Stop
The atrocities of war, torture, refugees, poverty, and prisons cannot be justified
Dedicated to my estranged parents and family, who thought they knew me and my life - thus choosing not to know me at all in the present moment. It is possible to be in conflict, even with the ones you love, when lacking a common basis for true understanding. ~Jeff Thomas Black
“Love” and abandoned boats at the Cathedral Park boat ramp, North Portland, Oregon - photo by Jeff Thomas Black - July 2024
False Narratives
We are all the same - a species of primate. Narratives conjured individually, culturally, by media, and governments are BY DEFINITION biased, incorrect, and ignorant. FALSE narrative thinking blocks present moment awareness. This is the theme of my work, life and belief system.
“But, what I try to hammer through in that latter part of the book is - over and over, historically, we have identified realms where it turns out we don’t have ‘Free Will’. People do stuff that they had no control over. And each time we figure that out and come up with what would be a biological explanation, not only doesn’t society fall apart, the world becomes more humane.
We figured out that old ladies with no teeth don’t have the power to control the weather by casting witchcraft or whatever… and so it’s not the 15th century anymore - and burning people at the stakes when there’s suddenly a storm in the middle of July... good - you know, we figured out that witches don’t exist. They don’t have the power to control the weather and it’s a much better world that we don’t burn old ladies at the stake anymore.
We figured out at some point, that having an epileptic seizure is not a sign that you were possessed by Satan and that’s good… we stopped burning epileptics at the stake as well. We figured out at some point - mothers don’t cause schizophrenia in their children. It’s not their fault because they ‘unconsciously hate their child’. It’s a neurogenetic disorder, and as soon as that was sorted out, hundreds-of-thousands of mothers of people with schizophrenia were absolved from… You had no control. You had nothing to do with it. It’s not your fault.” ~Robert Sapolsky, Stanford University, John A. and Cynthia Fry Gunn Professor, Professor of Biology, of Neurology and of Neurosurgery
Metacrisis Problems and Solutions
Our global metacrisis faced today is the product of such flawed thinking. Inhumane ENDS will never have justifiable MEANS - all products of our flawed interpretations and narcissistic narratives. Governments, corporate ghouls, and people protecting power (thus wealth) know this EXPLOIT of human awareness and use it for CONTROL.
“I have a belief in this ‘free will stuff’ since I was a kid, and most of the time my first reflex is to operate like an entitled… westernized… American…
I think this way and I can’t function this way most of the time. It takes a whole of work to say, ‘wait as second’ - think about like what it is that you had no control over that got you into this, like wonderfully advantageous place. Think about this person which is having a judgement of all of that - and you know that what we’re left with, is - it’s gonna be mighty hard for everyone to decide that ‘there’s no free will' tomorrow, and thus society just takes off from there - with no more prisons, and no more meritocracy, and no more CEOs with corner offices… It’s gonna be incredibly hard.” ~Robert Sapolsky, Stanford University, John A. and Cynthia Fry Gunn Professor, Professor of Biology, of Neurology and of Neurosurgery
“Free Will” Perceptions and Ignorance
A simple truth: our narratives, lacking infinite connected realities, are neither real nor true. Ignorance of our limitations makes us vulnerable to war, tribal, social, familial, racial, cultural, and political biases. Incorrect societal narratives institutionalize insanity.
“If you really go for this ‘there’s no free will’ stuff - blame and punishment are intellectually and ethically gibberish. Praise and reward are as well. Feeling as if you have earned anything that anyone has earned anything, that you were entitled to anything. That there’s such a things as justice being carried out - that there’s such a thing as justice. None of that makes any sense at all, and we’ve got to navigate stuff from there. Which is where the… ‘oh my God’, how are you supposed to function with that?” ~Robert Sapolsky, Stanford University, John A. and Cynthia Fry Gunn Professor, Professor of Biology, of Neurology and of Neurosurgery
Attribution Errors Diminish & Destroy
Humans are killed, tortured and imprisoned in our names by our overtly genocidal empires. You must know that by definition, everything that you’ve been told about the “WHY?” is murderous propaganda. Stop believing propaganda justifying the extermination of humans with war, austerity, and torture - based upon anti-human policies and laws, and litanies of lies.
“People in the future are gonna look back on that and say exactly here’s the pathways why that person turned out to be who they were… And oh, ‘what barbarians people were back in the early 21st Century - imprisoning some people and punishing them, based on not understanding this. Or, telling other people that they are better, more worthy humans because they turn out to be more smart at something, and thus can do a successful hostile takeover of somebody’s corporation.
They’ll look back on us with that same sort of view… so we gotta just keep pushing against it. And keep assuming, anytime you think you know why somebody has just done something - any time you think you understand what the attribution is, you’re almost certainly wrong. And you’re almost certainly looking at it way too blindered, because you’ve got to look at stuff way, way unexpected and below the surface, and subliminal, and ancient, and nuanced, and all of that. And you probably don’t have a clue of the things what went into making them who they are at that moment, and why they did what they did.” ~Robert Sapolsky, Stanford University, John A. and Cynthia Fry Gunn Professor, Professor of Biology, of Neurology and of Neurosurgery
Good Faith and Bad Faith Communication
Daniel Schmachtenberger and The Consilience Project add more academic rigor to the “no free will” argument - Bad Faith Communication endlessly feeds dysfunction through unavoidable attribution errors.
Alternatively, Good Faith Communication brings genuine understanding and the opportunity for progress. Again - it couldn’t be more intuitive to human nature and our present moment - we must stop making inferences, assumptions, and perpetrating irreversible harm based upon flawed thinking.
Stop
The atrocities of war, torture, refugees, poverty, and prisons cannot be justified.
🛑Stop.
Only peace is rational. Only nonjudgmental attempts at broad understanding can be sane. When the narratives emerge, the truth slips away forever. Along with it, our ability to share our common present moment - by definition the only time in which we can save ourselves, and stop being insane. Right now.
Full Interview - Sapolsky & Light Watkins
“Neuroscientist: How to Escape the Rat Race | Robert Sapolsky” Watch the full interview with Light Watkins.
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"The Full Dashclosure Audiobook & Podcast" is a free companion audiobook, plus additional commentary and discussion on civil rights, economics, AI & “Full Dashclosure, Awakening from the human exploitation of DoorDash Singularity,” by Jeff Thomas Black.