There is no conspiracy.
There are many conspiracies.
As soon as there were three people, two were keeping secrets from the other one. Let's be honest, everyone is keeping secrets and everyone is telling secrets about everyone else. Any conspiracies eventually come out, making the possibility of an illuminati conspiracy so very unlikely.
People who imagine an overarching conspiracy are noticing that our myths and cultural assumptions rhyme again and again. Our culture has unspoken assumptions that lead us to behaviours that are destructive, both externally and internally. Our assumptions create a cultural cult that encourages and venerates a kind of societal murder-suicide.
I very much doubt there is an illuminati directing a master conspiracy from the shadows. Even competing master conspiracies seem unlikely. More likely to me, is a realitybof many petty conspirators imagining themselves to be supervillains. I doubt there is any super conspiracy. But if so, well done?
What there is, however, is a contagious set of assumptions driven by our underlying toxic culture. As soon as we internalize these toxic assumptions, we become contagious to others. And so the same damage is perpetrated by unrelated people apparently acting in concert, but really just infected by the same toxic culture.
And because the infection starts by convincing us that no other cultures exist, or are even possible, but the infection is lying to us.
Life is short.
Work is crap.
Join my cult.
Once upon a time I saw an trailer ad on YouTube for an upcoming movie. The movie didn't seem mind shatteringly original or shockingly well made. But it looked fun and decent and maybe worth a watch.
That was the first time I saw the trailer.
The fifth time I saw the ad, I decided I would not see the movie in theatres. I felt intruded upon and wanted to punish the film for its advertising.
The tenth time I saw the trailer, I decided I never needed to see the film. Period. Hard stop. I won't even name the film in question, lest I encourage you to see it. That's how much I want to punish the film's advertising team.
I wonder if I'm alone in this attitude. If I'm not, what does this say about the current advertising model? And what does it say about cultural saturation and blowback against the interruption economy?
The human mind is a finite thing. The pop self-help gurus can go to hell. We have a finite fungible amount of willpower. We have a well-documented limit in how many social connections we can keep track in our heads. And though the information overload economy, interruptions may be an effective way of grabbing our attention briefly, thry are also a direct attack upon our limited resources. Something's got to give, although I have no idea what.
Life is short.
Work is crap.
Join my cult
I've added a reading list.
I sat down and began to think about the collective research in have done into this grand problem.
And it's a lot of research. So I started compiling a reading list. I've added the list of the site already. The list isn't even close to complete, but it's already fairly large and I think it's a good start.
So a real blog post will arrive tomorrow. I'm considering the reading list to be today's post.
I have lived on this planet for approaching thirty eight years.
In that time, I've done some pretty cool things. I've written a few novels (not published, but written). I've run several half-marathons (not full marathons, half marathons). I've earned two first degree black belts (first degree, keep your pants on). I've camped without a tent in mid February.
And most of this has nothing to do with my schooling. School has taught me a great many things, how to take tests, how to switch tasks on command of a bell, how to manage a nine to five workday with lunch and coffee breaks. Oh yes, and I learned a bunch of trivia questions answers to random subjects. I have been prepared should I ever land on Jeopardy.
By the age of fifteen, in traditional cultures, I'd have been prepared to live as a self-sufficient member of the tribe. I'd have been a warrior and a hunter, at home in the world. We could do the same job preparing our children for the world we live in. We don't do this. And why don't we? Why was I, instead, still basically a child at eighteen?
Look back a few hundred years for the answer. Peasants and aristocracy could be trained from day one. You knew your lot in life based upon your birth. Hell, the modern rich and powerful still do this frequently, knowing the jobs they will grow into and the path they will take. But the peasants have rebelled enough times, and chopped off enough rich heads, that they are now told they can be whatever the like and whatever they can achieve.
Given the power imbalance, ninety some percent will still end up as what basically amounts to peasants. And this is required for the system to function. So how do you turn children into Peasants, while convincing their parents that you're giving them a sporting chance? Of you're part of the rich and beautiful; how do you convince the poor to do your labour and fight your wars, and do so without dragging you to the guillotine?
If your rich and beautiful of Prussia, you invent the modern compulsory school system for purpose of turning your peasants into loyal soldiers and obedient workers (this is why kindergarten is named using the German word for child garden). The purpose of the schooling is the format of the schooling itself. The bells and coffee breaks, the changing shifts, and the adherence to authority and the submission to outside testing; these are the real curriculum. But what then should the would be workers and soldiers be taught in the official curriculum, if said curriculum is purely a show designed to keep the adult peasants from rising up in rebellion?
Teach them to memorize jeopardy trivia. Teach them to answer game show questions during the time when they would previously have learned to be a hunter and a warrior. Teach them to answer pointless questions for authority figures on command when the could have been learning how to live free and walk away. Teach them skills thst only work in the class room and instincts that leave them only prepared for life as a wage slave.
Alex, I'll take Capitalist Shell Game for 600.
Life is short
Work is crap
Join my cult
I don't like April Fools Day. So I leave it to you to find the trick here.
People seem to have trouble differentiating between the doctrines of a religion and actions of individuals practising a particular religion. People who espouse membership and adherence to a religion are rarely universal in their adherence. We see consumption of alcohol amongst Muslims and Consumption of bacon matzo balls by Jews and Christians wearing tattoos. It might be tempting to dismiss such people as not belonging to the religions they espouse.
And yet. The modern practitioner of Christianity or Islam or Judaism looks very little like practitioners of one hundred years ago, to say nothing of the practitioners of these religions from earlier eras.
But a religion is changed by the actions of it's practitioners. As groups drift apart in their method of adherence, new religious sects form from the difference in application of these religious doctrines.
So it is ridiculous to talk about a religion of peace or a religion of war or a religion of any other ideology. Because a religion is nothing but the actions of the religion's practitioners.
It is not incorrect to say that none of the people who today identify as Christians practise the same religion as those who identified as Christians one thousand years prior.
So there you have it. Religions are incredibly fragile but incredibly hard to kill. Because religions love in the human mind and reproduce when passed on to another person. But when passed, the old religion stays in the mind that holds it. The new practitioner now hosts the son or daughter of the original practitioner's religion.
Religion is dead. Long live religion.
Why is this? Why is religion so malleable? Why is religion so resilient and unkillable? Why does religion breed like rabbits and survive like a cockroach?
Because religion is a child of human mind. Because religion is a child built from the needs of the human mind and the history of human evolution. And the human mind keeps going back to religion and keeps reshaping it to suit the needs of the human mind at a given moment in time.
We can't escape religion because it is both a child of and a parasite within our own minds. And so it seems we are destined to give birth to our own religion and let it feed off our own minds. So, if this is the case, you better raise that child right and train it up to serve your needs rather than the needs of some half baked would ve prophet or the needs of some long dead bronze age king.
It's your life. It's your mind. It's your choice. But realize that if you are accepting another's religion as your starting point, you have their ideology to sort through and their intent to overcome. It's the ultimate test and the prize is your mind.
Life is short.
Work is crap.
Join my cult.
