Russian colony of the United States

[Taomeow]

Family pix of yours?

But If my post is so boring , I did keep it short, then its the sort of thing which brings no surprise, and that would indicate its a no brainer and I must be correct. If you mean something else, I dont know what that is and the ridicule is lost on me.  I guess the point of my thing is lost on Karl, if he moves on to taxation being theft, I guess he is in a mood to rail against injustices. 

 

Flaming is poor substitute for brain activity.  You post was not boring -- it was mind-blowing.   The pictures I posted illustrated your astute points regarding progress and freedom we enjoy at an unprecedented rate. 

[Karl]

Yes , those things, which are social fabrications,, have always been a consequence of the social situation. Alone on an island, it becomes more obvious, Where are rights then? Recognizing this, one could decide that the complaint is really about the extent of impact ,of the larger social construct on the individual. We can travel, or interact with things from around the globe, or family members in other states. We can resource materials on almost anything, learn or do a thousand things. Capabilities have been expanding therefore as progress marches on. Yesterdays imagined and beloved rights have been traded for greater actual freedom. Whether one embraces this is up to them.

Apologies Stoosh I just skipped over your post.

 

The rights are there on the Island. It is the right of ownership of your body/mind and to keep the fruits of your own, honest productive effort. Anything that interferes with that is a trespass and aggression.

 

You make no mention of it, but we require no government to advance forward. Indeed I firmly believe that if we didn't have Government we would be a long way further on than we currently are (and I mean in the sense of modern centralised government/ states as it is pretty obvious we would need some form of governance and these things do exist naturally ).

 

We haven't got freedom, we have the illusion of freedom. However, this is somewhat like the trying to explain the Matrix. No one can tell you what it is, you have to see it for yourself. The will must be there.

 

I thought/think that this forum has seekers-just as I once was-but you don't know what it is you are seeking. Maybe there are sometimes the reveal of a small corner that you pull at, but something immensely heavy stops anything more being pulled free. The full picture cannot be seen until you are ready to see it. The reality of it will be in the order of the shock of waking up in one of the Matrix pods and realising you have actually been under a kind of hypnotic spell.

 

If you begin to ask what you are actually seeking and what it is that has brought you to this point then perhaps some of the answers will begin to tumble out. I'm not implying anything about enlightenment or self realisation, just a breaking of the spell.

 

That's probably more than I should have said, but I think we haven't got too much time left to waste.

Edited August 21, 2015 by Karl

[thelerner]

 

I don't have any rights, I have privileges. It's not a matter of which rights I have, because that number is clearly zero. Rights are all negatively implied as opposed to privileges that are all positive.

Totally don't understand this.  You have zero rights, but lots of privileges.   You want to have rights. 

What rights do you want, that you don't have now?  

 

 

Really, no dancing around it, no philosophizing, or playing semantic games, shifting blame or avoiding the issue you keep bringing up.  

What rights don't you have?

Edited August 21, 2015 by thelerner

[Geof Nanto]

What innate rights do we have? My answer is we have none. Rights are constructed by our societies and encoded into laws that are enforced by the state. 

[Stosh]

Flaming is poor substitute for brain activity.  You post was not boring -- it was mind-blowing.   The pictures I posted illustrated your astute points regarding progress and freedom we enjoy at an unprecedented rate. 

I had to look up 'flaming' ,, umm to me it looks like a term which would be useful only as a label to throw at someone to say that they were wrong for expressing what they do. Because anything anyone says with conviction can be construed as soliciting a response , and any response which isn't in accord with it could also be called 'flaming' as well. A forum like this has the basic paradigm of being contentious. I wasn't really addressing that however ,though  I see such as a reasonable perspective, no I was just saying it because I feel that the idea that there are 'rights' to have and to lose, tend to situate folks defensive of these imagined rights, which is fine, I do think we're better off with the 'rights' bestowed by concensus.. but moment to moment getting worked up about them as opposed to the fact I can make a phone call to africa , or fly out to costa rica for thanksgiving.. its a headache one can usually defer. 

[Stosh]

Apologies Stosh I just skipped over your post.

 

The rights are there on the Island. It is the right of ownership of your body/mind and to keep the fruits of your own, honest productive effort. Anything that interferes with that is a trespass and aggression.

So If you stub your toe , the rocks transgressed upon your rights?  If ants eat half the bananas , they should all be punished  There's no possibility of dishonest effort , you do or don't do, so there is no 'honest effort' to satisfy the intellectual polemic.

So stumbling on a windfall isn't honest or dishonest. 

 

You make no mention of it, but we require no government to advance forward. Indeed I firmly believe that if we didn't have Government we would be a long way further on than we currently are (and I mean in the sense of modern centralised government/ states as it is pretty obvious we would need some form of governance and these things do exist naturally ).

Maybe some-day in far off galaxy.. but right now its a devil we need. Look at Haiti for ex. 

 

 

We haven't got freedom, we have the illusion of freedom. However, this is somewhat like the trying to explain the Matrix. No one can tell you what it is, you have to see it for yourself. The will must be there.

Ok fine , we are trapped by our own conceptry and if thats considered constraint then we dont have freedom from it... but if that conceptry is what we are,, then freedom would still exist as the ability to live according to it within the constraints of physical laws. 

 

 

I thought/think that this forum has seekers-just as I once was-but you don't know what it is you are seeking. Maybe there are sometimes the reveal of a small corner that you pull at, but something immensely heavy stops anything more being pulled free. The full picture cannot be seen until you are ready to see it. The reality of it will be in the order of the shock of waking up in one of the Matrix pods and realizing you have actually been under a kind of hypnotic spell.

No argument here.

 

 

If you begin to ask what you are actually seeking and what it is that has brought you to this point then perhaps some of the answers will begin to tumble out. I'm not implying anything about enlightenment or self realisation, just a breaking of the spell.

 

That's probably more than I should have said, but I think we haven't got too much time left to waste.

If you're implying the movie is real,, its not,, nor is the real unreal, it is real.  But Ill consent that there is a lot of confusion about those things , and room for much greater clarity,and personal expression of self. 

[Karl]

Totally don't understand this.  You have zero rights, but lots of privileges.   You want to have rights. 

What rights do you want, that you don't have now?  

 

 

Really, no dancing around it, no philosophizing, or playing semantic games, shifting blame or avoiding the issue you keep bringing up.  

What rights don't you have?

 

I was explicit.

[Karl]

So If you stub your toe , the rocks transgressed upon your rights?  If ants eat half the bananas , they should all be punished  There's no possibility of dishonest effort , you do or don't do, so there is no 'honest effort' to satisfy the intellectual polemic.

So stumbling on a windfall isn't honest or dishonest. 

 

 

Maybe some-day in far off galaxy.. but right now its a devil we need. Look at Haiti for ex. 

 

 

 

Ok fine , we are trapped by our own conceptry and if thats considered constraint then we dont have freedom from it... but if that conceptry is what we are,, then freedom would still exist as the ability to live according to it within the constraints of physical laws. 

 

 

 

No argument here.

 

 

If you're implying the movie is real,, its not,, nor is the real unreal, it is real.  But Ill consent that there is a lot of confusion about those things , and room for much greater clarity,and personal expression of self. 

 

More straw men. Only humans have reasoning, only humans have free will and therefore the choice of morality. You can choose to murder Friday, or realise that two people producing and trading will provide greater wealth than individual effort.

 

The movie you see is not real, so It really doesn't really matter what you think about it you started with a false perception anyway. Thinking it's any less or more real is a game for the mind, but reality doesn't care what you think.

[zerostao]

Only if you cannot think of another possibility. If you always think that this is the only way it can be, then you will approach everything from that perspective.

whew, at least my efforts have not been in vain then, you are finally coming around to what i have been pointing you towards.

Edited August 21, 2015 by zerostao

[Karl]

whew, at least my efforts have not been in vain then, you are finally coming around to what i have been pointing you towards.

 

LOL

[Stosh]

More straw men. Only humans have reasoning, only humans have free will and therefore the choice of morality. You can choose to murder Friday, or realise that two people producing and trading will provide greater wealth than individual effort.

 

The movie you see is not real, so It really doesn't really matter what you think about it you started with a false perception anyway. Thinking it's any less or more real is a game for the mind, but reality doesn't care what you think.

If my stories about the ants and stubbed toe were straw men to your eyes, then you know them to be pushovers. If they correctly make analogy as wel,l to your own position , well then you just conceded your position to be flimsy and easily defeated.

To that I agree, and it leaves me puzzled why you would be promoting it.

 

 

[Stosh]

More straw men. Only humans have reasoning, only humans have free will and therefore the choice of morality. You can choose to murder Friday, or realise that two people producing and trading will provide greater wealth than individual effort.

 

The movie you see is not real, so It really doesn't really matter what you think about it you started with a false perception anyway. Thinking it's any less or more real is a game for the mind, but reality doesn't care what you think.

I dont like Friday, I treat him like an inferior, but he eats as much as I do, I double my take on the island, and might like a Friday feast. .... besides Friday doesnt fit in the scenario of being alone on the island.

[Taomeow]

I had to look up 'flaming' ,, umm to me it looks like a term which would be useful only as a label to throw at someone to say that they were wrong for expressing what they do. Because anything anyone says with conviction can be construed as soliciting a response , and any response which isn't in accord with it could also be called 'flaming' as well. A forum like this has the basic paradigm of being contentious. I wasn't really addressing that however ,though  I see such as a reasonable perspective, no I was just saying it because I feel that the idea that there are 'rights' to have and to lose, tend to situate folks defensive of these imagined rights, which is fine, I do think we're better off with the 'rights' bestowed by concensus.. but moment to moment getting worked up about them as opposed to the fact I can make a phone call to africa , or fly out to costa rica for thanksgiving.. its a headache one can usually defer. 

 

OK, you can make a phone call to Africa.  Never missed that particular freedom, but it's nice if you have someone to call there.  I don't, alas.  What I do need is something simpler. 

 

Freedom of speech? -- watch me go to jail if I say I can cure cancer, and especially if I can prove it, without being on the pharma's payroll.  Yes I can.  No I didn't say it.  It's against the law.  If god forbid I prove it and endanger the profits of those who can't but have the right -- the right granted by the state to the corporation that employs governments for its bodyguards, and taken away from those who can -- what happens next?..

 

For-profit private prison happens. 

 

Do you have the freedom not to go there if you break, not a constitutional law but an ordinance promulgated by an agency that is an arm of a corporate power (e.g. the FDA?)  No you don't.  You can call Africa though.  It can even be your one phone call upon being arrested.  It's your right.

 

But do you have the freedom to not be raped in that prison?  No you don't.  Shit happens.  No one is going to stop it.  You can still fly to Costa Rica to take a nice vacation from the bothersome and tiring abuse once they let you out.  Freedom  and progress never fail.

 

And if you happen to meet a nice girl in Costa Rica and marry her, do you have the freedom to have a psychosis-inducing-medication free child if he or she is not sitting slack-jawed in front of the TV but wants to run on green grass and climb trees and maybe do some mischief, the way they still do it in some places in Costa Rica?  No, you don't.  You have to Ritalin the little bastard.  Or else lose your parental rights maybe?  Do you have the freedom to parent your child if you are told by authorities to Ritalin him/her and you refuse?..  Try them.  But you can still call Africa.

 

And do you have the freedom to not get shot by a trigger-happy cop?  No, you don't.  If you are one of those people who get shot daily by trigger-happy cops, you lose even your freedom to vacation in Costa Rica -- you die.  And do you have the freedom to access the statistics -- how many Americans are shot daily by trigger-happy cops?  No, you don't.  Classified. 

 

How about freedom from prying governmental eyes, freedom to have some privacy in your life?  Maybe you don't want them to maintain a database where all emails and posts you've ever written are stored for future reference, and all your phone calls and texts too, just to make sure you're not a terrorist, to be sure?  Well, ask for it nicely.  But better yet, call Africa.

 

OK, I seem to be having too much fun with this.  I should stop.  I haven't scratched the surface yet though, mind you...  How about the freedom to breathe clean air, eat real rather than poisonous, mutagenic, teratogenic, carcinogenic stand-off for food, drink water into which no one dumps toxic chemicals?..  No?  don't need that?  need to call Africa instead?  All right.  You are a free man.  Congratulations.  

Edited August 22, 2015 by Taomeow

[Karl]

If my stories about the ants and stubbed toe were straw men to your eyes, then you know them to be pushovers. If they correctly make analogy as wel,l to your own position , well then you just conceded your position to be flimsy and easily defeated.

To that I agree, and it leaves me puzzled why you would be promoting it.

Let me tell you a story:

 

One day a group of men sat around a table and dreamed of a world in which God was whatever they told the people it was. There would be no right and wrong anymore except as it was decreed. It would free the people of the need for moral responsibility.

 

Now, these men understood the power of words-because words convey every concept that ever was and ever will be. That Words are the control program for the human mind. To hatch their plan successfully they would have to control the definitions. They would need to control which definitions were right and wrong in the minds of the people.

 

How could it be done ? This trick must convince everybody-even themselves-that this was the way the world worked. They realised that the world people believed could be built on fallacies and confusion, but only if the people themselves could be made to create their own double binds. First they must believe the world of logic was flawed. It had to be discredited and must disappear as a tool of understanding. If it was used, it must be used in the wrong order to disguise the lie. Logic would come before grammar. That way around and people would ask the 'why' of a thing first instead of the the what, where and when of a thing. It would seal up the door to their ability to control definitions for themselves and mean that they would be their own prison guards. They would Police themselves so effectively-it was thought-there would no longer be wars or crime. It was a noble enough ideology, but the problem was that this power to control definitions would not stay in the hands of the good men, it was already fraudulent and so, naturally, as with all things that are dishonest in nature it attracted the interest of the men who would manipulate it for their own advantage.

 

This is how it is now. The story hasn't ended because the people always have the option of rediscovering logic/reasoning and placing it back in its proper place-before grammar. They can take the power back from those who control the definitions. However, the conditioning is so deeply ingrained that it is very hard to do. Those that suspect something isn't right tend to drop out in some sense. They may head for the woods, shamanism, autarky, the Indian way, or they look for esoteric knowledge in Tao, Buddhism, Christianity and the ways of the East. Unfortunately these attractive narratives were designed in a similar way to the more modern control mechanism. They also seek to control definitions and so the dont aid and in some ways perhaps they can even hinder the search.

 

Take rights and privileges as an example. You cannot tell one from the other and that's deliberate. It's not that you can't discover the definition, it's that you will effectively police yourself in order never to discover it. Then you add that the entire world is an illusion. That A and not A exist. Bizarrely this is actually true, but only of the world you have been taught is true.

 

People like Orwell have been trying to reach us, they left a breadcrumb trail but we couldn't decipher it. We laughed at the idea of double speak and thought we were not capable of such a simple deception. Yet Orwell knew a deeper truth-that we were already deceived and had been for several hundred years-before we were literate this same trick had been played but by keeping the people ignorant. Now, with the need for mass literacy to run the factories, bureaucracies and armies that ignorance was no longer possible, but a new possibility dawned. The control through words could be deeper, the spell more powerful and mass state schooling would deliver it. From the East, to the West the first thing any invading country does is to make sure that state schooling is in place. Anywhere where it isn't the authorities will eventually force it in the people through taxation, violence or manipulation of regulation.

 

Of course this is only a story, so there is no need for any concern. It couldn't possibly ever happen. You have the power of Buddhism and the Tao to cling to in any case.

Edited August 22, 2015 by Karl

[Stosh]

I really like that format, its a quick way of saying a lot. But im not sure what the meat of it means, Confucious , did appear to feel that the state could define morality, and that this codification , would enable the people to adhere to it, much as you laid out, and yes Buddhism Taoism do look beyond traditionally established definitions to imbue ones actions with a more natural sincerity..but since these two systems can and do live side by side,, as in law vs church,, I dont know where you are going with this yet.

[Karl]

I really like that format, its a quick way of saying a lot. But im not sure what the meat of it means, Confucious , did appear to feel that the state could define morality, and that this codification , would enable the people to adhere to it, much as you laid out, and yes Buddhism Taoism do look beyond traditionally established definitions to imbue ones actions with a more natural sincerity..but since these two systems can and do live side by side,, as in law vs church,, I dont know where you are going with this yet.

I'm not going to, and neither can I illuminate it all for you. It would be self defeating anyway.

Edited August 22, 2015 by Karl

[zerostao]

i like your post #64 karl, i like taomeow's #63 too.

orwell was very explicit in a few of his talks, he felt that an american empire was a better alternative than a japanese empire. 

orwell was opposed to empire, but what can anyone really do.

i dont find buddhists or taoists clingy types tbh neither some of the others you mentioned.

taoist isnt philosophy, contrary to what some say here, it is about energy

energy is the real

words, sure, in the beginning was the word, we are told by those using words, from many different cultures, this always begins the same, in the beginning was the word, doesnt matter if it's the gospel of john or  mayan popul vuh

pink floyd tells us>>it's a battle of words

before words is energy, energy is that which is neither created or destroyed yet it does transform

words are often more than not lies

energy is the real

i can trust the ineffable

it's hard to trust words, yes?

[Karl]

i like your post #64 karl, i like taomeow's #63 too.

orwell was very explicit in a few of his talks, he felt that an american empire was a better alternative than a japanese empire. 

orwell was opposed to empire, but what can anyone really do.

i dont find buddhists or taoists clingy types tbh neither some of the others you mentioned.

taoist isnt philosophy, contrary to what some say here, it is about energy

energy is the real

words, sure, in the beginning was the word, we are told by those using words, from many different cultures, this always begins the same, in the beginning was the word, doesnt matter if it's the gospel of john or  mayan popul vuh

pink floyd tells us>>it's a battle of words

before words is energy, energy is that which is neither created or destroyed yet it does transform

words are often more than not lies

energy is the real

i can trust the ineffable

it's hard to trust words, yes?

 

Yes, energy, and prior to that something else which can be known-although knowing it doesn't really add to the store of knowledge. Matter is a harmonic in a universe comprised of standing waves and nodes.

 

Consciousness/reasoning words are all a form of that expression. You can't work with the harmonic directly as it is a differential-one level removed. Some of this you will probably know if you have some basic maths. The integral is the word. I'm not great at maths and waveform analysis but I get the basic understanding. The words then vanish into the cortex and are differentiated again.

 

All that is fascinating stuff, but we are stuck with words and so we must know what is what. You can see it as accepting distorted energy if that works for you.

[zerostao]

i dont want to get into speech act theory or semiotics, that can be looked at elsewhere  if you want to look at austin, searle, derrida, it's your time, it's a bit dense

semiosis & poiesis >> the ancients told us about

the ancients also warned us about relying on human "rational logic"

distorted? or used to enable corruption?

i am not stuck, i read energy just fine

 

edit>> second attempt,,, the ancients also warned us to beware of and step away from "knowledge"

Edited August 22, 2015 by zerostao

[Taomeow]

Zeros, some of my taoist sources assert that word used to BE energy. That's when spells and incantations healed.  They don't anymore.  Words separated from actions, words not meaning the same thing as actions they refer to are occasionally just powerless and useless but more often than not evil -- because even though they don't have the energy of acts anymore, they can misdirect and redirect acts, cover them up, falsify perceptions of what really happened.  Acts that don't mean what the words "about them" say are evil.  And words that don't mean what the acts they are about do are evil.

 

We are drowning in an ocean of evil words and evil acts.

 

One of the first reasons I fell in love with taiji was that my teacher only used words to mean exactly what the actions meant.  "Turn the chest.  Drop the hip.  Step diagonally.  Keep your back straight.  Rotate the elbow downward."  And so on.  Turned out I was starved for this way of using words -- your body using them, not your mouth.  

 

I sometimes try to envision the world where words would mean the actions they describe.  When a politician says "peace," the army goes home.  When the prime minister says "prosperity," no one is poor.  When the constitution says "freedom," no one is trapped by this or that version of slavery, whether old-fashioned or new and improved.  (And the 27 million actual old-fashioned slaves in actual old-fashioned slavery today all go free.)  When the doctor says...  drats, they are very careful to never say anything that can translate into the disappearance of the illness...  but the word would be "cure," not "treat," and would act as what it says (otherwise what's his business doctoring?  A shaman who would "treat" an illness without "curing" it used to lose his or her job after three strikes.)  When mom says "I love you," the child would be in her arms, looked straight in the eye with shining, joyous, dancing eyes, not on the phone with her.  And so on. 

[Karl]

i dont want to get into speech act theory or semiotics, that can be looked at elsewhere  if you want to look at austin, searle, derrida, it's your time, it's a bit dense

semiosis & poiesis >> the ancients told us about

the ancients also warned us about relying on human "rational logic"

distorted? or used to enable corruption?

i am not stuck, i read energy just fine

 

Beyond my pay grade. I suggest you might know the causal link a bit like a musician has a deeper knowledge of music composition.

 

Relying on rational logic is a problem, that's why is necessary to probe the grammar first. This is what I said earlier. The church and many offshoots put logic before grammar and that causes a logic loop, circular reasoning, petitito ( question begging ). That is an abuse of logical order.

 

Again, that's important in its way, but more importantly is the war which is being fought and not necessarily the weaponry being employed. This is real and present.

[Perceiver]

It will be much peaceful in the world when US/UK stops playing their colonial politics.

 

Because then Russia wouldn't.. invade the Baltics.. or what do you mean?

[Taomeow]

Because then Russia wouldn't.. invade the Baltics.. or what do you mean?

 

As in, wouldn't have signed the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact in 1940?  Or wouldn't have lost the Baltic republics to Germany in 1941, when Hitler changed his mind about not going to war against Russia and, first things first, annexed the Baltics and made them part of the Third Reich weeks into it?  Or maybe that Russia, 20 million casualties later, shouldn't have retaken the territory after kicking the Germans out in the course of the Baltic Offensive in 1944?  Or what?  You're trying to say that it's Russia's bad?  Perhaps -- but in this case, Russia was first maneuvering politically in order to avoid a war with Germany for which it wasn't ready, willing, or able at the time, then got outmaneuvered and was attacked anyway, then won the war -- forgetting to do it in white gloves, indeed.  If it didn't, the Baltics would have remained under the German nazi rule.  You reckon it would have been nicer?..

Edited August 25, 2015 by Taomeow

[Karl]

As in, wouldn't have signed the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact in 1940?  Or wouldn't have lost the Baltic republics to Germany in 1941, when Hitler changed his mind about not going to war against Russia and, first things first, annexed the Baltics and made them part of the Third Reich weeks into it?  Or maybe that Russia, 20 million casualties later, shouldn't have retaken the territory after kicking the Germans out in the course of the Baltic Offensive in 1944?  Or what?  You're trying to say that it's Russia's bad?  Perhaps -- but in this case, Russia was first maneuvering politically in order to avoid a war with Germany for which it wasn't ready, willing, or able at the time, then got outmaneuvered and was attacked anyway, then won the war -- forgetting to do it in white gloves, indeed.  If it didn't, the Baltics would have remained under the German nazi rule.  You reckon it would have been nicer?..

 

There is some anecdotal evidence to suggest that Russia had been considering a pre emptive attack on Germany several years prior to the start of the war.

 

Russia's imperialism was in the order of spreading communism across the world. In other words a political take over and not one by geographical invasion in which it was introverted. This continues to permeate today even without direct Russian backing through groups of intellectuals and organisations such as UNESCO, club of Rome and the Fabian Society. Most of it has been willingly adopted by state education as the best way to control the population.

 

Germany's imperial ambitions were at an end prior to the beginning of the First World War when it considered that 'it had enough hay to fork over'. However that did not suit Great Britain who wanted Germany to be in constant conflict with the next most powerful nation -France-this remains the current tactic for the West to set the most powerful regional state against the next most powerful and provide tacit support for that state.

[Taomeow]

Karl, I really don't know what to say except, to straighten out some versions of history floating out there, I wouldn't even know where to start.  With the Roman empire?.. Babylon?..  dinosaurs?...  trilobites?.. 

 

I think I'm going to throw in the towel once and for all.  History, geography, politics -- anything inhabited by humans -- is a hopeless subject for discussions.  Totally disheartening.  I think I'll limit myself to posting pictures of cute cats and descriptions of inanimate objects.

Edited August 25, 2015 by Taomeow