It's a fitting day to be writing about reactivity, given that at the moment the fate of five people in a submersible craft that was on its way to view the wreck of the Titanic, some two and a half miles down in the ocean, is unaccounted for.
Meaning, the craft hasn't been located after it lost communication with the mother ship about an hour and a half into its descent. By this time, it's estimated that if the five people are still alive, they're about to run out of air.
That's a truly horrendous situation.
It'd be extremely easy to panic, which would cause their air to run out sooner since panic causes rapid breathing. So hopefully they're finding ways to respond to their predicament in a skillful fashion, such as by making sounds that could be picked up by sonar, than reacting in unhelpful ways.
Reactivity comes up in many of the books about Buddhism that I've read. It's a really practical subject, since everybody, I'd say, has moments where we react to somebody or something with little or no consideration, and then regret our reaction later.
Snap/quick reactions, of course, often are entirely appropriate. I've been watching the NCAA men's baseball championship series on TV. Good hitters can react to a 95 mph pitch with amazing speed and grace. Pitchers can react to a baseball hit like a rocket right at them by catching the ball with their fast reaction time.
If someone attacks us in a dark parking lot, we need to be able to react quickly to that aggression. If a car is going to hit us, we have to react instinctively without thought. But...
Mostly in our civilized world we're reacting to people and things that don't really threaten us, neither physically nor mentally. They may bother us, like someone saying something disparaging, but typically there's no need to react with the energy and drive we'd need if a lion was chasing us.
Stephen Bachelor has some good observations about reactivity in his book After Buddhism: Rethinking the dharma for a secular age. Here's some quotes that ring true to me.
To go against the stream is to find yourself going against the force of innate reactivity. Mythically, this force is described as the "army of Mara," which is composed of "sensual desire; discontent; hunger and thirst; craving, sloth and torpor; fear; doubt; hypocrisy and obstinacy; renown, honor and ill-gotten fame; and the extolling of oneself and disparaging of others."
Today we would understand these forces as part of the legacy of biological evolution, the embedded instincts and drives that enabled our ancestors to succeed in the competition for scarce resources and survive.
...But if such instincts are neurobiological functions of our organism, it is difficult to understand how they can be systematically overcome -- "cut off like a palm stump," as many discourses claim, "never to arise again."
Although Buddhist orthodoxy insists that these forces and drives have been eliminated in arahants and buddhas, another, less prominent thread in the canon offers a more intelligible account of the ceasing of reactivity.
...By learning how to stabilize attention and dwell in a lucid space of non-reactive awareness, we gain the freedom to see the forces of Mara as thoughts, feelings, emotions, beliefs, and stories that naturally arise because of the impact of the environment on the senses of a conscious creature.
From that perspective, we see a cascading array of transient, impersonal events that -- provided we do not energize them by identifying with them -- will fade away as soon as their charge is exhausted. They are not overcome by destruction; rather, we must understand how they arise and play themselves out.
The dharma, therefore, involves bringing one's wayward thoughts under control, establishing mindfulness and concentration, then setting out to realize one's goals in the world.
Mara, the personification of reactivity, is conquered not by eliminating every last reaction from one's mind but by finding a way to become impervious to his attacks. We acquire freedom from reactivity yet without the reactivity ceasing to occur. If we observe these impulses and do not feed them, they will die down over time and diminish in frequency.
...As long as we are embodied in flesh, nerves, and blood, reactivity will be part and parcel of what it entails to be human.
...The challenge presented by the fourfold task is to learn how to differentiate between reactivity, in which one blindly follows a familiar impulse, and responsiveness, in which one chooses to act in a way that is not conditioned by the impulses of greed, hatred, and confusion.
...Anyone who experiences something that "is immediate and clearly visible" must be alive in a human body and as subject to sickness, aging, and death as everybody else. Thus here what is called "ceasing of suffering" is not actually the ceasing of suffering, but the ceasing of reactivity.
The Buddha's dictum "I teach suffering and the end of suffering" could thus be rephrased as "I teach suffering and the end of reactivity."
...The Buddha himself complains of physical ailments, the frustration of having to run an organization, the discomforts of old age, and the pain of dying. As long as we have a physical body, we will experience suffering.
...What Buddhists trumpet as the "end of suffering" cannot therefore mean what it says. Not only does it make little sense, the discourses themselves clearly state that it means the end of reactivity. To let go of reactivity and behold its ceasing is certainly no easy task, but at least it is something to which we can aspire, whereas the end of the suffering will remain a pipe dream for as long as we are pulsating, breathing, ingesting, digesting, defecating bodies.
what is called "ceasing of suffering" is not actually the ceasing of suffering, but the ceasing of reactivity.
The Buddha's dictum "I teach suffering and the end of suffering" could thus be rephrased as "I teach suffering and the end of reactivity."
---
That makes sense! What you've referred to as "the second arrow" in another post. It does make sense to think of suffering merely as the reactivity part, and not the (original, actual) suffering itself.
And that gels perfectly with what the Buddha had actually taught. (Per Theravada, at any rate. When you go down to Mahayana and Vajrayana, then it kind of gets more complicated than that.)
---
But of course, the end of suffering, in that sense, is also the end of pleasure. It has to be, inevitably.
Heh, sometimes it seems to me the wisest course of action is to simply forget about all of this, forget about it completely, and simply focus on eating and copulating and sleeping. Hedonism sometimes seems the best answer to the Big Question, controlled hedonism obviously, but one that completely ignores the deeper questions about living and dying.
Except, I suppose it's not so much a matter of what one decides is wise, but of how one is constituted. The hedonist will whatever-the-verb-form-of-hedonism-might-be, no matter whether that is wise or not; and the more introspective and reflective will inevitably do the introspection and reflection thing, no matter whether *that* turns out wise or not! Haha, because no free will?!!
Posted by: Appreciative Reader | June 21, 2023 at 10:56 PM
@ AR
WHY ...why are there "big" questions?
WHO ...generates these questions?
WHAT ..should that search solve?
WHERE ..are answers to be found, ..IF ... there are answers at all?
ALL are hedonist ... hedonists in the sense that all are after their own welfare and pleasure.. Some look for answers in the streets of the world, look at the green-ness of the grass in the garden of the neighbours, are triggered by the "so called" happiness of ...OTHERS ... what others tell, what the market promisses them.
How do I know?
Having worked in Restaurants for many years, I have heard ... the oh and ahs of people being served this or that dish or drink. Most of the times these things taste horrible, horrible for different reasons. One is the taste has to be trained to appreciate certain items and that can take some time. Other causes are that what is served is not what is said it is ..many of the so called precious alcoholics, are aged artificially and by doing so the lose their "softness and tenderness in the mouth"
You see many a chef, when the days labor is over, fills his own stomach with "junk food" ... hahahah ...fish and chips, burgers etc ... hahaha
People fool themselves when they want to have what others say that makes them happy ... or ... the go into the streets of the world, asking where there keys are but the keys to everything are lost in the house and can only be found there.
Remember what I wrote about the evil of wealth!
The evil is the spreading of and the lhearing upon the suggestion, that OTHERS do have something, that is need for ones welfare as a human being.
For most people mysticism is such an suggestion.
They made themselves or are made to believe that such an interest is need for a wholesome life.
Is there something wrong with mysticism??
Not at all.
But there can be definitely something wrong with the motivation behind the interaction with mysticism.
The motivation is the ...KEY
Posted by: um | June 22, 2023 at 01:51 AM
Explain how their making sounds is "skillful," given that rescuers already know their predicament and precise location.
Moreover, would the effort involved in making sounds by banging against the hull simply be a waste of precious oxygen?
Posted by: SantMat64 | June 22, 2023 at 06:56 AM
Hello, um.
Lots to unpack there!
Appreciate your comment, absolutely. Allow me to offer up one point of disagreement, and one of wholehearted agreement.
---
The first would the streets-of-the-world thing. Agreed absolutely, that taken to extremes, taken as something essentially external, that would be dysfunctional. But taken as guide to what one might resonate with, I don't really see that there's anything wrong with the streets.
I mean, how do we even learn anything at all? Like, anything? Think of baby um, a year old; or for that matter baby Appreciative Reader, a year old. You for instance clearly hold dear, and resonate with, much of what you've learnt, not directly but implicitly and by example, from your father. In my case my grandfather was a major influence, both his silent example, as well as the conceptual bit (he was a bit of an intellectual, a writer as well as a doctor, and, heh, rather big on the conceptual part as well). So anyway, at that stage of our lives, from age one to, say, age 10 years or so, those formative years: wouldn't what you learned from your father, and what I learned from my grandfather, also amount, given that stage of our lives, basically be the metaphorical "street"? You wouldn't have learned those things had not your father been there to teach you those things by silent example and implicitly; and I would not have learned these things without both the silent example as well as the conceptual learning that i was fortunate to have imbibed from grandfather. What I'm saying is, even that isn't really intrinsic to us, is it?
So, I was saying, why stop there? Why shouldn't we keep looking? Of course, the looking shouldn't become a disease, agreed. The point of the looking should be to find things, and test things, and only accept those things that resonate with us, and let go what doesn't. But I don't see why we must needs view the "street" with suspicion. After all, what is "home", is ultimately drawn in from the "street"; what is probably called for is clear recognition of one's likes and dislikes.
---
As far as motivation being the key, agreed wholeheartedly!
Wise words, those. Agreed, it won't do to get blinded by what we see "outside". Ultimately only that is of worth, that actually resonates with us --- regardless of what worth it might have, or might not have, for others. That recognition, that introspection, that understanding about one's inner self, is key.
Absolutely, there are lots of folks who basically just keep doing what they see done. And I don't mean that dismissively, or say that they do this unthinkingly: but most everyone tends to follow this pattern, and I do think that the vast majority haven't fashioned that pattern themselves, only fitted *themselves* into the pattern that they've seen outside, that pattern that they've chosen from the list of patterns available. How internal and how deep is that choice, and indeed how we define our patterns, and whether we actually need patterns at all after a point....
I guess all of that is what you're alluding to? Agreed fully with you there. And also agreed fully with how important is this consideration, because without it all of the rest of it doesn't really amount to anything at all. Wise words, indeed.
Posted by: Appreciative Reader | June 22, 2023 at 07:42 AM
Whew yes, the Titan thing. Absolutely, those poor souls there, they do deserve our thoughts and our good wishes. What complete horror they must be going through. And it isn't as if the horror is actually ended yet, who knows which way it will actually swing.
Posted by: Appreciative Reader | June 22, 2023 at 07:55 AM
@ AR
hsahahahaha ... before I read any further ...
>> mean, how do we even learn anything at all? Like, anything? <<<
THAT AR ... IS ... the whole point !!!!!!
BEFORE you can learn something of your own, you have to know what you want, what you are born for.
In the past I would say:
We are all born with a "Song"
In order to sing a song we need to learn how songs are sung in a particular soviety.
Most people are so busy, mostly their whole life to learn how correctly perform a song,
that they forget about their own song until it is to late.
So YES we have to learn how to behave in the public domain SO .. being in ROME or elsewhere , we do what the Romans , do bet we do not BECOME romans. We like to remain who we are, fulfill our own life path
OR ...
There is nothing wrong with going to the market of culture and get their what we want. Nor is there anything wrong with finding something that can be used etc. But it is wrong to spend one's life there or forget at all why we went to market in the first place,
Posted by: um | June 22, 2023 at 07:57 AM
@ AR
Second point
There are TWO things we learn at home ... [1] Those things the teach you, yhey want you to know [2] by trial and error you learn how to deal with people. First those close around you, family etc and later those farther away.
Nobody needs to tell a 10 years old kid when and how to approach their parents to get money out of their pocket. They parents do not instruct the children when is the "best " time to rip them ... hahaha
That type of learning comes with interaction and is part of the "interior of the house" so to say and has nothing to do with the street and the market.
That other learning has the stamp of .... "Look that is how WE do things here".... and '... "we want uou to be one of us" ... in a sense that is "mentally consuming a kid for their own welfare" .. or "socioal, culural enslavement "
They make you believe, THAT ... T H E Y ... know everything you need to know to live a life [ ACCORDING THEM] ..and to use stronger words [ pleas do for give me ... not intently but factual ... THEY give a sxxt about you.
They want you to be there for THEM
But you were not born to be there for THEM
You are born for your own purpose
and being born you have to live with them
Nothing wrong with that.
You are not born to be your parents son.
But being born THEY are your parents
and it behaves you to play your role eloquently
but other wise you are on your OWN ... AR
THIS IS YOUR LIFE
Posted by: um | June 22, 2023 at 08:13 AM
and AR
There is no reason why you should be interested in what others do, think feel or have to say, be they great scientists, artist, politicians, sains and mystics.
PLEASE
Imagine how cruel it would be if the key for your life, for your purpose, for your welfare, would be in the pockets of other people.
I do not intend to say here that one should turn ones back upon these people.
BUT they are NOT ... NOT ...and necessity ... for you life
If you need them for your own purpose in life by no means hear upon them.
But they are not there to tell you how life should be used and what YOUR purpose is in life.
As dad said ... I did not educate myslef [ hear upon others] .. why would you??!
Do not fixate on the way I express myself ,, do not look at my crocked and dirty finger when i point at the moon.
Posted by: um | June 22, 2023 at 08:22 AM
Wokeness killed the people on that submarine.
They died because the woke CEO said he wouldn’t hire 50 year-old white men who knew how to command submarines and would rather train others.
And the CEO died too.
This is the price of implementing false concepts of equity.
Posted by: SantMat64 | June 22, 2023 at 08:27 AM
"If you need them for your own purpose in life by no means hear upon them.
But they are not there to tell you how life should be used and what YOUR purpose is in life."
Agreed fully.
(I take these two sentences to be the distillation of these three comments of yours. Correct me, please, if I'm misreading your intent!)
Agreed, my purpose is mine to figure out, absolutely.
---
However, I cannot figure out what my purpose is in isolation. You might find fulfilment in being a master chef; but you wouldn't know that, had you not first gone out into the street and there in the street discovered that there is this thing you can do, the chef thing. To find out that this avenue is open to you, of being a chef, you will necessarily have to go into the street. And it doesn't matter if that example came from a family member, for our purposes that too would be part of the metaphorical street. That was the point of my disagreement.
Agreed, that while to find the things that are available one must necessarily go out into the (metaphorical) street; but then if one ends up also deriving one's purpose itself from the street, as opposed to discovering that purpose within, then that is completely perverse, completely dysfuntional. And agreed, that does happen, often enough, resulting in the automaton lives we see all around us today.
Are we on the same page now? That the street is completely essential, in terms of understanding what is available; but that the street is completely worthless, in terms of deciding what to pick from what all is available, and what to discard.
---
"do not look at my crocked and dirty finger when i point at the moon."
Hahaha, very well put! Poetic, even! (The basis is Buddhistic, obviously, but I mean the thing about the cracked and dirty finger, juxtaposed on to that. The finger that wrote that sentence isn't cracked and dirty at all, but a poet at heart!)
Posted by: Appreciative Reader | June 22, 2023 at 08:41 AM
@ AR
>> Are we on the same page now?<<
Yes. and you know we are ... hahaha ... we both drink coffee.... hahaha
Posted by: um | June 22, 2023 at 08:56 AM
@ AR
I wrote that we are at par and we are, but there is something inside me that remains nagging.
You go on finding reasons to be in the streets, and the way you put it, you are right.
So yes in order to function in society, you have to go into the streets of the world and it is there where we spen 24/7 hours and that is how it should be.
Yet THAT is not what its all abot.
Let me give a "strange" example to explain.
Those that want to express their appreciation might offer you flowers but not all that offer you flowers do appreciate you.
The world is not a goal but a means to an end, and that means has NOTHING AR absolutely nothing to do with anything out there, it is to be found inside the house.
If you happen to be around an "accomplished" person you might understand.
What follows are not the correct words to use but I do not know how to put it otherwise ... the value of an artist is NOT in his output and/or the meaning and value that society attaches to that out put. To put it in rough language ... what he produces are the mental excrement ....what is of real value and meaning is inside and remains there.
Or ..... the kindness of a person is not in what society considers a token of kindness.
the flowers are not an expression of love,. Even without these flowers love is there if it is there.
Posted by: um | June 22, 2023 at 09:25 AM
SantMat64, the submersible hasn't been found. There's no idea of its location at the moment. So that's why searchers were encouraged when they picked up sounds on sonar that could have been human-caused.
I have no idea what you mean by "wokeness" causing this tragedy. The pilot of the submersible, Stockton Rush, was a rich 61 year old white man who is the CEO and founder of the submersible company. He and his company appeared to cut corners on certifying the safety of the submersible. See:
https://patch.com/california/san-francisco/pilot-missing-submersible-prominent-bay-area-family
Posted by: Brian Hines | June 22, 2023 at 10:53 AM
"You go on finding reasons to be in the streets, and the way you put it, you are right.
So yes in order to function in society, you have to go into the streets of the world and it is there where we spen 24/7 hours and that is how it should be."
---
um, it's not a question of "finding reasons to be in the streets". The fact is that we actually are, at all times, both in the street and at home.
Okay, look. You've got that rosary of yours, right, that you take along with you when you go for walks in the forest? Maybe you just hold the rosary, maybe you count it, but either way, where did that rosary come from? You were not born with it, after all. You saw it somewhere, maybe in a monastery, maybe some priest gave you, maybe your own mother or father gave it to you or left it to you. In as much as you were not born with the rosary, but found it in the metaphorical street, you're actually in the street every time you carry the rosary. On the other hand, you decided on your own, following your own heart and not some priest's orders, that that rosary brings you peace and solace, and to that extent you are at home when you carry that rosary.
So that we are, at all times, both: both at home, and in the streets as well.
---
Yes, it is important to also be at home. If you carry your rosary simply because some priest has directed you to do that; well then clearly you're deriving your purpose from the street, and that is dysfunctional. You need to be home, as well.
---
I hope I've been able to put my point across? One last example: coffee!
We both are fond of coffee. But neither you nor I were born with the knowledge of or taste for coffee. I'm sure that if as a child we were offered black coffee then we'd find the bitter taste revolting. But yet we've taken to this practice now.
Now if we drink coffee simply because we've seen everyone do it, then we're living a lie. That is to derive purpose from the street, which is worthless.
But both you and I drink coffee simply because we like to, and I'm sure we'd do that even if we lived in some island away from everyone else. To that extent that is our purpose, our own, and we are at home when we drink coffee.
On the other hand, in as much as coffee is something we discovered in the metaphorical street --- and in this context, learning to drink coffee at home also is part of the metaphorical "street" --- to that extent we're also in the street every time we drink coffee.
---
That's what I was going for.
Find your options in the street. Because only the street has those options, we don't come with options inbuilt.
But find your purpose at home. If we look for our purpose in the street we will end up wasting our lives. What to choose from amongst what we find in the street, that choice is to be made only at home. And the consumption of what we've found, that also is to be made at home.
---
Haha, sorry, very long comment, lots of words! Agreed, now? Or have I got something wrong there, do you think?
Posted by: Appreciative Reader | June 22, 2023 at 11:18 AM
@ AR
Hahaha ... AR ... you did not get it wrong but neither right.
Maybe in a couple of days, weeks or longer I will find a way to make it more clear what I am hinting at until then better to let it rest.
But it has something to do with what mystics all over the world are concerned .. the more you try to grasp it the more it escapes and even seems not to be there.
AR .. it should be clear that I do not consider myself to be a mystic ,... hahaha ... I am just an useless coffee drinker. that enjoys a conversation.
So again yes, you are right with what you write about the rosary etc but that is not all of it.... I am in the process of letting the mental mud sink to the bottom and that takes time I start to realize. Maybe it is better to remain silent for a while. I try again and again but time and again I give in to the call of the sirens that call me out into the street. Conversing with you is also a kind of onspiration so to say.
Posted by: um | June 22, 2023 at 11:37 AM
Haha, sure, um. Later, then. Cheers.
Posted by: Appreciative Reader | June 22, 2023 at 11:47 AM
Bachelor writes
"Thus here what is called "ceasing of suffering" is not actually the ceasing of suffering, but the ceasing of reactivity."
He is claiming it cannot be, rather than trying to understand how it could be so.
Cease reactivity is a step forward.
But cease suffering is what it is.
The two are not the same.
Bachelor writes
" To go against the stream is to find yourself going against the force of innate reactivity."
But there are multiple streams. Which one did you choose to identify with?
Did you become aware of the other inner streams through practiced observation?
Then you need not go against anything.
Let go your identity.
Bachelor writes
" Today we would understand these forces as part of the legacy of biological evolution, the embedded instincts and drives that enabled our ancestors to succeed in the competition for scarce resources and survive."
Yes, but the brain has other forces as well. Higher functioning parts of the brain, mechanisms that when triggered and practiced help coordinate and harmonize. And even functions, like deep internal meditation, that turn off other areas of the brain. And deep meditators who function in their wakeful state with these higher systems that supress the lower systems active.
This is what neuroscience has found.
Bachelor writes
"From that perspective, we see a cascading array of transient, impersonal events that -- provided we do not energize them by identifying with them -- will fade away as soon as their charge is exhausted. They are not overcome by destruction; rather, we must understand how they arise and play themselves out."
While that is going on the brain is turning those systems down altogether. What happens when that train of thought disappears altogether? When the deep meditator stays with their practice?
What then is the deep meditator aware of?
Bachelor writes
" The dharma, therefore, involves bringing one's wayward thoughts under control, establishing mindfulness and concentration, then setting out to realize one's goals in the world."
Perhaps the goals also evaporate. When the train of thoughts evaporate maybe we, our persona, our identity and therefore our goals, loves and hates also evaporate.
In that sea of love there are no distinctions or distractions. The treasure,, at least at that level, has been won. In that emptiness is everything.
Posted by: Spence Tepper | June 22, 2023 at 02:06 PM
In Buddhism, and as S. Batchelor knows well, entering the "stream" refers to the eightfold path and the "stream entrant" is one who has made that path their own. Brian quotes him on the interesting topic of reactivity and response which is doubly interesting as these issues are foremost in some of the latest neuroscience research on the predictive brain.
It used to be thought that the brain was a triune brain with certain ‘centres’ that were responsible for emotions, perceptions etc. Now the brain is more readily accepted as a cultural artifact, one put together by experiences or rather concepts that simulate the outside world.
I recall a few blogs ago Brian wrote about the ‘predictive brain’ and how the brain constructs and presents itself with images and thoughts from past experiences that course throughout its vast network of neurons and synapses. These very experiences, presented to us at times of perceived need, are quite often reactions to a situation and interestingly they are more in keeping with concepts – ideas and thoughts that the total brain uses for navigating its envi-ronment.
The predictive brain theory tells us that we could add a different thought or action rather than follow our usual reactive pattern – all very similar to Batchelors' challenge of the ‘four-fold path’ with its emphasis on the ceasing of reactivity.
Suffering or Dukkha is better addressed as ‘unsatisfactory’, or even as simply ‘being out of kilter’. It’s not a question of going through Physical or mental suffering (in the contemporary sense of suffering) but of understanding the imbalances that the thought process habitually engages in driving an on-going series of reactivity.
To this end, Batchelor makes perfect sense in saying that the Buddha's dictum "I teach suffering and the end of suffering" could thus be rephrased as "I teach suffering and the end of re-activity."
Posted by: Ron E. | June 23, 2023 at 02:28 AM
"Pitchers can react to a baseball hit like a rocket right at them by catching the ball with their fast reaction time."
I've seen a people not react fast enough and the next thing they're hopelessly being beat bloody in the alleyway.
So in a deadly moment, like those poor explorers upon that Titanic Sub. I agree, I'd be reacting and struggling like hell to escape the jaws of death.
Posted by: Karim W. Rahmaan | June 23, 2023 at 04:25 AM
It's gone, apparently, all dead. What a tragedy.
Accidents happen, people die, sure. Every time it is individuals dying, families being torn asunder, always a tragedy, every time. But this thing stands out in my mind given the sheer horror of the situation. These guys trapped in there, with enough oxygen for a few days, some food. They'll stay alive, apparently, for those few days, wildly scrabbling for some way out. And then the air runs out, and they all die. ...The sheer horror of the situation, I mean to say, five days spent waiting for death, desperately hoping for last-minute deliverance, and then death catching up. Regardless of anything and everything else, my heart goes out to these poor people there.
Although apparently what took them out was an implosion. The reports I've seen aren't all that detailed. Maybe other reports elsewhere have gone into more detail, I haven't looked beyond a few reports that came up readily. Don't know when that implosion happened. For their sake I hope that implosion happened early, and that death came swiftly, rather than after some days spent inside that death chamber.
---
Again, while accidents can happen, even with the best of precautions; but apparently this thing was the result of some completely weird shortcuts and callousness on the part of this Rush character. Shortcomings that were highlighted time and again by others, many times.
Weird, I say, because such callousness in aid of profit-making is common enough. Completely reprehensible, but common enough. Completely reprehensible, but not weird per se. Why this I'm calling weird is, because this Rush character apparently was himself the author of that callousness. He was the CEO after all. And he's apparently on record saying about his submersible project things like 'After a point safety's a waste of time'; and 'If you want to stay safe, then stay at home.' That's callousness, sure enough; but where the weirdness comes in is where he himself takes that death chamber down, and passes off himself as well as all of his passengers, including a 19-year-old accompanying his father, as experts, in order to go around regulations. Putting his own life on the line like this, and dying for it, is what makes his otherwise commonplace callousness weird. He died for his own sins, so to say, this guy. Pity he had to take down those others with him as well.
Posted by: Appreciative Reader | June 23, 2023 at 07:01 AM
Wokeness killed the people on that submarine.
They died because the woke CEO said he wouldn’t hire 50 year-old white men who knew how to command submarines and would rather train others.
And the CEO died too.
This is the price of implementing false concepts of equity.
Posted by: SantMat64 | June 22, 2023 at 08:27 AM
Oh hello, Joey Mannarino!
https://twitter.com/JoeyMannarinoUS/status/1671859916913385473?s=20
Hey SantMat64, try thinking for yourself instead of regurgitating the shit you have swallowed in that cesspool of right wing fear, hatred, bigotry, insecurity, lies and delusion that you've been wallowing in for years!
As utterly delusional and ridiculous as Joey's/ your comment is here, it is at least not the most delusional and ridiculous claim you have made in recent weeks. That achievement must go to your knee-jerk response to the Presbyterian school shooting by a transgender person, before any details of the case were known, implying or emphasising being trans was intimately related and connected to this act of ugly and cowardly violence.... when even the most idiotic and clueless person would know without question the biggest cause of domestic terrorism in the US is white CIS, gun loving incel males who hold almost identical political and social views to you on every subject, and demonstrate the same unwarranted anger and rage with the world, and go on commit cowardly and horrific acts of mass murder. I mean, it's like 1 a week now isn't it?
One has to ask just how disconnected from reality one must be to jump on the statistical outlier and anomaly of a member of the LGBTQ community committing such a terrible act, and proclaim it to be a such a huge problem, when the real fire is so very, very clearly raging in your own backyard?
It is quite literally a staggering degree of brainwashing and delusion. Good luck with your next election over there! 😬
In regards the death of these 5 folks who paid thousands upon thousands to view something that doesn't need viewing, just because they were rich enough to do so, that's really sad and my thoughts go out to their loved ones.
But I also wonder about the 500 or so people who probably lost their lives on a boat near Greece just a few days ago, taking unbelievable risks to flee a variety of suffering and oppression. And was it 100 or 200 children who, probably, died?
I mean I dunno, there has been less than 1% coverage of these lives lost compared to the rich explorer folks in their submarine, no follow ups, so who knows if they died or were found, if it was 100 or 200 dead?
I mean, let's be honest, who gives a shit....if it ain't on CNN, FOX or CBS, then it really doesn't matter....
Posted by: manjit | June 23, 2023 at 07:31 AM
Hi Manjit,
Here's something else I picked up from Twitter:
"The CEO of #OceanGate, who is operating the missing #TitanicTouristSubmarine explains that the company didn’t want to hire any experienced “50 year old white guys” because they weren’t “inspirational.”
Go woke, Go ____"
You see, the main idea here isn't "hate!" for the poor deviants of this world. This is about the simple fact that when you value ideology over practicality, you're courting disaster. And that's precisely what happened with the Titan's demise. The entire history of this venture shows that the person in charge of it was heedless about safety issues.
Granted, accidents do happen. But the owner of the wreck told his clients "it was a safe as crossing the street" or words to that effect. Well, never mind, forget him, the fault is mine.
I'm sorry fearless crew, it was all my fault. Happy now?
Yes, you're right, we don't know for sure why that girl on steroids killed all those teachers and children. We don't precisely know her mind on the matter, as we're still waiting for her manifesto to be released by our minders. The public may never see it, which is just fine with some people. Powers that be seem to be fully on the side of the groomers. I mean, when Target is selling trans toddler shirts, it's time to admit that the Zeitgeist has gone full Pazuzu.
Anyone and everyone who thinks cutting up children and giving them life altering drugs to "help them be their true selves" is either a fool, or worse. Whatever their motivations, they're on the side of evil and at the very least deserve to be called out on it. And as far as I'm concerned, that goes even to those who declare their pronouns. They're abetting evil.
Yes, what's being done to children in the name of gender rights and "equality" is not just another topic to debate. There's no middle ground for me on this.
It is evil.
Posted by: SantMat64 | June 23, 2023 at 11:38 AM
Ad Astra Ad aspera
We reach the stars through hardship, not avoiding it.
For those who would like to understand the actual functioning parts of the brain and the different functions they perform, this from Johns Hopkins Medicine
https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/conditions-and-diseases/anatomy-of-the-brain
To understand the effects of deep meditation on the brain... Some real neuroscience from real scientists.
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10548-021-00874-w
Yes meditation changes specific areas of the brain. And in the above research from 2021, the authors write that these changes at least among the long term Buddhist monks they tested, are distinct mental states. This supports the theory that meditation doesn't simply adjust our mental state but deep meditation, for those who actually achieve it, is actually a set of different, unique mental states.
Deep meditation isn't an incremental change, but a distinct change to a different configuration of mental activity.
Posted by: Spence Tepper | June 23, 2023 at 12:47 PM
Hi Ron E.
You wrote
"It used to be thought that the brain was a triune brain with certain ‘centres’ that were responsible for emotions, perceptions etc. Now the brain is more readily accepted as a cultural artifact, one put together by experiences or rather concepts that simulate the outside world."
The Triune brain theory was that different parts of the brain function entirely independently. That's false. The brain has several different centers that interact with one another and adapt all the time.
No one refutes that these centers exist, Ron, and they do influence different functions... Emotions, cognition, memory, speech, etc.
What has changed in neuroscience (the real neuroscience) is that neuroscience now knows (and has known for about thirty years) that these brain regions function adaptively to each other and to our locus of attention. It isn't one single channel nor configuration. How they adapt, which centers are active and which are inactive at any given time determines the mental state we are in.
We operate ever day moving through different mental states. Deep meditation is a unique state found for long term meditators. (see above cited research).
Posted by: Spence Tepper | June 23, 2023 at 01:06 PM
Sorry to say Spence, your info is way out of date. Try Fieldman-Barrett's How Emotions are Made - no centres, networking hubs yes.
Posted by: Ron E | June 23, 2023 at 03:21 PM
Sorry Ron, 2021 is current. You are confusing neuroscience results on how the brain functions, physically, measured through MRI and MEG scans (as in the research I linked above) with theory about how the brain organizes information to generate perceptions.
They are not in any conflict. One describes the physical functioning of the brain, the others theorize how what you see and hear are created.
If you believe that the various physical centers of the brain, such as for vision, language, emotion, aren't actually centers for those functions, please by all means share the research data.
All the actual neuroscience research supports and helps define those centers, their functioning and how they relate to each other and affect each other.
Your claim that this isn't so or is false is a remarkable claim and I invite you to back it up with specific evidence.
The work of Lisa Feldman-Barrett and others is all about how perceptions are constructed from this information specific to the demand our own attention helps to direct.
I suspect you have confused two different things. But I look forward to reading the research you have that proves, for example, that the visual cortex isn't actually a major center for processing visual information. Yes the filters for that information include the eye and neural pathways, and yes these are modified at various stages by your state of being and attention.
But the visual cortex remains the main center in the brain for visual processing.
Prove me wrong, Ron. Or check out the citations above and learn something.
Meanwhile I'll take another look at Feldman-Barrett et al.
Nothing she has stated in any way refutes the modern brain scan work on deep meditation by today's neuroscience.
Posted by: Spence Tepper | June 23, 2023 at 04:13 PM
One thing is evident that Feldman-Barrett acknowledges is that the brain is busy all the time, and not just on processing external stimuli. What you perceive is just a small part of that. There is more there internally going on all the time to become aware of, conscious of. And I offer, and neuroscience research supports, that meditation can help.
Posted by: Spence Tepper | June 23, 2023 at 05:45 PM
@Spencer Tepper, Impressive study using various stimuli over at; Mining the Mind..!
Up until now, I've only heard of studies of meditation relieving depression and the such:
https://www.health.harvard.edu/mind-and-mood/feel-good-hormones-how-they-affect-your-mind-mood-and-body
"..You can boost levels of these hormones with some simple lifestyle changes, like diet, exercise, and meditation.."
Posted by: Karim W. Rahmaan | June 23, 2023 at 07:39 PM