1, yes people run on the culture operating system, and during COVID we saw an example for how that makes everyone execute in unison. I think however that since then, and because of that, a lot of people have become aware that they can never again adopt so many presuppositions so carefree as before COVID which for many now also extends to other topics. (That tendency in people to open up for considering the more cynical possibilities is btw an important reason also for why the day before 9/11 was selected for the Charlie Kirk performance, namely, to disturb the otherwise to be expected collective, ever more mature, revisiting of the original 9/11 including the consideration of more cynical possible explanations. From that taking place at all, and from that getting space on pages of newspapers and on air in talkshows, and in private conversations, there had to be a distraction, to avoid an ever more determined consolidation of a collective awareness of having been conned (in what specific ways ever, there was a variety). Instead, distract them so they don't talk about it, they don't remind each other of it, they don't test each other's arguments on that coming out more convinced by having executed their own thought processes on it - and if possible retraumatize them through showing people more clearly their helplessness against absurdity. Make them talk only about the new instance where they can only exchange expressions of helplessness.
2, "The sense of meaninglessness or disillusionment that confronts individuals at the peak of their professional, political, humanitarian or artistic careers is a realisation of misalignment between the intrinsic value-commitment of conscious agency (to maximise conscious agency, which is a function of logical consistency) and the unconscious pursuit of material or social success, which is essentially animal behaviour.":
I have often thought that this sense of meaninglessness or disillusionment hits predominantly those who go through life chasing indeed only the first-layer purposes and rewards. I think that at least subconsciously, to avoid this emptiness, is why many more than most imagine, engage in overt but especially in covert ideology-driven activity. Especially the covert faction does this to garner excitement, meaning, gratification and possibly in some cases (this is blatant in many overt cases) to assuage resentment against those who have the foreground success, or certain characteristics that they may feel they lack. For that underground stuff, certainly intelligence is needed but then, the covertness requires more duplicity than other aspects of intelligence because the majority is not perpetually suspecting of foul play which generally has to be ok, they/we HAVE to be able trust to a certain extent for our kind of society to function which makes it easier to betray intelligent people using less than excellent intelligence as long as it is infused with malignancy.
Then this need to have to be able to trust makes it really important for everyone to get into the new habit of becoming aware of our own code, and strictly ensure to never feed inputs by unreliable actors into our thought processes. Where AI comes in. There are always those who feed AI outputs masked as own, into collective thought processes, corrupting the reliable base of those.
3, this finally reminds me of a Soviet children's book for 7 year olds that I once read, where the child was taught the importance of AXIOMS, and was also taught that those by no means do not require proof! That they would require proof, but that it is merely that people have agreed for the moment that they will take the axiom at good will without proof. And that made me think in context of COVID that it has been detrimental that people did not have this fact present. In COVID, the public accepted too many things as scientific facts that really had axiom status - but the assumed goodwill on the part of those proposing the axioms was assumed in vain, which I hope will have a dampening effect on future readiness and goodwill to accept future axioms at face value.
And there was one last thought, I'll add that later, forgot it for the moment.
The show we watch is not a conversation, but one-directional programming. It makes little difference whether it is terror or celebration. There is no conscious presence in the spectacle. It is crucial not to engage with it as if it were a conversation or a meaningful argument. Meaning is created, and the integrity of Self is preserved, only via reciprocal engagement; every non-reciprocal imposition of information is an attack on conscious agency that can be neutralised by recognising it as bad faith.
Michael, would you rather my paid subscription be here or at Wordpress? I unsubscribed here (but seem to have re-subscribed by accident). I will cancel one of them. Which is best to keep?
Hi Katy, thank you and John for your contiguous support. I do not have a preference; it works for me the same on either platform, so pick the site you like better.
If I may relay an experience I had with self programming. As a teacher expecting to deliver student friendly, I.e. seamless, easy experiences for the mass yet satisfy the corporate rhetoric on meaningful education I found my self extremely stressed and unhappy in classes. At thus high point of stress I auto suggest that I am a bad teacher and there is no point in trying.....the opposite of my striving and sense of self. As a result my stress almost disappeared and perhaps I became a better 'teacher'.
Good observation. Most premises are not a priori determined because self-ideation cannot be completed; it is essentially incomplete, which in turn demands generative augmentation of terms from moment to moment to narratively stabilise it. The operating system does this for us (mostly by pretending that our self-ideation is complete as ‘persons’), until we choose to do it ourselves, intentionally. I touched on this problem here: https://michaelkowalik.substack.com/p/theory-of-reflexive-consciousness I expect that this question will require more theorising, as I am not satisfied with the scope of my current explanation.
Yes, the real value is not in execution but can be in the freedom to not execute. Having the ability and autonomy/independence of choosing whether to execute although all prerequisites for execution seem to be there. Of calling bullshit based maybe on gut instinct, the freedom and sovereignty to not be persuaded. If gut feeling says so, then something probably is off, and it may be on a point that is not among the seemingly met conditions but something else. Being or becoming more aware of the need to scrutinize for contradictions is becoming more necessary now than in the past where we surely also were lied to but where the performances did not rely on our active participation as the new performances do (pandemics require participation to visualize their existence, other examples come to mind). This is why it is more important now than before, and lack of the self code skill is more harmful now. Btw the ability to refrain from executing logical new steps is what I have always seen lacking in those intelligent enough to invent certain stuff but not intelligent enough (as per my value system) to refrain from executing the idea. Vanity, lack of humility is important there. For me, those who believe to be more intelligent than the rest of us, are simply unaware that they blatantly lack an essential element of intelligence which I consider to be humility.
Btw that's exactly the charm of digitalization (to the great transitionists): that they are able, in those tick-the- box workflows, to conveniently leave out any third possibilities, dishonestly and unrealistically narrowing down scenarios so that they don't mirror real world complexity any longer, forcing those who depend on proceeding to the next window to accept and condone evident untruths by clicking on one untrue answer just to be able to proceed towards a desperately deopended-on outcome.
The geek likes to detexture reality in favour of the Machine, the intelligent person respects the texture of social life. However, if social life is largely unconsciously conditioned maybe the 'rich socially constructed texture' is not so valuable!
3 observations in that regard.
1, yes people run on the culture operating system, and during COVID we saw an example for how that makes everyone execute in unison. I think however that since then, and because of that, a lot of people have become aware that they can never again adopt so many presuppositions so carefree as before COVID which for many now also extends to other topics. (That tendency in people to open up for considering the more cynical possibilities is btw an important reason also for why the day before 9/11 was selected for the Charlie Kirk performance, namely, to disturb the otherwise to be expected collective, ever more mature, revisiting of the original 9/11 including the consideration of more cynical possible explanations. From that taking place at all, and from that getting space on pages of newspapers and on air in talkshows, and in private conversations, there had to be a distraction, to avoid an ever more determined consolidation of a collective awareness of having been conned (in what specific ways ever, there was a variety). Instead, distract them so they don't talk about it, they don't remind each other of it, they don't test each other's arguments on that coming out more convinced by having executed their own thought processes on it - and if possible retraumatize them through showing people more clearly their helplessness against absurdity. Make them talk only about the new instance where they can only exchange expressions of helplessness.
2, "The sense of meaninglessness or disillusionment that confronts individuals at the peak of their professional, political, humanitarian or artistic careers is a realisation of misalignment between the intrinsic value-commitment of conscious agency (to maximise conscious agency, which is a function of logical consistency) and the unconscious pursuit of material or social success, which is essentially animal behaviour.":
I have often thought that this sense of meaninglessness or disillusionment hits predominantly those who go through life chasing indeed only the first-layer purposes and rewards. I think that at least subconsciously, to avoid this emptiness, is why many more than most imagine, engage in overt but especially in covert ideology-driven activity. Especially the covert faction does this to garner excitement, meaning, gratification and possibly in some cases (this is blatant in many overt cases) to assuage resentment against those who have the foreground success, or certain characteristics that they may feel they lack. For that underground stuff, certainly intelligence is needed but then, the covertness requires more duplicity than other aspects of intelligence because the majority is not perpetually suspecting of foul play which generally has to be ok, they/we HAVE to be able trust to a certain extent for our kind of society to function which makes it easier to betray intelligent people using less than excellent intelligence as long as it is infused with malignancy.
Then this need to have to be able to trust makes it really important for everyone to get into the new habit of becoming aware of our own code, and strictly ensure to never feed inputs by unreliable actors into our thought processes. Where AI comes in. There are always those who feed AI outputs masked as own, into collective thought processes, corrupting the reliable base of those.
3, this finally reminds me of a Soviet children's book for 7 year olds that I once read, where the child was taught the importance of AXIOMS, and was also taught that those by no means do not require proof! That they would require proof, but that it is merely that people have agreed for the moment that they will take the axiom at good will without proof. And that made me think in context of COVID that it has been detrimental that people did not have this fact present. In COVID, the public accepted too many things as scientific facts that really had axiom status - but the assumed goodwill on the part of those proposing the axioms was assumed in vain, which I hope will have a dampening effect on future readiness and goodwill to accept future axioms at face value.
And there was one last thought, I'll add that later, forgot it for the moment.
The show we watch is not a conversation, but one-directional programming. It makes little difference whether it is terror or celebration. There is no conscious presence in the spectacle. It is crucial not to engage with it as if it were a conversation or a meaningful argument. Meaning is created, and the integrity of Self is preserved, only via reciprocal engagement; every non-reciprocal imposition of information is an attack on conscious agency that can be neutralised by recognising it as bad faith.
Michael, would you rather my paid subscription be here or at Wordpress? I unsubscribed here (but seem to have re-subscribed by accident). I will cancel one of them. Which is best to keep?
Hi Katy, thank you and John for your contiguous support. I do not have a preference; it works for me the same on either platform, so pick the site you like better.
If I may relay an experience I had with self programming. As a teacher expecting to deliver student friendly, I.e. seamless, easy experiences for the mass yet satisfy the corporate rhetoric on meaningful education I found my self extremely stressed and unhappy in classes. At thus high point of stress I auto suggest that I am a bad teacher and there is no point in trying.....the opposite of my striving and sense of self. As a result my stress almost disappeared and perhaps I became a better 'teacher'.
Good observation. Most premises are not a priori determined because self-ideation cannot be completed; it is essentially incomplete, which in turn demands generative augmentation of terms from moment to moment to narratively stabilise it. The operating system does this for us (mostly by pretending that our self-ideation is complete as ‘persons’), until we choose to do it ourselves, intentionally. I touched on this problem here: https://michaelkowalik.substack.com/p/theory-of-reflexive-consciousness I expect that this question will require more theorising, as I am not satisfied with the scope of my current explanation.
Yes, the real value is not in execution but can be in the freedom to not execute. Having the ability and autonomy/independence of choosing whether to execute although all prerequisites for execution seem to be there. Of calling bullshit based maybe on gut instinct, the freedom and sovereignty to not be persuaded. If gut feeling says so, then something probably is off, and it may be on a point that is not among the seemingly met conditions but something else. Being or becoming more aware of the need to scrutinize for contradictions is becoming more necessary now than in the past where we surely also were lied to but where the performances did not rely on our active participation as the new performances do (pandemics require participation to visualize their existence, other examples come to mind). This is why it is more important now than before, and lack of the self code skill is more harmful now. Btw the ability to refrain from executing logical new steps is what I have always seen lacking in those intelligent enough to invent certain stuff but not intelligent enough (as per my value system) to refrain from executing the idea. Vanity, lack of humility is important there. For me, those who believe to be more intelligent than the rest of us, are simply unaware that they blatantly lack an essential element of intelligence which I consider to be humility.
Btw that's exactly the charm of digitalization (to the great transitionists): that they are able, in those tick-the- box workflows, to conveniently leave out any third possibilities, dishonestly and unrealistically narrowing down scenarios so that they don't mirror real world complexity any longer, forcing those who depend on proceeding to the next window to accept and condone evident untruths by clicking on one untrue answer just to be able to proceed towards a desperately deopended-on outcome.
The geek likes to detexture reality in favour of the Machine, the intelligent person respects the texture of social life. However, if social life is largely unconsciously conditioned maybe the 'rich socially constructed texture' is not so valuable!