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Brad & Butter's avatar

Here is a Taoist counter-play against masking: if your belief system requires concealment, it is has middling ambition, and is likely badly thought out. The best ideas, the ideas that it outside of the middle class, can be said directly without inflaming other people's ego, as it does not invoke the need for power or the desire to "matter" in this world. The best truth (logos) is beyond ambition (thymos). https://swellandcut.com/2018/09/26/in-plain-sight/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kerckhoffs's_principle https://graymirror.substack.com/p/4-principles-of-any-next-regime

Any dumb utterances also has a similar effect of non-conflict but in the other direction of groundedness, since it does not seek to one-up people for prestige. Temporal utterances are not *pornographic* in nature. LinkedIn and "hustle porn" is a classic example, and self-help "insight porn" is another. https://danco.substack.com/p/michael-dwight-and-andy-the-three https://classicalideals.substack.com/p/paint-me-like-your-french-girls/comment/11526144 https://eggreport.substack.com/p/beauty-porn-and-ai/comment/9620739

Some red flags for maladjusted ideas: (a) "donut steel" AKA addiction to claiming credit, (b) lack of reality anchoring towards doctrines, (c) metaphor as limiting factors, (d) falsely equating Lindy effects or prestige behaviors with applicability, (e) it focuses on virtue or "feels", (f) it is contrarian for its sake, (g) excessive confidence or narcissism (h) need for commitment or collective mobilization https://archive.ph/33J4W https://archive.ph/uKJwl https://archive.ph/LsESN https://aniv.substack.com/p/stop-reading-to-virtue-signal https://archive.ph/i8yjl https://archive.ph/iw6aD https://archive.ph/OqoD9 https://archive.ph/ZMSUI

TBD on clarifying these wonky-tonk and how to dodge it in favor of neutral-flavored wisdom

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Hugh Hunter's avatar

Good point. I wonder whether the point about masks is connected to the cultural glorification of vampires and werewolves and other things that shift through various shapes and don't have a true face to display.

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