I don't get Buddhism

[felix dakat]

If you're telling the truth, it doesn't prove that you're not playing "heads I win tails you lose". It just shows that you're not conscious of the game you're playing.

[felix dakat]

Duplicate

[iambiguous]

If you're telling the truth, it doesn't prove that you're not playing "heads I win tails you lose". It just shows that you're not conscious of the game you're playing.

Once again that gap between the points I make here in response to KT's accusation...

Quite the contrary. To the extent that Buddhists are able to think themselves into believing that enlightenment, karma, reincarnation and Nirvana are actually real things, they clearly win and "i" clearly lose.

Think about it...

They are able to sustain the comfort and the consolation of eschewing the self. No self, no fractured and fragmented pieces. At the same time, this No Self entity is still able to sustain the comfort and the consolation of thinking and feeling in an enlightened manner such that through karma they will not just tumble over into the abyss that is oblivion, but will be reincarnated...with the possibility even of reaching Nirvana.

Just don't ask them to note examples of this...or to describe in some detail how it all actually unfolds.

Then the part where, as a Buddhist, someone walks me through their day. They note why they choose particular behaviors which "in their head" they link to what "in their head" they imagine their fate to be on the other side.

Wouldn't that seem to be reasonable given all that is at stake?

And, again, given my own grim and ghastly conclusions here, how on earth do I win?!

...and your reaction to it.

What does one have to do with the other?

[felix dakat]

You don't even know whose accusation it was. And you don't understand that it's a matter of process and not content. Errors which would be understandably human, if not for your hubris.

[phyllo]

Quite the contrary. To the extent that Buddhists are able to think themselves into believing that enlightenment, karma, reincarnation and Nirvana are actually real things, they clearly win and "i" clearly lose.

Yeah, you say that and you always sound resentful ... like someone is cheating in a game.

Then the part where, as a Buddhist, someone walks me through their day. They note why they choose particular behaviors which "in their head" they link to what "in their head" they imagine their fate to be on the other side.

What would be the use of that to someone who is thinking at every step that "this Buddhist is imagining a fantasy world 'on the other side'?

It seems like a desire for a distraction ... an entertaining story while waiting. With a preference for morality and afterlife rather than unicorns and dragons.

To get something more out of it, you have to empty your teacup first.

[iambiguous]

You don't even know whose accusation it was. And you don't understand that it's a matter of process and not content. Errors which would be understandably human, if not for your hubris.

Nope, same thing.

Note to others:

Does that surprise you?

[iambiguous]

Quite the contrary. To the extent that Buddhists are able to think themselves into believing that enlightenment, karma, reincarnation and Nirvana are actually real things, they clearly win and "i" clearly lose.

Yeah, you say that and you always sound resentful ... like someone is cheating in a game.

Well, sure, a part of me resents the fact that others are able to think themselves into believing in their very own objective morality on this side of the grave and immortality and salvation on the other side, while I'm not.

But that certainly doesn't make them any less the winners, right?

Again, think of what is at stake here when the bottom line is one's peace of mind!!

It's no fucking game, that's for sure.

Then the part where, as a Buddhist, someone walks me through their day. They note why they choose particular behaviors which "in their head" they link to what "in their head" they imagine their fate to be on the other side.

What would be the use of that to someone who is thinking at every step that "this Buddhist is imagining a fantasy world 'on the other side'?

There you go again, explaining to others what is really behind my motivation and intention here. Still, the bottom line [mine] stays the same: Where's the beef?

With regard to that crucial gap between what they claim about Buddhism and what they are able to demonstrate is in fact true about it.

Then the part where different Buddhists embrace value judgments at the opposite end of the political spectrum. Both championing enlightenment, and both thinking their own political prejudices will afford them a better reincarnation.

If only in their heads.

Unless of course they can demonstrate to me that it's not just in their heads. That there really is something to it all. Something substantive and substantial for example.

It seems like a desire for a distraction ... an entertaining story while waiting. With a preference for morality and afterlife rather than unicorns and dragons.

Quite the contrary. Unicorns and dragons have nothing to do with the terrible pain and suffering the human race inflicts on itself over conflicting goods. Nor do they count in regard to whether "I" is obliterated for all time to come or goes on to embody immortality and salvation in Heaven or Nirvana.

On the other hand, God and/or the Buddhist equivalent of Him have everything to do with them. But how does someone like me go about making that leap of faith without demonstrable arguments from those who already have?

Unless, of course, God and/or the Buddhist equivalent makes direct contact with me.

[phyllo]

Well, sure, a part of me resents the fact that others are able to think themselves into believing in their very own objective morality on this side of the grave and immortality and salvation on the other side, while I'm not.

But that certainly doesn't make them any less the winners, right?

I would not call them winners. It's not a contest with winners and losers.

There you go again, explaining to others what is really behind my motivation and intention here. Still, the bottom line [mine] stays the same: Where's the beef?

What did I say that is problematic?

You have said hundreds of times that gods are imagined, the afterlife is imagined and religions are invented.

You said so here : " able to think themselves into believing that enlightenment, karma, reincarnation and Nirvana are actually real things"

And here: "Both championing enlightenment, and both thinking their own political prejudices will afford them a better reincarnation. If only in their heads."

And here : "Unless of course they can demonstrate to me that it's not just in their heads."

That undercurrent is everywhere in your posts.

You don't think it's at the back of your mind when talking to a Buddhist? You manage to suspend your disbelief?

But how does someone like me go about making that leap of faith without demonstrable arguments from those who already have?

By engaging in practices instead of looking for arguments. That's what people keep suggesting to you.

You say something like : "I'm going to do this practice for 30 minutes (or X times) each day even though I think it's complete nonsense. I will reevaluate after 1 month"

[iambiguous]

Well, sure, a part of me resents the fact that others are able to think themselves into believing in their very own objective morality on this side of the grave and immortality and salvation on the other side, while I'm not.

But that certainly doesn't make them any less the winners, right?

I would not call them winners. It's not a contest with winners and losers.

Then here we will just have to agree to disagree. If you think your moral and political values reflect the real me in sync with the right thing to do...and that in embodying them you will attain immortality and salvation on the other side...then, from my point of view, you are beyond doubt holding a winning hand next to the hand that someone like me is holding.

At least when the criteria is peace of mind.

Even if it is all only in your head. With things like this it doesn't matter what is in fact true. That's the beauty of it.

In fact, from my vantage point, to think otherwise is nothing short of ludicrous.

Anyone else here not see a religious commitment as the equivalent of a winning hand given the stakes involved? Please explain why.

There you go again, explaining to others what is really behind my motivation and intention here. Still, the bottom line [mine] stays the same: Where's the beef?

What did I say that is problematic?

That I would be "thinking at every step that 'this Buddhist is imagining a fantasy world 'on the other side''?

How on earth could I psossibly know that? All I am basically interested in exploring on this thread is how Buddhists connect the dots between morality and immortality. And the extent to which what they believe here, they are able to demonstrate.

That beef.

You have said hundreds of times that gods are imagined, the afterlife is imagined and religions are invented.

No, I noted only that I do not believe in religion or in God or in the afterlife. Here and now. And others that do are either able to take what they imagine is true here "in their head" and reconfigure it into an argument able to be tested and verified as demonstrable or they are not.

You said so here : " able to think themselves into believing that enlightenment, karma, reincarnation and Nirvana are actually real things"

And here: "Both championing enlightenment, and both thinking their own political prejudices will afford them a better reincarnation. If only in their heads."

And here : "Unless of course they can demonstrate to me that it's not just in their heads."

How does that not make their convictions here any less "in their head". How does that prevent them from making the attempt to demonstrate that what they do believe is in fact demonstrable?

Where's the part that demonstrates that what I think they do believe can only be imaginary?

But how does someone like me go about making that leap of faith without demonstrable arguments from those who already have?

By engaging in practices instead of looking for arguments. That's what people keep suggesting to you.

And around and around we go. My "situation" precludes any number of options open to others. And, trust me: If someone here is able to convince me that Buddhism is the real deal in regard to the morality/immortality nexus, well, that's a whole other level of reality.

And, again, as I point out time and again, given what is on the line here, how can you not be out there yourself trying different religious practices...to be sure that one other than your own isn't the one true path instead.

[phyllo]

You're clutching so tightly on to certain ideas.

Don't hang on to the one true path. Don't hang on to immortality or salvation.

Buddhist practice could help loosen the grip.

It might feel good.

[iambiguous]

You're clutching so tightly on to certain ideas.

I'm not clutching tightly to any ideas -- mine, yours or theirs. Instead, I'm clutching to the possibility [however slim it seems to me now] that one of us will be able to demonstrate something -- anything -- truly substantive about the relationship between morality here and now and immortality there and then.

And though you may scoff, no one is more committed to the hope that my own ideas will be shown [by anyone] to be wrong. That there is in fact "one true path" able to obviate conflicting goods and deliver us instead to something analogous to the promised land on the other side.

Maybe even the possibility that in a No God world, the arguments of the sociopaths and the "show me the money" nihilists who run the planet, can be subsumed in an actual deontological political agenda rooted not in dasein but in categorical and imperative moral dictums.

Moral mandates actually able to be enforced.

Besides, lots and lots and lots of things are out there for us if the whole point is just to "feel good".

Nope, for me the search here is basically for a demonstrable assessment able to convince me that those who argue, "in the absence of God, all things are permitted" are full of shit.

That and something -- anything -- that might reasonably be construed as the antidote to oblivion.

[Karpel Tunnel]

It seems to me that Iambiguous presents a game of "heads I win tails you lose". I refuse to play.
I'm no authority on Buddhism or the doctrines he wishes to discuss: enlightenment, karma, reincarnation, Nirvana. Whatever my impressions of them, they are uncertain and agnostic and I recognize, subjective.
I don't call myself a Buddhist. Yet, I practice Buddhist meditation and find it beneficial.
I think it's a mistake to regard religious symbols as objective in the sense that science is. Religions insofar as they are true are true in a different way: that is, values that have been baked into us by 3.5 billion years of evolution.
Now, it seems to me, that Iambiguous, because his need for certainty is denied by reality, denies that there can be any meaning at all. However he got to this point, his mind is in a state of foreclosure.
Buddhism, I find, has much to offer anyone who is moderately open to it. It has fueled the philosophies of philosophers like Hume, Schopenhauer, the American transcendentalists, the European existentialists, and so many more.
Has Iambiguous checked them out and taken their views into consideration? If so, there's no evidence of it in his fundamentalist model of religion. So, again, I say Iambiguous' approach to Buddhism like his approach to others he calls " denominations" is stupid.

That makes sense.

[Karpel Tunnel]

I think one interesting thing about Iamb's positions/experiences is how well they fits Buddhism. His sense of self. He puts 'I' often in citation marks. He talks about experiencing himself as fractured and fragmented. In some way he has experienced things that people do in fact experience in Buddhist meditation. That the self is a batching of fragmentary conglomerates. He also mentions impermanence a lot - though not using that word. That what he believes today he might not believe tomorrow. This also relates closely to what many Buddhists experience and belief, that the self is not a thing, is not permanent (even within a lifetime) and is very contingent.

The Buddha identifies three primary characteristics of existence (Three Marks of Existence): ANICCA – impermanence, change, growth & decay, process; ANATTA – ‘non-self’; and DUKKHA – ‘suffering’, dissatisfaction, insatiable desire.

In all his reading and slapdab posting he does not seem to notice that he has reached at the very least many of the experiences categorized in Buddhism and shares Buddhism's sense of their importance.

Now I am not a buddhist, and while I have done the practices and still do things that bear some resemblance to Buddhist practices, there are difference and I am not an advocate for the system. But it seems to me what we have is someone who has found out a layer of experience that Buddhists necessarily experience and have spent thousands of years trying to reduce the suffering of them. One major difference is Iamb is seeking to reform his Self and Buddhists are not. In fact they consider this part of the cause of suffering, though certainly not the only one. It seems odd to me in the extreme that he wouldn't want to be in the presence of people who have a system addressing the exact pain he is describing and which they note in ways very similarly to how he does and differently from how, say, Abrahamic religions do.

He'd prefer to discussion reincarnation and Karma with non-Buddhists who happen to know more about Buddhism than he does, rather than actually learn by doing with people who have spent decades on process they think have helped them precisely with his pet issues.

Any simple read of an idiot's guide to Buddhism or a fairly short book on Buddhism would have shown him is kinship with some of the core ideas of Buddhism. But after posting random stuff off the internet for months he still can't recognize this. And I pointed out some of this earlier in this thread.

But there is nothing wrong with his approach to learning, according to him. It is either the only method (since he has limited mobility) or the best one or he just ignores others.

Well, it's not working well or he would have noticed a connection between his thought and Buddhism.

And it should be noted that scientists also, like the Abrahamic religions and many other religious and secular approaches, to not have the focus that Buddhism share. Generally speaking they do not focus on such intra-self and temporal self inconsistancies and the suffering this causes.

[phyllo]

I'm not clutching tightly to any ideas -- mine, yours or theirs.

Followed by a listing of ideas possibilities that you're clutching.

Taking a look at one example:

Moral mandates actually able to be enforced.

Why do you need this? Why do you want this?

What would happen if you let go of it?

What if it didn't matter if "moral mandates" are enforced or not?

How would that feel?

[iambiguous]

It seems to me that Iambiguous presents a game of "heads I win tails you lose". I refuse to play.
I'm no authority on Buddhism or the doctrines he wishes to discuss: enlightenment, karma, reincarnation, Nirvana. Whatever my impressions of them, they are uncertain and agnostic and I recognize, subjective.
I don't call myself a Buddhist. Yet, I practice Buddhist meditation and find it beneficial.
I think it's a mistake to regard religious symbols as objective in the sense that science is. Religions insofar as they are true are true in a different way: that is, values that have been baked into us by 3.5 billion years of evolution.
Now, it seems to me, that Iambiguous, because his need for certainty is denied by reality, denies that there can be any meaning at all. However he got to this point, his mind is in a state of foreclosure.
Buddhism, I find, has much to offer anyone who is moderately open to it. It has fueled the philosophies of philosophers like Hume, Schopenhauer, the American transcendentalists, the European existentialists, and so many more.
Has Iambiguous checked them out and taken their views into consideration? If so, there's no evidence of it in his fundamentalist model of religion. So, again, I say Iambiguous' approach to Buddhism like his approach to others he calls " denominations" is stupid.

That makes sense.

Well, he is just another stooge, right?

[iambiguous]

I think one interesting thing about Iamb's positions/experiences is how well they fits Buddhism.

On the other hand, I don't have access to enlightenment and karma here and now culminating in reincarnation and [possibly] Nirvana there and then.

Not unlike you, right?

His sense of self. He puts 'I' often in citation marks. He talks about experiencing himself as fractured and fragmented.

Ah, but only in regard to moral and political values in the is/ought world. Whereas in my interactions with others in the either/or world, I don't feel fractured and fragmented at all.

Not unlike you, right?

[iambiguous]

I'm not clutching tightly to any ideas -- mine, yours or theirs.

Followed by a listing of ideas possibilities that you're clutching.

Taking a look at one example:

Moral mandates actually able to be enforced.

Why do you need this? Why do you want this?

What would happen if you let go of it?

What if it didn't matter if "moral mandates" are enforced or not?

How would that feel?

Okay, let's look at the world that we actually live in.

Across the globe there are endless clashes between those who insist this is the right thing to do and others who insist that is the right thing to do. Culminating in, say, wars.

Or genocide.

Conflicting goods, let's call them.

The human suffering down through the ages has been nothing short of ghastly, horrific, agonizing.

Some with God, others without God.

Now, imagine instead a world where we were in fact able to establish an objective morality that all rational people were willing to abide by because somehow this morality was, in fact, both demonstrable and able to be enforced.

Only for the objectivists out in the world that we live in now, this already exists. In their heads. Then, from time to time, some of them gain access to political power in order to make sure that you share their political agenda too.

History, let's call it.

And that's before we get to the moral nihilists who own and operate, among other things, the global economy.

[phyllo]

Now, imagine instead a world where we were in fact able to establish an objective morality that all rational people were willing to abide by because somehow this morality was, in fact, both demonstrable and able to be enforced.

Well, that's not going to happen. So moving on ... what can you do in the present for yourself?

[iambiguous]

Now, imagine instead a world where we were in fact able to establish an objective morality that all rational people were willing to abide by because somehow this morality was, in fact, both demonstrable and able to be enforced.

Well, that's not going to happen. So moving on ... what can you do in the present for yourself?

Well, that's your approach to it. My approach is to ponder what some think can be done coming into conflict with what others think can be done. The part embedded in dasein and conflicting goods. Then the part where the objectivists among us move beyond what they think can be done and insist in turn that they know what should be done.

"Then, from time to time, some of them gain access to political power in order to make sure that you share their political agenda too.

History, let's call it."

[phyllo]

Then the part where the objectivists among us move beyond what they think can be done and insist in turn that they know what should be done.

"Then, from time to time, some of them gain access to political power in order to make sure that you share their political agenda too.

Yeah, people who you don't agree with get power. You gotta live with that. And I don't mean live with anger.

Well, that's your approach to it. My approach is to ponder what some think can be done coming into conflict with what others think can be done. The part embedded in dasein and conflicting goods.

Well, you have to be realist about what is doable.

Does your pondering achieve anything?

[iambiguous]

Then the part where the objectivists among us move beyond what they think can be done and insist in turn that they know what should be done.

Then, from time to time, some of them gain access to political power in order to make sure that you share their political agenda too.

Yeah, people who you don't agree with get power. You gotta live with that. And I don't mean live with anger.

Again, my interest is in exploring with them why and how we come to conflicting assessments regarding particular contexts. To what extent are they convinced that "right makes might" -- their own -- is the one true order of the day.

And, no, sometimes you don't have to live with it. Sometimes anger can be used to yank that power away.

But then what? Only to replace it with your own "right makes might" agenda?

That is when I introduce the objectivists among us to dasein, conflicting goods and political economy.

As for the "realists" among us, some are more "fractured and fragmented" than others.

As for what is "doable", some have access to more options than others.

[phyllo]

But then what? Only to replace it with your own "right makes might" agenda?

Sure. Since you don't have some magic power which gives you access to the one true agenda, the optimal agenda, what else could you do than to replace it with your own agenda.

That is when I introduce the objectivists among us to dasein, conflicting goods and political economy.

So? Somebody is still going to implement his/her agenda.

I don't know what you except to happen.

As for what is "doable", some have access to more options than others.

You manage to post on the internet so you are not entirely without options.

[Karpel Tunnel]

I think one interesting thing about Iamb's positions/experiences is how well they fits Buddhism.

On the other hand, I don't have access to enlightenment and karma here and now culminating in reincarnation and [possibly] Nirvana there and then.

Um. You didn't respond to anything I wrote here. I don't even know what the phrase 'access to enlightenment and karma' would possibly mean. So, responding as if I said anything of the sort is odd.

Not unlike you, right?

I haven't made any claims about having access to those things, don't know what you mean by 'access', am not a Buddhist. Not responding to me.

His sense of self. He puts 'I' often in citation marks. He talks about experiencing himself as fractured and fragmented.

Ah, but only in regard to moral and political values in the is/ought world. Whereas in my interactions with others in the either/or world, I don't feel fractured and fragmented at all.

Bizarre so your fragmented and fractured state in relation to morals has no effect on how you feel in interactions with other people. Morals have to do amongst other things with how one should behave in relation to others and often how one judges their actions. But being utterly fragmented and fractured about morals has no effect on your interactions with others.

But most important: I note that you do not mention you're putting I in citation marks: 'I' - all the time. And all your tying this in to identity, in general!!! Noticed, again, that you avoid stuff, make up stuff, can't really be bothered to interact with others. Perhaps that's a sign that you're fragmentation around morals has no affect on your interactions with others.

We can just ignore statements of yours like....

Iambiguous: Only I have come to conclude that human interactions are essentially meaningless. And I have deconstructed human identity into the fractured and fragmented "I" that I have come to embody myself.

Note the generalization over human interactions in total. Note the refernce to identity (not just for example moral conclusions or something else)
and...

Iambiguous: Instead, the assumption that life is essentially meaningless has become an important factor for me in that it has precipitated a "fractured and fragmented" sense of identity. At least in regard to my understanding of human social, political and economic interactions.

Note the inclusion of social. Note the conclusion related to life in general.

and what is a whole thread here....
viewtopic.php?f=1&t=173716&p=2186078&hilit=identity+real#p2186078
that first paragraph being also extremely Buddhist.
and your second post is also Buddhist and note that morals are not even peripheral.

You're not honest. You are not an honest person, here at ILP at least, Iamb. Not that you'll ever ever admit it even on the smallest little mistakes, let alone hilarious large issue contradictions like these.

and more....

That is the question that has always fascinated me the most. Once I become cognizant of how profoundly problematic my "self" is, what can "I" do about it? And what are the philosophical implications of acknolwedging that identity is, by and large, an existential contraption that is always subject to change without notice? What can we "anchor" our identity to so as to make this prefabricated...fabricated...refabricated world seem less vertiginous? And, thus, more certain.

That sentence there about acknowledging that identity is an existential contraption that is always subject to change without notice is extremely Buddhist. And precisely what I was referring to that you deny above.
and

It all basically revolves around this:

1] In the "here and now" I -- "I" -- am entangled in a dilemma that pulls and tugs me in conflicting directions. There does not appear to be a way [for me] to choose behaviors as anything other than existential leaps to one or another political prejudice. In other words, I don't have access to this:

* there is a "real me" that transcends contingency, chance and change
* this "real me" is in sync with one or another understanding of "virtue", "truth", "justice"
* "virtue", "truth", "justice" as embedded in one or another rendition of God, deontology, political ideology, nature

But: How to convey this grimly fragmented "frame of mind" to those convinced that they do have access to it? Especially given the further conjecture that the access they embrace is more reflective of a psychological defense mechanism [comfort and consolation...a foundation] than a quest for truth and wisdom.

Where, yes, there are moral values mentioned, but the fragmentation is obviously related to the whole spectrum of the self AND BEHAVIOR which in your mind does not come up in interactions with others. Note: 'truth'!!!!! was included in what is affected, not just virtue and justice.

Now I am hopelessly drawn and quartered, hopelessly fractured and fragmented, hopelessly tugged in conflicting directions.

About, lol, what morals to believe in, but not how to be with other people, the interactions with whom you consider meaningless, a conclusion that also, somehow magically, does not affect your interactions with other people.

My guess is you will feel tempted to quote yourself from other posts where it seems you only meant the effects had to do with some mental assessment of correct values as if this somehow erases what you have said many times.

My guess is you will also wonder where this interest comes on my part. It is fascinating to watch you deny things even when presented with overwhelming concrete evidence.

[iambiguous]

But then what? Only to replace it with your own "right makes might" agenda?

Sure. Since you don't have some magic power which gives you access to the one true agenda, the optimal agenda, what else could you do than to replace it with your own agenda.

But the objectivists don't need "some magic power". On the contrary, all they need is to believe...to believe that their own moral and political agenda already reflects the optimal triumph for the human race. Think back to, say, the mid-twentieth century, when the "right makes might" fascists did battle with the "right makes might" communists.

Or today when the "right makes might" conservatives do battle with the "right makes might" liberals. The anything goes factions.

That's how objectivism works out in the real world when those who claim it gain access to actual power.

What would you command if you had access to it. Here for example.

That is when I introduce the objectivists among us to dasein, conflicting goods and political economy.

So? Somebody is still going to implement his/her agenda.

I don't know what you ex[pect] to happen.

Of course. If I am unable to persuade them that objectivism is rooted in the manner in which I convey it in the arguments I pose in my signature threads. On the other hand, I may well succeed. But instead of embracing moderation, negotiation and compromise, they choose moral nihilism instead. The sort preferred by the sociopaths, narcissists and the "show me the money" crowd.

As for what is "doable", some have access to more options than others.

You manage to post on the internet so you are not entirely without options.

Right, like posting on the internet is even close to the equivalent of when I was active 24/7 in all manner of political groups. All at the time deemed to be "one of us". Protesting, demonstrating, organizing, arguing eyeball to eyeball with dozens of different folks in dozens of different contexts.

[phyllo]

But the objectivists don't need "some magic power". On the contrary, all they need is to believe...to believe that their own moral and political agenda already reflects the optimal triumph for the human race. Think back to, say, the mid-twentieth century, when the "right makes might" fascists did battle with the "right makes might" communists.

Or today when the "right makes might" conservatives do battle with the "right makes might" liberals. The anything goes factions.

That's how objectivism works out in the real world when those who claim it gain access to actual power.

That's just complaining that some people are more certain of themselves than you think that they ought to be.

Apparently uncertain fascists battling uncertain communists is better than certain fascists battling certain communists.

Of course. If I am unable to persuade them that objectivism is rooted in the manner in which I convey it in the arguments I pose in my signature threads. On the other hand, I may well succeed. But instead of embracing moderation, negotiation and compromise, they choose moral nihilism instead. The sort preferred by the sociopaths, narcissists and the "show me the money" crowd.

Well, you don't actually make a case that moderation, negotiation and compromise are the better way to go. So why would anyone do it?

Right, like posting on the internet is even close to the equivalent of when I was active 24/7 in all manner of political groups. All at the time deemed to be "one of us". Protesting, demonstrating, organizing, arguing eyeball to eyeball with dozens of different folks in dozens of different contexts.

I was thinking in terms of you taking up meditation in order to feel less F&F rather than overthrowing the overlords.