Mark Torres14 said:"Paul, a young baboon, stepped up to watch Mel, an adult female, as she dug through the hard, dry earth looking for rhizomes to eat. Paul looked around; the rest of the troop was nowhere to be seen in the rolling grasslands, though they couldn't have been far. Then, he let out a loud scream—something baboons usually only do when they're in real trouble. Within seconds, Paul's mother, who's Mel's superior, came charging in, chased her off, and both of them cleared out. Paul just wandered forward and started snacking on the rhizome himself."
Richard Leakey and Roger Laven - Rethinking Origins - Man's Search for Meaning - p. 246 Penguin Random House 2005.
It’s pretty clear that in this case, we're looking at a very "sophisticated" bit of deception, even by a baboon's standards. So, what defines a "deception" to you? And how much weight do you give its role in the evolution of human consciousness?
Here’s my take on it... The core engine behind human progress is Interest. I'm not talking about some rigid theorem—some people get way too fanatical about those—but rather a heuristic. Basically, if you look at the stats, there's a massive deviation here; we're talking a majority of the population, easily over 90%, who weigh every single move they make against their own self-interest. 😬
So, for that vast majority to turn that interest into something tangible—you know, cold hard cash—they have to engage in marketing. They have to package themselves and their skills to sell them on the open market... just so the whole system of retail can actually function! 👍
And let's be real: retail is just a legalized scam. It's a deception backed by the law and protected by the state. 😍
I'll leave you to draw your own conclusions based on my philosophy. 🙂
Yeah, exactly... but I don't know, I just see this invisible force as something totally overwhelming. Like, if something is actually gonna happen, it’s just gonna happen, regardless of how much we wish it wouldn't. You could spend your whole life being super careful, you know? Like, avoiding all that junk food, staying away from carcinogens, doing everything by the book... and then one day you're just walking down a street in Chicago or something, and some random guy just comes out of nowhere and takes you out. It's heavy. You could have spent your entire existence fighting every single battle just to have it all wiped out in a second. Maybe it sounds a bit bleak, and I'm not saying we should just roll over and let life happen to us, but from that perspective... man, it kind of feels like it's all for nothing. Just an uphill battle against something way bigger than us.
midsummer, The ONLY thing that's actually mandatory is dying! Everything else is just calculating your odds within Space and Time—trying to minimize those losses while chasing gains... and I'm talking about the universal definitions of "win" or "loss." 😬
(Excerpt from the Bible of survival for the Siberian Wild Mackentine) 🙂
Rebecca Morris2 said:Is it, like, totally crazy to look at life as this constant battle against fate? You know, like we're just playing out some script that's already been written? No matter how hard you grind, things don't always go your way, but there’s always that feeling like... I don't know, "if this hadn't happened, then *that* wouldn't have happened," right? So I end up spiraling into this whole apocalyptic thought process where I'm wondering what I'm even fighting for. But then again, maybe fate is just us sitting on the couch, waiting for life to happen to us? Like, just idling? What do you guys think about all this? Do you actually feel that invisible force pulling your strings through life—guiding you toward some ultimate goal that makes zero sense while it's happening, but somehow works out in the end?!
Yeah, I definitely feel it. And I let my gut lead the way. That doesn't mean I'm just sitting on my couch waiting for a meteor to hit me in the face, though. I play these weird, complicated little games with life that most people wouldn't understand if I tried to explain them... 😬
Everything is set in stone, unless we decide to change our own Destiny...
And honestly, you need (and only have) that invisible force to make that happen... 👍
urbantiger40 said:Good grief, is that really the extent of your reach? I’m certainly not the man to be lecturing you. You and redtinker36 are both reaching out blindly here; you lack any real grasp of the situation, yet you carry yourselves with the unearned confidence of experts. You've merely taken a few basic observations—the kind an average person could stumble upon by simply turning on the evening news and engaging their brain for a few minutes a day—and dressed them up in pseudo-intellectual finery. After five days of watching the news, you think you've mastered the universe. While what you say might technically hold a grain of truth, there is a vast ocean of complexity behind it that you are likely blind to. Capital functions effectively for a multitude of reasons, just as it remains constrained by a multitude of others. But let's not pretend to play at being Marxist; the man explained things quite well enough. He just didn't mention that for most capitalists, capital serves as a *spiritus movens*—a second-order creative act intended to prove one's existence to others. That isn't particularly natural behavior, considering we are a massive collective. A crowd can be managed much more efficiently than a collection of egos. What value do those millions hold if they are extracted from the backs of others, only for someone to desecrate your grave once you're gone, regardless of all your lofty rhetoric about social utility? Truly decent capitalists strive to give back nearly as much as they take from the Workers who sustain them. Not all capitalists are cut from the same cloth; there are the brilliant ones and the fools. Capitalism requires oversight. Who provides it? The government? Of course it does. Look at what the Obama administration has done. Where are some of the largest American speculators now? Are they living modestly, contributing to society, or behaving in a way that aligns with the interests of their own nation and the fragile global free-market schemes? No, they've overplayed their hand. Today, the concept of a "free market" feels like a chaotic mess where nobody knows which way is up. In this scenario, the state is the one left feeling bewildered. Obama provided a roadmap for how things should be handled. Even the Scandinavians serve as excellent models—honestly, they're even better than Americans. Or perhaps you're just another parasite riding on the coattails of others? What exactly is your contribution to the philosophy of humanity? Go ahead, play Monopoly until the bigger fish decide to swallow you whole.
urbantiger40,😂😂☕
Even if Alvin and I were on the same page and shared similar views... he’s working from a perspective built on decades of data analysis. I’m working from a different, more practical plane. It isn't about theory; it's about my actual life experiences traveling across this Little Ball. That's just how my non-linear life turned out...
Whether we actually know what we're doing or not? I'll let the readers decide that for themselves. A hundred people, three hundred wonders, whatever. 🤷
urbantiger40 said:Good grief, is that really the extent of your reach? I’m certainly not the man to be lecturing you. You and redtinker36 are both reaching out blindly here; you lack any real grasp of the situation, yet you carry yourselves with the unearned confidence of experts. You've merely taken a few basic observations—the kind an average person could stumble upon by simply turning on the evening news and engaging their brain for a few minutes a day—and dressed them up in pseudo-intellectual finery. After five days of watching the news, you think you've mastered the universe. While what you say might technically hold a grain of truth, there is a vast ocean of complexity behind it that you are likely blind to. Capital functions effectively for a multitude of reasons, just as it remains constrained by a multitude of others. But let's not pretend to play at being Marxist; the man explained things quite well enough. He just didn't mention that for most capitalists, capital serves as a *spiritus movens*—a second-order creative act intended to prove one's existence to others. That isn't particularly natural behavior, considering we are a massive collective. A crowd can be managed much more efficiently than a collection of egos. What value do those millions hold if they are extracted from the backs of others, only for someone to desecrate your grave once you're gone, regardless of all your lofty rhetoric about social utility? Truly decent capitalists strive to give back nearly as much as they take from the Workers who sustain them. Not all capitalists are cut from the same cloth; there are the brilliant ones and the fools. Capitalism requires oversight. Who provides it? The government? Of course it does. Look at what the Obama administration has done. Where are some of the largest American speculators now? Are they living modestly, contributing to society, or behaving in a way that aligns with the interests of their own nation and the fragile global free-market schemes? No, they've overplayed their hand. Today, the concept of a "free market" feels like a chaotic mess where nobody knows which way is up. In this scenario, the state is the one left feeling bewildered. Obama provided a roadmap for how things should be handled. Even the Scandinavians serve as excellent models—honestly, they're even better than Americans. Or perhaps you're just another parasite riding on the coattails of others? What exactly is your contribution to the philosophy of humanity? Go ahead, play Monopoly until the bigger fish decide to swallow you whole.
urbantiger40,😂😂☕
I'm not interested in "fixing" things. I write honestly, straight from the gut. But I am interested in looking past the social structures—the syntax of modern society—to find the core meaning underneath. I'll do that as long as I can.😬
Flip it, turn it around—redtinker36 is right here. You sound more like a sister than a brother to me, even if you claim otherwise. 😉
Individuality usually loses in this brutal world where capitalists and oligarchs pull all the strings. They hold the cash, so they drive the agenda. Interest is just a vector shifting toward whatever power or influence is fighting hardest for profit—across space and, more importantly, through time. 😬
Us regular folks in the neighborhood don't have many choices. There’s the "syntactic" way—just blending in. That means becoming just another cog in the capitalist machine, bowing to the bosses and playing nice just so we don't lose the jobs we worked so hard to get.
Then there’s the "semantic" way. That’s being strong and actually standing by your principles and ideas. But just like the first approach, this one costs the owner dearly. Way more than the first. People who take this path have to know way more than the average person. They have to navigate the realm of Knowledge and, just as crucially, the realm of Feeling. 😍
The first way doesn't take much effort, but it requires selling your strength and skills to the capitalists. It’s a delicate balancing act—trying to stay afloat while managing your life just enough to stay secure within your limited reach (especially since there are twenty other people waiting to snatch your job). It also requires knowing exactly how to play the social game in the neighborhood to stay politically correct.
The second way? That takes massive amounts of Worker effort. Constant learning, expanding your mind, working for the capitalists, but mostly working on yourself. It's about growing your vision from the narrow confines of a job to understanding your own "Self" and how it connects to the community, then out toward the Universe itself—for as long as a person can grasp and answer those unanswerable questions. You have to do all this just to stay agile and avoid the traps set by big players who love to own people like that.
Wars aren't caused by some random rage, hatred, or madness from people in power. They are the result of crises manufactured to cover up the massive holes left by free capital. These interests rake in huge profits, then create these black holes through ruthless economic exploitation (think of those tragic moments when an entire production system collapses, like what happened back in America). The state itself triggers these things because it *has* to regulate those errors, but the very policies of the state are shaped by those same capitalists, who twist everything to suit their own ends. 😬
Capitalists aren't the ones driving production; they are the ones driving the manipulation of it. Even if it sounds crazy, Wall Street CREATES the foundations of production because that's where the massive flows of banking capital are formed and directed.
Don't get mad, facialis... Just pick up a good game and play. It's a little more complex than "Don't Get Mad, Man"—it's called Monopoly. 🙄
alim As it were said by urbantiger40: If we’re being honest, one could argue that Jesus wouldn't have even come close to being a fully realized personality.
I find myself returning to the idea that Marxism is fundamentally anchored in the concept of labor. It isn't just some abstract theory floating in the ether; rather, it offers a way to interpret our social dynamics and the very essence of being human by starting from one specific, undeniable point: an individual's position within the process of work. It doesn’t necessarily have to be an immediate confrontation, nor is it always intended to be. After all, a capitalist might find themselves deeply questioning the standing and the influence of their class enemy, perhaps more often than they care to admit. I am convinced that the most profound intellectual breakthroughs emerge from this very friction—this constant, grinding interplay of opposing forces. Yet, even amidst such ideological turbulence, we must remember that labor remains the fundamental point of departure for everything else. The entire modern world we inhabit today essentially rests upon a single, fundamental premise: that individuals are defined solely by their position within the grand machinery of existence. We find ourselves being shaped and molded by our specific roles in this relentless, chaotic whirlwind of activity—a constant surge of events driven entirely by the collective momentum of human agency.
The Marxist interpretation of Jesus simply lacks any real foundation in his actual life and work; he exists entirely outside that materialist framework.
Now, let’s say we set that particular issue aside for a moment—let's pretend it isn't an obstacle at all. But if we pivot our focus and take a look at something else entirely...
If we take a moment to look at this from a purely philosophical standpoint, one might argue that Jesus doesn't represent a complete, singular persona, but rather exists as a fragmented identity—essentially, only half of a personality.
Well, we find ourselves in quite a curious predicament now, don't we? It’s a fascinating situation to dissect, really, because we are witnessing a man being systematically stripped of his very identity—and I don't mean his athletic credentials, though those are certainly being targeted. No, this goes much deeper than that. We are watching someone have half of his essence erased, not through any physical means, but through purely ideological ones.
The half that was left to him... oh, good heavens, it’s simply a matter of grace. It is as if you were to strike him with a stone, yet he responds by offering you his very bread.
The other half—the part that’s been systematically erased from our conversation—is pure anarchy. Or perhaps it’s just radical individualism. It’s that space existing entirely outside the framework of the system, completely beyond the reach of any regime. You know that old saying about giving to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God? Well, if you ask me, there’s a much more honest way to finish that thought: just tell them both to go jump in a lake. Why bother splitting your loyalty between two different masters when you can simply reject the whole rigged game?
His initial connection to his neighbors—that loose, half-hearted tie to the community—wasn't even enough to drive him toward any kind of moral compass or faith, mainly because he had zero respect for those people or the gods they worshipped. But then, once that entire social tether was completely severed, everything changed. From the wreckage of that lost connection, he emerged as something entirely different: a flawless, unwavering enforcer of the regime.
So... there you have it. His supposed capacity for love was effectively smothered by his own desperate need for autonomy, and the result? It transformed what could have been a truly great man into nothing more than a complete and utter coward. It feels like a relentless parade of cowards, a continuous stream of spineless actors performing for every single neighborhood that’s crossed their path over the last two millennia.
... just to wrap things up ... one last thing ...
I want to take this opportunity to offer a sincere apology to a real man. For far too long, I treated him with nothing but contempt and utter disrespect—not because he deserved it, but simply because that was the caricature everyone else forced upon me. I couldn't see the actual person standing there; I was too blinded by the sheer, infuriating nonsense being fed to me by others to ever bridge that gap and recognize his true character.
I’m taking this opportunity to declare a curse upon all that hollowed-out paradise—all those wasted heavens that, for God's sake, managed to manufacture nothing but a spineless coward, simply because they were too busy scavenging and crawling through the dirt just to scrape by. May all those people be damned—every single one of them—and may their very legacy be cursed along with them.
Good heavens, give me strength!
I find myself wondering: is my cat a Marxist? Based on your enthusiastic endorsement of a philosophy rooted in that forced phenomenon we call "labor," I’m going to have to disagree—my cat is definitely not a Marxist. I’m telling you, this guy is a more fervent Marxist than Marx, Engels, and Lenin could ever hope to be combined. As for all that other philosophical nonsense people like to peddle? I won't even dignify it with a mention; it simply isn't worth the breath. To suggest that Marxism was anything more than a mere fragment of a much larger, far more intricate intellectual tapestry is to fundamentally misunderstand the scope of the entire movement. In reality, what we often encounter as "Marxism" is nothing more than the tail end of a significantly more sophisticated and layered ideological structure. I’ve come to the conclusion that my cat is a textbook Marxist. He lives entirely off my labor and my bank account, yet in exchange, he offers nothing more than a bit of purring when I scratch his ears and the occasional demand that I drop everything to play with him. Honestly, though, I view this arrangement as an absolute win; the sheer relaxation he provides makes every cent spent on premium kibble feel like a righteous investment. It is, in its own way, a complete and perfect existence. As long as he maintains this particular brand of revolutionary indifference, I find him utterly charming—and I certainly have no intention of tossing him out onto the streets of Chicago to scavenge through trash cans just because he refuses to contribute to the GDP. Work isn't just some incidental part of life; it is a fundamental necessity that has been analyzed, dissected, and refined by more thinkers than perhaps any other concept in human history. Labor is a deeply complex phenomenon, one that is inextricably woven into the very fabric of our existence and our relationship with both the world around us and the universe at large. To attempt to build an entire philosophy centered solely on labor as a prerequisite for existence is, quite frankly, rather foolish. More than that, history warns us that such a narrow view is dangerous. Marxism essentially reduced the human being to nothing more than a cog in a machine—a worker bee in a hive—stripping away every ounce of spiritual value and devaluing the essence of humanity by insisting that meaning can only be found through toil and through work alone. It is sheer absurdity. And why should I even bother explaining myself? You clearly haven't the slightest clue who Jesus was. Yet, you pose the question of whether he was a Marxist, offering the conclusion that under the lens of Marxism, Jesus wouldn't be considered a "complete" individual. Well then, shall we see? Jesus actually worked; he spent his days in the carpentry shop of his father—or rather, his stepfather, Joseph. It stands to reason that once he began preaching his teachings, he could no longer simply be a carpenter. It’s as plain as day: one cannot occupy two roles simultaneously in such a way. Thus, Jesus transitioned from a laborer to perhaps the greatest philosopher the world has ever witnessed. Why? Because he preached love. Any self-proclaimed philosopher who fails to preach love is nothing more than a fool—not a thinker, but a charlatan who merely strokes his own ego with grand words while manipulating and bewildering everyone else. As a philosopher, a prophet, and the Son of God, Jesus spoke his truth—distinct from those later additions woven into history, which were nonetheless divine truths, serving as a blueprint for how we mere mortals, living as the sons and daughters of God, ought to conduct ourselves. He spoke precisely what Marxism lacked. In fact, Marxism collapsed because it neglected, or perhaps outright despised, the spiritual dimension of the human being. It committed a terrible sin by dividing people into those who believe and those who do not, acting as if believers were always nothing more than mindless, manipulated cattle. That is where Marxism failed miserably and fell into the gutter. That was its undoing. It was a beautiful half-dream, a half-philosophy that millions of disenfranchised souls attempted to dream in all the wrong ways. Ultimately, the end was inevitable because Marxism, as a philosophy, was never as just as it ought to have been. The masters of Marxism infused practical Marxism with such lethal paranoia, jealousy, egoism, and contempt for the human spirit that it became truly staggering. Stalin took this to the level of absolute absurdity and atrocity. Marxism itself wasn't inherently evil, but it was incomplete and bizarrely foolish because it failed to integrate the spiritual aspect of humanity into its framework. Consequently, it could never function as a truly just philosophy. What we ended up with was a "Red Bourgeoisie" that dismantled everything positive originally contained within Marxist thought. Nevertheless, Marxism contributed immensely to the defeat of history's greatest darkness, even while becoming somewhat dark itself—darker, at least, to many who actually believed in it. They lost their heads to arrogant, envious power brokers at every level, or they ended up in prisons where the cruelty of Marxism as a philosophy was on full display. Therefore, Jesus Christ was a Marxist in the fullest sense of the word. Throughout his life, he had callouses on his hands from working wood, yet he possessed a divinely brilliant mind and a heart overflowing with love for all living things. This is the only recipe through which a human can approach their true purpose: through labor—which is a necessity that, in its desperation, forces a man to confront his lack of freedom and compels him to reflect on his own heart and the very purpose of existence while he is still alive. One must overcome the egoism imposed upon us by biology and the stupidity born of laziness in learning and thinking. The meaning of existence for the vast majority of human beings lies, and can only lie, in community. This is the nature of the divine; it is one of the fundamental attributes of the divine. The universe is a community functioning according to six constants, and we deduce our own intelligence and capability based on the results we observe. The human race is a microcosm of the universe, and the recipe for its existence should be community—the fairest possible path: love and understanding. Unfortunately, there are plenty of malicious vermin out there who, in their malice, aren't particularly bright either. Eventually, they settle their anxieties and madness through bloody periodic purges, or they introduce decadence into society in other ways, only to find that the biological force of good—God willing—always catches up with them in the end. It has always been this way throughout history, and it will remain so. In the meantime, let the average consciousness grow and grow and grow. Perhaps then, as a species, we might inherit the attributes of the living God. So, all my best to Jesus. The greatest hyper-Marxist to ever exist, and ever to exist.
urbantiger40,
Hand on heart, this sounds exactly like the perfect description of Geppetto and what he used to make Pinocchio.
Looking at the bigger picture, I feel like "love for all living things" is such a relative concept... Even if we define Christ as the absolute standard for Love. 🤷
The issue is that we aren't living in those other times when Marx was actually around. Back then, industrialization was just getting off the ground. He identified the laws of the classic, ravenous market and built his theory of work based on what was happening right then. 😍
In today's world, Marxist theory doesn't hold up quite as well. Expansion has hit a wall. Markets are totally oversaturated with everything under the sun; you can't pull an old stunt like selling camels to Eskimos or white bears to Bedouins anymore... 😬
In an environment like this, where you can find absolutely anything for a few bucks—from a sewing needle to the sum of all human knowledge—human work gets devalued in this brutal struggle to just survive. The simpler or more obvious the task is (like working an assembly line at a Ford plant), the more insignificant that labor becomes. Once you’re kicked out of the process, you're stuck dreaming about getting back into that factory, unless you have some connections or know the right insiders.
It's a winner-take-all game. The winner grabs the job, while the second and third place finishers walk away with nothing but "participation trophies" and the hope that they'll be "in" someday. Everyone else? They just stay within the realm of theory... which might be true, but doesn't necessarily mean anything! 🙄
Harold Robinson2 said:So, besides China, Russia and Brazil all stepped up with $10 billion each to buy those IMF bonds. That should pretty much wrap up the first $70 billion offering. I guess China, Russia, and Brazil are just trying to push back against the dollar's dominance and maybe grab some more weight in the global economy.
The Fed is making some big moves. I guess they’re looking at those inflation numbers again. It feels like everything is shifting so fast lately. Maybe the economy is finally cooling down, or maybe we're just seeing more volatility. Hard to say for sure. Just watching the markets closely. The IMF's recent announcement about issuing bonds for the first time in its 60-year history basically flew under the radar of the major news outlets. I guess it's pretty obvious why. According to their own update, they're making a desperate play to scrape together cash that everyone promised months ago but nobody actually sent. They're aiming for $500 billion by using bonds to recapitalize themselves based on market principles—kind of like how a country would do it. It seems like ever since this crisis kicked off, everyone's been passing the buck, leaving this dying IMF to deal with the massive funding needs of struggling global economies. But, honestly, hardly anyone has actually coughed up the money they pledged. So, this move makes sense, I suppose. Instead of waiting on those usual membership dues, they're just heading straight to the open markets to find people who will actually pay up.
They aren't missing, honestly. A hierarchy formed almost immediately, with the developing economies—that BRIC group you should probably keep an eye on since they'll be huge in the coming years—taking the lead. This whole situation pretty much proves that. China, Russia, and Brazil are already eyeing those $70 billion in notes from the bond sale. I guess China would grab about $50 billion of that, given their financial weight, while Russia and Brazil might start a bit smaller, maybe $10 billion each. These IMF debtors would have five years to pay it back. India and Mexico are likely in the mix too, and the list will probably grow. It feels like a massive turning point on several levels. Maybe that's why the global media hasn't really picked up on it... it's hard to wrap your head around why they're ignoring this.
Looking for a new currency.
So, first off, this is basically the first time developing nations have actually donated to the IMF. Usually, it’s the other way around, right? That alone feels like a pretty big sign. The world is clearly shifting... I guess since the wealthy countries are struggling to even fund themselves, these supposedly poorer nations are just throwing billions on the table without much hesitation. Not that it's unheard of, really. Just another sign of how messy things are getting. But there's something else about this donation that sticks out. A while back, the governor of China's central bank—just casually, mind you—suggested maybe the dollar isn't the best global currency anymore and we should look at other options. It felt like he was just testing the waters, like his ideas wouldn't actually go anywhere. But honestly, making a claim like that today carries way more weight than it would have a year ago. And he's not backing down, either. Just a few days ago, the central bank in China pushed for a new global currency again. The guy's got a pretty straightforward idea: just expand the role of Special Drawing Rights. You know, that IMF accounting unit based on an average of the four big ones—the yen, pound, dollar, and euro. I mean, nobody is actually ready to talk about dethroning the dollar yet, but people are realizing that developing countries are sitting on massive foreign exchange reserves. China has the biggest pile in the world, after all. So, whether the rich countries like it or not, they're probably going to start diversifying into other currencies soon. Maybe.
Breaking in through the window.
There it is. The smoking gun. These bonds that China, Russia, and Brazil are going to dump money into will be priced in SDRs. It makes that whole accounting unit actually matter, giving developing nations way more leverage than they currently have in the IMF's portfolio. It’s like that old saying—if they won't let you through the front door, you just climb in through the window. And that's exactly what the BRIC nations are doing. Maybe it's just a small move for the IMF, but it feels like a huge step for the BRIC bloc. They're slowly hitting their marks, chipping away at the dollar's dominance, and building up their own financial muscle. It all seems aimed at cutting down their reliance on the US economy, which, honestly, hasn't been looking too reliable lately.
- This is a win for the BRIC nations, especially China - said Claudio Loser, who used to run things at the IMF for the Western Hemisphere. - Basically, by putting money into the fund, they get a much bigger say in how it’s run than their actual shares would usually allow.
China is already moving on this, just slow and steady, following their own playbook. Back in April, they cut their dollar-denominated holdings by $4.4 billion. I mean, it's a drop in the bucket, really, but maybe it's a sign of things to come. On the flip side, the US doesn't have much of a choice, since they've decided to fund their way out of the crisis by taking on more debt—debt that China is mostly footing the bill for.
They're looking at what developed nations did, I guess.
For now, though, the dollar is still king. It makes up about 64 percent of global reserves held by central banks, which is down from 73 percent back in 2001. Of course, the finance ministers from Russia and Brazil were quick to say that their recent moves—cutting dollar holdings and buying SDRs—aren't some big plot to topple the dollar. But then again, just a few weeks ago, their bosses were calling for SDRs to be given more weight, using more currencies like the Chinese yuan, and diversifying global reserves.
Then in May, China and Brazil started looking into using their own currencies for trade instead of the dollar. There are just... more red flags popping up. Not that it matters much, but it's worth noting how different economies are acting now. To paraphrase George Orwell, everyone gets hit, just not all equally. The absurdity of it is that everything stays the same, just with different players. Like, under the guise of helping the IMF help developing countries, the Chinese, Russians, Indians, Brazilians, and others are actually just helping themselves. Just like the developed nations used to do.
Great topic... It’s been bothering me for a long time how the USA just does whatever it wants. They export massive amounts of USD into the world without any real control, basically trading it for oil and cheap manufacturing to fuel our mass consumer culture. What really gets me is that those same dollars held by China, Brazil, Japan, and Russia can't even be used to buy up American companies right here at home. Or even used to generate interest rates that are at least 2% higher than local growth rates—which would actually help those economies grow through a positive feedback loop.😬
So, what's the play? It makes total sense for China to swap those massive piles of USD for other types of bonds (backed by actual assets). Why? Because the US mostly relies on devaluation—basically printing more money without any backing to bail itself out—which eats away at Chinese reserves. This effectively forces the Chinese (and by extension, Japan, Russia, and Brazil) to pay for the USA to dig itself out of trillion-dollar holes. 🙄
It isn't exactly a secret that China has started its own version of a bailout. They're pouring nearly $600 billion into massive infrastructure projects—bridges, highways, schools, hospitals—to make the most of the dollar's value before it eventually erodes in the 😍Future of the East.
redtinker36 said:.. Is it possible that the Libyan forces didn't actually shoot down the plane near Benghazi... and that Gaddafi ended up admitting it himself?
.. You aren't the master of your own truth—nor is truth your master—but rather, you are simply a servant to your own master.. Find out who you're actually serving, and you'll realize why you lie..
.. The true witnesses haven't stepped forward yet.. They are people of great faith..
.. When I choose to sit down and talk with someone.. it's because I believe the truth is just beneath their surface consciousness—or perhaps even beyond it—and that they have the capacity to reach it.. .. It’s often buried so deep in the subconscious.. that a person would be willing to face Death long before they'd ever descend that far to find it.. .. Which makes the very idea of a conversation seem a bit foolish..
Find the (INTEREST) you serve... and you'll find the reason you lie.
Brenda Cook4 said:I see you’ve identified lying as a major friction point here (and honestly, I think you're right to call it out)... it's such a massive roadblock in any conversation. What’s your take on why people feel the need to lie in the first place?
To run away from the Truth... To run away from Death... But will they actually make it? 🤷
Satan is coming with a vengeance... He’s unleashed his Army of Darkness across the Earth. They’re clashing, tearing each other apart, and destroying Demonic soldiers along the way—but the last bits of Light left are getting caught in the crossfire...
Satan doesn't care about losing his soldiers from Hell while they fight under various Dark commanders gathered around the Pentagon table (Pentagram demon), where Satan's throne sits right at the center... All he cares about is establishing a Land of eternal darkness on Earth. That way, under his shadow, Satan can recruit followers in both Life and death...
Fighting against Demonic power is pointless. The only thing that actually matters is preserving the Light on the Earth globe... And you can't do that by fighting Darkness. You have to move toward the Light and follow the rays that bring Enlightenment from the Source of life...
The road to Enlightenment is long... and there are Demons everywhere on Earth. This world has been offering lies as a solution, using them as a paradigm for Survival...
Maybe the second coming of Jesus of Nazareth will change the World... but the World just isn't ready for that yet.
Our thoughts are basically just a collection of prepackaged convictions and unwritten social rules we’re forced to follow... If we actually want to change the world, we have to shift the entire way we think... We need to break free from the beliefs society has been shoving down our throats since the day we were born.
Honestly, that sounds nearly impossible to me. Those boundaries are baked right into who we are as people... Stepping outside of them feels like death... Or maybe, if you're lucky, it's a new kind of life.
Times have changed so much that even parents don't recognize their own kids anymore, and siblings are turning on each other... It feels like everyone just bows down to His Highness's interests now...
How do you even wrap your head around this? You see some kid get slapped with five years in prison just for breaking into a gas station and causing a few thousand bucks in damage, while the CEOs who tanked entire corporations—bleeding out $100 billion in losses—just walk away with "golden parachute" retirement packages worth tens of millions.
Death stalks the world, alongside a moral Moratorium... How can we expect people to act with any sense of integrity when Zika becomes more insatiable and greedy by the day? 😲
The answer to all of that is pretty simple... Humans are social creatures by nature. At the end of the day, we need each other—we need our neighbors! 🙂
Becoming a Man isn't some fixed thing. It really depends on your Neighbors and all the lies they tell. So much of it comes down to the neighborhood you grew up in, how you deal with those old-timers, whether you’ve managed to get closer to God, and if you actually use your intuition to figure out who you and everyone else truly are. I mean, is that gut feeling actually yours, or just a bunch of leftover emotions and social ties from the people next door?
Some people, as they grow into being a Man, find themselves drifting toward Death, while others move closer to Life because they finally understood Zeke's positions.
All of those scenarios are Truths, but they're also Lies...
That’s exactly where the Essence of Life and Death lies. Truth is Death, and Life is a Lie. Once you finally reach the Essence, you've reached the Truth. You've reached Death.
People who follow Zika don't actually want the Truth. They just want lies. They need a crowd of weak individuals they can herd together using deception to serve their own agendas. These leaders claim they’re the only ones who hold the real Truth, but that's just a setup. They use those truths as tools to manipulate everyone for their own gain.
Real Truth isn't about getting something out of it; it’s about reaching Enlightenment. It's that path toward Enlightenment that the Zika crowd tries so hard to hide from everyone else—those of us who actually live by the rules of the material world.
The whole damn society is rigged. It's set up specifically to bury a mountain of lies that control everything we do. Background. The world, basically, just so you can... Publicly. The world is being tricked by people masking their intentions with "good vibes" and laws that preach equality for everyone—except for God. You see these same types of Zika figures drafting democratic legislation that looks fair on paper, but they’re playing a dangerous game. They position themselves above the very rules they write, acting like they aren't subject to the laws meant to govern human society. It's pure hypocrisy.
Only God has a true sense of things. The people who try to act like they're on that level—usually by hiding behind the "democratic" facade of everyone else fighting just to survive—are the ones with all the money. They take that sheer volume of wealth and turn it into a kind of twisted Idealism. It’s all built on the raw power their bank accounts provide.
To defy the Gods is to seek The Way to Man. To defy Zika is to seek Death.
The Way of Truth isn't found by just rejecting what's already here. It’s about finding an alternative—an alternative way to tap into our Sense. To me, the Way of Truth is really just the Way of Approaching God.
Death is just what happens to Consciousness naturally once you pass through the Great Wall...
We’re built to deny our own existence, drifting from that first burst of Light back toward the inevitable darkness we originally emerged from. Our fate was written eons ago, millions of years before us, in the very records of the beginning of the Universe...
I truly believe fate continues through reincarnation, etched into the many dimensions where the Cosmos itself bends... right?
Human life is designed with an expiration date; it all depends on the specific context we find ourselves in.
Only God is eternal—assuming eternity can even be measured against the boundaries of a Cosmos defined by Chaos theory.
Jeremy Alvarez5 said:Alright, here we go. This thread is basically about the intersection of mental illness and religion—so half psychology, half theology. I guess I wonder if any actual scientists have ever dared to dig into whether specific types of mental disorders correlate with specific religions. Like, has anyone actually published data showing that a certain percentage of people with a particular condition belong to a certain faith?
It seems pretty clear that religion can be a really effective tool when helping people recover from addiction. You see it in those communities where they combine intense physical labor with prayer and deep religious conviction...
I’m honestly fascinated by this whole topic. I’d be super grateful for any thoughts you guys have, or even just some links or book recommendations if you know of anything good out there.
So, looking at Carl Gustav Jung, born in 1875, who went to boarding school in San Francisco, studied medicine, worked at a psychiatric hospital, taught at a university, and ran his own private practice. He had that whole complicated relationship with Sigmund Freud 🙂, developed his theories on personality, traveled around studying the traditions, history, and rituals of various tribes across Africa, the Americas, and India. He wrote about twenty books, including "Answer to job" [referring to the biblical figure, not a career job], and passed away in 1961. Interestingly, once he hit his 80s, he started working with a biographer who mentioned in her preface that he truly believed religious conviction plays a vital role in treating mental illness.
That leads me to my big question: if faith is so crucial for healing, could it also be a deciding factor in how these conditions develop in the first place?
Three, two, one... let's hear it!
PS
Since Jeremy Alvarez5 managed to kick off that discussion on suicide over in the philosophy section, which naturally flowed into spirituality and psychology, I was thinking it would be cool if this thread eventually made its way over there too. Ideally, I'd love to see this become a sort of grand tour through philosophy, religion, and spirituality—maybe even ending up in the history section down the road. Personally, I jump between all those subforums, but since some of the most interesting people I talk to here only tend to post where they feel most comfortable 🙂, maybe the mods could encourage them more? Maybe give them more space to speak up, share photos, or even memes and debates 😢. That way, I won't have to feel like a nuisance by reposting the same topic across every single board under different titles and trying to twist things to suit my own agenda, which—if I'm being honest—is something I tend to do. 🙂 Cheers to the hardworking moderators. 🙏 😍
I’m actually interested in the exact opposite: the link between specific mental illnesses and specific religions when it comes to negative impacts—how religion might actually worsen or trigger certain psychological conditions...
For instance, look at Jihad. Specifically, the suicide bomber aspect. You can't call those people "normal." Is that just extreme religious indoctrination, or does it count as a genuine psychological distortion? 🤷
Dana Stewart6 said:So, here’s the situation: I’ve been in a relationship for eight years now, and for the last nine months, we’ve been living together. The core issue is this—my partner is ready to have a child, but I am completely at a loss regarding my own desires. To be honest, I am terrified of having a kid and the massive weight of responsibility that comes with parenthood. In fact, the fear is so intense that it makes me question if I even want children at all. We both just hit the thirty-year mark. I am truly at a standstill. I don't know what to think, what action to take, or how to navigate this dilemma. I can't even pinpoint where this overwhelming anxiety is coming from.
"Partner"??? After 8 years, that sounds incredibly distant. It’s like you signed a business contract instead of being in a life partnership.👎
You really need to dig deep and figure out why you're even in this relationship and if it actually works for you. Maybe the real issue isn't kids—maybe it's the fear of fully committing to this "partner" without even realizing it.