archhn

When I canceled, a prompt came up that said something which made me feel like I was an idiot for canceling. Something like "Are you sure you want to miss out on all the great benefits of prime?" [YES/NO].

When I pressed yes, I felt like I had to buy into their premise that prime offered me great value...which made me feel like a fool.

Honestly, I am more entertained by the psychological manipulation of the corporations than anything at this point. Last week I bought a water bottle at a chain supermarket with a sticker on it that read, "We want to be your friend! Follow us on Facebook." I just laughed at the thought that a water bottle is trying to befriend me on behalf of a corporation.

"Welcome to Costco, I love you." inbound.

Quite right, the ghost of Wittgenstein. These utterances are moves in language games. A pawn is a nonsensical entity within the game of checkers. However, that doesn't mean a pawn is "meaningless." It was a being constructed for a particular purpose within the game of chess. It is an illusion that the game of chess and the pawn object(being) are separable. Chess cannot exist without pawns and a pawn cannot exist without chess. The operation of plucking a pawn out of the game of chess is an invalid operation. Thus, we cannot even speak of pawns outside of chess--we must remain silent.

In other words, you can't even say my utterances are meaningless "outside" the system in which they were constructed because they cannot exist outside the system. A pawn in a game of checkers is not a pawn. A pawn in your pocket may resemble a pawn, but it does not function like a pawn because it is not in a game of chess...thus it is not a pawn because it cannot do as a pawn does.

I appreciate your philosophy, but from my standpoint, it is unnecessarily muddying the waters.

Some people believe they are living for things that are objectively false. Just imagine a grocery clerk who believes he will someday become the king of France--in 2022, which makes Descartes original comment about this seem even more absurd.

Every day he does his mundane job with unparalleled enthusiasm. He is awarded employee of the month every single month.

One day, an ambitious coworker asks him how he is able to do his boring job with such high energy--what's his secret?

"I am just biding my time until I become the king of France," the madman replies. "I'm not a grocery clerk...I'm a future king! Every bag I fill with groceries is but one step further towards my glorious coronation."

And so it is with all who think they are going somewhere spectacular with their lives. The bleak march to the grave is enchanted by dreams of an end that cannot be.

My "utterances" are not philosophical, but descriptions of what I observe to be happening around and within me. If you want to understand what I mean, you gotta play my game.

I like your comment about the coconut man. Yes, it's true that delusions can have a survival advantage. In fact, I would argue that delusions are not errors, but survival adaptations. Sometimes we just don't know what people are trying to keep alive. I know people who try to keep alive an idea of themselves in spite of their own physical body.

Such misery is a function of one's attachment to life. There are ways of overcoming this attachment, as many religions teach.

My original comment is just a rehash of hell, particularly suited for the modern narcissistic mind.

I'm using insanity as a description of a delusional state of mind, i.e., a mind that is constantly playing make believe. "I'm a free person...I'm a good person...What I'm doing is important...etc."

Strictly speaking, you're correct. If a mad man talks to coconuts on an island, and no one is around to observe him, is he really mad?

However, we are a part of nature and social contexts will be with us as long as we survive. I think the separation between us and the universe is artificial. We are the universe. What else would we be?

You will die and be forgotten. Everything you do will be erased by entropy. Billions and billions of years, endless collisions and mutations, a cooling down of the universe until time itself stops.

Human beings are very sensitive because we all live on top of a foundation of delusions which protects us from the life-invalidating truth.

I've come to believe that every single person is insane. When you look into minds and see a humanity dripping with delusions spun up by life seeking a way to avoid confronting its futility...you can't help but feel this way.

I was only able to see it after I had a near death experience. Those who have never gone beyond the threshold won't ever get it until the very end.

"To recognize untruth as a condition of life--that certainly means resisting accustomed value feelings in a dangerous way; and a philosophy that risks this would by that token alone place itself beyond good and evil." - Nietzsche, the mad fool of the West.

Mundus vult decipi, ergo decipiatur.

That's the description of soma in bnw.

Christianity without tears?

Working hard to lay a solid foundation for future generations is a noble idea, but it doesn't follow that simply "working hard" will lead to that end. I don't think putting in 60+ hours a week at PepsiCo, overseeing the production of sugar water that poisons people, will help the future. Or struggling to make better weapons or scientific discoveries that may be weaponized. Etc. In other words, there are a lot of self-destructive tendencies in the work we are doing. We could be working hard to dig our own graves.

Blind optimism is bound to get us into trouble. I'd prefer some facts that support the thesis that a strong work ethic always leads to a brighter future.

The Nazi's worked hard. The communists in Russia worked really hard. Things didn't turn out so well for them.

Direction is more important than force. I'd bet on a Volkswagen diven by a professional over a race car driven by a senile old lady.

It's all pretty murky. For much of American history, a large percentage of native citizens have always been hostile to immigrants, i.e., the working class. This idea that Americans, regardless of class, just love immigrants who are willing to undercut the value of their labor is a fabrication of American capitalists. A rising tide does not lift all boats here.

Yes, it was drilled into your head. It was the carrot on the stick that keeps people moving.

With a ballooning national debt, worsening social blights, and an objectively bleaker economic outlook, I think it's finally time to admit that the carrot was never there--for the majority of us, and perhaps all of us if the nukes start flying.

It's "sickening" because it's a lie used to keep people thinking about a hopeful future that probably won't exist. If we didn't have this lie hanging over our heads, if we weren't chasing imaginary future rewards, we would demand equitable conditions now instead of continuing to chase after illusions.

"Work ethic" = "I don't want my children to be a poor slave like me. I must work my fingers to the bone. I must save my children."

The corporate newspeak is honestly sickening.

Yeah, I meant it in the sense of "You need to experience violent situations in order to prepare for a violent environment." Furthermore, by "tuning out reality," I meant "ignoring the violent undercurrent of all human affairs by escaping into domestic tranquility."

Hope that clears things up.

What's mean about it? Do you think the potential war he wishes to prepare for is more or less uncomfortable than this comment?

You need a punch to your face -- reading books isn't going to help.

My advice to you: don't try to prepare. You'd have to kill and overcome the man you are now. You don't need to be Rambo. You can be the bloated corpse floating in the pond just as well. The universe won't care if you extended your life for a few measly years. Relax, watch some TV and drink some soda pop. Contine tuning out reality as you've been doing your whole life.

A hint hint if there ever was one.

If people trusted the establishment and their institutions, "misinformation" wouldn't be a problem. People would just shrug off the rhetoric coming from the fringe. The pervasive mistrust of institutions and the establishment, foretold as the fourth turning, is what is causing people to turn to fringe sources for their information. What we are seeing here is a battle for authority underwritten by decades of establishment failure. It's going to get very ugly.

Fiat lux! I dig it.

The question they really ask is "Has fiction ever changed the course of history?"

Nothing has changed the course of history. We're in the midst of eternity. It's all an illusion.

People get mad because its a concept they have faith in, have been indoctrinated to believe, and they also depend on it to keep political chaos at bay. You can't just pull the ideological rug out from under them, for they will fall--into the abyss. We aren't dealing with pure concepts here, but ideas that have life attached to them. Some ideas are preserved simply to preserve the life bound to them.

I'm afraid this is all a moot point because democracy has already disappeared in the U.S.. We're a democracy in name only. Hopefully we don't go the way of the DINOsaurs.

Interesting theory. It does appear to be incredibly naive at times when taken literally. Although there are some rather matter of fact conversations about the progression of political regimes to the point of tyranny, i.e., the post-democratic degenerate phase... which reads as a prophesy to me personally in these times.

Totally agree with your other statement.

Everyone should read a platonic dialogue. Plato's Republic in particular due to its influence on western thought. Although some of the ideas may seem absurd from our modern point of view, it's still thought provoking and a good example of old school philosophy. Also, Plato casually outlines why our current system of government is doomed to fail...which is probably pretty important to understand.

Incidentally, the behavioral psychologist B.F. Skinner published "An apparatus for the study of animal behavior" in that same year.

We live in a post-cultural nation. There cannot be one culture for a nation this diverse. Only the most bland, overly sanitized, vapid, consumerist culture can survive on the national level. Are you a PC or a Mac guy? Do you like Coke or Pepsi? A culture revolving around things because they have nothing to polarizing to say about how we should interpret and live our lives...a post-human wasteland.

Trust the [government] scien[tists]ce. As if "science" is a pure endeavor beyond the reach of human corruption. How do I know who is acting in my best interest? Are we paying their salary, or are corporations and government agencies paying them? Who are they beholden to? Are our interests the same?

We all aren't in the same boat. Certain decisions are harmful to certain groups and beneficial to others. Lockdowns, for example, decimated small businesses and crushed the working class. Amazon and many corporations, on the other hand, welcomed the lockdowns as a boon to their businesses.

We are not one nation. We are not one world. These centralized authorities are sanctifying the plundering of certain groups on behalf of others--or so it seems.

“The British are coming!” -- Paul Revere

"Put a sock in it, ya wanker." -- You in 1775, probably.

It has something to do with their "abuse program:" https://support.google.com/docs/answer/148505?hl=en. I can't find a date on this, but I assume that this article is about the implementation of this program.

Big tech has been rolling out censorship all over the place lately. People suspect that ulterior political motives are causing Google to do this. I don't think mistrusting the motives of Google means that the people here lack "reading skills and critical thinking."

One of the terms included in its abuse policies is "hate speech." This is an extraordinarily ambiguous word which can virtually apply to any speech that is critical of anything. It is a term that has come to be known, by some of us, as a tool the political left uses to censor dissent. For example, saying that a man is a man and a woman is a woman can be considered hate speech against the trans community.

This move is part of a larger trend. Some people see it. Others don't.

The panic is people's fear of the Iron Heel[1]. For most of us, the systems we depend on are controlled by other people. In this chaotic political climate, when these systems start closing in on us, or restricting us in new ways, there's no way of knowing where the tightening will end. Some are incredibly insulated and have no worries about the kind of world we're living in, but others are constantly on edge and feel that we're sleepwalking into a dystopian nightmare. That's what this "panic" is about.

[1]: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1164/1164-h/1164-h.htm

Great point. Ultimately there are always coercive forces that put pressure on companies and individuals to comply, even if the legal system isn't directly invoked to force compliance. The case you're making is important because implies that Facebook is being puppeted by the will of the government. If this is true, then Facebook IS the government. If one entity is controlled by another, then the separation between them, i.e., private corporation vs. government, is illusory.

There should be a discussion page, like on Wikipedia, for "fact checkers" to publicly interact with those who post "misleading information." It's highly upsetting that there was no process for this entity to challenge the ruling of the "fact checkers." Especially since it is an established medical journal.

Why can't we have open discussions about "the facts?" Are we living in a democratic country or an authoritarian country? For those that say "Facebook is a private company, it can do whatever it wants on its platform," I think it's important to distinguish between the legal right for a company to do something and the moral character of their actions. In other words, Facebook may well be within their rights to do what they are doing, but that doesn't mean it is moral. Given that we are a "democratic" country, our moral judgements should weigh heavily against these types of authoritarian actions, even if they are legal.