°
Why would you ever defend yourself? To explain enriches a narrative, both revealing and contextualizing, but when justifying one assumes there is a "self" (ego/identity) that needs protection or forgiveness.
The defense of an illusory ego invites reliance on the opinion of others as a guiding principle. Over time "you" cease to be a genuine individual and become a supplicant for their acceptance.
°
Sweetness’s goal is to get you to do its bidding. A berry’s color (red or blue) draws your attention for you to carry its seeds.
The reward might be worth the price, but knowing the price upfront is vital before taking a bite because some attractive lures (red or blue) are also signs of poison.
°
To believe is to be sure, righteous, and secure in your thoughts: you know exactly how (who) to be in the world.
Without belief, you are lost and insecure. Having forsaken illusions, you are ultimately free and thus horribly alone. For relief, we jump back into belief.
°
Any probing question forcing a reconsideration of self is indeed triggering, but why do we hide, victimize, or lash out when asked to look inside? or respond honestly?
We exhibit a deep defense mechanism: some part of our psyche knows personal insight can destroy us.
°
A commonality of Amazon, Google, and Facebook is that they began not as defensive structures but as open structures.
The challenge is to remain at the top: fending off all comers consumes too many resources and promotes closed-system paranoia. Instead, create an open platform providing potential for everyone (even if serving them also harms them). Users will cling to the meager benefits, become advocates, and protect your platform for you.
°
Almost all of our values (and thus ideas) are based around the preeminence of humans: declaring humans as most valuable and worth protecting at any cost.
This is obviously a contradictory bias.
Humans work to displace and victimize ourselves with superior intelligence (artificial intelligence) while destroying the planet we rely on. To protect humans, at any cost, we would 1) not make ourselves obsolete and 2) cease to be a threat to the long-term sustainability and survival of any superior intelligence.
°
The paradox: to be secure you must open up.
One year ago, I was too fragile to be vulnerable, which led to more isolation and fragility: protective defense doesn’t work.
