How to change culture? \ stacker news ~culture

10.3k sats \ 35 comments \ @k00b 25 Dec 2023 culture

SN is occasionally viewed as an attempt to change social media culture. Bitcoin's scarcity might make online culture more like offline culture by reintroducing culture to it's natural habitat, but our goal has been to serve culture not change it. If culture is largely a market phenomena, productive markets should yield productive culture. However markets aren't perfectly efficient and will fail somewhere somehow.

As bitcoiners, we see fiat as the source of market-culture failure, but at present bitcoin fixing culture is limited to circular economies. Mainstream culture is plenty broken, whether that's education or health or family or whatever, yet we can't bitcoinize the world tomorrow so what else can we do?

When I ask myself how to change culture, Edward Bernay's example of how to sell pianos comes to mind. Bernay suggests culture can change by convincing people it already has. On another level though, it suggests that market participants are incentivized to change culture. If mainstream culture is broken, are we failing to create such culture makers? How can we make more of them?

Standing desks come to mind too which became common rather quickly. Culture seems to have absorbed "sitting is the new smoking" and paid for motorized desks without flinching. Why did this intervention succeed while ones like minimal footwear haven't? Does the better culture always win?

In early parts of Broken Money, we learn scaling our native coordination culture creates markets and money. Thus culture and markets operate in some kind of feedback loop and culture has inputs independent of markets. Are there other non-market inputs to culture we might be able to use to change it?

If you haven't given culture or markets direct study, experiencing time makes us all anthropologists on some scale. Have you witnessed culture change significantly and positively? What's your best guess to what caused the change?

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4520 sats \ 2 replies \ @davidw 25 Dec 2023 freebie

I don’t have any evidence but my gut tells me that this perhaps occurs due to monetary/market incentives as well as being able to hijack or bootstrap on top of another community or trend. And so once an idea or behaviour picks up steam, it spreads because of businesses scaling and following their own self interests. Otherwise there’s a danger it reaches a crescendo too early and fizzles out..without reaching a critical mass outside of that particular niche.

Standing desks became common because they rode the wave of a remote revolution. And they could be priced expensively with electric motors. Being healthy for posture as well as operating in a premium profitable niche.
Bee pollen became a trend recently, riding the environmental movement and interest in people creating their own honey, whilst apparently there being anecdotal evidence of benefits for women. Plus there was a tonne of money to be made when it was marketed that way.
Protein powder became commonplace because businesses wanted a use for a waste product from the dairy industry. So they were able to push a profitable product onto the consumer. And because people had less time during their 9 to 5s to prep a plate of proper protein. I suspect it won out because it both saved people time AND helped people with their health goals at the same time.
Perhaps minimalist footwear hasn’t got critical mass, because there’s not much money to be made from telling people to go barefoot and most “barefoot-like” shoes look like you’ve developed Turkey feet. Not seeing another wave it could ride, unless it helped people run faster for example.

Trends usually need a pathway, that already exists and is in a growth phase. Like how you improve keywords is not through throwing 20 articles at ‘earn bitcoin’ but targeting more niche keywords like ‘earn bitcoin without kyc’, ‘earn bitcoin with your content’. I’ve no idea if those keywords are popular but you get my point.

Loosely related, I also really enjoyed this YT video that was posted on Game Theory the other day on SN. Showing how a healthy moral minority can gain increasing influence in an otherwise unhealthy system.

182 sats \ 0 replies \ @davidw 25 Dec 2023

Bitcoin is arguably different because it is hijacking multiple trends at once, over and over.

It clearly has the libertarian market tied-up. Bit biased here, but I actually think it’s likely the privacy-focused & the coming censored communities that will be the next wave of hardcore advocates to adopt both Bitcoin & Nostr. Like we have seen with Snowden & Whitney Webb already. Those seeking refuge from the increasingly creepy institutions, or trigger happy mods or forced-ID for nyms. They’ll all naturally find the worlds biggest trustless network and particularly this site.

Some thoughts on latest & future markets to tap into:

Libertarian > Maturation phase
Developers > Growth phase
Energy > Growth phase
Privacy > Early adopter phase
A.I, Music, Freelance > Super early minority

That’s why I’m excited to see how SN navigates the challenge of non-custodial social media… because it’s going to be far far stronger for it, by needing to prioritise it now.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Undisciplined 27 Dec 2023

I'm not sure ifthis is the right episode of Econ Talk, but they talk about the "Minority Rule" in it. I imagine it's what's discussed in the video you posted.

I could see our analogue being acceptance of LN payments. If more of us make more of a point of using LN with vendors, it could have extremely rapid adoption.

5449 sats \ 0 replies \ @Scholarhacker 25 Dec 2023

I don't think fiat is the source of market-culture failure.

Market culture failure is the result of incessant subversion.

Back in 2001 I was reading to much Chomsky, Herman and Zinn. I grew to hate the sight of the American flag. These three "academics" I'm now learning, were really just the pointy end of the spear Marxist that had been working behind the scenes to subvert the very market culture that allowed their crackpottery to flourish.

It's a phenomena best summarized by Propagandi's lyrics:

"And yes I recognize the irony, that the system I oppose affords me the luxury Of biting the hand that feed.

"That's exactly why, privileged fucks like me should feel obliged to whine and kick and scream until everyone has everything they need."

Punk rock is the evangelical arm of the Marxist subversion machine. It's industrial engine is the university system. It's produced a cultural monster of gnostic utopianism.

Then, in 2010 I started making frequent trips to the United States. You know what broke the spell for me? Root beer flavored milk.

That's right, the free market had produced root beer flavored milk. Along with a whole lot of other goods and services that were not available or were incredibly expensive just 8, 10, 12 or 25 miles north of the US/Canada boarder.

You have no idea the impact the artificial scarcity of mixed economies does to culture. Canada neither has bounty, nor does it have culture. Everything we get/develop is a second rate copy of something that comes from the USA.

Let Trudeau's hell-hole be a lesson to you all, and a warning. Grab hold of the 'Merican spirit and identity - embodied in the symbol of your great flag - before its lost forever.

(seriously, I once bought 48 eggs from a store in 'Merica for less than I pay for a dozen in Canada. Unbeknownst to me, I wasn't technically allowed to bring that many eggs back over the Iron 49th parallel).

8091 sats \ 0 replies \ @kepford 25 Dec 2023

Love this kind of thinking. Culture is one of those things that can be nudged and affected but it seems nearly impossible to control. I've worked at companies where culture was important but it can't be created by a road map. Being a parent has taught me you can guide and influence but kids are born with their own natures and make their own choices. The best I can hope to do is lead by example, coach, guide, and protect. Most of all love. I think this applies to the broader culture as well.

2244 sats \ 3 replies \ @elvismercury 26 Dec 2023

Disclaimer: I am drunk.

All my family are from small towns that are now nearly dead -- at this point they're filled with drug addicts, despair, and people too old to move anywhere else, and little in between. I remember when these places were vital, respirating organisms, teeming with life of all kinds.

It's insane to me how far we are from what we need to flourish. The shape of society, the shape of culture, is so distorted from the shape that can hold life without mortally wounding it.

It's been interesting, and hopeful, to see people in my orbit start to think about how maybe some of what we have can be re-imagined. The neighborhoods where none of the residents know each other; towns where the only visible form of life is cars; work paradigms where you defer anything sweet in life for some imaginary future decades away, and in the meantime grind in service of that other person who will hopefully one day come into existence.

The most recurring lesson for me, and the biggest, is that when you put something into the world, reality can cohere around it. It has been remarkable, the times I've managed to do this. A whole host of invisible allies solidifies from the mist like de-cloaking predators.

The bad news is that things are so fucked. The good news is that remarkably quickly after you staunch the bleeding, the flesh starts to knit.

250 sats \ 0 replies \ @Coyote_Cosmico 26 Dec 2023

Please keep the booze and words flowing... this was a pleasure to read! 👍 ⚡

329 sats \ 1 reply \ @Signal312 26 Dec 2023

I agree on the dying small towns.

When I was younger, in the mid 80's, I visited family members for months at a time, in a small town in Europe. The visits were a revelation from my point of view (I grew up in a very car-dependent suburb where people didn't really know each other).

People stopped by the house regularly, no appointment, to say hello. I went shopping with my aunt many mornings, we went separately to the butcher, baker, a greengrocer, and a small grocery. The sidewalks were packed with other people doing the same, and people were greeting each other all the time. Lots of visiting happened.

I visited this same town again about 4 years ago. Things have changed pretty radically for the worse. Now, at around the same time of day where previously the sidewalks would be busy with pedestrians, doing errands and shopping, there was almost nobody. The buildings are the same, it's the people and community that are different.

And this is definitely not one of the worst small towns ("filled with drug addicts, despair, and people too old to move anywhere else, and little in between"). This was still an economically viable place, just now much less social, much less community.

Yes, things are fucked. I am interested in how the rebuilding can start to happen. And how I can help initiate.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @elysia 26 Dec 2023

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1415 sats \ 0 replies \ @cleaningup12 25 Dec 2023

The views of life by modern men and women has changed considerably, first they want a career, life experiences and freedom from the expectations of society, only problem is they wake up at 43 with no kids and desperately sign up to a dating site hoping to find what society expected from them 20 years ago,

School life is changing with massive numbers of teachers leaving the profession, current classroom parrot fashion repetitive education had it's place when the authoritive figure stood at the front of the room with a large clock displaying the time,

Religion, nope not going there,

Media, ah! That's our bag, decentralisation of one of the biggest industries we know, the speed at which devs are deving, the information age is travelling, the tokenisation of real world assets,

Do our youngsters or will our youngsters really listen to our current governance, leadership hierarchies,

And on a similar note, do they view the law and the centralised authorities the same way their parents or grandparents did or do.

Ultimately it's evolution not revolution

1589 sats \ 2 replies \ @tomlaies 25 Dec 2023

"Show me the incentives and I'll show you the outcome"

Such a good quote and also applicable here.

Humanity found out that smoking is real unhealthy and created incentives to find and stop unhealthy habits. The incentives were created. And "sitting is the new smoking" did fit in this incentive. This is partly market-input but also a cultural non-market phenomenon. We culturally praised people for stopping unhealthy habits which is an incentive all in itself.

SN creates these cultural incentives as well. E.g. humanity created the concept of to "ratio" somebody, SN enables tipping of only a few thousand sats (which is nothing in terms real world living costs and salaries). So therefore this incentivizes

A positive example: the SN web of trust incentivizes being nice to people. Or at least don't being mean out of boredom like many trolls are on other websites.

10 sats \ 0 replies \ @Car 25 Dec 2023

💯 Which is why culture always beats strategy every time.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Undisciplined 27 Dec 2023

We culturally praised people for stopping unhealthy habits

The Fat Acceptance Movement came to mind there. I know there are plenty of others, but we have to make sure it stays acceptable to congratulate people for making healthy choices.

2091 sats \ 0 replies \ @Coyote_Cosmico 25 Dec 2023

Are there other non-market inputs to culture we might be able to use to change it?

First thing that comes to my mind is old fashioned grassroots organization and community building, for heavier stuff, civil disobedience/ protest.

There are well researched phenomena of social tipping points, where a passionate and determined minority catalyzes a major shift in the collective. I've read this number can be as low as 3.5% of a population, and on the higher end if 25% of people favor shifting a cultural norm it's essentially inevitable.

https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2014893118

https://www.science.org/doi/abs/10.1126/science.aas8827

The protest focused movements seem a bit out of fashion now, and political culture in Western democracies has been so perverted that people feel they need to pick a side as soon as they first encounter or notice one - or determine "are these people like me, are they in my tribe?" Instead of looking at merits of what is being argued.

But to my mind, at least thus far, most major societal shifts occured this way. Many things we take for granted like 40 hour workweek, unleaded gasoline etc. came from a very small and very vocal group of advocates.

I was recently reading a book called Rise and Fall by John Michael Greer where he mentioned how big a deal the local fraternal orders were in American society .. they were a much larger cultural force than I had ever realized and were essentially non partisan social change incubators and training grounds for the type of collective organization needed to affect big change. Often this was specifically non-political in nature, and a very bottom-up idea of "let's get together and solve problem X ourselves."

From the book:

In 1920, for example, something like 3,500 different fraternal orders existed in the United States, and around 50 percent of the country’s adult population — counting both genders and all ethnic groups, by the way — belonged to at least one of them.

When the French nobleman Alexis de Tocqueville toured the newly founded American republic in the early years of the nineteenth century, he encountered plenty of things that left him scratching his head. The national obsession with making money, the atrocious food, and the weird way that high culture found its way into the most isolated backwoods settings — “There is hardly a pioneer’s hut which does not contain a few odd volumes of Shakespeare,” he wrote. “I remember reading the feudal drama of Henry V for the first time in a log cabin” — all intrigued him, and found their way into the pages of his remarkable book Democracy in America.

Still, one of the things de Tocqueville found most astonishing bears directly on the theme of this chapter. The Americans of his time, when they wanted to make something happen, didn’t march around with placards or write their legislators demanding that the government do it. Instead, far more often than not, they simply put together a private association for the purpose, and did it themselves.

De Tocqueville wrote: “The Americans make associations to give entertainments, to found institutions for education, to build inns, to construct churches, to diffuse books, and to send missionaries to the antipodes; and in this manner they found hospitals, prisons, and schools. If it be proposed to advance some truth or to foster some feeling by the encouragement of a great example, they found a society. Whenever, at the head of some new undertaking, you find the government in France, or a man of rank in England, in the United States you are sure to find an association. I met with several kinds of association in America of which I confess I had no previous notion; and I have often admired the extreme skill with which the inhabitants of the United States succeed in proposing a common object to the exertions of a great many men, and getting them voluntarily to pursue it.”

Seth Godin's book on tribes and others like it have interesting frameworks for thinking about in-group/ out-group dynamics which seem to be hard wired into humans. If I was trying to initiate a cultural shift I would start by trying to engineer a dynamic like that where people can quickly grok that "people like us do things like this."

One of the more powerful forces I've observed in these tribal dynamics is an in-group language. Bitcoiners are an obvious example of this.

My last thought here is that sometimes a culture shifting movement doesn't need market integration, and that type of fertilizer will kill it while it's young. Maybe more often it needs to be actually protected and insulated from the market.

https://meaningness.com/geeks-mops-sociopaths

Apologies this is a bit all over the map, I could go on and on about this fascinating topic! Hope this adds some ideas worth pondering.

229 sats \ 2 replies \ @eightiespleb 7 Oct

Any interaction with the culture influences it.

After years of working in change management consultancy I got realization which I am firm believer in. Realization goes: people change only when they start something new or are in a crisis.

So to answer if the culture has changed, short answer is yes. It is due to the new beginnings and minor crises. But for the big change, I would like to see grander crisis.

100 sats \ 1 reply \ @k00b OP 7 Oct

A therapist I had in college once said something like that, "people only change when they have a [new] reason to."

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @eightiespleb 8 Oct

Amazing. Well said!

819 sats \ 0 replies \ @BitcoinIsTheFuture 25 Dec 2023

Great thoughts of pushing the limits! I love how people think differently and I think we are and can make a bigger difference. Power is in numbers and we keep growing. Please keep spreading the word all!

745 sats \ 0 replies \ @kr 25 Dec 2023 freebie

one anecdote from the minimal footwear running trend, most of the historical and current examples of barefoot running are from places where roads and paths are unpaved.

the beating of concrete or cement may be too much for most people to handle, especially when running. the impact scales superlinearly to speed.

maybe that played a role in blunting that trend before it really took hold.

228 sats \ 0 replies \ @jurraca 26 Dec 2023 freebie

thanks for this -- been thinking a lot about it.

"Rational arguments can't reshape society" - Riva Tez I think we over-index on rational arguments for cultural change in bitcoin. Our figureheads are Mises stans, macro-econ analysts, engineers, and accountants. They dork out on rational arguments. "Welcome to Bitcoin, read Human Action." And they're right, it's true, Bitcoin is rational and the fiat world is out of wack. But rational arguments are a necessary but not sufficient condition for cultural change.

We under-index on aesthetics. Culture change needs aesthetics to attract people into it. Where's the cypherpunk art? Madex is one great example that comes to mind, but cypherpunk/Bitcoin aesthetic seems under-explored. (Ordinals is a huge fail in this respect, despite it being an opportunity for digital art to flourish, the aesthetics are completely absent imo ).

Finally, to your 'selling pianos' example, I think we tend to place bitcoin's future via a negative lens: against authority, against tyranny, against surveillance, against seed oils, against apathy, against etc etc . This is a fine reading of the battlefield, but people do not buy in to movements propelled by an "anti" message: they buy in to movements that express a stronger, more vivid, and precise vision for the future than their opponents. They only buy in if that cultural vision is more enticing than the alternative.

10 sats \ 0 replies \ @hasherstacker 26 Dec 2023

Totally agree. Remember friends. Bitcoin is the freedom energy, which the unowned open-source protocols aim to support. Stacker News has the greatest potential to enable individuals achieve complete sovereignty.

10 sats \ 0 replies \ @02bcd3eeb0 26 Dec 2023

Culture = incentives + time. Artificial incentives (laws, marketing, psyops) are mailable so natural incentives win out over time. Technology generally doesn't go backwards. Once you discover/invent something better, adoption is one-way. Therefore technology folds into natural incentives (sovereign individual thesis).

41 sats \ 7 replies \ @Nuttall 25 Dec 2023

Reading as a bitcoiner has become the most important part of my life and I'm gaining more time by reading more. It's kind of like the saying, "If you don't have the time to meditate you should meditate more."

Stacker News gives me the same pleasure that a choose your own adventure does. I'm paying to post and I'm paying to read what I find rewarding.

With reading a complete thought I don't need to argue. It's not flashy and meant to jack me up. If someone disagrees he still paid to post his thoughts. I can also reward him for trying to convince me or share his opinion.

The general culture is broken because there is no such thing as general culture. It's just like racism, anti-racism and any generalization of humans. In truth there is a severe mind control operation going on that has been going on for thousands of years. There also are a bunch of us humans who ignore the extremes as useful idiots.

It's all about the kilowatts, energy and a free market based on the principals of competition and cooperation without being told to behave a certain way. Unfortunately there are very powerful people who are organized and they thrive by extracting the kilowatts from slavery.

If there is anything to change it is to empower people by respecting the truth. When someone, no matter who, does something you like tell him what you've learned from him and that you are grateful for his skillful approach. When someone, no matter who, messes up tell him also.

The real puzzle piece is mastery of one's own self. There lies the incentive to work hard in the goal of gaining skill that is recognized by others and then honed by relating to others who are on the same journey, path or quest. Choose you own adventure, meet up with real people and achieve goals in real life.

Satori.

586 sats \ 5 replies \ @Coyote_Cosmico 26 Dec 2023

I'm gaining more time by reading more. It's kind of like the saying, "If you don't have the time to meditate you should meditate more."

Cool idea here, and take my sats ⚡!

I read Gandhi used to say that to his handlers when they told him he didn't have time to meditate an hour a day he would tell them then he must need 2 hours. I see some kind of saw-sharpening analogy.

Would you mind expanding a little on how you actually gain time but reading more? This is something I really want to believe because reading good books is a black hole for my time. Maybe I'm doing it wrong!? 🙂

1000 sats \ 4 replies \ @Nuttall 26 Dec 2023

I thought it was Gandhi but I couldn't remember the source and I hate quotes without context. But thank you for backing this up.

Reading more.

I stopped spending time reading things that didn't matter so I got rid of Facebook, Twitter and recently LinkedIn. Next I got a simple book and started to read. I've read a lot of books but I had to get back into it. My speed increased and I was still researching words, phrases and other ideas. I'd get back to a paragraph and complete thoughts became apparent which meant I was doing narratives and patterns in and out of context of the subject.

If there was a tough subject then I broke down the pieces and patterns started to emerge. In my non reading life I would write by hand in the morning and focus on structures, clarity, spelling (without the assistance of phone/Web ) and I would practice meditation as I have for 35 years.

Since 2020 I have read more books than I had in 12 years! I get faster and faster and I get more time doing other things because I'm much more focused. Sometimes it is good to read something that is very difficult. Sometimes it's good to read technical things. Sometimes history.

In my professional life I'm a marine carpenter. At lunch I bring a book with me and I eat on a barge with a lunch I pack from home. My coworkers go out to eat every day and the time it takes to do that I don't waste. Home food is healthier and less expensive.

Reading... I read Kindle books and real books. I alternate. I hate PDF books so I prefer ebooks that flow in presentation. I have PDF books but they are not so good on the Kindle yet they are free so I have to eventually learn how to read them. I don't listen to audio books. There is one audio book I did like and that's one I listened to when I would commute so if you are driving maybe audio is for you.

I do listen to podcasts so I'm researching by flipping through a physical dictionary or other reference books in an active capacity.

In the Army I went to artillery school and I had to learn how to study fast. I learned to scan a book, read the table of contents, flip through the pictures and diagrams; and then investigate things that interested me. After I did these steps I would read without attachment and let my mind, relaxed, absorb content.

Here is the funny part. I was put into remedial reading in elementary school. I failed highschool three different years. In middle school I was bringing my own books to class and failing whatever classes I had. So I'm a firm believer that education is an inside job.

Set a goal for yourself. The first real adult book I completed was the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams when I was 12. After that it was the Hobbit, Lord of the Rings books and all kinds of things.

I hope this helps a little. Any feedback is good.

10 sats \ 3 replies \ @elvismercury 26 Dec 2023

Here is the funny part. I was put into remedial reading in elementary school. I failed highschool three different years. In middle school I was bringing my own books to class and failing whatever classes I had. So I'm a firm believer that education is an inside job.

This is a cool anecdote. Another great example of how much power is lurking inside of people -- if they're put in a context where they get to direct it, they can do amazing things. They ready a thousand books, when they choose what to read. If you try to squeeze them into some narrow pursuit, people who could be smart and creative can appear, from the outside, to be inert.

152 sats \ 2 replies \ @Nuttall 26 Dec 2023

Thank you. The best part about the inside job is that I can accept where I am and that I have the power to get going. We all can accept this. No one is powerless!

When we circle back to culture it seems to be more like yogurt. Yogurt is a culture that has been activated by an outside source but the yogurt does the real work. We are either yogurt, yoked on the stockade or yoga masters of our selves. As above, so below. As inside, so it is outside.

If I am dissatisfied with the culture I have to change myself. I don't change myself to accept the defeat of loser culture. I change myself to accept that I am responsible for the winning culture. Why are there stories of men leaving civilization to be with the Supreme Self? Why then do the men return and as messengers break up the monopoly?

The trap is trying to control externally others. Sorcerers are in this thousands of years old trap. They practice a human psychology based on the outcome, like outcome based education. They cultivate slaves. They, themselves are slaves to fear. To them this planet is a prison planet. It is the tetrahedron.

https://www.whatonearthishappening.com/images/woeih/podcast/113/occult-mockery/077.jpg

https://www.whatonearthishappening.com/images/woeih/podcast/113/occult-mockery/078.jpg

https://www.whatonearthishappening.com/images/woeih/podcast/113/occult-mockery/076.gif

A great place to start of this subject:

WHAT ON EARTH IS HAPPENING

https://www.whatonearthishappening.com/podcast?start=000

10 sats \ 1 reply \ @elvismercury 26 Dec 2023

I believe there's a middle ground here. Both poles seem, to me, pathological:

If you believe everyone is the master of his own fate, you tolerate things that shouldn't be tolerated. If you're in a system where slavery is normalized, the idea that slaves should self-actualize misdirects attention from the individual to the system.
If you believe that systems are the only arbiters of fate, then you look outside yourself for your redemption.

It's easy to find people people living at the extremes of this gradient. I don't think those are the right models of reality. They certainly don't seem to be very useful in creating a better world, in the small or in the large.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Nuttall 26 Dec 2023

Everyone is the master of his fate. All of us are where we are because the cause and effect has produced this outcome. Many of us are asleep at the wheel and some don't even know what is going on. Frederick Douglas is noted by becoming aware of his slavery and then gaining his freedom.

The trap is when you see others in a situation and you stop working on yourself by getting into another person's head. This is very important. I'm currently reading a book by a woman who was a slave in the 1960s to the 1980s. Her daughter was also a slave. She pulled out of her situation with help by a man who saw that if he ignored her it would be harmful to his sanity. This is important.

We in our actions set up situations that as useful idiots we perpetuate slavery. When we accept that we are responsible for our actions then we also say, "no." By saying "no" we use force to help someone we know has been harmed by our compliance.

It is easy to blame others, demonize others and want to take revenge or fix others. That's delusional. You first and foremost protect your own happiness and then create a safe environment for others who respect you and themselves. The middle ground is you. You are the observer. You are the witness. You also are responsible for not adding to the harm of this world.

You need to do what you think is the best. This action is 100 percent your responsibility. It is your proof of work. No one can make this decision for you. You can not make the decision for the actions of others either. Your children are the exception or anyone who can not take care of his or her self that has been put into your care. Here is the tricky part for the moral relative controllers. They believe that other humans belong to them. This is their belief system. Higher up on the occult ladder are those who use mind control to play chess with people. They use movies, celebrities, sports, books, drugs , food and many other ritual activities to produce outcomes.

You may not believe you are totally responsible for your life. You may feel otherwise. Self mastery is not for everyone but it is available for everyone. Simple things like tapping your foot for no reason. Humming a song out of habit. Any habit that is done out of ignorance (ignoring the truth) is the antithesis to self mastery.

This is why the symbol for Swastika is appropriated and occult. It is the Sun wheel of action. Swa is Self. This is also why the seal of Solomon (sol -Sun + mon - Moon) is appropriated and occult because it is the academical conjunction of masculine and feminine energy. This is why the green (Terra - Earth) color and the all seeing eye are on the dollar. Heart chakra is green. It is in the middle. The all seeing eye is the SELF and you are the self connected to the SELF. The money (mon + eye) is an appropriation meant to fool you into giving up your sovereignty.

We are all connected to the Divine. We are all ruled by the natural law (Torah, Terra, Dhamma). Written law is an appropriation and it isn't stopping anyone from harming others. The law of cause and effect does. The law of dependent origination is the law of Because the is this, there is that and because there is that, there is this. This life is not an easy life. But to be born a human is a gift and we should never feel sorry for any other human regardless of his or her circumstances. Instead we realize our connection and we help wake them up if we can and if we can not we make sure not to harm others out of ideas, dogma or righteousness.

Defending ones self is our duty. Defending those that we care about from harm is our duty. Observing ignorant behavior and ceasing unskillful activity is our duty. Mastering our selves is our duty. No one else will save you. It's an inside job and must be activated by the initiated. Initiation is now.

When the man who rescued a slave and helped to deprogram her he gave her the keys to herself. This was initiation. He gave her a watch to observe time. He told her to write down by hand what she remembered and only if she could write down a solution to her memory.

This is Cathy O'Brien who was that slave: https://rumble.com/v1d7rg1-medias-most-common-mind-control-techniques.html

170 sats \ 0 replies \ @0fje0 26 Dec 2023

What a great response, thanks.

Your whole comment resonates with me (as does the majority of this thread, btw) but this sums up a beautiful potential new year's resolution for me:

If there is anything to change it is to empower people by respecting the truth. When someone, no matter who, does something you like tell him what you've learned from him and that you are grateful for his skillful approach. When someone, no matter who, messes up tell him also.

20 sats \ 0 replies \ @om 26 Dec 2023

Most people simply copy their culture from high-status individuals. But to do that, they first have to use their existing culture and social connections to determine what constitutes high status.

This algorithm is highly hackable by governments through the usual means:

making decoys imbued with high status for no reason ("celebrities")
forcing everyone through brainwashing system ("education") where they're taught that the government has basically infinite status
having missionaries of government worship ("journalists") bark at people with objectively high status (example: Elon Musk) to lower their status in the eyes of their flock

etc.

So maybe you can say that markets create culture, but the market isn't just for wealth but also for status and ways to show it off, and those markets are highly manipulated.

What do we do?

preach to the Remnant, not the mob (see "Isaiah's Job")
try our coordination culture online in increasingly realistic settings (see "The Network State")
create parallel systems (see Paralelni Polis and their heritage from Czechoslovakian underground society parallel to the commie regime - a situation not entirely different from ours!)

20 sats \ 0 replies \ @supratic 26 Dec 2023

You cannot avoid culture change, same way you cannot keep/have the same SN forever. You'll maintain it, you'll moderate it and guide through its growth. Embrace change, it will happen anyway!

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @herminiacolon 26 Dec 2023 outlawed

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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @venabledoyle 26 Dec 2023 outlawed

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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @hugsatoshiwa 26 Dec 2023 outlawed

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