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when you're in a good state of mindbody, you have agency, you can make choices, you have possession of all your faculties but when you're very distressed or triggered, your agency is temporarily unavailable. you're controlled by your unconscious reactions
if a lot of people are simultaneously having the same unconscious reaction to a single stimulus, you could say that they're all possessed by one pseudo-agent ≈ metaphorically speaking they're all possessed by the same demon
I don't know much about demonology but the impression I get is that demons are extremely responsive to their names being spoken you can invoke a demon by using the right phrase, and you can exorcise it by naming it precisely
for example I know that when I'm in certain company, I can provoke a collective rage with a few words. I can control you by trolling you I won't say the phrases here but you can imagine the topics I'm thinking of: trans, cops, vax, trump, whites
attention snowballs watch Wild Wild Country: crowds of acolytes fix devoted attention on a silent guru, unaware he'd disintegrated into a drugged out stupor fresh acolytes keep joining in, thinking if everyone else is looking at him he must be worth my attention
attention cascades https://t.co/5Y5H92ZQnY
but like I said, the demon is attached to something very important. we can't just ignore freedom, health, safety, identity etc we need to engage with the underlying issues skilfully, without triggering more demon possession
if someone is possessed by one of these metaphorical demons and they see you withdraw your attention from it, they will immediately attack or cajole you, do anything in their power to recapture your attention for their master, because attention is what powers a demon
see replies to this thread for examples https://t.co/d02X9bKsBK
I used to use social media to advocate for important political causes, but I think I had a net negative impact on the issues I care about reciting special phrases online does not actually reduce suffering or inequity or injustice, it just signals my ideo-nationalist loyalties
now my mute list looks like this: these are the kinds of topics which are excluded from my attention https://t.co/jSvWO00Yuy
as I free up more of my attention I can focus on what I want to see more of, and I can get clean feedback to know if my actions are getting the results I desire I'm eating organic instead of gorging on the polluted information ecology https://t.co/64Ll9DWmnt
diverse coalition of allies includes angels and other higher beings https://t.co/GhOVKpRzRH cc: @PageauJonathan & @vervaeke_john who showed me how to think like this
so all of this is to say yes, I do care about your experience of marginalisation and I want you to feel welcome here but no I will not recite the script you expect me to say to cast a spell of protection over this space
my demonish train of thought was also influenced by this conversation https://t.co/h6Tb9YNprz thanks @fullydavid @johnrobb @jgreenhall @Freakoutery @peternlimberg & Patrick Ryan
another example: I used to make extra efforts to elevate the voices of women and other marginalised genders in my publications now I think it's as least as important to elevate men worth emulating (my audience is majority men) https://t.co/jY1sRi7gJc
oh and just to show I'm also subject to possession: I was having a conversation about agency this week and someone used the manchurian trigger phrase "white man" and I was immediately possessed by reactive anger for a few minutes (we repaired the relationship soon after)
@RichDecibels “Say the line, Rich!” https://t.co/R0FBScxzF1
@RichDecibels Coming back to this post and replying as the person across the road screams “fuck” continuously in what I can only assume is a mental health fuelled rage and ask myself, “is this outburst a demon penetrating the mindset”….
@RichDecibels This is part of a larger construct, what Acceptance and Commitment Therapy calls Cognitive Fusion/Defusion. That is to say, whether you take something as a mental object, or whether it is a part of the assumptive landscape you are subject to. See also: https://t.co/LdHYvhsBK1
@RichDecibels it's not external, it's still you, the separation is a confabulation used to discharge accountability for a socially negotiated subset of your actions, that schelling-negotiated denial? that's the demon. https://t.co/8vvnqp3XUO
@RichDecibels @gnomicperfect is covering exactly the work you're conveying but calls it "intersubjective parasites". https://t.co/9Y7YTKHkUr I think you get more into the "how to respond", while Evan is more technical about the phenomenon.
@sensefulronin @RichDecibels @gnomicperfect I thought of this too. rich, it strikes me as a discussion you’d be into & have insights about he’s wrapping up the 5-part series tomorrow (10/31) at 6pm ET https://t.co/SUrtXK9Eil
@RichDecibels I can't believe no one has mentioned @kevinsimler's neurons gone wild in the comments! I used the same model to understand why my countrymen elected the son of the dictator Marcos (and why so many of us found this so baffling) https://t.co/60sVcXnLih
@RichDecibels @Morphenius this thread is very in line with stuff you've been writing/talking/thinking about and here it is as a post for easier sharing elsewhere https://t.co/KSuDEu1ywk