Tag: Self-Diagnosed Omniscience

The Tendency to Underestimate

~ quantumdreamer ~ Leave a comment

This tendency can be followed by overreaction and disproportionate over reaction at that. One might point at Pearl Harbour, 9/11 and the recent Hamas attacks. There was underestimation prior in each case. If something catches people unawares it is an act of terrorism if “they”, do it, or an act of cunning if “we”, do it. Placing thousands of indiscriminate pager bombs in Lebanon to maim and kill Hezbollah was “clever” and in no way terrorism… “Terrorism” depends upon which side you are on. The “allies” firebombed Dresden, hardly an altruistic act.

People, countries, who are prone to arrogance tend to underestimate others. I’ll speculate that Trump has made a miscalculation concerning how people feel concerning the USA and his actions in particular. We shall see.

It is possible that people have underestimated me or that they have overestimated me or that they have judged me spot on. I have perceived that from time to time I have surprised people. I have done things which they did not see coming. I may be mistaken. If they had me sussed, they would have foreseen.

The problem with words like underestimate is that they are linked to competition, winning and even conflict. “Never underestimate your opponent”. The estimation is tied up in an oppositional scenario, there is a presupposition, a desire for victory.

When I was a younger man, I thought I knew a lot more than I actually did. I was full of bullshit and prone to evangelising about science, thermodynamics and veganism. I have hindsight now. But back in the thrall then, I was certain and dogmatic. People in the thrall lack a wider awareness. They do not know what is beyond their ken and may be arrogant and conceited about their self-diagnosed omniscience.

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Not so long ago someone “told” me some things about Castaneda and that The Guardians do not exist. He was adamant. As usual I was direly in need of education. People have told me many things. I’ll estimate that in general I get told way more than I am asked. The assumption is perhaps that because I am not a soap-boxing gobshite, I know little or nothing. I do not feel the urge to show off.

I could say that I know no-thing but nobody would understand what I mean by that statement nor get the experience behind it. They would not think to ask what I mean. They might tell me.

People can be markedly unaware as to the extent of what is unknown for them and yet feel entitled to opine thereupon.

I have mentioned the blue books opus in this blog. There may be those that think it to be made up hippy shit. If the contents are real and even quasi-factual then it would be unwise to underestimate the so-called hierarchy, those others call The Guardians of the Race. The Tibetan suggests they differ markedly from Joe Bloggs buying a steak slice at Greggs and from those having a BYOB works event at 10 Downing Street.

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People can pooh-pooh out of arrogance and that can be a miscalculation. There is a tendency to pooh-pooh as a knee jerk reaction which may stem from a sense of entitled complacency.

The Tibetan mentions masters as having taken the fifth initiation, this means that even after they become a nirvani there is work to do. If you have never met a putative awakened Buddha, it might be wise not to slag them off, if only on the off chance that they are real.  It might be good to spread your bets.

But of course, those who are fond of the sound of their own voices, when they find themselves in a bit of a hole, tend to keep on digging. They may be unaware because of their underestimation that they have indeed fallen into a hole, a trap of their own making. Even when someone hands them a spade or a shovel, they may not cotton on to the hole hypothesis. Dig baby dig.

This tendency to underestimate is widespread. It pertains a little to an arrogant sense of entitlement.

“Mr Ghandhi, India is British my good man…”

I have never met a “know-it-all” who actually does.

Perhaps one day if people keep telling me what I am, what I know, what I am thinking, what my motivations are and who I am, I will learn.

Then they will be right…

And I can finally sleep soundly…

Proof of Telekinesis – Pennies

~ quantumdreamer ~ Leave a comment

Many people do not believe in telekinesis as a real thing, an observable phenomenon. Yet they are able to use their mind to counter the gravitational attractive force between the planet Earth and pennies. Reality exerts a pull on said pennies causing them to ground, to fall to earth. Yet people are able to deny, refuse, fail to accept, act dumb, fail to see, fail to understand, not appreciate or otherwise be unable to perceive something true and sometimes obvious.

The penny does not drop, not because pennies do not obey gravitational law, but because people use their mind to elevate them, slow the acceleration.

On a bed of contrary reasons and justifications the penny is held near stationary in space. Complacency and dogma act as a treacle, a thick gloopy liquid which holds the penny up. Many famous scientists who do not believe in telekinesis are highly skilled in the art. They can stop pennies dropping for a very long time. Yet if you asked them, they would say that telekinesis does not exist.

There are many historical examples of telekinesis.

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Confirmation bias is one of the best techniques for telekinesis. We see only what we want to see, what is convenient. This helps us to keep the penny elevated.

One day that penny can drop and the sudden realisation so-caused can be difficult to assimilate and comprehend. All that effort at telekinesis is not let go of quickly or quietly. People even after the penny has dropped for the first time are able to re-elevate it for a while. Because to accept that the penny has dropped is to acknowledge that one’s omniscient superpower has failed. There are implications.

Complacency is a good telekinetic technique. It can keep pennies from falling for quite a while. Unfortunately, complacency is a bit fragile and not really a good buttress against reality.

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At the moment there are pennies dropping all over Europe about how reliable long held alliances are. There remains a lot of wishful thinking, but that which was once dependable is no longer.

Some people are quicker on the uptake than others and less prone to penny telekinesis. Others are highly skilled in the arcane art of levitation.

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Are you any good at telekinesis?

Can you stop the pennies from dropping?

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Arrogance and Omniscience

~ quantumdreamer ~ Leave a comment

I’ll speculate the average experience that French people have of British expatriates leaves them with the impression that most cannot be arsed to learn the language or make any attempt to converse therein. Further that “les anglais” are not the sharpest tools in the box. Well over a dozen times now people have asked me if I am English, which is a lazy use of language. I am Welsh.

The lass on the checkout yesterday tried to speak a little English but we were better off in French. Get this a young checkout woman was making a decent effort with customers. More power to her.

I’ll speculate further that people make assumptions, me included.

Because I am generally to be found in partially soiled combat trousers, in relative need of a shave and have not combed my hair for over five years, there is no obvious way of knowing what is under my hood, intellectually speaking. As a consequence, I have been talked down to on a number of occasions and ignored on others. I once offered a prof in Rennes a recent paper on T (4,14) translocations in multiple myeloma written in French by a team of which she was an (attributed) nominal part. She ignored it and swept it to one side. She then laid down the law. This was very rude and showed a marked level of arrogance. She would not have done that to an Imperial College dude in the UK.

In the UK “they” deem the French arrogant which is perhaps the pot calling its mirror the kettle, black.

I have noted that as a general rule of thumb people do not like their omniscience being questioned which suggests a lack of confidence in the accuracy of their projected and professed omniscience and a self-important ideation in which any questions of/on deity are taboo. Omniscience is particularly sacrosanct here, it is embedded in the language, “vous avez raison”, you have reason and are justified.

The internet is littered with “experts” willing to offer and even sell opinion whether reliable or not. The tendency to the exponential growth in professed expertise and dubious qualifications which sound good, gathers momentum. I could buy a fake degree, if I understand it correctly. I could run courses on dreaming and offer certification, for a fee. I do have some kosher qualifications but not in dreaming. I could invent a name “The Pan-Celtic Gorsedd o Breuddwydion”, knock up a web site and hand out certificates. I could develop a syllabus, which might be better than most.

The problem is that the arrogant have next to no idea as to where the known for them ends, they have no notion of just how limited their knowledge is. They do not even acknowledge the unknown exists let alone the unknowable. But that in no way stops them being arrogant. The assumption that they are right is deemed to be a fact, a truism. Being prone to a form of pride-encephalitis their swollen heads refuse to bow in humility. That would mean a loss of face. Bullshitting and winging it are not uncommon.

I know that should I put on a well ironed shirt, my ~£1000 leather jacket, my polished expensive black leather shoes and peer over my rimless spectacles as if I was giving a viva exam, I could adjust perceptions.

But why would I need to dress up to overcome the arrogance and assumptions of others?

Similarly, if I used a 2mm length in the buzz cut and wore a white guru shirt and harem pants, people would interact differently. People do judge books, if they are able to still recognise what one of them is, by their covers.

I have been so very lucky over the years in that so many people have told me stuff, tried to teach me, told me what I am, told me what I am thinking. They have offered me their erudite opinions ever so freely.

I doubt any could actually mange to think what/how I think most of the time which is silent nothing.

Clearly, they know that I need to be educated by them, because I am in dire need of the profound depths of their wisdom and knowledge.

I’ll assume that few have firsthand experience of a creature like me, as I am today, and that if I acted fully authentically, few could hack it.

How on earth do you manage to give someone a heads up about what they are dealing with in a manner which is both clear, palatable and likely to be believed / understood / taken on board?

I have no answer despite many attempts.

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Based on the above am I an arrogant dickhead, what do you reckon?

What does your pure wisdom mind say?

Magical Thinking and Arrogance

~ quantumdreamer ~ Leave a comment

I am already bored with the endless TV footage of Trump with his droning on, bragging and put downs of anyone who is not him. His magical thinking in which his actions and words are free of real world consequences is crass. It was so nice to have had a few years without him soap boxing on a daily basis into the media. Oh well we have a few more years of this. If he imagines endorsing Tesla is going to promote sales globally, he may be mistaken. The MAGA sheep may buy but a Trump endorsement is not a good sales pitch worldwide. He may have a “Bud Lite” effect.

Maybe I should contact Dignitas soon.

Not surprisingly the conflict in Ukraine has not been solved in a day. Without the EU further sanctions are unlikely to upset Putin. Trump is the new poster boy for BRICS. He does not perhaps, get this.

Magical thinking, I the Don will get Vlad the Impaler to stop war in Ukraine, “Ta-dah!”

With friends like Trump who needs enemies?

A lot of people have some kind of magical thinking which arises out of their arrogance.

People can be so damned cock-sure without basis that they are blind, myopic and practising auto-proctology, looking with pride at their own sphincters. They are caught up in their own bubble-world. They imagine that the world loves them, that it will flock to them, kowtow, and share of the radiant brilliance of their self-diagnosed omniscience. It may not occur that they are wreaking havoc into the web of life because of their self-centred egotistical obsessions. They would not give a shit in any case.

Trump is a mirror for many, a mirror into which they fear to look with honesty. Humanity has called forth the likes of him. He is a sign of the times.

“Me first, ME, ME, ME. Everyone else is nasty and mean, only I am the hero. They, the plebs, do not understand. The world is against me, conspiring, poor me. It is not fair mummy.! They don’t appreciate me and see just how lucky they are to have me!!”

There is a problem that when some do not get their own way emotional drama results. I have never heard a US president slag off his predecessors with such glee. It is not statesman like nor edifying. It is petty.

Marcus Aurelius he is most certainly not.

This soap opera cannot be cancelled by network. It looks like running for few years yet, even if the ratings drop.

I wonder exactly how much damage can be done in four years?

That remains to be seen and perhaps endured.

Are Reality and Significance Subjective?

~ quantumdreamer ~ Leave a comment

If one watches US news, Al Jazeera, BBC and France 24 it would he hard to conclude no. Because the narration of reality and its significance to the participants presented therein differ widely. This is a mark of subjectivity as opposed to an objective reality. France 24 today had a debate about Trump’s off the cuff remark about the ethnic cleansing of Gaza. One man’s conquest is another’s brutal ethnic cleansing. One man’s real estate project is another’s exile and abject misery. These realities are not co-realities. A business deal to Trump is less significant than an irreversible life change for another and what is left of their family. Significance is in the context and the eye of the beholder and is not absolute.

The reality of a 9 to 5 job safe and secure in the city where one has kudos and power changes abruptly with a plane crash in the jungle. The hungry leopard does not defer to the fat cat boss over the manual worker. It sees dinner. The boss is easier to eat than the serf. In terms of economy, it selects the most calorific and facile.

Our normal realities are not as secure as we imagine, a mammogram or a prostate exam can flip our worlds in well under an hour. Yet we imagine in our complacency that our “reality” applies and continues to do so.

I am fond of multiple universes or put less dramatically, differing assimilations of “reality”.

My reality today is markedly different than it was 20 years ago. I do not walk in those circles and am not obsessed about the reality-metrics which apply therein for the measurement of success. I do not give a shit about research assessment exercises or student satisfaction feedback surveys. My main concerns are health and the bloody Coypu. My reality is wholly different and significance for me has changed vastly. Which suggests that reality and significance are in a way, time dependent. They are certainly spatially dependent. I no longer occupy that physical plane space; my reality has changed.

A socially acceptable narrative for me is that I was doing OK, then had burn out, and chucked my toys out of the cot. I dabbled a bit with science tutoring and then retired to France. I am now socially isolated and quasi-hermitic. This is largely lacking any wider significance, there are few implications. My impact on the world was short-lived and very local.

Based solely on dream “evidence” and subjective vision alongside this version of reality is that I have partial recall of prior lives inter alia a few as a Buddhist priest/monk. This in itself is not overly significant. It is the sort of thing one might say after a spliff or two.

“Hey man I can remember my life as a Thai Buddhist practising something like Muay Thai.”

“Far out Bro! I always thought you were spiritual.”

Of course this could all be made up hippy-trippy stuff.

People tend to choose the contextual framing of any “reality” to suit that which is most convenient for them to assimilate the world with.

I have been reading Anatole Le Braz today. He has compiled folk stories from the immediate area and they have been fun to read. In one such story a young woman of “friendly” morals had seven children. She dies as does her brood. She is doomed to spend purgatory near her erstwhile home as a sow with seven black piglets. After several interactions that went badly, the locals decided that if they encounter said sow and brood, they should cross the road.

Likewise, the souls of the dead can spend earth bound purgatory as crows.

If you and I were out and about on a misty Breton night and I mentioned the latter “fact”, and even if you were a rational omniscient scientist, a surprise meeting with a pair of crows might unsettle you. If I started to talk with those crows even though you could not hear their reply, you might brick it, a little. You might suspect that I was taking the piss, but you would not be sure despite all your omniscience. I could wind you up or simply laugh at your predicament with the crows. When they laughed back a shiver would go down your spine.

Out of context at your work desk in daylight your encounter with souls trapped in earth corvid purgatory would no longer seem an optional reality. They were just crows.

The assimilated reality is often highly subjective…

Two crows on a misty crossroad at dead of night are more significant than a deskbound recollection whilst dining al-desko.

What you deem significant might only be significant in your little world. This is not a thought which many entertain as they are often self-obsessed and fail to empathise with the wider world. As a consequence, people might miss something with much wider significance after all the fluff in the navel is tantamount.

Just because you don’t understand it or are unfamiliar with it does not mean that other realities are less real than yours. They may be separate but you would be a bigot to deny them if you have not as yet experienced them.

Are Reality and Significance Subjective?

A big fat yes from me…

The Unknown and The Unknowable

~ quantumdreamer ~ Leave a comment

Many do not know with humility where for them the known ends and the unknown begins.

Moreover, their assessment of what is known may be inaccurate in that they imagine they know more than they actually do. Anyone who has taught undergraduate science can testify that there are many students who imagine they know more than they do. They may be confident and exhibit braggadocio concerning their knowledge. They may even pass exams and imagine a mastery over a subject when in fact they have just passed an exam. A qualification is not synonymous with full knowledge. The measured knowledge is qualified to a yard stick. Knowledge begins post exam in its subsequent application. When you have to teach something in public, then you learn. Each time you teach it a new facet, previously un-noted, may be revealed. You could say that teaching is also a process of learning for the so-called teacher.

It stands to reason then, that the scale and scope of the unknown can not even be estimated. Therefore, it cannot be factored in, in a reliable way. There may be some things, concepts and states of awareness which are unknowable, particularly so while in meaty carnate human form.

You do not know what you don’t know and are, by definition, unaware of the gaping hole in your knowledge. Though you may self-diagnose prematurely as omniscient. There are many who imagine themselves smart and with wide, deep and profound knowledge of life, the universe and everything.

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To give a trite example what it feels like to be dead is unknown when alive, yet because we all die, it is not unknowable because we all get a chance to experience it. The level to which we are conscious in the death state may be variable. We don’t know for sure.

In the new age literature, I encounter many who talk about the buddhic and atmic planes or awarenesses. There is a certainty in language which is not necessarily backed up by personal experience. It is for them a theory, a hypothesis and not an experiential reality. In the blue books opus direct and continued experience of these states, in the model hypothesis, is as a result of initiation and evolution.

Humans like to model in their own image and may draw glowing enlightened figures, perhaps partially because states of awareness and consciousness of highly abstract natures are not easily diagrammatically rendered. In the Ancient Wisdom traditions, the atmic “plane” is sometime referred to as the nirvanic plane, implying it is the awareness of the post nirvanic being lacking a causal vehicle having blown it off. They may fail to imagine awe and the austere nature of universe, perhaps they imagine a soft radiant glow, with comforting pastel shades. Cosmogenesis is not nice and fluffy; it is cosmic and violent beyond comprehension. The scope is far beyond human experience. We can just do our best to observe, model and understand.

For a scientist the use of the two dimensional nomenclature of plane is very unhelpful and distracting. Plane implies matter and physicality {excluding imaginary numbers}. When I have been reading these things, I find that the legacy nomenclature from the Victorian mediums and early twentieth century occultists off putting and something which I need to put to one side to get to the gist. The use of etheric “plane” instead of emotional is old fashioned.

I have seen the word Toltec described as man of knowledge and uttered with a bit of awe. I have yet to meet a so-called Toltec who can solve Schrödinger’s equation for a particle in a three dimensional box. Tens of thousands of undergraduates do this every year. There is a whopping great gap in knowledge of physics, chemistry, biology and engineering, in my opinion. They may have knowledge but it is far from complete.

Similarly, many scientists may profess profound knowledge. They may pooh-pooh magic, chakras, ghosts and exorcism. They may even soap box. I’ll wager that I could spend the wee small hours in a haunted house with them and have significantly less fear. Even though ghosts do not exist, of course. If I started to do a rite of exorcism, they would probably shit their pants.

Both groups have the unknown and the extent of it is also unknown. I could play on words and say that the extent of the unknown is the unknowable for any give life because we can only map out so much unknown in ~ 85 standard earth years.

I’ll make a statement; it is common for human beings to imagine themselves more knowledgeable than they actually are. There is an arrogance which is out of proportion with their tens of kilograms of meat measured against a planetary and cosmic scale. Yet they have trouble not being adamant and assertive about things which they know little or nothing about.

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Do you know where the unknown for you starts?

Have you an inkling of just how vast that unknown is for you?

The Tendency to Scoff and Self-diagnosed Omniscience.

~ quantumdreamer ~ Leave a comment

I’ll speculate that many have a tendency to scoff and perhaps belittle as a default knee-jerk reaction. People may be unaware of the limits of their knowledge and self-diagnose more than a little prematurely a know-it-all omniscience. Because I once worked in academia, I have met many pompous people along the way who rated themselves. I observed a willingness to soap box on matters outside their subject area, with an assertiveness inconsistent with their actual depth of know how.

A couple of years back in conversation I asked an ex-student what his maths was like in order to try to explain something. I wanted to know what “language” to use. He was very circumspect because he had attended my matrix heavy chemical group theory course. He sensed that he could be digging himself a hole and stopped.

A lot of people have a braggadocio which when tested is found groundless.

I have an ongoing problem which is not massive.

Here in France a fair proportion of Brits make little or no effort with the French language. This makes them seem a little stupid and illogical. Around here anyway the housing is relatively cheap and thus the British people who live here are not financially loaded.  There is some small correlation between wealth and intelligence. My prejudice is that the French have a low bar when it comes to their assessment of Brits, they do not think us smart, the French can be arrogant.

I’ll speculate with a high confidence that most of the locals round here have no experience of dealing with a former academic from a world top ten science university and a high tech. entrepreneur to boot.

There is a catch twenty-two. If we are interacting, how do I make them aware of what they are dealing with? They have no personal experience. I can offer them a wiki write up of Imperial College in French. This makes them think me weird. They read it cursorily. Then when they try for example, sales pressure manipulation and I assert back they are surprised. I say I did try to warn you. But you did not listen or try to figure out where I was coming from.

In a conversation about a house sale, I said; “I have absolutely no wish to discuss this endlessly over and over.”

The first offer had been at 60% of the sale price for our house and they kept edging up ten grand at a time. The phrase fuck off came to mind.

The negotiator said, “This is France, that is what we do. Il faut discuter.”

The conversation did not go further.

How do you explain to people that they don’t know what they are getting in to and that there is a shed load of things which they know nothing about? If you try you are not believed people can be very adamant and unaware of their ignorance. Is it even worth trying?

A cursory look at social media suggests that adamant self-diagnosed omniscience is a widespread phenomenon. There has never been so many experts pedalling stuff from their soap boxes and otherwise gobbing off.

Are we not blessed to live in an age like this?

Karmic Snakes and Ladders

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In Buddhism we have the notion of stream enterer which if entered leads to, in the fullness of time, liberation or nirvana. This does not mean that the subsequent lives of a sotāpanna are easy rather ultimate “success” is assured. The challenges scale with the capability of the being.

One can think of the lives leading up to a possibility of stream entrance as a game of snakes and ladders. In some lives great karmic progress is made, a ladder. In other lives normal steady progress is made, the roll of the dice. Then there are lives in which arrogance and poor choices loads on extra karma. These lives are the snakes where one starts off again in a worse position. There is a snake on square 99 {97 here}. Just when success looks possible the chance is squandered. The problem is that progress and illumination can often stimulate arrogance and poor attitude. By accumulating personal power, one might get wealth, greed and clinging. What looks shiny could be retrograde.

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As one gets close to the fleeting moment of chance for stream entry the challenges get ever larger and sometimes way more subtle.

Imagine if you encountered Siddartha and failed to learn from him. Your “omniscience” somehow got in the way. That fleeting moment of chance which led you to the presence of a Buddha was missed. That is one massive Burmese python or anaconda of a snake! A Buddha could be the key to stream entry.

You missed a huge possibility for progress and were sent way back to learn all over again. A potential fate was forfeited.

Because of dependent origination or dependent arising, no fate is 100% fixed. But the general trends of karma and fate hold true. You have to cooperate with your fate in order to progress smoothly. If you are sulky and “do I have to” you won’t get ladders you will get snakes. If you are stubborn and pig-headed you will get many snakes. If you are light and easy, you will get ladders and people who help you on your way.

Some people really make bad choices, and in my experience, this is to do with them being glamoured in one way or another, by things or people. Those fond of short cuts, can find that they are anything but.

Grizzly Adams – Twitter and LinkedIn

~ quantumdreamer ~ Leave a comment

I have lived to a large extent in a vacuum of social interaction for a number of years. It was perhaps foretold by my like of “The Life and Times of Grizzly Adams”. As a teenager I really enjoyed the programme and the lifestyle idea, living in an isolated cabin in nature.  My extroverted parents kept bloody talking whilst I was watching the programmes and often commented about isolation leading inevitably to cabin fever. Although adjunct to society we do not really participate and cannot be said to be socially integrated. We are immersed in nature at the very edge of a village.

Because I have arthritis sooner or later, I will be unable to manage our 2 acres. So, I joined LinkedIn with a view to seeing if I could get some science editing work to help pay for assistance in the garden. That has not proved possible / easy. As a result of this LinkedIn exposure, I delved into the venture capital start-up world to which I once pertained a quarter century ago. It was interesting for me to track down people I did my first degree with and to see what they are / have been up to. When taking the integral over my life I have perhaps been among the least financially successful of all my peers. We live below minimum wage. This is not a usual outcome for a high technology start-up co-founder and an ex-academic from a world top ten university.

What I see is that the tendency to hype and spin has not gone. It has gotten worse. Many of my invitations to join my network have been ignored. People whose lives I helped change can’t be arsed with me anymore, my leper’s bell can be heard across continents, it seems. Some of these people are very “successful” now. I know that I have helped many people over the years. It seems they have forgotten or are embarrassed by me now. I am not resentful I have perhaps always given more that I have taken. It was never done transactionally.

By following the likes of people I knew, I have had exposure to a Jewish / Israeli perspective on some things. I found this interesting and had been unaware of some of the depth of feeling.

Obviously, LinkedIn has a sales / public relations purpose. It is not for deep spiritual insight. It could be said to be for people “on the make”.

Has anyone every studied if LinkedIn is worth the money time and effort? Or is LinkedIn yet another part of our modern FOMO addiction?

Twitter has some gems but it also has a lot of shite. There is darkness, hate and some light. I am amazed at how very polarised the world is now. I was trying to sum it up.

People it seems can be gullible, adamant and evangelical.

They may actually believe some of the stuff they soap box about. Conspiracy theories can be way out there. Deep thought and balance seems missing. OK not everyone likes Twitter/X or whatever. Not every “omniscient” being needs to spout off about their agenda. But it is a sample of our world today. I sense that the younger people are underrepresented. It does not fill me with optimism about where humanity is heading.

In a strange way I find both of these medias “intrusive” the world “out there” is somehow leaking in to they world here. The more I see they less I sense a belonging to that world. I don’t fit in, perhaps I never have.

My working hypothesis is that there is not really much more for me to do “out there”.  I am done, used up. I have had a dream recently suggesting that this self-image may be wrong and that my opinion of self needs a polish, a glow up. But true paths can and may be filled with emptiness as opposed to societal detritus.

It seems likely that in the upcoming weeks I will pull the plug on LinkedIn and now that my research on Twitter is nearly over, I will stop using that too.

I have one observation Twitter live feed is way better before the USA gets out of bed. Reiteration differs from fact. Boring.

Self-Diagnosed Omniscience and the Closed Mind

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I have been having a dabble on LinkedIn and am more than a little surprised at the plethora of coaching, self-development schema and other things which sound too good to be true. People have to make a buck and the platform is used to tout and sell services. My logic suggests that either there are a lot of insecure and incapable people who need someone to help them and therefore there is a market or there are lot of “experts” surplus to demand. It has always seemed a bit of swizz to me. Someone develops some schema, some training, then demands payment from others to be certified by them. This kind of business model is in Aikido, NLP, Reiki etc. Someone must issue the certificates.

But exactly who was the source certificate, who passed them as competent?

I’ll postulate that many imagine their knowledge and wisdom to be more extensive and comprehensive than it actually is. This group of people includes really smart people at universities.

We might call them the self-diagnosed omniscient or the know-it-all gang. There are a lot of people who think they are “experts” who are unaware of the extent and breadth of their ignorance. But because they deem themselves clever and smart they are closed minded and negating of anything outside the limited church of their knowledge. They profess from their soap boxes in real life and on-line.

There is a related phenomenon, “the not invented here syndrome”. This is when group mind develops a norm, an explanation, a brand or a product. Anything which is not sourced from within that set or peer group is suspect. The brand must be evangelised and cannot tolerate any new ideas which might threaten market share. Ideas from outside of group mind are repelled with boiling oil from the parapets or Winchester rifle rapid fire from within the circled wagons. Nothing foreign and “Apache” can be tolerated and allowed to live. “They” and “we” do not like nor trust “them”.

On an off for over a decade I have had dreams in which I am not believed or listened to. There is not much I can do about that, nor do I feel hard done by. I know enough about human nature to understand that I am a bit of a non sequitur in the minds of many. I don’t make sense in the world of should and ought. For too many the step to “as it actually is” can be tricky.

We have the robes or Levis joke. I say that because of my background and my penchant for black Levis 501 I am not believed. If, however, I wore Buddhist monk’s robes the incredulity would mostly be washed away in a flash of saffron or magenta. It is that simple, people do judge a book by its cover even when they are self-diagnosed omniscient.

Which suggests that said diagnosis is at best premature.

Hmnn…