ENLIGHTENMENT AND WORLD PEACE

Step by step guide to enlightenment and then world peace

First read this:

http://sabodog.livejournal.com/2291.html

And you can see how a Russian managed to forge a deep friendship and alliance with an Australian. If that's the sort of world you want to live in, then read on.

Note that this document has been tailored using a white Russian Christian as an example, but all you need to do is substitute in your own race/religion/nationality, e.g. “Arab Muslim”, and you'll have an identical flow of logic, just the examples change (since every race/religion/nationality has had bad elements in its history – usually less advanced populations will gloss over those inconvenient truths).

Are you a nationalist? Were you taught that Russians are special? Just because you were by chance you were born in a particular geographical area, you, and those around you, are inherently superior to those born in other geographical areas. This is, after all, what your government and culture taught you. But is it true? What are the odds that you just so happened to be born in a special country full of special people that are inherently superior to the rest of the world? Do you think people in other countries believe that about Russia too, or do you think their government has a completely different argument as to why their country is actually the best?

Have you ever been bullied by one of your countrymen? Do you think that your countryman is just like you? Do you want to be associated with your oppressor? Every year there are Russian conscripts who suicide because they are victims of bullying in the barracks. There are plenty of people outside of Russia who would never have bullied you. Do you think that you may have more in common with those people?

What are your hobbies? Bee-keeping? There are bee-keepers around the globe. There are very few Russians who have an interest in bee-keeping though. Do you think that you might have more of an affinity with fellow bee-keepers than fellow Russians?

What about the recent (ie in living memory) history of Russia? Did you know that Russia started World War 2, along with their fellow partners in crime the Nazis? Both countries invaded Poland, it wasn't just the Germans. The Russians also attacked Finland. And after World War 2, the Russians enslaved Eastern Europe for decades. If you were wondering why the Eastern Europeans were desperate to join NATO, it was most definitely not because anyone was forcing them to do so. It was because they never want to live in slavery again.

Were you indoctrinated into the Christian religion as a child? What are the odds that your parents happened to be in the one true religion in the world? Did you parents come to the decision to be Christians after carefully examining all the religions in the world and finding this one to be the best? Are you aware of Christianity's bloody past? IRA terrorists claim to be Christian even as they kill other Christians. Ever been bullied by a Christian? Do you really want to be associated with that bully?

Due to your geographical region, you're more likely to have been bullied by a white person than a black person. Do you want to be associated with that bully rather than a friendly black or Arab? Whites have a very bloody history indeed. See World War 2 as one example.

Your initial reaction to attacks on these deeply-held tribal affiliations will be defensive. Your brain has established neural pathways to cover your existing paradigms making it physically easier for you to continue thinking that way. There is also the issue of pride. You are currently able to take pride in being Russian (and thus special), and no-one likes to lose their special status. You could try being proud about being an anti-nationalist, or a humanist, or enlightened, but it may not be sufficient. If it is at all possible, a separate document will be written which uses a different technique to get the point across, according to best psychological techniques. This document is only meant to outline the logical path.

Now that these things have been brutally stated, they will lurk in the back of your mind. Come back to this document in a year or two – whatever it takes for you to drop your existing tribal affiliations.

[GO AWAY]

Back already? Congratulations. You've just completed the most difficult part which is unwinding decades of insidious indoctrination. That's the biggest step to enlightenment, but you're not there yet. We still need tribal affiliations, just different ones, based on ideology. When complete, you will no longer talk about your “own country” but your “own ideology”. During the Cold War, Americans would talk in such terms with the expectation that USA itself would be wiped out in nuclear war, but the ideology of capitalism/democracy would live on elsewhere in the world (and that's what “winning” was).

When you are bullied by a white Russian Christian, you should not hold it against all white Russian Christians, because not all white Russian Christians are the same. Some are bullies and some aren't. Your survival instincts demand a characterization of the threat you face. Here's who bullied you – a non-humanist. A humanist is someone who follows the Golden Rule - do unto others as you would have others do unto you. Note that this Golden Rule comes from philosophy and was independently derived in Greece, China and presumably elsewhere. It is not the property of one particular religion. So you're probably a humanist. You have internalized the Golden Rule. Perhaps this was indoctrinated into you as a child, or perhaps you were born with it, or perhaps you got it from somewhere else. It doesn't matter. You're a humanist. The person bullying you is a non-humanist. They are breaking the Golden Rule. They don't want to be bullied themselves, yet they are bullying you.

What do you do now? There is basically a war happening. The war is non-humanist vs humanist. The non-humanist is probably winning that war. He probably wouldn't have bullied you if he thought you were stronger than him. So you need to form an alliance (with the school teacher or the police) to fight back against the non-humanist. This military alliance is a grouping of anti-non-humanists. It is anti-non-humanists who make the world safe for humanists.

So this is two more steps on the way to enlightenment – first see yourself as a humanist, and then as an anti-non-humanist. Pacifism does not work. You need to call the security forces – be that your teacher, the headmaster, the police, the army, or NATO. Escalate force until the non-humanist threat to you or any other humanist is eliminated. Then you will be able to view the 2003 Iraq war as another such escalation by one of Saddam's victims. Or at least you would be able to if you weren't being hit by another barrier to enlightenment – dogma.

The communists had a very clear dogma – it was a book written by Karl Marx which couldn't be questioned. When such a book exists, it causes people to define good and bad with reference to that book instead of with reference to the Golden Rule. People who question that book are bad by definition. This sows the seeds of permanent war until everyone has been converted to internalize allegiance to that book, or until nobody is left that treats the book as a dogma (ie beyond question). We see this Cold War being played out in our democracies where everything can and is subject to questioning.

Once again we have a situation where a communist may be trying to ram Marx's book down the throat of non-Marxist. The non-Marxist can just refuse to switch, saying that he is a rationalist who believes in the scientific method. Or he can take an extra step towards enlightenment which is to actively oppose the dogma. So similar to being anti-non-humanist he is also anti-dogma, making an effort to question the veracity of supposedly flawless documents.

The 2003 Iraq war was a significant event in human history as via opinion polls it showed the tribal affinities of people in democracies. The rationalist was able to question individuals to find out why they were taking the ideological positions they were. With a rationalist, humanist ideology in place, and in light of horrendous atrocities being done by Saddam, such as the chopping out of people's tongues, you should now be in a position of reacting to those atrocities the same way you would if it were a member of your own race/religion/nationality. That means immediate use of force to end the atrocity. But the tribal barriers prevented this from happening.

By far the most common reason cited for being against the Iraq war was the belief that this was a war for oil, and that wars for oil were inherently bad – end of story. The paradigm of a non-humanist Iraqi using force escalation to a global scale was not something they were capable of understanding. The selfish desire for oil was something that they could understand, although they completely failed to be rational about it by seeking out actual evidence. Let's go through that.

First of all, it doesn't even matter why Iraq was invaded. Even if it was invaded because it had the best sunflower seeds, it doesn't matter. What matters is whether the action was good or bad. From an anti-non-humanist force escalation paradigm, it was a good thing.

Secondly, it is impossible to tell for sure why Bush invaded Iraq. We do not have the technology to scan his brain to see what the “real reasons” were. We do have what he said in public, but of course it is possible that he was lying. We don't have any evidence of a memo written to Cheney saying “let's do it for the oil”. However, even in the absolute worst case – that Bush really was doing it for some sort of selfish reason, it still doesn't matter. What matters is that millions of Americans got their policy implemented. And it is much easier to question those millions of Americans for their “real reasons”. Of course, they could all be lying too, but it's the best we can do. And the reasons given by those Americans were not revolving around oil. Not even 1% of the pro-war cited oil as a motive.

Let's look at that a bit closer. Normally a government will consult experts. The general public also has access to some sort of expertise via media commentary. The end result is that there will be a list of pros and cons for a particular action. Different people may have different lists, and the whole thing is subjected to the free marketplace of ideas. Then people make decisions according to what makes sense to them. You may have 20% of the population supporting an action for Reason A, and 30% of the population supporting an action for Reason B. People in both A and B camps will be hoping that the country's leader and his inner circle that get the final say in the decision-making process will fall into EITHER A or B camp so that THEIR policy gets implemented regardless of what anyone else's reason may have been. Because people vote for governments in order to get THEIR policies implemented. They would have voted for someone different if they didn't think this person would implement any of their policies.

If People A are unable to convince someone to support their policy for Reason A, they should try presenting Reason B to see if that is more persuasive to the brain of the person in question. Because when competing in the free marketplace of ideas, the goal is to get as much support for an action as possible, including hopefully the government and even hopefully the opposition. Even if only 20% of the country supports an action for a reason you approve of (and note that often people will support an action for multiple reasons, not just one), you should be thankful to those people instead of second-guessing what reason politicians may have had. It is after all the people (taxpayers) who are paying for the action, and the soldiers (from the people) who are risking their lives – not politicians. But even the politicians have the right to the presumption of good faith. It is very unlikely that politicians magically have (and keep secret) a completely alien list of reasons for an action that have zero support amongst the population. But as mentioned – even if they did, it still wouldn't matter. Also, in a democracy, the people effectively ARE the government. They participate in the decision-making process at some level, even though it isn't a direct correlation. So attacking a politician is effectively attacking the millions of people who support that politician (or the politician supports them – it can be viewed either way when two people happen to be going in the same direction).

Next, the oil argument doesn't even make sense. Oil is sold at world prices. Saddam was selling at world prices, and the new Iraqi government does the same. There's no choice. Oil is a fungible commodity. The millions of war supporters did not get either cheaper oil or free oil. So if that was their aim, they failed in their war aims.

Then there's the question of all the war supporters in countries that weren't even part of the Iraq war. Where were they coming from? And as to the question of whether the war supporters are brainwashed or not – brainwashed by who? There wasn't a consistent message coming from any “indoctrination camp” or wherever the brainwashing was supposed to have taken place. Even individual families were split on the issue. Why is it that people who stood alongside fellows such as Osama Bin Laden in opposing the Iraq war are considered non-brainwashed, but those who have a paradigm that believes no human should be subjugated are considered brainwashed?

Another barrier people find to war is the fact that war kills innocents (usually accidentally), and that it therefore is not an option. Yet these same people do not call for private car travel to be banned to minimize the number of deaths due to car crashes. A trade-off is made in both cases. Accidental deaths for freedom for millions (in the case of war), or convenience for millions (in the case of cars). There's also often an attempt to make the accidental death of children in war as infinitely more important than the accidental death of an adult at the hands of the dictator. This allows the dictator to butcher as many people as he wants, so long as he avoids one class of people. It makes as much sense as talking about how war might cause deaths to blind dwarfs, while Saddam never killed any blind dwarfs.

If you're wondering why on earth Americans or anyone else would be willing to spend their national blood and treasure on helping others (not just in Iraq, but also places like Kosovo), it is due to the fact that they aren't nationalists – they are humanists – actually anti-non-humanists. They have a natural alliance with humanists around the world and can see fellow humanists calling out for assistance, and realise they have the capability to provide that assistance. The American humanists generally have a tough time getting approval for these actions because the military is nominally only meant to be used for things in the “national interest”, and they have a tough time trying to spin these wars of liberation as being in some narrow national interest, so that the American nationalists will accept it. This is why you see a lot of focus on the “Iraq is a security threat” argument.

In order to avoid having to come up with a whole lot of conspiracy theories, it is necessary to view the actions of the US et al through the paradigm of spreading liberal democracy. The US wishes to entirely extinguish external threats. The most convenient way of achieving that (because it takes no resources to maintain, and is moral as well) is to set up liberal democracies. The US has a policy of “the best way to defeat an enemy is to convert it into a friend”. The US has paid a high price, but was ultimately successful in achieving that in Iraq. Similar to Occam's Razor, the paradigm that is most likely to be true is the one that involves the least number of conspiracy theories, recognizing that it would be difficult to maintain a conspiracy in an open government like the US with a spread of power, leaks, a free press and foreign spies.

A large barrier to supporting the Iraq war is another dogma – the “just world hypothesis”. People do not like the fact that they are living in an unjust world with innocent victims, such as Iraqi men having their tongues cut out by Saddam. It is human nature to reject the evidence that disproves this. They are even prepared to blame people for presumed crimes in a prior life (karma) rather than drop this dogma.

Another barrier is related to history. Many people think in historical terms – ie they did xyz to us 250 years ago so they must be bad people still. You will never have world peace if you think like that. You will have an unpleasant world. The enlightened form is to forget about history, and judge people/countries according to their current behavior. Some say “if you ignore history, you are doomed to repeat it”. Well, history is that if you bear historical grudges, you will have perpetual conflict, and that is the history that keeps being repeated.

Another barrier to understanding the modern world is the fact that you were probably indoctrinated to believe that “whites are colonialists” and that “colonialism was evil” and that it is logical that “whites are evil”. Well, as a Russian the line was probably “British and Americans” rather than “whites”. This argument has a number of flaws. First of all it is an argument about the past. Very few people today believe that their country should be engaged in colonialism. Attempting to judge people today for things that happened before they were even born is a recipe for conflict/war, as many/most people believe that babies are born innocent. Secondly, if you objectively compare the pre- and post- colonial governments, where often a sadistic dictatorship took over, colonialism wasn't necessarily bad or wrong. When African colonialism started, the stated objective was to bring modern civilization to Africa, something Africans seem to want today. It wasn't to enslave people. A couple of facts that never seem to be brought up were that it was the British Navy that ended the slave trade, and in America a lot of whites killed a lot of other whites so that blacks could be free. It is wrong and unjust to think negatively of these modern countries, even if you can't bring yourself to objectively judge the past in context.

Enlightenment is as the Russian found it – by understanding both paradigms and adopting the paradigm that allows protection of humanists worldwide. The protection of humanists in turn frees them from subjugation, so that they can freely oppose dogma. And that's the end of history. Well, it will be the end of history after the final battles are fought. The final battles are largely intellectual since the strongest militaries are under civilian control and it is tough to get those civilians to agree to release the military. Here is the general principle of war which you can apply to the modern ideological wars. It's just a matter of identifying the ideologies:

If a group, B, is oppressing another group, E, then group A (which is ideologically allied to group E) has a right, or possibly even an obligation, to exterminate B. Group A may choose to create a temporary alliance with some other ideology C, who are also being oppressed, in order to get the extermination done. Group A may also create a permanent alliance with a similar ideology, D, even though D is not being oppressed.

Some worked examples:

World War 2 was:

A = Rationalism (UK)

B = Nazism

C = Communism

D = Rationalism (US)

E = Rationalism (Poland)

Iraq War was:

A = Humanist (US)

B = Non-humanist (secular but cruel Saddam and his religiously-bigotted Sunni supporters)

C = Non-humanist (Religiously-bigotted Shia)

D = Humanist (not religiously-bigotted Sunni)

E = Humanist (not religiously-bigotted Shia)

Libya was:

A = Humanist (France)

B = Non-humanist (Gaddafi and his dogmatic or paid supporters)

C = Non-humanist (alleged Al Qaeda participation)

D = Humanist (other NATO members)

E = Humanist (majority of Libyan people)

Note that typically war will be fought on several ideological fronts simultaneously. E.g. the Soviet Union wasn't just dogmatic (communism) but also non-humanist. The typical ideological divides you will find are:

good vs evil

anti-non-humanist vs non-humanist

anti-nationalist vs nationalist

anti-racist vs racist

anti-sexist vs sexist

anti-religious-bigot vs religious bigot

anti-subjugator vs subjugator

The process of getting people to be on the “good” side of that equation can be aided by getting people, especially children, to donate their own money to people of a different race/religion/nationality to themselves.

So when you see insurgents in Iraq throwing their lives away to try to kill Americans, do not think of this as Arabs vs whites, or Muslims vs Christians. The insurgents think that way, but the typical American will be thinking along ideological lines (even if he doesn't know how to verbalize it). Anti-racist vs racist instead of white vs Arab. It's not Arabs who are the enemy (they are on both sides of the war). It is anti-racists (correctly classified) who are on only one side of the war.

Another big problem is correct classification. Someone is a racist if they have an unjustified negative view of a non-ideological group, or if they have a justified negative view and apply it to an individual (instead of judging each individual on his/her own merits). Traditionally American whites are called racist, but it's very rare to find a truly racist white American (by that definition). Most people accusing American whites of being racist are forced to use examples from decades or centuries ago, which just goes to highlight the fact that today's American whites are not racist, and the person who claims that they are are not justified in doing so, and are thus racist themselves. You can test this scientifically by asking random white Americans what they think of blacks, and whether they would “allow” their daughter to marry a black.

Another barrier to world peace is the problem of capitalism. The fact is that not everyone has a good life under capitalism, and many people find this extremely irksome to the point that they are willing to back any sadistic dictator who has an anti-capitalist system. Capitalism is the natural state of an economy. All attempts to produce an artificial alternative (like communism) have only made things worse. While there may well be a conceivable alternative out there, all such social experiments should be done very carefully in a controlled scientific manner on a single small country at a time. We don't need a repeat of the Soviet Union's massive forced experiment.

Yet another barrier to understanding the world is the belief that nations only ever act in self-interest. While that may have been true in past centuries, modern day liberal democracies tend to give foreign aid (just as their citizens do as individuals), and categorizing voluntary assistance as “self-interest” simply denies countries any opportunity to show that they have a good heart, which is tragic. The truth is that groups can engage in charity work just as individuals do, and should be respected for doing so. Although there should be vigorous debate as to what form of aid is most effective. Usually the best foreign aid that can be given is a war of liberation which installs a democratic government so that a dictator stops stealing state resources. A once-off cost for unlimited benefit. Normally wars are fought because a government is an enemy, but when those opportunities arise, we should relish the opportunity to install a democracy.