And did in the UK and US.

Lol, somebody you don’t know knows where you’re at right now. Literally, your exact location right now. And where you’ve been today, and everywhere you’ve been for the last year. And where you’re most likely going in the next few hours. Everything you’ve bought, said, and texted. What vehicles you own, your entire family and relationship history. Your dna, fingerprint, retina pattern, and medical history. And on and on.

And we just keep giving it to them.

I mean, you are absolutely correct in your statement but people have no idea how much of the infrastructure is already in place and humming along. Our only monetary grace is that it still revolves around merchants and different data points are consolidated in various countries rather than accessible by any one group worldwide. Yet. But you can buy profiles of anyone. Well, we can’t but governments can.

International corporations are pushing this hard, and have been laying the ground work for the last 20 years, and their biggest clients, countries, are eating it up.

All this stuff coming up recently about mics in your electronics, flock cameras, AI in everything, is just a tiny icicle sticking up from the massive glacier that is the data collection that has been going full steam since the 2000s. We are surprised miners standing around a recently discovered dead canary trying to decide if we should exit the mine.

The trap has already been sprung.

Oh yeah? Well I’m releasing micro-me’s into takeaway cups. Take that, microplastics industry!

This is great, I’ve made plenty of cash transfers to low income mothers over the years. I should get a medal and their kids should support my retirement.

Man, this is a vibe

Sorry, looking over my usage today I just realized I didn’t really address your statement at all, except to hand-wave it away. That seems to be happening more as I get older, sort of lose the thread and meander off to continue insisting on points nobody is really refuting. Probably just dementia or something.

But, yes, I certainly agree. There are some hard facts about the world that impress themselves upon us. Like there’s no amount of mentalizing that’s going to change physics. Hell, most spiritual traditions are largely about understanding and effectively coping with the things we can’t change.

I have read some interesting proposals by legit philosophers that argue the entire world is in fact created by the mind. Post doctorates and well learned spiritualists are often as equally skilled in logical arguments as they are in sophistry so many of their points can be hard to refute. Not necessarily convincing, but certainly compelling in a way that makes you reconsider the nature of reality.

Still, if someone is convinced they can fly, they might better try taking off from the ground first.

That was awesome

It’s a deliberate use of the word. Because people’s personal experience is their reality. Even among scientists, objective truth isn’t necessarily agreed upon, so aside from specific cases, it’s hard to use it as a guide post towards navigating life. Like you said, there are certainly hard facts in the world which impact us, but how we perceive and interpret these phenomena, how we grapple with theory of mind, creates our reality.

Ah, finally, a kindred soul. Not only do I enjoy occultism, as in a subject to study (and I am familiar with all those you mentioned) with a bit of amusement sprinkled in, rather than practice, but also conspiracies. Truth be told, I don’t think I believe hardly any conspiracies at face value. Though plenty hold a lot of weight when you consider the evidence, not many feel like they’re 100% correct. But I sure like to read about them.

If that sounds a little too woo-woo then how about a more practical and fun example.

Your nose takes up 10 to 15% of your vision.

The capital R reality is that photons are bouncing off of your nose and entering your eye. Your eyes are seeing your nose. And yet, unless pointed out most of the time you don’t even notice that your vision is nose-less when, in fact, a nose is constantly in your field of vision.

Your mind has edited out the existence of your nose.

That’s not woo, that’s neurobiology. But so is the conscious construction of your reality. If you think about getting into a fight, your heart races, despite there being no real threat.

Now if a baseball suddenly hit you on the nose, you would be quite aware of capital R reality making it’s presence known upon you. But how you perceive why that happened and what it means determines the rest of your reality.

You are referring to some overarching reality, with a capital R, which is unknowable in its entirety. Contrast that to one’s own reality, which is both more and less real than the ‘outside world’. There are physical and social forces acting upon us all the time, but how we feel about them, when we even notice them, is what creates our internal reality. Which is vastly more important to our quality of life.

The rules can be bent.

A trillion dollar industry believes so.

What a great video so far. I’m on break so I could only catch half of it but I am excited to see the rest when I get home.

Reminds me of the Buddhist practice of negating every label one has for themselves. What’s left? The ineffable.

Surprised no one has mentioned Stranger Things.

Oh but it is.

One’s reality is entirely constructed from their interpretations.

The problem is that it’s a difficult state to remain in due to the ensnarement which comes from sharing reality with others. There’s a reason why ‘enlightened’ folk live on mountain tops.

That’s a tough spot to be in but it looks like there’s a good opportunity there. Hope it works out for you.

How old are you?

A little too frilly in the back. I’m more of a battle dress kinda guy.

I can’t sleep if there’s any sort of talking. For some reason I can’t tune it out and my mind latches onto every word

My ex would go to sleep to those CSI and true crime murder porn shows and I’d be laying there, mad, exhausted, with a pillow over my head, but still invested in whether or not the over-helpful neighbor was the real killer.

That’s intense. Nothing demonstrates our own insignificance like feeling the enormous power of mother nature rolling over our heads.