Humanity

Why Conservatives Conserve Old American Values

The world is changing ever faster by the year. The natural reaction many people have toward circumstances changing in ways they haven’t been able to process is to resist that change. A large part of the problem contributing toward resistance to change is the perception that things were okay before the proposed changes had been introduced and “pushed onto them”. (People in general, regardless of their political ideology, don’t appreciate feeling like they’ve had their lives dictated to them.)

In the case of gay marriage, for example, many people seemed quite comfortable with their many generations of heterosexual marriage. They didn’t want to see their status quo change because that represents a change to something everyone believes is fundamental to society — family. The notion that a family is not a genetically controlled environment just doesn’t factor into sensibilities which still believe in the “Ozzie and Harriet illusion of family” (even though that symbol hasn’t existed for decades — if ever it did beyond a small segment of society). Changing that image is difficult for some people on a fundamental level because it means changing much about how they perceive the world around them.

Conservatives have the greatest difficulties with such changes because they are naturally predisposed toward conservation — (hence their designation as conservatives). There is certainly some value in preserving aspects of tradition and ideology to facilitate the cultivation of a consistent set of values to strengthen a community. We are at a point in our history where diverse communities across the globe that have been evolving for centuries are now transforming into a singular and global community. Many traditional values are forced into being discarded quickly without permitting conservatives their luxuries of taking the natural amount of time they would otherwise take toward adjusting to change.

Some conservatives can still support notions of slavery and misogyny. It seems clear that some of these views have been entrenched so deeply within the human psyche that we have many centuries of effort ahead of us to cure our society of such destructive attitudes… and because the changes which are occurring across this globe involve cultures which are still currently living in what the developed world regards as barbaric conditions; we have an enormous amount of work to do to resolve the conflicts arising out of the differences in perspectives as expressed by groups whose affiliations range the gamut of the spectrum of ideological concerns.

I don’t believe conservative values are fundamentally any different than liberal values; only the comprehension each group has on how to achieve those values differs between them. For example, both dislike the fact that unwanted children are forced into this world, and both would like to see the elimination of abortions as a means of preventing those children from being born into deplorable conditions. The conservative mind rationalizes that the best way to eliminate abortions is by imposing conditions and laws which govern behaviour. The liberal mind rationalizes education and support as the best solution toward reducing abortions to their minimal requirement. In the case of this issue, it seems clear to me in my biased mind that the liberal mindset is more capable of acknowledging the reality that people will respond far better toward receiving support than they would in being dictated to. This introduces an aspect of conservative thinking, highlighting a degree of hypocrisy in their efforts. No one likes to be dictated to, and it seems conservatives are the most vocal complainants of appearances of being dictated to. They seem incapable, however, of recognizing how their solutions are often impositions of their will upon others. They want their cake and to eat it, too. (This is speaking in generalities, of course, but that’s the nature of this topic.)

I think conservatives do sincerely believe they are helping our society to preserve values, but that often, they don’t seem altogether self-aware enough to recognize how many of their “proposed solutions” are not only not solutions but are often approaches which exacerbate the problems they claim to want to solve; but even worse is that they are approaches which contradict their values.

(A case in point would be the sheer number of laws they have introduced for controlling a woman’s reproductive rights while completely dismissing how those laws contradict their desire for a small government and greater freedoms as individuals… and under the auspices that they are protecting an unborn life while demonstrating no capacity for supporting initiatives to help already born and suffering children. They claim to possess superior morality arising from their religious beliefs, yet also complain about supporting those with the greatest need in society while lavishing riches upon those already wealthy.)

A conservative ideology and mindset may contribute some value toward establishing some framework for consistency within the development of a stable social structure, but it seems clear that the conservative mindset has lost all touch with what it means to be conservative in the first place and that it now is merely a caricature of an obstinate child who simply wants the world to capitulate to its own selfishly myopic views without having to give anything back in return for the luxuries they enjoy because of the sacrifices of those who came before us.

Do you ever wonder where consciousness originated from?

This post is a response to a question posed in its full format as follows: “Atheists, do you ever wonder where consciousness originated from? Do you sit back and think ‘maybe science doesn’t have the answer to everything?’”

Based on the fleeting interest in the topic demonstrated by the wording in this question, I have wondered that likely more than most. I’m obsessive that way. It’s a curse I must have been born with because I remember thoughts as a toddler that may not have been quite as sophisticated as now but definitely within the ballpark.

20–20 hindsight leads me to believe my life would have been far easier if I had realized I could create a vocation and a “normal life” around the formal pursuit of knowledge in that realm. I had to get this far on my own before I could think about options I didn’t realize could have been available to me then.

Even as a kid, I valued my mind more than my body, and I found myself attracted to any reading material, fact or fiction, that expanded my views on the mental realm. This led me to explore myths at an early enough age to understand how religion is also just mythology, except that people believe it’s more than that.

I should have been more focused on exploring the sciences, but I was more interested in exploring self-knowledge, which led me straight to the arts. Economically, it was the worst decision I could have made. Insofar as personal development is concerned and surviving the nightmares I’ve endured, it has been my only means of making it this far.

By the time I went to art school, I had already consumed many subjects from various realms. I have enjoyed material from scientific objectivity and metaphysical subjectivity. The arts have enabled me to process abstractions such that when Carlos Castaneda, Jane Roberts, or Edgar Cayce wowed me, I never interpreted their material from a literalist perspective. I still love and am affected by the imagery they evoked within me. People like Joseph Campbell were an incredible inspiration to me from the standpoint of cognitive discipline and the “hard sciences modality of thought,” but discovering Douglas Hofstadter’s “Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid” was like being hit with a hammer to crack open a hard shell surrounding my awareness of consciousness.

I highly recommend “The Mind’s I” as an “easier-to-consume” piece of his writing.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2081.The_Mind_s_I

At any rate, my pitiful comprehension of the sciences allowed me to understand, on at least a basic level, that science itself isn’t an answer to anything. Unlike religion, however, “science doesn’t lie” about being an answer to everything.

Science itself isn’t even a source of knowledge — people are.

Science is just a process of determining facts, leading some incredible minds to discover amazing facts about our universe.

One recent proposition arrived at through the scientific discipline of inquiry is that we may be on the verge of identifying a connection to or a source of consciousness within the quantum realm. That’s exciting news to me.

Not too long ago, I chanced upon this image:

This set my imagination on fire as an analogy for 3-dimensional existence created by consciousness itself. I had already been aware of issues like the “Thermostat Problem,” “Integrated Information Theory,” memory structures stored in 11-dimensional space, and microtubules in our brains that directly interact with quantum space. This image was like another crack in a shell obscuring my view of consciousness.

The analogy I draw from this image is that “consciousness shines through” our physicality to take shape in a three-dimensional structure we understand as reality. The shadow in this image represents physical reality, while our biology shapes the nature of consciousness within the context of a three-dimensional space.

Recently, much more intelligent people with dedicated minds have been exploring realms outside my comprehension in ways that filter down to hope within me that we will eventually solve the mystery of consciousness — even though it still feels far too distant to believe we’ll manage to create artificial facsimiles of actual consciousness. We can’t map quantum space, and I’m not knowledgeable enough to know if that’s possible or how we could do that.

How the hell do we establish a coordinate system for virtual particles? At this point, all I can think of is that we can’t and likely never will; if we can, it won’t be in any near future.

At any rate, anyone with any basic understanding of science knows science is not a magical source of all knowledge like religion pretends to. It’s at least testable and verifiable knowledge rather than the ludicrous fictions concocted by religious nonsense that leave reality far behind in its rearview mirror as it gallops into fantasyland.

Here’s some additional reading on the subject of consciousness by people far more advanced in their explorations than I am.

Quantum mechanics and the puzzle of human consciousness

https://alleninstitute.org/news/quantum-mechanics-and-the-puzzle-of-human-consciousness/

Study Shows Consciousness May Be Product of Quantum Effect

https://www.gaia.com/article/study-shows-consciousness-may-be-product-of-quantum-effect?gad_source=1

Quantum Physics Could Finally Explain Consciousness, Scientists Say

https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/a40898392/quantum-physics-consciousness/?gad_source=1

Oh… let’s not forget a valuable source of primers on almost every subject imaginable — good ol’ Wikipedia — please donate if you can to this marvellous resource that thumbs its nose at the parasitism of capitalism and generates knowledge for its true value to humanity.

Quantum Mind

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_mind

Temet Nosce

Are people poor because they were born to be poor?

This post is a response to a question posed in its full format as follows: “What can we say for those people that worked hard but are still poor? Is it because they were born to be poor?”

The first place to begin one’s assessment of another’s fortune is with an honest apprehension of the environment affecting all fortunes by all people who inhabit a (somewhat) closed ecosystem.

To suggest some external source of magical influence like fate to factor in any of this merely distracts from an objective apprehension of the dynamics leading to disparity.

It is precisely this kind of magical thinking that every “Confidence Artist” (“conman,” “swindler,” “scammer,” fraud) throughout human history has relied upon to enrich themselves at the expense of their victims.

Making matters worse for the victims is the belief that they’re responsible for the actions of others who impoverish them.

This thinking epitomizes victim-shaming.

It’s no different than blaming one’s attire for “causing” a rape.

It’s precisely the thinking a homicidal monster utilizes when they claim someone else’s actions forced them to commit murder. They twist the notion of self-defence into a justifiable weapon to dismiss responsibility for their actions.

This perverse thinking permits people like Derek Chauvin to suffocate George Floyd until they stop breathing. It empowers all the evil monsters in our midst to invoke sociopathic rationalizations unrelated to the incident in question to justify the commission of murder.

Inmate who stabbed Derek Chauvin 22 times is charged with attempted murder, prosecutors say

It ignores the causal nature of reality. Even the Bible’s Genesis chapter and “list of begats” acknowledge causality.

Bible, King James Version

People are not poor because of some cosmic assignment handed down to them by an authority, as if it were a justifiable assessment of their character at birth. People are poor because humanity has not learned the lessons of our primitive existence — namely, that we managed to survive our cave-dwelling origins only because we worked together as we hunted in groups. Each contributed to the welfare of the whole in ways that allowed everyone to benefit equally from the collective labours of synergy.

Margaret Mead has most succinctly identified the dawn of human civilization in her example of a knit bone discovered during her anthropological studies.

The worst aspect of all of this is that the evidence is abundant. There is no mystery as to why so many people struggle with poverty today.

In our early history, widespread poverty primarily resulted from natural scarcity due to environmental conditions such as an early frost wiping out an entire harvest or poor land management practices such as those that led to “The Dust Bowl” and the “Dirty Thirties.” Ironically, the magical thinking of “Manifest Destiny” driving an initial bump in prosperity contributed to the impoverished conditions that contributed to “The Great Depression,” which contributed to the stressors driving global aggressions leading to a Second World War only decades after the first global aggression.

Dust Bowl: Causes, Definition & Years | HISTORY

The fuel behind all of the poverty and aggression is the same fuel contributing to an increasing number and degree of violent protests occurring worldwide today — income disparity. We have surpassed the stage of income disparity that triggered our first global aggressions due to the stresses of exacerbated conditions of poverty.

This cycle of class disparity has triggered aggressions throughout human history, and many of our popular stories are based on them.

We should know better by now, but we seem incapable of learning this crucial lesson from history.

What makes matters worse is that in today’s “post-scarcity world,” we produce more than we can consume. We have no excuse for poverty today beyond human failings, as expressed through our politics.

Can we feed the world and ensure no one goes hungry?

None of this is a mystery — or should be a mystery to anyone today. Yet, here we are looking for excuses to victim-shame the vulnerable in society who struggle to feed themselves every day.

The information providing clarity exists in abundance. Few people are ignorant of the fact that eight people have as much wealth as the bottom half of the whole of humanity. No one is oblivious to the magical sound of the designation we venerate of a “centibillionaire.” It’s like a status of godhood on Earth that people seriously believe is a consequence of effort and ingenuity and not a dysfunctional system that impoverishes the vulnerable.

Few people perceive that obscenity in terms of the threat to global stability that it is. Few people perceive that amount of power within the hands of an egotist as a direct threat to their livelihoods — unless, of course, they’re one of the thousands who have been displaced on a whim by a megalomaniac who spent $44 billion to own the world’s most enormous megaphone so that they can capture global attention every day.

Few people look at graphs like these two and become horrified by their implications.

Yet… here we are, sending ourselves on a path in which the logical conclusion of the trajectory summed up by these two graphs is the end of human civilization as we know it. Instead of focusing on how to correct our course, we’re looking for reasons to victim-shame the most vulnerable among us.

It’s entirely disgusting that so many people are so willing to demonize the victims in society that it is mind-boggling how such utterly primitive thinking can exist in modern society.

Centuries from now, if we survive this insanity, this mindset will be viewed as the horrific equivalent of witch trials from our history.

Why are progressives communist sympathizers?

Upon reading this question, I first thought you had no clue what communism is beyond maybe the bread lines. Even then, I doubt you would know why that happened or how unrelated it was to Marx’s vaguely defined description of communism.

I thought of you as just another Pavlovian dog who’s been programmed to barf up “communism” about everything you hate, like most MAGAts who don’t wash their panties often enough.

As part of my investigation into profiles I block, I often check out their followers because… Why TF do people follow morons? I also frequently get a chuckle over Chucklehead followers while finding many blockworthy candidates. I learned this practice from Billy Flowers because that idiot creates a LOT of profiles that follow each other. I doubt there are ever any real people in their sewing circle.

At any rate, beyond usually finding catfish to block so that I don’t get the typical message on my answers that goes something like this: “Gee. I loooooove your posts but can’t seem to follow you. Pleeeeeze follow meeeee and I promise to like you.”

You didn’t have many of those, but what you have as part of your follower group is quite sad. It makes me think about my latest sub-category of troll:

In this case, however, it’s not quite so funny because it’s a stereotype that’s a huge part of the reason why we have generational trauma running through the whopping majority (70%-80%) of dysfunctional families.

Almost all of your followers have suffered beatings as a child that you interpret in the downplayed term of “corporal punishment.” You seem to be part of that group who interprets the physical abuse you suffered as “normal” and that you “turned out fine” when the reality is that you haven’t.

Your question shows that, but I doubt you would understand why.

The clue is that it’s in the misanthropic nature of your attitude toward “progressives.”

Progressives want to see progress in society because they want a world where kids are disciplined through reason, not violence. There’s no need to be violent with a child. Ever. That’s a lazy parent’s approach to restraining a child’s behaviour when they don’t want to make the time to do it correctly and through words.

They don’t consider how what they’re teaching their children is that violence is acceptable. That’s what you and your followers have learned. That’s why generational trauma exists.

Although I used the term “lazy parent” above, that’s not a correct way to point out the perpetuation of trauma, but it’s a pointed statement done for an emotional effect. It helps to focus attention on a serious issue affecting all of society.

In your case, you’ve been taught that getting what you want through violence is not only acceptable but an effective means of achieving your goal. From the starting point of physical violence in your repertoire of imposing your will onto others, doing that with words becomes second nature.

That’s why you rely on trigger words like “communism” because you’ve been taught to react emotionally to something you don’t understand beyond “It’s bad, m’kay.”

Since you can’t go around beating up on people who want to see progress in society, you restrain your angst by using words that can simulate the adrenalin rush you would otherwise get from physicality.

If you succeed in putting your “Idiotological Enemas™” in their place by calling them “commies,” then you’ve achieved your goal of giving them “the ol’ wut fer,” and that’s a win for you… at least an emotional win if they can’t come back with a witty response that shuts you up.

Chances are excellent that more and more of you “anti-commie” types are finding that happen these days. I remember only a few decades ago that it would be an effective conversation terminator that allowed people like you to feel like you’ve “won your debates.” I’ve never understood the value of that no-prize beyond a temporary dopamine high gained through ego-stroking. It was never my drug of choice because I grew up with idiots who couldn’t get enough of it at my expense.

At any rate, that’s the reason why you posted your question.

You have no clue what “communism” is, but you know you can use that word like a hammer.

You have no clue what a “progressive” is or what their goals for society are, nor do you care, even though those goals would benefit you directly and give you a life of dignity. The math is too hard on your hamster to add it up and see a plus to personal benefit on the bottom line. Besides, you’re too busy hating progressives because they drink lattes and eat avocado toast. You’re either jealous of the latte and disgusted by the avocado toast, or you don’t like their fashion sense.

It wouldn’t surprise me that you’ve yelled out, “Get a haircut, you hippy!” at least once in your life, or “Go back to where you came from!” because no one who isn’t a part of the cult you belong to deserves to live in your neighbourhood and get all of the benefits you take for granted.

For the record, “communism” has never really existed in the way that Marx vaguely described it as the next step in an evolution for governance beyond socialism.

Neither has democracy, for that matter.

Both are just concepts that different people define in various ways. While we, the leetul monkeys of society, argue what democracy is in reality among ourselves as we fling bananas and feces around to keep us distracted from the oligarchs pulling all our strings.

They love that you and so many of your tards barf up communism left, right, and centre like it’s your favourite rock song by Dead-Headed Zeppelins.

It’s much easier for them to keep stealing Trillion$ out of our pockets while you’re barking “commie, commie, commie” up and down the streets. That’s why they feed you “Anger Biscuits®” on TV while raking in billions from the morons who glue themselves to their favourite hate-porn channels.

I doubt you have ever watched a documentary in your life, but you think Idiocracy was one without realizing that if it were, you would be the main subject of that flick.

No one “sympathizes with communists” because whatever exists of people who support it are primarily academic in their support. There isn’t any real political movement toward communism, but I think that you would probably disagree while claiming North Korea and China are communist countries — even though they’re not.

As a political system, communism died last century as the authoritarian versions of it that were implemented proved themselves to be utter failures. I know you might think that communism failed, but it didn’t. It was an authoritarian government that failed like every authoritarian government throughout history.

This brings us back full circle to your upbringing because you endorse capital punishment, and that’s precisely the attitude of an authoritarian.

If we are to equate authoritarian governments with communism, then that means YOU have more of an affinity with communism than a progressive.

If anyone were to be described as a “communist sympathizer” based upon the style of communism, you’ve been taught to fear. It would be you and your fellow MAGAtards℠ who rationalize authoritarian approaches to government.

If you have a pipe, now would be the time to pack all of this into that dirty bowl and start smoking.

Cheerioz Numbnutz

Are evolutionists telling the truth?

The original and full format of the question this post responds to is as follows: “Are evolutionists telling the truth, they say abiogenesis is not evolution, then they say life evolved from a single cell, isn’t the false abiogenesis life from a single cell, can they make up their minds?”

The first few times I saw this question, I thought it odd, but it could be answered easily and quickly. I noticed it already had several answers, and I didn’t feel I could contribute anything differently to an answer, so I decided not to answer it.

It kept knocking at the back of my mind, so I checked the profile because I expected another MAGA to be behind it. I was wrong. The querent is a self-determined and self-made business owner who’s had some success through honest efforts. He even understands how Donald Trump is an evil person.

This confused me more, but I still decided not to block him and forget about the question. Here I am, though, writing a response to it. Talk about compulsion.

What I don’t get is the question itself. If one were to ask Donald Trump if he was telling the truth, he would most certainly either assert he was telling the truth or dodge responsibility for uttering an untruth as he did with his lie about Haitians eating pets. He didn’t deny lying about it, nor did he address his statement directly, but claimed he saw someone on television. He then quickly claimed he didn’t care about it while ignoring how anyone could say anything on television, particularly when that “someone” isn’t even identified. He didn’t say which program he allegedly witnessed someone making that claim. He merely distanced himself from responsibility for making that claim by claiming he witnessed someone making it on television in such a way as to grant the claim credibility. He made vague and rambling assertions about the claim while dismissing the television news reporter whose research debunked the claim.

This leads me to why I feel compelled to answer this question:

If you didn’t trust atheists to tell you the truth about the difference between “abiogenesis” and “evolution,” then why are you asking atheists if they’re telling you the truth?

That makes absolutely no sense to me.

As a human being who happens to be an atheist, I can’t fathom why someone would lie about this distinction between two words that can easily be verified through so many other sources, including every dictionary of the English language, every encyclopedia, and everywhere these topics are broached.

It’s the kind of question that can easily be verified through countless resources, yet here you are, asking if the people you don’t trust to tell you the truth if they’re telling you the truth.

This reminds me of the aphorism of a broken clock being correct twice daily in the form of a quote by Ronald Reagan, who said, “Trust but verify.”

Suppose you don’t trust your doctor’s diagnosis. In that case, it makes more sense to get a different doctor to examine you to determine their diagnosis to contrast against your first doctor’s diagnosis. It seems highly irrational to ask your first doctor for a different diagnosis.

This is why we have independent watchdogs and fact-checkers in society, to verify independently the information provided by any single source.

Although I practically never watched “The Apprentice,” I did get pieces of episodes early on in its history, and I’m still gob-smacked by an incident in which Omarosa was recorded making a statement while on the telephone that she denied even though the recording of her making that statement was presented to her.

I’ve never understood that.

I could never do that.

If a recording of me saying something were presented, I could not fathom denying my making that statement. That was a feeling I had before the advent of AI fraudulence, so I may respond differently if I were ever in such a situation — which I doubt could or would happen.

I’m here responding to this question because I’m stumbling over how someone could be so confused about the difference between fact and fiction that they don’t know how to approach addressing their confusion beyond going back to the source of their confusion to get more reasons to be more confused.

I’m pretty sure that most answers you’ve gotten from most people will be viewed as dishonest answers by more atheists you don’t trust to tell you the truth about the difference between “abiogenesis” and “evolution.”

I could understand your question more easily if you were deliberately trolling for reactions, and that was my first thought about your question because you used the word “evolutionist.” That’s a word invented by people who deliberately seek provocation or are simply ignorant of language and don’t care about the truth of words as it is presented within the meaning they carry.

In other words, for someone who wants to convey that they care about the truth, the first word in your question is a lie.

You don’t seem malicious, and you don’t seem so utterly under-educated or mentally incapacitated to such a degree as not to be capable of discerning the truth of the matter within such a simple question that is beyond simple to verify.

It’s clear from your question that you don’t grasp basic biology. Still, even so, the rambling rationale offered up to justify your mistrust, including the accusation of being inconsistent, is a wholly fictitious scenario playing out in your mind.

I don’t understand how you could not just type both words into a search box to get your answers independently from those you mistrust.

That makes me wonder about your cognitive health and your need for human interaction. Both explanations seem to fill the gaps in my confusion about this straightforward question.

It feels like this question is less of an example of posing questions one wants answers to and more of an example of why people participate on social media — for social interaction.

We no longer spend as much time in person with each other as we once did before technology became our interpersonal brokerage system. That indicates something of value that we have lost in the process.

It certainly is true that our reach is now global. Those of us stuck in dank environments with toxic people can at least breathe a little bit by encountering other minds that can echo our own to allow us to each find our tribe. Still, we’re missing out on something fundamental to the human condition.

That’s why this question has preoccupied my consciousness, and the process of answering it has been more beneficial to me than it could be for the querent who plays at getting answers to their questions in a public forum.

Answering this question makes it easier to understand trolls like “Billy Flowers.” They are desperately lonely people who have been so used to gaining negative attention that’s all they know. They don’t care how they get their attention because they’re so lonely that any attention they get validates their existence beyond the level of disposable trash that our systems in modern society treat us all like.

This question makes me sad, but at least I now understand why.

How to Effectively Empower Individuals in Society

Good Information Leads to Good Decisions — Jack Welch

Let’s distill this issue into its simplest perspective.

Knowledge is Power

The most effective approach is also the approach that focuses on the most crucial responsibility for a democracy to fulfill if the people truly want to create a stable society capable of achieving its potential as a peaceful and prosperous community.

Education is the most effective way to empower people. It’s the only way to empower people.

Every other method involves coercion, imposition, and, ultimately, the subjugation and deterioration of a people.

Nothing empowers an individual more than learning to accomplish goals in ways they never thought possible before. Nothing brings society together in a common cause more than the information all members need to make good decisions for themselves.

Everything we see today recognized as toxic and destructive to democracy is directly due to an abysmal level of education. From the cheerleading to the taunts, to the entrenchments, to the emotionally unhinged betrayals of the social contract, can be traced back to a paucity of education.

Racism, misogyny, and all the bigotries eroding relationships and community cohesion to contribute to escalations in conflict to feed criminal behaviours can be cured with appropriate levels and forms of education and public awareness campaigns.

People can learn to protect themselves without relying on a nanny state if the nanny state could stop infantilizing its public.

Democracy has been perpetually criticized for its chaotic nature by people who judge democracy by its lowest common denominator, but that destroys every form of governance.

Democracy is an inspirational form of governance because it is built upon the initiative and ingenuity derived from the fruits of individual potential all benefit from.

Leaders and caretakers of the public good must serve as teachers and coaches for those who struggle to cope with challenges.

We should not strive to impose, direct, herd, or subdue people but show them the paths they can take to achieve their best selves and our best communities.

We have no problem taking this approach within our learning institutions because we have learned from experience how to motivate students to achieve their best.

Somehow, though, we reverse course once the educational curriculum is completed, and that’s to the detriment of everything we hold dear in society.

It’s because we do not extend a supportive, proactive, and growth-oriented approach to cultivating our societies that we have an escalating force of militarized subjugation of the people. Those tasked with the responsibility of protecting and serving the public have metastasized into a destructive force of militarized imposition on the people to become state-sanctioned terrorist operations.

It’s because we have not learned to appreciate what we learned from our institutions of learning that the state empowers its protectors with an attitude of entitlement to brutally abuse its people and be responsible for committing homicides of the people and being protected by the state for their betrayals of justice.

We have allowed ourselves to develop an entirely destructive approach to reactionary mismanagement of society and the issues we all struggle to live with.

It is because we abandon the lessons taught to society by its leaders in education — of all forms, that innocent citizens can be murdered in their beds while sleeping by those who are supposed to protect them.

The lowest common denominator that critics love to cite when bashing democracies is not the least educated among us but those who are educated and who abandon their lessons to wallow in their basest instincts.

The lowest common denominators among us are the leaders who fail to lead us.

The lowest common denominators among us are those who are allegedly trained in conflict de-escalation while adopting conflict escalation techniques to murder innocent citizens.

We need to change that dynamic and fire every leader who does not inspire better behaviours from the rest of us. Leaders in society must be aspirational, not deaden, depress, or dishearten us all to disengage from our responsibilities to self-govern.

We cannot create a thriving democracy by tearing each other down and shutting people out of our roles and responsibilities to ourselves and our self-governance.

We cannot tolerate those who fail to lead us to a better world because we can see the trajectory of self-destruction occurring everywhere corrupt leadership exists.

If we want human civilization to survive, our leaders must do more than provide lip service to hope. Our leaders must empower the people to cultivate hope on an individual basis. This is the only way for us to come together to solve our common problems and preserve our present to protect a future for our children.

We cannot accept less than those who can lead by example because the examples we live with now demand violence to eject them from our midst lest we lose everything we hold dear.

Leon Wieseltier — Democracy

How do people feel about this whole ‘woke and extreme leftist’ ideology?

The question this article is a response to was originally posted in its full length as, “What are people feelings regarding this whole ‘woke and extreme leftist’ ideology that seems to be so prevalent nowadays? Is the push back that I’m feeling actually gathering pace, with ever more people speaking up against it, actually happening?”

Describing a capacity for empathy as “extreme” is evidence of an extreme disparity on behalf of people who justify abusive behaviours toward others.

People who describe “woke” as extreme are the people responsible for the widespread character of casual cruelty permeating our societies.

Such people are bullies in society who cannot seem to exist without demeaning and disparaging vulnerable others.

These people make the most significant contributions to the most embarrassing statistics we face as a species and as societies attempting to live up to our self-declared state of “advanced civilization.”

These people are not the civilized citizens among us but the barbarian holdouts who refuse to evolve within the protections of civilized society that they mock and undermine at every turn with their atavistic predilections.

These people are the uncivilized extremes who threaten social stability while routinely betraying the social contract as they function in the limited capacities of predators and parasites, draining the best from among us while disparaging it as they gorge themselves on their benefits.

People are getting so sick and tired of their disgusting behaviours that we are seeing pushback in many different ways.

We can tell that progress is being made by the increasing extremes in their behaviours as they ramp up their disparagements to be perceived as the crazy relatives in everyone’s family.

In his debate with Kamala Harris on September 9th, Donald Trump’s performance has shown how people are tired of a steady diet of manufactured moral outrage.

How people responded to Tim Walz’s son, who openly displayed his emotionally charged pride for his father, is a distinctly different attitude of intolerance for abusive behaviour than was the case when Trump openly mocked a disabled person like the extremely psychopathic monster he is.

The hatred porn peddled by those who perpetually disparage the “bleeding hearts” in society is running its course.

The meek are well on their way now to inherit the Earth, as those who hypocritically pretend to worship a god of love and peace have known for ages. They don’t want to relinquish their power and privilege now that their end is nigh.

It is time for the barbarians to rest into eternity as the disturbing nightmares of primitive existence they embody.

We are all in this mess together, and we’re sick and tired of the crabs dragging us down to face oblivion together. Such is their fate, not the rest of humanity.

We are destined to explore the stars, and we will never make it there while burdened by the toxicity of hate-mongers among us.

They can grow up or crawl into their dank holes and wallow for all the benefits they offer with their whining negativity.

It’s time for the haters to wake up and rejoin the human race.

It’s hard work. We know.

Stop being so lazy about it, get off your rocking horse, and get to work.

Why do MAGA come off as spoiled rotten, whiny and ungrateful babies?

This question as it was originally posted on Quora in its complete form is: Why do so many MAGA elitists come off as spoiled rotten, whiny and ungrateful babies who are in desperate need of a diaper change?

Donald Trump is a malignant narcissist, and his success at achieving such a high degree of public awareness and top of mind bolstered by all the corporate media driving him to the Whitehouse with their tacit support for his return to power is like a Midas Touch inspiring narcissists everywhere.

That’s why Elon Musk, owner of the world’s most enormous megaphone, fawns over the grifter in chief.

Donald Trump appears to naturally have what Elon had to pay $44 billion to have and with less fawning attention as he’s finding his audience of worshippers dwindling instead of doubling down in their support of him as a saviour equal to Trump. (That must also not be very pleasant for him because he is naturally much more intelligent than Trump.)

He’s like catnip for ego masturbators everywhere, and every single one of them is characterized by the image of a spoiled rotten, whiny, and ungrateful child. Anyone who has had any direct experience with a malignant narcissist, and chances are that it’s more than most realize because many still don’t get what that implies, will see the pattern in his behaviour and understand it for the malignancy that it is.

Powerless narcissists everywhere see him as the embodiment of their dreams of power for themselves, even on the smallest of levels, by permitting them the ability to act locally on their toxic impulses. It’s why hate crimes escalated while he was in office. His presence there was a license for every narcissist, malignant and covert, to feel justified in every destructive action they took against those they deem their enemies.

When we say a leader leads by example or when a role model sets the stage for all the performers to play similar roles, this is what is meant. Humans emulate acceptable behaviour. This is how we learn to socialize.

When long-repressed behaviours are allowed to let loose, they do precisely that. We saw that in spades on January 6th. — narcissists like the Q-Anon Shaman dood (Jacob Chansley), through to their flying monkeys, got into the acting out stage of rage against the system of their oppression.

Jacob even requested a special diet of organic food for him during his 41 months of incarceration, which was granted to him for “religious and health” reasons.

“Because of his “shamanic belief system and way of life,” eating food that isn’t organic or has “unnatural chemicals” would cause the client, Jacob Chansley, “systemic responses that are not simply discomforting, but debilitating and, notably, dehydrating,” attorney Albert Watkins wrote in a filing on Wednesday. Chansley had lost more than 20 pounds, and his condition was “declining,” Watkins wrote”

https://www.politico.com/news/2021/02/03/qanon-shaman-organic-food-465563

Narcissists don’t much care for anything that doesn’t cater to their self-centred sensibilities, and having a malignant narcissist at the top of the power hierarchy meant they were and are entitled to their entitlements.

A narcissist will expect the world to conform to them, and any form of compromise they are expected to make is perceived as an assault against them. Living in society is already a condition of oppression they must conform to if they wish to survive and succeed in life. They don’t want to conform to a world that does not cater to them, but they learn to do precisely that to get what they want.

MAGAts don’t care about anything beyond whatever serves their ego, and that’s why you can hit them with a mountain of facts and evidence. They’ll keep coming back with yet another fiction they can present to avoid the admission of defeat and score what they can conceive of as a win. Their egos will permit them nothing less because that risks a full-blown narcissistic collapse.

They would rather die than face that hit to their ego.

Their incapacity to admit error or publicly acknowledge a weakness is what makes these freaks a severe threat to democracies everywhere. This is how and why they destroy families everywhere.

They are psychological children trapped in adult bodies as a consequence of having their emotional maturity halted at a young age due to severe trauma.

There is no cure for them beyond addressing the cause, and that cause is a horrendous problem statistically represented by a whopping majority (70%-80%) of families being dysfunctional. That also spills out to statistics involving a mental health pandemic visibly affecting a minimum of one in five people today.

We must prioritize mental health in society to have any hope of solving our common problems and preventing another Drumpf catastrophe. Our only other choice is to wait for the next Drumpf to capture public attention, while the media will be much more prepared to ensure the oligarchs win complete control over the nation.

Source:https://www.hrmorning.com/articles/mental-health-in-the-workplace/

What do people benefit from being cyberbullies?

It’s a toxic coping mechanism for them, like an addiction. It is less a benefit than it is a salve.

Making others feel bad makes them feel less bad about themselves.

For a bully, bullying someone is like having their arm go numb, and they bang it against a wall to ‘wake it up” and restore circulation.

Without that outlet, their inner tensions build up and explode randomly. This exposes their weakness to whoever may have bullied them, resulting in them being bullied further by their bullies.

Bullying is learned behaviour, and it’s reinforced until it sticks and takes over one’s mindset.

When that happens, that person struggles with anger management issues as they learn to cope with their emotional fragility while alienating themselves from others until they learn self-control.

It’s easy to hate bullies, but it’s also easy to see how they became bullies just by looking at whoever bullied them.

(I have an example in mind of a homicidal police officer who contributed to the death of a person suffering from a mental health condition. I want to talk about it but can’t at the moment, but I intend to do so in a more appropriate manner. At any rate, I mention it here now because I saw a photo of him with his father, and his father had “bully written all over his face and demeanour” that most would not notice unless they have been victims of bullying themselves.

This is part of a more significant societal issue that has led to the “defund the police” movement.)

Bullying happens everywhere and at every level in society. Most bullying doesn’t involve any form of physical violence. Most bullying is just verbal intimidation, while a lot of it is a consequence of a power dynamic in a workplace.

Many low-level supervisors are toxic bullies promoted to their Peter Principle peak and stay there for life because they are viewed as effective at that level while incapable of handling higher levels of responsibility.

Bullies who manage to get higher in an organization tend to because the organization itself is entirely toxic from top to bottom, and people are selected for favouritism on their ability to capitulate to the pecking order.

These are environments rife with sycophants, high turnover rates, and senior executives who refer to their staff as family while they rip them off of value for their labour.

Cyberbullying is just more accessible for a bully because they don’t have to risk direct consequences from a reactionary response. They can take their time planning their attacks while knowing their victim can do nothing to harm them.

Cyberbullying is probably the most cowardly form of bullying because of it. In some ways, it may also be the easiest to deal with because many sites and systems have blocking mechanisms that prohibit bullying, and that’s why we often see people on Quora complaining about “cowards” turning off their comments.

The more serious versions of cyberbullying are more complicated to deal with because they often involve kids from a common and relatively small social circle where they share personal details with classmates, for example, that they cannot get away from or block in ways that prevent another avenue of bullying by their bully.

Until we can acknowledge the full scope of the problem of bullying in society, victims are essentially left to their own devices to develop coping strategies for themselves, and that’s the greatest shame in our failure to address bullying in society.

The Impact of “Woke Ideology” on Society

The Opposite of Woke

It’s incredible how much of an impact a non-existent thing can have on people.

It’s much like religion and a non-existent paternal figure.

“Woke” is a word that describes an attitude of awareness over systemic injustices that must be corrected in society.

That’s it.

There is no “ideology” exactly like no “woke mind virus” exists.

All of the hysteria surrounding the term “woke” amounts to nothing more than the whining of children who don’t want to be held accountable for their abusive behaviours.

An ideology is, by definition, a collection of beliefs organized under a dogmatic banner, but to be woke isn’t a belief unto itself. It’s an attitude favouring the support of justice in society and equal access to it for all people — not just the privileged few.

“Woke” itself leads to nothing because it’s not an ideology people rally around in protest of making the world “woke.” There is no singular image of “woke.” There are no collections of rules defining “woke.” There is no institution, group or body of people who represent “woke” as any organized movement for change in society.

“Woke” means simply that a person has realized a corrupt status quo is not sustainable.

“Woke” simply means a person understands and accepts how wrong it is for police to barge into a private residence and shoot people to death while they’re sleeping.

A person who is described as “woke” is just someone who is not only capable of empathy and compassion but is also not intimidated into keeping silent when injustices occur.

That’s what pisses off the people who whine about “woke” as an ideology and invent childish slurs like “woke mind virus” to serve as a boogeyman to fear and attack it out of an illusory need to protect oneself from an imaginary threat.

Some people don’t want social justice.

Some people want to hate.

It’s an addiction for those people, and the media feeds it with a steady diet of conflict porn.

Conservative politicians build their careers around hating groups of easily victimized people.

History is filled with the graves of millions sacrificed on the altar of hatred.

To be “woke” is to know this and be horrified by what humanity has done.

To be “woke” is to want better for themselves, their families, friends, and their communities.

To be “woke” is to want a better future for one’s children and all of us as humans striving to reach our potential as a species.

Some, however, are just mentally ill. Unfortunately, that group comprising “some” amounts to one in five people in our dysfunctional society.

In a city of one million residents, that means 200,000 people are suffering from visible mental health issues.

In a nation of 350 million citizens, that means 70 million citizens are in desperate need of professional mental health services.

The COVID-19 pandemic shut down the entire world for fewer infectees than that, and we live with it every day in society instead by pretending it doesn’t exist or that it’s just normal — like almost daily mass shootings that extinguish the lives of thousands of children every year.

Gun Deaths Among Children — Pew Research Centre

Gun deaths among U.S. children and teens rose 50% in two years

How do the mentally ill who want this nightmare to continue deal with these horrifying facts?

They invent disparagements like a “woke ideology” or a “woke mind virus” because fixing these problems means they will no longer be able to enjoy watching people suffer. They will no longer be able to feel better about themselves if they can’t see other people suffering more than they do.

They can’t stand the idea that they have to work on themselves because they can’t accept how utterly broken they are as human beings. Some no longer even qualify for that distinction.

10 Symptoms of the Woke Mind Virus