Baddogma's Other Meta Cafe- Polite Discussions About Scientific Mysticism and General Weirdness

a reply to: KilgoreTrout

Carbon Engineering but the century of plastic is up, like with every new toy we use it excessively after we got it, then it's meh and eventually it finds its reasonable use.

The biggest weakness of the human society is everybody believes they're special, that's why we don't learn, because we can't believe what others say, because it's all about how we want to see ourselves and the world and our place in it, not how it really is. That's what's really killing us.

a reply to: Peeple

I had no idea me and snowden had such a similar start to our lives. we both were down there in georgia after being pushed to be SF he tried and failed, i sidestepped it for a different MOS. we both became injured and we took the same option had the same clearence level both discharged the same way.

we had the same commanders at the same base.
and after getting discharged we both ended up working for tech companies. but we both found out we were actually contracters for the government.

then we had misgivings about the government.
we both sort of even had the same job. me for DHS, and him for CIA.

i relate to him and his choices way more now.
i didnt realize he was there at sand hill.
the way hes describing this, i know exactly how he feels.

From the depths of psychedelic imagery comes this jem (started Wednesday and continues now)

On one pay-op, I overindulged. On the verge of a total freak out, I found music.

One image is there. Moe, from the Three Stooges, is doing an Uncle Fester... a lightbulb in his mouth and static electricity making his hair stick out. As the generator fluctuates, his hair falls and the bulb dims. Then kicks in to full gear with hair sticking out and a bright bulb.

I do not think that this is from an episode of the show or movie. Until last month I hadn’t watched the Stooges in any shape or form.

This “clip” popped in there yesterday. I blink and it is there. I can zoom in or out. Everything is in hi def! That is why I don’t think that this is a memory but something I created.

It is a little disconcerting that a partial hallucination can either be activated or become active on its own!

I was a little freaked out yesterday. Now, I am a little annoyed. Why not that Nirvana song I once dreamt??

a reply to: TEOTWAWKIAIFF

Now the merrier!

(I think it came from my father’s estate being settled. And how I feel about that. Too bad, a weirdness while sober of a hallucinogenic source would have been cool.

So not it be!

Because this is like Moe...

Just to keep documenting it...

When I first joined, I had already experienced the Fellowcraft degree’s “effect” where, like drugs, when you see something “man-made” your mind associates this phrase, “Of all things, the measurement is man”. That is Plato. And it is quite a psychedelic trip as everything you see takes on an added significance. And like T&C-25, I had about 4 hours of immediate reaction and a day of “hang over”.

The third “secret” is experiential and that happened right here (thread 1, the Police we’re being listened to and the 3 parts of my brain, left- middle, right-rear (a bit lower on me), and the “3rd eye” all work together as a unit. You feel “alive” or “awake” and everything flows. You feel it and others do too. Practitioners of The Craft try and give me funny handshakes and say funny sounding words when I am like this.

All said before.

Sick as a dog last night. Pop wide awake at 2 am. I can’t breathe through my nose and my mouth was drying out. At 3 am, drinking water, trying to go to sleep, tossing and turning, I start getting hot. I know what is coming; a round of soul coughing... praying to the porcelain god. By 4:20, I have assumed position and and am dry heaving the water.

I wash my face and rinse my mouth out. I get an idea... irrigate your nose. Dang it one nostril opens up. I lay down. Instead of slipping off to sleep I “step into it”!!

I know. Gross and weird! But it what happens next that is kind of amazing!

I had my eyes closed. There was something that looked like a TV screen and it was telling me about the dream: another task dream. I knew that by seeing the “announcer”. I “crumpled” the screen like paper and tossed it in front of me. Dream changes to some cooking task and naming the chefs or something. I sent out blue laser light to the spaces around me. The task became easier as “pre-made” materials were delivered and passed around to other “workers” (dreamers??). We finished our first task and some of the next and I raced off to 6 or 7 more dreams taking care of tasks.

I woke up 5 minutes before my alarm was to sound. Fully rested after 1.5 hours of sleep. And the 3 points activated all day!

(As an aside, last week, watching Evil, my phone got super hot to the point where I took the case off and was ready to throw it out the window!)

Someone once said to keep dreaming those dreams!!

a reply to: TEOTWAWKIAIFF

I'm a big fan of modern medicine, a good doctor is the most important person one can have in their life and you honey sound like you might want to find one.
Get a serious check up immediately.
I know you think I'm reckless with my experiments but you're the one in danger. Your eyes are bleeding, you pass out while you embrace the loo, heat flashes,... that's not normal.
Please give the doctor some pee and blood they love that

a reply to: TEOTWAWKIAIFF

I'm going to VERY LOUDLY second Peeps. You need to go see a doctor.

It was Protogoras who said that man is the measure of all things, though I think that we only know that he said that because Plato said he did.



Go get a check up.

Nip this in the bud, Bud.

a reply to: Peeple

I saw something on Reddit, where they are taking plastic bottles, shredding then spinning them into fibres to be woven into T-shirts. There is nothing quite like impending disaster to get the innovators innovating. Bill Gates was an innovator, he now just throws around his massive wealth in the hope of hitting the right target. I worked on a Bill and Melinda Gates funded plant breeding project (which admittedly qualifies me for very little). It provided employment for a large team here in the UK as well as funding growers in India, Madagascar and Africa. It was a worthy project that has ensured that a reliable supply chain and infrastructure is now in place that prevents the medicine from running out, but it is a treatment, not a cure. Other plant based treatments have been found to completely kill the malaria protozoa but no one seems to be invested in that. I don't really understand why.

I think it is great that people are coming up with innovations and invention that will allow us to clean the air, but given enough time, and the abandonment of wide scale fossil fuel use, the air will clear itself. Fossil fuels are completely and utterly unsustainable. The oil corporations have been fighting to keep that secret, passing out the bungs and bribes, but it is out now and Bill Gates is perhaps just a guy that got lucky, made it rich but beyond that, doesn't have a lot going on up top. People don't want to give up their cars and they seem perfectly prepared to take the rest of the world down with them in order to keep them.

The Club of Rome's 1972 Limits to Growth prediction for Global Catastrophe, has been reappraised and re-evaluated but has been found to still hold true and reality is rushing up to meet it, driven by those who insist on getting their share dividends come what may. That time is over, whether they know it or not. Some definately know it. Du Pont have been consistently divesting themselves of a number of their interests, and I am sure they are not alone. All done on the sly because they don't want to lose money. BP and other major players have been trying to find replacements for petrol to aid their transistion away from fossil fuels but it is all carried out on the basis of keeping the consumer consuming. They are not keeping up with the times. They should be, as we all should be, focused on sustainable means of life and that means the end of the consumer driven society or it means the total loss of life as we know it. There are no detailed models of how we can deal with that. Global catastrophe can be averted but not by sticking plasters over the wounds and carying on regardless in the hope someone can find a way of managing the illness, we need a cure and that is why we need to change, and to change deeply.

I'm hopeful but I am under no illusions. The kids of CEOs, of alphabet agencies, MPs, members of Congress etc, should keep asking their parent's those difficult questions...why have they ignored this information? Why have they been working so hard to prevent people from knowing this? Why have they tried to silence others?

It's like that story about how the guy is stranded in the sea and he prays to God to help him. The helicopter comes and offers to help, but he refuses believing that God will save him. Then a boat...etc, I can't remember all the details but the jist is, he gets to heaven and asks God why he didn't answer his prayer, and God says I sent a helicopter, I sent a boat... If you believe in all that, God sent us and guided together the people who produced the Limits of Growth, and for my entire lifetime, we have been ignoring them. Due to chance, the lottery of birth, some of us are better off than others, geographically, socio-economically and it is taking a little longer to touch us. YouTubers getting together to fund the planting of 20 million trees is an amazing contribution but it has to be appreciated that we have to give up more than just our time and money and those that can afford to have to create the trickle down that will eradicate the reliance on fossil fuels. Petrol cars have to go. Coal burning has to stop. Deforestation cannot be undone merely by planting trees elsewhere, biodiversity once destroyed takes generations to rebuild. It's about more than off-setting.

Anyway, sorry, that turned into a rant. I didn't mean it to. I know that we can turn this around in time but I am starting to doubt whether there is the will to do so. I wonder if those in their ivory towers care more about objects than they do about living things and what it is going to take to get them to take the situation seriously. I suspect a big part of the problem is the world has been rewarding "yes" men, panderers and sycophants for so long that harsh reality is beyond their comprehension.

And there I go again. Must stop rant.

a reply to: KilgoreTrout

It's fine let it all out.
It doesn't make any difference anyways. A lesson in futility and fatalism because we the people get blamed and guilted into submission while companies and capitalism destroy the world and Suck the life and soul out of everything and everyone.
And what do we have to stand up against that? Over 100 years old ideas which have already been raped and kidnapped and are so idealistic yet not realistic that you might as well adapt Jediism.
I've read a book recently that was praising the youth for being media experts and how they are so much smarter than the older generation and proactive with Fridays For Future and all that crap, but let's face it they grow up, it happened before and they'll get groomed and melded into the same fascist functioning worker bees like the hippies.
To me (I don't know if I said it before?) fascism is when you look at the state and its people as gears of a machine driven towards a declared purpose, which is mostly gaining wealth. All Western capitalistic pseudo-democracies are just as fascist as China fe
Free people, free choices, free information
That is the elephant in the room, what we globally develop away from instead towards to (that sentence is wrong? Sorry I hope you can deduce what I mean?) as long as the population has to worry about putting food on the table, a roof over their head and have no free access to all the education and scientific publications out there humanity will hit the wall hard.
I'm not even talking about money because that's just a sick joke which we eventually will overcome, it's not what's driving people and it shouldn't be in the way of social interactions in any way. People who wouldn't be under survival stress would be free to pursuit their interests and gaining recognition for their contribution to society. It would fix crime, racism and lots of other issues.
As well as the rampant throw-away-consumerism which is holding us all hostage. Money is a vehicle to social status, capitalism takes from the many and gives it to the few and while there are some young people experimenting with alternative ways to live they'll eventually surcome to the social pressure and either become criminals or victims of the fascist national machine.
And the only possible conclusion is that society will split and clash.
The writing on the wall is that every state will eventually crumble and we'll wish for the good old days when we had wars cold or hot because the conflict will be happening right in the middle of every city or region everywhere.
The highly educated, wealthy few and their employees vs the masses wanting food, water, energy, ...
That's my opinion at least, with AI ahead and the developing situation with a rising number of overqualified people for jobs which will only exist for 5 more years or so.
That's what Trump and Brexit etc are really about, the fear of social relegation while the wealthy ones try to secure their surroundings. That's a sign for what's going to happen next.

a reply to: Peeple

psychology is the only thing you got babes.
companies are humans. everyone that feeds that is a human. the government is all humans.

Are they enlightened humans?

a reply to: Reverbs

No. What? No... and I don't know what the # you're talking about. Stalin, Mao, Hitler, ... used psychology (propaganda and terror) was that in any way helpful?
Decision-making in companies gets conquered by AI how is psychology going to help?

Jesus you all need sime breathe mints!!

For Mohammed’s sake adherents aww...

Dumb autocorrect!!

a reply to: Peeple

That's really why we have to change deeply, we can't keep going around in the same circle, we need to be different. I personally think/feel that the collapse of the "old world order" has already happened, that what we are mainly seeing right now are a load of very rich people working very hard to maintain the facade of normality. Filling a hole here, popping a pretty picture over the cracks. The tide has turned. Money doesn't buy real power and the status it gives them is an illusion. We know the Emperor is naked, the Emperor knows that we know he is naked, we know the Emperor knows that we know that he's naked, it's just that neither of us know what we are supposed to do next, or those that do, how to do it. We need more information and we need those who prevent a free-flow of information to be made accountable for their actions. The lying has to stop. Hands need to be held up over the mass manipulations that have prevented grass-roots movements over the last 50 years or so from flourishing. Cash, gold, diamonds - all are far too abundant to have any real value. Water is far more finite, and far more conflicts are brewing or already raging over that resource, and phosphates, than they are over pounds, yen, dollars or euros.

As I say, I still think we can turn it around, and peaceful protests and civil disobediance is the way to go. This is becoming increasingly about survival, and the numbers involved can't simply be bought or bumped off. At this stage it is far cheaper just to let the corporations fall. All that is being covered up now, is solely for the purpose of getting that one last pay day and selling off assets to those who don't see the wind change. Du Pont have been quietly divesting themselves of their chemical interests for years and to do so they massively undervalued their obligations to clean up the environments that they polluted. The new owners were told it would cost six figures max, now they are finding out that they are responsible for cleaning up millions and million of dollars of damage. In the Appallachians alone, the entire water table, including drinking water, is contaminated. With Teflon, Du Pont polluted the whole world's water and what would Hitler have been if he hadn't received those early cash hand outs from Du Pont and others in the US? They've tried, but the dawn just won't be held back any longer.

a reply to: Peeple

I don't know all that much about Mao, but Stalin and Hitler both had psychology used on them too. Look at what paranoid wrecks they both became towards the end. That's what happens to those that try to control others, particularly when it is based upon a quasi-religious fervour. The dust eventually settles, the smoke clears and the realisation dawns that I was made, therefore I can be unmade. Infallibility is the ultimate delusion. Killer robots malfunctioning, or even functioning and me fitting their targeting parameters, is something to worry about, but that remains an issue with humans. And it is humans that get the idea into their heads that they are infallible that are the root of most problems, that AI can be made infallible is merely an extension of that. An AI programmed by a human would require human psychology to interact with or overcome it because it was a human that ultimately created it.

There is just no route out of that circle that I can see.

a reply to: Peeple

You dont understand?

always with you its only concepts everyone knows. you color inside every line.

everyone is a person.
thats the cia or the scary government or the racist cop. every mafia or cartel or terrorist.

short term you can fire the cop or arrest the mafia, you can merk the terrorist or investigate the cia..

thats not the issue though.
the long game is how did we get here in the first place. because you are a lazy dumb human.

its not worth it to fight the establishment. you ARE the establishment.

the outside human condition is a reflection of the inside consciousness condition. you ASKED for this.
but what a reverbs does is spread new ways of thinking. its not through force as that would trap me no? you are free when you let others be. psychology is only a word. what is it? study of psyche? studying the mind. knowing thyself. over time humans have mentally evolved to the place we find ourselves now. you are in a rush but i see that we have changed so much we cant catch up with ourselves.. its sort of like out of our hands.. the effects are lagging as it takes time for people to change their minds or die off.. but its going so much faster now its dizzying.

all i mean is everything only matters in relation to consciousness. You choose how you want to be. how you be and what you see. how you act comes accordingly. you may never understand freedom.

a reply to: Reverbs

You're full of # and everything you said is untrue. It's not what's Inside the people "their consciousness" that determines how they act it's the group. You can look that up Mr.Psychology there have been multiple experiments done on the subject.
Like this which shows the title or role you asign to people has more effect on their behaviour than what kind of people they'd be in their normal social environment. Which #s up your argument pretty bad...

a reply to: KilgoreTrout

Which is kind of pointing towards my favourite pet nightmare: a secret club of Nazis in the deep state of the so called democracies.
What do you know about Gülen and Erdogan? That's top conspiracy stuff and yes I know "just" Turkey but it's proof of concept. And I think the old world order is far from dead because the same bred and groomed 5th generation of CEOs and politicians are running the show. You should know, you're English, you people invented that procedure. Cameron and Johnson that's no coincidence they're from the same club.
The only way we could change deeply is if we could break the chains of social norms. That takes a ton of character because most fall into the trap of the burgeoisie around 30 when they want to settle and have suddenly responsibility for children. That's when the hippies go conservative, the anarchists become libertarian all radicality striving for novelty turns into a wish for safety.
Which is a total fallacy, because as you said change at this point is a matter of survival.
Convenience is another factor. Very few people will choose to fight if they don't absolutely have to. I mean I could bring myself to burn a car or do some property damage, I do not know if I could kill someone even if my life would depend on it.
That's a bit off topic but it's because it made me think of the all female Kurdish squads. They're experimenting a bit with anarchistic ecology, socialism, fight the toxic masculinity etc and they got an excuse they're not making big inventions of new ideologies since they're fighting for survival... but what's our excuse? Why does nobody have a #ing idea or a plan?

originally posted by: Peeple
a reply to: Reverbs

You're full of # and everything you said is untrue. It's not what's Inside the people "their consciousness" that determines how they act it's the group. You can look that up Mr.Psychology there have been multiple experiments done on the subject.
Like this which shows the title or role you asign to people has more effect on their behaviour than what kind of people they'd be in their normal social environment. Which #s up your argument pretty bad...

im not talking about any one person. social psychology is part of what Im saying.


your post to kilgore says:

The only way we could change deeply is if we could break the chains of social norms. That takes a ton of character

im confused at your confusion.
honestly.

a reply to: Peeple

What would a secret club of Nazis look like? Bohemian Grove springs to mind. Not very secret any more admittedly but certainly peopled by the heirs of those who formed Hitler's Circle of Friends. Hitler lost the war, his financiers won it.

There is no "just" Turkey. Turkey is, and always has, played a pivotal role in the geopolitics of Eurasia. It's role since the disbandment of the Ottoman Empire has been to provide a strategic buffer zone, playing lap dog to the White European boys clubs that dangle carrots, then withdraw them because they didn't quite jump high enough, or in a White European enough way. The question currently is whether Turkey is being lap dog to a new master or asserting itself in it's own right, either way, it's not doing the tricks it's old masters expect of it. There is a lot to play for. With the inevitability of a contraction of air freight, Halford Mackinder's World Island, the redevelopment of the Eurasian rail system is in full swing, and Turkey, as they did previously, occupies a major node into the Heartland. We are reaching a point where we could need them more than they need us. This is particularly true for the Sea Powers.

I am not condoning in any way their actions against the Kurds, but they can get away with it, because the US and the UK need them more than they need us, future speaking. We don't want them looking too far East and cutting us out of the equation.

The "old world order" relied on the ignorance of indigenous peoples in order to profit from their resources. The world is better informed these days and cannot be quite so easily manipulated. Or indeed, is capable of their own manipulations. Turkey is of vital strategic importance. Whether it is setting itself up as a gateway or as a frontier between East and West is really the question, though I suspect that the possibility exists that it is still struggling with it's own identity and doesn't quite know itself right now and that that better explains the current situation and their falling into old habits. And of course they are being prodded and poked, as are the Kurds, to incite internecine/civil conflicts because that delays their ability to unify and step up to the plate in the emergent new world order.

There is still resistence to change, but the change is happening, too slowly still in many cases, what we are addressing now is our own adaptation to it, and whether, as a species, we can adapt. China is, they're already rolling the ball, they're having to. South-west and Central Asia...not so much...but luckily, here comes China with #-tonnes of money that can be invested in sustainable infrastructure, if you're shrewd enough to invest it so wisely.

The world is still pretty #ed up, the point is, scattered about, is all the information, drive and determination to get us back on track. It just needs to be applied. We can keep fighting and dying to protect the Western Way of Life, or we can kiss it goodbye and try something different, something sustainable. I know which option I prefer and am trying to embrace.