Posts by Thomas Nelson25

Mexico and Albania are both part of the travel equation here
for instance—Mexicans are obsessed with Albanians... and vice versa, though I can't really follow that side of things since I don't speak the language and don't have the intel.
Bottom line: it’s never a good vibe when you see Mexico ramping up its military gear.

cosmiclynx79 said:I outgrew that "I’m smarter than everyone else" phase a long time ago, and honestly, it’s a relief.

Sent from my iPhone 12 using Reddit

But for real though, people tell me all sorts of things... intelligence can be a pretty complicated thing. Then you've got education.
Same goes for IQ.

Obviously, there are exceptions to the rule.

Memorizing facts matters, sure—but actually thinking for yourself and coming up with new ideas? That’s where the real magic happens.
The dogmatic types usually can't handle stepping off the beaten path.

Ideals.

Then you hear people talk about having "character."
Integrity.
Being uncompromising.
Realness.

Yeah, for sure.

So, are we saying communists and anarchists are just infant neurotics? 😁

Hold up—is having actual ideals even a bad thing in today's world? (Though I’d probably call it weird or just a total outlier)

gentlerider7 said:At the end of the day, isn't it all just different ways that the "universal spirit" manifests itself?

Sure, if you want to look at it that way... but anyway—back to the main point from before.

What actually counts as civilized, though?

gentlerider7 said:But honestly, you see stuff like this even in societies people usually label as "uncivilized." If you listen to those primitivist types—and yeah, they've got their own logic—they’ll tell you the whole downward spiral actually started when civilization kicked in and wiped out that era of pure, natural innocence. But hey, that's a whole different rabbit hole we don't need to go down right now.

Yeah, that could definitely be a topic.

Native Americans?

The Chief and the wizard are debating this—but at the end of the day, myth (belief) drives behavior, or more specifically in this case, morality.

..
Back in the day, the church handled it (if you consider that "civilized"?), but now we just have our federal courts. Laws.

ruggedraven36 said:Obviously. Philosophy isn't just a byproduct of civilization—it's the foundation. Without it, we wouldn't even have a civilization to speak of.

Let's start with Plato.
Alright, fine, "truth-seeker."

gentlerider7 said:But come on, most societies in America can at least agree on the basics, can't they? Like, we generally all agree that things like robbery, murder, and total chaos are bad news.

That’s basically what civilization is built on.
Philosophers helped make that happen.

Sam Martinez9 said:To those who lived 500 or even 1,000 years ago—we are nothing more than a utopian dream.

Well, uh... we haven't actually built a "utopian" political system yet...

The extreme version is always a dystopia (the "utopia" trap)
A true utopia—if you think about it—requires centralized power. (Like the New World Order stuff). Of course, that brings up the whole issue of good intentions vs. total control... trying to stop things from sliding into a full-blown dystopia.

gentlerider7 said:Yeah, sure I have, but isn't that the whole point? In Star Trek, they just slap a shiny new piece of tech on every single problem and suddenly everything is fine, right?

Our whole civilization is heading right toward this—the next few decades are gonna be huge.
We just need massive amounts of clean energy and solid AI
Then we toss in transhumanism too. (Kind of like how they do it in Star Trek...all those implants that make life easier or give people extra abilities...I mean, the Borg are basically the extreme version of that)

Cheers to the future 👍

gentlerider7 said:So, if we’re looking at those gritty, soul-crushing jobs that nobody actually wants to touch—you know, the stuff like cleaning out sewers, hauling trash, or working deep in some dusty coal mine—how on earth would you handle them in some kind of perfect, imaginary system?

In Thomas Moore's version of Utopia, they’d basically just have criminals do all that dirty work (kind of like how things functioned in the USSR, where prisoners were stuck doing all the high-risk labor). Then again, there are always those weirdly optimistic people who argue there will always be someone out there perfectly happy to take on those kinds of roles.

I remember seeing this other thread about communal living, and people were saying that every single commune eventually falls apart because of these exact issues: like, who's actually going to cook the meals, and who's going to deal with the gross job of cleaning the bathrooms?

You seen it? Yeah, obviously—you've seen Star Trek.

Everything’s already dialed in—no need to waste any time.

We haven't even hit Type 1 civilization status yet... honestly.
Check out the thread below... Kardashev scale stuff.

Jerry Murphy3 said:There seem to be fewer of them every year. Ever since that massive retail boom back around 2003, people have become increasingly obsessed with material things. The older generation has passed on, and the new one hasn't really stepped up to fill the void. Everyone is just too caught up in the grind of making money, which doesn't exactly mesh well with a spiritual lifestyle. That said, I don't really run in artist circles, and I suspect there might be more meaningful connections to be found there.

I'd throw external memory and intelligence into the mix too, especially with smartphones.
People are basically glued to them 24/7 at this point.
It’s total cyborg territory—everyone just acting based on what an algorithm tells them to do. And honestly, the person on the other side of the screen? Even if they are human, nowadays they might as well be a bot.
That person is just as much under the machine's thumb.

All this is bound to lead to some weird side effects... we'll just have to wait and see.

Chris Williams said:One really ought to confront absolute solitude and whatever processes occur within us during that time.

Most people seem terrified of being alone because, to them, it feels synonymous with the suffering of loneliness. When there is no one else around, the mind tends to start dredging up all the mental refuse we have accumulated over the years. I suspect the mind doesn't truly exist; what we call the mind is merely a stream of thoughts composed of memories and fantasies.

These thoughts aren't actually ours. They belong to society. They are acquired—parasitic constructs born from social conditioning and sustained by our identification with them. This identification is what creates a personality.

When others are absent and the mind begins to fracture, it marks the beginning of the collapse of the personality, leaving us to face a revolting void. To move through that void, to enter that silence, is to cross a threshold; it is an initiation, a leap into the darkness, a plunge into the unknown. Death.

What actually occurs is quite beautiful, I guess. That death is the beginning of the birth of individuality, bliss, true happiness, and a sense of ease in existence.

I get it. You think maybe "normalcy" is actually dangerous? (At least for people with a soul.)

Anyway, speaking of being alone.

It can manifest as art, spirituality, or even religion—basically just ways to sublimate (you know, escape) normalcy.
Personally, I'm more into a sort of internal alchemy.

Chris Williams
What's this "certain threshold" thing supposed to mean?

It all comes down to who you’re vibing with. Honestly, having the right circle matters more than anything.
I'm kind of a loner and a creative type—I don't really need people around. I actually love my alone time.
Ever since I raised my standards for friendship—mostly from diving into spirituality and alchemy stuff—most people just ended up being acquaintances who don't really get me.
Etc.

An empty shelf (photo) is basically my philosophy—maybe there’s something tucked away behind the wardrobe? I guess you could call it my own little

Joseph Bailey41 said:I guess you could put it that way. We have Steiner's "Anthroposophy," but I'm not entirely sure where OTO fits in. I always pictured them belonging to a slightly later era, though I'm feeling a bit too lazy to go digging through history books right now to check the dates.

Those guys were started by the fantasists—basically the first New Agers in America.
Steiner's whole 'spiritual evolution theory' is pretty out there, kind of a tough one to wrap your head around.

Man, I'm struggling to come up with a cult idea here... 🙄

Paul Rogers94 said:...Maitreya🙂

Albert Karl Theodor Reuss brought Steiner into OTO; otherwise, Steiner was closely tied to the Dresden Order of Leopold Engel, which served as his primary foundation.

So, just different flavors of Theosophy?