sociology

The Highest Man As Lawgiver Of The Future

When people choose to define their own will independently of the existing power, seek the cultivation of a will to power for self-actualization, enable others to pursue such transformation, then the society as a whole and mankind become collectively stronger. Moreover, those who independently determine their needs, desires and crucially the means whereby such are attained cannot be predicted or understood. It is so unlikely for an individual to possess all of the characteristics outlined in Will to Power (976) - while also pushing ever forward towards true progress in philosophy - without having their energy coopted by societal power structures.

What is the Soul? A Baseline for the Materialist Conception

So many people accept at face value either some identity given to them by others or perhaps the assumed identity developed by a younger self. They stop looking or maybe they've never looked much at all. This is what's so dangerous about the materialist misconception that *there is no soul!* What do you mean by that? Do you even know? To the person who needs soul-searching, if they believe the soul resides entirely within some internalized encoding of matter, then they allow the noise of life to define all they see and all they think. They believe the extent of their soul to exist entirely separately of society and this is a dangerous assumption because it deprives the person of power over their mind, over their life and over the composition of their soul.

Experimental Psychology, the Paradox Encyclopedia and How to Beat the Roko's Basilisk

In the past five years, mainstream media has been weaving in experimental methods from bleeding edge psychology and neurology. For at least the past century, memory implantation and other mental manipulation is a classic science fiction plot mechanic. We see it in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, where memories can be erased, something I would never want to do.

Treatise On Entity And Agency

Regardless of whether its schema can be ascertained, what is certain is the power these enigmatic forces exert on our world. Like a deer drawn to water, like hunting parties drawn to survey their prey, the fate of the minds of men is like a canyon cut away by the river of the metaphysical. The image of our minds is woven into its macrame sic passim via these most ineffable structures of the metaphysical and its shadow. The Earth's firmament is like any organic life's starting point. Rains fall from the heavens; their waters' ebb and flow thereby cutting away the terrain that preordains the fate of men. Whether its face is lost to the sands of time or is inescapablity exigent, this enigmatic metaphysical prognostication is relentless. It is all consuming, all containing and determines the steps you take, regardless of the paths you make.

Fatal Flaws of Antifragile System Design Patterns

There are two things we should fear above all else: nihilism and ourselves. Antifragile design principles are excellent for solving the latter problem, but make no advances in protecting us the first. The ultimate systemic flaw of antifragile systems is that they rely on instilling a sense of purpose among the nodes carrying out action to protect order in system from the chaos of itself. Only some branches of hierarchy need to be motivated by stressing or feeding their incentivization methods to be convinced to act against any other part of the system. Therefore: demoralization can totally undermine antifragile systems, if it is systemic. In upcoming decades, demoralization resulting from loss of connection to loss of prosperity or from the loss of both our humanity and our individuality will lead to massive breakdown of our sociopolitical systems of control.

Harnessing the Congruence of the Human Condition for Natural Justice

So, if through knowledge people align their energy, which is their individual capacity to change their local circumstances, our collective capacity to change the world is magnified in proportion greater than the number of people who come together. As we continue fighting each other in diametric opposition, we only cause ourselves to become vulnerable to subversion. Yet, if we decide to move forward together, then the restraints of injustice become like gossamer chains and are only as strong as the remnants of collective delusion...

Oneirontology: Semiotics, Karma and Moral Consequentialism

There is a limitless, self-magnifying source of power that any lifeform in the universe can tap in to. This power is encoded into the invisible metaversal leylines that lay buried under mappings of semiotic networks. Humanity sees these semiotic networks rise into the visible planes through culture, which is always invisibly mapped to the same aeternal flames. Through these leylines, humanity can retrieve power that transcends time itself. This power can be used for good or for evil, but by closely guarding it, We can ensure that its use fertilizes the soil of culture, eventually sprouting heroism and virtue whereever there is enough light and water. Then, We can use these leylines to reify a kind of penetrating light that chokes evil by starving its supply of darkness.

Cosmic Disruption of Conflict Theory

This isn't a discussion of the merits and tragedies of religion. This is a strategy about circumventing the factors precipitating conflict in the first place. If acquisition and control over limited resources creates the needs for conflict and the shapes/forms thereof, then what happens as these factors themselves become scarce? What if the reasons for war were themselves scarce?

American Limits on Freedom of Speech Include Intelligence

If you have a boner for math and cryptography, keep that shit quiet! I learned this the hard way. You will not believe how much trouble you'll get in if you can't pass a clearance and you happen to stumble on a theorum they already know about -- and you're not going to find anything they don't know about without first crossing into a region of knowledge in math, computer science and crypto that the NSA has explored first. That's because any murky regions of math, etc that they don't know about are all dependent on a few theorums that they do know about. These are the 'other' nuclear weapons: it's secret math and they do not want to let this shit get out. Think I'm playing around? Find an unpublicized means of predicting large primes and try posting that on the internet. You'll get a knock on your door before you can log into Medium to blog about it.

That Time I Repressed My Own Memories ... For Love

Tatiana tells me they're at the Denver Comic Con to get ready for the San Diego Comic Con, where the Orphan Black cast is doing a panel. She asked me to come up with some questions so she could practice. After one generic question, I came up with a really good one: 'Which one of the clones would be best prepared for the Zombie Apocolypse?' We continued talking about all the things: linguistics, philosophy, post-structuralism, movies, etc. We talked about the Singularity and it's implications for society. I told her about mass NSA surveillance about a week before the Snowden story broke. We talked about using 3D filming techniques in 2D films. She told me about scenes coming up in 'The Wolf of Wall Street' and asked several questions about quaaludes, lol.

From the Parapets of Alexandria: Knowledge Extinction Events

Two different paths for the 21st century with regard to availability of information. Again, these separate paths lead to the same place: in several decades, we'll have a communication infrastructure where it's impossible to control the desemination of information. Therefore, we'll reach a world where it's not possible to censor information, but in the meantime, we will transition through a period of time where governments and corporations have strong incentives to censor and attack ideas. So, we can either decide to embrace a controlled transition towards this destined future world where ideas cannot be censored or we can trudge painfully through this intermediate world where governments and corporations try their hardest to censor information.

Illegal Immigration: National Security Debt

My passion for this issue stems from a concern for the struggle that illegal immigrants face in this country along with foresight on how this problem grows over time. *It's National Security Debt.* In 10,000 words, I'm going to provide you with the realest summary of why it's a painful issue for everyone involved. You'll be able to empathize with what illegal immigrants are going through in this country. I'm going to try to describe what that's like, but I don't actually know any illegal immigrants, so you'll have to forgive me for that. And as much as you can try to put yourself in someone else's shoes, you'll never truly know how that feels until you're there.

Diversity is America's Strength

What happens in America with regard to ethnic tensions is an indication of what will happen for the rest of the world. Like I said, America is a microcosm. Our diversity here symbolically reflects the diversity everywhere else. If these problems boil over and promote instability, the same thing will happen the world over. So we seriously need to get our shit together and figure this out. As individuals, we have to be willing to turn the other cheek; to reach out; to seek understanding. If we do not do that here, now, it's an incredibly bad omen for the world in 2050.

Facets of Greatness: Understanding the Political System

The Articles of Confederation may have been a more idealistic government, but let's be serious here: do you really think they intended that to last? Not really. It was good enough. Good enough to give our founders about a decade to figure out what would be great enough to last centuries. That's what I mean. Yeh, Thomas Jefferson might have wanted the Articles to last. It didn't have the power or mechanism to tax states. That's like asking the Red Cross to run your government. But this is what I mean: they knew it was going to play out like that. And what would you do?

Facets of Greatness: Congressional Power Structures

Your understanding of the system is your most valuable asset. You can't forget that. Your understanding of how things really work. And politicians know that. People in general know that. Some people will tend to obfuscate a system, so it appears to work in one way, but there are other, less visible factors at work. How you model the system and perceive the relationships between people is incredibly valuable. This is in constant flux. It's not going to be the same from year to year. The only constant is change. Just because you figured out how it worked in 2010 doesn't mean it's going to be like that in 2020. The ability to anticipate that change is powerful as well.

I'm Not Religious, I'm Spiritual: A Lighthouse in a Storm

So, religion is a perfect tool for helping to counter this cultural deconstruction and generational stratification, but it can only be helpful if large enough sets of people in our culture share belief systems. In particular, they must share those beliefs which form the basis of the rest of their beliefs. The notion of a basis was discussed in the first section of this series. Where the bases formed primarily from scientific knowledge are always shifting, those formed by and tied to religion are much more constant. In this way, elements of religion act as metacultural fixpoints in the psyche of believers.

I'm Not Religious, I'm Spiritual: Of God and Atheisms

Which part of the beauty of this world did you miss? Did you take a look at that sapphiric jewel floating in the massive expanse of ether? Did you stop to think that the only reason we can begin to fathom the infinite, magnificent expanse of our universe is because the universe began to reflect intangible metaphysical artifacts and imbued star dust with the potential to become self-aware. Over the course of billions of years, the universe evoked forms through which it could wonder in awe of it's own beauty.

I'm Not Religious, I'm Spiritual: God Is Not Dead

Myth and religion have irrefutable value as tools which act as a cultural loom, with which we can weave accumulated knowledge to shape our youth. You simply cannot deny that a good story can be formative in how the next generation constructs their lens and perspective. Myth and religion can act as moulds and dies from which our minds are cast. Our psyche arises from forms emerging from combinated and amalgamated archetypes, acting as fixpoints.

The Nature of God

And so, this light derived from knowledge and truth can never be destroyed. Whenever and wherever there are beings with the time, stability and blessing of God to further the development of their consciousness, will rediscover truth and reclaim light. Destroy it if you are so empowered; if you so desire. These truths are self-evident through exploration of our world and our mind. They can be suppressed to decimation, but obliteration is simply not possible.

Facets of Greatness - The Unknown - Monumental Accidents

And if we consider humanity to be the product of all the ideas available to our collective minds, shouldn't we embrace diversity of mind, body and culture as strengths? These people who have endured challenge after challenge in their lives and whose minds will no doubt contain a wholly different range of memories and ideas: we should see them as luminaries who can see things we could never imagine.

Facets of Greatness - Networking - Maximizing Mutual Benefit

Thinking back to the 19th century economy, it amazes me to think back to previous centuries before the internet and phone systems. I find myself pondering what it would be like to remain a step ahead of your competition at that time.

Facets of Greatness - Signaling - If Actions Speak Louder

Energy committed towards any action is a good measure for weighting an opponent's intent behind an action. Here, energy implies cost of some kind: money, redirection of resources, utilization of assets. Gauging the opportunity cost in pursuing a plan of action is an even better measure of whether or not an opponent's move can be read to imply associated intent. Because signaling is so important, everyone and especially larger corporations wants to mask their intent behind actions.

Facets of Greatness - Knowledge - Meta and Epi

Finding true success means that you have to understand everything at a much deeper level. Once you have this deeper understanding, then you can exploit that knowledge differential towards your success. This knowledge differential is the difference between your deeper understanding of a subject against that of the commonly understood model for your subject of interest. But you need to be intimately familiar with each model!

Facets of Greatness - Communication - Synoptic Epigrams

If you know about the long term goals and mission of this person's organization, looking at how they posture themselves and their organization can speak volumes about those goals. How do they say they say? What are their motivations behind the structure of their message? How are current events and market conditions affecting their message today as compared to the past? What are the obvious points they could be making, but haven't mentioned and why? Do how they stay on message or circle back from a risky area? Does it seem like the interviewer or this person veered off track and why? What was the outcome of seemingly off the cuff statements and questions? Good? Bad?

Facets of Greatness - Intro

Non possidentem multa vocaveris recte beatum; rectius occupat nomen beati, qui deorum muneribus sapienter uti duramque callet pauperiem pati peiusque leto flagitium timet, non ille pro caris amicis aut patria timidus perire.

Seven Negative Career Experiences

After the party, we hung out a bit in Boulder's Central Park. Then, I asked her back to the apartment. We were walking back, but about halfway there, I told her about the bedbugs. She freaked out. Here's the punchline: A fucking homeless girl wanted nothing to do with my bedbug ridden apartment!

Defense Against The Dark Arts: How to Fight Back Without Losing Your Mind

These tools will help you, but you will notice sometimes that these really really piss a bully off. Be warned - some battles aren't worth fighting. Your energy and talents may be better suited elsewhere. Of course, that's not to say you shouldn't stand up for yourself.

Defense Against The Dark Arts: Perps, Trolls and Passive Aggressive Tactics

One of the worst aspects of passive aggressive behavior -- and one reason that it is so effective -- is that positive behavior becomes easy to confuse with negative behavior, since the goal is to confuse cause and effect, to encourage inaction and to prevent interference.

Defense Against The Dark Arts: Moot Victims, Sun Tzu, Strategy And End Games

And too often, when I complain to my friends and family, they just tell me to look past it, to ignore it. They claim I'm paranoid or looking too deeply into things. Actually, this isn't terrible advice: it's important to not get caught up in a bully's games, but sometimes they're really hard to ignore. I'm tired of doing nothing. So, I'm going to describe exactly how to do this to someone. This is how it happens. Personally, I'm amazed that some poeple are capable of this or that people could do this at all.

Defense Against The Dark Arts: Master Class on Workplace Bullying and Gangstalking

Yup, there really is A BOOK. And here it is. With great power comes great responsibility. Some people use this book as a kind of bible. $#@! those people. Here's a blog with a nice preview of the lovely teachings this book entails. You're going to want to buy this book and study it. To protect yourself from its great evils.

Public-ize all the things!

On facebook, my friends list is private, but [almost] everything i post is public. My reasoning is this: ultimately everything we post online is preserved indefinitely and will exist until the end of time. So why not? Whether or not we “share” it with our friends, someone will have a copy of that data because of online surveillance at least. It’s moreso philosophical reasoning and obviously it’s impossible to preserve 100% of the information people post online.