philosopher or puppet
you can be a philosopher or a puppet.
why? cuz knowledge is needed not to be a puppet. you have to defend against that. there are static memes that will control you. there are cultural pressures that will control you. there are social dynamics that will control you. that’s the default. with no defenses, you get controlled.
ppl assume the default is controlling their own lives and they have to do something wrong or bad to be a puppet. that’s totally wrong. puppet is default.
not being a puppet is hard. takes lots of skill and knowledge. success rates are low. significant success qualifies one as a world class philosopher – one of the best. there aren’t many decent philosophers, anyway.
no one seems to believe me about this. that’s fine in terms of being unsure. but if it were me, if i thought this was a *plausible maybe*, a possibility that isn’t ridiculous, i’d wanna investigate a bunch and find out. i wouldn’t ignore it and take the risk even if i estimated it was like a somewhat low risk (probably incorrect but could be true).
deciding/concluding these ideas are false is a different matter than being unsure. that should be backed up by skill and knowledge, just not ignorance, uncertainty, hesitation and common sense. to say you know the answer and that the puppet thing isn’t a risk should involve actually having a rival model of the world which explains what’s going on, and it should involve criticism to refute the philosopher-or-puppet view, and that criticism should itself be open to questions and criticism, and should be written down and use quotes, and should have Paths Forward or, if not Paths Forward, should have some other rival methodology which is written down and has alternative ways of addressing some of the same issues and offers a criticism of Paths Forward. that’s kinda hard. that’s a lot. you’d have to be a good philosopher to do that. but that’s what it takes to judge ideas well instead of being unsure.
anyway it’s weird to me that people don’t seem to care. i think it’s cause of dishonesty and evasion. people neither accept nor deny the philosopher-or-puppet options and situation. they don’t take it seriously and ask what the options for puppets are, nor do they stand up and say here’s why it’s false...
btw the options for puppets is an interesting topic. like puppets can maybe cut a few strings, and they can look around and find lots of strings are already broken or lose and there are options there. and they can sometimes try to put themselves in situations where they will predictably get controlled/manipulated as a way to reach some goal. like if you wanna be good at X you can get into a social circle that does X and then maybe social dynamics will do the rest. that’s a lot of how school works. student doesn’t really want to learn, goes to a social situation where a teacher can pull his strings and get him to do some stuff. school teachers are much more about social manipulation than education. ppl sometimes do this partially consciously and voluntarily when it comes to college. some ppl know they won’t learn much with self-study so they want a teacher to boss them around, and some ppl actually see this situation partially honestly and somewhat recognize what they are doing and why. there’s a lot of “life hacks” and “self help” stuff related to how to be a puppet and still have some control over some outcomes, but it’s generally handicapped heavily by dishonesty about what problem situation it’s addressing.
Elliot Temple
www.curi.us
why? cuz knowledge is needed not to be a puppet. you have to defend against that. there are static memes that will control you. there are cultural pressures that will control you. there are social dynamics that will control you. that’s the default. with no defenses, you get controlled.
ppl assume the default is controlling their own lives and they have to do something wrong or bad to be a puppet. that’s totally wrong. puppet is default.
not being a puppet is hard. takes lots of skill and knowledge. success rates are low. significant success qualifies one as a world class philosopher – one of the best. there aren’t many decent philosophers, anyway.
no one seems to believe me about this. that’s fine in terms of being unsure. but if it were me, if i thought this was a *plausible maybe*, a possibility that isn’t ridiculous, i’d wanna investigate a bunch and find out. i wouldn’t ignore it and take the risk even if i estimated it was like a somewhat low risk (probably incorrect but could be true).
deciding/concluding these ideas are false is a different matter than being unsure. that should be backed up by skill and knowledge, just not ignorance, uncertainty, hesitation and common sense. to say you know the answer and that the puppet thing isn’t a risk should involve actually having a rival model of the world which explains what’s going on, and it should involve criticism to refute the philosopher-or-puppet view, and that criticism should itself be open to questions and criticism, and should be written down and use quotes, and should have Paths Forward or, if not Paths Forward, should have some other rival methodology which is written down and has alternative ways of addressing some of the same issues and offers a criticism of Paths Forward. that’s kinda hard. that’s a lot. you’d have to be a good philosopher to do that. but that’s what it takes to judge ideas well instead of being unsure.
anyway it’s weird to me that people don’t seem to care. i think it’s cause of dishonesty and evasion. people neither accept nor deny the philosopher-or-puppet options and situation. they don’t take it seriously and ask what the options for puppets are, nor do they stand up and say here’s why it’s false...
btw the options for puppets is an interesting topic. like puppets can maybe cut a few strings, and they can look around and find lots of strings are already broken or lose and there are options there. and they can sometimes try to put themselves in situations where they will predictably get controlled/manipulated as a way to reach some goal. like if you wanna be good at X you can get into a social circle that does X and then maybe social dynamics will do the rest. that’s a lot of how school works. student doesn’t really want to learn, goes to a social situation where a teacher can pull his strings and get him to do some stuff. school teachers are much more about social manipulation than education. ppl sometimes do this partially consciously and voluntarily when it comes to college. some ppl know they won’t learn much with self-study so they want a teacher to boss them around, and some ppl actually see this situation partially honestly and somewhat recognize what they are doing and why. there’s a lot of “life hacks” and “self help” stuff related to how to be a puppet and still have some control over some outcomes, but it’s generally handicapped heavily by dishonesty about what problem situation it’s addressing.
Elliot Temple
www.curi.us
Comments & Events
Anne B
I believe you about this. I accept puppet status for now. Occasionally I notice myself being a puppet of something. Maybe in the future I’ll try to do more to break out of puppethood.