thelerner

I think the Sahara turned into desert over 3000 years ago due to climate change, not the hand of man (though there were people there). I think the United States of the 1700s and 1800s had massive poverty. It just went unnoticed because it was the norm. People worked on farms. Hard work and for many almost subsistence. Work was long hours, 6 days a week for very little money. People died because there was no safety rules and shear exhaustion. In 1700's and 1800's clean water was a luxury. Much as you dislike taxation and corporations they pay for the social programs the welfare, foodstamps, educational loans and 100's of programs that assist the poor that didn't exist back then. I'm looking for statistics, without luck, to see how poverty rates have changed. Ofcourse poor means different things. There was a time poor would literally be in danger of starving.

As a child I some how got it into my head that the only way for a fortune cookie fortune to come true, was to eat the paper it was written on. I probably still have some old cellulose making its way through my digestive system.

Does anyone really take Icke seriously??

edit> I probably should have read the OP more closely. Yet, my basic point remains. Seems to me such a tax would only bring a small fraction of what taxes do now. I guess you could ask the same thing about paying for goods. There'd be lots of advantages if shops gave there stuff away for free. Matter of fact most of the advantages are the exact same. Course a shop wouldn't last long giving there stuff away free. Similarly the government provides myriad protections from roads to police, education, safety standards and inspections, a very very expensive safety net to provide medicine and income for elderly and disabled. It spends more then it takes in too. Countries resorting to the 'free money' route inevitably make there currency worthless. So, the question isn't should it be free, rather, what services do you want to cut, how much money would it raise and do you understand the possible often unintended consequences?

Consider this. 'Bad guys' often don't consider themselves to be Bad. They rationalize their actions. (don't we all) Still, when there's an accumulation of bad things we do, driven by selfishness, revenge, anger. We creep closer to bad, follow a negative path. If you have frequent thoughts on hurting others, you may be on it. You can get off such paths at any time. Truth is we all meander, but since you go out of the way to say you're not a bad guy, you didn't 'used to' hurt people, then I'd recommend looking closely at your thoughts. Self defense is no crime, but being stuck in a vengeful mindset is; a crime against yourself, your better nature at the very least.

course when I wrote 'mother in all definitions', I was certainly including mother f'cker.

I wrote this a while back. Half tongue in cheek but there's some wisdom in it, I think: Ode to money; the lubricant of barter, the measuring stick of perceived value. We create it, name it & play with it. A useful idea, worthy servant and poor master. It Is because we think it Is. And if you don't, I have a nice P.O Box in Brooklyn for you to send it to. Even Einstein had problems with money. In 1904 working as a patent clerk he met my great great uncle, Manny the accountant, who explained it to him. Using language Einstein would understand Manny wrote this: M = E C^2. Which translates into Money equals Energy times Consumption Now and Future. You see how energy is at the heart of money? And what is energy? The potential for work. In humans terms Energy makes our lives better and more enjoyable. Flip the equation and we see E= M/C^2. Present and future consumption divides our M and cuts our Energy. Equations must be balanced and choices made. Still one can break out of the zero sum game through leverage. Creativity, creating new resources or combining old ones in new ways allow more work done with the same effort. This is how the wise tap the source of money.

I see guys like that as interesting little spices of life. From what I see mostly harmless and maybe a little good, a holy craziness. A different robe, a different time and you'd have Jesus. I'm not seeing as many apocalyptic bible thumpers parading around with loudspeakers and billboard signs as I used to. There used to be one or two corners that were always full. Pleasantly its pretty rare these days. I used to collect the more intense religious pamphlets, as examples of prime human craziness. I particularly like the Tony Alamo ones that would show up covering cars in my neighborhood every month or two. Alas I believe those and that over the top style have gone away. The whole 'I love you, but your evil and going burn in hell', style isn't making the rounds like it used to.

Nice. Link us a sample of your sounds here. When you can.

hmnn, it may treat Us as straw dogs, but imo, its damn good. Never forget its our Mother, in all definitions of the word.

I suppose it depends on the circumstance, but in general imo, bad karmically. Focusing so much on a person or group connects you to them, on some level. Sometimes seeming success, ie cleared things up and enhanced the situation, just sets a person up for a bigger fall later on. Hard advice, but it may be better to use skillful means (creative problem solving - avoidance) and or blessing the enemy then setting up hexes/curses.

The navy mate, from the short arm inspector.

lets see, Iron Giants, The New Hudder Dream Machine, The 4rth Dimension Backups. Looking Glass rockers, lets see what else comes to mind.. Reply to this Topic or uh.. Last Auto Saved, is oblique but memorable.

I'd go with size as the problem. If you haven't had a major food group in a while starting with a big portion will often cause distress. I thought oats were less usually less offensive then wheat to most people. I'll sometimes make oat meal in the morning, nuking it with water, almond butter, egg white and sweetener. Then add the yolk back when its almost done. Fast, tasty and you get a solid hit of protein.

What does it do for you and how long do you have to take it to feel an effect?

Yes except the scummy dangerous ghettos of the past you couldn't walk through had Irish or Polish, in them. I don't think the human condition changes, rather our target changes. Our enemy du jour's.

Like Marblehead mentioned, looking at history, I'm forced to disagree. imo Blaming it on the demonic lets the human race off a little too easy. I've enjoyed Game of Thrones. Very, very bloody. Not just the personal killing of main characters but the off screen implication's of 100's and 1,000's are being slaughtered for trivial reasons. Its atrocious but its also bloody great series. Its season is over, but HBO is reshowing an older series Rome. Its even bloodier, all the conspiracy and nudity plus twice the killing. Worse its real, our ancestors lived like that. Death meant something else, was more common, less shocking. Slavery and murder, including mass murder and genocides common and acceptable parts of life.

Racism is a very human thing. I don't like considering it a cult and pointing to a group like the KKK, because it shifts the focus to Them, when the focus should be us. I fight against my own racist tendencies. The dividing and judging humanity by skin color, sex, religion, foot wear... Such racism makes life easier, ie you don't have to think anymore, we've already peg holed any individual we meet. Its dangerous slippery slope too, the more prejudiced we are the more evidence we inevitably find for it, especially these days where the internet is used to support our negativity. Welcoming others with an open mind or learning the best from other cultures become impossible. We create self fulfilling prophecies. Silent prejudices are loudly expressed through body and facial minutiae. On the third hand, one shouldn't be so nice and liberal that one exposes oneself to avoidable danger.

I don't know. Seems to me the argument builds a house of cards based on this: "So if a change in the rules and constraints of the objective domain was required before you could produce psychic powers, you'd be left to simply wait and hope, since you'd not have direct control over the objective domain." If this 'If' statement is wrong, or there are indeed instances of the psychic phenomena in objective reality then the argument's base is wrong and everything that follows is. Personally I always prefer looking for real world proofs then to get to involved in philosophical linguistics because too often you get pages of conclusions, but they rest on (shaky) 'If.. then propositions'. You definitely don't want a to create a linguistic paradigm that keeps you from seeing an aspect of reality. It cuts both ways. You don't your beliefs based on fantasy with no proof, neither do you want to dismiss evidence as impossible, because it doesn't fit in to your current paradigm. Evidence and proofs trump philosophical If Then statements. My basic question is: are there solid examples of psychic phenomena? What are they? How firm are there proofs? If so, then the If statement here has to be revised to include larger realities. On a personal note, I find there are times a false idea, moves creativity and progress along and is valuable in itself.

I don't often read this mega thread, but I'm glad I did today. The above post is a gem. Thank you Sifu Dunn.

A taoist she met there and before long she could swear he held secrets aplenty in his pocket.

Ah, and here I assumed it was your own prejudiced <edit watching my language> programming and had nothing to do with the background or religion of the speaker in the video. edit> I guess being accused of considering oneself 'superior' and better in business is better then other things. Still it seems like a strange thing to bring up in a discussion of the video. Personally I think my 'superiority' in business came from a Little Orphan Annie cartoon. Warbucks tells Annie that the other business man isn't a great businessman because he always tries to get the best deal. Annie says 'Isn't that the point of business?' Warbucks tells her 'No, the point of a good business deal is when both sides get good returns'. I.E the best deal isn't what earns you the most, its the one that benefits the both party the most. That not altruism, its how to keep to keep a business alive long term. A good lasting business has to see to that. Fair and honest exchange. Mutual benefit, not superiority make for good business, at least in my experience.

I like it, but when he talks so much about Them and They, ie They are feeding you fear, They are feeding you this or that- He's playing the fear card himself. To me, along with 'Dropping the fear', you have drop the whole idea of 'Them-doing things to you'. Its not that its wrong in every case, but by concentrating on 'them' you give 'them' too much power and its not so different then keeping the fear.

I tend to agree with Viscount, in Ki-Aikido we'd do things like sit in seiza and let 5 or 6 people push against us. It wasn't exotic energy that permitted it as much as neutralizing the first persons force. Yet, to learn the skill taking the metaphor of chi, literally, helped quite a bit!? The metaphors for chi, put the 'energy' down, extend the energy, created the relaxed focus that allowed the 'tricks' to work. I think without the metaphor of using chi/ki, getting the tricks, lets call them skills because they can be used in many situations, would have taken much longer. There was an amazing strength and automatic reflex that came faster if you used the energy metaphor. At the highest level, all bets are off. Maybe because those few have developed a more efficient way to deliver there bioenergy. In which case real and metaphor blur. my 2 cents.

Here are some thoughts from an old member. The wise Dao Zhen Dao Zhen on dealing w/ Pain If one is just practicing sitting, and encounters pain, there are a few ways of dealing with it. FIRST - in ancient times, and in many modern systems of Taoist practice, there is "preliminary" work that is done to prepare for sitting. By my personal experience these are usually Dao Yin stretches with breath training done in a cross leg posture, and also standing Dao Yin methods to stretch the body and tendon network, etc. These methods also begin some very basic work to open the meridian system, train the breath, and circulate the Qi. So look around for Dao Yin methods, or even doing Indian Yoga and Tai Chi can help lay some foundation of BODY for the work of SITTING. SECOND - When sitting there are two methods to work with in passing through the stage of PAIN. Do this, and make it past this stage, as the reward is worth the effort. The pleasure, internal peace, and UNION we gain from the journey past the PAIN stage is really worth the effort. I was taught to allow progress to take shape naturally in meditation. So one method in this regard is to allow the pain to come - say in the hips, or knees, or numbness in the feet - let is build slightly, and before it becomes HUGE, very slowly stretch the feet out and allow things to become comfortable again - then very slowly draw the feet back - AND CONTINUE THE PRACTICE - with this method, a beginer can stretch a practice session out for 1.5 to 2 hours no problem. A second method is to use the breath to push past the pain, or to seek to reach an experience of the meridian opening. This method is usually only good to use if one has a method of practice that combines with the meditation to build up the Qi. As the pain arises, you begin to focus deeply on the breath, and pumping the breath in and out from the Lower Dantian. DO NOT focus on the pain, just focus on the breath. Sometimes one will need a soft breath, sometimes a strong breath. If you can hold the mindfullness, and keep the mind and breath together, and not DRIFT off into the area of pain - oftentimes you will reach a WALL, and then suddenly the WALL breaks down, and there is an OPENING, and the channel opens, and the pain MELTS away like ice, and there is a WARM, comfortable feeling that arises, and the body feels very light, and usually this will lead one to a deep state of emptiness........ From another old member who did parquor, ie free running. Dealing w/ Pain, Great Take from Otis I was jumping of this pretty high cliff into the water and the impact stretched and damaged my tendons and sinews around the chest/neck/shoulder/upper back (mainly at the center of the chest where the ribs are connected though) and it hurts like hell while doing any physical activity, even deep breathing is painful. Doctor recommended ibuprofen to ease the inflammation and I'm ok with taking just that. I'm wondering if there are any eastern methods to speed up this healing, such as focusing on some specific meridian or some qi gong postures that could help. For various reasons I have to be completely rehabilitated in 2 weeks. Otis: I have a lot of experience with healing muscle and connective tissue in myself. What I would do, is to make the injury into my moving meditation. Find a good, non-stressful posture (even lying down), relax, and then slowly, lovingly, activate the areas that hurt, through movement. Get the pain to be just hot enough to be intense, but not enough that my system shouts "no!" at me. Basically, I listen for the "no!" and back off, just a smidge, and make that my arena of play. And I emphasize "play", because it is better, IME, to be guided not by technique or concepts, but by the actual parameters of the injury. Every injury is unique, and the body's signals are there, precisely to guide me toward self-healing. Also, because that level of intense (but not freak-out) pain, can actually be a very joyful experience. If it is not, then I'd recommend slowing down, paying still more attention. If I'm tripping over my body's "no!" signals, then I'm not listening enough. The more I can utterly and joyfully "fall into" the sheer sensation of the pain with my awareness, the faster the injury heals. Once I learned how joyful it can be to pay attention to injury, and how easy it is to heal myself, it totally changed my relationship to injury, risk, and fear. So, this (and all) injuries can be true gifts, if they reveal the body's joyful capacity to heal itself.