Of course the numbers of stages are arbitrary, but still there can be a distinction between "realizing that you are in a bubble and trying to find the one true world view" and understanding that all world view are relative, so just pick whichever suits your needs best.

Nah, his communication style was rather cringy and he failed to enforce his believe with sufficient vigor. :grin:

What exactly? No...

I haven’t had children, by choice, if that pleases your sense of consistency. — praxis

Why? I have one son so far, another 1-2 with time would sound great.

The point was really to express unconventional ideas to see how you would respond to them. It seems you dislike the maverick and prefer the herd. — praxis

I try to critically evaluate any ideas and beliefs that stand behind them. So far all that 'climate catastrophy' or 'population bomb' seem to be not backed up by reality, putting it mildly. ;)

The thing is how far is someone willing to go that road of self development as you say. It is a damn hard constant inner fight with yourself, so we have to be lenient with people that don't dare to give that fight. I can understand that, though I find it wrong.
Personally I would be really happy if most people worldwide could reach to Stage 3 but unfortunately it's still Stage 2 in reality. — dimosthenis9

Thank you. I'd say most people are at stage 1 , maybe like 85%, some 15% at stage 2. But what seems to dawn on me is that everybody wasn't born to become a philosopher and that's OK. :)

We could also agree on population reduction. — praxis

WTF? Funny how those willing to reduce the population never want to start with themselves.
Seriously though, social engineering is an extremely complex topic and, as history shows us, those who reduce it to oversimplified concepts always do way more harm than good.

Your hierarchy of self-actualisation looks to make Donald Trump the most evolved dude on the planet then. Or any other autocrat and cult leader.

Is personal authenticity actually the highest good? Or do we need something else to measure the apex human by? — apokrisis

- I don't like cult leaders, so I would put than down to stage 1. , since they are themselves slaves of the 'I need my followers to love me!' concept. stage 5. would be left for 'real sages', be those Nietzsche, Jung, Marcus Aurelius and such.

- Trump did pretty good, probably somewhat stage 4. , he certainly is his own man, not afraid to stand up against the mob. Or are you under the spell of the 'orange man bad' concept?
Note that it was the next guy, who handed Afghanistan to terrorists, turned US from an oil exporter into an importer, and enabled Putin to invade Ukraine by his weak "we will not intervene" rhetoric. In addition to supporting pedophile teachers grooming children.

I would say being an authentic thinker is a higher evolutionary stage.

It's still not clear to me what problem this is addressing or how it helps. — Tom Storm

Makes one think about the concepts he is using. Whether those are his concepts or he is enslaved by someone's else concepts. Meaning whether he is just a pawn in someone else's game or is he at least trying to be his genuine self and develop a world view that help him live a more fulfilled life.

Hmmm. How does this make any substantive difference? — Tom Storm

For example, nutjobs aside, here I assume that a person who develops his own world view, his own values, is trying to individuate ( in Jungs terminology ) and is able to adjust those views as he progresses.

It sounds like you have a kind of model of human development that privileges a hierarchical outlook about people's conceptual frameworks. — Tom Storm

Yes, clearly some concepts are better than others, at least in aspects of 'do they work in real life', for example.

Probably a good starting place would be to agree on what are those urgent issues that need to be solved.

I would say that the main problem is modern society losing its fundamental concepts. For the last ~1700 years societies were orientated around Christian ideas, which now are certainly outdated. So people turn to all sort of hedonism, marxism, climate alarmism in an attempt find a world view that would hold their societies together.

As for what you mentioned - refugees and climate change - I don't think those are real problems, more like temporary fabs that would be soon forgotten.

I don't think this always happens. Or perhaps you are more charitable about the term 'school of thought'. Most people's beliefs systems probably end up being variations of the views of their parents/culture/peer group.

I think it is not applicable to one person's life cycle. I'd say some 85% are born on stage 1 and die there. People who reach stage 4 ( what you could call Jung's individuation ), probably is way, way under 1%.

My bigger question is, how is this model useful? — Tom Storm

Probably makes one think about the concepts he is using. Whether those are his concepts or he is enslaved by someone's else concepts.

You are claiming that people cannot care about the environment or social inequality and that they can only care about being perceived as a good person? — praxis

I think the difference between a genuine care and virtue signaling is that a person can critically evaluate his believes, actions and their consequences.
For example, burning down a minority neighborhood, driving out all the business is not a very productive way to combat social inequality.
Same as banning drilling in the US, than understanding that you still need oil, so importing it from Russia, thou financing their aggression, also isn't a good way to care for the environment.

Absolutely not! — unenlightened

Me neither. :) so why should we even care about him or what he is doing with his money?

I can have macaroni cheese as often as I like! — unenlightened

Lucky you! :) I can't have it as often as I like, I want a sixpack, so keto and stuff :))

Wouldn't the circumstance of those not having to invest in themselves the mental effort while achieving the same results bother you? — kudos

My believe would be that people should be hired based on their ability to perform the job, not some diversity quotas or any other job unrelated merits.

Would you like to swap places with Bezos?

You're afraid to engage with people who disagree with you, so you refuse to address directly those who have a less mean-spirited understanding of people than you do. Saying things over and over again doesn't make them true. — T Clark

I am not afraid, I just didn't see a direct way of engaging with such comments.
Also I never said that acting in a self-interest is mean-spirited, it is just a natural way people are wired.

Not sure I understand what you say. :) You might want to make it simple, so common folks can grasp your ideas, too. )

I would say the concept of you, or someone else for that matter, starting to judge who deserves what in life might be a very dangerous path. ;) i.e. Nazism, communism, etc.
So a much better and freer approach would be not to place any artificial boundaries in front of people's pursue of happiness and let them go their own way. Understanding that their achievements would vary wildly due to all sort of reasons.

Man, I think you're just envious of Bezos.
After I started doing WHM breath work and reading Yogic books, I feel happy and totally non-judgemental. :) You should try that, too. Also add some Sowell / Friedman, as you don't seem to understand that people like Bezos, Gates, Zuckerberg ( while I'm totally not a fan of those guys ) did a huge and valuable organizing work for which they are rewarded.

"There is nothing rational about self-interest." — unenlightened

So why do you think a baker bakes bread at night? Why a truck driver gets up at 6am to deliver it to the stores? Is it because they care so deeply about the well-being of others? Or maybe because they just want to make money? ;) now think about that.

That is why capitalism work - the system is set up in such a way as to get money you have to do something useful that others will pay you for.

I'd say that people expand their sense of self over to their child. So the child is seen as their continuation. )

hat people do not always act in their own interest, even when it is prudent for themselves, and in the best interests of others that they do. Hence, incentive theory is irretrievably false. Bish, bash, bosh. — unenlightened

So, what percent of people would attempt to help a stranger before helping themselves?

Do you have evidence that pure altruism isn't possible? — Tom Storm

No, but I didn't try to prove it being impossible. I am more stating that the majority of people would act in their self-interests, not necessary all of them. )

Even those uber-altruists might be driven by a sense of moral superiority they get from helping other. :) But still we are talking about the majority of people. )

I would say that human enjoy generating jargon and classification systems way beyond a any practical needs, leading to futile arguing. :)

In my view 'scientific truth' is real in terms that it can be measured, while moral truth is relative and should come with a caveat at the end ", if we assume such and such to be true".

Noting that at times it might be beneficial to act as if moral values are not relative, as it leads to better social cohesion.

What if it is? I suggest that in the long run, the aim of "giving people moral guidance, thymos, and social cohesion" is well-served by promoting the value of truthfulness, and is impaired by promoting bullshit, lies, delusion, literal belief in fiction -- and generally speaking, a culture of unreasonableness. — Cabbage Farmer

I would argue that our logic and reason can work only within some 'metaphysical box', i.e. what we assume as good or true without any evidence.

This strikes me as symptomatic of a profoundly confused view of events in Afghanistan, of American foreign policy, and of the history of the past century or so, to say the least. I suspect it would take us too far off topic to clear this up here. I hope we can pursue the conversation without getting bogged down in such examples. — Cabbage Farmer

What do you think would be the right view on the given conflict?

What could cost more than taking lives? — Alkis Piskas

Freedom! What if the cost of preventing a war is to surrender and live under an oppressive regime?

Yes, i was just born in a than communist occupied country and all the atrocities they committed are still pretty fresh in our collective memory, so when a westerner start "oh, not everything was that bad..." really gets me fired up. :D

How many people did communists kill in Russia? How many countries were occupied? How many were worked to death in Siberia?

And saying that communists missinderstood Max is as naive as saying that Hitler had good ideas, only those damn Nazis took them out of context.

Nazis had send people to concentration camps based on their ethnicity, while communists did so based on class. That is the only difference and an insignificant one in my opinion. So I certainly would see those two ideologies as equal.

Well Marx dared at last! So don't be so aphoristic about him. I find that unfair. — dimosthenis9

Would you say the same about, for example, Hitler? :)
What Marx proposed had led to gulags and murders of hundreds of million throughout the last century. If that is not the wrong side of history, I don't know what is.

Truly so. And, it seems, for Libertarians the prospect might be even worst, as they usually don't have the thumos to fight for what they believe it. Therefor, usually whomever is stronger, just takes over them.

Believe me, the Battle, called here in the States "the culture war" is raging. — Michael Zwingli

I know it is, I'm watching the Daily Wire, Dinesh D'souza and such. The problem, as I see it, is that the right fails to use effective means. Instead of canceling leftist speakers and bullying leftist ideologues into silence, they tend to take the "let's all be friends" approach.
Even Trump, who was the president for 4 years, failed to use his powers to crush the enemy. :(

The state as "the great father"...everybody's "daddy". This will happen over my dead body, or in my absence, should I choose to emigrate rather than fight what could only be a losing battle. — Michael Zwingli

About fighting Marxism being a losing battle. I am from Eastern Europe, I was born in Soviet-occupied territory, so I know that culture very well.
And I can not understand why Americans ( republicans ) don't want to really fight Marxists, instead they just play on the defense, arguing for freedom of speech ( even for Marxists ) and basically let's all be friends attitude.

Probably their Christian value system is holding them back, as it sees suffering for ones believes as a good thing. While in reality you don't win a war by suffering, you win by making the other side suffer. ;)

I'm not going to do your job. :angry: — Wheatley

LOL :D

That's not confirmation. — Wheatley

like what do you want, a history lesson? :D use google for that. ;)

Can you confirm? — Wheatley

Russian October revolution rings a bell? Basically replaced a stupid Czar with a blood-thirsty maniac Lenin, followed by Stalin.

That's just your opinion... — Wheatley

Did it ever play out any other way? ;) whenever Marxists come to power, it always end in a totalitarian state and misery & concentrations camps for the people.

Marxists. — Wheatley

Just know that their goal is to get political power, not "make things better".
For that they are happy to split the society into classes and generate artificial conflicts among them by blaming one class for all the misfortunes of the other.