone like that would be able to make more progress at an ashram where their daily life, diet, and practices would be closely controlled.

It's frustrating because there are people to whom I want to say, "I could turn your life upside down and crack open your skull - give you a red pill - if you would give me one month!" They think they want the pill but they don't have the month. And I don't have a month to give them either so I don't make the offer.

I wonder if Jeffery's studies included personality profiles of the interviewees? I'm curious if certain personality types are more inclined to enter PNSE. I would guess introverts are more inclined to have this experience.
His thesis was somewhat related to this. He found that PNSE was not related to ego development, but was related to score on a mysticism scale.

But even if there is a correlation between PNSE and personality type, it doesn't tell you anything about any possible causal relationships. PNSE might be facilitated by a certain personality type or it might cause a certain personality type.


http://pqdtopen.proquest.com/doc/858328943.html?FMT=AI


Ego Development Stage Does Not Predict Persistent
Non-Symbolic Experience
by
Jeffery A. Martin
A Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of the California Institute of Integral
Studies in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of
Doctor of Philosophy in Transformative Studies
California Institute of Integral Studies
San Francisco, CA
2010
...
Abstract
Non-symbolic experiences have been reported for millennia and generally
attributed to spiritual and religious contexts, although atheists and agnostics also
report them. Popular terms for them include: nondual awareness, enlightenment,
mystical experiences, peak experiences, transcendental experience, the peace that
passeth understanding, unity consciousness, union with God, and so forth. Most
are temporary, but some individuals report a persistent form of them. Some
scholars have argued that these experiences represent advanced stages of human
development and placed them atop existing levels in various domains of
developmental psychology such as cognitive or ego development. There is little
evidence for this view. Moreover, several problems with it are pointed out in the
present work.

The primary goal of this study is to test the above taxonomy by comparing
ego development and Mysticism Scale measurements from a diverse population
of individuals who report persistent non-symbolic experience. This investigation
first hypothesized that individuals who report persistent non-symbolic experience
would exhibit a range of psychological developmental levels, specifically tested
here as a composite, ego development, using the Washington University Sentence
Completion Test (WUSCT). Second, it hypothesized that individuals who report
persistent non-symbolic experience would score higher on Hood's Mysticism
Scale than those who do not report such experiences. Third, it hypothesized the
absence of a simple or linear relationship between scores on the WUSCT and
Mysticism Scale for those who report non-symbolic experience.


These hypotheses were examined in 36 adults (F=9, M=27) reporting
persistent non-symbolic experience. The first hypothesis was supported: ego
development stages ranged from 5 (Loevinger and Cook-Greuter's "Self Aware"
stage) to 10 (Cook-Greuter's "Unitive" stage). The second hypothesis was also
supported: average and median Mysticism Scale scores notably exceeded those
reported in studies of other populations.
The third hypothesis could not be
adequately tested because the Mysticism Scale score distribution was strongly
skewed upwards, making most statistical comparisons unworkable. Overall, this
study provides the first strong evidence that persistent non-symbolic experience
does not represent higher levels of ego development.

This video by Dr Martin discusses the question further.

The playlist containing that video has interesting background on PNSE
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLPjd37sU1TTjuNgQmukfpJkPdwCb98O1F


I disagree... I'm still grinding on #234. Big blindspots like this trouble me... make me question what else the person is missing. At the end of the day I know Rick will figure it out, but his "Republican v. Democrat" paradigm makes me question some of his underlying assumptions.

You should assess a person's statements on their area of expertise differently than you assess their statements on subjects outside their area of expertise. If you ask a movie star about making movies she will tell you something she knows about from direct experience, but if you ask her about politics she has no more authority than you do and will give you answers that are no more right or wrong than anyone else. Most people don't see their own ignorance, because ignorance is like a blind spot, you don't even know it's there.

This is why spiritual teachers should never comment on politics. It leads their followers to the idea that people who hold one belief are good and people who hold another belief are evil. A spiritual teacher should only ask his adherents to pray for the "highest good" - or something equivalent in their belief system - never for any particular outcome. This way everyone on all sides ends up with their intention supporting each other rather than pulling in different directions.

You can work for social change and political causes, but do it separately from your practice of spirituality.

Spiritual teachers are no different than any other person. They have an area of expertise and may have a lot to tell others about that subject. But they are not ethically or morally superior to other people (look at all the sex scandals involving spiritual teachers) and they are no authority in fields outside their area of expertise. When students get hurt by careless spiritual teachers, some of the blame usually belongs to the student as well as the teacher because part of the problem is that people like to fool themselves into worshiping idols. The student mistakenly cedes power to another equally fallible human being. This is one reason I think the enlightenment movement is fundamentally misguided. It elevates the teacher on a false pedestal. What does it tell you about enlightenment when an enlightened teacher misbehaves sexually?

Buddha taught meditation to the monks but when he spoke to householders, he spoke on morality and ethics. If they heeded his words, householders would be protected from enlightened teachers.
 
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"Dr. Alexander Wendt: ... The way I define sovereignty–the way I think about it especially now–is that at the end of the day sovereignty is the right to kill foreigners with no accountability. It’s the right to invade other countries if you think it’s in your national security interest with no accountability."

I don't think it is a good idea to push for a one world government because that kind of ideology is responsible for all sorts of atrocities and crimes against humanity. Consider communism which advocates internationalism under which Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, Che Guevara and others were responsible for uncounted murders in the 20th century. Now in the 21st century we have Moslem's who want a global caliphate, who are murdering, torturing, and raping in the pursuit of a one world government.

I think Dr. Wendt may be faliing to consider the role of religion in the politics of the future. Islam, Christianity, and Hinduism are growing most rapidly and religious conservatives tend to be less supportive of progressive ideals such as a secular one world government.

While I don't think a one world government is likely, of the improbable outcomes, a caliphate is probably the most likely.

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/e...raceptive-pill-is-secularisms-cyanide-tablet/
"Atheism is doomed"

http://www.pewforum.org/2015/04/02/religious-projections-2010-2050/
PF_15.04.02_ProjectionsOverview_populationChange_310px.png
Ain't looking too good for the Buddhists.
 
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For everyone: if you want to learn more about anarchism in its multiple forms, schools and manifestations (anarchy is diversity), try legendary Anarchist Library - it has countless freely downloadable texts from every anarchist author and on every anarchist topic.

For anarchism in academia, look at North American Anarchist Studies Network, Radical Criminology Working Group and its journal, Thought Crimes Press and Jeff Shantz personally.

And, of course, read Hakim Bey and his mysitcal-anarchic treatrises.

Some addition to my previous link-post: if you got lost in the numerous sources I mentioned and want a kind of a quick summary of anarchist ideal, read Ken Knabb's Joy of Revolution. I consider it to the best sum of anarchic inspirations; an essence of the longing for the non-state future. A highly recommended read.
 
Ain't looking too good for the Buddhists.

Idk...seems like Buddhist thought will inspire greater number of people while the traditional religious trappings of Buddhism falter?

I think one of the most amusing things is how much of a waste New Atheism ended up being. They could have sought some middle ground, even used the evidence of the paranormal to argue that religious figures were just gifted with Psi and/or religions were shades of the greater NDE reality...but they got greedy and now - if the linked articles are correct - seem poised to enter into the dustbin of history.

Ah well, I told them so.
 
I think there are elite organizations that try to control the world from behind the scenes.

Here is one technique they use:

http://pjmedia.com/instapundit/2244...paign=Feed:+pjmedia/instapundit+(Instapundit)

http://www.redstate.com/diary/jonhenke/2016/01/19/foundations-behind-left/

Over a decade ago, the New York Post’s Ryan Sager published a blockbuster story, showing that “campaign finance reform has been an immense scam perpetrated…by a cadre of ... foundations and disguised as a “mass movement.” Based on the astonishing testimony of Sean Treglia, who ran the campaign finance reform effort for Pew Trusts, Sager reported that…

“The target audience for all this activity was 535 people in Washington,” Treglia says — 100 in the Senate, 435 in the House. “The idea was to create an impression that a mass movement was afoot — that everywhere they looked, in academic institutions, in the business community, in religious groups, in ethnic groups, everywhere, people were talking about reform.” …

As a result, we got the McCain-Feingold campaign finance legislation, which has only succeeded in, as opponents predicted, making politics less transparent and more expensive.

None of those foundations are elected.


 
Chris Hedges on C-51: They have won, and it is up to us

"...Rebellion in the face of tyranny is its own justification. Rebellion allows us to be free and independent human beings. Rebellion chips away, however imperceptibly, at the edifice of the oppressor and sustains the flames of empathy, solidarity, hope and finally love. And in moments of profound human despair these flames, no matter how dim, are monumental. They keep alive the capacity to be human. We must become, as Camus said, so absolutely free that "existence is an act of rebellion." Once we attain that freedom we discover that rebellion is not defined by what it achieves, but by who we become..."

"...I do not know if we can build a better society. I do not even know if we will survive as a species. But I know these corporate forces have us by the throat. And they have my children by the throat. I do not fight fascists because I will win. I fight fascists because they are fascists. And this is a fight that in the face of the overwhelming forces against us requires us to find in all acts of sustained rebellion the embers of life, an intrinsic meaning that lies outside of certain success. It requires us to at once grasp reality and then refuse to allow this reality to paralyze us. It is, and I say this to people of all creeds or no creeds, to make an absurd leap of faith, to believe, despite all empirical evidence around us, that good always draws to it the good, that the fight for life always goes somewhere. We do not know where. The Buddhists call it karma. And in these sustained acts of resistance we make it possible to reclaim a future for the generations that come after us, a future that the corporate state, if not overthrown, will obliterate...."
 
Firstly, newb here and thanks to Alex for letting me on board. :)

These kind of discussions about a 'future' always has me wanting to natter on about a very important (to me anyway) sort of side/complementary/parallel issue. That is, how the role of technology (if continued rather unabated on its present course) is going to make the future pretty much unrecognizable to us human beings in the here and now.....and that includes what it'll mean to even be a human being in the first place.

Whereas all of history up till a 150 years or so was fairly static, we've entered into a science and technology explosion that doubles on itself in an ever accelerating fashion.

Talk about inevitability. Tech combined with the increasingly complicated management of all these systems plus huge populations that need managing, I believe will lead to, what to us in the here and now, would view as a dystopia. However, to those 'living' in those times, they will be perfectly adapted to it and be their normal.

This whole 1984-ish, brave new world-ish thing will also come about with the fervent consent and demand by most of the population. Whatever the tech is that'll get them there will be marketed appropriately and consumer devoured accordingly.

Right around the corner is genetic modification and sped up evolution of humans at the hands of humans. Who can afford to have engineered super kids? You guessed it. Where does that leave the other 99%? Here you'll see the whittling down of the population by attrition which would be the most 'kindest' way, I suppose.

At some point will be the ridding of the biological human all together. However, the issue of where consciousness truly comes from would probably be needed figuring out by then, be it from the duality or brain epiphenomena or even something else.

Obviously I leave a lot out during all these societal transitions. That would take a book no doubt.
However, somewhere along the route will be that one world gov't thing probably.

I mean... take a look at star trek. Humans piloting a spaceship a few hundred years from now??? Hell, what once was called a human being WILL be the spaceship ITSELF! lol
 
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Firstly, newb here and thanks to Alex for letting me on board. :)

These kind of discussions about a 'future' always has me wanting to natter on about a very important (to me anyway) sort of side/complementary/parallel issue. That is, how the role of technology (if continued rather unabated on its present course) is going to make the future pretty much unrecognizable to us human beings in the here and now.....and that includes what it'll mean to even be a human being in the first place.

Whereas all of history up till a 150 years or so was fairly static, we've entered into a science and technology explosion that doubles on itself in an ever accelerating fashion.

Talk about inevitability. Tech combined with the increasingly complicated management of all these systems plus huge populations that need managing, I believe will lead to, what to us in the here and now, would view as a dystopia. However, to those 'living' in those times, they will be perfectly adapted to it and be their normal.

This whole 1984-ish, brave new world-ish thing will also come about with the fervent consent and demand by most of the population. Whatever the tech is that'll get them there will be marketed appropriately and consumer devoured accordingly.

Right around the corner is genetic modification and sped up evolution of humans at the hands of humans. Who can afford to have engineered super kids? You guessed it. Where does that leave the other 99%? Here you'll see the whittling down of the population by attrition which would be the most 'kindest' way, I suppose.

At some point will be the ridding of the biological human all together. However, the issue of where consciousness truly comes from would probably be needed figuring out by then, be it from the duality or brain epiphenomena or even something else.

Obviously I leave a lot out during all these societal transitions. That would take a book no doubt.
However, somewhere along the route will be that one world gov't thing probably.

I mean... take a look at star trek. Humans piloting a spaceship a few hundred years from now??? Hell, what once was called a human being WILL be the spaceship ITSELF! lol

It's hard to tell from our limited perspective whether we're on an exponential curve towards a phase change or whether we're nearing the inflection point of a sin wave. I think it is more likely we've been here (or almost here) before as we rhyme with history. It is possible that the exponential increase in computing power will - like the exponential increase in global debt - lead to sudden and devastating collapse.
 
It's hard to tell from our limited perspective whether we're on an exponential curve towards a phase change or whether we're nearing the inflection point of a sin wave. I think it is more likely we've been here (or almost here) before as we rhyme with history. It is possible that the exponential increase in computing power will - like the exponential increase in global debt - lead to sudden and devastating collapse.

My knowledge of economic systems is extremely limited so I tend to not really pay attention to things like debt and the like. I think its mainly because I literally look at money as the, as they say, 'meta reality', it is. So I think in simplistic terms like, say, so money collapses... zero it all out and start over with a new one, lol.

However, I see collapses stemming from the technology end of things.... whole economies, stock markets, yada yada run by computer using complex algorithms no one understands because they were designed by computer or AI computers and if they go all haywire or we get zapped good by a solar flare everything comes to a halt.... I'm rambling.... lol

Anyway, the other imminent threat I see is we have 8, 9 ,10 billion people and pretty much all labor and services become mostly automated. What are all these people going to do?

Then again...who the hell am I.... Nostrodamus?? :-D
 
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