GENIUS FORUMS

Lykaios wrote:

Diebert van Rhijn wrote:Get lost!

Oh, go stick your dick in a band saw. Just ignore this thread if you don't like it; sheesh.

If you'd care to read more closely, I was commenting on Carl G's silliness with a bit of silliness after commenting on your question and the topic of the thread more in depth. And you want to start a community? I can only imagine how the conversations will go there :)

Yes, I was editing my response while you were posting, I think. Again, my apologies; clearly I'm not at all accustomed to the swing of things around here.

Lykaios wrote: Edit - Sorry, Diebert! Obviously I should have paid attention to whom you were addressing with your comments! Still, I do admit to being confused as to why you would be so annoyed about what Carl posted.

Yes, I was editing my response while you were posting, I think. Again, my apologies; clearly I'm not at all accustomed to the swing of things around here.

Okay, fair enough. I was just very amused about how Carl wrote his question and decided to show the problems with his remark using a challenging reply. But it was meant in spirit with my overall thought that a sheep has to get 'lost' before it can really be ever in a community without becoming a sheep again.

Actually, I think the idea of intentional community is kinda cool. I enjoyed some of the links posted by Corey to supposedly show how lame they are:

I did some searches looking for a community that consciously valued truth, logic, wisdom, masculinity, rationality, and solitude.

No such luck.

When it comes to the values of most intentional communities, like this one, and this one what we find promoted, over and over again, is egalitarianism, feminism, varied sexual orientations, 'personal growth', folksinging, drum circles, gaming, art parties, dances, poetry readings, even 'hottubbing'

Nothing wrong with any of that fun stuff, Corey.

But what I actually found funny about the original post was the inference that Genius Forum loner philosopher types would be able to give you any valuable input on the subject. It would be like asking here for advice on how to start a major auto manufacturing company, or an international rare animal park.

Okay, Diebert, tell us how offended you are because you happen to know quite a bit about zoo management.

Lykaios wrote:

The success of Findhorn is a bit interesting.

Yes, it is, but notice their sex ratio - with one male for every two females, (and no likelihood of polygyny), I don't think they will last too much longer. Still, they have 28 children among them right now, so they are at least reproducing - many communes don't even reproduce.

So in your researching, what IC's have impressed you the most? Have you found anything you've found impressive listed on the internet?

Reproduction and longevity are not necessary parameters for Intentional Community. Celibacy may serve the purpose. Or, children may grow up and leave the community, and new blood not be attracted, yet the communion benefit its founders. So, unlike a business corporation, or an incorporated town, survival may not be the prime measure of success.

Matt Gregory wrote:I have major doubts as to whether I could adapt to that type of lifestyle.

I don't think most people could adapt to very simple existence, either, which to me is further evidence that an intentional community should break away gradually, with only the second or third generation beginning to truly separate and live self-sufficiently.

Cory Duchesne wrote:So in your researching, what IC's have impressed you the most? Have you found anything you've found impressive listed on the internet?

Well, it will probably seem disappointingly dull, but my answer to which IC impresses me the most is the Amish, and if you check this image you'll see why: their population has exploded since the 19th century from fewer than 5,000 to over 140,000 by the end of the 20th century. The Mormons also had a very strong track record, although they didn't have a very good attention to strategy as the Amish do, and they are gradually secularizing, as demonstrated by their declining birth rate. It remains to be seen whether something like this can exist in the modern world without a basis in monotheistic religion, but I think the profound successes of science and their tendency to undermine the claims of most existing monotheistic religions will lend themselves better to the survival of more modern religious ideologies in the future - at least, until such time as those scientific discoveries are lost.

Carl G wrote:Reproduction and longevity are not necessary parameters for Intentional Community. Celibacy may serve the purpose. Or, children may grow up and leave the community, and new blood not be attracted, yet the communion benefit its founders. So, unlike a business corporation, or an incorporated town, survival may not be the prime measure of success.

My explicit intention is to create an intentional community that will survive; if that doesn't happen, I will have been wasting my time. Thus, from my standpoint, the ability to attract new members at the outset and to reproduce throughout the ages is of fundamental importance.

Lykakios wrote:It remains to be seen whether something like [the success of the Amish] can exist in the modern world without a basis in monotheistic religion

It seems like giving outlet to human emotional longings is what all culture is organized around.

That being said, it's interesting to consider the nature of the idealism, feminism and egalitarianism that forms the basis of the more modern ideas of the IC, and compare such IC's to the monotheistic, hierarchical structure of Amish and Mormon communities.

It's my impression that the former has considerably more females and is less stable, while that later is more dominated by males and more stable.

Why is this? It might be because a) Amish culture minimizes emotion by appeasing male longings in a steady, abstract, monotheistic God, which gives men the freedom to work effectively. b) Feminine IC culture fails to appease the intensity of male longings due to a the diverse and unfocused means of emotional outlets such as non-abstract human bonding, which fail to satisfy men, crippling their ability to work effectively.

It's almost like the male mind longs for a single unifying force to pacify his intense longings, wanting to stabilize his community in an abstract force apart from the community, whereas the feminine mind seeks to satisfy her self in varieties of different facets of the community, seeking to stabilize the community in the emotional activity of the community itself.

This is really ironic of course, because a women tends to pacify her sexual romantic longings in a single male, whereas a man will often long for diversity of women. ;)

Cory Duchesne wrote:

Lykakios wrote:It remains to be seen whether something like [the success of the Amish] can exist in the modern world without a basis in monotheistic religion

It seems like giving outlet to human emotional longings is what all culture is organized around.

Well, I tend to think it's providing individuals with a means of self advancement, but I don't know if that's been shown very conclusively.

That being said, it's interesting to consider the nature of the idealism, feminism and egalitarianism that forms the basis of the more modern ideas of the IC, and compare such IC's to the monotheistic, hierarchical structure of Amish and Mormon communities.

Cory Dychesne wrote:It's my impression that the former has considerably more females and is less stable, while that later is more dominated by males and more stable.

Why is this?

My own observation as a member of a religion with a very high sex imbalance and a "deficit" of females is that a bonded pair is much more stable than an unpaired individual. I reason that once a person marries, it is much more difficult to move or change religions without the other person's consent; also, people are probably less likely to continue moving around physically and ideologically to try to find something that works well. People sometimes change their beliefs to marry or when they marry, but I don't think there's the same incentive to do that after they marry.

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-john luckey-
Faust13 - tomas' first post deeply saddened me

-tomas-
How so?



Peace,

Tomas (the tank)
VietNam veteran - 1971




.

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I disagree. Is not the human body a community of cells? And what lonely inhabitant of a deserted isle ever achieved what modern scientists have achieved by criticizing and replicating one another's work?

"Of all the communities available to us, there is not one I would want to devote myself to except for the society of the true seekers, which has very few living members at any one time."
--Albert Einstein

Science is completely unrelated to enlightenment. Science can be done by a community, but enlightenment is strictly personal.

Xerox, and Matt,

It depends on how one defines community. One could suggest that forums like Genius are a community of sorts, but it is of a total different quality than a family or neighborhood community as their objectives are different.

A family or neighborhood is only concerned with securing each others survival altruistically without too much confrontation, whereas a community like Genius puts less focus on survival, and more focus on direct confrontation as a means to provoke the other to mature psychologically.

Seekers of enlightenment need to be in relationship to others, so community is inevitable. It is just that the community in which they interact is of a higher order than typically communities.

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xerox wrote:Discourse is fine. Occassionally

Occasionally.

yielding new perspective, towards useful paths of contemplation, provided its done honestly, sans the filter infused deflections of evasionary

Evasive.

tactics, rare as it is. Much noise interferes, obfuscating the wisdom that fuels the journey. The mind enjoys unneccessary

Unnecessary.

complexity, entrenching itself as the primary obstacle.

Question marks are very useful for speaking without meaning. Answering a question with a question is a game.

We can play the 'to and fro' game lobbing the ball back and fowarth,

Forth, or, forward.

using up energy, having fun going nowhere. Or disengagement can render it redundant. Then we can go sit under a tree and use that focused energy, efficiently.

These discussions generally descend into self indulgence... intellectual vanity. Setting terms, defining agenda and argueing

Arguing.

definitions is a favoured means to that end. People play games. Community thrives on it.

In that vain, tweaking the definition of community alters its effect on enlighment

Enlightenment.

in the same way that a knife differs from an elastic band, when a eunuch contemplates his capacity to procreate.

peace.

ps. this post has nothing to do with practical, living philosophy. Its a rant.

Mine neither. Mine, too.

Ryan,

It depends on how one defines community. One could suggest that forums like Genius are a community of sorts, but it is of a total different quality than a family or neighborhood community as their objectives are different.

A family or neighborhood is only concerned with securing each others survival altruistically without too much confrontation, whereas a community like Genius puts less focus on survival, and more focus on direct confrontation as a means to provoke the other to mature psychologically.

Seekers of enlightenment need to be in relationship to others, so community is inevitable. It is just that the community in which they interact is of a higher order than typically communities.

Genius Forum is definitely a community in my book, and it has the strengths and weaknesses of communities in general.

I've benefited greatly through this forum, but it's mostly because there are really wise people here like David Quinn.

But thinking is really the only way to seek wisdom, and nobody can help a person with that, no matter how wise they are and no matter how many thoughts they give to the person.

Every seeker has to think for himself, and there's a real danger in communities of becoming dependent on other people for their thoughts.

Acquiring thoughts from others is not the same as thinking things out for oneself. We're all inclined to take the easy way out and learn things by passive rote, but you can't acquire wisdom through rote learning. That just leads to religious type of thinking.

Poison for the Heart is a good book, worthy of being memorized in its entirety. But memorizing it isn't enough. It needs to be pondered and meditated on in order to really benefit from it. Reading is not enough for a good book.

Wisdom is an active mind. The individual thoughts don't really matter. If they're true then that's all that matters. Truth is what matters; people just don't fucking matter :-)

...

I see. But for posting stupid rants on serious subjects you have plenty of energy. Got it.

xerox wrote:

Then we can go sit under a tree and use that focused energy, efficiently.

I think you are being a little too idealistic here, sitting under a tree isn’t going to help uproot unconscious delusions, contradictions, emotional identifications and so on. They can only be addressed in relationship with others by bouncing ideas off one another, and receiving harsh criticism when the contents of someone’s mind doesn’t make any sense.

I agree that solitude is important as a source of regeneration, but relationship has its equal place as well. It sounds like you are attempting to overvalue one as a means to undervalue the other...

Matt wrote:

Every seeker has to think for himself.

Yes, and I would go as far to say that each seeker must be able to take timeless wisdom and apply it directly to his own daily behavior, and when that happens his mind will become very clear. Other people’s knowledge is a dead thing, it is the affect that knowledge has one ones daily living that is significant.

it seems to me that we suffer psychologically because we contradict the timeless laws of the universe, and that is when we are supposed to change by learning, but if we are unable to make the causal link between doing something or thinking a certain way and its negative psychological outcomes then we won’t change.

Another difficulty many seekers have is that even though they have a very strong intellect and are able to totally understand wisdom, their weak character, which is mainly the result of environmental/genetic conditioning, prevents them from truly living the teachings 100%.

A weak character continually deceives himself by making justifications for dishonest behavior.

...

Ryan,

Xerox: Then we can go sit under a tree and use that focused energy, efficiently.

Ryan: I think you are being a little too idealistic here, sitting under a tree isn’t going to help uproot unconscious delusions, contradictions, emotional identifications and so on. They can only be addressed in relationship with others by bouncing ideas off one another, and receiving harsh criticism when the contents of someone’s mind doesn’t make any sense.

That's so wrong it's silly. You can't rely on people to solve your personal problems. There's no reason to think that another person can detect your real problems and be able to furnish some insight into them. There's no guarantee that anyone will be interested in your problems. There's no guarantee that you'll understand the thoughts that someone gives you, not having come up with them yourself. There's no guarantee that the person you're talking to will stick to the topic that's important to you, and you can wind up wasting a lot of time trying to get him back on track. You can focus a lot more when you don't have the distractions of interacting with someone to deal with. There's always a lot of overhead involved with trying to bridge the gap of understanding between two people. Self-reliance is better because you can work at your own speed and on your own terms. Doing something yourself is a lot faster and more efficient than having to wait for someone else to do it for you. Plus, it gives you a sense of confidence that dependence can't give you. In fact, I can't think of a single advantage to a relationship. If you are capable of thinking for yourself then dependence on relationships should be completely renounced as redundant.

I agree that solitude is important as a source of regeneration, but relationship has its equal place as well. It sounds like you are attempting to overvalue one as a means to undervalue the other...

I think this Genius community is good for people in the beginning stages of the path, but its usefulness as a source of insight diminishes as a person becomes more proficient at thinking.

Matt: Every seeker has to think for himself.

Ryan: Yes, and I would go as far to say that each seeker must be able to take timeless wisdom and apply it directly to his own daily behavior, and when that happens his mind will become very clear. Other people’s knowledge is a dead thing, it is the affect that knowledge has one ones daily living that is significant.

The only significant thing in the pursuit of enlightenment is Truth. Living truthfully is important and useful, but it shouldn't be thought of as anything more than a means to Truth.

it seems to me that we suffer psychologically because we contradict the timeless laws of the universe, and that is when we are supposed to change by learning, but if we are unable to make the causal link between doing something or thinking a certain way and its negative psychological outcomes then we won’t change.

The seeker of Truth will pursue it no matter how much he suffers if he's serious enough about it. Suffering is pretty irrelevant; it doesn't affect Truth or anything.

Another difficulty many seekers have is that even though they have a very strong intellect and are able to totally understand wisdom, their weak character, which is mainly the result of environmental/genetic conditioning, prevents them from truly living the teachings 100%.

I don't like the phrase "living the teachings" because it implies that Ultimate Truth is a multiplicity or something. There's really only one teaching that matters and you either get it or you don't. If you don't see it, you have to just keep seeking, and when you see it, you'll automatically fulfill the purpose of all the teachings.

A weak character continually deceives himself by making justifications for dishonest behavior.

I agree that if you're going to give in to weakness then it's good to at least be honest about it. We should be honest to ourselves no matter how painful it is.