As usual, do your research; make an informed decision.
The Ruling Elites Love How Easily We’re Distracted and Turned Against Each Other
Let’s say you’re one of the ruling elites operating the nation for the benefit of the oligarchy. What’s the best way to distract the populace from your self-serving dominance in a blatantly neofeudal system?
1. Provide modern-day versions of Bread and Circuses to distract the commoners from what actually matters: “the golden age of TV” and binge-watching; a cultural obsession with glorifying oneself via selfies posted on Facebook and Instagram; tweeting outrage and indignation on Twitter; a corporate-state media which magnifies insignificant events into social crises, political “leaders” who intentionally inflame polarization and conflict and so on.
Combine all these distracting circuses into one 24/7 system-overload, and what do you get? A populace so distracted, so stressed, so emotionally dazed that they are unable to focus on the predatory exploitation of the ruling elites, much less figure out how to change the neofeudal status quo.
2. Divide the populace with calculatedly divisive cultural issues and turn the commoner class against itself: with no middle ground and no shared class identity allowed, the populace is easily sliced and diced into angry, disaffected tribes who blame whomever media propaganda has targeted as “the other” for the nation’s woes.
Correspondent Jonathan Twombly recently posted a description of this divide-and-conquer strategy of the ruling elites:
I eschew conspiracy theories because I don’t feel humans are smart enough or cohesive enough to pull them off. Usually self-interested people pulling in the same direction create the conditions that some people view as conspiracies.
With that preface stated, it seems to me that Right and Left elites, who share the common goal of making the world work for themselves, and who do not have to live with the consequences of their policies, have co-opted non-elite people with cultural and social issues meant to distract them from what’s going on economically.
Right elites take the bread out of the non-elites mouths by coopting non-elites on the right with the circuses of religion and nationalism. At the same time, the left elites have done the same by coopting left non-elites with the circuses of political correctness, multiculturalism, etc..
None of these things – religion, nationalism, political correctness, multiculturalism, feminism, anti-racism, etc. – are necessarily bad in themselves, particularly in moderation.
However, to distract people from having the economic wool pulled over their eyes, they need to be amped up into a public shouting match, which is what we see happening in media outlets controlled by, you guessed it, the elites.
The Old Left was concerned with bread and butter issues and extracting a bigger piece of the economic pie from the elites. The Old Right, in turn, was concerned with order and the stability of the system, and was prepared to give up some of the pie in order to stave off the pitchforks.
However, the stateless super-rich of the New Left-Right Elite Alliance no longer need to buy off the non-elites with money.
They have no fear of the pitchforks because they can flee behind bodyguards (private armies as in the Middle Ages are coming) or gated communities, or they can flee the country in an instant if they need to, taking with the large chunks of their wealth, which is now either offshore or mobile thanks to international banking. They have become insulated from the consequences of their policies.
The non-elites are mad as hell, but don’t know exactly where to direct their anger, because the social and cultural issues the elites have used to co-opt the non-elites are also incredibly effective at keeping the left and right non-elites in a constant state of anger at each other.
The Elite’s greatest fear is that left and right non-elites realize who their real enemies are, and that their fighting with each other over cultural issues is what the Elites want them to be doing.
Well said, Jonathan, thank you for the succinct summary of these control mechanisms.
We can see this is the rise of cultural, social, financial and political polarization:
Huxley spoke of loving our servitude: if we let the ruling elites distract and divide us, then we will in effect be choosing to love our servitude.
No wonder the ruling elites love how easily we’re distracted and divided against ourselves: it’s so easy to dominate a distracted, divided, blinded-by-propaganda and negative emotions populace.
Whether waiting for a bus, playing outside or walking the dog – during the colder winter season, everyone is looking for ways to stay warm. Luckily, the process your body uses to break down foods serves as an internal heater.But when the weather is cold, some defensive strategies are also necessary to prevent your body from losing its heat to the surrounding environment. As the temperature difference between your warm body and its frigid surroundings increases, heat is lost more quickly. It becomes more of a challenge to maintain a normal body temperature.
And two people with the same exact body temperature in the same exact environment may have very different perceptions. One may feel frozen while the other is completely comfortable.
But beyond the subjective experience of coldness, researchers do know that natural physiological responses to cold as well as behavioral adaptations – like bundling up! – can help keep your body around 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit and make sure you feel warm.
Some jobs necessitate being out in inclement weather, and your physiology has some defenses against cold conditions. U.S. Marine Corps/Lance Cpl. Cody Rowe, CC BY-NC
What your body does
Your blood courses through your body carrying nutrients, oxygen and other biological important substances. And this delivery system also brings heat produced in the muscles to the skin, where it’s released.
When you enter a cold environment, your body redistributes blood to the torso, protecting and maintaining the warmth of the vital organs there. At the same time, your body constricts blood flow to the skin. Narrowing the roads to the skin means less heat can make the journey, and so less is lost to the environment. And minimizing how much blood goes to the skin – which is in closest proximity to the cold – means you can hold onto more of your internal heat longer.
Another defensive strategy the body uses to stay warm is cranking up muscle activity. This in turn increases your metabolism and creates more heat. Think of a brisk winter walk when the mercury has really plunged – your teeth may chatter and your arms and legs may shake uncontrollably in shivers. This seemingly nonproductive use of the muscles is actually an effort to increase body temperature by breaking down more nutrients to stoke your internal furnace.
Differences in body size, body fatness and metabolic activity influence how different individuals experience cold. Smaller people with lower levels of body fat lose more heat to the environment than larger people with more body fat. A bigger individual may have increased muscle mass, which is a producer of heat, or elevated body fatness, which functions as an insulator to reduce heat loss. These differences are not easy to change.
Things you can do
In order to maintain a feeling of warmth, you can manipulate your clothing, your activity and your food.
The most common thing people do to stay warm is wear a coat, hat and gloves. Obviously increasing clothing thickness or piling on the layers helps. Winter clothes serve not to warm you up, but more as a means to keep the heat you are producing from dispersing to the surrounding environment.
Contrary to popular belief, the head is nota greater source of heat loss than any other adequately covered body part. If you were to wear a warm hat and no coat, your torso would contribute the most to heat loss, thanks to how your body redistributes its blood in cold conditions. If you can keep your torso warm, you’ll maintain blood flow to your limbs and can often keep the arms, legs, hands and feet warm.
Secondly, being physically active causes your muscles to contract, breaking down more nutrients, which generates additional heat. This additional heat production can help maintain body temperature and the feeling of warmth. Maybe you’ve noticed this in your own life if you’ve run in place for a bit or done a quick set of jumping jacks when you’re out in the cold.
Unfortunately, physical activity or layers of clothing can tip the balance past what you need to offset heat losses. In that case, you’ll experience an increase in body temperature – and your body will start sweating in an effort to cool down. This is a bad outcome, because the evaporation of sweat will lead to greater rates of heat loss.
Finally, eating increases the body’s production of heat. The process of breaking down food is going to slightly increase body temperature. Sometimes campers will have a snack before bed in an effort to stay warmer through the night. While the metabolic impact of a small snack may not be huge, the tipping point between heat balance and heat loss is pretty small.
You may also notice the urge to urinate – what physicians call cold diuresis. It’s a side effect of constricting blood vessels and the resulting increase in blood pressure as the same amount of blood has a smaller space available to travel through your body.
And if you’re the type who tends to feel cold and leave your coat on even inside, you might want to rethink the habit. Your skin will be flush with blood as your body tries to dissipate excess heat inside. Worst of all, you may start to sweat. Once you head back out the door, you might feel even colder initially than you would have as the cold air saps the heat from your skin and your sweat evaporates. To stay comfortable, your best bet is dressing appropriately, whether inside or outdoors this winter.
YouTube said Friday it will stop recommending conspiracy videos such as those claiming the Earth is flat, or promoting alternative theories about the September 11, 2001 attacks.
We’ll continue that work this year, including taking a closer look at how we can reduce the spread of content that comes close to—but doesn’t quite cross the line of—violating our Community Guidelines. To that end, we’ll begin reducing recommendations of borderline content and content that could misinform users in harmful ways—such as videos promoting a phony miracle cure for a serious illness, claiming the earth is flat, or making blatantly false claims about historic events like 9/11.
While this shift will apply to less than one percent of the content on YouTube, we believe that limiting the recommendation of these types of videos will mean a better experience for the YouTube community. To be clear, this will only affect recommendations of what videos to watch, not whether a video is available on YouTube. As always, people can still access all videos that comply with our Community Guidelines and, when relevant, these videos may appear in recommendations for channel subscribers and in search results. We think this change strikes a balance between maintaining a platform for free speech and living up to our responsibility to users.
This change relies on a combination of machine learning and real people. We work with human evaluators and experts from all over the United States to help train the machine learning systems that generate recommendations. These evaluators are trained using public guidelines and provide critical input on the quality of a video.
While the former is a psyop — the Earth obviously isn’t flat and is a spheroid — the latter is the more worrying contention, since to this day there are still valid questions about 9/11. For information on 9/11 that doesn’t quite add up, you only need to watch two of James Corbett’s YouTube documentary films: 9/11 War Games and 9/11 Trillions: Follow The Money.
This also follows the news that a NYC Federal Grand Jury has been empaneled to investigate the claims made by Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth, which will look into the evidence of the World Trade Towers being a controlled demolition operation with thermite.
This YouTube algorithm and policy change further comes as a mysterious group The Dark Overlord (TDO) has claimed to hack “the truth behind 9/11,” by breaching numerous different insurers and legal firms, claiming specifically that it hacked Hiscox Syndicates Ltd, Lloyds of London, and Silverstein Properties. While not much has come out of the hack, there was one curious document alluding to military intervention in Flight 93, which if you remember was said to have been civilians who brought down the plane in a heroic move, not military intervention.
Activist Post previously reported that YouTube was planning to combat conspiracy-driven videos by introducing informative debunking boxes linking back to Wikipedia and other sources. Although it seems that’s not enough, and now they have to remove “conspiracy videos” from suggested videos as well.
We also reported that since Google was heading towards targeting critical thinkers — demonized as “Conspiracy Theorists” — who ask the difficult questions in its rating guidelines, YouTube wouldn’t be too long to follow those actions. It seems we were right!
Considering that the origination of the word “Conspiracy Theorist” comes from the CIA, I would say using a derogatory word to discuss those who think is dangerous. More modernized, in fact, it is also straight out of the JTIRG playbook that NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden revealed.
Misinformation is plaguing the Internet, but who is to decide what is and isn’t misinformation? The readers themselves need to, because policing thought and opinion opens a door to the avenue of a Truth Council and information oversight where admins (the purveyors of truth) decide what is and isn’t fact. What happens when one of these people doesn’t dig deep enough and just dismisses something without looking at the evidence, due to lack of information or understanding? Censorship of not only ideas but also people as a whole who are effectively removed from the discussion.
As discussed in this reporter’s last article entitled “YouTube Purge: The End Of Freedom Of Expression Or The Great Awakening For Alternatives?” – questioning is healthy; and as writer Naomi Wolf exposed, you should think before it’s illegal to do so. “It’s no longer crazy to assess news events to see if they are real or not real,” she stated in the video below. As history has shown through declassified documents (overthrow of Mossadegh), leaked diplomatic cables by WikiLeaks, and reporting by murdered journalist Michael Hastings who exposed propaganda used against the Senate and Congress, “all over the world, it’s well-established, the State Department intelligence agencies engage in theatre, and it’s what they do, it’s spycraft, to create spectacles and events that people may not realize are spectacles and events…,” Naomi says.
Hastings exposed the use of propaganda to get into Afghanistan in his report entitled: “The Afghanistan Report the Pentagon Doesn’t Want You to Read.” The article was surrounding a leaked unclassified Pentagon report. The report took the shroud off the U.S. military’s psyops operation command revealing several techniques the group uses in psychological warfare to manipulate the public, including but not limited to fake intelligence information, lack of information and social media manipulation, according to Lt. Colonel Daniel Davis. The kicker is that not only were those tactics used against the American people but the tactics were used against Senators.
It is an extremely worrying fact that the Military Industrial Complex would manipulate elected officials with fake news, especially considering that propaganda wasn’t legalized in America again until 2012. Previous legislation had been passed to protect citizens during the Church Committee hearings as part of a series of investigations into intelligence abuses during the mid-1970s, amended by the Smith-Mundt Act. Smith-Mundt was repealed in 2012 under Obama, as Business Insiderreported, “The NDAA Legalizes The Use Of Propaganda On The US Public.”
As Arkansas Senator J. William Fulbright stated, VOA, Radio Free Europe, and many others “should be given the opportunity to take their rightful place in the graveyard of Cold War relics.” Fulbright’s amendment to Smith-Mundt was bolstered in 1985 by Nebraska Senator Edward Zorinsky, who argued that such “propaganda” should be kept out of America as to distinguish the U.S. “from the Soviet Union where domestic propaganda is a principal government activity.”
This is extremely dangerous; one perspective might see things in a different way because one person has acquired information, while the other lacks that information. For example, the U.S. government (specifically the CIA) used documented propaganda on the public and uses foreign propaganda against other countries. It’s not just the CIA, other nations’ intelligence services do it too.
While one person might feel that is insane, (and it quite literally is) the other person might know of the previous existence of Operation Mockingbird, which used CIA-employed journalists to produce fake stories during the Cold War-era 1950s through 1970s. They also funded student and cultural organizations and magazines as front organizations. This CIA operation became known as Operation Mockingbird and was mentioned in the infamous CIA Family Jewels collection.
The U.K. smaller equivalent to Operation Mockingbird was known as Operation Mass Appeal. It was allegedly run by MI6 during 1997–98 and exaggerated Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction, according to former U.N. chief weapons inspector Scott Ritter. That claim was further exaggerated just a few years later in 2003 when the U.K. government Downing St. produced a fake Iraq war memo that was exposed as being based on academic papers. It is a claim that would never have seen the light of day if it wasn’t for a doctor named David Kelly, one of the lead scientists who called the Iraq dossier a sham. Kelly was later found in the woods, and his death remains a mystery to this day.
Another example is how the media as a whole portrayed a video that was claimed to be from Syria (known as the “Syrian boy hero”) as real but was later revealed by Norwegian filmmakers to have been faked. As a result, the media had to backpedal their story issuing retractions.
Years later, in an unrelated incident, five people were arrested for using children in staged Aleppo videos, showing how dangerous it is to report any information out of Syria, as well as how important it is to have independent free thinkers.
Now, a UN panel (with little media attention) has revealed that the infamous White Helmets in Syria, the subjects of an Oscar-winning documentary, were engaged in criminal activity including but not limited to organ theft, staging rescues, and stealing from civilians. As a further fun fact, the leader of the White Helmets, Raed Salah, was denied entry into the U.S. at Washington’s Dulles International Airport and deported, due to “extremist connections” while on his way to receive a humanitarian relief award at a gala dinner hosted by USAID.
Really none of this should come as a surprise since White Helmets are connected to the Free Syrian Army (FSA), which in turn is connected to AlQaeda and Al-Nusra.
Perhaps a better example, and one that doesn’t involve propaganda, which more people can relate to is the situation in Flint, Michigan where water was poisoned due to negligence that was attempted to be covered up by the local government. YouTube as a medium allowed those citizens to have a voice and show the carelessness by their government officials. Further, the government even removed the citizens’ power to sue the state of Michigan over the lead contamination of its water supply.
For a moment imagine that this was called fake; these people would have been ignored far more than they were by the national mainstream media. Policing information is outright reckless and could endanger lives.
Then there is the spraying of carcinogenic chemicals on unknowing residents in the U.S. and Canada by the Army under Operation DEW and Operation Large Area Coverage (LAC) during the Cold War in testing linked to weaponry involving radioactive ingredients meant to attack the Soviet Union. Which, if I am being frank, sounds absolutely bonkers; but if you study history, you will see that this is the least that was done during that time frame, i.e. the infamous program known as Project MKUltra. During that covert program, people all over the place were tested with various experiments, many times against their own will.
So to say that YouTube will link to one source that can be edited by anyone and claim it as the moral high ground of “truth” is crazy, but to then introduce a recommendation block on “conspiratorial information” is outright insanity, which suppresses research efforts.
It doesn’t matter what your views are or what you think about a particular subject YouTube is aiming to censor the free flow of information, and this could be dangerous for a democratic society. This means that channels promoting free thinking and questioning of news events will now face further demoting within YouTube’s algorithms. These actions endanger a free and open society; no one should be able to decide what a user can and can’t search for no individual platform should be able to decide what is and isn’t the truth for their users. While in the same respect no one should be able to decide who does and doesn’t have a voice. (That’s the silencing of freedom of opinion and expression.)
YouTube is walking us straight into George Orwell’s nightmare 1984 through its proposed actions to silence free thinkers deemed “conspiracy theorists.” I will be the first one to tell you some theories are bat shit crazy such as the theory of flat Earth. But that doesn’t mean I want to censor the content. As another example, the rise of an anonymous insider who has been wrong more times then I can count on two hands: Q. However, again I don’t want YouTube as a corporate giant to have the ability to censor anyone who speaks about the Quidiot conspiracy. Because if you give them an inch they will take a mile and begin censoring other topics or even individuals as they already have including Activist Post‘s own YouTube channel.
If someone wants to promote a ridiculous theory they should be free to do so. After all, it’s their own credibility at stake. A democratic society is free and open and full of debates; and while YouTube wants to promote that theories about 9/11 are ludicrous, there are far more dots that don’t add up than they or the general public care to see or admit. (I won’t go into the topic as it would take far too long to dive into, but I’ll make a few quick suggestions of names and events to research – Michael Riconisciuto, John Patrick O’Neill, Bill Cooper, Able Danger, dancing Israelis, WTC7, bombs on George Washington bridge, et al.)
It’s particularly worrying that they single out theories of 9/11 — one of the worst tragedies in American history shrouded in mystery — in the blog post. Since, again, there is more that doesn’t add up than makes sense in regards to 9/11. There are several holes such as the various war game drills that James Corbett goes into in detail within his documentary War Games. We may never know what happened on 9/11, but there is way more to it than the official government narrative, and we the people have a right to know or at the very least seek out potential answers.
While YouTube wants you to think the governments of the world aren’t involved in any sort of corruption, “conspiratorial plots,” or cover-ups, history has proven quite the opposite. All of this information now risks being censored under YouTube’s policy and algorithm changes a scary and worrying prospect. It seems as though they want to protect the establishment rather than allow people to freely think for themselves. This is about the human right not to be indoctrinated with information, but rather to make up our own minds. Even if we are wrong about a particular subject (such as those of you who think the Earth is flat), this allows for healthy debate among individuals and the stopping of tyranny or tyrannical rule by dictatorships
For now, at the very least, we can be thankful that YouTube is stating that it will not outright ban all content it designates as a conspiracy theory (yet), despite the recent purge of dozens upon dozens of accounts that are connected to free speech and free thought. There are also always alternatives such as DTube, BitChute, and many others for uploading content. We need to ask ourselves is the YouTube purge the end of freedom of expression or the great awakening for alternatives?
YouTube’s moves against free thinkers could backfire for the company quite severely, because truth is stranger than fiction. Although this writer can agree with YouTube that the world is a spheroid, definitely not flat or completely round for that matter, it is important to have free independent thought and speech. Even if that means I have to share the planet with flat-Earthers or people who believe every crazed murder spree is a false flag attack (granted some might be because Operation Northwoods against Cuba and a memo suggested a false flag attack against Russia during the Cold War using civilians as cannon fodder, so it’s not that insane to suggest.)
The rapid changes we are witnessing with the main drivers of Internet perception has even drawn the attention of one of the inventors of the World Wide Web, Tim Berners-Lee. He noted in an open letter that “What was once a rich selection of blogs and websites has been compressed under the powerful weight of a few dominant platforms.” Do we really want those dominant platforms telling us their exclusive version of the truth?
Back in October of 2017, astronomers at the University of Hawaii spotted something bizarre passing through our solar system and they named it ‘Oumuamua, Hawaiian for scout or messenger. ‘Oumuamua was the first interstellar object to ever be detected in our solar system.
One year later, in October of 2018, the chair of Harvard’s astronomy department co-wrote a paper examining the object’s acceleration, which they described as “peculiar.” The two, Harvard professor Avi Loeb and Harvard postdoctoral fellow Shmuel Bialy, suggested that the object “may be a fully operational probe sent intentionally to Earth’s vicinity by an alien civilization.” That’s quite the claim and the pair instantly received significant backlash for their controversial theory.
Loeb said of the potential for making contact with alien civilization:
“As soon as we leave the solar system, I believe we will see a great deal of traffic out there. Possibly we’ll get a message that says, ‘Welcome to the interstellar club.’ Or we’ll discover multiple dead civilizations — that is, we’ll find their remains.”
In a recent interview in The New Yorker, Loeb attempts to shed on some light on the object, the paper he co-authored and the controversial theory that his paper presented.
So what’s so unusual about ‘Oumuamua anyway? Loeb explains that astronomers can calculate the rate at which rocks are ejected in space and how that calculation leads one of many peculiar facts about ‘Oumuamua:
“When you look at all the stars in the vicinity of the sun, they move relative to the sun, the sun moves relative to them, but only one in five hundred stars in that frame is moving as slow as ‘Oumuamua. You would expect that most rocks would move roughly at the speed of the star they came from. If this object came from another star, that star would have to be very special.”
The object was observed spinning every eight hours while it’s brightness changed significantly, leaving the astronomers puzzled.
“When it was discovered, we realized it spins every eight hours, and its brightness changed by at least a factor of ten. The fact that its brightness varies by a factor of ten as it spins means that it is at least ten times longer than it is wide. We don’t have a photo, but, in all the artists’ illustrations that you have seen on the Web, it looks like a cigar. That’s one possibility. But it’s also possible that it’s a pancake-like geometry, and, in fact, that is favored.“
‘Oumuamua is shaped like a pancake, another bizarre and significant observation. Why a pancake and why is that abnormal? Objects that orbit the sun have a shape influenced by the gravitational force of the sun, the same force that results in their orbit. Deviation from that rule happens in objects like comets. Evaporation of ice from the surface of a comet creates gasses that push it, sort of like a rocket, and also cause the tail of evaporated gas that most stargazers are familiar with. ‘Oumuamua doesn’t have one of those.
“We don’t see a cometary tail here, but, nevertheless, we see a deviation from the expected orbit. And that is the thing that triggered the paper. Once I realized that the object is moving differently than expected, then the question is what gives it the extra push.“
‘Oumuamua is unlike any comet we have ever seen in our solar system, so it probably isn’t one. Could it be an asteroid?
“Its brightness varies by a factor of ten, and the maximum you typically observe is a factor of three. It has a much more extreme geometry, and there is some other force pushing it.”
So the question remains, what is making ‘Oumuamua move?
“The only thing that came to my mind is that maybe the light from the sun, as it bounces off its surface, gives it an extra push. It’s just like a wind bouncing off a sail on a sailboat. So we checked that and found that you need the thickness of the object to be less than a millimeter in order for that to work. If it is indeed less than a millimeter thick, if it is pushed by the sunlight, then it is maybe a light sail, and I could not think of any natural process that would make a light sail. It is much more likely that it is being made by artificial means, by a technological civilization.”
Loeb, who has long been interested in “long been interested in the search for extraterrestrial life,” according to The New Yorker, took the opportunity to elaborate on just that:
“I should say, just as background, I do not view the possibility of a technological civilization as speculative, for two reasons. The first is that we exist. And the second is that at least a quarter of the stars in the Milky Way galaxy have a planet like Earth, with surface conditions that are very similar to Earth, and the chemistry of life as we know it could develop. If you roll the dice so many times, and there are tens of billions of stars in the Milky Way, it is quite likely we are not alone.“
If ‘Oumuamua does originate from an alien civilization, it didn’t come from our solar system, according to Loeb, it would have originated from somewhere in our galaxy instead, but there’s a chance “that the civilization is not alive anymore.”
“Imagine another history, in which the Nazis have a nuclear weapon and the Second World War ends differently. You can imagine a civilization that develops technology like that, which would lead to its own destruction.”
Loeb insists the point is simple:
“[T]his is the very first object we found from outside the solar system. It is very similar to when I walk on the beach with my daughter and look at the seashells that are swept ashore. Every now and then we find an object of artificial origin. And this could be a message in a bottle, and we should be open-minded. So we put this sentence in the paper.”
In response to those criticizing his paper and in summary of why ‘Oumuamua is worth paying attention to, Loeb had this today:
“The point is that we follow the evidence, and the evidence in this particular case is that there are six peculiar facts. And one of these facts is that it deviated from an orbit shaped by gravity while not showing any of the telltale signs of cometary outgassing activity. So we don’t see the gas around it, we don’t see the cometary tail. It has an extreme shape that we have never seen before in either asteroids or comets. We know that we couldn’t detect any heat from it and that it’s much more shiny, by a factor of ten, than a typical asteroid or comet. All of these are facts. I am following the facts.”
Speaking of the facts, Loeb drew a grand distinction between his curiosity of and the facts surrounding ‘Oumuamua and popular ideas such as the multiverse and extra dimensions:
“The multiverse is a mainstream idea—that anything that can happen will happen an infinite number of times. And I think that is not scientific, because it cannot be tested. Whereas the next time we see an object like this one, we can contemplate taking a photograph. My motivation, in part, is to motivate the scientific community to collect more data on the next object rather than argue a priori that they know the answer. In the multiverse case, we have no way of testing it, and everyone is happy to say, “Ya!”
Another mainstream idea is the extra dimension. You see that in string theory, which gets a lot of good press, and awards are given to members of that community. Not only has it not been tested empirically for almost forty years now but there is no hope it will be tested in the next forty years.“
In the end, Loeb’s questioning is simply a part of science:
“We have seen an object from outside the solar system, and we are trying to figure what it is made of and where it came from. We don’t have as much data as I would like. Given the data that we have, I am putting this on the table, and it bothers people to even think about that, just like it bothered the Church in the days of Galileo to even think about the possibility that the Earth moves around the sun. Prejudice is based on experience in the past. The problem is that it prevents you from making discoveries. If you put the probability at zero per cent of an object coming into the solar system, you would never find it!”
In conclusion: “If these beings are peaceful, we could learn a lot from them.”
Airbnb is having more and more of its hosts hiding security cameras in rooms, and it doesn’t seem to be worried about the practice if innkeepers are disclosing the cameras and they aren’t in the bathrooms or bedrooms, according to a report by Fast Company.
“If you find a truly hidden camera in your bedroom or bathroom, AirBnB will support you. If you find an undisclosed camera in the private living room, AirBnB will not support you,” Jeffrey Bigham, a computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon University told Fast Company.
Bigham blogged about his recent experience at an Airbnb where he found cameras in his “private living room,” writing in a blog post, “A Camera is Watching You in Your AirBnB: And, you consented to it.”
“I just assume that there will be camera constantly recording when I stay in airbnb, or anywhere really. They way I never have to worry about whether it exist or not. As recording technology becoming more and more advance, it’s less and less reasonable to expect privacy. I rather adapt my life to fit this new culture,” Bigham wites.
Airbnb argued that since one single camera was visible in pictures advertising the rooms, the owner of the Airbnb rooms for rent disclosed the security cameras.
Airbnb has since apologized and has given Bigham a refund, according to CNET. A spokesperson provided the publication with the following statement:
Our community’s privacy and safety is our priority, and our original handling of this incident did not meet the high standards we set for ourselves. We have apologized to Mr. Bigham and fully refunded him for his stay. We require hosts to clearly disclose any security cameras in writing on their listings and we have strict standards governing surveillance devices in listings. This host has been removed from our community.
However, Bigham is far from the only Airbnb customer to find cameras in a room they rented; and while Bigham found his in a “private living quarters,” others have found them in more private places like the bathroom and bedrooms.
Another case happened last September in Toronto, Canada, where a couple — Dougie Hamilton and his girlfriend — rented an Airbnb flat and discovered hidden cameras in their bedroom, News.com.au reported.
Hamilton told the Daily Record:
We were only in the place for 20 minutes when I noticed the clock. We’d had a busy day around the city and finally were able to get to the Airbnb and relax.
I just happened to be facing this clock and was staring at it for about 10 minutes. There was just something in my head that made me feel a bit uneasy.
It was connected to a wire like a phone charger which wasn’t quite right. The weirdest thing was, I’d seen a video on Facebook about cameras and how they could be hidden and they had a clock with one in it, too.
Last fall, a couple on a Florida vacation found a camera hidden in a smoke detector in the bedroom of their Longboat Key condo.
Another less recent case was posted on Reddit four years ago claiming a couple found a camera from a Dropcam, a connected home security system by Google’s Nest. The couple found the camera hidden in a mesh basket before unplugging it, according to the post.
According to Airbnb’s rules, the company states:
Our Standards & Expectations require that all members of the Airbnb community respect each other’s privacy. More specifically, we require hosts to disclose all surveillance devices in their listings, and we prohibit any surveillance devices that are in or that observe the interior of certain private spaces (such as bedrooms and bathrooms) regardless of whether they’ve been disclosed.
So how does one determine if there are potentially hidden cameras in a room? While there is no foolproof method for discovering hidden cameras in a room, there are ways that you can try to find them. Start off by shining a flashlight from your phone in the dark. Look for a light that bounces off a camera lens. According to Digital Trends, this will help you spot lenses that are otherwise hidden to the human eye in the shadows or built into objects such as clocks, walls, bureaus, and other furniture.
Other places that cameras can be hidden include:
Motion sensors
Smoke detectors
Alarm clocks
Wall clocks
Plug in air fresheners (especially if they don’t give off any scent)
Stuffed animals
Books on a shelf (where a camera is embedded in the spine of a fake book)
Cooking canisters and spice racks
The next way to find hidden surveillance devices has to deal with scanning for WiFi-enabled cameras on the local network. Motherboard has provided a relatively easy shell script to not only find the cameras but to disable them.
However, Julian Oliver explains that it may be illegal to run the script due to changes made by the FCC.
If you do find cameras, Airbnb adds that you can cancel your reservation for a full refund if the cameras aren’t disclosed or are found in an unreasonable area such as the bathroom or bedrooms. This is troubling and it’s not only affecting Airbnb but other services like it, such as VRBO and HomeAway. Both companies also have similar policies; VRBO says cameras are never to be placed in an area where guests “can reasonably expect privacy.” However, the problem is that some owners don’t follow those rules, so you must only trust yourself.
According to an article in The Car Connection, the state of Michigan just approved Reviver Auto’sdigital license plates called the “Rplate.”
Reviver Auto boasts that a total of five states have already approved their digital license plates.
Our innovative, multi-functional digital license plate, the Rplate Pro, will be on the road in California, Florida, Arizona and Texas in 2018. (Source)
George Orwell could never have dreamed of a world where license plates became a tool for more government surveillance.
Digital license plates are a privacy nightmare for motorists.
No longer will law enforcement have to run your license plate to see if you paid your taxes and insurance, because now your license plate will display a big “X” notifying everyone that you are a violator.
Digital license plates are the epitome of Big Brother surveillance
According to an article in WIRED, Rplates will turn vehicles into rolling Big Brother billboards that display Amber Alerts and much more.
It lets you update the registration stickers on your car through an app instead of dealing with the DMV. It can display Amber Alerts. It can be used as a miniature, knee-level billboard. If someone steals the car, it can read $NDHLP! or the more serious Stolen Vehicle. It can double as your E-Z Pass, FasTrak, or whatever RFID-based device you use to pay tolls. It can track your car’s location, so you can keep tabs on your teenager.
According to Reviver Auto, motorists have to pay a $99 annual subscription fee and a monthly $8.00 LTE fee for the privilege of being surveilled.
Who does not want to pay for the privilege of having a license plate that tracks your every movement and displays government approved messages?
But that is not all digital license plates can do.
The true purpose of using digital license plates that track your whereabouts is corporate greed.
The Car Connectionarticle warns that corporations will use digital license plates to send “targeted messaging” to other drivers.
Another feature that may raise eyebrows is targeted messaging, which is a way to display advertisements on the license plate. The plate’s numbers can be minimized to leave more room for an ad when the car is parked. It’s not clear if Michigan would allow vehicle owners to opt into or out of ads, however.
How is that for creepy? License plates that send targeted advertising based on your location?
Make no mistake, digital license plates are nothing more than Big Brother/corporate surveillance devices.
When the news headlines are filled with fear and uncertainty, it’s easy to be thrown off keel and get stuck in our heads. But the elders have taught for thousands of years that personal evolution doesn’t occur without a little ruckus, just like new seeds won’t sprout unless the soil is churned.
There are many real challenges in the world, and as we try to wrap our heads around them, it’s important that we remember to do so with mindfulness and compassion.
We’re all born into this world vulnerable and pure, completely reliant on the kindness of others. By remaining present, we begin to see this humanity in everyone, whether they are the perceived “good guys” or “bad guys”.
A great place to look for inspiration is our children. A child doesn’t recoil in the face of challenge. No, they are perpetually curious, resilient as warriors, and in a constant state of play. We grown-ups somehow lose that superpower as we get older and the perceived stakes of our actions get higher. But luckily for us all, there are a number of ways to shake off the illusion and get ourselves back into a harmonious state of life flow.
I’ve prescribed a couple of practices below that have really helped me quiet my mind and stay grounded, happy, and connected to purpose lately. I hope they help you too!
Sacred Prescription #1
This first one might seem downright crazy. You’ve probably never heard of it before, so get ready for your mind to be blown… Meditation!!!
Okay, maybe you’ve heard of it before… but do you actually make time for it, and incorporate it into your daily routine?
In our seemingly busy lives, there’s a compulsion to stay on the move, make every second count, burn the midnight oil, and then crash at the end of the day. Some might even say that this fire-drill consciousness is at the root of the imbalances we are seeing in the world, and also within our selves.
What happens if we carve out a little time each day to sit and experience the very moment we are in, instead of the road ahead or the rear-view past? In the digital age of speedy information and mini adrenaline rushes, we need something to bring us back into our bodies and help us see our reality for what it truly is.
A close friend and I are in the middle of a meditation challenge right now and it has been extremely helpful over the past month. It’s gotten to the point where I look forward to my 1PM meditation every day.
If you start with just ten minutes each day of quieting the mind in a wakeful state, I can almost guarantee that new openings and releases of tension will happen for you.
Sacred Prescription #2
When our reality gets a little hazy now and again, there are certain “medicine questions” we can ask ourselves that have the power to pull enlightened answers from somewhere within our psyche.
When you’re doing the work, these can be extremely helpful to have in your back pocket. Below are two of my go-to questions, but there are a number of them!
Medicine Question 1:
What is the one conversation that you’ve been putting off having with a friend or loved one?
It’s tempting to get caught up in all the flashy happenings on the world stage, but what about the people right in your own life? This is where you have the most influence and it’s often not a place of focus (ie. texting at the dinner table).
We humans are mirrors for one another and any relationships that are out of whack are often a useful reflection of inner imbalances that we have with ourselves. One of the fastest ways to heal your life is to reach out consciously and resolve any conflict, however subtle or obvious, that you might have with someone dear to you.
Just like a newborn baby cannot survive without the warm touch of another, we “grown-ups” tend to slip into imbalance when a connection to a member of our tribe is languishing.
Medicine Question 2:
When was the last time you put yourself outside your comfort zone?
Are you cozy in the life and role you’ve created for yourself? Is that coziness serving your highest ideals? We humans like predictability and pattern, but you would be surprised at how therapeutic a little shakeup can be.
Rituals like sweat lodge, temascal, vision quest, and the various sacred plant ceremonies are all aimed at bringing an individual to their limit, for what reason? To remind them they are limitless.
Limitlessness is a nice term, but to understand it fully you must be willing to go outside your comfort zone. If you’re looking for a powerful way to expand your limits while enhancing your relationships, refer to Medicine Question #1 ?
Have a wonderful week and remember, we’re all in this thing together.
Every time Jim West (also here) releases a new finding, it is a revelation.
Some years ago, I wrote this about Jim:
“I always find it riveting to come across an independent investigator who is breaking new ground, against all odds. Jim West is such a person. His meticulous analysis of West Nile Disease [in fact caused by toxic pollution, not a virus] has turned the establishment on its head. We should all thank him for his work. If I were the king of Pulitzers, I would give him a dozen. He is what truly deep reporting is all about. In a sane world, his revelations would bring about the firing of scores of so-called medical journalists and disease researchers, and he would be sitting at the top of the heap — not in order to exercise arbitrary power, but simply because he has trumped the lazy and the incompetent and the lying professionals who are supposed to tell us what is going on.”
There are many other things I could say in praise of Jim’s work. Instead, I’ll present an excerpt from the notice of his new book. It’s a book you should have and read: “50 Human Studies, in Utero, Conducted in Modern China, Indicate Extreme Risk for Prenatal Ultrasound: A New Bibliography”.
It’s a book that should receive wide notice. It’s a book that should change standard medical practice. It’s a book that can save many lives.
Press Release: May 2015
Prenatal Ultrasound: A New Bibliography of Human Studies Conducted in Modern China
“50 Human Studies, in Utero, Conducted in Modern China, Indicate Extreme Risk for Prenatal Ultrasound: A New Bibliography”
Jim West has released his unprecedented Bibliography of critical ultrasound research, as a book, available at Amazon.com.
Ultrasound is a highly controversial topic. It can now be said, without hyperbole, that an understanding of its mysteries are essential to the well-being of the individual and the human species.
The word “ultrasound” commonly refers to diagnostic ultrasound, an acoustic technology utilized to view images of the fetus in real time, its position within the mother, and to view the mother’s reproductive organs. It is an economic boon to medical practitioners who advocate its routine use.
Diagnostic ultrasound is widely declared to be “harmless” to the fetus (*), despite some mothers describing via online forums such as The Thinking Mother’s Revolution, vaginal bleeding and pain, and others describing every detail related to ultrasound and pharmaceutical or vaccine associated damage to their child. Ultrasound is now being applied to most of the entire world population during its fetal stage. The health implications are vast in terms of physical and psychological health for the individual and society.
Ultrasound appears to have set the human specie on a tragic path, due to the subtle and not-so-subtle effects of ultrasound exposure. Critics argue, for example, that the exponential rise in autism incidence is a product of fetal exposure to ultrasound. If they are correct, then it may take many generations to recover from this misguided application of medical technology.
Technical History:
Ultrasound imaging technology for diagnostic examinations evolved from a type of echo-imaging, originally developed as SONAR, a technology invented to detect submarines by pinging sound waves off the submarine hull and electronically measuring the echo, the duration required to reflect ultrasound from the submarine hull back to the source of the ultrasound.
In the medical field, ultrasound has been in use for many decades, employed to generate “echo images” of the fetus. Ultrasound is not ordinary sound, however.
It is a highly unusual form of sound when used for the purpose of prenatal or obstetric diagnostic examinations. Humans ordinarily are capable of hearing sounds in the range of 20 to 20,000 cycles per second (hertz). Ultrasound for fetal examination carries a frequency in the range of 3 to 9 megahertz, millions of cycles per second, above the EMF frequencies of the AM radio band.
Ultrasound imaging technology has supplanted, to an extent, the earlier imaging technology, X-rays. That older technology is now known publicly to be hazardous, to be carcinogenic, however, it took decades for this knowledge to become public. The history of medical X-ray imaging may be a parallel for ultrasound history. X-rays were previously known to be a risk though continuously advocated as harmless by the medical profession.
Hazards Unconfirmed:
Ultrasound is known to have the potential to produce harmful biological effects in the fetus. This has been found via animal and cell studies. However, these hazards have supposedly not been confirmed by human studies. Funding for ultrasound studies has virtually disappeared since the late 1980s. despite the FDA raising ultrasound intensity limits in 1991.
Cibull et al (2013) provides definitive assurance.
“Although laboratory studies have shown that diagnostic levels of ultrasound can produce physical effects in tissue, there is no evidence from human studies of a causal relationship between diagnostic ultrasound exposure during pregnancy and adverse biological effects to the fetus.” — Sarah L. Cibull, BS, Gerald R. Harris, PhD, and Diane M. Nell, PhD. “Trends in Diagnostic Ultrasound Acoustic Output From Data Reported to the US Food and Drug Administration for Device Indications That Include Fetal Applications.” J Ultrasound Med 32 (2013): 1921–32.
Confirmed in China:
Unknown to Western scientists, the hazards of ultrasound have been confirmed in China since the late 1980s, where thousands of women, volunteering for abortion, thousands of maternal-fetal pairs, were exposed to carefully controlled diagnostic ultrasound and the abortive matter then analyzed via laboratory techniques.
From these human studies, Professor Ruo Feng, of Nanjing University, published guidelines in 2000:
“Commercial or educational fetal ultrasound imaging should be strictly eliminated. Ultrasound for the identification of fetal sex and fetal entertainment imaging should be strictly eliminated. For the best early pregnancy, avoid ultrasound.”
Feng is very clear. He is also gentle. He could have written bluntly, “For a lesser quality pregnancy, use ultrasound.” He could have written “fetus” or “child” instead of “pregnancy”.
A New Bibliography:
An unprecedented Bibliography of Chinese ultrasound studies by Jim West, is now available, published as a book with commentary, illustrative graphs and tables. This is a presentation of arcana, i.e., vitally important but unknown scientific studies. The title is, “50 Human Studies Indicate Extreme Risk for Prenatal Ultrasound: A New Bibliography”.
This is the most important bibliography and commentary ever compiled for the field of ultrasound criticism, though for legal reasons, its conclusions and implications should be suspended, pending trustworthy authoritative review.
The book presents human studies conducted in modern China, which examine the results of in utero fetal exposure to diagnostic ultrasound. They far exceed Western science in terms of technical sophistication, era relevancy, volume of work, and number of subjects. They bring empirical evidence for ultrasound hazards.
These studies involve the exposure of over 2,700 maternal-fetal pairs to diagnostic ultrasound. The number of scientists involved are approximately 100. Pregnant women were carefully selected and then exposed to controlled ultrasound sessions. Ethical concerns were carefully observed. Abortive matter was examined via state-of-the-art technology, e.g., electron microscopy, flow cytometry, and various biochemical analysis (immuno- and histo-). The results were compared against the results of sham-exposed pregnant women (exposed at zero intensity).
Chinese scientists measured damage to the brain, kidney, cornea, chorionic villi, and the immune system. They determined the amount of ultrasound exposure required to produce damage to the human fetus, and that amount was found to be very low. Ultrasound hazards to the human fetus were confirmed without doubt.
Western scientists had previously found hazards via animal and cell studies, however, their findings were deemed inconclusive because they were not confirmed by human studies.
Human studies can be of two types: 1) epidemiological studies, i.e., population reviews, and, 2) in utero exposure studies, where abortive matter is evaluated in a laboratory following diagnostic ultrasound exposure to the fetus in the mother.
Western scientists have conducted only a few epidemiological studies, and virtually no human exposure studies. Epidemiological studies are complex, have many statistical variables, and are thus highly vulnerable to biased interpretation. They are often published as moot or statistically insignificant, despite finding patterns of ultrasound damage.
Due to abortion ethics, in utero exposure studies were virtually banned in the Western realm. Within the entire world population, the medical industry has not reported one case of human damage. Thereby, without certain proof, authorities continued on with the assumption that humans were resistant to ultrasound toxicity.
The Chinese studies were unknown in the Western realm and little known even in the East. These represent 23 years of critical research, from 1988 to 2011. Unfortunately, these studies were overwhelmed by a tremendous flood of studies that promote medical and therapeutic innovations for ultrasound.
The Chinese studies have remained disconnected from the Western realm, beyond discussion outside of China, being the casualty of cultural and language gaps, and lacking a benefit for industry.
These studies are not generally available through global search engines or medical databases. Even if a researcher knew the titles, the studies would not be found, however, they are available through internal links within the Chinese databases.
The Research Path:
As of 2013, Jim West began his research out of frustration. He had experienced the impossibilities of discussion whenever the topic of ultrasound hazards was attempted, even with his nearest friends. He always brought eloquent documentation, though to no avail. He was met with reflexive blocks. These were passive and aggressive, apparently out of fear of the birth process and a belief that ultrasound would provide assurance.
Realizing that people require authoritative statements, Jim searched for a simple statement of empirical evidence that could not be denied.
After several months of intensive research within the Western scientific realm, he, like others, realized there was little definitive evidence that would satisfy the strict industrial requirements, that is, there were few human studies of any kind. Human studies had been deemed by authorities to be essential for confirmation of hazards. He was aware of the hundreds of animal and cell studies, but they were known to be ill-designed and inconclusive. Excellent critical studies were contradicted by competing studies that declared ultrasound safe. Jim did find a few very strong animal studies that had not been contradicted, but they were ignored or rejected by mere authoritative assertion.
Electrophoresis:
As a working research theory, Jim hypothesized that the ideal modern ultrasound study would utilize a very sensitive type of chromatography, called “electrophoresis”, to detect cell damage caused by ultrasound exposure. Electrophoresis is a simple technology, the moving of electric current through a sample of biological matter in order to draw its various components through a gel-covered plate. The various components separate out through the gel, creating visual patterns for analysis. Electrophoresis is used to analyze biological complexes such as nucleic acid (DNA or RNA). It is employed, for example, in DNA fingerprinting, to identify people, their DNA, to detect their prior presence at a location, by examining samples of blood, hair, or tissue and matching those analytical results with suspects who had been similarly analyzed.
Jim’s focus on electrophoresis lead to a Chinese electrophoresis study of ultrasound causation for DNA fragmentation in abortive matter. The study is published in pristine scientific format and published in English. The study’s references lead to an expanding tree of studies located in Chinese online databases such as CNKI. Though these studies are primarily in Chinese language, many contained an Abstract, translated into English manually or by machine software.
Many studies were reviewed by professor Ruo Feng, of the Acoustic Institute at Nanjing University. He determined guidelines from the studies, stipulating that routine ultrasound be avoided. Only if there were exceptional medical indications should ultrasound be allowed, and at minimum intensity. Sessions should be very brief, no more than 3 minutes, 5 minutes at most. Multiple sessions should be avoided because hazards are cumulative. Sensitive organs were found damaged at 1 minute exposure.
Currently, the medical industry loudly claims that ultrasound is “harmless” while it advocates routine ultrasound for pregnant women and even prepubescent girls. It is not uncommon for ultrasound sessions to use intensities and durations far above those used in the Chinese studies.
Jim has done the math and graphically illustrates the evidence, for example, this comparison of Western critical studies and Chinese studies in terms of durations to damage, when subjected to the average device intensity for a common diagnostic ultrasound session in B-mode. These durations are approximated extrapolations.
Jim’s ultrasound causation model is fully compatible with the vaccine model, because it includes the concept of toxic synergy, and ultrasound is an effective synergist. Ultrasound is theoretically capable of initiating fetal vulnerabilities to subsequent toxic exposure. Thus the risk of subsequent exposure to vaccines, birth drugs, antibiotics and other environmental stressors would be raised by prenatal ultrasound, not in addition, but as a multiplier. (Emphasis added)
(Natural News) As far as sweeteners go, honey has been around for thousands of years and has been used as a food and a potent natural remedy. Unfortunately, like most foods produced today, the potency has been greatly diminished through various processing techniques and profitable short cuts that have left many honeys devoid of enzymes and nutrients and filled with GMOs like high fructose corn syrup (HFCS).
The good news is there are high quality honeys on the market today, that are raw and sustainably sourced so they benefit you and the bee population. Arguably, the most potent honey with the most medicinal benefits is Manuka honey, and there are several health benefits to using it internally and topically.
Health benefits and uses for Manuka honey
Put simply, Manuka honey is from bees that pollinate the Manuka bush. What makes it unique is the naturally occurring methylglyoxal (MGO) which forms in the flower’s nectar and is believed to be primarily responsible for its magnificent health benefits. Some of those benefits include:
Relieves occasional sleeplessness – Manuka honey supports a more deep and restful sleep. Add some to a warm tea like chamomile in the evening to help usher you into a more peaceful bedtime routine.
Supports healthy immune function – Due to the MGO contained in Manuka honey, the immune-boosting capabilities exceed that of regular honey.
Rich in antioxidants – Since Manuka honey is very high in antioxidants, it can provide protection against dangerous free radicals.
Supports skin health – Apply it directly to your face as a mask or with other skin rejuvenating nutrients to leave your skin refreshed and rejuvenated.
Helps defend against seasonal and environmental threats – Using Manuka honey on a consistent basis will help naturally guard you against external threats by supporting immunity.
May help support healing of minor burns or scratches – For centuries, Manuka honey has been used as a remedy for minor scratches and mild burns. Simply apply directly to the affected area, and cover with a bandage or dressing.
Helps boost your vitality – The nutrient-dense profile of Manuka honey can help boost your overall energy. Combine with bee pollen and put on oatmeal or in a smoothie.
Supports good oral health – Put a little bit directly on your toothbrush!
If we heed these wise words by Lao Tzu, then it stands to reason that we focus more on developing highly evolved people capable of honoring universal laws, rather than waste our energy bludgeoning people with invalid laws that violate the golden rule, the nonaggression principle, and the universal laws that dictate health.
But what constitutes a highly evolved person? What might a highly evolved person’s character look like? How do we define such a broad concept? In Five Counterintuitive Traits of Highly Evolved Humans, I broke down the emotional disposition of highly evolved people. In this article we’ll break down the political disposition of highly evolved people.
Choose a courage-based lifestyle over a fear-based lifestyle:
Does your government have a taste for blood and a thirst for power? A highly evolved person, with their own conscience as pure law, would choose smart rebuking over fearful obsequiousness.
Don’t allow such a government to have its way. Question its authority. Practice strategic civil disobedience. Count coup on overreaching power constructs. Challenge outdated, immoral, and unjust laws. Be the personification of checks and balances. Dare to be a courageous David facing down the Goliath of the state.
We don’t need more people who blindly obey in deadly fear. That’s already the vast majority of people. We need more people who are highly evolved enough to smartly rebuke any and all governments that use violence to “solve” problems.
Choosing a courage-based lifestyle over a fear-based lifestyle is choosing to no longer be a victim. It’s choosing, instead, to become a hero. It’s choosing courage over fear, self-sacrifice over comfort and security, adventure over banality, fierceness over obsequiousness, and ruthless skepticism over blind faith.
Understand that the vast majority of people are still willing to live fear-based lifestyles. Sympathize with them for having not woken up yet, but do not pity them. It’s not their fault they were brainwashed, conditioned and indoctrinated into living fear-based lifestyles, but it is their responsibility to educate themselves and to break themselves of their conditioning.
You can lead people to knowledge, but you can’t make them think. You can, however, remain ruthless with your courage-based lifestyle. Become a beacon of courageous hope. Especially for those who are still living fear-based lifestyles. Call it tough love. As Derrick Jensen said, “Love does not imply pacifism.”
Choose heart-centeredness over political divisiveness:
Bipartisan politics is old hat. It’s high time you toss that hat in the fire. Highly evolved people have already done so. They have gone Meta with politics. They’ve gone beyond the outdated, codependent divisiveness of bipartisanism and graduated into an updated, interdependent metamorality.
Metamorality, coined by Joshua Greene, is based on a common ground that all humans can agree upon while proposing a utilitarian deep pragmatism that empathically broadens the mind and compassionately opens the heart to the plight of us all as interdependent beings on an interconnected planet. Highly evolved humans use this strategy, along with the Astronaut Overview Effect, to go big-pictur
Going big-picture helps us change our minds. Or, at least be more flexible and open in our thinking. It puts things into proper perspective. It helps us feel more empathic and less psychopathic toward each other. We’re better able to see the world as one, without borders.
We’re better able to narrow our highfalutin politics down to a single concept we can all agree on: freedom. We’re better able to see through all the red herring cognitive biases of the climate debate and realize that our problem is a single problem we can all agree on: pollution. We’re better able to cut straight through the divisiveness of religion and narrow it down to a single concept that we can all agree on: love. Especially love for our children, and creating a healthy environment for them to grow up in. And suddenly there are not so many differences between us.
Choosing heart-centeredness over political divisiveness puts a compassionate spin on our conscience. Indeed, it puts the “conscience” in having our own conscience as pure law. For pure law is universal law, based upon the healthy interconnectedness of all things.
Choose self-improvement over self-preservation and create a better world:
When it comes down to it, becoming a highly evolved human is about spitting out the unhealthy blue pill of comfort, safety, and security based on outdated laws, and having the courage to swallow the healthy red pill of curiosity, questioning, and skepticism that questions bad laws in order to create healthy laws that align with universal laws.
It’s about becoming the personification of checks and balances. It’s about putting in the hard and difficult work of becoming a highly evolved person who has the wherewithal to “use their own conscience as pure law.” And to teach others how to do the same.
The answer is not creating more bad laws to shove down people’s throats. The answer is creating people smart enough to question the authority that seeks to shove bad laws down people’s throats. Indeed. The answer is teaching people how to become bigger than the law, how to gain the capacity to have their own conscience as pure law, and how to become a more valuable human. As Niels Bohr said, “Every valuable human being must be a radical and a rebel, for what he must aim at is to make things better than they are.”
If, as Plato famously said, “Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws,” then it stands to reason that we should focus more on teaching people how to act responsibly and less on creating laws. Especially since humans are so terrible at making good laws. And especially-especially since humans are even more terrible about abusing their power regarding those ill-conceived laws.
As Edward Abbey wisely suggested, “Since few men are wise enough to rule themselves, even fewer are wise enough to rule others.” The few seeking to rule others do so through the enforcement of bad laws.
So, it is incumbent upon anyone with their own conscience as pure law to ruthlessly interrogate such bad laws and then mercilessly check and balance any authority seeking to enforce such bad laws. We do ourselves, our children, and our grandchildren a disservice when we decide not to.
There is no greater cause than becoming more ethical than the society you grew up in. Will you defend outdated unethical laws and merely turn a blind eye to those who unjustly enforce them? Or will you defend the people’s right to ruthlessly challenge unethical laws and those who unjustly enforce them? The choice is yours. As William James said, “We are all ready to be savage in some cause. The difference between a good man and a bad one is the choice of the cause.”
