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Enlightened Self Interest and Financial Industry Hypocrisy - Chapter One of Three
Enlightened Self Interest and Financial Industry Hypocrisy
Chapter One of Three
Benevolent Self-Deception
An Old Fashioned Rant
By
Cognitive Dissonance
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Too often we divide the world into black and white hats on good and bad people, or left and right ideology that’s right or wrong. Absolute certainties make the process of determining what to believe, to deny or just to ignore so much easier when we don’t actually need to navigate through the cognitive fog to reach critical thinking.
Sadly this duality of extremes is used as a weapon against us at every twist and turn for the benefit of the powerful. And we fall for it hook, line and sinker every single time. I’ve wanted to dig my teeth into the subject of hypocrisy as it applies to the financial ‘industry’ as well as average Joe for several years now, but have held back because the subject is extremely divisive and triggering. Now appears as good a time as any to turn the compost pile.
First let’s get the disclosures out of the way. I was ‘in the business’ for 25 years and I recently closed a small (emphasis on small) financial advisory firm. I ran small money for a living, though that hasn’t always been the case. So while I’ll point fingers and render opinions, and I am extremely critical of society in general and the financial industry in particular, until recently I was swimming in the same cesspool and faced the same ethical dilemmas. That said, while I live in a glass house I’m still going to throw a few stones. Breaking glass is extremely satisfying in a visceral kind of way.
In addition, regardless of how you may interpret what I write below, I am very optimistic that our problems can be solved, and relatively quickly once the individual and national ‘will’ finally develops. We have the power in our hands to change everything and always have. However, as has been the case for hundreds (thousands?) of years, the sole job of the magicians who cast the nation’s economic and cultural spells is to convince us on a daily basis to surrender our power to them in return for empty promises of pain free living and delayed (if ever) consequences.
Viewed from the perspective of technical analysis, it appears we are nearing the peak in the last wave of an eighty year long insanity rally. And while there is no way of knowing exactly when it will end, we do know it will end. A careful review of world history over several thousand years shows that insanity runs in cycles of intensity (but never really goes away) and we are in the final phase of this particular cycle.
When we grow up a bit more and recognize that no leader will guide us out of our own insanity, that it is up to us alone, this leg of our maturation process will be over. I see great potential, but I have low expectations that this potential will be achieved without a great deal of pain. Empires will fall, war will explode and people will die, of this I have little doubt. The death throes of self deceit are extremely destructive as the excesses of the insane asylum are discarded, then replaced just in time to start the next cycle.
With that said, please don’t make the mistake of assuming this article doesn’t apply to all of us just because ‘we’ don’t work in the ‘industry’. What is happening in the financial industry is just a symptom of global wide narcissistic naval gazing, blatant greed and overall rot that has permeated our global society.
There are no innocent bystanders in this debacle, only varying levels of involvement or passivity beginning with the ring leaders and flowing down through several layers of direct and indirect enablers. And as I will flesh out below and in subsequent chapters, I suggest it flows up as well as down in a dysfunctional and symbiotic positive feedback loop.

Ethics and ethical behavior, along with all its sub categories, including Enlightened Self Interest (ESI) and benevolent self deception, is not exclusive to financial professionals. In fact these moral concepts flow up from the individual into society in general and our institutions specifically. Thus if we declare our institutions corrupt we are clearly and unmistakably declaring ourselves corrupt as well. From a big picture point of view, in a representative form of government (and I would argue in any form of government) we (re)elect and/or support exactly the type of leaders we desire (notice I did not say deserve) but to which we will rarely admit any culpability.
For those who might strenuously object to that statement, let me give you an example. During the 2004 Presidential election cycle there was a voter survey conducted (very Orwellian that in the past year that poll has disappeared) asking about corrupt politicians. When asked what percentage of Senate and House congressional critters were corrupt in any way (an admittedly broad definition) the answer was 81%. Meaning 4 out of 5 were considered corrupt by those who elect them to office or who watch from the sidelines. When asked what percentage of the respondent’s own elected representatives were corrupt, the answer dropped to 19%.
Common sense dictates that if 4 out of 5 politicians in general are corrupt, on average the same percentage of our own representatives is corrupt. So why the large discrepancy? Well, if my elected representatives are corrupt it reflects poorly on me. Even if I don’t vote or care much about the issue I don’t want others (more specifically the poll taker) to think I ‘allow’ or ignore corruption after making such a strong statement about the large degree of corruption nationwide.
Thus when answering the survey questions, which are often posed by live individuals either in person or by phone, I must cover my cognitive butt and present myself as pure…..or at least more pure than the next guy who is the real idiot electing all these corrupt politicians.
The simplest way to avoid this cognitive dissonance is to lie to our ‘self’ under the cover of all kinds of slick and plausible excuses, such as bacon delivery, political clout or whatever. It doesn’t matter how I brush it away, just that I do. It’s OK to lie to myself, but I must not let anyone else see that my cognitive slip is showing.
If we wish to be lied to in order to hide from ourselves and any personal accountability or self awareness, that is exactly the style of leadership we will get. I can’t tell you how many conversations I’ve had with people from a variety of political and social convictions who will scream in outrage at this or that political transgression.
But when asked about their own faults and hypocrisies they are nearly always unable to look at themselves with an unbiased eye, never mind make any real attempt to provide a semi honest self appraisal. As I like to say, space aliens don’t drop our political and business leaders from the sky. They are all home grown 100% USDA certified Earthlings spawned from mom and dad, at least until proven otherwise.

Every person carries around a bucket full of lies, half truths and self deceptions to which we add to and subtract from all the time. While many will claim this is simply human nature, I suspect it is more a cultural phenomenon than a natural tendency. If one believes we are a product of evolution, while I can see the utility of some social lies to promote harmony and cooperation, self deception is not necessarily conductive to a long life, particularly when resources are scarce.
During the present era of perceived abundance that is rapidly fading in the rear view mirror, our formerly over flowing cup might have something to do with our present day insanity. Self destructive behavior requires heaping helpings of denial front and center, and only the ideologically blinded or mentally ill can take a look around and consider the present sorry state of the human race to be the result of others and not ourselves. One of the hallmarks of insanity is the personal belief that there isn’t anything wrong with me, just everyone else.
Since by definition a culture is all encompassing and totally immersive, one cannot see ourselves for what we really are unless we make an honest and sustained effort to do so. Everything looks pretty much normal (in an insane kind of way) to the non-critical eye……which is often just the way we like it. This is where the lying and self deception comes into play.
One of the most common enabling lies we tell ourselves is that because we are more (mostly) pure of mind and deed (or at least thoroughly rationalized and justified) it is those people over there who are the real problem. So in our mind we make a generous offer and declare that we might clean up our own act, what little there actually needs to be done, once the bastards who are responsible for this mess are hung from the rafters. This is the epitome of blame shifting and magical thinking, and it is the root of the problems we all face.
At one point or another we have all pointed our finger towards (or should I say given the finger to) the ‘bad’ guys at the Federal Reserve and on Wall Street, at the White House, Congress, the Judicial System and the huge multinational Corporations. And while you will get no argument from me that all these players are both compliant puppets and powerful puppeteers, they are all essentially powerless without our direct consent or passive agreement.
As well, while the game is obviously rigged to compel our participation, many of us roll over and concede defeat, taking the softer easier way out while claiming the moral high ground to enable our own victimization. After all ‘victims’ aren’t responsible for anything, including ourselves, because we are all……well victims, right? Don’t blame me dawg, I’m just the poor trapped soul caught in the nasty spider web.
While I am sure there will be angry comments declaring that I am unfairly blaming the victim when it is clearly those lousy bastards over there that are responsible for this mess, short of putting a gun to our heads we always have choices. And to say otherwise is bordering on the infantile. What we are really saying when we claim there is no way out or that we are powerless to stop the insanity, is that all the easy alternatives have been eliminated and the only remaining paths we perceive as available involve high levels of pain, discomfort and distress.
This is an illusion we actively encourage to enable us to remain comfortably passive within the insanity, or which we use to give us the moral green light to participate in the looting under the guise of profit, saying we’re just taking care of ourselves and our own. You know, buy the f**king dip, regardless if whether it’s stocks, bonds, CRE, distressed housing, PM’s, whatever. Or one I heard just today, where the person states that it will never change so why not position ourselves to profit from the mess.
Of course, we nearly always exaggerate potential dangers or project undesirable outcomes when facing paths we don’t wish to pursue. I can always find a reason not to act, while finding reasons to act are far and few between. This isn’t human nature alone, but just as much nurture, meaning our training and conditioning beginning with our parents. Sure there are basic tendencies to procrastinate inherent in each individual, but children of proactive and positive parents tend to be the same and vice versa.

Very early in my career I was told by a wise mentor that successful people do the things unsuccessful people don’t want to do. I was then challenged to demonstrate this with the understanding that words without action accomplishes little other than verbal and mental masturbation. This applies so well to life in general.
Bottom line, if we don’t want to do something we will find every excuse in the book not to do so. Rather than closely examine our part in this slow dance of socioeconomic death, we paper over our own involvement in the very system we claim we want radically changed or even destroyed.
Time to take a closer look at what’s really going on here because this game is exactly what many of us want to play in order to avoid dealing with the very collapse or change we say is desirable. Many of us are junk yard dogs with absolutely no desire to bite except maybe each other out of impotent frustration.
If you give it some thought, to say that we wish to see our corrupt and patently unfair financial system collapse in order to rout the bastards from our house is the functional equivalent of wishing someone would burn down our uninsured home to rid ourselves of a severe cockroach infestation. Or better yet hiring (or electing) someone(s) to do the job for us.
Yes, when all is said and done the roaches might be gone, but there were less destructive ways of removing them. Sometimes we select bad choices to hide from even more frightening ones, a personal and collective insight we carefully conceal from ourselves in order to continue with our benevolent self deception.
Alas, we will find less damaging cockroach extermination methods only if we are willing to explore all avenues, including the emotionally, physically and economically painful. In reality we don’t wish to collapse our economic system. What we desperately desire is for the thieving and insanity to end (or at least to greatly diminish) and for a return to the mythical land of the Norman Rockwell lie of milk and honey.
Can’t say I blame us, though it appears to be time to short unicorns and fairy tales and go long courage and cooperative collusion. Aside from possibly preparing ourselves for the coming collapse, what are we doing to prepare our nation, state and community for this new beginning? Is it a matter of each of us waiting for everyone else to go first? Yeah, that will work wonders when the unrest goes local.
Since we aren’t especially willing to look too closely at all aspects of the insanity for fear it might implicate us nearly as much as the bad guys, we declare we would rather watch the entire stinking mess disintegrate and then wash away with the evening tide.
This allows us to individually and collectively wash our hands of the enormous social disintegration that will result from economic collapse while emotionally and intellectually shielding us from any danger, real or imagined, that we may encounter if we were to work towards other less destructive ‘solutions’, or to help prepare our surrounding community for the storm we are forecasting.

It’s so much more comforting to suffer misery as part of the collective herd than to suffer alone while feeling vulnerable. This is one of the reasons we latch onto the “It’s just impossible to change” or even “It’s not me, it’s those damn idiots over there who aren’t doing anything about this” excuses.
The list of reasons why we should not act is as varied as our imagination. So how convenient it is that if everyone says the same thing, everyone has a wonderful excuse not to do anything yet still remain blameless. This is the collective self deception that is ostensibly benevolent to both the individual and the group, or so we wish to think.
Essentially this is a Bizzaro World Catch 22 that works to our advantage over the short term, but destroys our souls and our neighborhoods quicker than we think. However, in a world of short term thinking this doesn’t look like such a bad deal when my focus is squarely on what’s in it for me, myself and I.
Make no mistake about it though, denial, both individual and collective, is so overwhelmingly powerful that not only will tortured souls self destruct and commit suicide while in its throes, but nations will rush head long into the dual abyss of self destruction via war, civil or otherwise, and economic self immolation.
However, a nation doesn’t self destruct because its land and buildings are consumed in the fires of economic hell. Nope, it is the citizens of a nation that wither away on the vine, eventually taking the physical and economic infrastructure with them into the bottomless abyss of insanity.
The only saving grace is that who can really say what is or is not insane when we are all on the same glide path to hell? That’s our own special theory of insanity relativity. The same insanity that drives nations into competing rounds of destructive currency devaluation also drives us into feeding off each other’s delusions and delirium tremens.
When a sovereign state’s currency and credit system, its blood and circulatory network, depends entirely upon the faith and belief of its captive and captivated population, stability for the most part can be manufactured simply by believing in the system. Understand though that in this case ‘belief’ can mean active or passive participation and/or dependency. This ‘belief’ also includes ignoring potential dangers to the system, especially terminal dangers of the mind numbing variety.
This explains perfectly why as the system gets closer to the edge, people can continue to go nervously about their lives. Truth be told, on some basic level most of the population already knows things are in very bad shape, but we chose to ignore it. The level of governmental and corporate corruption, the rise of the surveillance/police state, chronic unemployment, rising food and medical costs and the escalating taking of rights and freedoms are not unseen by the population at large, just desperately ignored.

What does one do and how does one act when the myth can no longer be sustained and we find out our protectors are actually the predators and our torturers? What would we do if we suddenly discovered our father was a child molester or our brother a mass murderer and we were next on the list if we attempted to expose him?
For most of us the drill would be duck and cover baby, duck and cover, then head even deeper into the mind numbing embrace of denial. Without question most of us would move to the center of the herd and act like there’s nothing wrong in the suburbs. Only we would do so quietly and with baby steps. After all, you don’t want to alert the wolves circling the herd that you are injured and ripe for the taking.
Just as the world is beginning to recognize that the efficient market theory was efficient solely in snowing people into believing logic and reason ruled the market, we should understand that much of our individual decision making process is subconscious and totally illogical. So is it really surprising that ‘We the People’ have made a mostly subconscious decision to carry on as if nothing is wrong and hope for the best? This is the childishly adult equivalent of covering our ears and repeatedly screaming ‘I can’t hear you’.
As long as the government is successful in keeping the wolves at bay, at least for the ever decreasing majority, we will happily ignore the growing desperation in the streets in exchange for some make believe ignorant bliss. Just leave me and mine alone and I will avert my eyes and hurry about my business.
Of course, this can only be accomplished if we discard critical thinking and independent thought and stick to binary input and output. If no one wishes to recognize the full insanity, all it takes to accomplish this in a leveraged fiat system is a collective and unspoken understanding to ignore the ugly truth and move along. What you don’t make ‘real’ by specifically acknowledging it just can’t hurt you, at least for today and hopefully a few more tomorrows.
As nonsensical as this might sound, we make our own emotional and intellectual reality fresh on a daily basis. While doing so, we mold our physical world to fit our belief system as we have conceived it. Do this, don’t do that, deny those, ignore them, focus of this and before you know it our world begins to conform to how we denied it. Multiple our individual effort by two or three hundred million, or two or three billion, then conjure up several hundred trillion of Federal Reserve electronic ones and zeros while casting a collective self propaganda spell of ‘all is well’ and temporary stability is created out of thin air.
The only problem is this huge edifice has no foundational support and can easily be toppled by a small percentage of bolting members of the unsettled herd. Panic is easy to generate among the hard core deniers because deep down we all know it is just a lie. All but the truly clueless stand around with their hands in their pockets, trying to look innocent and unconcerned while memorizing all the exits and escape routes. Only a fool or the hopelessly self deceived will actually drink their own Kool-Aid mix, though I am constantly amazed how many do. Mine is cherry banana by the way.
Sure the fundamentals are slowly deteriorating (again) and the second (third?) plunge appears just around the corner. Real reality will eventually re-assert itself with a vengeance because it’s not nice to fool with Mother Nature. But (sadly) not before several more revolutions of the fiat paper around the toilet bowl have been completed.
After all, to some degree or another we are all engaged in group psychological can kicking, if for no other reason than to keep the inner boogieman at bay. Binary thinking doesn’t allow for long range planning or constructive positioning, just blame shifting and avoidance, something we do with typical American arrogance and excellence.
We all have a tendency to exaggerate the value of our prior investment in our jobs, our family and ourselves. So when considering what to do or not do, often the decision we make is to make no decision at all, to go with the flow and to make no waves. We never really acknowledge that making no decision is actually a decision in and of itself, an affirmation of the status quo and the present day insanity. “Hey, it wasn’t me that made that decision. I’m not responsible.”
The more out-of-control we feel our life and world is becoming, the more we will seek to avoid making any decision we (want to) believe might endanger our life or position in the social order regardless of its present state of advanced decay. Misery is always relative to those who are around us. I can be the happy king of the soup kitchen or just another miserable nobody in the corporate cafeteria.
In addition we will avoid any responsibility for decisions (or non decisions) made by ourselves or anyone else. We learn this behavior early in life, first from our family, then from our social interactions in school and later corporate life. Cover our ass begins and ends in the familiar warmth and comfort of our duplicitous mind.
04/14/2014
Cognitive Dissonance
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The Age of Moar
subconscious era, which is exactly why i must be making so many bad decisions lately...
my only comment is thanks, really!
Most people want to only partly reach full maturity. They remain at various levels of immaturity. Partly, craving a king or super-parent replacement. Partly, like a teenager, wanting to agree with peers that the world is corrupt and messed up. Partly, making the same choices of their peers so as to belong. Partly, believing that their replacement mommies and daddies will love them and all will turn out well. What was high school and college, but learning to replace your parents with new parents and new rules. What was voting, but a delusion that you ought trust those elected. "Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely," wrote Lord Acton, a devout Catholic, about the Pope. If the Pope cannot be trusted by his believers, who should be?
What is full maturity? Being a lone wolf, not running in the pack, nor being like a domestic dog (a wolf which never matures) with a master. Taking full responsibility for what happens. What do I believe? Nothing. What do I observe? Everything ahead.
How do you control the world? Keep 7.2 billion humans in a perpetual state of adolescence.
I've touched on this theme several times before and the comments were very nasty. The adolescents were not happy being called adolescents to their faces.
I'm just a 2 year old playing with mud pies on top of a mountain. :)
As a two year old, you have the power of the word, NO. How do you control the world? The same way you control a sled dog team. Give a few treats to some and let them squabble among themselves, instead with you. It may be the nature of most of mankind to never fully mature. That is how civilizations built up, with slaves and masters. In the wolf pack, some or one are in charge and others instinctively follow. Just because a man has the capability to be free, doesn't mean he'll act to be free and mature. Nastiness is to be expected, when you reject their subservience without consequence.
ALL births are accompanied with pain. ESPECIALLY "spiritual enlightment." Sociatial pain cannot be avoided and is necessary so that the future DOES NOT FORGET.
i attribute the whole cycle to grisham's law for people. bad people drive out good people because good people will not participate in badness but will eventually have no choice but to buckle to the will of bad people as a matter of rational self interest. when society is beset by bad people there is a reset sometimes caused by good people revolting and sometimes by economic collapse caused by criminal(should be unethical i suppose since many of the crimes are now legalized) gaming.
in the end, the conclusion is humans are the dumbest animals on earth. the first species to purposely extinct itself.
i like reading all your thoughts, thanks.
here some many more on the topic/s ...
the topic of gender appears to be budding up in this world
thread. human infants are helpless and hopeless in a way,
full of potential but not like, say, a calf or dandelion sprout,
dependent on the "natural environment" for satisfaction to
thrive. no, human infants are especially dependent on
nurturing, protection and the spirit of their human parents,
there are no human men or women raised by wolves or apes.
these other species just don't know how to love a human
being; not even the horse could pull it off! ( ok, forget
that one queen ....)
.
especially so in the kingdom of life, man, you might say
is supremely dependent, one takes many years to make
and the sources of the making come from the universe,
from the stars to the mud, as john prine says, "from
the diamonds on the sidewalk to the dirt in the gutter".
right there a clue to the mind of mankind, his nature and
structure i say. body, mind and spirit all require
nurture given his nature.
and the topic of gender appears to be budding up.
.
"If" by Rudyard Kipling (read by Tom O'Bedlam)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tK4HDCIr_E8
.
funny, my favorite version is performed by a women.
.
"If" by Joni Mitchell
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m78cSts3tJw
.
Bruised Orange - John Prine 1980 (stereo)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lFD2wZaBciY
.
May 23, 2006
The Involitile Universal Law of Gender
http://verbewarp.blogspot.com/2006/05/involitile-universal-law-of-gender...
.
best to you.
.
Tom Waits - Raised Right Men Live.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aow-CzM2W-Y
.
Jesse Winchester - "That's What Makes You Strong"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_yoD-7QpcqI
John Trudell - Baby Boom Che.avi
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QXSHQzvDm7E
Official: Merkel wants a "Treuhand" for Europe!
http://failedevolution.blogspot.gr/2014/04/official-merkel-wants-treuhan...
financial industry hippocrisy
so true CD
we're much better at discerning black and white
than black and red
It is everywhere and in all 'professions'. The system is corrupt, not just the system's leaders.
And "We the People" are the system. A very tough pill to swallow.
in the first year of the site someone said, there's a little Dick Cheney in all of us
a family member, who considers themself "a liberal" once told me that he wished they had told him the war was for the oil, that way he could have backed the cause a lot easier.
by the way, how is the edible landscape coming?
Remember The Graduate? "One word - plastics"
fifty years later: One word - perennials
one more word :
polyculture
and another
permaculture
they all start with P
and sure enough nature adds pee to the soil
Mrs Cog says no bathroom jokes in the threads.
<It always ends with pee and poo with you guys. It's so sad." - Mrs Cog> :)
"fifty years later: One word - perennials"
Mother Nature at her best.
I have a background from years ago of gardening and growing. So I am not surprised when things I plant (and tend too) actually grow.
Mrs. Cog says she has a spotty history with growing 'stuff' and is still in the "OMG I didn't kill it" phase of gardening. I think there is an article in there somewhere. :)
lol
"Just as the world is beginning to recognize that the efficient market theory was efficient solely in snowing people ..."
The alternative to "efficient market theory" is regulation. Regulation forced us to go from mark-to-model to market-to-market in 11/2007 and the current bull market began when regulation forced us back to mark-to-model in 03/2009. It is almost as if regulation is being used to create bubbles and crashes. Even when we briefly had mark-to-market, that was not a move to free markets because eveyone was forced to do the same thing. In a free market, some would use mark-to-market and some would not, and those who chose mark-to-market would get the trust of more customers, and failures would be spread out and fewer, and thus not serve as a pretense for new regulations, bailouts, QE, ZIRP, and lower fractional reserves.
Don't fall for the myth of regulation. Even the Myth of Clintonomics is being used by the crony media to promote regulation, but government intervention is how we got into the current mess. No doubt some will be tempted to trot out the Myth of Glass-Steagall now.
"Don't fall for the myth of regulation."
I am not. In fact I was speaking about a specific theory called Efficient-Market Hypothesis.
Are you falling for the myth that there has ever been a 'free' market and in fact could ever be 'free'?
More free is better.
Isn't it?
How can any part be free if the whole is not? Corruption drives out any 'free' that exists in order to exploit those who still believe it is free or who think they can play the corruption to their benefit.
It almost sounds like you are saying a little pregnant is better than none. So more pregnant is better than less pregnant. You are either pregnant (free) or you are not pregnant (not free).
"How can any part be free if the whole is not?"
You seem to have contradicted your thesis, which is that we should not allow ourselves to be manipulated by our proclivity to see things as either black or white. I agreed with your thesis. We should now allow the Prince to divide us against each other.
Too funny. So I guess I should accept what ever 'free' I am offered by the slave master so that I may continue to support the system they feed off?
In a living breathing system (whch is how I would describe any 'market') how can any part of the system be 'free' while others parts are corrupt? It is one system that is self contained.
Does this mean that if I have malignant cancer in only one or two parts of my 'system' that I won't die from that cancer? After all most of my system is presently 'free' of cancer.
In a living, breathing system the organism as a whole would immediately step in with whatever they had in the arsenal in order to repel and defeat the invading malignancies. That organism's systems would not be engaging in discussions of the "moral hazards" of this or that approach, as WE do when OUR 'organism' gets sick...What would the health of an organism be if the individual systems could refuse to cooperate with whatever was needed to keep the body going? Regardless of how immoral your drinking and drugging might be, your heart, lungs, etc, will continue to support and try to assist your liver until death, as well as the brain that thought it was a good idea to do those things.
You cannot have complete freedom in a complex society. All individual systems, and cells, must agree to give up some of their own personal freedoms to be a part of the whole, because they will often be called upon to act in the interest of some other, undesrving entity, and immediate compliance is necessary regardless of personal feelings.
I'm not saying this is bad or good, just that it is a reality.
Yes, Bemused Observer.
Human "individuals" are ancient ecologies. There are about 100 trillion cells, surviving through many generations. Each cell itself is another even more ancient ecology of organelles. The total genome of all the other organisms that live within and upon the individual is bigger than the genome of that individual's DNA itself.
Human consciousness is an almost infinitesimal slice of the subconsciousness and supraconsciousness, of the ecological relationships that individuals were born embedded within. The paradoxical ways that our social pyramid systems work is that they require that the vast majority of people be kept ignorant and afraid, so that they can be controlled and exploited. Every effort is made by the ruling classes to try to keep those that they rule over unable to understand the basic principles of philosophy, or genuine spirituality. It was not an accident that most people are taught to believe in things which are almost the total diametrical opposite to the way things actually are.
There tends to be nothing wrong with the ideals of a democratic republic, operating through the rule of law. The problem is that the ruling classes have been able to brainwash almost everyone else to believe in bullshit which is backwards. Evolution naturally selects for dynamic equilibria to manifest. Human civilization is doing that, but tortuously at the present time, because the Grand Canyon Paradoxes of progress in science, inside of a society controlled by lies, are building up a head of steam of overwhelming cognitive dissonances, that are threatening to blow the lid off that system!
i was thinking the other day that when one looks
at another person all that is available to the eye
of the perceiver is that which is dead in the person
being observed. the hair, the nails and the skin;
all dead cells, but then there is the light in the eyes
and motion in time.
imagine a person, still, meditating with their eyes closed
what can one see? or a person wearing sunglasses.
what can perceivers really know, or what do we want to know
from looking at an-other person?
Of course you should accept any net gain in freedom, just as you should accept any medical remedy that is a net gain.
One does not have to be greatful to an illegitimate master for a net gain in freedom in order to accept that gain.
You will never get anyone to believe that total freedom is best if you cannot first get them to believe that more freedom is better. Also, you will lose credibility with them if you insist that only total freedom is worth accepting.
"I can be the happy king of the soup kitchen or just another miserable nobody in the corporate cafeteria."
Live to fight another day.
The overly complex structure and bureaucracy of modern society rewards those who compromise their morality and ethics in alignment with it's perverse reward structure.
An individual acting morally, ethically, and responsibly - is often punished for it.
If they do succeed their actions serve to feed the machine, rather than change it.
What is one to do, vote? Politicians are rewarded according to their complicity.
What are the seven deadly sins or capital vices and how many are part of our modern societies?
Turn on the T.V. or the Internet and each of these is ever-present and celebrated, not discredited or shamed.
You can join in and tell the lies and compromise yourself or withdraw and be true to yourself and be shunned.
It is possible to live morally and ethically but your sacrifices may just feed the concupiscence of others.
Good and clean living is a reward unto itself; the society won't improve until it is rewarded within the system and vices are shamed and punished.
Bubba Watson won the Masters and celebrated with friends at Waffle House. This man understands money and fame has little to do with his happiness. His perspective is the best defense against the seven deadly sins.
He makes Floridians proud wherever he goes ;-)
Agreed, Bubba is actualy the anti-PGA!
Currency/Money is only a magnifier of the underlying character or lack thereof.
Look at most modern sports figures, more specifically NBA/NFL stars and their quick wealth and equally quick fall from grace.
DaddyO
I was saying to Mrs. Cog yesterday that the Augusta board of directors must have had a heart attack when Bubba showed up on the scene some years ago and immediately showed he was a contender.
"Bubba? We don't let no Bubba's in the club house. Who the hell does he think he is?"
The ultimate FU is to win their tournament and hoist their winners cup over the head of "Bubba". Then go to the waffle house to celebrate with friends. :)
"It is possible to live morally and ethically but your sacrifices may just feed the concupiscence of others."
"It" certainly is a dilemma of cosmic proportions. The old damned if you do and damned if you don't. There is just enough sugar in the poison pill to make it palatable to those who wish to close their eyes and swallow.
Once acquired, real power and control is never willingly given up.
For better of for worse, it has been this way since the begining of time.
< meh > go make your life what you want it to be or STFU!
"< meh > go make your life what you want it to be or STFU!"
We are. Thank you for suggesting others do the same.
cog i've been reading your articles for years. but I think you have this theme of complexity in your writing.
most of your writing really is about what this guy said. make your own life or shut up because real power is never given up.
I think the complexity of your writing is that you can just walk away and by depriving the system of your participation ( like some ayn rand novel )
that you are somehow actively destroying the system or takign some sort of social power. you are not. history is a series of power struggles and walking 'away' is perhaps the first step away from being a slave. however don't confuse self-empowerment with asserting some sort of control or change over the social order for the 'better'. it's not.
to the extent you have given up on 'bettering' the social order, walking away might be a totally neutral personal step. but for people who are attached to the social order , for better or worse, and want to see it change---walking away is not a personal option, ---because it has financial/social costs to their community/family group and to their notion of self actualization as well.
not every defaulted debtor in victorian england wanted to go to australia.
Real lies at Augusta as opposed to amateur divots.
The dream place for the rich and talented and the scream of Munch's masterpiece.
Sounds like the world of Two Ice floes.
All I know is that when I see flowers at Augusta I know spring has almost sprung for those of us a bit north, and at a higher elevation, then Georgia.
"Yes, when all is said and done the roaches might be gone, but there were less destructive ways of removing them. Sometimes we select bad choices to hide from even more frightening ones, a personal and collective insight we carefully conceal from ourselves in order to continue with our benevolent self deception."
you see ----this is the problem . HOW DO YOU DEFINE 'COLLAPSE'?
everytime you talk to neosheepatives they tell you the tbtf banks must stay zombie otherwise you get collapse. I argue the opposite. liquidate the banks or let them totally collapse on their own taking the stock market with them.
the financial system is NOT the stock market. and the ECONOMY is NOT the financial systems.
a fire does a lot to clear the dead wood and dying trees from the forest. if you call the banks and the stock market they hold hostage , the 'system' than you are , in my humble opinion, conflating solutions with problems.
letting that system collapse, where congress and other players refuse to do so by using , spying and radical debasement and participating in raqueteering ( taking criminal 'money' as settlements while refusing to prosecute, or even putting prosecuted people in jail anymore , look at steve cohen SAC! )
i mean----JUST TRYING TO GET THAT TO COLLAPSE is in itself revolutionary. it's arguable you cannot 'vote' for the collapse of that 'system' because the voting system is as much rigged as everything else. for god sakes there is a 50/50 chance that ALL OUTCOMES OF VOTING IN THE U.S. IS RIGGED BY ELECTRONIC VOTING MACHINES WHEN IT COUNTS.
so you see, I am trying to say that I think you misunderstand the nature of 'change' in the effective sense.
People's need to 'add and subtract' from the bucket of lies has very much a lot to do with both the fact that the world is complicated, and is also made to look intentionally complex and filled with lies and propoganda.
it takes a lot of effort to sort through all of it to get to the point where you understand how things work. and even then, it's never over. and things also change. so yes, people add and subtract.
not all of those lies are merely a product of self-exceptionalist ego. not all.
and to the extent they are , there must be room for that imperfection in the human psyche. we are not perfect.
also, Maybe growing some veggies in the garden is a place to start-----but how do you suggest people embrace poverty ? that truly is the undelrying meme shining through this essay. When you ask people to reduce their dependence on a system, and to embrace self sufficiency and depending on their neibhors for security. you are asking them to embrace material poverty in this day and age, in favor of honest.
The irony is that this is this is far more revolutionary , and leads to people of course becoming militant against any who would disrupt their near subsistence level of existence. i don't see how this preserves the wealth this country has built. it basically hands it over to the oligarchs. if there is a method of gaining 'power' over the system, I believe it resides in using one's resources to gain some measure of control over your local sysetm ---YOUR municaplity /county/ sTATE----and forcing your locality to financially cleave itself from the federal government.
the power of democracy is in the purse strings. 100 years of federalization cannot be reversed by hordes of dissidents dropping out and claiming to be enlightened poor. that sort of thing has happened in china repeatedly over many many centuries if you read chinese history. it just doesn't work. it never leads to a positive outcome but the very violent destruction you talk down.
the power is for people to take back their local voting systems, their local financing systems , their local issuance systems.
for one, every person should vote for placing their municipality in chapter 9 bankruptcy and make sure the presiding judge clears every last penny of debt. of course, bankruptcy court judges are federal appointees. this is a major problem.
the bankruptcy code is HIGHLY important to the legal structure of the system. and much hard work will be required to ensure those judges do what the localities require them to do rather than what the big banks who own washington dc want.
"also, Maybe growing some veggies in the garden is a place to start-----but how do you suggest people embrace poverty ? that truly is the undelrying meme shining through this essay. When you ask people to reduce their dependence on a system, and to embrace self sufficiency and depending on their neibhors for security. you are asking them to embrace material poverty in this day and age, in favor of honest."
I am not asking people to do anything. I am strongly suggesting that to participate in a culture that is based upon endless resources will self immolate unless the insanity stops. I don't expect the majority of people to heed my, or anyone else's, warnings. Insanity must and will run its course.
The only thing in question is how far down will the fall be when it truly begins. As I stated in "Perhaps a Crumble Rather than a Collapse" this process could go on for much longer than most people think, thereby confirming to the insane that it can last forever.
I don't buy that the corruption flowed up from the people, I think it flowed down, and yes, now the people themselves are corrupt. It could be solved pretty quickly by either leadership from the top or from the bottom.
What is Wrong With the People.
First, there is plenty of reason for hope, so don’t despair, but …
Something is wrong with the people, who seem increasingly partisan, ignorant, apathetic, dishonest, evasive, cowardly, hypocritical, passive aggressive, insecure, conformist, closed minded, irrational, illogical, and unprincipled. Perhaps most obvious is the increase in cognitive dissonance, but the entirety of the character devolution of the people should be really obvious to any American who has lived long enough. I first noticed it during the Clinton Administration, but the root cause actually started long before that and merely caused a rather obvious leap under Clinton.
A lifetime of experience has taught me that just about everyone has the potential for the dark side as well as the potential for nobility. Both impulses are in our genes, but something in our environment is favoring the dark side.
First, let’s identify the rather obvious trends that motivate us to find a cause. Then, we will learn how they all have the same root cause:
(i.e. infertility, cancer, autism, diabetes, Alzheimer's, and allergies.)
(e.g. psychotropic drug prescriptions.)
(i.e. 9/11, Obama, Clintonomics, anthropogenic global warming, the crash of 2008, the economic recovery, money, the police state, Syrian intervention, the Tea Parties, energy independence, Detroit, race, racism, Trayvon, gender, guns, abortion, homosexuality, the Constitution, history, the free-market, science, innovation, libertarianism, progressivism, fascism.)
Before we can solve a problem, we usually must understand the cause; otherwise, the unintended consequences could be worse than the original problem. In fact, the solutions of the past are the cause of most of our problems today.
Given that those who are most successful tend to be those who are least principled, we can see why every other problem is the result of unhealthy interventions at the top, but how did it get to be this way?
After a few generations of unhealthy interventions from the top by men who may or may not have been principled, we can see how their bad solutions created a perverse incentive structure that rewards bad behavior and punishes good behavior. Just like bad parenting creates a spoiled child who suffers from arrested development, now an entire people are increasingly spoiled children who suffer from arrested development.
The Soviet Union had a system that rewarded unprincipled people, and it crumbled from within.
Everything afflicting the people (that wasn’t caused by evolution) is caused by dishonest banking and a dishonest money supply, and the watershed of problems are self reinforcing. One unusually large cause of problems, that was itself indirectly caused by dishonest banking and dishonest money, is political correctness. Another unusually large cause of problems that was itself indirectly caused by dishonest banking and dishonest money, is media bias. Of course, the chain of cause and effect is long, complex, and suppressed by the media; whereas, myths are substituted by the media, but the chain of cause and effect should be clear by the end of this article.
This is where the real explanation begins.
Dishonest banking and money are caused by:
Central Banking: The Federal Reserve is a private bank with a government granted monopoly on currency creation; whereas, money is a product just like any other, and thus would benefit from competition just like any other product. Why do you think the Federal Reserve refuses to be audited? Central banking was universally considered dishonest until the 20th century.
Fiat Currency: What most people still don’t know is that all of the money in America is created from nothing and backed by nothing except confidence, and thus it is referred to as fiat currency. Fiat currency was universally considered dishonest until the 20th century.
Fractional Reserve Banking: The main cause of fiat currency is that banks can lend at least ten times as much money as they receive in deposits, and depending on the type of loan and type of deposit, it can be even more. Over time, the government has been making it increasingly easier for banks to create more unearned money out of nothing. This is known as fractional reserve banking, which was universally considered dishonest until the 20th century.
Quantitative Easing: In addition to fractional reserve banking, under Obama, the Federal reserve has been creating a much larger than usual amount of money and loaning it to the government and the banks. This is known as quantitative easing, which was universally considered dishonest until the 2oth century.
ZIRP: The federal reserve has reduced the interest rates to nearly zero percent on money it loans to the government and on money it loans to those banks who own the Federal Reserve. This is known as Zero Interest Rate Policy (ZIRP), which was universally considered dishonest until the 20th century.
Consider that any entity who borrows money at zero interest has little incentive to ever pay it back, and will in fact have much incentive to keep borrowing. That’s a very corrupting influence.
Bailouts: Before Quantitative Easing and ZIRP, the government tried bailouts. Does anyone believe that the crash of 2008 and many of its prerequisites would have happened if all the self-proclaimed Elites had been certain that bailouts were an impossibility? It is almost as if bailouts were part of some plan.
Bailouts are unconstitutional, but they happened anyway, so we see that it is really just the character of the American people that gives the Constitution its power, and the American people lacked the character to stop the bailouts. It is almost as if character devolution were part of some plan.
Bailouts were universally considered dishonest until Obama.
Cronyism: Dishonest banking causes the government and the big banks to receive a flood of unearned money, which then finds it way to their closest cronies, which thus tempts cronies to become closer cronies and which tempts honest entities to become first-time cronies. This is called cronyism, and although it has been growing for a long time, it was universally considered to be dishonest – until Obama became the President.
Government rewards cronies with bailouts, contracts, tax breaks, regulations that help the crony and/or hurt honest competitors, and with selective enforcement of laws and regulations. Once the media became cronies, then media bias also helped other cronies and hurt honest competitors.
Once cronyism took hold at the top of government, the cronyism trickled down to the local level. Cronies in local government thus have the support of the cronies directly above them.
A system that favors cronyism makes it increasingly difficult for honest individuals and honest businesses to compete with cronies. It also manufactures more cronies by corrupting honest people. Furthermore, the dwindling number of men of principle limit their success by avoiding doing business with cronies.
Dishonest bankers corrupted honest banking, which then corrupted government, which then corrupted the free-market, which thus corrupted the people, which thus reduced entrepreneurship, innovation, efficiency, and honesty.
Read the rest at What is Wrong With the People.
Future Jim - Excellent synopsis on detail but your mention of "(whatever not attributed to evolution). That's just it - It is ALL evolution. There is always a small segment of people that are sociopaths. They are drawn to power. It's about an ego trip.
When robbers are exposed they tend to flee.
But if powerful enough just create laws to state your the criminal like in the USA. In such a case one only has three real choices:
1) Spend large amounts of time working harder and preserving wealth.
2) Simplify your eye and schedule. If you middle class your the target of taxation in these times.
3) Fight them by exposing them first and see if that changes. Clinton was an acceleration of corruption. Government added the cops in ADVANCE of the crime. Supercomputing assisted in determination of what would happen so there's lots of cops to collect taxes and criminalize the population.
There is some movement now that there exposed but they are positioned to attempt to strangle the rape victim if not by cops by funding a foreign power to do it like France when the revolution started - they gamed that out in advance too. I believe I have mentioned in passing that my strong opinion is that of America has a military coup, they will literally burn the place down. Why Obama Admin let some top military brass go.
I opt for moving into a more quiet area and continue to expose them. It costs money to patrol the out of the way places but I also enjoy being close enough to town to get out. Growing veggies isn't about embracing poverty, I still make some investments outside of the three BBB's of hedging (beans, bullets and bullion). Gardening is therapeutic. It is simple but empowering and good exercise as well. With that set-up I can contribute to my local community but check out of the chaos and 'tudes at will.
We pay politicians to lie to us. Bankers such as the Federal Reserve get paid to lie for the government. The Internet is a tool like a mirror. But unlike a mirror we are all being slowly forced to look into it and lie less to ourselves. The best thing to do is wake up and look in your own mirror every day which helps one gain perspective. With the right perspective, decison making toward a better quality of life gets easier.
As for these robbers, it is pretty much a guarantee in my mind they created a Mexican stand-off situation at the geopolitical level. This commentary is getting long in the tooth. Goodnight.
"We pay politicians to lie to us. Bankers such as the Federal Reserve get paid to lie for the government."
Ultimately we have the government 'we' want. That concept really rankles some people because they say "It's not the government I want". But it was until it changed, mostly because the lies were/are becoming obvious. What we really want is a government who shares in the spoils and lies really really well and isn't so obvious. Like what we had before the lies became so obvious.
"The best thing to do is wake up and look in your own mirror every day which helps one gain perspective. With the right perspective, decison making toward a better quality of life gets easier."
I fully agree.......and it works here and now on a personal level. But as long as the majority wish the lies to continue it will remain so.
Here's an alternate explanation. From a time when Islam was a powerful force. It's not very optimistic though...
http://www.muslimphilosophy.com/ik/Muqaddimah/Chapter4/Ch_4_18.htm
"I don't buy that the corruption flowed up from the people, I think it flowed down, and yes, now the people themselves are corrupt. It could be solved pretty quickly by either leadership from the top or from the bottom."
Actually I am saying that it flows in both directions, sometimes more in one direction than the other. But until we recognize that it flows in both directions we will always be held hostage by ourselves. Why exactly do we need leadership to tell us, then 'do' for us, what we can do for ourselves?
Yes, now it flows in both directions, and it is self reinforcing, but it did not originate with the people.
So 'the people' are pure of heart, mind and deed and were only recenly corrupted?
"So 'the people' are pure of heart, mind and deed and were only recenly corrupted?"
That is an exaggeration of course, but yes, I was very poor, and yet one did not have to lock one's doors when I was a kid and welfare was shameful, so we did not take it because no man has a right to the fruits of another man's labor.