Delayed Gratification = slavery - Page 2 - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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#14868668
ThirdTerm wrote:I think delayed gratification developed among modern humans as an acquired habit with the onset of farming.

Exactly. It's just a kind of early behaviorism - cemented in a manufactured worldview called religion - that was necessary in order to introduce a technology - agriculture.

Every technology forces humans to distort themselves and fight their own natures. And this is supremely FATAL.

We destroy our own natures, and then we go extinct. Every civilization has destroyed its own environment, but only AFTER it has destroyed its capacity to follow its instincts.

Victoribus Spolia wrote:If you are using Nietzsche's definition, then you are not applying it correctly. ...

I'm not regurgitating Nietsche here. This is a thread for posting ideas, not name-dropping. :D
#14868824
addem wrote:ne would think an immaterialist (I assume that's the same thing as an idealist) would still believe in atoms, just re-construed in an idealist framework.


I accounted for that possibility in my last post. Once again, it depends on whether they are perceptible or are by definition perceiving as to whether I would allow for them as entities with an actual existence.

addem wrote:And even in that case, you couldn't prove that the universe isn't one second old


Well, I would argue that occasionalism is corollary to immaterialism (which is the negative form of phenomenal idealism, the other name for my position), so in a sense the universe is continuously generated into existence; however, if you mean simply the origination of the earth, I am skeptical of many bold claims regarding the age of the earth as assuming theories of physical causation that are inherently fallacious.

addem wrote:created by an evil demon in such a way as to trick you into believing that it's older.


This was the argument used against Rene Descartes's conception of God (I see you are acquainted with philosophy); however, my position is immune to this critique, for my position argues for God's existence as a direct metaphysical necessity and does not allow for any other Supreme minds. Of course, you will get a chance to contend this with me soon, for in the next week or so, I will be posting my argument for Phenomenal Idealism and Trinitarian Theism.

addem wrote: So with that kind of sweeping skepticism


I would say my position combines a healthy dose of skepticism where it is needed most, but also serves as the greatest defense of what skepticism was most employed to oppose; True Religion.

B0ycey wrote:You have been taking in too much influence from your 'flat-earther' wife.


Interestingly enough, my wife's flat-earth views are something I have cautioned her on based on an appeal to our common meta-physic, for as an Idealist, I deny not only flat-earth, but also round-earth, geo v. helio-centric, and all such theories as speculative and logically flawed. What I perceive is what I perceive, the objectivity of all else resides in the Consciousness of God, and how such is constructed in His Mind is something I could never fully verify. Her response to this is that some sort of model ought to be used for practical purposes, and she favors a flat-earth. I remain blissfully agnostic on the matter and don't particularly care in all honesty.

B0ycey wrote:I assume you don't accept E=mc2 then?


I tend to be critical of a lot of things that Einstein affirmed.

B0ycey wrote:Matter exists VS. Look all around you. Only the perception of matter is questionable.


You are equivocating, I do not deny percepts, objects that are sensible, I affirm that any percept (lets say, a table) is made up sensations: (i.e. browness, hardness, etc.,), but all such are reducible to mental content. What I deny when I say that I deny matter, is that which is by definition imperceptible which is what is implied in the philosophical definition of matter: "self-existent, philosophically basic, epistemological irreducible, neither perceiving or perceived, and eternal" I deny the existence of this specific. I also deny physical causation, for one cannot infer a necessary relationship from observed correlations between percepts.

Please do not assume my position is so simple and silly as "you deny what we all experience." You would be gravely mistaken.
#14868859
MistyTiger wrote:@QatzelOk What kind of instant gratification is healthy? I cannot think of any at the moment. :?:

We live in civilization. This makes 'imagining a healthy relationship with nature' extremely difficult.

Zoo animals are punished when they exhibit perfectly healthy instinctive behavior. This is called 'training' and it warps these animals in ways that 1. make them totally dependent on the zookeepers, and 2. make them unhealthy and neurotic.
#14868972
QatzelOK wrote:Middle of the Road might seem like a safe position, but it's more like delaying having an opinion. This can be a terrible strategy with terrible consequences.

It also creates a dysfuntional break between your natural feelings and your course of action.


This is very true, I agree. Most likely you are describing your own personal experience.

I hope you leave your comfort zone some day, Qatz. It's time to diverge from the Middle Road already. You can do it!

Pleasure to provide some therapy. You can always count on me.

MistyTiger wrote:@QatzelOk What kind of instant gratification is healthy? I cannot think of any at the moment. :?:


I vote masturbation, exercise and making fun of fellow PoFoites. All good fun everyone can enjoy!
#14869023
@danholo Good examples, actually. +1

@QatzelOk Can you be any more oblique and vague? That was basically a non-answer disguised as an answer. You don't have an exact personal opinion on instant gratification, do you? Who knew that I could stump the great philosopher Qatzel? :hmm:
#14871953
MistyTiger wrote:@danholo Good examples, actually. +1

@QatzelOk Can you be any more oblique and vague? That was basically a non-answer disguised as an answer. You don't have an exact personal opinion on instant gratification, do you? Who knew that I could stump the great philosopher Qatzel? :hmm:

Oh, you didn't stump me. I was on vacation without internet for a week.

All instant gratification is excellent. But before it's possible, all technologies have to be eliminated.

Every technology imposes a form of slavery on both its users and those who come into contact with its users.
#14873883
QatzelOk wrote:All instant gratification is excellent. But before it's possible, all technologies have to be eliminated.

Every technology imposes a form of slavery on both its users and those who come into contact with its users.

I just jumped in this thread, so I'm not sure if you addressed elsewhere the fact that technology is one of the biggest means by which we attain instant gratification. Thanks to the internet, I can look something up instantly rather than make a trip to the library. I can go on a dating site and find singles in my area rather than try to pick someone up at a bar and hope we're compatible. Or, if that's too much trouble, I can access all the free porn I want. Your anti-technology stance would take all of that away, yet you claim all instant gratification is excellent. Presumably that would include all the forms of instant gratification provided by technology. I await your non-answer by which you will somehow weasel your way out of this, but I suspect such an answer will be neither instant nor gratifying.
#14873906
Paradigm wrote:I just jumped in this thread, so I'm not sure if you addressed elsewhere the fact that technology is one of the biggest means by which we attain instant gratification.

I already adressed this earlier on in the thread.

Basically, technologies allow us to satisfy the neurotic cravings of sick, zoo-bound animals.

Like when a cat in capitivity chews off its tail.

The 'instant gratification' that is healthy is only available in a state of technology-free nature.
#14873920
Paradigm wrote:So, in other words, we will have to delay gratification until we achieve the conditions for this instant gratification.

As long as we live with technologies, our instincts must be feared, hated, and destroyed.

Meaningful gratification is impossible if you can't even connect with what you naturally want.
#14873922
So while denouncing delayed gratification, you are in fact endorsing an indefinitely delayed gratification until this anti-technological eschaton is reached. For someone who denounces Abrahamic religions and their emphasis on delayed gratification, I dare say that even the Puritans were not so harsh in this respect as you are.
#14873923
Paradigm wrote:So while denouncing delayed gratification, you are in fact endorsing an indefinitely delayed gratification until this anti-technological eschaton is reached. For someone who denounces Abrahamic religions and their emphasis on delayed gratification, I dare say that even the Puritans were not so harsh in this respect as you are.

Not at all. If you want to chew off your tail, go right ahead. But that isn't real gratification. It's the gratification of a neurotic zoo prisoner. Technology imprisons us with mandatory behaviorism.

And this isn't an all-or-nothing formula. People living with less technologies are free-er to engage in real instant gratification. For example, in most car-free areas, you can jaywalk all you want.
#14876146
QatzelOk wrote:Oh, you didn't stump me. I was on vacation without internet for a week.

All instant gratification is excellent. But before it's possible, all technologies have to be eliminated.

Every technology imposes a form of slavery on both its users and those who come into contact with its users.


That makes perfect sense to me. I think I have a small QatzelOk in me somewhere because a lot of what you write Q makes perfect sense to me.

Technology makes us dependent on it and thus there is slavery when we depend on something. Then we have to create an infrastructure to make the 'dependency' easier on us, and then we have to convince others to help us maintain our dependency....and it is even more time and slavery, etc. etc. You are right. In everything.
#14876603
Tainari88 wrote:I think I have a small QatzelOk in me somewhere because a lot of what you write Q makes perfect sense to me.

*blushes*

Technology makes us dependent on it and thus there is slavery when we depend on something. Then we have to create an infrastructure to make the 'dependency' easier on us, and then we have to convince others to help us maintain our dependency....and it is even more time and slavery, etc. etc. You are right. In everything.

Yes, that's part of the dynamic. The other part of the dynamic is what Marshal Mcluhan calls 'extensions and amputations.'

According to Mcluhan, every technology creates an extension - a higher strength - to a human trait. This, of course, fuels human narcissism: 'Look how powerful I am!'

But each technology also amputates something - something natural. And we never know the consequences of this amputation ahead of time. By the time the amputation's negative effects are known, there is an entire cult of techno-narcissists defending the technology... to the death! (in the case of cigarettes, cars, and militarism, this is obvious).
#14877043
You know @QatzelOk my husband is reading a book called "Proust, Squid and the Brain" and it is a book about how readers, habitual readers process information, how they think and how they can be 'hooked' into something. It is strange but reading with a light in your face like one does on the computer screen is different than reading from a paper page Q. You fall asleep a lot easier with a paper page type of reading. The light (blue light) sort of stimulates you to keep going....in your brain.

In meditation they try to get you to sort of 'settle' your brain for five, ten, fifteen and etc minutes and keep going. It is to have all the whirling thoughts sort of settle and quiet things down.....and you can enter an alpha wave state....people need to turn off too many stimulants. Food, drugs, noise, thoughts, reactions, emotions.....all of it takes up energy. In all of us.

I think we need to just 'turn off' everything.

I love to focus on just one activity and give it my full attention. A fine conversation. A feeling of loving someone. Admiring someone's writing for example or thoughts, or personality--enjoying the smell of my little boy's hair as I hug him. The warmth of his little form, and so on. I enjoy the smell of a spice I put in to my food and take a whiff of it first before adding it as an ingredient in a dish I am cooking. Paying attention to cooking. I find bad cooks are usually negligent in attention to what they are doing. In shopping for fresh food, and putting it together and not following some kind of pattern and just enjoying the process. People who don't enjoy the process of cooking Q, usually don't like cooking. Period.

I pay attention to words and how they are put together with what I read out there.....that is why I enjoy your writing. So creative, and it reflects your personality, how you think and how unique you are in thinking. I could pick out your posts without your name attached out of dozens with only your style. It is that prominent. That is rare. It is also enjoyable. I love cooking so I am going to make an analogy to your writing and cooking. You are that dish that satisfied completely, is tremendously nutritious but also is colorful, pretty to look at, and one never grows tired of consuming. In writing.

I get 'instant gratification' with you. Big kiss and hug for you Senor @QatzelOk .

I wonder, you really should consider professional publication of all your writing. I actually was thinking about that yesterday while I was riding in the car on my way to Boulder, "QatzelOk, should compile all his best writing works and do a very organized professional book on a whole slew of related topics, with photos, and even music. Something like Laura Esquivel's multimedia project way back when she first published "Como Agua Para Chocolate". I wonder can you draw? You might consider illustrations to complement some of your thoughts. It is that vivid....Your writing filled me with such ideas......

Well, whatever you do now, you are a JOY to read and always have been in this place. I have read you for years. But since I am going to be off grid within this year, I thought to myself....might as well, let him know how I feel about him and his great writing.

You should do a collage piece of literature, visuals, music, illustrations, chapters, commentaries, travel pieces, opinion pieces, analysis of political figures, trends in thought, etc.

If ever you had the resources to do so? If I win the lotto, I would take a few million bucks out and just fund Q projects in film, literature, magazines, social blogging. Everything I could think of.

I have a feeling you are a humble man in general with a great sense of himself. You are not insecure and don't care what the society thinks since you think the society is not the best measure of success. You are so right.

I love your soul. I really do.

Good night Q. Que duermas con los angelitos. Siempre.
#14899220
Delayed gratification is not an ideal way to go about living your life. I used to live that way. There's no need for it. There are ways to find gratification all the time by getting your life in order and doing what you like to do. There's no need to delay it. Live in the moment and live an awesome life.
#14899227
This phenomena is just embracing the state of heightened time preferences that has become endemic in the west thanks to the nanny state making mankind into perpetual children. Those foolish enough to embrace it have not realized that they were duped.
#14899259
Victoribus Spolia wrote:... the nanny state making mankind into perpetual children. ...

Yes, it's true that having a well developed society can allow people to live in a perpetual state of wonder and comfort.

Obviously, you've been lead to prefer self-imposed slavery because you were told (by people who profit from your slavery) that it was what the creator of the universe told a few shepherds He wanted from us.

The kinds of gratifications that Abrahamic religions have been manipulated to hinder are virtually all natural ones. In exchange, the warped lives of Abraham-Financier religions sublimate their desires and turn them into profitable wars and social competition against others in their (increasingly non-existent) communities.
#14899881
QatzelOk wrote:Yes, it's true that having a well developed society can allow people to live in a perpetual state of wonder and comfort.


So that is what they are calling barbarity these days?

QatzelOk wrote:Obviously, you've been lead to prefer self-imposed slavery because you were told (by people who profit from your slavery) that it was what the creator of the universe told a few shepherds He wanted from us.


I prefer the descriptors: "predestined in Christ before the foundations of the world." or "buried with Him at baptism." or "partaking of His salvation." Thanks.

QatzelOk wrote:The kinds of gratifications that Abrahamic religions have been manipulated to hinder are virtually all natural ones. In exchange, the warped lives of Abraham-Financier religions sublimate their desires and turn them into profitable wars and social competition against others in their (increasingly non-existent) communities.


Actually, the patriarchal values of such are expanding our communities because the use of property and the sublimation of sexual energy in procreation are leading to a demographic destiny that will not likely include your ilk. (by way of experiment) How many biological children do you have by the way?

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