Daily Archives: June 3, 2022

I know how ridiculous it sounds, Mikhaila Peterson told me recently by phone, after a whirlwind of attention gathered around the 26-year-old, who is now offering dietary advice to people suffering with conditions like hers. Or not so much dietary advice as guiding people in eating only beef.

At first glance, Peterson, who is based in Toronto, could seem to be one of the many emerging semi-celebrities with a miraculous story of self-healingwho show off postpartum weight loss in bikini Instagrams and sell one thing or another, a supplement or tonic or book or compression garment. (Not incidentally, she is the daughter of the famous and controversial pop psychologist Jordan Peterson. More on that later.) But Peterson is taking the trend in extra-professional health advice to an extreme conclusion: She is not doing sponsored posts for health products, but actively selling one-on-one counseling ($75 for a half hour) for people who want to stop eating almost everything.

Peterson seems to be reaching suffering people despite a lack of training or credentials in nutrition or medicine, and perhaps because of that distinction. Her Instagram bio: For info on treating weight loss, depression, and autoimmune disorders with diet, check out my blog or fb page! The blog, which is called Dont Eat That, says at the top that many (if not most) health problems are treatable with diet alone. This is true, if at odds with the disclaimer at the bottom of the page that her words are not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment.

I told her Im surprised people need further counseling, in that an all-beef diet is very straightforward.

They mostly want to see that Im not dead, she said. What I basically do is say, Hey, look at all the things that happened to me and brought me to where I am now. Isnt it weird? And then let people draw their own conclusions.

Peterson described an adolescence that involved multiple debilitating medical diagnoses, beginning with juvenile rheumatoid arthritis. Some unknown process had triggered her bodys immune system to attack her joints. The joint problems culminated in hip and ankle replacements in her teens, coupled with extreme fatigue, depression and anxiety, brain fog, and sleep problems. In fifth grade she was diagnosed with depression, and then later something called idiopathic hypersomnia (which translates to English as sleeping too much, of unclear causewhich translates further to sorry we really dont know whats going on).

Everything the doctors tried failed, and she did everything they told her, she recounted to me. She fully bought into the system, taking large doses of strong immune-suppressing drugs like methotrexate.*

Her story took a dramatic turn in 2015, when the underdog protagonist, nearly at the end of her rope, figured out the truth for herself. It was all about food.

Peterson adopted a common approach to dieting: elimination. She started cutting out foods from her diet, and feeling better each time. She began with gluten, and she kept going, casting out more and morenot just gluten or dairy or soy or lectins or artificial sweeteners or non-artificial sweeteners, but everything. Until, by December 2017, all that was left was beef and salt and water, and, she told me, all my symptoms went into remission.

And you quit taking all your medications?

Everything.

There is so much evidenceabundant, copious evidence acquired over decades of work from scientists around the worldthat most people benefit from eating fruits, vegetables, nuts, beans, and seeds. This appears to be largely because fiber in plants is important to the flourishing of the gut microbiome. I ran this by some experts, just to make sure I wasnt missing anything that might suggest a beef-salt diet is potentially something other than a bad idea. I learned that it was worse than I thought.

Physiologically, it would just be an immensely bad idea, Jack Gilbert, the faculty director at the University of Chicagos Microbiome Center and a professor of surgery, told me during a recent visit to his lab. A terribly, terribly bad idea.

Gilbert has done extensive research on how the trillions of microbes in our guts digest food, and the look on his face when I told him about the all-beef diet was unamused. He began rattling off the expected ramifications: Your body would start to have severe dysregulation, within six months, of the majority of the processes that deal with metabolism; you would have no short-chain fatty acids in your cells; most of the by-products of gastrointestinal polysaccharide fermentation would shut down, so you wouldnt be able to regulate your hormone levels; youd enter into cardiac issues due to alterations in cell receptors; your microbiota would just be devastated.

While much of the internet has been following this story in a somewhat snide way, Gilbert appeared genuinely concerned and saddened: If she does not die of colon cancer or some other severe cardiometabolic disease, the lifeI cant imagine.

There are few accounts of people having tried all-beef diets, though all-meatknown as carnivoryis slightly more common. Earlier this month, inspired by the media conversation about the Peterson approach, Alan Levinovitz, the author of The Gluten Lie, tried carnivory, eating only meat for two weeks. He did lose seven pounds, which he attributes to eating fewer calories overall, because he eventually got tired of eating only meat. He missed snacking at coffee shops and browsing the local farmers market and trying out new restaurants around town, cooking with his family, and just generally enjoying food.

I was psychologically exhausted, Levinovitz told me. When he returned to omnivory, he regained the lost weight in four days.

Peterson told me it took several weeks for her to get used to the beef-only approach, and that the relief of her medical symptoms overpowers any sense of missing food. If even a tiny amount of anything else finds its way into her mouth, she will be ill, she says. This happened when she tried to eat an organic olive, and again recently when she was at a restaurant that put pepper on her steak.

I was like, whatever, its just pepper, she told me. Then she had a reaction that lasted three weeks and included joint pain, acne, and anxiety.

Apart from having to exist in a world where the possibility of pepper exposure looms, the only other social downside she notices is that she hates asking people to accommodate her diet. So she will usually eat before she goes to a dinner party, she told me, but then Ill go drink and enjoy the party.

Drink, as in, water?

I can also, strangely enough, tolerate vodka and bourbon.

The idea that alcohol, one of the most well-documented toxic substances, is among the few things that Petersons body will tolerate may be illuminating. It implies that when it comes to dieting, the inherent properties of the substances ingested can be less important than the eaters conceptualizations of themas either tolerable or intolerable, good or bad. Whats actually therapeutic may be the act of elimination itself.

For centuries, ascetics have found enlightenment through acts of deprivation. As Levinovitz, who is an associate professor of religion at James Madison University, explained to me, the Daoist text the Zhuangzi describes a spirit man who lives in the mountains and rides dragons and subsists only on air and dew. Theres an anti-authoritarian bent to pop-culture wisdom, and a part of that is dealing with food taboos, which are handed down by authorities, Levinovitz said. Those are government now, instead of religious. And because they are wrong so oftenor, at least, apparently wrongthats a good place to go when carving out your own area of authority. If you just eat the wrong foods and dont die, thats a ritual way to prove that you go against conventional wisdom.

Petersons narrative fits a classic archetype of an outsider who beat the game and healed thyself despite the odds and against the recommendations of the establishment. Her story is her truth, and it cant be explained; you have to believe. And unlike the many studies that have been done to understand the diets of the longest-lived, healthiest people in history, or the randomized trials that are used to determine which health interventions are safe and effective for whom, her story is clear and dramatic. Its right there in her photos; it has a face and a name to prove that no odds are too long for one determined person to overcome.

The beneficial effects of a compelling personal narrative that helps explain and give order to the world can be absolutely physiologically real. It is well documented that the immune system (and, so, autoimmune diseases) are modulated by our lifestylesfrom how much we sleep and move to how well we eat and how much we drink. Most importantly, the immune system is also modulated by stress, which tends to be a by-product of a perceived lack of control or order.

If strict dietary rules provide a sense of control and order, then Petersons approach is emblematic of the trend in elimination dieting taken to an extreme: Avoid basically everything. This verges into the realm of an eating disorder. The National Eating Disorder Association lists among common symptoms refusal to eat certain foods, progressing to restrictions against whole categories of food. In the early phases of disordered eating, as with bipolar disorder or alcoholism, a person may look and feel great. They may thrive for months or even years. But this fades. Whats more, the temporary relief from anxiety may mean that the source of the anxiety goes unsought and unaddressed.

I asked Peterson about the possibility that she may be enabling people with eating disorders. She said she would draw a line if a client were underweight or inducing vomiting. Otherwise, its extremely disrespectful to people with health issues caused by food to be lumped into the same category as people with eating disorders. More of the same blame the patient stuff that doctors and health professionals already do.

The popularity of Petersons narrative is explained by more than its timeless tropes; it has also been amplified by the fact that her father has occasionally cast his spotlight onto her story. Jordan Petersons recent book, Twelve Rules for Life, includes the story of his daughters health trials. The elder Peterson, a psychologist at the University of Toronto, could at first seem an unlikely face for acceptance of personal, subjective truth, as he regularly professes the importance of acting as purely as possible according to rigorous analysis of data. He argued in a recent video that American universities are the home to ideologues who claim that all truth is subjective, that all sex differences are socially constructed, and that Western imperialism is the sole source of all Third World problems. In his book, he writes that academic institutions are teaching children to be brainwashed victims, and that the rigorous critical theoretician is morally obligated to set them straight.

It is on grounds of his interpretation of income data, for example, that he has spoken out against the idea of a wage gap between men and women being unfair, as it can be explained away by biological factors associated with certain personality traits that are more valuable in the capitalist marketplace. From arguments from social-science evidence, he has expressed uncertainty that lesbian couples can raise children without a male father figure. And it is academic evidence that leads him to write in his book that the so-called patriarchy is an arbitrary cultural artifact.

Yet in a July appearance on the comedian Joe Rogans podcast, Jordan Peterson explained how Mikhailas experience had convinced him to eliminate everything but meat and leafy greens from his diet, and that in the last two months he had gone full meat and eliminated vegetables. Since he changed his diet, his laundry list of maladies has disappeared, he told Rogan. His lifelong depression, anxiety, gastric reflux (and associated snoring), inability to wake up in the mornings, psoriasis, gingivitis, floaters in his right eye, numbness on the sides of his legs, problems with mood regulationall of it is gone, and he attributes it to the diet.

Im certainly intellectually at my best, he said. Im stronger, I can swim better, and my gum disease is gone. Its like, what the hell?

Do you take any vitamins? asked Rogan.

No. No, I eat beef and salt and water. Thats it. And I never cheat. Ever. Not even a little bit.

No soda, no wine?

I drink club soda.

Well, thats still water.

Well, when youre down to that level, no, its not, Joe. Theres club soda, which is really bubbly. Theres Perrier, which is sort of bubbly. Theres flat water, and theres hot water. Those distinctions start to become important.

Peterson reiterated several times that he is not giving dietary advice, but said that many attendees of his recent speaking tour have come up to him and said the diet is working for them. The takeaway for listeners is that it worked for Peterson, and so it may work for them. Rogan also clarified that though he is also not an expert, he is fascinated by the fact that he hasnt heard any negative stories about people who have started the all-meat diet.

Well, I have a negative story, said Peterson. Both Mikhaila and I noticed that when we restricted our diet and then ate something we werent supposed to, the reaction was absolutely catastrophic. He gives the example of having had some apple cider and subsequently being incapacitated for a month by what he believes was an inflammatory response.

You were done for a month?

Oh yeah, it took me out for a month. It was awful ...

Apple cider? What was it doing to you?

It produced an overwhelming sense of impending doom. I seriously mean overwhelming. Theres no way I couldve lived like that. But see, Mikhaila knew by then that it would probably only last a month.

A month? From fucking cider?

I didnt sleep that month for 25 days. I didnt sleep at all for 25 days.

What? How is that possible?

Ill tell you how its possible: You lay in bed frozen in something approximating terror for eight hours. And then you get up.

The longest recorded stretch of sleeplessness in a human is 11 days, witnessed by a Stanford research team.

While there is debate in the scientific community over just how much meat belongs in a human diet, it is impossible for all or even most humans to eat primarily meat. Beef production at the scale required to feed billions of humans even at current levels of consumption is environmentally unsustainable. It is not even healthy from a theoretical evolutionary viewpoint, the microbiome expert Gilbert explained to me. Carnivores need to eat meat or else they die; humans do not. The carnivore gastrointestinal tract is completely different from the human gastrointestinal tract, which is made up of a system designed to consume large quantities of complex fibers.

What the Petersons are selling is rather a sense of order and control. Science is about questions, and self-help is about answers. A recurring idea in Jordan Petersons book is that humans need rulesits subtitle is an antidote to chaoseven if only for the sake of rules. Peterson discovered this through his own suffering, as when he was searching the world for the best surgeon to give his young daughter a new hip. In explaining how he dealt with Mikhailas illness, he writes that existence and limitation are inextricably linked. He quotes Laozi:

It is not the clay the potter throws,

Which gives the pot its usefulness,

But the space within the shape,

From which the pot is made

Dietary rules offer limits, good or bad, that help people define the self. This is an attractive prospect, and anyone willing to decree such rulesdietary or otherwiseis bound to attract attention. Fox News recently declared Peterson the lefts public enemy number one in a segment where he discussed with Tucker Carlson why the left wants to silence conservative thought. Though to have lived through the last year is to have lived in a world where Peterson and his ideas have enjoyed near-constant amplification.

The allure of a strict code for eatinga way to divide the world into good foods and bad foods, angels and demonsmay be especially strong at a time when order feels in short supply. Indeed there is at least some benefit to be had from any and all dietary advice, or rules for life, so long as a person believes in them, and so long as they provide a code that allows a person to feel good for having stuck with it and a cohort of like-minded adherents. The challenge is to find a code that accords as best as possible with scientific evidence about what is good and bad, and with what is best for the world.

* This article previously misidentified Peterson as the author of a guest post on her blog.

Originally posted here:

The Jordan Peterson Meat-Only Diet - The Atlantic

Jordan Peterson is a Canadian clinical psychologist, cultural critic, and professor of psychology at the University of Toronto. His main areas of study are the psychology of religious and ideological belief, and the assessment and improvement of personality and performance.

From 1993 to 1997, Peterson lived in Arlington, Massachusetts, while teaching and conducting research at Harvard University as an assistant and an associate professor in the psychology department. During his time at Harvard, he studied aggression arising from drug and alcohol abuse, and supervised a number of unconventional thesis proposals. Afterwards, he returned to Canada and took up a post as a professor at the University of Toronto.

In 1999, Routledge published Peterson's Maps of Meaning: The Architecture of Belief. The book, which took Peterson 13 years to complete, describes a comprehensive theory for how we construct meaning, represented by the mythical process of the exploratory hero, and provides an interpretation of religious and mythical models of reality presented in a way that is compatible with modern scientific understanding of how the brain works. It synthesizes ideas drawn from narratives in mythology, religion, literature and philosophy, as well as research from neuropsychology, in "the classic, old-fashioned tradition of social science."

Peterson's primary goal was to examine why individuals, not simply groups, engage in social conflict, and to model the path individuals take that results in atrocities like the Gulag, the Auschwitz concentration camp and the Rwandan genocide. Peterson considers himself a pragmatist, and uses science and neuropsychology to examine and learn from the belief systems of the past and vice versa, but his theory is primarily phenomenological. In the book, he explores the origins of evil, and also posits that an analysis of the world's religious ideas might allow us to describe our essential morality and eventually develop a universal system of morality.

Harvey Shepard, writing in the Religion column of the Montreal Gazette, stated: "To me, the book reflects its author's profound moral sense and vast erudition in areas ranging from clinical psychology to scripture and a good deal of personal soul searching. ... Peterson's vision is both fully informed by current scientific and pragmatic methods, and in important ways deeply conservative and traditional."

In 2004, a 13-part TV series based on his book Maps of Meaning: The Architecture of Belief aired on TVOntario. He has also appeared on that network on shows such as Big Ideas, and as a frequent guest and essayist on The Agenda with Steve Paikin since 2008.

In 2013, Peterson began recording his lectures ("Personality and Its Transformations", "Maps of Meaning: The Architecture of Belief") and uploading them to YouTube. His YouTube channel has gathered more than 600,000 subscribers and his videos have received more than 35 million views as of January 2018. He has also appeared on The Joe Rogan Experience, The Gavin McInnes Show, Steven Crowder's Louder with Crowder, Dave Rubin's The Rubin Report, Stefan Molyneux's Freedomain Radio, h3h3Productions's H3 Podcast, Sam Harris's Waking Up podcast, Gad Saad's The Saad Truth series and other online shows. In December 2016, Peterson started his own podcast, The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast, which has 37 episodes as of January 10, 2018, including academic guests such as Camille Paglia, Martin Daly, and James W. Pennebaker, while on his channel he has also interviewed Stephen Hicks, Richard J. Haier, and Jonathan Haidt among others. In January 2017, he hired a production team to film his psychology lectures at the University of Toronto.

Peterson with his colleagues Robert O. Pihl, Daniel Higgins, and Michaela Schippers produced a writing therapy program with series of online writing exercises, titled the Self Authoring Suite. It includes the Past Authoring Program, a guided autobiography; two Present Authoring Programs, which allow the participant to analyze their personality faults and virtues in terms of the Big Five personality model; and the Future Authoring Program, which guides participants through the process of planning their desired futures. The latter program was used with McGill University undergraduates on academic probation to improve their grades, as well since 2011 at Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University. The Self Authoring Programs were developed partially from research by James W. Pennebaker at the University of Texas at Austin and Gary Latham at the Rotman School of Management of the University of Toronto. Pennebaker demonstrated that writing about traumatic or uncertain events and situations improved mental and physical health, while Latham demonstrated that personal planning exercises help make people more productive. According to Peterson, more than 10,000 students have used the program as of January 2017, with drop-out rates decreasing by 25% and GPAs rising by 20%.

In May 2017 he started new project, titled "The psychological significance of the Biblical stories", a series of live theatre lectures in which he analyzes archetypal narratives in Genesis as patterns of behaviour vital for both personal, social and cultural stability.

His upcoming book "12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos" will be released on January 23rd, 2018. It was released in the UK on January 16th. Dr. Peterson is currently on tour throughout North America, Europe and Australia.

Continue reading here:

Maps of Meaning: The Architecture of Belief 1st Edition

This is an opinion editorial by Aleks Svetski, author of The UnCommunist Manifesto, founder of The Bitcoin Times and Host of the Svetski Wake Up Podcast.

Part 3, Chapter 4 of the JBP series.

Tyranny cannot feed on truth, for it is poison to its system of lies. In that sense, Bitcoin is poison to the rat known as the state. Warren Bitfet, the Bitcoin alter ego of Warren Buffett

The series continues. If youve not yet read chapters one through three, you can find them here, and of course read Part One and Part Two of this chapter.

Quotes with no source underneath are attributed to Dr. Jordan B. Peterson.

In Part Two, we explored how Bitcoin helps one enhance their aim and focus their attention on that which matters. This is the only real and lasting antidote to the hopeless helplessness of nihilism.

In Part Three, were going to discuss truth, tyranny and the moral obligation we as sovereign individuals have to speak up, as we emerge from this nihilistic world.

In chapter four of 12 Rules for Life, Peterson informs us of an evil psychological triad that were subject to as humans: arrogance, deceit and resentment.

When an individual operates within such a paradigm, or exhibits behavior fuelled by these emotions, their results and their individual orientation are suboptimal.

Its part of an evil triad: arrogance, deceit, and resentment.

They may feel as though theyve succeeded in the moment, but on an extended timescale, theyve compromised their position, footing, integrity or their moral compass.

As outlined in Part Two, because we are largely blind, we cannot know what demons or monsters lurk downstream of each such decision or action.

This meta-idea applies to the macro scale. The State is an apparatus who is more blind than the individual, but has more impact on more peoples lives than an individual ever can.

Its Unholy Trinity consists of the:

Combined, this evil triad ensures that a territorial operator is insulated from market feedback and thus oblivious to the consequence of their actions and behavior.

Such an ignorant and static structure will slowly but surely transform a territory or society into a tyranny, just like deceit, arrogance and resentment will transform a person into a tyrant toward themselves and those around them.

How does one confront this unholy trinity?

By speaking truth.

To speak up requires courage, and to have courage requires faith.

Knowing when to speak up requires wisdom, and wisdom requires maturity.

The path to becoming mature requires one to be responsible.

Bitcoin is responsibility go up technology.

Resentment always means one of two things. Either the resentful person is immature, in which case he or she should shut up, quit whining, and get on with it, or there is tyranny afoot in which case the person subjugated has a moral obligation to speak up.

Bitcoin is our way of speaking up.

We are no longer content with the lot prescribed to us by the State. As free, mature individuals we seek to bear the responsibility of life upon our own shoulders. We seek to be sovereign.

We are mature enough, technologically speaking, to no longer require large-scale bureaucratic nation-states to tell us what we should think, do, eat, believe or say. As a diverse species, we have the capacity to solve problems that no bureaucrat or committee could ever hope to solve if we are left alone to solve them.

The computer I am writing on is one such example. Think about the complexity required for the circuits firing inside the hardware of this device to not only visually represent the thoughts I have in my head by virtue of me tapping plastic buttons on a keyboard, but to transmit them across time and space on an ephemeral network we call the internet. Its just mind-boggling.

None of this came from the state apparatus. It emerged despite it. There was no central planner, organizer or panopticon. It happened because we were all aiming at things we individually valued.

Humans are capable of so much more when were not treated like imbeciles in a cage or rats in a maze.

Its the moral obligation of those of us who understand this, to speak up, and Bitcoin is that voice in action.

Tyranny feeds on lies.

Tyranny is a map that ignores the territory and when reminded as much, the tyrant first ignores, then actively censors the signal.

Tyranny is a pilot removing the altimeter of the plane when its warning of low altitude or imminent danger.

Tyranny is the obfuscation and renunciation of economic consequences resultant from central planning, and their placement onto the populace by means of overt and covert theft (taxation and inflation).

Tyranny is the systematic theft by central planners and bureaucrats bailing each other out with the wealth of the people they purportedly represent.

Tyranny is wilful ignorance and coercion despite market feedback.

Tyranny wants silence. It develops mechanisms to censor signals, speech and action so it can have it.

Because the consequence of remaining silent is worse. Of course, its easier in the moment to stay silent and avoid conflict. But in the long term, thats deadly. When you have something to say, silence is a lie and tyranny feeds on lies.

Holding fiat money, cryptocurrency or any other form of permissioned and approved monetary asset or wealth issued by the State and their appendages is simply participation in their game.

It is a form of compliance, and therefore silence. Tyranny feeds on this.

Bitcoin is the antidote.

Tyranny cannot feed on truth, for it is poison to its system of lies.

Bitcoin is that poison.

Warren Buffet and Charlie Munger are right when they said Bitcoin is rat poison, only they don't realize the rat it poisons is the tyrannical persona and the tyrannical state.

Both need to be cleansed.

#BitcoinFixesThis

Peterson makes the case that the quality of our values and morality are indicators of our sophistication.

Im here to make the case that a Bitcoin standard may increase our level of interpersonal and social sophistication by enabling the organization of individuals and the world around us in accordance with more clear, precise and functional priorities.

In other words, Bitcoin may help us elevate the maturity of the human race.

This is why I believe its the most important invention (or discovery) of our lifetimes, and perhaps for centuries.

Our values, our morality they are indicators of our sophistication.

Bitcoin will bring forth the fusion of the studies of matter and what matters.

We covered this in chapter two of the series.

It will open the door once more to the now-taboo non-empirical domain of value and quality. It will give us a chance to enhance and elevate our moral sophistication and thereby become better human beings.

And no that will not happen in a straight line either. As humans, we shall make mistakes along the way, many of them. But fortunately, on a Bitcoin standard, we are subject to faster feedback loops and a stronger signal, so can more accurately course correct.

In the absence of a controlled money-issuing apparatus, the difficulty (cost) to hide or socialize losses is too great. One must learn the lesson, and in the future be more prudent or more accurate in their aim.

Which brings me to my next point, and one which well explore further in Part Four of this miniseries.

Bitcoin enables honest feedback in the game that 8 billion hairless apes are playing on a pale blue dot floating around in space.

A perfect Utopia will never exist and what Bitcoiners, at least those whose words are worth a damn, mean when they talk of a better world is not some panacea to all ailments such that everything is good for everyone all the time.

This isnt some Marxist fantasy with Ethereum unicorns.

In fact, Bitcoins most important impact on society is the reintroduction of economic consequence. This will more often than not be painful and ugly but necessary.

We cant just get the one particular thing we especially just want now, along with everything else we usually want, because our desires can produce conflict with our other desires, as well as with other people, and with the world.

On a Bitcoin standard we will get a blend of what we want, and more importantly, what we actually need, which are often two different things.

We will have conflict, but well have no choice but to work it out on a more level playing field. At the very least, the systemic possibility of cheating by one player to the detriment of the others, without their knowledge or consent, dissolves. That alone is worth fighting for.

These conflicts will force us to prioritize, and take into account the market of values, which reminds me of John Valliss masterpiece Money Messiah in which he makes the case for:

Hierarchies as a prioritization and aggregate of values.The market as an aggregate and prioritization of hierarchies.

This rings profoundly true for me, and I suggest you read that piece once youve finished this one.

In a social sense, we are playing a game with a score, and that scorecard is determined to a large degree by how well you play in the market.

I dont just mean the quantum of money. Winning occurs across multiple dimensions. A stay-at-home mom can win the game of life with a lot less money than a stressed out, childless female millionaire CEO with menopause can, after she traded her youth for the illusion of career success.

Therefore the game of life is like an aggregate of aim, focus, attention, consequence, feedback and adaptation within the context of internal and external value hierarchies.

Its complex, but the more sophisticated you become at playing, the better your results, or the better your overall score.

We succeed when we score a goal or hit a target. We fail, or sin, when we do not (as the word sin means to miss the mark). We cannot navigate, without something to aim at and, while we are in this world, we must always navigate.

For this sophistication to enhance and not distort and confuse the system, it is critical for a society to have a rules that the participants are all subject to, with a functional, scoring mechanism (unit of account) that is transparent and un-fuck-with-able.

This is the case for Bitcoin.

On that foundation, on that standard of truth, we will become better through each successive generation. Ill see you in Part Four to close this chapter out.

This is a guest post by Aleks Svetski, author of The UnCommunist Manifesto,, founder of The Bitcoin Times and Host of The Wake Up Podcast. Opinions expressed are entirely their own and do not necessarily reflect those of BTC Inc or Bitcoin Magazine.

See the original post here:

Bitcoin, Personality And Development Part Three: Bitcoin Truth And Speech - Bitcoin Magazine

If you are going to make your kids tough, which they better be if they are going to survive in the world, you cant interfere when theyre doing dangerous things carefully.

This quote came from a conversation between podcast host Theo Von and psychologist/author Jordan Peterson a little over one year ago. Following Petersons statement, Von responds, Think about that specifically. Dangerous things carefully, that is such a place where kids learn. Peterson confirms, Thats the only place they learn. Thats where everyone learns everything.

Without delving into the politics or beliefs of either of these two individuals, I would like to echo the sentiment that children, adults and leaders need to practice doing dangerous things carefully.

I grew up in a fairly risk-tolerant family. Before going to kindergarten I could water ski behind a boat, snow ski through trees and around moguls, and ride my own dirt bike on rocky trails. I dont actually remember learning any of these activities, so I can only imagine how many times my parents watched me fall down in the process.

In fact, my mom tells a story about when I was learning to water ski, I was so determined to get up behind the boat I would try (and fail) at least half a dozen times before getting back in the boat so someone else could have a turn. Other family members and friends were a little surprised my parents would allow their 38-pound 4-year-old to get drug through the water repeatedly. By my parents logic, I was the one who wanted to learn and I wasnt in any imminent danger, so they let me struggle. Its hard to know what life lessons were ingrained in a 4-year-old who was allowed to do dangerous things carefully, but I have to believe they were significant.

To ratchet up the theory a bit, now consider the risk taken by well-known rock climber Alex Honnold during his free solo endeavors (climbing thousands of feet above the ground on a rock face with no rope to catch him should he fall). While on the surface this activity appears to be quite dangerous and flippant, it is actually a very calculated effort. Honnold is one of the best climbers in the world when it comes to big wall climbing ability. When he chooses to tackle a route without a rope it is many, many levels of difficulty below his ability. He also rehearses it until he is absolutely certain he will not fall. There is a big difference between being fearless and being calculated in the face of fear.

A risk assessment tool often used in rock climbing is the likelihood versus consequence matrix. The most simplified version goes something like this: On one axis is the likelihood something bad will happen and on the other axis is the consequence if it does. This results in four quadrants that include:

1. Low likelihood, low consequence (falling while walking on flat ground).

2. Low likelihood, high consequence (falling while walking on a 4-foot-wide path on the side of a steep mountain).

3. High likelihood, low consequences (falling while rock climbing at your limit with appropriate safety systems).

4. High likelihood, high consequences (falling while rock climbing at your limit without safety systems).

On this matrix, No. 1 is just daily life and No. 4 can kill you, so those arent optimal zones for learning. Instead, the most learning happens within No.2 and No.3. Each of these zones require an accurate assessment of personal ability and situational awareness. For me to climb a granite wall in Yosemite with no rope would most certainly put me in No. 4. But for Honnold, he is solidly staying in the low likelihood, high consequence balance of No.2.

While I wouldnt put myself in many categories with Alex Honnold, one parallel journey we are walking is becoming parents within the last year. Suddenly all these theories and personal approaches are confronted with the reality of watching a tiny human test the dangers of the physical world. It is instinctual to want to swoop in and protect your child from bonking his head on the corner of the bookcase as he tries to stand up (literally this happened one hour ago). But I am learning to slow down and watch him encounter small consequences and learn to navigate around these hazards. I would venture to guess Honnold is facing the same humbling experience of managing risk as a parent.

What sort of endeavors exist in your life that would fall in the zone of doing dangerous things carefully? Perhaps a difficult conversation with a family member or a calculated risk that your business is considering. How about when it comes to your children, are they learning how to align their level of caution with the likelihood and consequences? Doing dangerous things carefully is, after all, where everyone learns everything.

Mandy Fabelis a Wyoming resident passionate about challenging stereotypes and pushing herself and others to be the best version of themselves. She currently serves as the executive director of Leadership Wyoming and the co-founder of the YouTube channel Granola & Gasoline. Sherecently turned her first year of columns from The Sheridan Press into a book, Take What the Road Gives You.

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Doing dangerous things carefully | Columnists | thesheridanpress.com - The Sheridan Press

Roy Edroso speculates about future Depp projects.

Saucy Jack vs. The Sea Hags. The woke Disney corporation wont revive the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise except in a feminazi version, but that doesnt mean we cant still have Johnny Depp riding the seven seas as legendary buccaneer Saucy Jack Grackle! In this totally separate and original IP hes put on a little weight, but hes still the drunk and disorderly rascal youve come to know and love. In his glad rags, mascara, and mannerisms he cuts a dashing figure and all the ladies love him except for the Sea-Hags, an eighteenth-century gang of nasty women who, damaged by daddy issues, roam the high seas in search of psychic compensation and plunder. They despise Jack Grackle for his roguish masculinity and have vowed to sink his ship The Dark Gem and to literally emasculate him! But Jack leads them on a merry chase with much derring-do and CGI, ending in a literally ravishing, literally climactic physical struggle with Hag Queen Millie Bobbie Brown in which he shows her what rolling in the deep really means and makes everything work out! With several of Hollywoods top young actresses as the Sea Hags (who, when they remove their spectacles and shake out their hair, are actually super hot) and, as Jacks pirate gang, Jordan Peterson, Joe Rogan, and Ben Shapiro as Half-Pint. Special cameo by Tom Cruise as The Bitchmaster!

I like it. I wouldnt watch it, but I appreciate the authenticity of his crew, none of whom could act their way out of a soggy, weevily biscuit. Reality is that while something that blatant wouldnt get made, poor Johnny is going to have to resign himself to third tier movies and a lot of bad guy roles.

I also notice something in the comments over there: like me, a lot of lefties sat there quietly throughout the trial, doing their best to ignore it all. Maybe thats not the best strategy? You think?

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Johnny better get used to it - Freethought Blogs