It is very danerous to suppose that these were just bad men without understanding the basis for their thinking. Though I'm not familiar with many of these authors, being largely authors of fiction, I am familiar in-part with Heidegger and the Nazi ideology.

We may call it an ideology but from the perspective of many, and I would maintain from the perspective of Hitler himself, this was mere recognition of fact. Though perhaps the Nazis were more than a tad myopic and self-centered in their recognition of fact, which is a disease few of us can claim to be inocculated against.

As the history of Jews in relation to the world evolved, and the following information is straight out of the Jewish Encyclopedia (JewishEncyclopedia.com), Jews became narrowly identified as money-changers and bankers. The reasons for this are religious and political.

"The Talmud (B. M. 61b) dwells on Ezek. xviii. 13 (Hebr.): "He has lent on usury; he has taken interest; he shall surely not live, having done all these abominations"; on the words with which the prohibition of usury in Lev. xxv. 36 closes: "Thou shalt be afraid of thy God"; and on the further words in which Ezekiel (l.c.) refers to the usurer: "He shall surely suffer death; his blood is upon him"; hence the lender on interest is compared to the shedder of blood."

In the ancient world lending at interest (period) was called "Usury" and was classed amongst the sins of Christianity, Islam and Judaism. But with one exception; whereas Christians and Muslims were completely barred from ever practicing usury, the Jews made an exception in the case of gentiles (non-Jews or Goyyim).

"When an Israelite lends money to a Gentile or to an "indwelling stranger" (a half-convert of foreign blood), he may and should charge him interest; and when he borrows from such a person he should allow him interest. It is the opinion of Maimonides that for Jews to charge Gentiles interest is a positive command of the written law. [The reason for the non-prohibition of the receipt by a Jew of interest from a Gentile, and vice versa, is held by modern rabbis to lie in the fact that the Gentiles had at that time no law forbidding them to practise usury; and that as they took interest from Jews, the Torah considered it equitable that Jews should take interest from Gentiles. Conditions changed when Gentile laws were enacted forbidding usury; and the modern Jew is not allowed by the Jewish religion to charge a Gentile a higher rate of interest than that fixed by the law of the land.—E. C.]"

But that is the "modern Jew" the ancient and medeival Jew could charge interest to gentiles. This alone made banking or money-lending an profitable enterprise for Jews, and as Jews were widely despised few Goyyim would patronize Jewish carpenters or masons. Instead the Gentiles capitalized on those trades and the Jews found their niche in money-lending.

"The Church, basing itself upon a mistranslation of the text Luke vi. 35 interpreted by the Vulgate "Mutuum date, nihil inde sperantes," but really meaning "lend, never despairing" (see T. Reinach in "R. E. J." xx. 147), declared any extra return upon a loan as against the divine law, and this prevented any mercantile use of capital by pious Christians. As the canon law did not apply to Jews, these were not liable to the ecclesiastical punishments which were placed upon usurers by the popes, Alexander III. in 1179 having excommunicated all manifest usurers. Christian rulers gradually saw the advantage of having a class of men like the Jews who could supply capital for their use without being liable to excommunication, and the money trade of western Europe by this means fell into the hands of the Jews."

And it was some time before Christendom opened up the doors on usury and redefined the term as "Charging excessive interest" as apart from it's original meaning "Charging interest". As Christendom and Islam became more at the mercy of Jewish money-lenders the hatred of the Jews also escalated, and by the time the Nazis were on the scene, the Jews were seen as the master controllers of the entire global economic system. This may be true to the extent that money-lending/banking is a long-standing trade for Jewish families and with much technical background to perform the task well. The morality of which can still be debated, certainly Muslims are inclined to argue the immorality of it as charging interest on loans is still barred by Sharia Law.

So from some slightly skewed perspective Jews can appear to be heartless money-grubbing elitist and racist people, but we should not forget the reasons for that appearance as well, which in some part has to do with the prejudice of ancient gentiles as well. Or the fact that "Jew" is an arbitrary and loose classification like everything else. To my understanding Hasidic Judaism is of a different nature than the orthodoxy which established the doctrine of usury within ancient Judaism.

And so I maintain it is not a lack of moral sense, but a screwed up view of the facts probably screwed up by some inner insecurity or compulsion. In post-Treaty-of-Versailles Germany the economy looked really bad and to many German minds, in particular Hitler's the Jews were behind it, and more specifically the Rothchilds. The Rothschilds were not, as far as I can tell, a biological family, and the name Rothschilds was not native to Jews. Rather Rothschilds was a compound of two German words "Rot" (red) and "Schilds" (shields). Some of them may have been related only through financial interests, the last time their wealth was made public more than 100 years ago, their cumulative worth was 1 Billion, which adjusted for inflation is about 100 Trillion dollars.

There is some truth in the conspiracy theories, but what they overlook is the essential human. Jews did not get into this line of work because of some devious or evil intent, but because of doctrinal and economic forces. And it was the myopia of the National Socialists to not see this, but only see the results of it and make dubious assumptions about the reasons for it.

Source: http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=58&letter=U&search=usury

The very idea of it makes me want to tear my heart out of it's chest and jettison it into space so that I don't have to hear it scream anymore.

So they say; you can't truly despise elitism if you secretly wish to be one of the elite. I don't, nor do I care to see what this website looks like, at all. Speculating, I would think it would only be attractive to those who are envious of elitism.

On another point; what these people see in this digital environment can never be as profound or amazing as that which one can see by looking correctly at the everyday world. There is a lascivious tendency of humans to pursue sweeter and sweeter fruit only to be over-satiated to the point of disgust, with the resultant desire to never eat said fruit again. Which was the spiritual tactics of the Hedonists (in the historic sense), if I just consume so much it makes me sick I won't want to consume anymore. But isn't it enough to simulate the sensation and quit while your ahead? I can imagine that in the heights of elitism and celebrity, one can feel pretty sick indeed.

We have a Kellogg's plant here, the scent emanating from it is enough to make you sick up to five blocks away. It smells like corn flakes to the nth power.

An interesting contemplative theological exercise, at least in my view and it's something I got from the likes of the contemplative Christian and Buddhist monks. Without supposing God exists; just entertain for a moment the possibility of a being that sees everything from every vantage point. This I will call the God's Eye Perspective. Try to imagine what this cloud would look like from God's Eye Perspective. Is that not closer to the reality of the "cloud" than it first appears from our ego-centric vantage point?

The same goes for our emotions and thoughts, are these emotions and thoughts derived from the God's Eye Perspective or are they based solely in ego-centricity? To be a God-man or Christ-like, Buddha-like or a Brahmin seems to indicate, from my studies, a willingness to relinquish the ego-centered perspective in place of the God's Eye Perspective and treat people as though you were God. Because once you remove yourself from your finite position things look very different, you are no longer of any greater or lesser importance than anyone else, you are called then to love your neighbour, truly, as if they were your self. And that is meant in the most profound sense, not as a a shallow mantra but an ultimate truth.

Which prompted me to say to my girlfriend; I'll beat StarCraft II's campaign mode a dozen times before I'll ever be a man. The former is much much easier. Heck, rocket science is bound to be easier. Whatever the most difficult thing anyone can think of, being a complete human in the sense of liberating oneself from finitude and ego-centricity is the hands-down the hardest thing anyone could do. And there is nothing that will make it any easier. The more you find to make it easier, the more you confuse yourself and set yourself down the wrong path.

So, that is my theological monologue on Jabba the Cloud. Hope you like.

As another example of the arbitrariness of our experience and of what we deem to be definite things is a relative comparison of a pin-head and a mountain-top. Though these would seem to be very different; the mountain is huge, the pin is small, the pin can puncture our skin, the mountain cannot. But this is due to our size relative to the objects. If we were much smaller beings the pin-head would appear as a mountainous terrain. Under a microscope the pin-head is anything but pointy, it is a sprawling flat-land or valley and not a point. Likewise, if we were much larger beings the mountain-top would appear to be extremely pointy and would easily tear through the epidermis. It is only our relative point-of-view that gives these things the qualities of either dull or sharp, big or small, and so on and so forth.

It means human beings suffer from pareidolia and other forms of pattern-seeking. Overcoming these may be the first step to recognizing reality. That is a cloud, but not a cloud. Because from this vantage point it appears to be a well-defined cloud, even in a recognizable shape. But if you ascend to the height of that cloud it no longer appears as a well-defined cloud, but an enveloping mist with no apparent boundary. The thing which we call a cloud is an appearance only that exists from this vantage point, and the recognizable shape is even more in the eye of the beholder. This illustrates the way our minds carve up reality in an arbitrary manner.

Since our carving of reality is arbitrary, what can we say in the very least? We can say that at the very least reality as a whole can be taken as an object. But then we must closely examine this divide between subject and object and see if there isn't some illusion there too. This is difficult because our tendency to resolve our experience into familiar patterns, remaining receptive to novel patterns is therefor counter-intuitive. It takes silent meditation to delve beneath the surface of conscious appearances, but we can unpack our feelings, emotions and thoughts to see what kind of gems or poisons are encapsulated within. As long as we are willing and wanting to see beyond their immediately recognizable appearances. We may very well find that our feelings are not what we thought they were.

Couldn't have been any worse than all the bodily augmentation that already exists.

Development of the human embryonic brain

1 minute 40 seconds
http://www.hhmi.org/biointeractive/neuroscience/dev_human_emb_brain.html

A Hurlbat

Stop me before I start making sense. Black/Large

A Masochists Boomerang

Stop me before I start making sense. Black/Large

Jesus man, I don't know when to keep quiet. I'm barring myself from Neatorama for the rest of the day. Gotta read this book instead... The Unconscious Civilization.

I'm a fair admirer of Mark Twain who pamphleteered for women's rights and the emancipation of slaves. Never-the-less Twain seems to be of the opinion that women, although being the 'gentler' sex, aren't so sweet on the telephone.

I'm completely on-board with Twain regarding the liberation of women to vote and such like, however, I will not buy-into the modern fabulation that men and women are entirely equal, either genetically or in adulthood after years of socialization. And even less so in the latter.

The propensity of women to release their suffering like a geyser has been remarked upon since time immemorial. Whereas men have the duty to internalize suffering and stand tall in the fact of it, woman is encouraged to pout, moan, whine, cry and scream. Kierkegaard relates:

"The weaker sex can wail and scream etc.; this is perhaps why the woman suffers much less than the silent, enclosed man. In this context one could be tempted to say that woman is the stronger sex, for if it is strength to defend oneself against suffering, then woman defends herself far better than man.

But the main point is this: it is strength to be able to accept suffering, to be able to enter into suffering, to bear up under it; and it is weakness to ward off suffering by every means possible. Woman's weakness lies in the very fact that she immediately has entreaties, tears, and sighs at her disposal to ward off suffering; her weakness is simply her propensity to wail and scream and thus mitigate her suffering. Man's strength is that he has no means of defence, no way to mitigate suffering; therefore his strength - yes, it is a paradox - his strength makes him suffer more than the weaker sex. It is paradoxical, but no more paradoxical than something equally true, that it takes health to become ill; there are sickly people who lack the health to become ill."

But this may be caught up in social mores of the past. Though such tendencies of men and women are reported in all cultures across the globe with some minor role reversal in various societies. The claim that women are utterly incapable of enduring suffering without telling someone else about it is also described in the writings of contemporary philosopher David Quinn whose Exposition of Woman states woman will never become enlightened because she cannot bear to face reality, the suffering is too intense and she must retreat to fantasy, fabulation and delusion.

While I may not agree with Kierkegaard or Quinn, here is what I found interesting. If I present this argument to women, which I have on several occasions, their reaction is entirely what Kierkegaard said it was, they feel offended and use all kinds of sobbing and tears to rally support for their victimhood and banish the mean man who insults her. They don't seem to think of it in the disinterested critical sense of "Hmm, maybe it is true." and this simple thought would actually prove it false.

After some thought I realized the kernal of truth in this might be more fundamental and reformulated the strategy. I found that men or women, if I told them they were victims of egotism would react in much the same way; they would be offended and promptly engage in all kinds of tactics for shutting me up or proving me wrong, all of which are proof that I'm right if they could only see it. One who was wise to what egotism is in this way would have to respond "Yes, I am." Because the truth is we are all egotists, despite it being a negatively charged term. In-fact is the presumed negativity that triggers the offense from the ego. So the ego gets riled up at the claim that it exists, because if it did exist that would be a hit to the ego.

It is very clever and so doesn't only affect women or affect women more profoundly but is somewhat cultural, and so I still notice a difference in the way men and women treat it. Women are likely to argue from popularity and say "I hope you enjoy being lonely with an attitude like that." whereas men are more likely to argue from sex "You must not be getting any." And a keen eye can see that both of these statements are attacks on one's comparative self-worth within some ocntingent domain. They are slaves and expect I will be too, but men and women are generally slaves to different domains and live out their slavery in different ways, women cry, men fight. But they are both slaves of egotism. Whereas Kierkegaard and Quinn seem to think Woman's egotism is more profound and inescapable. So I guess I'm not sure how much I agree with Twain's take of the woman or women about this phone call.

I did some study of hypnosis, neurolinguistinc programming and other forms of manipulation like those used by pick-up artists. In general, hypnosis doesn't work on the unwilling. Instead, the person "plays along", they aren't really asleep as such. They say "You don't do anything in hypnosis you didn't already have an inclination to do."

If you are inclined to play-along in these stage shows then you are a perfect candidate for stage-hypnosis. Most forms of manipulation work this way, I'm just getting you to do what you are inclined to do, if I use some creative injunction that gets you to act, that is the manipulation.

In france they did an experiment shadowing Milgrim's famous obedience experiments in the form of a live game-show. Of 80 "questioners" 81% issued lethal electric shocks to "contestants" when the host told them to do so. Very few were able to rise above the myriad pressures of the crowd and the host, the lights and cameras and all the expectations put on them. Only 9 people managed to quit before the shocks became lethal. The show was called La Zone Extreme and is nicknamed Le Jeu de la Mort (The Game of Death). There is a documentary about it on netflix by the same name (The Game of Death) with french subtitles.

To my mind it's only slightly more narcisistic than wearing your favourite sports jersey.

The Handbook of Self and Identity << Good Book

Did you guys know that free-will is an illusion? This kind of behavior is indicative of an act of passion. As mentioned; if premeditated you would go and buy traps. This strikes me as more of a "OH! There is that dang raccoon again! Quick give me that shovel before he gets itno the trash." Like a spurr of the moment, temporary act of passion.

We all have them, but we like to pretend we are more calm, cool and rational than we are even metaphysically possible of being. We are deluded if we think we know what we would do in any given situation. You are deluded if you are able to sit back in your chair and say "There is definitely 'something wrong' with that man." There is something wrong with all of us! We are partially driven by passion, mostly driven by fear and desire, and only employ reason as an after-thought to justify our emotions or to condemn someone else.

I know few of you give a damn about physical neuroscience, but suffice to say that the entire organism is controlled somewhat through the limbic-system and brain-stem (Reptilian Complex). That is all emotional, reflex and instinct. Your thinking brain sits on-top and partially inhibits or excites your reptilian brain, but all of this is somewhat conflictory and disorganized and fed through the brain-stem before reaching the extremities.

A person like... drumroll... Phineas Gage, a 19th century railroad worker who was impaled in the frontal lobes by a tamping iron and is well known to introductory to psychology students, clearly indicates you cannot hold someone responsible in this traditional sense that some of you are doing here. It's not a "He's that kind of person". That is childish talk and totally deluded about what human is.