The most conflict between things in nature is between those which appear most similar, by changing the image of something – many will go for it, by making the image of something – the method, look more acceptable towards the collective it is projected towards, then people will follow it, they will have pride in it and little rationality will dissuade them.

In the ocean, there is the waves on the surface and the undercurrent beneath it, waves flow through the surface and the water is barely moved, it is the undercurrent which moves the volume of the water and brings up the heavy nutrient rich waters from the dark depths. If there was no surface to this ocean, there would be little heat and therefore no undercurrent – an ice world where nothing except extremophiles could survive. If we want more life into that frozen ocean, we have to melt away the hardened surface and that given time will allow more creatures that would otherwise die the opportunity to strengthen themselves, then they evolve and adapt to it and that is how great things are made, a whole ecosphere is created instead of an ice ball.

In dangerous times that are felt by the majority – then heavier ideas are acceptable to the majority, they feel threatened and so they resort to more threatening images in response to that.

In average times, like now, not much is felt by the majority – they’re too busy on the xbox pissing around, watching tv, being dumb, following trends, on the surface it is calm – but when this situation absorbs more heat, then that undercurrent will throw up heavy nutrient rich ideas into the surface.

And with extremism, there are two types, the extremely light and the extremely heavy, the light is the hipsters, they’re extremely delusional. The heavy is the realistic, they’re extremely realistic. All the compounds of life consist of heavy molecules and many light molecules around them, water for example has a heavy oxygen with two light hydrogen – that’s what makes it a liquid at rtp, the hydrogen bonds between them.

So we can keep whatever ideas we wish, but just have to add the right combination of light/heavy depending on the social environment. Easier said then done though..
Right now there is that icy frozen surface on this social ocean, there is heat from the core slowly melting away the cover from underneath with all its heavy ideas, there are some cracks in the surface of that sheet and that’s where we have to focus, that’s where the heat from above is slowly melting away the light floating hipster cover, combine the heat from underneath and the glare of reality heating them from above and it will gain momentum.

Things from above that change the mind of the masses will be the disasters, the catastrophes, the unusual, other times of crisis, blindingly obvious problems that everyone can connect with on an individual level and any other thing that our environment throws at us. Things from underneath is of our own working, when we directly attack the thick cover ‘you’re hipster morons’, they shout you down ‘boo!’ ‘loser’ ‘fascist!’ – only those closer to that attack become affected and so it hardly works efficiently, but if you reach for that break in the surface, where it is able to not only reach the ice, but can reach all levels of it up to the very air it breathes – alot more are affected by this. So by finding something trivial, whatever it is + something important then it is accepted by them and also gives them that heavy nutrient they need to be realistic once again.

examples; xbox + peak oil = OMG you won’t be able to play xbox for long BECAUSE we won’t make any self sustainable generators.
consumerism + the environment = DUDE you won’t be able to buy any of this cool stuff for long BECAUSE we are running out of natural stuff to make it from!
Religion + evolution = god exists and evolution exists BECAUSE god was evolved from such a simple beginning into a realistic civilization and then spread throughout the universe in all its dimensions on a level we fail to comprehend, won’t we do the same?
Tv + reality = This TV sucks, you know why? BECAUSE it’s not your life your living – don’t you wish you were at that party, in that cool situation?
Unemployment + Corporations = We have so many unemployed people BECAUSE multinational corporations give our jobs to third world slaves and we’ve exported all our industry.
Multiculture + Diversity = We won’t have any diversity anymore BECAUSE we’re destroying every ethnic identity and making them a very undiverse globalised singularity.
etc etc..

The more popular the idea or problem, the more abundant it is – like the hydrogen, and it can connect with pretty much anything, add the heavy oxygen inbetween and it gives that heavy idea the mobility it needs for life – both popular and realistic, the best of both.

However, one thing to say about your last paragraph: “In that view, of course, we’re playing with more than we realize when we look at the importance of not letting a social virus or fashion subvert our values system.” – we still have to face the massive obstacle we’re present with when we point out that certain social viruses and fashions are dangerously subversive. Progressives/Liberals (or whatever you like to call them), being the consummate stylists and skilled sophists they are, are very good at shooting down such views (“reactionary” etcetera) or portraying them in a bad light. That’s how these dangerous trends get away with it – criticise them and you’re an uncool fascist prude, or something.

Rob Martin mentions the need for a new status game. Is it wishful thinking that one day it is not based on docile altruism but something like innovation, education and a general ‘what you bring to the table’-ism”. The Confucius-inspired East Asians have a greater tendency towards this sort of thinking, hence their academic excellence and apparent disregard for fashion.

Now, we sometimes assume that all these things are not natural, that is not completely true – for whatever is, must be natural in some sense due to it even existing in natural reality in the first place – And think also of the cosmos with its everlasting expanse of solar systems each with potent for life like ours originating, surely this mess has happened before? What happens when the scale of micro:macro tipples from either one side or the other side?

Too much of micro evolution – focusing entirely on what is real, and we go back into the primitive man with his limited tools and fresh intuition. Too much of macro evolution – focusing entirely on what we have created, and we transform ourselves into something entirely different. Each thinking individual to this day spins a web of creation, of cultural memes like a silk worm creates silk before they transform into something able to fly – This web of thread can be spun into something useful – into anything an ideal requires as long as it gets around obstacles.
Those who lead simply pick this interconnected web up from any point and the whole thing, being stuck together with every little worm inside it. These worms cocoon themselves with their macro evolution – so much – that they cannot sense anything at all, they are protected from nature for sometime, by nature.

Culture and other popular things are the cocoon that protects what’s inside it from the natural forces outside of it, whether anything will emerge from it…
One thing that is being grown inside of this quasi-natural cocoon prison is the potential for artificial life, the final result of our species wrapping themselves up in culture and technology for thousands of years, more recently due to modernism – consistently filling up the inernet vacuum with all kinds of information on humans and our dumb reactions to reality, a free meal to anything assembling a consciousness connecting this interweb of interconnected computer neurons, If modernity lasts long enough for technology to continue to advance.. that is.

Now, I wish I knew a way to rebalance this micro:macro process. I can only guess. We have our direction, the tip of that mountain we are climbing towards, but we are in the valleys, there has to be intermediary altitudes – the valley doesn’t just skip to the tip of the mountain – naturally that wouldent happen, there has to be quarter way, half way, three quarter ways and then our final result of realistic control. The halfway point will look like a hybrid between modernism and our desired future, pick up this web of culture that is spewed out all over our valley and pull, carry it to the top of the mountain and everything trapped inside that web will have to follow – they can’t get out.

We need a new status game, a new liberalism, a new altruism – we can’t change their genetics easily so we have to make do with what we have, create these comprimised hybrid ideologies combining the thing that will finally overcome it but also including that which it is transforming from.

Look at this…

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http://www.amerika.org/2009/social-reality/the-blame-game/comment-page-1/#comment-1350
magog says:
11/11/2009 at 9:11 am

Would a healthy option be individualism without solipsism? I’m not sure what that would look like.
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Healthy individualism is when each individual strives with all his might to conform to the Ethno-Cultural IDEAL of his blood-kinship group. This ideal is expressed in ethno-centrism, national myths, the heroism of ancestors in battles past, the civilizational goals one tries to implement in his children, the moals of self-sacrifice, religon and the mannerisms that make each nationality unique.

The part about private versus public altruism, or Good Samaritan versus Philanthropist reminds me of a part of the New Testament where Jesus rebukes people out on the street corner praying in public.

It’s the same thing. Since antiquity, people have known the difference between those who are humbly genuine and those who are flamboyant poseurs in our midst.