Posts by rustymaker5

It strikes me that Truth is actually so incredibly straightforward that we end up overlooking it entirely because we're too busy getting lost in our own subjective little rabbit holes... and then we mistake those personal delusions for the actual Truth.
But honestly, the best part is that I don't think we're even that far off from the real thing—whether you capitalize it or not—and I really don't believe there’s such a thing as being "chosen" by the Truth, because whatever truth holds for us is, ultimately, our own Truth. And frankly, I highly doubt anything else even exists outside of that.

I’ve been doing a bit of deep diving on Google lately, trying to wrap my head around this whole tensegrity thing, but honestly... there are just zero good diagrams or visual guides for actual exercises out there, aside from one lonely little clip...
Is there any other kind of visual material out there where someone could actually figure out the movements on their own without having to drive all the way to a gym or something?

Mark Torres14 said:I was just trying to point out that honesty is way more complicated than it looks. It's tied directly to honor.
It’s funny how the American Mafia has its own codes of honor and integrity, yet they couldn't care less about anyone else's life. That's exactly why I find it hard to believe that honesty is something that just springs from within a person.

But look at it this way: if every single person, or at least most people, actually worked on their integrity, we wouldn't run into these situations in the first place. 🤷

That sounds like that old cliché: "If everyone just did their job properly, society wouldn't have crises and everything would work perfectly." Basically, a platitude.

But honestly, it’s precisely because so many people dismiss it as just some empty cliché that we find ourselves stuck in this mess in the first place. 🤷
Man, you really have to have some guts to just start acting right on your own, regardless of anyone else, and then deal with the heavier consequences if they come your way... without sitting around waiting for society to suddenly create this perfect little bubble where it's easy to be decent before you decide to step up. That’s what actual integrity looks like, both for yourself and for the people around you.
Because if you, me, him, her, and maybe ten other folks actually lived with some real honesty, then those last few holdouts would eventually see that it works—that life is actually better and easier that way. And then, it stops being a mere slogan and becomes a core value that everyone starts aiming for.
Nowadays, values are all warped; people end up valuing whatever they've been conditioned to prize by people who are far less honest than they are. But that isn't an excuse to sit on your hands instead of changing things, step by step, person by person, until you finally hit that critical mass that shifts the whole scale automatically. But damn, you're going to have to swallow some bitter pills along the way, because let's face it, the beginning is always the hardest part...

Mark Torres14 said:The point I was making wasn't even about that, but fine, let's play it your way.
Look at this scenario.

You're a prisoner in Auschwitz and one day they start selling everything off and announce, "We're executing every second person now." And... they start doing it. The line moves up, and you realize you're actually next in line to be shot instead of the guy standing right beside you. But then, the guard makes a mistake and pulls your buddy out of line instead.
Are you really going to step forward and tell that guard, "Hey, that's not fair, I'm actually the one supposed to die here."

You always have this need to pull out some extreme, edge-case scenario just to try and validate your point... 🙂
War, concentration camps, and things of that nature are such incredibly extreme, inhumane, and frankly nonsensical situations to force a human being into that it feels almost redundant to even discuss them... How could you even look for fairness in a place like that when you've been stripped down to nothing more than a desperate struggle for basic survival?!? (Though, even in those hellish circumstances, there are people who act out of a sense of integrity, even if their starting points are totally different, and in your specific example, it might look like this: if they skip over a father to call his son, that father would most likely point out that he should be the one taken instead just to save his kid, so they'd probably end up taking both of them. 🤷)
But if you look at it from another angle... if every single person, or even just the majority of people, actually lived by their principles, we wouldn't even be facing situations like that in the first place... 🤷

Mark Torres14 said:I’d argue the exact opposite.
This is pure philosophy. When we talk about honesty, we have to view it as some kind of "universal." Our current society is definitely not the best model to use if we want to have a deep philosophical debate about being honest.
To me, honesty means sticking to the rules of your society—whether they're written down or just unwritten customs. Psychologically, it’s easiest to be honest (or tell the truth, as Joshua tells the Master in Margaret), because you’ve got the weight of an entire society backing you up. But for a person to even have the chance to be honest, they have to exist within a functional society first. If a society values hard work, the laws will be built to protect everyone's labor, and anyone following those rules can call themselves honest. If a society rewards theft, then the system is rigged so that anyone who *doesn't* steal looks like the dishonest one.
Bottom line: in a society with realistic, enforceable rules, being honest is easy.
But in a society with unrealistic rules, or no rules at all, or zero enforcement (no matter why that is), being honest is damn near impossible.

I just can't get behind that. Honestly, God, if we follow that logic, it means there’s absolutely no hope left for integrity...😲

Integrity belongs to the individual, regardless of whatever mess they find themselves living in, and it’s the person alone who decides on it, not some vague concept of "society."
Take, for instance, a federal prosecutor who does a lousy job because the circumstances are what they are—maybe corruption is running rampant in Washington—and they tell themselves: "If I don't do it, someone else will," so they just sit there and do nothing. 🤷
That person made a choice not to be honest. Because if they truly were an honest person, they wouldn't stay in a position where they’re forced to act corruptly just to hold onto their title and their paycheck.
It makes you wonder how many brilliant, highly skilled, and expert people are kept away from the waters of politics simply because integrity prevents them from ever getting involved in the first place.
And as long as people keep waiting for society to become honest first before they feel they can behave honestly themselves, nothing is ever going to change...
Every single person individually needs to work on their own integrity, because that is the only way to build a society that actually values honesty and uses it as its foundation.

Sam Green73 said:The other day, someone actually said to me, "You know, sometimes it’s just easier to be honest—it takes way less effort," and I have to admit, it totally threw me for a loop.
I get the logic behind it; telling the truth is definitely simpler because you don't have to spend half your life playing mental gymnastics trying to remember which lie you told to whom.
But is "honesty" really that straightforward?
Is it truly just a simple thing?
Honestly, I don't think so.
To me, being an honest person isn't some innate quality you're just born with; it's more like a skill that you actually have to work at.
Think about little kids—they’ll happily grab a toy from someone else, but they find it incredibly hard to actually share one of their own. Parents have to step in and teach them how to act in a socially acceptable way.

I'm a firm believer that being honest pays off in the long run, but when you look at the short term, is being truthful always the easiest path?

p.s. I almost wrote this whole thing as a post about sincerity, but I realized those aren't quite the same thing.

Why wouldn't it be... honestly, if you value being able to actually sleep at night without some nagging guilt eating at you, or if you just want to be able to look at yourself in the mirror every morning without feeling like a total fraud... 🤷

Mark Torres14 said:

I don't know what you're trying to say. Get to the point. Mark Torres14 says:
Look, fraud is fundamentally wrong. It’s baked into our DNA—if that’s how you want to put it. Otherwise, the whole concept of cheating wouldn't even exist. 🤷 So you can't even talk about her outside of that? Fine.

And why exactly would it be a bad thing?
Maybe our sense of right and wrong is just something civilization cooked up, rather than some biological hardwiring. Or do you think there’s a universal truth to good and evil—this fundamental light versus dark—where certain things are just inherently one or the other?

They paint Robin Hood like this legendary hero who just happened to rob the rich, making him look like some kind of saint. Give me a break. Who else was he supposed to steal from? The poor? It’s a total scam. 🤷

Honestly, I’m more of a Superman guy.
At least he’s got style.😁

Distinguishing between good and non-good—or what you call evil—is essentially a prerequisite for free will. (Think back to the Biblical story of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, and why Adam and Eve were granted free will in the first place, even after they ate from that tree...)
And yeah, I tend to lean toward the idea that good and evil are universal constants, even if different civilizations throughout history have labeled different things as good or bad, though they always seem to align with some sort of underlying universal concept. (Which isn't surprising, considering how relative our reality is, since everyone perceives things differently, making it necessary to establish certain general standards...) But still, somehow on a "biological" level we know what is right and what isn't. (Probably thanks to our non-material nature. 😉)
That’s why we have free will; it’s based on this perception of universal good and evil, and it’s through that very capacity that we actually define ourselves in life.
That is why the Holocaust was evil, regardless of the fact that it was carried out as an official state policy. That is why it is evil when politicians force our fellow citizens to scavenge through trash bins just to survive, no matter how much they claim they are following the letter of the law. Theft is theft, whether it involves $33 or millions of dollars.
The thing is, people (for whatever reason) have just accepted deception and wrongdoing as something common and perfectly normal... almost as if someone clouded their collective consciousness. 🤷

Mark Torres14 said:Mark Torres14. My starting point is that deception grew out of an evolutionary need. If you don't have any serious weapons besides a big brain, then that brain has to find another way to protect the body it lives in.
Deception probably started with hunting animals, and later, due to complex primate social structures, it became a tool for group survival.
Nobody likes being conned, especially if you're a man and you realize you've been played. That's why some people, refusing to admit how easily they're fooled, insist they haven't been, even when they know they were, or knew it was coming.
Getting conned means losing your status in society, doesn't it?😉

So, what you're actually suggesting is that evolution can only really move forward if we use cheating as a tool? 😕
I find that hard to swallow, honestly, especially when you look at the mess the human race has ended up in because of it...☕

Mark Torres14 said:Great.
I want to talk about fraud without getting all bogged down in "good vs. evil" nonsense.

But honestly, deception is inherently "not good" from the jump... I mean, we all have it hardwired into our DNA, if you want to put it that way, because otherwise the very concept of a lie wouldn't even exist in our heads... 🤷 So, you can't really talk about it outside of that framework.

They paint Robin Hood as this thief who steals from the rich, which somehow makes him some kind of hero, but come on... who else was he supposed to steal from if not the wealthy? 🤷

Bradley Hayes36 said:To pull off a real scam, you need actual intelligence, wit, and a functioning brain...
Baboon pulled it off because he was smart, which doesn't mean that if he ever hits a situation
like the one rustymaker5 described just now—say his mother passes away and he gets kicked out on the street—that he won't find a way to survive...
Because being unintelligent is basically an inability to adapt, whereas the opposite means you'll figure it out, and clearly those students and professors involved in that Forbes scandal weren't quite smart enough to fleece the government successfully.
In my view, to execute a perfect scam—meaning the victim has no idea they've been had, because once they realize it, the game is over—you have to be incredibly sharp...
And it’s impossible to truly scam yourself; you can make mistakes or misinterpret things, but you can't actually deceive yourself...

"It would be interesting to consider the level at which human consciousness exists. As a whole entity connected to the future (a constant 'deception'), as an entity existing in the present that only utilizes imagined future scenarios when an interest arises, or is the human mind constantly in the future because perceiving a frozen present is simply impossible."

This is my first post here, so sorry for quoting you like this, I just didn't really grasp where you were going with that...
What exactly defines a scam to you?

Are you talking about the kind of mental makeup someone needs so they don't feel guilty after conning someone (conscience), or are you saying we're always thinking ahead, and when we have a goal or an interest, we just redirect our thoughts toward fulfilling it? Please clarify...

Well, you need all those things just to function in everyday life too... ☕
What a scam really requires is the conscious, deliberate choice to be a bad person.

Mark Torres14 said:Man, rustymaker5, you’re spot on, but I don't care about that kind of cheating.
I’m interested in something else.
What specific conditions does consciousness need to meet before it can actually start pulling a fast one?
Take the baboon example.
1. He’d need the ability to predict how other baboons—his mother, in this case—will react. He has to gauge her response.
2. He needs some concept of "self" versus "other," especially since the goal is getting food the easy way.
3. He needs a visual perception of future events—his screaming leading to the mother arriving, her reaction, driving Mel away, leaving the scene, and finally eating the rhizomes once Mel is gone.
4. All of this points to the existence of a plan, which means contemplating a situation that doesn't exist in the present, but in the future.

The way consciousness behaves here raises questions about the relationship between "I" and "him"—is it imitation, or stepping into someone else's shoes? It involves a feedback loop back to the self, pondering the ultimate consequences for the self—getting the food—and, most importantly to me, the presence of intent (consciousness) to lie—screaming as if there's actual danger.
Sure, a baboon is a primitive example, and when you apply this to humans, it takes on a much larger dimension. It would be interesting to consider what level human consciousness actually exists on. Is it a whole entity fused with the future (a constant "cheat"), an entity that exists in the present and only uses future scenarios when it serves an interest, or is the human mind permanently stuck in the future because perceiving a frozen "present" is impossible?

So, looking at this from a first glance... since human consciousness is fundamentally tied to our material existence—that whole rational side of things that basically constitutes the ego—the only real prerequisite that matters would have to be free will. You need the actual capacity to choose the wrong path, to consciously opt for something bad, or rather, to embrace deception... everything else is just extra layers built on top of that core reality...

Mark Torres14 said:Man, rustymaker5, you’re spot on, but I don't care about that kind of cheating.
I’m interested in something else.
What specific conditions does consciousness need to meet before it can actually start pulling a fast one?
Take the baboon example.
1. He’d need the ability to predict how other baboons—his mother, in this case—will react. He has to gauge her response.
2. He needs some concept of "self" versus "other," especially since the goal is getting food the easy way.
3. He needs a visual perception of future events—his screaming leading to the mother arriving, her reaction, driving Mel away, leaving the scene, and finally eating the rhizomes once Mel is gone.
4. All of this points to the existence of a plan, which means contemplating a situation that doesn't exist in the present, but in the future.

The way consciousness behaves here raises questions about the relationship between "I" and "him"—is it imitation, or stepping into someone else's shoes? It involves a feedback loop back to the self, pondering the ultimate consequences for the self—getting the food—and, most importantly to me, the presence of intent (consciousness) to lie—screaming as if there's actual danger.
Sure, a baboon is a primitive example, and when you apply this to humans, it takes on a much larger dimension. It would be interesting to consider what level human consciousness actually exists on. Is it a whole entity fused with the future (a constant "cheat"), an entity that exists in the present and only uses future scenarios when it serves an interest, or is the human mind permanently stuck in the future because perceiving a frozen "present" is impossible?

Yeah, but there’s always that risk of someone getting jealous and throwing a wrench in the works... I mean, once you start involving other people, any kind of "planning" is basically just begging for things to fall apart. Like you said, a total amateur could just... predicting... How exactly would she react, and would she actually go through with it... I mean, Mel could have just stepped in, told her off, or maybe even broken the news to her mother that there wasn't any danger at all. But honestly, the kid could only really feel certain about how things would play out if he knew this kind of thing had happened before—if he was absolutely sure his mother would react exactly the way she did this time around. It’s like he wasn't even looking forward to what might happen next, he was just leaning entirely on what had already gone down in the past... 🤷

It’s pretty much the same deal when you look at how people act in society... A con artist, for instance, isn't exactly sitting around planning on getting caught, because if they were, they wouldn't bother starting the scam in the first place. Once they pull it off just once, they basically spend the rest of their time just hoping they can catch that same lightning in a bottle again...
Honestly, it’s all just one big gamble at this point, because we aren't even in a position to... predicting... Everything that could possibly go wrong in the future... you know, some people just sit there and consciously factor every single potential risk into their daily behavior, and then they end up spiraling into these endless loops of overthinking every possible scenario, even though obsessing over those hypothetical disasters doesn't actually provide any real guarantee that what they're imagining will ever actually happen...

excellent Quote

Mark Torres14 said:Man, rustymaker5, you’re spot on, but I don't care about that kind of cheating.
I’m interested in something else.
What specific conditions does consciousness need to meet before it can actually start pulling a fast one?
Take the baboon example.
1. He’d need the ability to predict how other baboons—his mother, in this case—will react. He has to gauge her response.
2. He needs some concept of "self" versus "other," especially since the goal is getting food the easy way.
3. He needs a visual perception of future events—his screaming leading to the mother arriving, her reaction, driving Mel away, leaving the scene, and finally eating the rhizomes once Mel is gone.
4. All of this points to the existence of a plan, which means contemplating a situation that doesn't exist in the present, but in the future.

The way consciousness behaves here raises questions about the relationship between "I" and "him"—is it imitation, or stepping into someone else's shoes? It involves a feedback loop back to the self, pondering the ultimate consequences for the self—getting the food—and, most importantly to me, the presence of intent (consciousness) to lie—screaming as if there's actual danger.
Sure, a baboon is a primitive example, and when you apply this to humans, it takes on a much larger dimension. It would be interesting to consider what level human consciousness actually exists on. Is it a whole entity fused with the future (a constant "cheat"), an entity that exists in the present and only uses future scenarios when it serves an interest, or is the human mind permanently stuck in the future because perceiving a frozen "present" is impossible?

I’ve been thinking lately that human consciousness actually exists across all different planes at once... You see so many people just stuck living in the past, trapped in old memories and constantly mourning things they can't change no matter how much they wish they could. Then you have those who spend their entire lives just waiting for some future event to happen—clinging to hopes that might never even materialize, which is a pretty heavy way to live... But honestly, the best path belongs to those who consciously build their existence right here in the present, because only they truly possess the free will required to decide what kind of life they want to create.
(Of course, when I say "the present," I’m talking about it in a conversational sense, not suggesting that the present doesn't exist in a physical way, since by the time you've even finished a thought, it's already slipped into the past...)

Mark Torres14 said:Interesting point.
We always say that by trying to cheat others, we end up cheating ourselves. But can you actually cheat yourself?

And I have to wonder, why do so many people walk around so deeply dissatisfied with who they are and the lives they’ve built? 🤷

Take those kids at a top-tier business school, for instance... if they breeze through to graduation by cutting corners and cheating their way through exams, do you really think that’s going to serve them in the real world? They won't have the actual knowledge, they won't have learned the value of integrity, and they’ll never feel that genuine sense of accomplishment or self-worth... isn't that just the ultimate form of self-deception?
The professors are no different, really. Why bother spending years studying and committing to teaching others, only to turn around and peddle ignorance and incompetence for a meager paycheck? Aren't they betraying themselves, and the very noble ideals that led them to academia in the first place?
And what about the person who spends their entire career grinding away at a job they absolutely loathe? Aren't they essentially lying to themselves every single day?
Or consider a woman staying with an abusive husband... isn't she deceiving herself by constantly inventing excuses to justify staying in such a marriage?
Isn't there a profound self-deception in the person who spends their whole life compulsively hoarding material wealth, under the delusion that stuff will eventually lead to fulfillment or happiness?

Even that young kid you mentioned in your opening post... he might be falling for the same trap. What happens if his mother passes away and he realizes he never actually learned how to take care of himself because he always chose the path of least resistance? He'll find himself cast out by society, completely unprepared because he was raised to let everyone else fight his battles for him...🤷

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?

Well, look, this little baboon was actually quite clever at getting what he wanted. We can probably assume that as he grows up, he’ll refine that whole system—assuming no one reads his mind and stops him—and eventually become a real pro at manipulation...😁
But honestly, a deception always requires two players—the one pulling the strings and the one being played. Take, for instance, that whole scandal involving Index and The Wall Street Journal. Both sides, the students and the professors alike, essentially signed up for the fraud (which meant they ended up playing both the deceiver and the victim simultaneously). To me, it feels like they were mostly just deceiving themselves, though I suppose that still leaves a mark on society as a whole...
As for whether deception matters in the development of human consciousness, I'd say absolutely, because it's in those moments where a person chooses to act either for or against dishonesty, and in doing so, they forge their own awareness of themselves and the world at large...

You head over to the lifestyle section, then click through to the housing subforum—you don't bother with the garden, or DIY, or interior design stuff, you just dive straight down into housing, and right there in the middle of the first page, you'll stumble upon that thread about heat pumps...

I know I wasn't really invited to this conversation, so my apologies in advance for jumping in, but I've been following the thread for a bit and I just feel compelled to say something... I really want to see this whole mess get sorted out properly. Personally, the idea of banning someone from an entire subforum sounds absolutely draconian to me, almost too extreme for anyone involved, and I can't help but think there have to be more constructive ways to set things right without going nuclear... So, I’m just calling for a little more tolerance and some actual good faith from everyone involved, because at the end of the day, we should all be able to hang out in this digital space that honestly means quite a lot to all of us. 🙂

Ugh, look, I’m sorry, I really didn't realize how things were supposed to work here since I’ve never actually had a reason to complain before... So, you're saying I need to file a formal complaint through the official channels? Fine, okay

To build on what’s been said, I’m honestly just trying to wrap my head around how someone can be a moderator for Eminem on the Religion forum and still feel entitled to shut down every single thread that doesn't sit right with them... specifically, they just locked a thread that had barely even gotten started titled "does God approve of tolerance."
Look, I get it, you can't have people being aggressive or picking fights in the comments, but this level of intolerance toward anyone holding a different perspective is just... it's not something I find particularly admirable.

I see the whole situation with the lotov wife as this intense surge of curiosity, honestly—like she was trying to run a little "test" on God’s power, showing a certain level of defiance toward those commands coming from "above."
Don't you dare look back, don't you question things, just go where I tell you to go!
There isn't any other option, because if you do, I will punish you.

It’s just like always, isn't it? You can always count on there being people who feel the need to second-guess everything, which is exactly why they wanted to scare them old folks by threatening them with catastrophic consequences... It's as if they're saying only the ones who follow orders blindly get to move forward. 🤷

I’m trying to use Imgur for this, but I can't quite figure out how to make the picture actually look bigger... 🤷

just testing this out