Most Limits Exist Only In Our Minds

This article was originally published by Adam Taggart at PeakProsperity.com

Roger Bannister died last week.

Even if you don’t recognize his name, you’re aware of his legacy: he was the first human to run a mile in under 4 minutes.

It was a mind-blowing feat. Ever since the Ancient Greeks set their sights on attaining this “perfect” goal 3,000 years ago, no runner on the planet had been able to run that fast for that long.

For millennia of sport, breaking the 4-minute barrier was widely regarded as physically impossible.

But Bannister, a busy medical student at the time with often only 30 minutes available to train per day, had an unorthodox view — one rooted in skepticism of the conventional training techniques and mindset.

He began with the assumption that the 4-minute mile was possible, and then challenged himself to develop a science-based regimen for attaining it.

During a brief lull on the otherwise blustery day of May 6, 1954, Roger Bannister made history by completing the mile-run in 3 minutes 59.4 seconds. The impossible had been achieved.

Bannister crossing the finish line at the Iffley Road track, Oxford

But what ensued next was equally momentous.

Just a month after Bannister first broke the 4-minute barrier, both he and another runner (John Landy) broke it again. The next year, 3 more runners (all in the same race) followed suit.

By the end of 1957, a total of 16 runners had achieved sub-4-minute mile times.

How could so many people suddenly overcome a challenge that had thwarted the best runners in the world for three millennia? The transition was so immediate and abrupt that it can’t be attributed to advancements in technology, training or diet. Yet something changed that enabled this new era for speed.

What changed was Belief.

Prior to Bannister’s shocking feat, elite runners just didn’t believe it was possible to run that fast.

But once freed from that limiting mindset, those very same athletes found that not only could they match Bannister’s record, they could beat it.

Today, 60 years later, over 1,300 people have run the mile in under 4 minutes. The fastest of them completed it in 3 minutes 43.13 seconds (Hicham El Guerrouj, July 7, 1999)

More than simply breaking a record, Roger Bannister’s greater legacy was proving to the world that limits are largely set by the mind. When we fail (or more accurately put, fail to try hard enough), it’s often because we believe we can’t succeed.

Bannister’s example showed us that by changing our mindset — by being open-minded to success — we can change our universe of potential outcomes. The ‘impossible’ becomes possible.

Others, before and after Bannister, have validated this to us time and again. Here are but a few of them:

• Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay summiting Mount Everest, the world’s tallest mountain, in 1953


• Billie Jean King defeating Bobby Riggs in The Battle of the Sexes in 1973, proving women can perform at the same level as men


• Alan Turing cracking the “unbreakable” Nazi Enigma code during WW2 (and developing the first modern computer in the process)


• Inexperienced novelist and near-penniless single parent J. K. Rowling in the early 1990s, writing a manuscript in various Scottish coffee shops that would become Harry Potter and ultimately make her a billionaire

Each refused to accept conventionally-defined limits as true. Each started with the belief that success was possible, and that they just needed to find the right path to unlock it.

A Mindset Needed More Today Than Ever

Today’s world bombards us with dire headlines and intractable issues that can easily make us feel defeated and powerless. Rather than being retired by the march of progress, in many ways it feels like the limits on our future are multiplying.

Declining opportunity for the 99%, cartel-style rackets controlling much of industry, and an accelerating wealth gap between the elites and the rest of society define our economic situation.

Our political system prioritizes fear, divisiveness and war mongering — getting precious little accomplished save a continued chipping away at our civil liberties. Social discord is growing in response.

Meanwhile, we’re despoiling the natural systems we depend on. The past few decades have seen more mass species die-offs, pollution, climatic shifts, and chronic health epidemics than ever before. Our insatiable exploitation of resources and prioritization of quick profits have become existential threats.

Given the above, it’s understandable to feel hopeless; that we’re all simply screwed.

But as Bannister, Hilary, Turing et al have showed us, we have much more control over our destiny than we realize. Even in the face of nation-wide, even planetary, issues like those listed above, we have agency to change our situation for the better.

On the individual level, we work hard here at PeakProsperity.com to surface and showcase models we deem worthy of your consideration. Here are several that have helped many of our readers improve their quality of life today, while simultaneously improving their resilience against any challenges tomorrow may bring:

• Looking to improve your health and longevity? Learn how nutrition, functional exercise, sleep hygiene and stress management are key success ingredients.


• How can humans grow (more) food by regenerating rather than depleting our soils? No-till farming practices are enabling just that.


• How can you become better valued and more supported by those around you? Here are a number of community-building steps that work.


• Want to protect and grow your money? Read this.


• How can you remain positive, and even thrive, in the face of adversity? By using these psychological strategies.

These are but a few examples of the very real pathways available to each of us to build better futures for ourselves. But to benefit from them, we need to first start with the belief that a better future is indeed possible for us.

If we do, then it becomes simply a math formula. With enough courage, discipline, and hard work, almost any goal is attainable within time.

And make no mistake, the world is in dire need of self-directed saviors. Too much of the population is mindlessly marching along to the status quo, blind to its dangers and unsustainability.

Chris Martenson’s “giant canoe” parable captures our predicament well:

Our Giant Canoe

Think of our situation as if humanity were all together in a giant canoe and nearly everybody is paddling as hard as they can. After all, we’re trying to get somewhere: to improve ourselves, to grow our economy and increase our prosperity. There are goals to be met!

Along the way we’ve convinced ourselves that this canoe is the best one ever built and it cannot fail us. It is the very pinnacle of achievement. It looks great, and there are creature comforts and pleasant distractions galore. Food has never been more abundant or easier to obtain, new gadgets keep showing up, and (in theory, at least) you can determine for yourself where you want to sit in the canoe.

The people in the front love being there, as they feel powerful and in control. Ironically, though, it’s the few people in the stern who are actually secretly and rather effortlessly steering, but nobody in the rest of the canoe seems to notice or care.

There’s only one thing wrong with this canoe. It’s headed for a gigantic waterfall, and if it tips over the lip, very few will survive. It will be like going over Niagara Falls without a barrel.

A few in the canoe have woken up and noticed this. But their protests are limited to either pulling their paddles out of the water and refusing to propel the canoe any faster, or even trying to futilely paddle backwards against the rest of humanity’s combined efforts.

Neither approach is a solution, mind you. But at least for these ‘awake’ souls, it feels better than paddling mindlessly towards the roaring falls.

As it stand today, humanity’s canoe is destined to speed right over the edge. Unless we consciously do something about it. Which we could, if we really wanted to.

As there’s nothing preventing us from steering the canoe safely to land, I find this one of the most interesting and fascinating times to be alive. We are currently playing the role of our own destroyer, but the savior role is still there for the choosing.

But what stops us? What keeps us paddling furiously ahead even as the sound of the roaring falls gets louder and louder? The answer is at once both very simple and devilishly hard.

It’s our egos.

To save ourselves from ourselves, we have to begin doing things very, very differently. Truthfully, the only way we can save ourselves is to shift our consciousness.  

Chris’ follow-on report, How To Be, reveals the elements of psychology, neuroscience, behavioral economics and human culture that lie at the root of our self-limiting behavior, yet also hold the keys to our salvation. It explains why to start living differently, we first need to start thinking differently.

There’s an emerging huge body of work here that goes deeply into the ‘Being’ and Emotional Capital areas of our ongoing efforts to help people live with greater resilience. We’re talking about real inner change here. If you want things to be different on the outside in your life, the only certain way to go about doing that is to change things on the inside first.

If this line of exploration resonates at all with you, click here to read the ‘How To Be’ report (free executive summary, enrollment required for full access)

This and That Vol 3 – Where There’s Smoke, There’s Fire

This and That Vol 3 – Where There’s Smoke, There’s Fire

By

Cognitive Dissonance

 

 

Lots of original work available exclusively on my Patreon blog. For as little as $3 a month you can support my creative work and access all content. Please consider doing so at https://www.patreon.com/CognitiveDissonance

 

There are a couple of phrases I often use to neatly describe the personal and social dysfunction exploding into view these days. On the personal side, my “We are only as sick as our deepest darkest secrets” perfectly illustrates how personally damaging those things are that we hide from everyone, especially ourselves.

Since a society is composed of, and accurately reflects, its individual citizens, it stands to reason this dysfunction would reverberate throughout society even if it manifested differently on an individual basis. It is entirely possible, and in fact a regular occurrence, for hundreds of millions of people to share a ‘secret’ by simply not talking about the root issues of our social dysfunction.

We as a society will nearly always talk over, under and around the core issues that are slowly grinding away at our sanity. Therefore “What is not discussed is far more important that what is”.  A perfect example of this is the recent silliness of mass righteous indignation about kneeling or not during an act of coerced/conditioned symbolism (the ‘national anthem’) when so many far more important things are ignored like monsters hidden under the bed.

What is often lost by those on the sidelines, either participating in the drama or confused why there is so much ado about nothing, is that the drama IS necessary both for the participants and the viewers. It does not matter which side of the divide we lay on, only that we are engaged in not talking about the things we do not wish to talk about.

To many people my statements above will ring as nonsensical, even ridiculous, because in their view we talk incessantly about everything. The internet sees to that, which is abuzz with endless conversations and dialogue. In my opinion this is a false view and a misunderstanding of what is actually occurring. And it is a perfect example of how the illusion is often just as effective as the real thing, and sometimes more so.

Political correctness, also known as officially promoted self censorship, doesn’t just apply to political speech. We all moderate what we say (and think) in ways large and small depending upon a million variables too numerous to list here.

While we would like to believe society at large determines what speech is acceptable and what speech is not, in practice a few key meme makers leverage their influence via the mainstream media megaphone to set the water mark the public is then coerced into following.

You do not need to control the herd, just a few of the lead cattle. Even then ‘control’ is too strong a word, for nudge would be more in line with how directional bias is achieved by those who wish to command. This is done in part by subtly limiting subjects to be discussed, often but not exclusively via political correctness, but then encouraging everyone to engage in vigorous debate within these narrow confines.

Yes, there are people who will draw outside the lines and talk about anything and everything, particularly on the Internet. But for the brainwashed masses, meaning those who wish to remain safely within their mainstream cognitive comfort zone, these people are easily marginalized and dismissed as kooks, misfits, conspiracy theorists, mentally unstable and mad-as-a-hatter fruitcakes.

Never underestimate the lengths to which people (that’s you and me folks) will go to believe what they want to believe. Therefore all that needs to be done is to convince people they want to believe what they are told to believe. The glowing idiot box in the corner (and increasing in our back pocket) is the perfect vehicle for that task.

 

              

 

Color me surprised, shocked even, that at the last minute the ‘government’ has withheld full and final disclosure of the last remaining documents related to the John F. Kennedy assassination, ostensibly because they needed more time to examine about 200 for possible (further) redaction.

I don’t even know where to begin here other than to confess to my cynical sarcasm. I do not believe a single word uttered by any ‘intelligence’ agency or those who carry their water. From their perspective it is their job, their honor bound duty, to lie about everything and anything in order to protect and promote their power and control. It’s all about furthering American hegemony at all cost, including abusing any and all remaining rights not previously stripped from average Jane and Joe.

Earlier in life I learned that once you begin to lie, even if you never lie again, additional lies must be created and promoted in order to support or supplant old lies. It’s a vicious circle that feeds upon itself and serves no purpose other than to maintain and support the status quo…especially our personal status quo.

We lie to gain some type of advantage, even if the benefit is merely to maintain our own inner lies and denial. The same applies to nations, particularly when that nation maintains its dominant position via bullying, manipulation, falsehoods and various other belligerent behaviors including outright war.

Ultimately the most egregious lies, thus the most carefully crafted and concealed subterfuge, is reserved for the thoroughly domesticated and conditioned native population.

“We the People” have benefited greatly from American hegemony in ways not readily apparent to those completely immersed within the grand illusion of American exceptionalism. Obviously it is to our general and personal benefit for the lies to continue so that the status quo remains in place. The ultimate lie is that present day conditions can, and will, remain in place indefinitely.

They cannot, they will not, they have not. The financial, social and cultural rumblings currently echoing within the hollowed out shell of America are the precursor crumbling to the ongoing (slow motion) collapse. The lies promoted by the powers that be are intended to gain advantage over you and me, along with any one or thing still willing and able to lend the US money, power, prestige, faith and belief.

The looting will continue until the middle class has been stripped of all remaining wealth.

So why would they continue to lie about the JFK assassination? Because we want the lies to continue. It’s that simple. Daddy, tell me another lie so I can believe it’s the truth.

If you were told the truth, whatever that truth may be, exactly what would you do about it? Not think, not bitch and complain, but actually do? For example, if you were informed that elements inside and/or outside the government conspired to kill the President of the United States, then they, along with agencies of the government, acted in concert for decades up to present day to cover up this fact, what would you do?

The answer is mostly likely little to nothing. But that is not the point.

The secret sauce to keeping America limping along and the looting on track is your faith and belief things are not as bad as your average 3^rd world banana republic. Undeniable evidence things might actually be equal to, or worse than, a Central American banana republic would propel a tidal wave of fear and disillusionment among the general public, quickly followed by a loss of faith and belief in our leadership and ourselves.

Deep down inside in places we dare not look, we know this to be the truth. We also know without a shred of doubt that not only are we sleeping with the enemy, but we are entirely dependent upon the sociopaths and their skewed and rigged socioeconomic system to maintain our own (declining) lifestyle. And that lifestyle depends upon our continuing faith and belief in both the sociopaths and the system.

We ARE the system. We support the system. Without our faith and belief the system rapidly collapses. This is called a positive feedback loop in that the faith and belief system is self reinforcing to the greatest extent possible. But nothing lasts forever, in this case simply because more and more parasites are sucking the lifeblood from the nation.

We know this. It’s obvious. But we are desperate to believe it’s fixable (with little to no ‘cost’ to us) when it is not. To admit to ourselves this inconvertible truth means we must confront the fact the end is near. And quite frankly, we’ve grown accustomed to having our cake and eating it too. Or at least to the prevailing illusion this is the case.

And so we lie to ourselves and expect, even demand, our leaders continue to lie to us even as we claim we wish to know the truth.

There is no doubt that, with regard to most ‘truths’, we really do want to know the truth. For example we want to be told when a government official has embezzled money, misallocated funds or lied to benefit others, for these truths do not threaten our fundamental belief in democracy and the rule of law.

But to discover, or be told without a doubt the government was involved in what essentially would have been a coup of the Presidential office of the United States which was, and continues to be, covered up to this day would rock people’s faith and belief in the foundation of so-called democracy. 

If this were to occur, we might actually have to start asking serious questions about other ‘events’ in the recent past. Worse, we would then begin to feel obligated to do something about it. At the very least it would threaten our own relatively comfortable status quo.

Can’t have that, now can we? If nothing else we demand (the illusion of) law and order from our keepers in exchange for remaining mostly quiet and compliant.

The durability and believability of a lie is in direct proportion to the number of people who benefit from the lie or who would be hurt if the lie were exposed and acknowledged. For many, the primary disadvantage, at least initially, is simply the assault upon our ego that we swallowed such a big lie for so long.

The bigger the lie, the easier it is to keep it going once swallowed whole by the public. Our subservient devotion to a higher authority and its paternal hierarchy helps to initially cement the lie in place, then to keep questions at bay while the cement cures and hardens.

Even those who remain skeptical or refuse to believe the lie are diminished and isolated by the tyranny of the majority opinion who (desperately) wishes to believe the authority, particularly when doubt is present. Of course, doubt is always present because only the authority can proclaim something as true or false.

See how that works?

At best the most recent JFK disclosures are part and parcel of an ongoing, and ever evolving, psychological operation directed at the American people. How do you control a large group of people that far outnumber those who wish to control the group? Divide and conquer is the age old method used consistently and successfully to distract, divert and divide the restless herd.

We ain’t seen nuttin’ yet! Stay tuned for more of the same technique applied with increasing force and less subtly.

 

 

I would be remiss if I didn’t at least mention that all of the above is not exclusively an American problem. While lying and denial are decidedly human traits, “We the People” seem to take it to extremes in our mindless pursuit of conspicuous consumption.

And what is the number one American export? That would be the American culture of mindless consumption and overall excess. More is always better, even when it isn’t.

This uniquely American export is an absolute requirement if the practice of non sustainable excessive consumption is to be maintained to the bitter end. When running a Ponzi, new marks must constantly be found and exploited if the status quo is to be maintained for those who ultimately benefit from the Ponzi, usually the founders and/or those at the top of the food chain.

This is a disease, a mind virus, an aliment of the spirit that will ultimately kill many of its hosts if only from an early death caused by disease and decay due to the excessive consumption. The obesity epidemic spreading throughout the western world is a perfect example. Everyone is looking for a single source, such as overeating, for what is causing the problem when it is the cumulative effects of a dysfunctional way of life that is destroying us individually and collectively from within.

If we do not recognize, acknowledge and then own our personal participation in this dance of self destructive insanity, nothing will change. How can we possibly expect others to change if we are not willing to do so ourselves? It all begins within.

 

10/29/2017

Cognitive Dissonance

These Five Cognitive Biases Hurt Investors The Most

There is no shortage of cognitive biases out there that can trip up our brains.

By the last count, Visual Capitalist"s Jeff Desjardins notes there are 188 types of these fallible mental shortcuts in existence, and they constantly impede our ability to make the best decisions about our careers, our relationships, and for building wealth over time.

BIASES THAT PLAGUE INVESTORS

In today’s infographic from StocksToTrade, we dive deeper into five of these cognitive biases – specifically the ones that really seem to throw investors and traders for a loop.

Next time you are about to make a major investing decision, make sure you double-check this list!

Courtesy of: Visual Capitalist

The moves that may seem instinctual for the average investor may actually be pre-loaded with cognitive biases.

These problems can even plague the most prominent investors in the world – just look at JPMorgan’s Jamie Dimon!

BIASES TO AVOID

Here are descriptions and examples of the five cognitive biases that can impact investors the most:

Anchoring Bias
The first piece of information you see or hear often ends up being an “anchor” for others that follow.

As an example, if you heard that a new stock was trading at $5.00 – that is the piece of information you may reference whenever thinking about that stock in the future. To avoid this mental mistake: analyze historical data, but don’t hold historical conclusions.

Recency Bias
Recency bias is a tendency to overvalue the latest information available.

If you heard that a CEO is resigning from a company you own shares of, your impulse may be to overvalue this recent news and sell the stock. However, you should be careful, and instead focus on long-term trends and experience to come up with a more measured course of action.

Loss Aversion Bias
No one wants to lose money, but small losses happen all the time even for the best investors – especially on paper.

Loss aversion bias is a tendency to feel the effects of these losses more than wins of equal magnitude, and it can often result in a sub-optimal shift in investing strategy. Investors that are focused only on avoiding losses will miss out on big opportunities for gains.

Confirmation Bias
Taking in information only that confirms your beliefs can be disastrous. It’s tempting, because it is satisfying to see your previous conviction in a positive light – however, it also makes it possible to miss important findings that may help to change your conviction.

Bandwagon Bias
No one wants to get left out, but being the last one to pile onto an opportunity can also be cataclysmic. If you’re going to be a bandwagon jumper, make sure you’re doing it for the right reasons.

An Act of Pure Evil

An Act of Pure Evil

By

Cognitive Dissonance

When I selected the name of my avatar here on Zero Hedge and began posting comments, then articles when I became a contributing editor, there was deliberate and conscious intent on my part to disturb the cognitive dissonance of the herd. Rarely do we personally grow unless sufficiently prodded with a poker. 

My intent with this article is NOT to stick a finger in the wound and cause more pain. Not in the least. But "We the People" have an extremely complex, some might say insane, relationship with murder/death/kill. To put it bluntly, we have been deeply conditioned to believe certain "types" of killing are just and righteous, therefore "legal". More importantly, we believe that just about the only righteous killing can, and must, be conducted by the state and its duly appointed apparatchiks.

To be even more blunt....that"s screwed up. This article illuminates both the state"s, and our, hypocrisy.

WARNING!! Trigger alert. Do NOT read this if you wish to remain comfortable with your belief systems.

This is being written the day after the mass shooting in Las Vegas and it in no way diminishes the horror and suffering experienced by all involved. I cannot imagine what it was like to be watching an outdoor concert and suddenly find myself under fire with nowhere to run and no place to hide.

It was truly horrific, senseless and so very sad. Or as President Trump declared in his morning after address to the nation, this was “an act of pure evil”.

There is no doubt over the ensuing days, weeks and months millions of words will be spoken and written about this singular act of violence perpetrated upon an unaware and unprepared crowd of dessert revelers. From arm chair psychologists such as this author to so called ‘experts’, we will be bombarded with one part insight to every hundred parts nonsense.

No doubt the nonsense will prevail.

I suspect some readers will not take kindly to me going off script so soon after what is being billed as a national tragedy. In my defense, the difference between me and your average sociopath politician is I am attempting to empower the reader by expanding our minds while they are trying to dis-empower the reader via carefully crafted propaganda and cognitive manipulation.

They want you to refasten your blinders while I wish to tear them off.

I absolutely guarantee you nearly every single political leader and wannabe is thinking only one thought at this precise moment. How can I use this situation to my political advantage? You cannot participate in modern day politics and not think in this manner, regardless of how good and honest you might claim to be.

When you swim in the swamp, you employ the same techniques and thought processes as all the other swamp dwellers. At best it is an occupational hazard, at worst an all consuming disease. Unfortunately very few escape with their morals and dignity intact and none succeed in draining, or even changing the flow of the fetid swamp waters.

But this isn’t the purpose of this screed at all. Either we fully recognize, and are repulsed by, the nature of the swamp and those who dwell within while taking concrete and purposeful steps to distance ourselves as much as possible from all that the swamp encompasses. Or we have learned to mostly ignore it, live with it, benefit from it or directly participate in it.

I tell myself I’m somewhere in-between, but that just might be my ego talking.

There are no innocents, only collaterally damaged individuals. But there are plenty who declare ourselves innocent, claiming the Sergeant Schultz defense of “I see nothing, I know nothing and I wasn’t even (t)here”.

I do not dispute the fact that planning and preparing for, and then carrying out, an act of mass murder and mayhem is indefensible and inexcusable. I assume the reader feels the same way I do, that the person who perpetuated this bloodshed with forethought and malice was mentally deranged and possibly even ‘evil’, regardless of the details of motive and method.

Where we might depart the same path is in how we characterize mentally deranged as defined by a nearly equally mentally deranged society. What, exactly, is the difference between a ‘crazy’ individual shooting from the 32^nd floor of a hotel into a large crowd of people with conscious intent to kill and a nation’s military lobbing cruise missiles or dropping bombs onto an opposing nation’s population centers, occupied hospitals or upon other so called ‘innocents’ with the same conscious intent to kill?

Now I am absolutely positive the reader’s mind is racing through the thousand and one excuses, reasons and rationalizations we have been programmed with, and conditioned to believe and repeat, in order to justify homicide, murder really, to ourselves and to our peers in the name of ‘war’.

I get it. I understand. I am the product of the same conditioning and propaganda everyone else has been exposed to. But the question remains entirely reasonable and relevant. How is homicide by the state any different than homicide by an individual, whether on a mass or individual basis?

Once we begin to delve into this thorny issue, the next question is why do “We the People” support one homicidal entity while vigorously condemning the other?

Ever notice how violence conducted in an ‘offensive’ manner is decried as wrong and ‘illegal’, evil even, while violence employed purely in defense of yourself and those around you is accepted as reasonable and justified? After all, civilized people know there are rules to follow when conducting war. You can’t have people just killing and maiming each other willy-nilly with no rules, now can you?

This is precisely why all nations frame war, before, during and after, as unavoidable and defensive in nature. And it’s also the reason why nations routinely engage in false flag operations in order to create plausible deniability and justification for homicide in order to gain, consolidate or hold on to power, wealth and control.

I can drop 1,000 pound bombs on your head or direct a cruise missile through your kitchen window, but I can’t use poison gas, exploding bullets or other such ‘illegal’ methods of particularly gruesome homicide. As if being blown into bits and pieces by a bomb or missile isn’t particularly gruesome or horrifying.

The fact remains we can rationalize away anything we wish to justify, first as individuals and then as a herd, by simply framing the discussion in ways that fit already programmed terms and conditions that justify our actions. Helpfully (thankfully, for we as ‘moral’ individuals might balk at doing so) the programming is already determined, then promoted and placed via state sponsored education and later via the deeply influenced, if not outright controlled, state propaganda arm called mainstream media.

All that remains is for us to not only accept it, but endlessly repeat it back to others, the ultimate positive feedback loop of group-think that reinforces both our conditioning and the continuing acceptance of our conditioning. The base message is usually not that sophisticated, enabling infinite modification by each individual so that state sponsored homicide is not only acceptable, but in many situations desirable and even necessary.

Once we are able to shoehorn distasteful nonconforming tidbits into our internal narrative, we sleep better at night. Never underestimate the lengths to which we will go to believe precisely what we want to believe.

So there you have it. One ‘madman’ with several automatics and lots of ammo randomly, and rapidly, shooting at human fish in a barrel is bad, very bad. Of this there is no argument from me. But college educated chisel jaw all American hero pilots dropping 1,000 pound bombs on hospitals or strafing wedding parties is acceptable as long as he or she is following ‘legal’ orders and plays by the rules of war a la legal murder/homicide.

And if there is some unfortunate targeting snafu or human error that leads to collateral damage, well…that"s just the price others pay for our gloriously righteous war against the evil madmen enemy.

I can’t wait to not only hear what the state will cook up to justify the next large scale war, but how it will be framed so you and I can swallow it hook, line and sinker, then order up pizza and beer just in time to watch the fireworks live on CNN.

A spoon full of sugary rationalization helps the ugly murder and mayhem go down. After all we do have to live with ourselves, now don’t we?

10/02/2017

Cognitive Dissonance

Every Single Cognitive Bias In One Infographic

The human brain is capable of incredible things, but it’s also extremely flawed at times.

Science has shown that we tend to make all sorts of mental mistakes, called “cognitive biases”, that can affect both our thinking and actions. These biases, as Visual Capitalist"s Jeff Desjardins points out, can lead to us extrapolating information from the wrong sources, seeking to confirm existing beliefs, or failing to remember events the way they actually happened!

To be sure, this is all part of being human – but such cognitive biases can also have a profound effect on our endeavors, investments, and life in general. For this reason, today’s infographic from DesignHacks.co is particularly handy. It shows and groups each of the 188 known confirmation biases in existence.

WHAT IS A COGNITIVE BIAS?

Humans tend to think in certain ways that can lead to systematic deviations from making rational judgments.

These tendencies usually arise from:

• Information processing shortcuts


• The limited processing ability of the brain


• Emotional and moral motivations


• Distortions in storing and retrieving memories


• Social influence

Cognitive biases have been studied for decades by academics in the fields of cognitive science, social psychology, and behavioral economics, but they are especially relevant in today’s information-packed world. They influence the way we think and act, and such irrational mental shortcuts can lead to all kinds of problems in entrepreneurship, investing, or management.

COGNITIVE BIAS EXAMPLES

Here are four examples of how these types of biases can affect people in the business world:

Familiarity Bias: An investor puts her money in “what she knows”, rather than seeking the obvious benefits from portfolio diversification. Just because a certain type of industry or security is familiar doesn’t make it the logical selection.

Self-Attribution Bias: An entrepreneur overly attributes his company’s success to himself, rather than other factors (team, luck, industry trends). When things go bad, he blames these external factors for derailing his progress.

Anchoring Bias: An employee in a salary negotiation is too dependent on the first number mentioned in the negotiations, rather than rationally examining a range of options.

Survivorship Bias: Entrepreneurship looks easy, because there are so many successful entrepreneurs out there. However, this is a cognitive bias: the successful entrepreneurs are the ones still around, while the millions who failed went and did other things.

People Ignore Facts That Contradict Their False Beliefs

Authored by Eric Zuesse via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

The more people there are who ignore facts that contradict their beliefs, the likelier a dictatorship will emerge within a given country.

Here is how aristocracies, throughout the Ages, have controlled the masses, by taking advantage of this widespread tendency people have, to ignore contrary facts:

What social scientists call “confirmation bias” and have repeatedly found to be rampant, is causing the public to be easily manipulated, and has thus destroyed democracy by replacing news-reporting, by propaganda - ‘news" that’s false - in a culture where lies which pump the agendas of the powerful (including lies pumped by the billionaire owners of top ‘news’media and of the media they own) are almost never punished (and are often not even denied to be true). Thus, lies by those powerful liars almost always succeed at enslaving the minds of the millions, to believe what the top economic-and-power class want those millions of people to believe — no matter how false it might happen actually to be. 

Recently, a particularly stark example of this came to my attention. On 15 September 2017, an article that I wrote for the Strategic Culture Foundation, and which was titled by a true statement that I had only recently discovered to be true, was republished at a news-site that I consider one of the best around, “Signs of the Times” or “SOTT” for short, and a reader-comment there, simply rejected that title-statement and the entire article, because it contradicted what the person believes. This commenter entirely ignored the evidence that I had provided in the article, which proved the statement to be true. 

No matter how irrefutable the evidence is, most people reject anything which contradicts their deeply entrenched false beliefs, and this reader-comment crystallized for me, this phenomenon of “confirmation bias” — the phenomenon of ignoring evidence that contradicts what one believes.

The article was titled “Liberalism doesn’t respect a nation’s sovereignty.” I never knew that fact until I researched it, but I found, after looking through (and my article quoting key documents from) the history of the matter, that it’s actually the case: that liberalism (as it’s understood and defined by the scholars of the subject, and as it’s based upon the key formative documents of the historical tradition, “liberalism”) rejects a nation’s sovereignty. This fact shocked me to discover; so, I wrote an article documenting it, and SCF accepted it, and it then became republished at a few other sites, including SOTT.

The reader-comment at SOTT which for me personified confirmation-bias, was (in its entirety): “This is a rather new twist blaming liberals for invading countries. I"ve always associated liberalism with the left wing and democratic, progressive politics. I"ve always associated conservatism with the right wing, big business, militarism and invading other countries. Trying to move the goal posts, are we?”

That person never clicked onto my article’s links documenting the case, nor even read the quotations given in the article itself from John Locke and from Adam Smith, who were key founders of “liberalism” as that tradition has come down to us. He instead ignored all of that evidence, and stated — entirely without evidence of any sort — that I (and SOTT, and SCF, for publishing it) were “Trying to move the goal posts.”

I (a Bernie Sanders voter, and a lifelong progressive and opponent of conservatism) am “Trying to move the goal posts” — how? By pointing out the manufactured phoniness of ‘liberalism’? By pointing out a key way in which liberalism was designed by its aristocratic sponsors (in this case by the aristocrats who sponsored Locke and Smith), to be an ideology that would encourage conquest, empire, and discourage democracy (which is based upon the sanctity of national sovereignty — based upon the lack of imposition of government by or on behalf of anyone who isn’t a resident on the land). Liberalism, I show there, was designed for Empire, not for democracy. That reader simply refused to consider the evidence.

People who insist upon deceiving themselves disgust me. Anyone who blocks out the key relevant facts and persists in believing the lies they were raised with, or became fooled into believing, doesn’t harm only themselves by the lies they believe; they vote on the basis of the lies they believe, and thus these people who refuse to be open-minded destroy democracy, and invite control of the nation by the aristocracy (who sponsor the proponents of those lies). People who refuse to question their own beliefs, become increasingly putrid pools of their own false beliefs, which have been created and nurtured and sustained and become larger and larger pools of lies, by constant repetition from the media and lobbyists of the rich and powerful, so as to enable the exploiters to enslave the masses, via those constantly repeated and embellished lies. 

Such self-‘justifying’ fools, who refuse to clean-up their conceptual pool that’s been increasingly polluted by lies, are enemies of democracy, no matter how much they may consider themselves to be ‘liberals’. They don’t even know the reality of what liberalism is. One thing that it definitely is not (as my article documented) is progressivism (which is utterly opposed to foreign conquest and to the entire imperial project of imposed rule, regardless whether by outright invasions or else by coups).

Thus, we have two dominant ideologies against progressivism: One is conservatism, which everyone recognizes to be against progressivism and for Empire and constant conquest, profitable war for the arms-merchants and for the ‘news’media owners who also benefit from stirring up invasion-fever, not only like William Randolph Hearst did but today like they all do. The other is liberalism, which hides that it’s actually conservative — hides this, by being ever-so-sweet toward certain ethnicities or other groups that are being oppressed domestically, and by vociferously condemning conservatives for what is actually nothing more than the blatancy of conservatism’s favoritism toward the aristocracy.

An authentic democracy cannot be based upon a “demos” (a public) that is overwhelmingly composed of suckers - manipulated fools. Only by means of the tiny aristocracy plus the huge mass of their suckers, does a democracy degenerate into a fascism. (For example, something like this can be supported overwhelmingly by the political Party that dominates the U.S. Senate, the U.S. House, state capitals, state legislatures, and runs the U.S. White House, in this ‘democratic’ nation — ‘democratic’ according to the propaganda; but if this were really a democracy, then none of those politicians would be able to win public office.)

*  *  *

A well-established central finding of psychological research, concerning “confirmation bias” or “motivated reasoning” (which are two phrases referring to people’s tendency to believe whatever they want to believe, regardless of any contrary facts), is that individuals evaluate whatever they read or hear according to their pre-existing ideas about the given subject. Specifically, psychologists have found that people tend to pay attention to whatever confirms their existing ideas, and tend to ignore whatever contradicts those pre-established beliefs.

For examples, the following studies are available online:

“Motivated Skepticism in the Evaluation of Political Beliefs,” in the July 2006 American Journal of Political Science, reported: “We find a confirmation bias – the seeking out of confirmatory evidence – when [people] are free to self-select the source of arguments they read. Both the confirmation and disconfirmation biases lead to attitude polarization ... especially among those with the strongest priors [prior beliefs] and highest level of political sophistication [the highest degree of exposure to, and involvement in, the given subject-matter that the study was dealing with].” Prejudices were stronger among supposed experts than among non-“experts”: The more indoctrinated a person was, the more prejudiced. “People actively denigrate the information with which they disagree, while accepting compatible information almost at face value.” Moreover, “Those with weak and uninformed attitudes show less bias” (and this is actually one reason why the best jurors at trials are generally people who are not personally or professionally involved in any aspect of the given case – they are “non-experts”).

Sharon Begley’s article in the 25 August 2009 Newsweek titled “Lies of Mass Destruction: The same skewed thinking that supports a Saddam-9/11 link explains the power of health-care myths [such as that Obama’s health plan had ‘death panels’]” summarized the study in the May 2009 Sociological Inquiry, “‘There Must Be a Reason’: Osama, Saddam, and Inferred Justification,” which had surveyed, during October 2004, 49 conservative Republicans who admitted they believed that Saddam Hussein had caused the 9/11 attacks. This study found that 48 of these 49 extreme conservatives were utterly impervious to the overwhelming factual evidence which was provided to them by the presenters that contradicted this false belief they held.

A study concerning not political conservatism but merely resistance to new technologies is James N. Druckman’s “Framing, Motivated Reasoning, and Opinions about Emergent Technologies,” which was presented at a technological conference in 2009. He reported that, “factual information ... is perceived in biased ways ... (e.g., there is motivated reasoning).” “Facts have limited impact on initial opinions.” Moreover, “Individuals do not privilege the facts. ... Individuals process new factual information in a biased manner. ... Specifically, they view information consistent with their prior opinions as relatively stronger, and they view neutral facts as consistent with their existing” views.

“Motivated Reasoning With Stereotypes,” in the January 1999 Psychological Inquiry, found that, “When an applicable stereotype supports their desired impression of an individual, motivation can lead people to activate this stereotype, if they have not already activated it. ... People pick and choose among the many stereotypes applicable to an individual, activating those that support their desired impression of this individual and inhibiting those that interfere with it.” Similarly, another research report, “The Undeserving Rich: ‘Moral Values’ and the White Working Class,” in the June 2009 Sociological Forum, found that John Kerry had probably lost the 2004 U.S. Presidential election to George W. Bush at least partly because white working class voters overwhelmingly believed that Bush was like themselves because he behaved like themselves, and that Kerry was not like themselves because his manner seemed “snooty.”

Have You a Positive Personal Practice? (Part Two)

Have You a Positive Personal Practice? (Part Two)

By

Cognitive Dissonance

My apologies for how tardy Part Two of this article is. It is now mid summer and the garden has begun to produce prolifically. Which means we have begun to can almost as prolifically. Plus I have taken on several outside jobs for friends of several week"s duration to put some fiat in the wallet and this has taken some precedence over my writing.

This theme (Positive Personal Practice) has expanded into at least three parts and maybe more. I don"t plan out my writing, but rather let it flow where it wants to go. Sometimes it goes further than I expect and this is one of those cases.

In addition, this iteration appears a bit more lumpy than usual. I blame it on Mrs. Cog, who introduced me to lumps in my mashed potatoes. After great protestation on my part (mashed potatoes are by definition mashed) to my surprise I found I like them. My writing seems to like them too.

That"s my story and I"m sticking to it.  ;-)

Cognitive Dissonance

The first step to returning to health is to acknowledge you are sick. The second step to getting better is to treat the cause and not the symptoms. Only the insane or someone who doesn’t actually recognize their illness or symptoms as a problem might argue with the above supposition.

In other words, if something is perceived as normal and natural, there ain’t nothing to fix. And mama always told me not to fix what ain’t broken. Perfectly reasonable, wouldn’t you say?

Of course, if everyone is ill (or insane) than ‘normal’ is simply what the majority are doing at that precise moment in space and time. On the flip side, abnormal would be defined as anything the collective hive mind believes is contrary to normal. This is the ultimate in a positive feedback loop, a self reinforcing pattern that only grows stronger with each successive loop until the moment of self destruction arrives.

While rarely expressed by individuals in this precise manner, essentially what many people think and say about their lot in life is that they’re doing pretty well, even very good, in adjusting to a difficult and slightly crazy world they were born into when measured against the symbols of success promoted by ‘society’.

Of course, it is everyone else who is crazy and definitely not the speaker (or thinker) in question.

Setting aside the question of how society goes about measuring its health, I am constantly reminded of a well known quote by Krishnamurti that goes something like this.

“It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.”

Take a long hard look around you, at our so-called society and its inhabitants (that would be you and I) and tell me we are healthy in every sense of the word.

I dare you. I double dare you. ;-)

If you answered yes, that society is healthy, then I strongly suggest you are basing your assessment solely upon the fact society reflects back to you what you have been taught are values society prizes as a measure of health and happiness.

Keep in mind we all alter our own perceived personal reality to fit our worldview and mindset. We seek out information that confirms our point of view and we reject just about anything that refutes our preconceived notions. Also note this exercise in self deception is very fluid and flexible and extremely adaptable to changing conditions in real time and on the fly.

How else could we justify and rationalize all the murder, mayhem and injustice “We the People”, through our ‘leaders’, inflict upon others…including our neighbors and ourselves.

On the other hand, if you said no and agree that society is unhealthy, do you include yourself in this assessment? If not, why not?

Drop an otherwise healthy Goldfish into a bowl of dirty filthy water, wait 48 hours and then rationally and logically explain to me how the fish remains healthy while totally immersed within that environment.

There is an old adage among natural healers that postulates that other than superficially (meaning minor ailments) the healer can only help those who truly wish to help themselves. One cannot force health upon anyone just as one cannot force unhealthy upon anyone. Free will is required as an integral component of the equation.

Fair warning to the casual reader; trigger words are most definitely being used in this piece. Please strap on your helmet and fasten your seat belt because the going most definitely will get rough.

/sarcasm

What many miss when discussing this subject is ‘belief’ is an exercise in free will. Belief supplants doubt and promotes either active or passive ‘action’, also known as free will. Belief comes about either naturally via personal experience (aka learning) and wisdom or unnaturally via (often external) manipulation and coercion. 

Please understand exercising ‘free will’ doesn’t necessarily mean making a decision to implement your will. Passive acceptance, as well as the belief you have no choice, is an exercise of your free will by omission rather than commission. Not making a decision is, in and of itself, a decision. The same applies to being ‘forced’ to make a decision, regardless of whether that force is ‘real’ or perceived.

We can always say no, even when a gun is pointed to our head. This is a simple fact that will no doubt infuriate some readers who will argue that life is paramount and anything agreed to in order to prolong life is reasonable and not necessarily via ‘free will’.

I would counter one is arguing about the consequences of the decision to justify making the decision. I do not dispute there are potentially severe, even mortal, consequences, only that ultimately the person makes a conscious decision to comply and that is the act of free will. A decision not to comply is also an act of free will.

While freely and willingly tendering our ‘free will’ is of immensely greater value to the recipient, since the rules of the game require consent, by hook or by crook consent will be obtained. And by ‘game’ I am speaking about so much more than simply systems of money and social organization.

You don"t really think society is organized to benefit the individual.....do you?

OK, so by now either you have abandoned reading (thus I am no longer talking to you) or you still retain enough curiosity to continue on down the rabbit hole.

Or possibly you have been triggered to such an extent you have skipped down to the comment section and are furiously typing a response to refute my utter nonsense and ridiculous poppycock. There is a reason I selected Cognitive Dissonance as the name of my online presence and you just confirmed its effectiveness. 

/humor

Let us turn our attention now to the cause of the problem rather than the symptoms. It is sometimes extremely difficult discussing certain subjects with otherwise intelligent and thoughtful people simply because their cultural conditioning precludes even considering such things…or at best engaging in nothing more than a superficial conversation about the subject.

While the western world may be quite diverse with regard to race, ethnic background, religion, governmental organization and so on, even though many may hold divergent opinions only discussed among like minded cohorts, to discuss these subjects in public is practically verboten. You just don’t go there.

I consider this phenomenon not just ‘conditioning’, but conditioning of the Imperial kind. Empires ‘think’ a certain way and are terribly self centered and narcissistic, at least during the late stages of Imperial expansion and population subjugation. And I’m not speaking solely about its leadership, but its captive ‘citizens’ as well.

While I expect my characterization to be vehemently rejected by those of the Imperial mindset (or matter-of-factually agreed with as just the way it is) the Imperial mindset is quite similar to that held by the high school head jock or big-man-on-campus as he troves the halls looking for victims to terrorize.

However, the jock doesn’t frame his behavior as terrorism per se, but rather as actions befitting someone who perceives himself as sitting at the top of the human food chain…if only on a local level. Basically he does what he wants because he can do what he wants. Ego and self will have run riot.

While endless argument back and forth about my stated supposition regarding Empire can be had for the asking, I don’t wish to engage in such senseless debate. Regardless of what America once was, it is now little more than an overly muscled bully walking the halls looking for anyone to pick a fight with. And as is the case with all bullies, this behavior springs from a deep seated inferiority complex combined with an aging Empire who hears the clock ticking and the walls closing in.

Like a cornered wild animal, this is when Empires are most dangerous.

What interests me more is not the death throes of a dying Empire, but rather the mindset of average Jane and Joe from being immersed within the Imperial conditioning from birth. While it is pretty common these days for people from all walks of life to express concern with the direction of the country/leadership etc, rarely do I hear, see or read much discussion on the state of the people within the crumbling Empire other than passing reference to degrading (financial, physical etc) conditions mostly among the ‘middle class’.

There is plenty of ink spilled on the state of ‘other’ people in the country. But of course the author or interviewee isn’t affected by these issues since they are above the fray and immune from the degradation because they are aware of it.

To believe one is immune from contagion simply because one is aware there is a contagion is nonsensical and demonstrates little more than magical thinking.

Cultures more rooted to the Earth and to the Self tend to recognize the white man as seriously ill and even insane. And I’m not just talking about North American natives, but indigenous cultures from every continent on Earth.

And the term ‘white man’ should not be interpreted literally, at least no longer, since the dis-ease permeates all of the so-called Western Civilization. Worse, it is presently infiltrating the Eastern cultures as well as those in the southern hemisphere. In fact, disease may not be the proper term here since this madness is a feature and not a bug of the culture.

Ancient history, much of which has been actively suppressed, altered or simply wiped clean, indicates that man was not always insane. The study of comparative mythology/history drawn from nearly all ancient cultures seems to indicate a turning point, the point of infection one could say, right about when ‘official’ history informs us man became sophisticated enough to grow his own food and settle down into a collaborative society.

Personally I think the Empire’s officially sanctioned history lessons are little more than overall controlling memes along the lines of Nineteen Eight-Four’s “We’ve always been at war with Eastasia.” A soul lost and disconnected from its ‘self’ seeks guidance from external sources since it no longer comprehends that all ‘knowing’ springs from within.

But why would controlling entities wish to alter what is known about the distant and recent past? The answer is surprisingly simple and amazingly effective. So much of our present day perspective, our worldview and mind set, is based upon what we believe is our past, both individually and as a collective society.

If there is one overriding theme presented over and over again in the history books, particularly modern history, both subtly and with overt declarations, it is that “We the Humans” are steadily progressing physically, mentally, medically, socially, technologically, politically and spiritually.

Nearly every succeeding generation over the last several hundreds of years has felt they were smarter, more technologically adept and clearly superior to the generation before. This has enabled all manner of abuse to be heaped upon the population in the name of forward progress and innovation.

If improving standards of living is the primary measure of progress, then it is reasonable to think we have progressed radically. But what exactly is an improved standard of living if you are being bombed back into the Stone Age just so your neighbor can maintain or accelerate theirs? Or poisoned by manufactured foods and pharmaceuticals? The question actually applies to those on both sides of this murderous activity.

This is forward progress?

Imperial Truth......full of lies.

What if it is all a carefully choreographed and cultivated lie designed to hide the fact we have actually been regressing over the last five or ten thousand years? How would you feel about your present situation and the conditions under which you live if you knew people ten thousand years ago lived to be 400 years old, had mastered human metaphysical technologies we can’t even begin to comprehend, let along duplicate, and lived in relative peace and harmony with nature and each other?

I didn’t say what if this were possible, but what if you knew it to be true the same way you know others historical facts are ‘true’ simply because they are declared truth by historians and the cultural authorities?

A person living today cannot imagine surviving, let along thriving, without immediate access to health and dental care on demand. Life is tough on flesh and bone we are told. Modern conveniences command compromise, at least until the technology advances enough so our medicines and machines no longer maim and kill us.

And we just assume this is progress, that the only way forward is the way we presently travel. For example, once we could only travel at best a few miles by foot, then 30 miles a day on horseback, then 100 miles a day via stagecoach, then 400 miles by train and now thousands of miles by plane. How could this be construed as anything but a good thing, of massive progress on a grand scale?

So while our technology is making our lives ‘better’, that same technology seems to make us sicker emotionally, mentally and spiritually. We are steadily moving away from a spiritual grounding and a centered, mostly self sufficient lifestyle, and into living in a constant state of physical and psychological stress in every way possible.  

While there is no doubt some people appear to flourish under such conditions, I can only emphasize the word ‘appear’.  An incandescent light bulb of 60 watts may appear much brighter (therefore ‘better’) when driven at a higher wattage. But exactly what is the cost for such abusive behavior? Just because I have adapted well to a sick society doesn’t mean I’m in good health.

Mrs. Cog and I traveled to Northern Virginia a few weeks back for an overnight stay in order to take care of some personal business. Quite frankly we were a bit shocked how dysfunctional and downright miserable nearly everyone seemed. Casual smiles were not only far and few between, but people were rude and unfriendly and the prevailing energy was terrible.

According to Forbes, five of the ten richest counties in America are clustered around Washington DC, with the three richest counties located in Northern VA where we visited and stayed overnight. By this measure alone we were smack dab in the middle of modern nirvana.

And yet from our perspective, based solely upon people’s physical appearance and emotional demeanor, there were not a lot of happy campers in nirvana.

Collaborative effort is supposed to yield a sum greater than the total returned by its individual components. This is the concept behind the term ‘synergy’. If a society drains its inhabitants at a rate faster than it is replenished by the individuals, what exactly is the purpose of the society other than to be a corral for the chattel?

When the sum total returned is less than the sum total contributed, society becomes a Vampire Squid draining the life from its host on an exponential basis.

In order to prevent the host from expelling the parasite, the blood sucker must give something back to the host in order to create the appearance of a mutually beneficial relationship. Failing that, it must drug the host into submission, or at least into such a failed state of health (defined as much more than physical) the host is powerless to do much more than exist solely to feed the vampire squid.

Sound familiar?

Condition a person to need something, then fill that craving but never sate it (an addiction can never be more than temporarily sated) and you have the recipe for near total control over that person. Condition a society and the results are the same. Drug dealers, pimps, addicts, governments and central banks know a little about this subject if you have any questions.

So if you suspect the world, or at least the western world is mad as a hatter, and if you think you might be insane as well since it’s nearly impossible to stay clean in a mud pile, what are you to do?

Well, for one, stop doing what you are doing now. Einstein had something to say about doing the same thing and expecting different results. Just because we are aware of the insane asylum doesn’t mean our limited awareness bestows upon us the magical ability to suddenly become sane simply because we see the insanity.

Knowledge doesn’t automatically lead to changes in our thinking and behavior. In fact, quite often knowledge is an impediment because we use it to rationalize our inaction. Frequently we ‘know’ what to do and don’t act on it. Our ‘knowing’ often presents as a gut feeling or intuition, something the Imperial culture has taught us to disregard.

We are caught in a cycle of destructive reasoning and behavior, most which are believed to be pleasurable, wholesome and therapeutic because our culture tells us this. Our actions (or inaction) are both conditioned into us from birth and/or they are imposed upon us as incremental changes springing naturally from the hive mind.

You know, like Pet Rocks, a completely natural consumer product that springs from our innate desire to take common rocks into our household as pets. 

These can still be bought on eBay. Hurry, quantities are limited.

Here is the intellectual problem we face. If we are all insane, how do we recognize our insanity and what do we do to become sane. It’s sort of like asking how to stay clean while in the mud pile.

It’s impossible, at least if we only pursue the intellectual route.

While I readily acknowledge the presence of Buddhist monks living, working and playing in the middle of New York City, they have decades of rigorous training supporting their sanity while walking within the insanity. To think an untrained and still thoroughly conditioned mind and spirit can simply flip a switch and be sane is the ultimate in denial.  

Ideally we should withdraw from areas of the most intense madness and seek shelter among those who are less infected. Quite frankly this is difficult for those addicted to all the pleasures and vices of sin city. My withdrawal process was a step by step relocation, first physically to a more distant suburb that still remained a community of slightly less insane people rather than a teaming mass of mad humans. The move further away to the mountain came later.

But even being further away from the center of the infection, I still faced the conundrum of carrying with me the Imperial conditioning, the worldview and mindset of the Empire. This, by the way, is why geographic cures rarely work for people with (or recovering from) drug and alcohol addiction. While the physical location may change, the corrupted mind remains the same.

This also applies to people who decide to move to an isolated place (often cutting the cord by going off grid) and deprive themselves of all the reinforcing distractions under of guise of becoming self sufficient. While certainly a noble endeavor, written word and even word of mouth simply doesn’t prepare the average person for the grueling physical and emotional labor they are subjecting themselves to.

The net result is many (but not all) fail to break free and wind up returning to the Empire’s fold with hat in hand and most likely worse off for their effort. Many flew the coop in the first place in a semi panic after waking to find they have been sleeping with the beast, a maniacal mass murderer of untold depravity. Nearly all speak of feeling they have been accessories by ignorant complicity.

The bottom line is that living with, and within, the beast is draining emotionally, physically, mentally and, most importantly, spiritually. And I am specifically NOT speaking of spirituality in a traditional religious sense.    

I shall continue exploring this thought process in Part 3.

07-28-2017

Cognitive Dissonance

Physical appearance is only a small part of what encompasses "healthy". The Imperial mindset tries to convince you otherwise.

The Cannibal Warlords of Liberia and The Death of Nazi Germany

Every time, I look around this place
I see them screams but I hear no sound
And the terrible things happen down the road
To somebody else that I don"t even know

Nothing bad ever happens to me
Nothing bad ever happens to me
Nothing bad ever happens to me
Nothing bad ever happens to me

-Oingo Boingo

Ain"t normalcy bias swell?

The normalcy bias, or normality bias, is a mental state people enter when facing a disaster. It causes people to underestimate both the possibility of a disaster and its possible effects, because it causes people to have a bias to believe that things will always function the way things normally function. This may result in situations where people fail to adequately prepare and, on a larger scale, the failure of governments to include the populace in its disaster preparations.

The assumption that is made in the case of the normalcy bias is that since one has never personally experienced a disaster, one never will. It can result in the inability of people to cope with a disaster once it occurs. People with a normalcy bias have difficulties reacting to something they have not experienced before. They also tend to interpret warnings in the most optimistic way possible, seizing on any ambiguities to infer a less serious situation. Normalcy bias is essentially a "desire for the status quo."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normalcy_bias

Are you having a hard time waking up some family or friends, or even yourself, to the possibility that you may someday want to get the fuck out of Dodge City?  Are you for some reason unable to travel to the formerly beautiful Damascus, Syria, or Caracas, Venezuela, to see first-hand what it looks like when SHTF?

I might be able to help.    

The next time you have an hour to kill, I highly recommend you use the time to watch the 2009 Vice documentary, The Cannibal Warlords of Liberia.  

You will meet the amazing local priest, General Butt Naked...

You will learn what to expect from the local youth group in a societal collapse...

You will see the how government authority reacts to collapse...

Then, follow it up by the reading the excellent book, Hellstorm: The Death of Nazi Germany, 1944-1947, by Thomas Goodrich.  Although I highly recommend reading the book, there is also apparently a related 90 minute documentary video available online, Hellstorm : The Genocide of Germany by the Common Enemy.

You will learn of the massive amount of state-sponsored rape and murder of German women in the final days of World War 2.  

You will learn what amount of mercy to expect from governments in such situations...

If you decide that you want to put together a plan and some resources to bravely run away if the SHTF, then please consider starting with these three ZeroHedge articles.

Peace, liberty, prosperity,

h_h

Paul Craig Roberts: 'Sauron' Rules In Washington

Authored by Paul Craig Roberts,

“The problem is that the world has listened to Americans for far too bloody long.” - Dr. Julian Osborne, from the 2000 film version of Nevil Shute’s 1957 book, On the Beach

A reader asked why neoconservatives push toward nuclear war when there can be no winners. If all die, what is the point?

The answer is that the neoconservatives believe that the US can win at minimum and perhaps zero damage.

Their insane plan is as follows: Washington will ring Russia and China with anti-ballistic missile bases in order to provide a shield against a retaliatory strike from Russia and China. Moreover, these US anti-ABM bases also can deploy nuclear attack missiles unknown to Russia and China, thus reducing the warning time to five minutes, leaving Washington’s victims little or no time in which to make a decision.

The neoconservatives think that Washington’s first strike will so badly damage the Russian and Chinese retaliatory capabilities that both governments will surrender rather than launch a response. The Russian and Chinese leaderships would conclude that their diminished forces leave little chance that many of their ICBMs will be able to get past Washington’s ABM shield, leaving the US largely intact. A feeble retaliation by Russia and China would simply invite a second wave US nuclear attack that would obliterate Russian and Chinese cities, killing millions and leaving both countries in ruins.

In short, the American warmongers are betting that the Russian and Chinese leaderships would submit rather than risk total destruction.

There is no question that neoconservatives are sufficiently evil to launch a preemptive nuclear attack, but possibly the plan aims to put Russia and China into a situation in which their leaders conclude that the deck is stacked against them and, therefore, they must accept Washington’s hegemony.

To feel secure in its hegemony, Washington would have to order Russia and China to disarm.

This plan is full of risks. Miscalculations are a feature of war. It is reckless and irresponsible to risk the life of the planet for nothing more than Washington’s hegemony.

The neoconservative plan puts Europe, the UK, Japan, S. Korea, and Australia at high risk were Russia and China to retaliate. Washington’s ABM shield cannot protect Europe from Russia’s nuclear cruise missiles or from the Russian Air Force, so Europe would cease to exist. China’s response would hit Japan, S. Korea, and Australia.

The Russian hope and that of all sane people is that Washington’s vassals will understand that it is they that are at risk, a risk from which they have nothing to gain and everything to lose, repudiate their vassalage to Washington and remove the US bases. It must be clear to European politicians that they are being dragged into conflict with Russia. This week the NATO commander told the US Congress that he needed funding for a larger military presence in Europe in order to counter “a resurgent Russia”. 

Let us examine what is meant by “a resurgent Russia.” It means a Russia that is strong and confident enough to defend its interests and those of its allies. In other words, Russia was able to block Obama’s planned invasion of Syria and bombing of Iran and to enable the Syrian armed forces to defeat the ISIS force sent by Obama and Hillary to overthrow Assad.

Russia is “resurgent” because Russia is able to block US unilateral actions against some other countries.

This capability flies in the face of the neoconservative Wolfowitz doctrine, which says that the principal goal of US foreign policy is to prevent the rise of any country that can serve as a check on Washington’s unilateral action.

While the neocons were absorbed in their “cakewalk” wars that have now lasted 16 years, Russia and China emerged as checks on the unilateralism that Washington had enjoyed since the collapse of the Soviet Union. What Washington is trying to do is to recapture its ability to act worldwide without any constraint from any other country. This requires Russia and China to stand down.

Are Russia and China going to stand down? It is possible, but I would not bet the life of the planet on it. Both governments have a moral conscience that is totally missing in Washington. Neither government is intimidated by the Western propaganda. Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov said yesterday that we hear endless hysterical charges against Russia, but the charges are always vacant of any evidence.

Conceivably, Russia and China could sacrifice their sovereignty for the sake of life on earth. But this same moral conscience will propel them to oppose the evil that is Washington in order not to succumb to evil themselves. Therefore, I think that the evil that rules in Washington is leading the United States and its vassal states to total destruction.

Having convinced the Russian and Chinese leaderships that Washington intends to nuke their countries in a surprise attack (see for example), the question is how do Russia and China respond? Do they sit there and await an attack, or do they preempt Washington’s attack with an attack of their own?

What would you do? Would you preserve your life by submitting to evil, or would you destroy the evil?

Writing truthfully results in my name being put on lists (financed by who?) as a “Russian dupe/agent.” Actually, I am an agent of all people who disapprove of Washington’s willingness to use nuclear war in order to establish Washington’s hegemony over the world, but let us understand what it means to be a “Russian agent.”

It means to respect international law, which Washington does not. It means to respect life, which Washington does not. It means to respect the national interests of other countries, which Washington does not. It means to respond to provocations with diplomacy and requests for cooperation, which Washington does not. But Russia does. Clearly, a “Russian agent” is a moral person who wants to preserve life and the national identity and dignity of other peoples.

It is Washington that wants to snuff out human morality and become the master of the planet. As I have previously written, Washington without any question is Sauron. The only important question is whether there is sufficient good left in the world to resist and overcome Washington’s evil.

"You Are Here"

In case you wondered...

You Are Here... Valuation?

And here... Sentiment?

And here... Cognitive Dissonance?

And finally... no it"s not a "new economy" or "different this time"...

So as a reminder, Peak Valuations and Trough Labor Force Participation...

"Probably Nothing"

The Unpoisoning: Two Proposals To Rescue The US Educational System And Federal Workforce From Liberal Indoctrination

If ever one needed better evidence of failed liberal ideology, look no further than the complete mental breakdown and kneejerk arrogance programmed into a nation of tantruming pseudo-intellectual children of all ages. I"ve never seen so many overly-dramatic sore losers who can"t manage to look inward and move on with their lives.

In light of the fact that so much of America is woefully unequipped with facts, critical thinking skills, or the ability to absorb divergent opinions without having an existential crisis, it"s time to address perhaps the most important swamp of all; the hyper-liberal US educational system and the people responsible for influencing the future of our nation.

Submitted for consideration by an attorney and educator who wishes to remain anonymous [emphasis mine]

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I’d like to submit two proposals concerning what President Trump could do to “drain the swamp.”  The first proposal concerns the flagrant political discrimination that plagues almost all of academia, both k-12 and college level. Virtually all of these institutions have become the sole haunt of left wing ideologues.  Everyone knows this, although some liberals may try to deny it.  The result has rendered most of our colleges and grade schools veritable liberal ghettos where conservatives need not apply and are certainly not welcome if they try.

The proposed solution is to give these institutions one year to balance their teaching staff so that fully half of them are registered Republicans, Libertarians, Independents, or otherwise conservative.  Once that year had elapsed, President Trump could decree by Executive Order that funding for any educational institution receiving federal funds would be cut by a percentage equal to the disparity between liberals and conservatives in their teaching staff.  For example, if only 5% of their teaching staff were Republican or Conservative after a year’s recruitment then the institution would receive only 10% of its prior federal funding. Institutions that raised their Republican representation to 40% would receive up to 80% of their prior federal funding.  This approach would motivate biased liberal institutions to at least abate their political discrimination, and American taxpayers wouldn’t continue to pay for left wing bigotry poisoning the minds of our children.

In America today, Christian bakers can be forced out of business for refusing to bake a cake for a homosexual wedding, but nobody blinks an eye when Spike Lee announces he’s firing a singer simply because she sang at Trump’s inauguration.  This type of selective discrimination, rampant in academia, is as wrong as any arising from race, religion or sexual preference.  The First Amendment rights of speech and association are not a right to discriminate, however the Left continues to do so based purely on political persuasions they disagree with.

By signing an Executive Order defunding politically discriminatory educational institutions, President Trump could at least begin to end this problem.

I’m sure you can anticipate my second proposal.  That is, again by Executive Order, require that two-thirds of all federal employee hires have to be ideologically conservative until similar balance is achieved.  As with the prior proposal, no new laws have to be introduced through Congress, this is something President Trump could do on his own through Executive Order to begin to heal the rampant discrimination that is also demonstrably present in the federal workforce.

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Thoughts?

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