The War on Consciousness -- Graham Hancock

Modern Day capitalism (corporatism) functions more like old school Mercantilism. The hoarding of profit to advance the acquisition of profit, greater market share, and ultimately more power..

We can't blindly support a system just because of the mask it wears. The monopolization of the world's economy will destroy whatever free markets we thought we had..

Uzima Moto wrote: Modern Day capitalism (corporatism) functions more like old school Mercantilism. The hoarding of profit to advance the acquisition of profit, greater market share, and ultimately more power..

We can't blindly support a system just because of the mask it wears. The monopolization of the world's economy will destroy whatever free markets we thought we had..

You should write a book about this, i bet youd make a killing!

Maybe so, I'd do it just to warn folks about the evils of big money and their threat to truly free markets..

Because as an old man once said. Competition is a sin..

Uzima Moto wrote: Maybe so, I'd do it just to warn folks about the evils of big money and their threat to truly free markets..

Its interesting to consider that you could actually do it, though. Yea the evil corporatists control everything, but still, you could actually write that book. And if it were well written and compelling, people would enjoy it and it would sell well and you would be (ironically) a successful capitalist. The basic premise of capitalism is this: offer something that people find valuable and they will pay you for it. That is pretty cool, imo. That if you put in the work and you produce something that has value to others then you are able to succeed on the merits of your own efforts.

Firstly I disagree with one of his opening statements. I think you can both hold the view that consciousness is nothing more then electro-chemical actions within a physical system 'and' that life after death be possible (a different form of living no doubt).

Why, because I do!! My model of belief about this is an 'order of information' being created by consciousness and held after its creation in some pervasive field. And in the same presumptous veing, I think he leaps to asserting that 'all' spiritualities therefore must believe souls are distinct from the body.

My other main gripe is that the problem of capitalism is not capitalism IMO but rather consumerism. Consumerism being the action of materialism and belief of ego-centric thinking. Ya can't complain about the problems of the world in isolation of the actual reality of the bigger picture. Distorting information is fun, but its not really accurate or useful. IMO capitalism is just a system which enables progress, and what people do with the progress or that system of progress is not the systems fault but the people doing it, hence 'consumerism' as the abuse of capitalism.

Altered states of consciousness in my experience is more about the overdriving of inherent systems then unlocking hidden ones, and as such generate a few types of risks and benefits (both highly variable) from knowing about them and how to use them in a healthy way. Though of course it certainly feels like hidden revelations because they are subsystems of awareness that when overdriving out of normal balance create a distinct dimension on how we might perceive realities deeper nature, for it is in effect a deeper view of part of our own nature. All my opinion of course.

So to spirit, and spirit connection; accuracy and truthfulness are foundational else it risks being delusional and harming. Sure the harm capable from deluded individuals is a lot smaller then the harm capable from engineered societies.... but that is no reason to go drink the koolaid to save the church.... and all that should be rudimentary or quickly apparent once effected - the real question being circled about in the vid is how and if is there a real and tangible shared deeper nature of our environment and selves, which psychoactives can allow us to better access??? I know it certainly feels that way, even superficially 'difference' invokes all sorts of mental focus but the mind is more then just consciousness, it is also subconscious. One thing for sure is that while the psychoactives might interact with spirit or soul, they actually do interact with physical body. So yes I think psychoactives can be tools to engineer perception to some extent, but the risks are real and a culture of use would be much better to be spiritual then social. I'm not into banning things one can make or grow themselves unless its specifically a weapon, but I don't mind the illegality to distribution of things which might be categorized as poisons. Part of being able to make something is having a deeper understanding of how it works, but going to a dodgy house to buy some unknown substance does society no good, and banning does not work so.....

,,, Edit; and the thing with ethanol consumption (alcohol) is its an underdriving effect, slowing down consciousness and dulling the sword so to speak. Fun, but not very useful in this context.

OB1Shinobi wrote: Its interesting to consider that you could actually do it, though. Yea the evil corporatists control everything, but still, you could actually write that book. And if it were well written and compelling, people would enjoy it and it would sell well and you would be (ironically) a successful capitalist. The basic premise of capitalism is this: offer something that people find valuable and they will pay you for it. That is pretty cool, imo. That if you put in the work and you produce something that has value to others then you are able to succeed on the merits of your own efforts.

Yeah, as I should be able to.. nothing wrong with that at all. There IS something wrong with duopolies and corporate welfare. They call themselves "free market-teers" but they're anything but..

Ya gotta remember socialist regimes do just as much if not more damage to the environment then capitalist ones... because they cannot keep up with capitalist regimes in other areas so over--reach. The only difference is the level of government control and personal wealth/freedoms. It's not really the political system at fault here, but rather over-population and the behaviour of that population given affordances from science and tech. Socialist regimes just have the government making everyone do all the damage, while capitalist regimes have everyone doing it for themselves.

If humanity has any chance at all on its current trajectory its going to require technological saving, not spiritual saving... though the ideal IMO would be both, and indeed it might be spiritual needs to come first! Going backwards is always an option but over-population will still continue to be a problem, albeit slower yet spread the brutality more evenly across species. Humanity was already stripping the landscape of forests well before the steam engine was invented, so backwards is not really a viable solution if the idea is to save ongoing natural biodiversity.

I think identifying the problem only has relevance if we have real sincere appreciation of the value of what is being lost. Generations of people being bought up in urban environments with no connection to the reality of nature and our part in it is breaking that connection. Over-reaching and pretending its more important then the realities of humanities existence here is about as harmful because that only serves to delay effective progress while the problem continues.

I lean to;

Technogaianism (a portmanteau word combining "techno-" for technology and "gaian" for Gaia philosophy) is a 'bright green environmentalist' stance of active support for the research, development and use of emerging and future technologies to help restore Earth's environment. Technogaians argue that developing safe, clean, alternative technology should be an important goal of environmentalists.

.. and so tend to view my Jediism as the spiritual side of that ideology.

I've always enjoyed reading Graham Hancock's books, though I haven't read them all. In short, he is very much outside the box.

I fear—or perhaps the correct word is "expect"—that if our behaviors and action continue, that the shamans are correct, that our lives will fall apart like a house of cards.

I've heard the argument before that if all our military funding went instead to helping the our country and perhaps the world, that no one would go hungry. It is, after all, hard to explain how we have obesity and starvation on this planet. It's probably even harder to convince the world to set aside their weapons

I'm not in any hurry to try the drugs he mentioned in the video, but I agree with the underlying concept, that we are prisoners in a prison of our own making.

Like some others, I see both benefits and risks to psychoactive substances, and I don't think anyone should adopt their use without knowing their risks ... which would perhaps justify a stance that they should be legal, but regulated. Sometimes, the price of a mind-blowing journey into elevated realms can be long-term anxiety, paranoia, or loss of basic functionality.

I do like what Lawrence Mishan said about hallucinogens in his book "How to Meditate". He recommended against their use, framing his reasoning by comparing the spiritual quest to climbing a mountain. Meditation, he asserted, takes you up the mountain like a climber; you take the slow, gradual, and sometimes arduous path that, if you are persistent, allows you to one day stand on the top and see the grand expanse of the horizon around you. By comparison, using psychedelics is like strapping a rocket to your back; under the best of circumstances, it shoots you to the top in an exhilarating hurry, but then the rocket burns out and you come crashing down to the reality below.

I don't feel capable of addressing capitalism in a reasonable amount of space. It has different variants - unrestrained, regulated, and crony capitalism among them. I will just add that even Adam Smith, who many see as the father of capitalist economics, noted that unrestrained capitalism tends to lead to collusion among merchants and ultimately creates monopolies, which do not serve the public good.

From Adder:

Adder wrote: Technogaianism (a portmanteau word combining "techno-" for technology and "gaian" for Gaia philosophy) is a 'bright green environmentalist' stance of active support for the research, development and use of emerging and future technologies to help restore Earth's environment. Technogaians argue that developing safe, clean, alternative technology should be an important goal of environmentalists.

I loved your entire post Adder. I lean that way as well, though had not heard the term Technogaianism before. I'm going to start applying that to myself!