> Nathaniel Branden in his book "The Six Pillars of Self-Esteem" explains how
> parents can influence their childrens' future successes in life. The
> chapter's title is "Nurturing a Child's Self-Esteem"; the sublitle "Urgent
> Issues". The very first item: "When you were a child, did your parents'
> manner of behaving and of dealing with you give you the impression that you
> were living in a world that was rational, predictable, intelligible? Or a
> world that was contradictory, bewildering, unknowable? In your home, did
> you have the sense the evident facts were acknowledged and respected or
> avoided and denied?
I've seen similar statements on recruiting pamphlets from the Hari
Krishna. ...an interesting use of push buttons- no?..
>
> A belief in a rational world increases self-esteem and chances for success,
> as people like Bill Gates and his close friends must know very well. The
> optimal selfish-meme strategy is to participate in spreading beliefs in an
> "unknowable" world, but to secretly ignore them. This way more people with
> lower self-esteem will follow them and work for them (longer hours). Those
> people are easier to control. They can be told what they *should do* and
> what a "principled life" is.
>
> This is MEMETICAL HYPOCRISY.
By this do you mean power trip?
(SNIP)
>
> We are memes' food. What is their
> direction? What are they evolving towards?
These statements make me think of someone handing you the keys to a
brand new sports car and you using them to open the car door and sit in
the back seat.
I think the main thing going on this virus list is that you can begin to
understand your receptivity to memes and therefore control that
receptivity- and therefore select the memes you want to infect you.
A principled life is ultimately one that you, and you alone, are
responsible for.
No scientist is going to come down off a mountain with the ten best
principles engraved on stione tablets.
>
> Ken Pantheists responded:
> >That is an extrememly bleak view of the uses of meme technology. I
> >sincerely hope they don't run things that way on Teta. (Maybe that's why
> >you came here)
>
> This was a joke, Stephen, I am sorry to confuse you.
Got the joke. Was using one back.
(SNIP)
> >And I'm not sure that the answer would contribute anything of value to
> >the list. So I will respectfully refrain from answering it.
>
> I am sure it would contribute a lot. Knowing why one holds certain beliefs
> is a good thing. As an actor you express a lot of thoughts which are not
> yours.
*AHEM*
> Somebody said it was easier to live a life of a character in a play
> than one's own. Apparently it is true.
There are many intepretations of the life of an actor. The actor somehow
becomes the poetic symbol for the truth/lies/virtue/corruption in
society. I think it is because actors *blatently* use memes consciously.
This can be freaky for people who use them unconsciously.
To bring an observation to your observation- yeah, I t can be easier to
live a life of a character than the life of a real person. Because the
life of a character lasts only about three hours a night, you can do all
kinds of nasty things like sleep around and kill people- or get killed
and you go home to a beer and a frozen pizza afterwards. No nasty
consequences-- except you're always looking for work every quarter :)
BUT I feel I have to point out that the "Life" of a character is not so
different from other modes of discourse such as painting, writing (even
writing e-mail), dancing, making music. That is - it isn't a life...
just a mode of expression. It's public speaking.
To answer your challenge-- why I didn't disclose by beliefs on, what was
it?-- Killing people?
I honestly was getting to the point of a headache with this absolute
truth thing- It's done- please don't ask me why I think the sky is blue.
-- --------------------------------------------------------------------- Ken Pantheists http://www.lucifer.com/~kenpan Virus Theatre http://www.lucifer.com/virus/theatre ---------------------------------------------------------------------