Jordan Peterson with Joe Rogan

Suggested by a friend. ABN

UPDATE: I have only watched about 20 min of this but what I watched confirms my view that JP suffers from the inevitable hubris that arises from fame and his conspicuous talent for verbal explication. The hubris that accompanies fame appears to be inevitable and we can see this in JR as well. He speaks like an ordinary person and yet that ordinary person also knows he is speaking to millions of people while also making millions of dollars for doing that. I do not see how it could be different for either of them. Both are talented in ways that are popular. JR is everyman while JP is a thinker with great verbal facility. For JP, this means his analyses, even when fairly simple-minded, take on a grandiosity they do not deserve. Overblown stories from the Bible, rehashed Jungian archetypes, strong condemnation for people who do not agree with him are avenues he goes down fairly often. I like and support both of these guys and believe they are doing some good. But I also want to point out their limitations and the dangers of fame and fortune. The eight winds of Buddhism are real and are a fundamental source of suffering and error. In this way, JP’s elaborate fluency and probable spiritual confusion can mislead his audience as much as him. ABN

A bit of infighting

There are very good reasons why I have nothing to do with Jane Ruby or Stew Peters.

This is one of them.

Ryan Cole got one thing wrong early on but acknowledged his error and has been 100% dedicated to the truth. This is what we do.

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Not a pleasant subject but something that can happen. I do not have any other info on this spat but wonder why both Malone and now Cole are being attacked over seemingly non-issues. I tend strongly to believe Cole and Malone over Peters or Ruby. That said, I think Peters’ tendency to sensationalize is not all bad given the deceitful information environment established by mainstream news and government, which needs a good shaking once in awhile. I know people who were red-pilled by Died Suddenly. I rarely listen to Ruby because she does not seem credible. Somewhere in the wider fracas among covid scientists and personalities, the adage that there is no such thing as bad publicity applies. Died Suddenly is an example, imo, of some bad publicity that also does some good; more good than bad. I see Peters as a topical artist not too different from Alex Jones. There are many good people who respond to voices like theirs and need to hear truths in that way. ABN

UPDATE: More discussion available here. To be clear, I almost never post Alex Jones or Stew Peters but sometimes I do and I know there are many who respond to voices like theirs. Attacks against either of them do not need to be too sharp. Sensationalism is a type of communication and it has a place in the real world. If we all talked and wrote like Dr Clare Craig, who would hear us? (BTW, she’s great but so soft-spoken she’s on the other side of this spectrum.) I just noticed that Ruby is a defendant in Malone’s defamation case along with Breggin. We have been consistently losing to a decades-long psyop because the perps relentlessly use information for its greatest effect on the public. They lie and cheat all the time because those tactics work. This does not mean we should lie or cheat, but it does mean we need to accept less than perfect presentations of facts in some cases, from time to time. ABN

UPDATE: See this: Robert Malone and Ryan Cole on the nuances of covid science for more on the topic of rhetoric and communication. ABN

Gina Lollobrigida dies at 95: The Italian bombshell who was courted by royalty and conquered Hollywood before becoming embroiled in a notorious feud with Sophia Loren and taking up politics passes away

  • Italian actress and silver screen diva Gina Lollobrigida has died at the age of 95
  • Bombshell starred alongside icons such as Humphrey Bogart and Frank Sinatra 
  • She was an international star at the height of her fame in the 1950s and 1960s
  • After acting, she turned her attention to photography, sculpture and politics
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Fabula and semiotics

Fabula are “the raw material of a story or narrative.”

I want to borrow this term to denote the raw material of a purposive conversation. For example, if I say to my partner that I want to have a salad for dinner, the notion or idea of that salad is a fabula that we can now discuss.

Our discussion of this as yet non-existent salad, this salad fabula, will include particular items, acts, and visualizations. For example, I may want sliced tomatoes in the salad, my partner may mention some olives in the refrigerator. We may both visualize our salad bowl and kitchen while we decide who does what.

Before the salad is made it is a fabula. The particular elements that go into getting the salad made while they are still only in our minds are semiotic elements.

In this sense, semiotics can be defined as the units or parts of a conversational fabula. We use these semiotics to discuss how to make what kind of salad.

We do the same thing with virtually all other conversational subjects. That is, we declare or grope toward determining what our fabula is and use semiotics to further clarify our vision of it. While doing this, ideally, we will remain open to real-time alterations and misunderstandings about both the fabula and the semiotics.

In these terms, most reasonable (and many unreasonable) conversations can be understood as two (or more) people negotiating* the “meanings” of their imperfectly shared fabula and semiotics. The fabula is a sort of context that defines the semiotics used in the discussion of it.

When the conversation is about salads, much of the process of going from a salad fabula to a real salad is straightforward and unproblematical.

When a conversation is about matters that are more ambiguous, subjective, emotional, or existential, there may be more problems because the fabula often will not be as clear as a salad to both parties. Or if it is, it may lead parties to quickly cleave to cliches or obvious explanations, thus limiting fresh responses or creative insights.

FIML practice can fix these problems by getting partners to clarify their fabula while also allowing them to alter it, or even change it entirely, as their discussion progresses.

The same is true at a different level for the semiotics they employ in their discussion. With FIML practice these semiotics often can be adjusted and clarified as soon as diverging understanding is noticed in either person’s mind.

Even if diverging understandings persist for some time, experienced FIML partners will be better prepared notice them when the opportunity arises.

A more complex example of this is an ongoing discussion my partner and I have had for several years. The basic discussion involves a strong reaction I sometimes have to cosmetic surgery. I admit that my reaction can be irrational and I can’t quite explain it. My partner frequently makes the point that I do like cosmetic surgery as long as I don’t notice it and/or like the results. We have gone back and forth on this quite a few times without ever getting a really good resolution, until a few days ago. The core problem had been that I do dislike the idea of cosmetic surgery, period. And also, I do recognize that it can be necessary and that if I like the results, I may be able to accept it even when it is not necessary.

We had never been involved in a simple dichotomy—like versus don’t like—but we both had been speaking as if we were. This was mostly my fault as I sometimes expressed revulsion at some forms of cosmetic surgery, but it was also not true that I actually liked the surgery if I liked the results or didn’t notice it.

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*I mean the word negotiating not so much as making a deal but more as negotiating a narrow foot bride across a stream or negotiating a turn in an automobile. Negotiation in this sense is an effort between two or more people to make many small adjustments to arrive at a mutually satisfying result, the “meaning” of which is understood in roughly the same way by all parties.

first posted JANUARY 8, 2014

UPDATE 12/12/23: Wow, did I have a huge misunderstanding of a conversational fabula last night. I had trouble falling asleep over it and woke up ruminating on it. My partner is a genius and all I did was bring it up and describe exactly what I had thought and within minutes, everything was cleared up. I can’t go into it because it is too complex. But I can say that this kind of mistake is what causes neurosis, emotional agony, even mental illness. This is the kind of mistake FIML was designed to correct. Usually, FIML mistakes are small and involve semiotics but a huge fabula mistake is always possible, as I saw very clearly over the past 12 hours. I cannot thank my partner enough for having such deep understanding of me, herself, and what we had been talking about and how we generally talk. FIML is a profound training exercise. If you have ever gotten anything from this site (or not), please try FIML. It is by far the best unique thing I have to offer. ABN

Pete Parada ~ ‘The question I get asked more than any other: Dude, WHY didn’t you just take the fake card?’

(1/22)

I considered it. An easy way to avoid the [let’s call it a TAX to deter the continued throttling of my account].. A fake card would’ve enabled me to avoid the TAX while keeping my job – back to normal right? I could’ve bypassed my cancellation/lightning rod moment, (2/22)

which up until my statement about a previous TAX injury/informed consent – I was just some dude who played drums for that band you liked or hated or had never heard of.

But then I realized I would be asking my kids to lie for me, in fact one of them pointed that out. (3/22)

Because I wasn’t going to lie to them and tell them I got TAXed – which would’ve meant they’d have to lie for me. What an enormous burden to ask them to carry on my behalf so that I could go back to a life that had always left them behind. (4/22)

And then my wife said to me something I’ll never forget: “You’ll be teaching our children that it is ok to deceive for acceptance and that there are opportunities which hold greater value than our integrity and well-being.” Damn. (5/22)

She continued, “if we don’t speak up we will be isolated, silenced. And how will we find our people?” Right, we’d have to smile and pretend we were ok with what was happening. (6/22)

[TAX = VAX. Offspring drummer booted from band over failure to get COVID vaccine. ABN]

Continue reading “Pete Parada ~ ‘The question I get asked more than any other: Dude, WHY didn’t you just take the fake card?’”

American Girl is accused of ‘stripping away all innocence’ in magazine that teaches kids how to change gender by taking puberty blockers and going behind parents’ backs to get ‘help’

The popular American Girl doll brand is facing backlash for pushing kids into changing their gender in a recent book marketed to young girls.

The recently released book, titled A Smart Girl’s Guide: Body Image, contains lines that give advice to prepubescents on how to change their gender – seemingly without their guardians’ blessing.

Parents have slammed the book’s contents as ‘deceptive and dangerous,’ citing the messages it is sending to this highly impressionable demographic.

The 96-page handbook – billed as a ‘guide’ – is marketed to girls aged 3 to 12, and instructs them on how to make permanent changes to their bodies, and to embrace that they may be unhappy in the bodies they were born with.

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It is wrong to do this. It is morally repugnant to send this message to children. It is only a very weird kind of twisted “morality” that would permit this, or worse, think it up and do it. Maiming your body to conform to a fantasy is mental illness. Adults who allow or encourage this behavior in children are seriously ill. ABN

#WhitePaperRevolution #白紙革命 digital painting by Ricker Choi

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This refers to demonstrators in China holding up pieces of white paper rather than written signs in protest. One interpretation is it symbolizes censorship. Another one I heard is: “They won’t listen to us anyway.” I wish them luck and know it is very dangerous for them. Recall how Hong Kong demonstrators were quickly overcome and disappeared. Communist control is based on terrorism. Don’t want the vax, you’re fired, cancelled, and scorned. ABN