93 - investing in reasonable momentum

I never continue with any investment once I know the momentum for its success is unlikely. 

Nor do I continue with any investment once I know its momentum is moving too quickly and/or otherwise unreasonably.

Through these notes, I have not sought your sympathy.  Instead, I have sought your understanding.  I have encouraged your evidence-based reasoning.  And I have invited you to think about your life, and various aspects of it, as investments.

Perhaps you would rather focus on the darker or more trivial aspects of existence rather than on the expression of enlightenment.

The primary role of government is to prevent emergencies from arising. 

The secondary role of government is to protect people when those events occur.  

The tertiary role of government is to help people to recover from distressing circumstances. 

Yet governments consistently fail to take their responsibilities seriously.

I do not invest my time, or any other resources, in helping people recover from emergencies.  I have no duties in that regard.

I do have a duty to help improve governments.  Unfortunately, there is no reasonable momentum for that improvement to occur.

Politics is often based on pathos, in much the same way as entertainment and marketing.

Yet there is no dignity in pathos.

The ugliness of unseemly confrontation debases politics and places obstacles in the way of fairness. 

I am interested in suitable stability, appropriate continuity, consistent reasonableness, honesty, hope, justice, and suchlike matters. 

 

Perhaps you have similar interests.  Perhaps you have different interests.  Perhaps you have conflicts of interest.

Your beliefs are your own.  I would feel very annoyed indeed if you attempted to impose them upon me.

I detest all forms of coercion.

Your knowledge is another matter entirely.  Even though I do not wish to have your knowledge imposed upon me, I do hope you are capable of helping me to improve my awareness of important matters.

How do you decide whether a matter is important or not?

How important is acting towards the improvement of governments, in your view, and how have you been acting in that regard this year, and in previous years?

I do not trust anyone possessing overconfidence or otherwise simplistic views of their own competence.

I do my best to discourage hubris whenever and wherever it may arise.

Yet I never discourage the reasonable momentum towards good in the world.

How do you measure reasonable momentum in that regard?

Improving your cultural leadership, quite generally, has been a priority for me.

How do you distinguish between reasonable success and unreasonable or easy achievements?

On behalf of the Spirit of Enlightenment, I mainly wish to discover whether you are truly wonderful and kind.

My current job involves helping people to overcome their habitual unreasonableness.  Yet most people do not consider their habits to be unreasonable.  

You are, unfortunately, like most people in that regard.

How attentive are you here in the library today, from your own point of view?

How do you usually prefer to learn?

Perhaps you are afraid to respond to philosophical questions.

Perhaps you do not think my questions are philosophical questions at all.  You may regard them mainly as psychological questions.  

I have been trying to test your potential for helpfulness rather than hubris and hypocrisy.

You have been offered the chance to interact with my words, through these investment notes, so that I may gain the necessary initial measurements.  

Unfortunately, you appear to be more inclined towards hubris and laziness than helpfulness.

Perhaps you have a bias towards experiencing entertainment and other forms of self-indulgence.  You may even selfishly seek out the thrill of danger and/or the vanity of admiration.

Better communities are always associated with thoughtful reciprocity, well-informed kindness and intelligent frugality.  You apparently do not wish to be associated with such communities.

You may associate reasonable momentum with investing time with continuity and reasonableness, through honesty and freedom, for the purpose of acquiring and maintaining security and certainty.

Yet when people acquire relative security and certainty, they often also acquire complacency, in other words that nasty, smug, boastful self-satisfaction so often indicative of hubris.

I have given you the chance to gain sufficient enlightenment, through my work on behalf of the Spirit of Enlightenment and the Council of Enlightenment.

I often work on behalf of the Spirit of Enlightenment in her various guises.  You may be aware that she has expressed herself through a wide variety of online avatars and pseudonyms since the beginning of this century.  She thereby helps me to maintain my privacy.

What do you know about political ugliness and the unreasonable momentum towards it?

What is your knowledge of life, and how did you acquire it?

If you do not believe life is an important matter, when and where did you acquire that point of view?

In real life, who makes money and maintains a wealthy lifestyle, and who does not, and why?

Who gains attention, popularity, wealth and support, and who does not, and why?

I do not waste my time on thoughtless practitioners of pathos or any other inattentive persons.

I do not waste my time on the overly romantic or the consistently apathetic.

The majority of members of the Council of Enlightenment were placing many of their hopes in you, particularly towards the improvement of politics.  They are unsure how to proceed from here.  Perhaps you would kindly provide the required advice.

At the beginning of last year, the council required me to attempt a tour of your brain, with or without access to the associated metadata and algorithms, hence this series of notes.

How else should I attempt to improve your leadership?

How else should I attempt to improve your investment strategy?

How else should I attempt to improve the elegance and relevance of your thoughts and decisions?

I do not have enough surplus wealth with which to help the poor directly.

I do not have enough influence with which to encourage the boastful to become more altruistic.

As far as I am aware, you have shown little kindness towards me.

Perhaps you think my ideas are strange.  That is understandable if you have a very narrow outlook on life.

I spend much of my time warning people of dangers.  My despair usually arises when they ignore my warnings.  My despair is perpetuated when I am rudely asked to help sort out the inevitable mess.  I am sometimes even blamed for not warning people strongly, or rudely, enough. 

There are plenty of people talking about politics and playing politics and preventing political systems from being improved.  Quite a few of those people are paid a considerable amount of money to participate in those distractions.

I am not paid at all.  Yet I do my best, every day, to avoid distractions.

Many of my struggles in life have been associated with the cruelty inflicted by unreasonable, selfish, arrogant people, some of whom have been members of my own family, or they have been fellow students, or my teachers, or my colleagues, or my travel companions, or my neighbours, or public 'servants' or 'health' practitioners or politicians.

Fortunately, the Spirit of Enlightenment and the Council of Enlightenment are unfailingly kind towards me, and towards you.

As you will probably know by now, like the Spirit of Enlightenment, I have several online identities.  I keep them entirely separate from each other, mainly for reasons of privacy.

That separation also helps me to focus my creativity mostly enjoyably, and to conduct my research relatively independently.

You may have noticed that I am appropriately respectful of your privacy, your personal boundaries and your personal needs.  I continue to encourage you to be respectful of them, too.

I, of course, have a reputation as a kind, generous, well-informed person.  I have long been known as an advocate of reasonable approaches to science and democracy and justice.

 

But what is your reputation and how did you acquire it?

 

Far too many disreputable persons attempt to ruin the reputations of well-informed, kind individuals, and quality organisations.

I hope you appreciate your free access to this virtual library, and to these words.

What are you currently offering for free, and to whom, and why? 

What are you currently offering in other ways, and why?

How do you define thoughtful reciprocity in various situations?

Whenever the wrong type of momentum builds in relation to my work, I immediately take a different direction.

 

I do not tolerate excessive negativity or excessive positivity.

 

I have devoted my life towards improving politics, knowing that no-one else is doing so appropriately.  I have attempted to encourage suitable contributions from you and many other people.  Alas, there is no evidence those contributions will ever occur.

Only relatively enlightened persons are accepted as my patrons, and as patrons of the work within Frugality Cottage, and as patrons associated with most of the other cultural institutions in this digital vicinity.

I have received no indication that you have anything worthwhile to offer.

If you are not interested in being a patron here, that is not a problem from my point of view.  It merely means I cannot make a perfectly reasonable investment in you.  That is why I seek your honest contributions to my assessments now.

Why are you not yet one of the patrons here?

Perhaps you are too frightened to answer reasonable questions.

As you are probably not yet registered as a patron here, and unlikely ever to become one, that is most disappointing.  It means that I cannot assess you accurately enough.

When humans attempt to invest in the physical world, they usually make a mess of it.

When humans attempt to invest in the social world, they usually make a mess of that, too.

I have no time whatsoever for self-indulgent persons.  That is why I am grateful to have access to the Hubrisometer.  It quickly allows me to know whether a person is self-indulgent or not.

I am sure you are aware that reasonable questions are not intrusive, and nor are reasonable answers.

I hope you regard my questions as perfectly reasonable.

What do you currently have the power to improve in the world and how do you know you are using that power appropriately?

How do you try to prevent yourself from being hypocritical when assessing historical events, and ongoing ones?

How do you ascertain credibility?

How do you usually ascertain priorities?

I have encountered much unreasonableness and much dishonesty.  Perhaps you have had similar encounters.  

I hope you have always been attentive enough towards reasonableness, in any year, and on any day of the week.

Over the past twenty years, how have you been investing in social research, directly and indirectly, and for what reasons? 

If you are not yet twenty years of age, what have you been learning about social research?

I do not trust many people, for the simple reason that I have found few people to be appropriately respectful of my privacy, my personal boundaries and my personal needs.

How do you tell the difference between real kindness and fake kindness?

How do you distinguish between personal wealth and other forms of wealth?

What do you know about the ordinary workings of the Universe?

What do you know about the ordinary workings of your own mind?

How do you usually think about hope in relation to well-informed kindness?

How do you usually think about kindness in relation to solving problems?

I hope you will answer my questions quite reasonably here today.  As usual, your direct and indirect responses to my notes will be fed into the Hubrisometer, as necessary.

How do you distinguish between reasonable and unreasonable expressions of power?

How much control do you have over your own brain and mind?

What are your current technical skills and how did you acquire them?

When, if ever, have your reasonable concerns about other people's justified and unjustified fears been ignored?

I consider is impossible to live a simple, happy existence without respect for the truth, and sensitivity in conveying it.

I hope you are truly interested in exploring good investment ideas, especially when those ideas do not require any money from you. 

What have you invested and invented to help prevent corruption?

What do you know about psychological manipulation, corruption and pollution?

How do you prevent yourself from being corrupted by organised and disorganised groups and social hierarchies and marketing campaigns?

How have you been preventing misery, if at all?

What do you know about misery in relation to the provision of luxury, and entertainment, and the accumulation of wealth?

How do you identify delusions?

When, if ever, has your reasonable distress been mistaken for paranoia?

Perhaps you do not know how to assess the different types of justice required in the world.

When people are unwilling to answer reasonable questions, that is a sign of their dishonesty. 

You are apparently a dishonest person.  I have long been asking you important questions and you have failed to respond appropriately.

Perhaps you have much to hide.

There is really no point in investing in the physical world of ordinary mortals.

I have that advice directly from the Spirit of Enlightenment.  Her view is that there is far too little well-informed kindness associated with that world.  

Only when well-informed kindness forms the basis of human societies will investment in the physical world be worthwhile.

I have an evidence-based approach to all my investments, especially as they all involve philanthropy, either directly or indirectly.

For much of my life, I have been a practitioner of effective altruism. 

I merely serve in the role of The Author on behalf of the Spirit of Enlightenment, in the public interest.

You may have noticed that I am an official link between you and the Spirit of Enlightenment.

How do you usually interact with that spirit?

And how do you reflect upon the privilege of doing so?

Although there have been rumours that I am a spirit being, that is not for me to confirm or deny. 

I am merely selfless when acting altruistically.

The Spirit of Enlightenment knows when people have selfish motives and when they do not.  Her actions are entirely reasonable, in both fact and fiction, even through the expression of satire.

I have received no evidence that you express altruism towards me, or towards the Spirit of Enlightenment, or towards the Council of Enlightenment, or towards Adelaide.

I have invited you to think carefully about politics in relation to Adelaide and the world.

Perhaps you are wondering why, especially if you lack interest in Adelaide as a place or even as a person.

Perhaps you feel like an impostor in this part of the Internet.

As you may have noticed, I have deliberately acted to deflate your ego without abusing you.  It is an important duty I attempt to perform at least once a week.

Unfortunately, there is considerable hubris in the minds of overly confident individuals, and within the groups, communities and organisations claiming to be doing good in the world when they are not, in practice, doing anything of the sort.

How do you decide whether the normative social influences in your life are adequately good?

What do you do when you discover that they are not?

Perhaps you have immoral family members.

Perhaps you have immoral friends.

Perhaps you have an immoral supervisor or teacher or neighbour.

Most people have at least one such person in their lives at any particular moment.

But what is immorality?

Is it primarily an absence of adequate altruism?

There is considerable hypocrisy from wealthy individuals who claim themselves to be philanthropists.  They selfishly follow their own interests instead of assessing needs objectively.  

And objectivity must begin and remain within a clear and consistent political philosophy, preferably one associated with effective altruism and enlightened philanthropic practices.

What do you know about my political philosophy, and how do you know it?

What do you know about your own?

Sympathy is an emotion.  It is not an evidence-based experience.

Much sympathy is associated with bias, not altruism.

Perhaps your mind has too much focus on pathos and not enough on logos and ethos.

The focus in the mass media on matters of relative triviality, rather than relative importance, is an expression of media bias.

How do you attempt to help people to identify and overcome biases?

Perhaps you are already well aware that you are too easily distracted and that your sympathy is therefore distorted, dissipated and possibly even disastrous. 

How do you reflect upon motivation in relation to momentum? 

What have you discovered about reasonable momentum in relation to impact investing?

How do your investments in reasonableness help to support various forms of justice?  

Are you sure you give your undivided attention towards that pursuit?

I will obviously continue to do my best to assist you to be more reasonable, if that is possible.  I have no other option.  The improvement of your leadership is my life's work.

Perhaps you would prefer me to use emotional blackmail towards you so that you may then pay more attention to your own reasoning.  Yet that may possibly make you feel guilty and coerced and confused rather than motivated to act thoughtfully.

Momentum may be a consequence of impulsiveness, of fads and fashions, of the herd mentality, of viral digital content, of popularity, of impetuousness, and of even fear.

But what is reasonable momentum?

How does reasonable momentum towards reforms reflect compassion?

Is there any particularly reason why you are investing time in reading my words as attentively as I would prefer?

I have long been investing in hope.  That is why I am continuing to provide you with these notes.

Are you sure the momentum of your own practices is indicative of investing in reasonableness?

Are you aware that investing in evidence is an ongoing task?

Whatever your current age, how are you investing in social research to improve your altruistic, philanthropic and political practices? 

I hope I am investing in good policy, both directly and indirectly.

I also hope you are doing the same.

Why do governments so often lack the expression of appropriate sympathy, substantial compassion and the motivation and momentum to improve public policies?

I am investing in enlightened beings, not unenlightened politicians.

How are you investing in life?

Fictional works are often considered successful if the protagonist gains and maintains the sympathy of the reader.

But why?

Your soul is the protagonist in this series of notes. 

The antagonist is your ego.

In real life, most protagonists are hypocrites and most antagonists are bullies.  Perhaps the same applies in fiction, whether stated in the text or between the lines.

Improving politics requires substantial maturity and the magnificent expression of it.

I am investing in magnificent maturity to the best of my ability.

In practice, that means investing in trustworthy collaborations.

I hope you are investing time in comprehending my words with appropriate attentiveness, regardless of your current age and abilities.

You may be aware that investing in honesty has always been important to me, within reason.

I communicate with properly registered patrons in an entirely different way than I communicate with ordinary mortals, such as yourself.

You may have noticed that there is no narrative hook in any of these notes.  I have no desire to shock anyone or otherwise grab their attention with unnecessary expressions of unpleasantness. 

Narrative hooks, like musical ones, have nothing to do with reasonableness even if they build momentum towards emotional interest, and possibly even obsessions.

There are no cliffhangers in these notes, apart from those associated problem of whether I will still be able to write to you from week to week.

How do you know you are capable of successfully investing in thorough assessments?

How are you currently investing in thoughtful reciprocity? 

What does investing in justice mean from your own point of view at present, and why?

Simple, peaceful, sustainable living involves spending time continually, reasonably and honestly, towards investing in freedom.

But what does that really mean in practice?

How does your freedom relate to reasonable momentum?

How, if at all, are you investing in peacefully authentic living? 

How, if at all, do your practices of authentic living contribute to an intelligently kind culture?

 

• Authentic Living - Episode 1
• Authentic Living - Episode 2
• Authentic Living - Episode 3
• Authentic Living - Episode 4

 

Which version of yourself is most compatible with me, and is it the authentic you? 

How do you think about reasonable momentum in relation to investing in the delights of adequately ethical compatibility?

How you explore is much more important to me than what you explore, especially at present.

I have welcomed you into my world quite personally over the past few years, especially to discover whether you are truly wonderful and kind.

I have received no indication whatsoever that you either understand me or respect me.

Where is the reasonable momentum for more fairness in the world?

I have rarely been treated fairly.

If a 'fair go' means compassion for those in need of protection from harm, why has Australia required so many royal commissions since federation, at both the state and federal levels?

If a 'fair go' means mutual respect, it demands mutual understanding as the basis of that respect.

If a 'fair go' means tolerance, it demands civility and truth, especially from politicians. 

If a 'fair go' is rarely equated with elegance in your mind, why is that the case?

Apparently, elegance is not valued through social media, or through the mass media, or through politics in most parts of the world.  

What do you know about elegant egalitarianism as an expression of social, economic and political progress? 

How carefully have you been investing in elegant egalitarianism this year, and with what results?

How else have you been investing in improving political practices, and why?