Who is in Charge?

Just as terror, even in its pre-total, merely tyrannical form ruins all relationships between men, so the self-compulsion of ideological thinking ruins all relationship with reality. The preparation has succeeded when people have lost contact with their fellow men as well as the reality around them; for together with these contacts, men lose the capacity of both experience and thought. The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the convinced Communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction (ie, the reality of experience) and the distinction between true and false (ie, the standards of thought) no longer exist. [Read More]

The Problem With Our Economy

we are in the wake of a great shifting awaken you better free your mind before they illegalize thought there’s a war going on the first casualty was truth and it’s inside you the universe is counting on our belief that faith is more powerful than fear and in that the shifting moment we’ll all remember why we’re here — Climbing Poetree “Awaken” Reality is not just facts. Facts are interpreted through a lens of understanding. [Read More]

Mantra

Some things are in our control and others not. Things in our control are opinion, pursuit, desire, aversion, and, in a word, whatever are our own actions. Things not in our control are body, property, reputation, command, and, in one word, whatever are not our own actions. The things in our control are by nature free, unrestrained, unhindered; but those not in our control are weak, slavish, restrained, belonging to others. [Read More]

State of the (dis)Union

It is in our best interest to pay attention to the growing extremism. “peace dove” by Jeff Attaway is licensed under CC BY 2.0 Copy People view the world through internalized narratives. We each have limited, flawed and subjective understandings of reality, which then shapes how we expect to act and be treated in the world. Each human experience is unique, but you can see patterns of understanding within the culture of a given group. [Read More]

Our politics are not based upon reality

The Trump Presidency is often (rightly) portrayed as being divorced from reality. I believe these are the symptoms of his worldview. “Trumpism Projection SumOfUs Final 1” by SumOfUs is licensed under CC BY 2.0 Copy Trump believes that he has been successful in his life because he is genetically superior. He regularly talks about coming from “good genes”. In his eyes, his success is not the result of his starting with millions of dollars, or his willingness to make decisions that hurt other people for his benefit. [Read More]

You Don't Understand The World

That would be literally impossible

Our senses are limited. Our memory is lossy. Our understandings are flawed. “Infinite Worlds” by Rodney Campbell is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 Our biases are heavily slanted in favor of ourselves, in a world with billions of individuals. Our bodies exist in shared physical space. Our minds exist in places where taking the last slice of pizza could be unforgivable. Over a lifetime, people learn how the “world works” based upon their own personal experiences. [Read More]

Memes Flow Through Time

So a biologist, engineer and physicist are called to help make a dairy farm more efficient… The biologist tells the farmer that he should feed the cows hormones to make it lactate more. The farmer asked how much it’ll cost and it was far too expensive. The engineer proposes to make a better milking machine to get more milk per cow. The farmer asks how much it’ll cost and it was far too expensive. [Read More]

Reality

Reality is fixed, but too complex to be understood in its entirety. Myths on the other hand are are malleable, fluid, Struggling to make a whole out of fragments. We glimpse the truth tinted by the lens of our own personal experience, Judging each other based upon averages and anecdotes. Hunting monsters in the noise. Myths as beasts and beasts as saviors, We beg for protection from the killers in our midst. [Read More]

Toxic Memes of Modern Culture

Toxic Memes of Modern Culture The new soup is the soup of human culture. We need a name for the new replicator, a noun that conveys the idea of a unit of cultural transmission, or a unit of imitation. ‘Mimeme’ comes from a suitable Greek root, but I want a monosyllable that sounds a bit like ‘gene’. I hope my classicist friends will forgive me if I abbreviate mimeme to meme. [Read More]

My Understanding of How People Work

Some of this is based on my understanding of scientific research. Some of this is based on my understanding of various philosophers. Some of this is based upon my personal observations. I’m certain it is flawed. I am also certain that it has been a useful model for me in trying to understand other people. We are a species in the Great Ape family who have developed the ability to understand and internalize an untold number of concepts, and to use them as tools to improve decision making. [Read More]