It does seem to get easier every day to find a foothold in to raise these ideas with people. We are just surrounded by so many examples of a system that functions against us, it is getting easier to wake people up.

Also, beautiful rant.

Sadly it's is normal if you look back at human history.

Romans slaves, 1%ers

Middle Ages feudal system

Modern day consumer / capitalism min wage slavery

Americans have a king most don't know it. They are ruled by the dollar and the shadowy figures behind it. Proabley fed reserve related. Look at the tax payer 'bailing out' private business durin the GFC

Nothing chances eh

"But I'm Specia!!"

No. You're not. None of us are. Great post, saved and shared

No. You're not. None of us are. Great post, saved and shared

I don't agree. We're all having an experience. And all of our experiences are very much connected. I'd argue the self is contained within the whole and therefore each experience is special.

Everyone is unique. But that doesn't make anyone special.

The heros journey is the most important thing to understand. They use it to subconsciously push us to want their control.

Can you elaborate on it any more? Curious for your thoughts!

I feel like this is a brilliant observation. Thank you and I will be pondering this...

And using the steps of the heroes journey you can guide others to the path of enlightenment.

It recently became clear to me, glad it could inspire you. People like us are going through our own journey. We know something is wrong, we can ignore it, but we choose to enter a new way of thinking. But it requires you to shatter your worldview and accept 'what I knew was wrong, there is more to the story' reaching your darkest cave where you confront the ideals you cling to.

The problem is once people achieve this they are tempted to keep it to themselves and withdraw from the community, like frodo and the ring - he wants to keep it for himself near the end. The most important step is the return to the community to share your knowledge.

Let me know if you think of anything! Gotta return with the knowledge :)

It's less "enslavement" than it is "exploitation".

Nobody forces you to participate in the existing system. If you don't want to work and earn money, you can chose not to do that but you have to face the consequences. Where will you get food, water, electricity, a roof above your head or medical treatment from?

Capitalism did very well providing those goods to a overwhelmingly big part of the people, espcially in times after big wars since there is a lot to do, rebuild and achieve. In general, people lived way better lifes in this system than in any system before. But times have changed.

We aren't living in a world anymore, where the necessary products and/or luxury depends on the work and man power of it's citizens. Thanks to advanced machines, computers etc. a single worker is many, many times more productive than ever before in history. In 2016 we are so technically advanced in every aspect of production, that every good is basically superabound. Supermarkets throw away over 33% of their products each day. Auto mobile manufacturers are stockpiling cars in their yards. Houses and food can be produced without much effort.

And yet, more and more people are working longer hours for lower wages that they can not live from, how Bernie Sanders would put it. That's a disparity that people notice all over the world, totally unrelated to their education or intellect. The feeling that something is wrong and not adding up.

We are getting exploited by the super rich class to make them even richer and more powerful, it's as simple as that.

Or as Warren Buffet puts it: ”There’s class warfare, all right, but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.” - Interview with Ben Stein in New York Times, 26. November 2006

Nobody forces you to participate in the existing system

Hilarious. Go try forming a commune in the woods, living off the land. Participation in the system is mandatory.

Where will you get food, water, electricity, a roof above your head or medical treatment from?

Historically, we got them from our peers, with the obvious exception excepted as it's a luxury. Humans don't need access to a diverse selection of tropical foods, they don't need an abundance of mammal meat. Most of the world has the soil and flora to provide comfortable living for a lot of people. Obviously we'd lose some of our advanced medical capability in such a society, but I've grown up in a retirement community and the underground man had it right about the elderly. With the exception of those who extend their own life naturally through good habits, the elderly are disgusting creatures kept barely functioning via cocktails of drugs and strange medicine. And we give them cars.

It's less "enslavement" than it is "exploitation".

It's enslavement. We can no longer even operate subsistance farm communities, we are forced into the garish plastic wonderland of modern day. This world of landlords and taxes and absentee owners demands constant labor just to survive with the "normal" amount of freedom, while denying most any true sense of home.

Hilarious. Go try forming a commune in the woods, living off the land. Participation in the system is mandatory.

Fair point. I think we're in this together. I'd rather the whole of society benefit from the plentiful than have to break off from society to live differently.

Change the monetary system.

Well said man. I'm with you. Honesty is always the best policy.

I truely believe that the Internet will bring around this BIG world change, if kept free.

If kept free. Information freedom is a dangerous tool

Surely the pros outweigh the cons, and I suppose but that's down to the individual.

People have either been conditioned or just personally aren't interested in looking at stuff like that. and that's what the boogey men of the world rely on.

I agree with you op, good post.

People refuse to see it because they lack self esteem.

I partially agree with this. I think people think they can't fight so they don't try. "Go along to get along" they say. I think it's also 'willful blindness' and cognitive dissonance. Which has a basis in statusquotarianism, which itself is a combination of high-authoritarianism and an extreme willingness to conform to group norms, the 'bystander effect'.

Philip Zimbardo, a phd psychologist who ran a famous psych experiment on authoritarianism and compartmentalized behavior called 'the stanford prisoner experiment' to accompany Millgram experiment^[1][2], talks about these things.

He coined the term "the Lucifer Effect" in his TED talk 'the psychology of evil' which I believe everyone should watch. He talks about the "7 social processes that grease the slippery slope of evil":

• Mindlessly taking the first small step
• Dehumanization of others
• De-individuation of Self (anonymity)
• Diffusion of personal responsibility
• Blind Obedience to authority
• Uncritical conformity to group norms
• Passive tolerance of Evil through inaction or indifference

It happens when you are in a new or unfamiliar situation. You're habitual response patterns don't work. Your personality and morality are disengaged.

Think about the constant changes, the constant terror attacks, the constant social struggles and sensationalized news. They are all there to vie for your attention and each circumstance puts people who consume this news into an unfamiliar situation. It's job is to keep you locked into the above characteristics and which inhibit you from asking questions.

Amazing rant. Right there with you brother. Everyone knows this already deep down, it's just how honest we are being with ourselves. In the words of RATM, "We need to take the power (our power) back!" Once that happens, this shit will be laughed at and we as a collective won't ever let this happen again. Earth was supposed to be a place where we got away from this enslavement bullshit, and we all let it happen again; it's definitely coming to an end tho.

Good post. I once said in an older thread that many of our issues with anxiety / depression / nihilism stem from the ease of which we are able to survive and thrive in our society. Humans are still wired to hunt, kill, and provide for others while living in a social, but relatively small, tribe. Without the intense satisfaction that comes from accomplishing these tasks, we look elsewhere to get it. Which is why we play video games about war, work too many hours, or even self-destruct and spiral into addiction.

It's a rather unintended consequence of establishing a robust society that gives us not only our needs, but most of our wants as well. And instead of offering natural, mind-expanding substances, we get pills that are designed to placate the brain, limiting our ability to perceive inner truths. Deep down, people know they're using just a limited amount of their abilities, but since they don't encounter many people who are more motivated, it seems acceptable.

Devils' Advocate here. And the devil is in the details.

What if we're natural predators with inherent self interest, BUT ALSO social animals who benefit from society? That would make for a but of a quandry- one that some might see as hypocritical.

So if we agree that society is natural artifice (again an oxymoron, and I suppose we can argue it) then it must be bound by rules to function and stay intact, right?

Now perhaps a hierarchy evolves and the rules change as you change positions in the hierarchy, based on authority. If the goal is to keep society intact and "progressing", what rules are necessary and is consistency necessary? Is chaos and hypocrisy perhaps entirely consistent with humans living in a society? If it is, then those at higher levels of the higherarchy would asknowledge and take advantage of that. But that doesn't necessarily MEAN that their actions are entirely selfish, IF done to preserve the structure and hierarchy.

There are systems in place to show you the methodology of accepting hypocrisy and lies and growing with them as you realize the story changed. In most christianity, we celebrate christmas with santa clause and easter with the easter bunny. as kids, we are told they are real. when we mature, we learn that they are not and that they are SYMBOLS. If we mature further, perhaps we realize that they are PAGAN symbols and not directly related to Christianity. These are clues about hypocrisy and control and you are MEANT to learn from them. This is a system of teaching and indoctrination letting you in on the secret a little bit at a time.

Love is the answer.

"To get back up to the shining world from there My guide and I went into that hidden tunnel,

And Following its path, we took no care To rest, but climbed: he first, then I-so far, through a round aperture I saw appear

Some of the beautiful things that Heaven bears, Where we came forth, and once more saw the stars.”

Thank You

but the divine comedy is a trilogy. your verse is only a third of the way there...

Some people have been in a dark place lately and are at different stages on life's way. Things just get too much to contemplate.

You should check out Moral Man and Immoral Society by Reinhold Niebuhr.

you don't get to be the archetypal hero/star/mother/father/warrior/healer or whatever the fuck else you want to be until you take total responsibility for your own life and start to be courageous

That's why no warrior, hero, star, healer, father or mother has ever existed who didn't oppose the State.

Great post.

I just checked this user's account and it has seemingly been suspended. Quite interesting (not implying it's because of this post, but it still is intriguing).

OP Was not a faggot.

Do what other people do to chill out, buy some pot and Xanex and put on your rose colored glasses. Everyone here knows how deep this goes but its so big no single person, or even group of people for that matter, will change things. There are things you havent been told because you cant handle them. You mention you have kids, well imagine the government is a parent figure and you are their kids. You dont tell your kids about things that are too complex for them to understand. You dont say uncle Randy was found dead with a needle in his arm, you say something like he went peacefully in his sleep and you tell them more indepth versons of the actual events when they grow up more and can comprehend the events leading to his death. You dont tell them at 3 years old a fat man from a different cou try is watching their every move year round and plans on breaking In to your house on Christmas, instead you tell them if their good theyll be rewarded in an otherwise gloomy part of the year. Same goes for you, you wont get to know every little detail because it would be overwhelming and prolly cause you to do something very drastic. We need to to live your "normal" life and pay your taxes like everyone else. Trust me, you dont want to know every little secret there is in this world. At times I wish I didnt knlw the things I do.

The world runs on a pyramid system. Base level equals slave/nobody. The higher up you rise, the more privileges and benefits you get. For the tiny number of people at the highest levels, power and wealth are virtually unlimited.

So the system is really only set up to benefit the very few at the expense of the vast majority. Most of us realize this at some level even if, consciously, we try not to think about it too much.

Until one wakes up to the reality that there is no self, just consciousness masquerading as an ego machine, the suffering will continue. Start meditating an hour a fucking day and you will finally learn the truth about who you are. Listen to Alan Watts and turn off your tv. Our attachment to the idea that we are a separate self and an ego is the cause of all our neuroses.

It is a battle between opposing life paths. We have the path of competition, self-serving behavior even at the expense of others, darkness, evil, enslavement, suffering, non-integrity, irresponsibility, deception and destruction. We have the path of cooperation, service to others even at the expense of the self, light, good, freedom, joy, integrity, personal responsibility, honesty, and creation.

These both work. One does in perpetuity, the other parasiticly feeds on others for its sustainence. We can't ignore the path of service to self even at the expense of others and maintain our path of service to others even at the expense of the self. The dark tries to enslave and feed on the light.

The dark hides from us, tricks us and keeps us from having enough will to find it and fight it. The dark that is aware enough of its way creates an autoimmune deficiency syndrome. The other path is like an immune system for the whole, identifying and restraining parasitic organisms. The best thing we can do is to be completely honest with ourselves in all things. When we deceive ourselves, even for some relief from abuse, we end up serving the darkness.

You too could become a king if you stop wasting your time talking and get working. Kings aren't always evil or amoral. They are men.

They are lucky to be part of a privileged Royal family, dumbass.

Maybe you don't understand how it works. Let me explain, dumbass. Someone has to put in the effort to become King. Then, they have to work hard to remain King, because there are other people who are willing and able to become the next King. You're only born a King (Prince, really) if your ancestors made it that way. You are a peasant, because your father was a peasant, and his father, and his father. Your sons will be peasants, and their sons too. Want to know why? Because you think Kings become Kings if they are lucky and you're waiting for your turn to be lucky. It won't happen, peasant. Now get back to toiling in the fields...

You just confirmed my argument. It revolves around dynasties or family. No matter how hard a peasant works, he will still die a peasant. The privileged are part of this system, and are chosen to be the next leader by the current/past leaders. No peasant is a threat to the establishment this way, and ensures the future for a royal family/dynasty AKA the luckiest of society. You don't "work" to be a King or leader, in today's age. You get lucky, plain and simple.

That's not "in today's age". That's how it has been forever.

You do need a hierarchy in order for society to function.

Personally, if I was ever forced to subjugate myself to a so called King (really, an enslaver/darkworker) I'd die fighting for my freedom.

lol

I thought I was reading /r/iamverysmart for a minute.

I don't see it.