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[Paul Eres]

I tend to shy away from models of hierarchical systems.  In my personal experience, I find hierarchies (Things that can be described in terms of levels, with certain levels 'above' or 'below' others.) tend to be more ideologically pure - as opposed to systems that are fuzzy or spectral which are often more pragmatic.

That is, if you are having a hard time communicating with someone, then classifying them as being on a lower level of a hierarchical system is not likely to make communication easier.  On the other hand, if you place yourselves on a spectrum, neither of your methods of communications is 'higher' or 'lower' then the other - but rather emphasizing different strengths or weaknesses.

The distinction is completely subjective.  However, I've found that my friends and family (and myself) tend to equate "higher" with "better" or "superior."

which is exactly why i said most of tigs are green. one of the major characteristics of the green consciousness level is a dislike of hierarchies.

but to be fair, it's not really a hierarchy, it's a holarchy. i.e. every level above embraces and contains the levels below. every human still spends more time in the lower levels than the higher ones. or as the popular aphorism goes, even einstein spent more time eating dinner and going to the bathroom than he did thinking up theories.

[Alec S.]

which is exactly why i said most of tigs are green. one of the major characteristics of the green consciousness level is a dislike of hierarchies.

Wow, what a wonderful system that has a built in mechanism for deriding the intelligence of anyone who disagrees.   

And with the fact that it seems that you brought up this in response to someone saying that they have trouble understanding your writing due to formatting rather than content, it seems that you just brought this up simply to make yourself look intelligent.  Or, to put it another way, to "express self for what self desires without guilt and to avoid shame."

[Paul Eres]

it's not derision at all, pluralism is important. it's just not the only important thing, or the best worldview. especially when it gets to the point where anything non-pluralistic is derided.

and i bought it up because it was a funny system, not in seriousness. people seem to be taking joke posts as serious claims lately. i would have thought the azure thing about super joe would have made it obvious that it was a joke.

[Alec S.]

I'm sorry I misconstrued your post.  It's sometimes a bit hard to tell with some of the things you've said.  I figured the Super Joe bit was a joke, but I wasn't sure about the rest.

 

[Paul Eres]

well, i certainly think that the spiral dynamics model is interesting, even if it's not perfect. but i haven't read much about it in 5+ years or so, so i don't know much about it. i do think there's some validity in the idea that people have different levels of consciousness though, and that some are more developed than others. but i'm generally distrustful of complex theoretical systems, because of how confirmation bias and such all work, so i don't put too much stock in it. i also think a lot of ken wilbur's exposure of the problems with pluralism (which he calls the mean green meme) are valuable in themselves, even if you reject the spiral dynamics model.

[JLJac]

people seem to be taking joke posts as serious claims lately.

A lot of this. We're obviously not at the same frequency.

Interesting teory. I have read a very simplyfied version of about the same thing, claiming to describe steps in one's personal development. Look:

When very little you are only selfish, you just want everything to be as good as possible for yourself.

When you reach a certain age(often about 4-5 I think) you get into the rule phase. You are still selfish, but you realize that by strictly following a set of rules you won't get disfavoured. If everyone gets the exactly same amount of candy at least you won't get the least. Children in this phase are often extremely interested in total equality in everything(especially if siblings).

And then finally the empathy phase, were you give up the rules and just try to be nice to other people. You get more this time, I get more the next time. Question is, are you genuinely empathic, or are you only being nice so that others will be nice to you, like a more sophisticated version of the second phase? Hard one.

The same applies here about the levels, if you have reached the second level you are likely to spend most of your time thinking level one thoughts, and even if you are able to reach level three occasionally you will think mostly in level two and one.

[Paul Eres]

that's very similar actually, yes. part of the idea in spiral dynamics is that as children grow up they often go through all the stages civilization has had (through a barbaric age, through a rule-based rigid literalist thinking age, through a profit-driven market age, etc.). also that political parties can be dominated by particular levels of consciousness -- republicans orange, democrats green, libertarians yellow, etc.

[Dacke]

Can you make a script to prevent some particular threads from appearing in the "new posts list"? If so, I'm sold.

It is done. I'm also happy to take any additional requests!

Script 3: Ignore updated threads
It removes threads from the "Recent Unread Topics" and "Updated Topics" lists. Currently it removes the threads "Example thread title 1" and "Example 2". To remove the threads of your choice you have to edit the script and add any threads you want to:

var threadsToIgnore = ["Example thread title 1", "Example 2"];

You can do this by opening "Manage User Scripts" in Greasemonkey, selecting the script and clicking "Edit" at the bottom left.

[moi]

Awesome, I hope it takes wildcards, I would like to start using it with "TIGSTWG *"

[Dacke]

Awesome, I hope it takes wildcards, I would like to start using it with "TIGSTWG *"

Hm, I think that should be doable. I'll look into it!

[Bennett]

Spiral Dynamics

Hahaha, if I read about too many more goofy systems like that, I'll start to think that Paul's attempted rejection of abstract concepts is a good idea.

[Paul Eres]

all of them are like that, it's just that when you believe it it seems believable. but from an external vantage point, all the commonly accepted abstract systems are just as ridiculous as spiral dynamics

[Bennett]

  ok Paul.

[Paul Eres]

it is terrible news to accept, and it's perfectly okay by me not to accept that not only your own belief systems are wrong, but that it's impossible for a belief system to be right -- but it's fine, we're built to use belief systems so people who don't use them will always be a bit unnatural. that's one area i disagree with u.g. in -- he claims that the natural man has no belief systems, but i think they are perfectly natural: false mythologies and superstitions existed even in tribal times, they're unavoidable. it's people like him and me who reject all belief systems who are unnatural (even if we happen to be right). i suspect with both had low-level strokes, too

one of the worst but most common belief systems is actually 'common sense' -- of all belief systems, common sense is the most deceptive and most harmful to people, exactly because it's so common

[Bennett]

It isn't really terrible news to accept, and I totally agree with you about common sense, but I reject the dividing line you draw between what counts as abstract and concrete. I think it's weirdly positivistic to think that we ever have concrete thoughts.

But, the sense in which you are saying :

all the commonly accepted abstract systems are just as ridiculous as spiral dynamics

... this is not the same sense in which I think Spiral Dynamics is ridiculous.