Why you shouldn't use Zionist word, ever

[neonix]

the oversized influence of psychopathy on popular culture and politics

And here’s the rub!

I perceive Sott as news portal. You perceive it as database about psychopaths. And people from outside perceive you as wacko portal. They don't understand that theres so many of psychopathic people around because this knowledge is censored from them.

If I would like to recommend your portal to my friends, as a source of news that they don't find anywhere else, I can't do that, because your approach to psychopathy and your language.

I don't want you to stop what you are doing. But maybe you can create 2 portals. Heavy version of Sott and light version of Sott. Or maybe reddit like version. All in all, you loose your potential.

 

[Windmill knight]

the oversized influence of psychopathy on popular culture and politics

And here’s the rub!

I perceive Sott as news portal. You perceive it as database about psychopaths. And people from outside perceive you as wacko portal. They don't understand that theres so many of psychopathic people around because this knowledge is censored from them.

There's way more monthly hits on Sott than could be accounted for from members of this forum only, and way more 'likes' on social media than forumites. So obviously, not everyone thinks we are whacko. You also seem to have missed the point that the notion of psychopathy in politics was popularized by Sott, and is now used regularly in alt media and occasionally in mainstream too.

Good media are not a side of conflict. If you use emotional language you are perceived as one side of conflict. If you use non-gentelmen language you are perceived as hotheaded. This don't build credibility and trust.

That's the middle-ground fallacy. Not taking sides does not equal objectivity. Very often one side is right and the other wrong.

"F**k the U.S.!' EU economy facing major blowback from anti-Russia sanctions" - this title is horrible. I know that it quote of Victoria Nuland. I know that sputniknews use this article in their website, but they don't use F word. It's not professional to use such title.

The title is horrible because what Nuland said was horrible. So, if you catch our drift, that is what we are reminding the public. Notice that the 'F' word was not spelled out in full, because as a general rule we also do not believe in 'non-gentleman' language. But the fact is, that is what Nuland said, and people need to remember it, and to be shocked by it.

In conclusion. I don't ask you to stop use psychopath word at all. I just want convince you to use it in correct moment, correct context. Don't overuse it. Don't use it in emotional sentence. Don't scare people by emotional titles. Don't make them angry unnecessarily. Anger is important but only in some cases. Don't create emotional swing. Don't manipulate reader's emotions. Be professional not emotional.

The news are made of real, gut-wrenching human drama. It's as emotional as it gets, and yes, people should feel angry or scared and all sorts of emotions about it. The editors have emotions too. It's part of being alive.

 

[Aeneas]

the oversized influence of psychopathy on popular culture and politics

And here’s the rub!

I perceive Sott as news portal. You perceive it as database about psychopaths. And people from outside perceive you as wacko portal. They don't understand that theres so many of psychopathic people around because this knowledge is censored from them.

There's way more monthly hits on Sott than could be accounted for from members of this forum only, and way more 'likes' on social media than forumites. So obviously, not everyone thinks we are whacko. You also seem to have missed the point that the notion of psychopathy in politics was popularized by Sott, and is now used regularly in alt media and occasionally in mainstream too.

Good media are not a side of conflict. If you use emotional language you are perceived as one side of conflict. If you use non-gentelmen language you are perceived as hotheaded. This don't build credibility and trust.

That's the middle-ground fallacy. Not taking sides does not equal objectivity. Very often one side is right and the other wrong.

"F**k the U.S.!' EU economy facing major blowback from anti-Russia sanctions" - this title is horrible. I know that it quote of Victoria Nuland. I know that sputniknews use this article in their website, but they don't use F word. It's not professional to use such title.

The title is horrible because what Nuland said was horrible. So, if you catch our drift, that is what we are reminding the public. Notice that the 'F' word was not spelled out in full, because as a general rule we also do not believe in 'non-gentleman' language. But the fact is, that is what Nuland said, and people need to remember it, and to be shocked by it.

In conclusion. I don't ask you to stop use psychopath word at all. I just want convince you to use it in correct moment, correct context. Don't overuse it. Don't use it in emotional sentence. Don't scare people by emotional titles. Don't make them angry unnecessarily. Anger is important but only in some cases. Don't create emotional swing. Don't manipulate reader's emotions. Be professional not emotional.

The news are made of real, gut-wrenching human drama. It's as emotional as it gets, and yes, people should feel angry or scared and all sorts of emotions about it. The editors have emotions too. It's part of being alive.

I agree wholeheartedly with what Windmill Knight is saying.

Neonix, should we not acknowledge all faces of God? Do you think we are doing Life a favour, by touching up on things, because we don't find it quite perfect?
It reminds me of the story in the bible, about the priest who scolded a man for not praying properly to God, because in his prayer he offered to pick the lice out of Gods hair. To the priest is was not a proper way to pray as it gave the picture of God having lice, but to the man having lice removed would be a relief for God and also a gift, that he was ready and capable of offering.

You mention that we could have a light version and a heavy version, so that the lighter version is sanitized and could be shared with friends and family more easily. I do understand your point of view and think many editors do. Yes, we do wish to wake people up, but we also respect the free choice of people, who have chosen to sleep and do not wish to be woken up. Some however are only dozing and with an extra alarm clock they can be shocked into reality. Sott is that alarm clock, and for most it will be annoying at first. Some will however be tickled enough with the help of repeated alarm clocks, into inquiring and with repeated reminders this starts the questioning and curious mind. You could say that a key in themselves has been activated with which they can explore the reality in all its magnificense and horror.

So we do like to call a spade a spade and not try to cover up this fact. I read that Tacitus couldn't lower himself to call a spade a spade, so he called it "an impediment for removing dirt". We don't find this indirect approach a help towards exploring reality.

 

[Buddy]

[quote author=neonix]
Be professional not emotional.[/quote]

That's a shortened version of "Use professional detachment; don't get emotionally involved."

There are only two main classes of work that I'm aware of that can most effectively use that advice.

1) Journalists or other writers who have no personal stake in an issue. Best writing practice would involve first establishing credibility by actually being a disinterested party to an issue being debated, argued or reported. This way a reader experiences a calmness appropriate for comprehending the intellectual merits of the writer's position.

2) As part of a job, dealing with people with emotion-regulating issues. You care about people, you feel their pain sometimes and want to help them with every fiber of your being. You are already somewhat emotionally involved in their case, but in order to prevent possibly compromising your commitment to the program or business or even losing your job, you must develop a professional detachment. You have to apply rules fairly, be just in disciplinary actions and always be on guard against double-standards and manipulation. In short, maintain a 'professional distance' so that you can think and act impartially rather than suffer every knee-jerk reaction and emotional outburst of the people you care about in the same way that they are experiencing it. Every professional in such a position can't always maintain professional distance, but they must because it's a paid job and this detachment is a requirement.

So, considering the purpose of SoTT and considering that all good people care just as much about what's happening to humanity-at-large as we do about victimized individuals and small groups, I can't see how SoTT could distinguish itself and have any positive impact, or accomplish anything non-boring at all with the quoted advice. :)

In fact, thinking about what you've been saying has stimulated me to formulate my own position with more clarity and that might be described as an ideal combination of being that is professional AND emotional. As an alternative to your proposition, would you think that to be a more powerful combination with respect to what SoTT prefers? Can you not see any of that already, now that the question has been asked?

Perhaps you can find enough flexibility of thought to re-think your position as quoted above? Or perhaps critique my reply to show my error(s)? I would be grateful, thanks.

 

[Beau]

And here’s the rub!

I perceive Sott as news portal. You perceive it as database about psychopaths. And people from outside perceive you as wacko portal. They don't understand that theres so many of psychopathic people around because this knowledge is censored from them.

If I would like to recommend your portal to my friends, as a source of news that they don't find anywhere else, I can't do that, because your approach to psychopathy and your language.

I don't want you to stop what you are doing. But maybe you can create 2 portals. Heavy version of Sott and light version of Sott. Or maybe reddit like version. All in all, you loose your potential.

What you are missing is that SOTT, as a news information website, is informed by the "Cassiopaea worldview". That is, SOTT and the Cassiopaean transmissions are intertwined. SOTT is a forum for showing what's happening in the world and using that as a platform to comment using the worldview shared with us by the C's and proven through dedicated research and consistent, constant paying attention to reality and the dots that connect. For the people who are ready to look at the world with no filters and not look away, we are there. For the rest, there are plenty of websites to offer a buffered, more comfortable view of reality. Psychopaths do, indeed, rule our world. And for people to truly understand how this world works and why humanity is in the position it's in, that is a crucial point. To censor that would be to go against what SOTT exists for. So I highly doubt a "light SOTT" will ever exist.

 

[Renaissance]

Mainstream news uses a lack of emotion as a means of showing 'objectivity' but it's all a facade and the 'news speak' probably has some damaging effects on the psyche of it's listeners as well. I find it a bit disturbing to watch newscasters robotic expressions and reporting. It might be portrayed as professionalism, but it's pathological in nature. It is normal for people to have and show some emotion over the issues of our time. It's not normal to treat the signs and messages of our world with such indifference. Emotions do have the capability to rule us, but they also have the capacity to wake us from our slumber.

Normalcy bias comes into play here too. When people see media figures relay the news like nothing is amiss, then they too think that things aren't so bad. Things ARE that bad! Part of the reason our world is such a mess is because humanity is so deep in denial. I also don't think gaining readership is the primary purpose of SOTT. It's easy to go off course when making such types of things a central part of the Aim. I think the idea is more along the lines of providing an accurate snapshot of our world for others who are seeking, and that includes using headlines and comments to counter entrenched propaganda. Part of the work of SEEING is in the adjustment of our reading instruments, and it's entirely appropriate for a SOTT headline to signal to people that a particular story is outrageous, psychopathic in nature, etc. This is not being sensational because the headlines are not exaggerations!

 

[Aeneas]

Mainstream news uses a lack of emotion as a means of showing 'objectivity' but it's all a facade and the 'news speak' probably has some damaging effects on the psyche of it's listeners as well. I find it a bit disturbing to watch newscasters robotic expressions and reporting. It might be portrayed as professionalism, but it's pathological in nature. It is normal for people to have and show some emotion over the issues of our time. It's not normal to treat the signs and messages of our world with such indifference. Emotions do have the capability to rule us, but they also have the capacity to wake us from our slumber.

Normalcy bias comes into play here too. When people see media figures relay the news like nothing is amiss, then they too think that things aren't so bad. Things ARE that bad! Part of the reason our world is such a mess is because humanity is so deep in denial. I also don't think gaining readership is the primary purpose of SOTT. It's easy to go off course when making such types of things a central part of the Aim. I think the idea is more along the lines of providing an accurate snapshot of our world for others who are seeking, and that includes using headlines and comments to counter entrenched propaganda. Part of the work of SEEING is in the adjustment of our reading instruments, and it's entirely appropriate for a SOTT headline to signal to people that a particular story is outrageous, psychopathic in nature, etc. This is not being sensational because the headlines are not exaggerations!

I wouldn't say that mainstream media doesn't use emotions. It is just that they are, as Renaissance says not using them when they report on the world news or things that matter, or if they do it is decisively off. Emotions are used and it is to install fear and to hysterize people so that people will believe the most mindnumbing lies that are peddled. They are also used in hyping people up with all kinds of BS, such as Hollywood, fashion, Kardashans latest antics etc, or the latest charity campaign to "save the colorblind whales" or what it might be. Emotions are used in the wrong way, though that is what the Ptb wishes for their nefarious designs.

 

[Windmill knight]

Mainstream news uses a lack of emotion as a means of showing 'objectivity' but it's all a facade and the 'news speak' probably has some damaging effects on the psyche of it's listeners as well. I find it a bit disturbing to watch newscasters robotic expressions and reporting. It might be portrayed as professionalism, but it's pathological in nature. It is normal for people to have and show some emotion over the issues of our time. It's not normal to treat the signs and messages of our world with such indifference. Emotions do have the capability to rule us, but they also have the capacity to wake us from our slumber.

It's interesting that some people seem to think that lack of emotion equals objectivity, being smarter or more awake. You see that sometimes in works of fiction, like in that movie Lucy, in which the smarter the girl got, the less emotional she was. Or in the Spock character from Star Trek.

I've also spoken to people who say that when they first encountered the 4th way theory, they thought that being awake meant being unaltered, unemotional, even robotic; later they understood otherwise. Ouspensky tells a story in which Gurdjieff somehow made him see and feel what being awake was, and he described the experience as being very emotional. Of course, Ouspensky was an intellectual type, so he seemed to be quite uncomfortable with it, and perhaps a different person would have described the same experience differently.

The point is that without emotions we cannot perceive reality as it is, and to think that always being cold and detached makes one objective is a misconception. There are lots of horrific stories out there. If we are not horrified by them, we are not seeing them for what they truly are.

 

[Buddy]

It's interesting that some people seem to think that lack of emotion equals objectivity, being smarter or more awake. You see that sometimes in works of fiction, like in that movie Lucy, in which the smarter the girl got, the less emotional she was. Or in the Spock character from Star Trek.

Oh, don't mention Star Trek, but since you did, I couldn't believe what the writers did to Spock's character on one of those last Star Trek movies. Spock was supposed to be logical, unemotional, hence 'objective' but I was horrified to hear his script. It was composed almost entirely of clichés! OMG, is that what logic, lack of emotion and 'objectivity' leads to in that universe, I wondered? No thanks!!

I think emotion and the brain combine to produce rationality based on fundamental human values and human needs for growth and that sacrifice or suppression of any part of human nature like that is de facto approval of some version of 'divide and conquer.' So, I guess I tend to give the higher position to my understanding of "rational" and I guess, here I'm assuming a person is integrated enough to own a capacity for a controlled expression of emotion. But then, I'm also a work-in-progress.

 

[Sparrowkin]

A couple thoughts after reading this thread. First, we really should try to give each thing its due, right? If someone is really asking, give it to 'em. That's how I have always seen SOTT. I dozed on and off for years, and when the thorn would start nagging at my mind again, SOTT was there and it was exactly what I needed. It doesn't shock me in the same way now, maybe I'm getting "used to" the real world? These were my thoughts until the thread turned to objectivity/subjectivity. See, when I read this,

Good media are not a side of conflict. If you use emotional language you are perceived as one side of conflict. If you use non-gentelmen language you are perceived as hotheaded. This don't build credibility and trust.

I was immediately taken back to the first time I heard this. In elementary school, learning all about how to write "by the books'. And the impression I took away from this oh so enlightening experience? Exactly what was stated above. I feel like that's understandable, I was ten, maybe. Now that we're older its our responsibility to unlearn the false knowledge we've gathered. The fact here that bears reiterating is a human can not be objective alone. Everyone's impressions count. If their impression is a strong emotion, then it needs to be considered.

 

[Oxajil]

People who first time listen word psychopaths from your mount, will be think that you libel someone.

You can't skipped (jump) this. You can't overcome this. Psychologists, sociologist, therapists, doctors, scientist can use this word.

Journalist can't.

The thing is that most politicians in high positions these days are likely psychopaths. Psychopathy is real and present in politics. Thus when political matters are reported and it involves a politician who based on his actions, words, behavior traits, is very likely a psychopath, it should be mentioned if possible. Since psychologists, sociologists, therapists, doctors, and scientists these days do not focus as much on psychopathy or research it in a political context as they should, it is even more reason that we should openly mention it and allow people to consider it and research it further if they're interested. If we replace 'psychopath' with 'evil person', you won't be able to achieve this.

Of course, a journalist or editor can not diagnose a person on 'DSM' terms and without a psychology degree, and without having done the 'appropriate' tests. But any sane person can see that if a certain politician makes jokes about drones, while knowing that its own drones are killing children in another country, that something is wrong with that politician. Repeated similar actions that are devoid of conscience, and other characteristics, then point to some form of serious 'inhumanity'. Political ponerology then comes to mind, and other psychopathy related books, and providing a link to those, could help people understand how it is possible that certain people can so easily kill others without shedding a single tear. And much more.

Windmill knight said: "The editors have emotions too. It's part of being alive." and I agree. It's an outlet for the editors as well. And as Laura wrote here:

There are two basic ways of reacting to the suffering of others:

1) Empathic distress. Empathic distress is the natural response of most empathic people. This can lead to two outcomes:
a) Feeling guilty if we try to avoid or abandon the hurt person.
b) Being overwhelmed ourselves and burning out which means we only hurt ourselves and do not help the other person. This is why care-givers train themselves to turn off the empathy which can have way more severe consequences including increasing callousness, emotional exhaustion, depression, etc.

2) Empathic Concern: transforming empathic reactions to compassion which leads to action. That is, you can learn to immerse yourself in the pain of others for the purpose of being galvanized to action.

Now, have a look at this:
http://www.sott.net/articles/show/247956-Compassion-Meditation-May-Be-Key-to-Better-Caregiving

Empathy is the faculty to resonate with the feelings of others. When we meet someone who is joyful, we smile. When we witness someone in pain, we suffer in resonance with his or her suffering. Neuroscience has proven that similar areas of the brain are activated both in the person who suffers and in the one who feels empathy. Thus empathic suffering is a true experience of suffering.

When some empathic caregivers are exposed to others' suffering day after day, their continuous partaking in this suffering might become overwhelming and can lead to burnout. Other caregivers may react by shutting down their empathic feeling and drawing an emotional curtain between themselves and their patients. Both these reactions are far from optimal.

Could mind training and meditation on altruistic love and compassion serve as an antidote to burnout? An example of this is the caregiver who naturally displays overflowing kindness and warmth toward his patients and does not experience any burnout.

Experienced Buddhist meditators have reported that when they focused for some time on what they called "stand-alone empathy" (visualizing intense suffering affecting someone else and resonating empathically with that suffering) without allowing compassion and altruistic love to grow in their minds, they soon experienced burnout.

However, when they added a powerful feeling of unconditional love and compassion, the negative, distressing aspects of empathy disappeared and were replaced by compassionate courage and a resolve to do whatever they could to soothe others' suffering. It would therefore seems that there is no such thing as "compassion fatigue," as burnout is often called, but only an "empathy fatigue" that can be remedied by cultivating compassion.

Neuroscientist Tania Singer, in collaboration with such meditators, is planning to train caregivers in cultivating loving-kindness in a secular way based on Buddhist techniques. This would to allow caregivers, nurses, and doctors to continue to offer altruistic services to those in pain without themselves suffering from empathic distress.

That is one of the things that the SOTT editors work with every day: being able to view horror and suffering repeatedly, and having something of an outlet to actually work on doing something about it.

What happens then, after awhile is that compassion for the cosmos at large grows and while there is no stemming of the flow of love and compassion, it just simply becomes harder and harder for things out there to trigger negative emotions within.

(See: "The Cognitive Neuropsychology of Empathy" in "Empathy in Mental Illness, edited by Tom F.D. Farrow and Peter W. R. Woodruff - 2007 - Cambridge University Press)

Fwiw.

 

[Richs]

There is something relative to this topic which no one has really mentioned. A few years ago the question of what the future direction and emphasis of SOTT should be going forward.

The question was this: should Signs continue to try to reach everyone in the general public or should it concentrate on those people who are interested in the truth and in their own personal growth and who wanted information regarding the true state of the world and all that goes on upon it.

After a fair amount of discussion it was the consensus that the vast majority of people were incapable of seeing and understanding the truth, and furthermore, were not interested in changing or altering their 'belief systems' so as to come to the understanding as to what is really going on. In other words, they are 'too far gone'!

So, the conclusion as to the future direction of SOTT was that it would concentrate on informing and educating that group of people who actually do want to know what is going on in the world, and because of this decision, it might seem to some people that the articles and headlines are 'too controversial' in the sense that this topic title indicates, and that we go too far overboard with 'calling a spade a spade'. This decision was not taken lightly and much thought was given to the subject.

Our thinking is that those who are offended by speech that is not "politically correct" according to the psychopathic indoctrination of the masses would not be capable of understanding what is really going on and if they are offended by what is said they will just go elsewhere where they can feel 'confortable' reading sugar coated articles which they do not object to.

I hope this helps your understanding.

 

[neonix]

Emotionality create unnecessary noise. Good communique (news, bulletin) have to be clean, short and condensed.

The role of media nowadays is not entertain by emotions (fastfood), but condense information in simple form that is easy to consumption (slowfood).

If you use controversial language people thinks that you don't have sufficient amount of facts. And if someone don't have large amount of credible informations, it use emotional language to cover his deficiencies. This is how people thinks.

The news are made of real, gut-wrenching human drama. It's as emotional as it gets, and yes, people should feel angry or scared and all sorts of emotions about it.

There are lots of horrific stories out there. If we are not horrified by them, we are not seeing them for what they truly are.

Alex Jones use the same strategy. Shock people and knock them into the ground. In my opinion this is dark path.

_https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vW9aC3KGni0

And this is strategy that American media use. I see this difference very clearly when I watch RT America and RT English. There is big difference in style. RT America is more tabloid.

I think Europeans had BBC as an professional example, and Americans had ... Fox News (as tabloid example). I don't know. Maybe Americans needs shock therapy. But I am European and it looks like I have very different approach than Americans.

Why not be better than Alex Jones? Why not create something more calm, more intellectual?

The question was this: should Signs continue to try to reach everyone in the general public or should it concentrate on those people who are interested in the truth and in their own personal growth and who wanted information regarding the true state of the world and all that goes on upon it.

The conspirator theories groups often create they own phrase dictionary that is far out of the rest of the society.

This means that the communication between the group and the society is very difficult because if you use "psychopath" word, both sides will understand it differently.

And the question is, do you have to disconnect from the spoiled society and create your own language or you live inside the society and use its language. Do you want to stand still or moving on.

I know that this kind of discussion can create break-up. It's very dangerous. I just want to say that I feel the need for professional portal, and SoTT doesn't fulfill this need.

P.S. You have to know that Sott articles are translated to other languages and published by other sites and media. This means that Sott is going to the mainstream. Isn't that a sing of the times?

 

[luc]

The conspirator theories groups often create they own phrase dictionary that is far out of the rest of the society.

This means that the communication between the group and the society is very difficult because if you use "psychopath" word, both sides will understand it differently.

And the question is, do you have to disconnect from the spoiled society and create your own language or you live inside the society and use its language. Do you want to stand still or moving on.

I know that this kind of discussion can create break-up. It's very dangerous. I just want to say that I feel the need for professional portal, and SoTT doesn't fulfill this need.

P.S. You have to know that Sott articles are translated to other languages and published by other sites and media. This means that Sott is going to the mainstream. Isn't that a sing of the times?

neonix, could it be that the issue is not so much which words are used on Sott or how emotional the content is, but that you have a deep desire that the topics discussed here and on Sott "go mainstream"? You know, that all people start realizing what's happening, and you can talk about these things with everyone in "normal society"? I'm asking because I used to feel the same, and at some level I guess many of us wish this to happen. But we have to trust that people who are interested in truth will find Sott - and many of those will have to overcome their "holy cows" in order to understand what's happening. For example, some have an aversion to the word "Zionist", others find the content too emotional, others too intellectual, some will freak out when they read the word "UFO" etc. But eventually, if they really want to understand, they will overcome these various biases, and indeed, that is a very important lesson in itself.

Bottom line is: I don't think that Sott, as a site that is dedicated to "maximum truth", can ever "go mainstream" in the sense that it reaches the majority of the population, or even a very large part of the population, at least not in the world we live in. And I think this has to do with Gurdjieff's concept of knowledge/understanding:

"But first of all another thing must be understood, namely, that knowledge cannot belong to all, cannot even belong to many. Such is the law. You do not understand this because you do not understand that knowledge, like everything else in the world, is material. It is material, and this means that it possesses all the characteristics of materiality. One of the first characteristics of materiality is that matter is always limited, that is to say, the quantity of matter in a given place and under given conditions is limited. Even the sand of the desert and the water of the sea is a definite and unchangeable quantity. So that, if knowledge is material, then it means that there is a definite quantity of it in a given place at a given time.

It may be said that, in the course of a certain period of time, say a century, humanity has a definite amount of knowledge at its disposal. But we know, even from an ordinary observation of life, that the matter of knowledge possesses entirely different qualities according to whether it is taken in small or large quantities.

Taken in a large quantity in a given place, that is by one man, let us say, or by a small group of men, it produces very good results; taken in a small quantity (that is, by every one of a large number of people), it gives no results at all; or it may give even negative results, contrary to those expected.

Thus if a certain definite quantity of knowledge is distributed among millions of people, each individual will receive very little, and this small amount of knowledge will change nothing either in his life or in his understanding of things. And however large the number of people who receive this small amount of knowledge, it will change nothing in their lives, except, perhaps, to make them still more difficult.

"But if, on the contrary, large quantities of knowledge are concentrated in a small number of people, then this knowledge will give very great results. From this point of view it is far more advantageous that knowledge should be preserved among a small number of people and not dispersed among the masses.

At first, I didn't understand why you couldn't just put all the true knowledge on "prime time TV" and that's it, but now that I already have some shocks and struggles behind me, it's obvious: We can only accumulate true knowledge by "understanding", that is, the parallel growth of knowledge and being:

Actually at a given level of being the possibilities of knowledge are limited and finite. Within the limits of a given being the quality of knowledge cannot be changed, and the accumulation of information of one and the same nature, within already known limits, alone is possible. A change in the nature of knowledge is possible only with a change in the nature of being.

[...]

"Knowledge is one thing, understanding is another thing.

"People often confuse these concepts and do not clearly grasp what is the difference between them.

"Knowledge by itself does not give understanding. Nor is understanding increased by an increase of knowledge alone. Understanding depends upon the relation of knowledge to being. Understanding is the resultant of knowledge and being. And knowledge and being must not diverge too far, otherwise understanding will prove to be far removed from either. At the same time the relation of knowledge to being does not change with a mere growth of knowledge. It changes only when being grows simultaneously with knowledge. In other words, understanding grows only with the growth of being.

"In ordinary thinking, people do not distinguish understanding from knowledge. They think that greater understanding depends on greater knowledge. Therefore they accumulate knowledge, or that which they call knowledge, but they do not know how to accumulate understanding and do not bother about it.

"And yet a person accustomed to self-observation knows for certain that at different periods of his life he has understood one and the same idea, one and the same thought, in totally different ways. It often seems strange to him that he could have understood so wrongly that which, in his opinion, he now understands rightly. And he realizes, at the same time, that his knowledge has not changed, and that he knew as much about the given subject before as he knows now. What, then, has changed? His being has changed. And once being has changed understanding must change also.

"The difference between knowledge and understanding becomes clear when we realize that knowledge may be the function of one center. Understanding, however, is the function of three centers. Thus the thinking apparatus may know something. But understanding appears only when a man feels and senses what is connected with it.

But in order to obtain being, you need to struggle, you need shocks, and this can only be achieved if the whole world is hostile to the Work. In other words, you need to Work against a background of ignorance, otherwise no progress is possible. I think that's why there's a finite amount of knowledge available and that it may really behave like "material". And who knows, maybe from a 4D-perspective, the combination of knowledge and being indeed looks like "material"? Here are G's words that I think make it all very clear:

"But, at the same time, possibilities of evolution exist, and they may be developed in separate individuals with the help of appropriate knowledge and methods. Such development can take place only in the interests of the man himself against, so to speak, the interests and forces of the planetary world. The man must understand this: his evolution is necessary only to himself. No one else is interested in it. And no one is obliged or intends to help him. On the contrary, the forces which oppose the evolution of large masses of humanity also oppose the evolution of individual men. A man must outwit them. And one man can outwit them, humanity cannot. You will understand later on that all these obstacles are very useful to a man; if they did not exist they would have to be created intentionally, because it is by overcoming obstacles that man develops those qualities he needs.

So he suggests no obstacles=now advancement. This means that in a world of no or less obstacles, where everyone would have knowledge/understanding (i.e. where "Sott" is the new "New York Times"), there could be no advancement. That's my current understanding at least.

 

[Aeneas]

I think Europeans had BBC as an professional example, and Americans had ... Fox News (as tabloid example). I don't know. Maybe Americans needs shock therapy. But I am European and it looks like I have very different approach than Americans.

Regarding the BBC

The BBC has indeed been a professional standard in Europe and been the key propaganda organ for the empire. They have served pathological ideas and ways of thinking as being normal and human. Perhaps that is why the minds of Europeans have turned to mush and why Europe today is pathetic and emasculated. They have no leadership, no morals, no ethics and no creative thinking. They have turned into servile serfs.

When one sees that the BBC has been covering up pedophilia in the elite establishment, has promoted the agenda of the corporate elite, has touted the war agenda, has supported the corrupt banking elite and stifled free speech, and all under the banner of being unemotional, rational and objective, then it looks more as though the BBC have been the gate keepers. Their role has been to close the minds of people and set the perimeter of the fence.

We have a different objective. We would like to treat people as adults and encourage them to be curious, questioning and open to the totality of life. Shocks are needed to penetrate the minds which the BBC and FOX have turned into mush. At the same time, if the shocks are too much for some, then the door through which they came is always open.

Enough said, as a lot of very good points have already been mentioned by luc, buddy, Richard S, Oxajil, Renaissance, Patience, Heimdallr, Windmill Knight and others.