> "appeared to show"
Appeared? What a horrible nightmare we are living through. <em>Nothing Is True and Everything Is Possible: The Surreal Heart of the New Russia</em>.
Another really great one that theorizes exactly WHY America as a country is so susceptible to snake oil salesmen, con men, and anyone who spouts patriotic/religious nonsense is *Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire: A 500-Year History.
I really enjoy macro histories, and this one is particularly compelling and enjoyable to read.
You might find Mick West's book, <em>Escaping the Rabbit Hole,</em> to be helpful. It's all about how and why otherwise smart and reasonable people can fall into conspiracist beliefs, and how to approach the topic with them. It also goes into some of the details of the arguments behind specific conspiracy theories like the 9/11 ones. And it's a surprisingly good read, IMO.
I've been reading this book called Fantasyland : How America Went Haywire: A 500-Year History.
It posits that America is so messed up because Americans have been self-selecting gullible idiots since the days of Columbus.
Many many people came to this continent in the early days because of promises of easy gold and riches. After a year or two of struggling and not finding any easy riches, the smart ones packed up and went home. The dumb ones stayed and reproduced with other stupid people and bad stupid gullible children.
And this same kind thing repeats over and over for centuries until we reach the point where we are today. Not everybody is here is stupid. But the stupid tend to put down roots and reproduce and the smart people tend to see through the bullshit and go home when they have the chance.
https://www.amazon.com/Fantasyland-America-Haywire-500-Year-History-ebook/dp/B004J4WNJE
Americans have generally always been believing weird-ass shit, simply because unlike most other large-scale pre-industrial societies, there usually wasn't an institution charged with limiting the acceptable body of belief (e.g an official church, or a Confucian mandarin elite, or a priestly caste). In the 19th century you had the Great Awakening and all the bizarre religious sects that came out of that (Mormons being the most prominent), but also things like patent medicine salesmen etc.
But you could argue that rationalism and scientific thinking peaked in the US immediately postwar, during the 1950s and early 1960s. Not coincidentally, this is when the US gained a 'thought control apparatus' for the first time, in the shape of television and other mass media. The prestige of American science and technology in this era, though, was quite heavily bound up with the military-industrial complex.
So when you had the counterculture emerge in the mid-to-late '60s, a lot of it veered into anti-science and rationalism, given the deep associations between the technocratic scientific establishment and the military industrial complex responsible for the carnage in Vietnam. This book is quite good on how a lot of woo came out of California, at first with the hippie movement, but later associated with the sort of postmodern French theory that gave rise to woke idpol.
Ofc it wasn't just the 'left' that was going down this road, the American Right from the late '80s up till now began to embrace the sort of paranoid conspiracism that's really dominated their politics ever since.
We're not. You're assuming those things are inherently bad for you. They're not.
Check out the book The Big Fat Surprise by Nina Teicholz. It's a life changer.
Edit: and here's my blood work: https://imgur.com/a/BmpS8mk
There's entire books written on how to take psychedelics responsibly to maximize the benefit. People shouldn't expect to just take psychedelics and conquer their anxiety without knowing what they're doing. It takes a bit of knowledge about how to navigate your own consciousness to "transcend" the anxiety and attain a state of complete inner peace. Basically lay down with calming music, eye shades preferred, look within your mind. Accept and surrender to everything you experience: even to the point where you think you're dying and you just let it happen. It sounds scary, but when you come out the other end of that, you feel fantastic because you conquered life's greatest fear. Anxiety is normally gone for the rest of the trip at that point. Many people experience jaw tightness while on a psychedelic, but that goes away too along with the anxiety.
There's other pitfalls you have to watch out for too. A main one is that you shouldn't put any expectations on the experience. Just be fine with whatever is happening in your mind and let it all happen on its own.
Reading The Psychedelic Explorer's Guide is what helped me go from having anxious trips to beautiful spiritual experiences:
https://www.amazon.com/Psychedelic-Explorers-Guide-Therapeutic-Journeys-ebook/dp/B0051OHLVG
These are many of the same things that therapists conducting studies into psychedelics have their patients do. It's really decades of illegal personal experience that has determined the more effective ways to take psychedelics, not the recent scientific studies. The studies are just trying to prove the efficacy.
I've for quite some time thought that the "ego" or "esoteric knowledge" thing was part of it and it may be but I'm reading Escaping the Rabbit Hole: How to Debunk Conspiracy Theories Using Facts, Logic, and Respect and the author points out that although there has been a study done on having special knowledge that the relationship between the need for this knowedge and conspiracy belief is very weak. I'm paraphrasing a bit but I was surprised to see that. This is one of those cases where the media promoted this with a sensational headline when the evidence wasn't very strong. I can't find the specific article but I think it was from Psypost.com
you might want to suggest your brother to read THIS book, it talks about how Americans are exposed to so much fantasy and conspiracy that they think everything is a conspiracy, something along those lines, it ll clear his head
I highly recommend https://www.amazon.com/Fantasyland-America-Haywire-500-Year-History-ebook/dp/B004J4WNJE to get perspective on American history with conspiracy theories and other unique American cultural traits.
Don't laugh too hard....
I use tallow for thread tapping. Tallow (rendered beef fat) is extremely stable and does not go rancid. There is a hot dip wax formula for chain lube that includes tallow. If you are an old machinist, you are familiar with different types of "natural" lubricants.
I have seen lard mentioned as a lubricant in the old books but on a serious note, I see no use for it on a bicycle. Lard mixed in with chain wax makes sense as it would lower the melting point of the wax if that is indeed a property you want. I find just plain hot wax to be incredibly good by itself.
Prior to oil being pumped out of the ground animal fats and processed seed oils were used for lubrication. Once the seed oil market started collapsing they started to sell it for human consumption. Rape Seed oil was popular, for machine use and was poisonous. Selective breeding has removed most of the poison and it was renamed to Canola Oil because what woman is going to buy rape oil.
Big Fat Surprise is a great book on the history of fats for human consumption and takes a very close look at the studies that out low fat, high carb diets are based on.
It is not ignorant jf you look at how this shit looks in reality. Most psychology studies are purely theoretical with very little relevance to real life. Philosophy studies are done just analyzes of old philosophers. A lot of sociology papers do not meet the basic criteria of science. I invite you to read the book cynical theories for more on that topic. https://www.amazon.com/Cynical-Theories-Scholarship-Everything-Identity-ebook/dp/B08BGCM5QZ/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=cynical+theories&qid=1619717464&sr=8-1
I listened to her audiobook via my public library's Overdrive and can only recommend every person interested in really understanding the mechanics behind our current state of nutrition listen or read it. I enjoyed the listening because I could rewind and rewind and then let it sink in. I am not getting any benefit from Amazon just found that link with reviews might be helpful. https://www.amazon.com/Big-Fat-Surprise-Butter-Healthy-ebook/dp/B00A25FDUA
No problem man! I just realized I got the author's name wrong, it's actually Mick West. Here's an amazon link if you're curious:
https://www.amazon.com/Escaping-Rabbit-Hole-Conspiracy-Theories-ebook/dp/B077YS5G2N#ace-g7448806443
"the question of why this procedure requires such legal maneuvers is a perplexing one, since ectopic pregnancies will not lead to a birth."
Literally because some politicians have said 'maybe Jesus will intervene and save the baby'. If you haven't read Fantasyland yet, do it now. We are being forced to live with Christianity and Christian Nationalism that has become increasingly 'magical' in its dogma. https://www.amazon.com/Fantasyland-America-Haywire-500-Year-History-ebook/dp/B004J4WNJE/ref=tmm\_kin\_swatch\_0?\_encoding=UTF8&qid=1671476409&sr=8-1
This obviously may not be the time to take this on, but here’a a great book about how to help people see that their conspiracy theories are baseless without making them feel threatened. In the meantime, I’d recommend individual therapy for him and couple’s therapy for you both.
The book Cynical Theories explains this pretty well.
So as a physician, I must say that psilocybin is currently a scheduled I substance. Your doctor will not be able to legally provide any advice to you about micro or macro dosing. Yet, there are some amazing research trials currently underway to hopefully bring psilocybin online for official treatment within 5 year.
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BUT, from things my patients have told me, there are good resources for these kinds of questions.
They and patients in research studies have said that macrodosing psilocyin has been of the top 5 experiences of their lives. But, especially in research studies, they wear a mask, go inward listening to music and are very intentional about set and setting. They have had guides with them to keep them physically and mentally safe in that space.
Whatever you decide to do, I hope you have a physician with whom you feel comfortable being honest. I try to create that environment because I would miss out on so much about my patients' stories, not to mention a lot I would never learn myself.
Best of luck to you!
> It’s like someone dropped a bomb on actual social progress.
Critical theory is that bomb.
Highly recommend this book, if you're interested in learning more about how critical theory has fucked our college system and is tearing apart our social fabric.
I would suggest not trying to win an argument using rationality. You'll just get frustrated. I think the approach outlined in Mick West's book is the best you can do. What I got out of it (and I'm sure this is a pretty pale summary) is the following, and it might be mixed with other suggestions I've heard:
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Best of luck!
Andersen, Kurt, 1954- https://www.amazon.com/Fantasyland-America-Haywire-500-Year-History-ebook/dp/B004J4WNJE "
Unionization is literally the one thing that could prevent that type of exploitation. And that is exactly what "democratize the workspace" means.
You don't have to take my word for it. Jason Schreier wrote a great book called Press Reset. The thesis is more or less "if workers don't organize, the games industry won't retain talent and the crunch will only get worse".
Because America was settled by True Believers from the beginning.
You're forgetting to mention that the left in America is similarly crazier than in Europe; the French establishment have famously called out the excesses of American wokesterism. Meanwhile, European social democracies like Sweden abolished wealth taxes years ago, support free trade and are not campaigning on Cuba-level resentments and understanding of economics.
> I've had several people in my life try to convince me by giving examples of people whining about cancel culture but have never given me an actual example of it
Funny you should ask! Someone literally wrote a book about this in 2015. It's only gotten worse since then.
Press Reset, the follow up to Blood, Sweat, and Pixels. A video game journalist wrote about what happens behind the doors of various game development companies
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08HLR61MG/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_awdb_W98MW6JMWFTQVPSX8P44
Here's a book that has an incredible history of this:
Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire: A 500-Year History
https://www.amazon.com/Fantasyland-America-Haywire-500-Year-History-ebook/dp/B004J4WNJE
https://www.amazon.ca/Porn-Generation-Social-Liberalism-Corrupting-ebook/dp/B00BS02BHG/ref=nodl_
Maybe he’s updated his opinions, and respect to him for doing so. But he definitely wrote down and got published a defence of government intervention into porn.
>Would you say it’s better to do that?
Yeah. These people won't listen. There are some success stories here though. There are some gentle ways to bounce back what they said as a question that makes them think without an emotional reaction which is almost always anger. The talk about it in the Book Escaping the Rabbit Hole. There is also street epistemology and I think some people have suggested motivational interviewing techniques.
Escaping the Rabbit Hole by Mick West.
I've been debating getting it to see if it can help me talk my mom out of her conspiracy theory beliefs, or if I should just ignore that part of her forever. I have a tendency to get angry when we'd "talk" about conpiracy theories because she acts so cock-sure and mostly dismisses me as being close-minded among other snide and insulting remarks.
since it pretty much fell into my lap, there's no reason not to just give it a read. Maybe it will help, maybe it won't. It's pretty easy to just never discuss those things and let her believe whatever reality she wants, even if it does makes me think less of her.