Once again another topic that I can’t really put my finger on because I can really pin what these sites are. They tend to feed off each other and there are quite a few of them floating about.
Along with posting things like this:
I do NOT wish you a happy New Year. I wish you a world without state politics, poverty, and war, and I’m working to make it happen.
I wish you a humorous New Year. Filled with affectionate insubordination and carefree disobedience. Like Swami Beyondananda said, “It’s time to take humor seriously and seriousness humorously." A certain infusion of laughter, even in its least popular form, is a prodigious help towards bearing the hardships of life.
So forget New Year’s resolutions. Embrace Humorous World Evolution instead.
Authentic love begins with genuine humor. Dream the cosmic joke forward. Laugh, and laugh hard, especially at stagnate systems, unfulfilled resolutions, outdated myths, and spoon-fed gods. The world doesn’t need more obedient followers and bootlickers. It desperately needs more disobedient dreamers, rowdy myth-makers, and disruptive jokesters.
“In conclusion, there is no conclusion. Things will go on as they always have, getting weirder all the time." –Robert Anton Wilson
I honestly don’t know what to make of this. It certainly sounds reasonable enough, but I can’t help but get the feeling that it smacks of anarchists rebelling against nothing sort of thing. It seems to be a common thread among these sites. “The state” is a strong term used from great frequency and disdain. Also they seem convinced about when the world needs (as if people really do). But another trend I seem to notice is the lack of an action plan or an idea of the end result. I guess the phrase is “all flash and no substance”.
What do you guys make of this? It’s sort of a bad memory when I got stuck in that alternative phase that people get baited into.
Well, a cynic, may live according to the view that all the bad things that happen are going to happen regardless, e.g., what the State does, just makes problems worse, no matter what. The advantage of being such a cynic, is that they are thus under no moral obligation to try to make things better, because it is, in their view, impossible anyway. It seems to me that the above person’s philosophy, has that element, but with the addition (beyond lack of responsibility to do anything) they get to not worry and just be happy, laugh about everything, because THAT is what they are saying will be better than struggling against the “inevitable”.
But the author also says that by doing this he is working to make a world without war, poverty or politics happen. So, IMO, he is doing a bit of doublespeak. He suggests that by doing nothing other than seeing the humor in everything, (and encouraging others to do this, also) he will make the world a better place, yet at the same time he asserts that “things will go on as they always have”.
Thus it is appealing. We should just all be Robin Williams (on his good days).
It does sound appealing. But I'm guessing that in practice it's just doesn't pan out. But I can see the allure and draw of it.
Yeah, it probably wouldn't pan out well for humanity in the long term, if everyone adopted that life view. But we might be happier and have more laughs in the meantime. For awhile, at least.
Of course, the same could be said, if we all started to use cocaine regularly. (Although, in that case, the decline would happen much, much, more quickly).
I like the “Swami Beyondananda” – he’s basically a comedian who’s just trying to get us to not take ourselves so seriously. The rest of this just sounds like typical New Age junk. Yep, I clicked on the first link and the first thing I saw was the 3 minute Chakra test. Dead giveaway!
It’s just that they seem obsessed with unseating the current system. But there is no talk about what to replace it with.
I mean they talk about questioning the way things are, which is just healthy critical thinking. Obviously one doesn’t just swallow what people tell them. Even the part about not being afraid to be wrong or make mistakes (something I need work on). But that’s sensible stuff. Carl Sagan said pretty much the same thing. But it’s interesting how they use that to lend credence to their words. Not to mention the quote dropping.
It's an Alternative viewpoint and deserves a site with proper identificatio and qualification of information.
A person can post a viewpoint and someone else can ask: "What does that even mean?", and then usually a series of ad hominem follows and nothing gets solved.
However, it seems that our ability to construct concepts of alternatives from the norm does have a useful function in the evolution of knowledge and application of alternative solutions to a problem.
Assuming that we are talking about a person who has no agenda other than proposing an alternative viewpoint, and has done some homework on the subject.
The arguments following such *new ideas* are often very instructive. The fact that a person can post an *alternative idea* on a site marked *Alternative Theories (or similar), is good form, and the responses by *knowlegeable* people will tell him/her that either they are on the right path or chasing a rainbow.
For serious discussions in known Physics, there is a qualified site as well.
p.s. As to Fractality, you may want to check out CDT (causal dynamical triangulation), this is more than Speculative, but still in its infancy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Causal_dynamical_triangulation
My apologies, I truly am sorry. But I'm just not following you on this one. What does that have to do with my post?
Apparently your OP post was too obscure for a straight answer. On a forum named *alternative* (viewpoints), what do You expect to find, mainstream science??
But you may want to do some research into *the mirror neural network*, the abiity to empathize with a certain point of view, no matter how ridiculous or bizarre these little subcultures may sound to logically thinking persons.
Oh, and this may give a chuckle; http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/03/12/1284037/-Jon-Stewart-has-3-history-professors-rip-apart-Fox-s-Andrew-Napolitano-s-slavery-revisionism?detail=emailclassic
Now that illustrates an *alternative idea about Lincoln and slavery.
I guess I was looking criticism about these viewpoints. The whole not taking anything seriously, the cosmic joke, and overall laughing at everything. I have never really been good at analyzing philosophy.
I guess I was looking criticism about these viewpoints. The whole not taking anything seriously, the cosmic joke, and overall laughing at everything. I have never really been good at analyzing philosophy.
It's a simple philosophy; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yv-Fk1PwVeU
I haven’t been following this thread, but philosophy is a simple matter of asking “why?”. Why are things the way they are. Don’t accept easy answers. If there is scientific data on why we have ethics, read it. Get a basic knowledge of evolution and neuroscience. All of this available for free and at your fingertips.