Integral Practice

Breaking the Radio Silence - Integral Conference in the Bay Area

ebuddha — Mon, 24 Sep 2007 07:52:28 -0700

Taking some time from silence, to post about the JFK Conference in Integral Theory. In the Bay Area, so I have no excuse!

I fully hope and expect to meet lots of my online pals, in person.

Thanks to Bill for the heads-up.

The media's assault on reason

ebuddha — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 15:38:04 -0700

A good article here, confronting the inane ways that the media analysts, personalities, and journalists, are handling Al Gore's book.

I'm not sure how much the confusing fuzz of media idiocy drives governmental policy.

Mainly, I think, the media dysfunction allows bad policy to be cloaked, camoflaged, and stood by, far past the obviousness of the policy's bad effects.

Secondly, the media dysfunction can act as a enabler of trivia to disqualify policy (whether that policy is good or bad, trivia "about" that policy can act to disqualify it).

Integral Institute's Failure to Provide Cogent Analysis

ebuddha — Fri, 08 Jun 2007 13:45:22 -0700

Is now clearly on display. More silly Paris Hilton obsessions.

From Al Gore's book:

It is simply no longer possible to ignore the strangeness of our public discourse. I know I'm not alone in feeling that something has gone fundamentally wrong. In 2001, I had hopes it was an aberration when polls showed that three-quarters of Americans believed that Saddam Hussein was responsible for attacking us on September 11. More than five years later, however, nearly half the American people still believes that Saddam was connected to the attack.

At first I thought the exhaustive, nonstop coverage of the O.J. Simpson trial was just unfortunate excess --- an unwelcome departure from the normal good sense and judgment of our news media. Now we know that it was merely an early example of a new pattern of serial obsession that periodically take over the airwaves for weeks at a time.

Late in the summer of 2006, American news coverage was saturated with the bizarre false confession of a man who claimed to have been present at the death of JonBenet Ramsey --- the six-year-old beauty queen whose unsolved murder eleven years before was responsible for another long-running obsession. A few months prior to John Mark Karr's arrest in Bangkok, the disappearance of a high school senior in Aruba and the intensive search for her body and her presumed murderer consumed thousands of hours of television coverage. Both cases remain unsolved as of this writing, and neither had any appreciable impact on the fate of the Republic.

Like JonBenet Ramsey, O.J. has recently been back at the center of another fit of obsessive-compulsive news, when his hypothetical confession wasn't published and his interviews on television wasn't aired. This particular explosion of "news" was truncated only when a former television sitcom star used racist insults in a night club. And before that we focus on the "Runaway Bride" in Georgia. And before that there was the Michael Jackson trial and the Robert Blake trial, the Laci Peterson tragedy and the Chandra Levy tragedy. And of course we can't forget Britney and KFed, and Lindsay and Paris and Nicole, Tom Cruise jumped on Oprah's couch and married Katie Holmes, who gave birth to Suri. And Russell Crowe apparently threw a phone at a hotel concierge.

In early 2007, the wall-to-wall coverage of Anna Nicole Smith's death, embalming, and funeral plans and the legal wrangling over the paternity and custody of her child and disposition of her estate, served as yet another particularly bizarre example of the new priorities in America's news coverage.

And while American television watchers were collectively devoting a hundred million hours of their lives each week to these and other similar stories, our nation was in the process of more quietly making what future historians will certainly describe as a series of catastrophically mistaken decisions on issues of war and peace, the global climate and human survival, freedom and barbarity, justice and fairness.

But of course, Al Gore is somehow a green post-modernist, empowering Karl Rove,being a Harvard grad, and all that.

Now clearly, I'm making fun. I understand KW has a lot on his plate - he isn't an expert in a lot of fields.

But his Integral Politics is clearly deeply deficient - so are there other integal analyses that are worthwhile, of the media situation? The banality and obsessiveness of the 24/7 news networks, really isn't a left/right issue - it comes in for mutual condemnation.

But what is the integral analysis?

Empty News Reporting - Integral Analysis?

ebuddha — Thu, 07 Jun 2007 11:32:34 -0700

So I biked into work today. At around 8 AM, went into the gym to shower, prepare for work, and noticed that on the cable news channels, reporting about Paris Hilton.

And just now, 3 hours later, I go into a corner store to get a snack - I look up at the TV, and what is being reported on?

Paris Hilton.

3 hours later.

(Oh, by the way, Paris Hilton is out of jail, in case you haven't heard. I didn't know she was in jail, but apparently she was, and now she is out.)

Which brings up, of course, the clear emptiness of current news reporting. Entertainment, rather than worthwhile news. What entertains, rather than what informs.

It would be interesting to see an integral analysis of this. The financial and economic analysis is straightforward - the news companies are focused on ratings, there is a ratings bump from entertainment related news, so the editors at the news channels allow 24/7 insipid coverage, dominated by corporate interests on substantial issues, and fluff the rest of the time. Whatever gets the ratings up, within reason.

The real question then, is where straight economic analysis is placed within the integral context?

Economic analysis focuses, interestingly enough, focuses on most everything BUT the I-dimension.   Mainly this type of analysis is IT and ITS focused, with a bit of WE analysis thrown in, for cultural dimensions.

My one sentence analysis of the shallowness of news is mainly an "externalist" rendering of the situation, with rational actors in the news divisions acting in a behavioristic fashion, in pursuit of those ratings bumps. With the product then produced by that process being shallow tripe.

It would be great to see a bit more of this in integral-land, with a focus on the reciprocity between the individual and cultural factors, that move in interdependence with the IT economic "hard" factors (actual resources), and ITS legal and economic structures that are in place.

It seems to me that Wilber talks about the external factors, only to abandon them in "inner" cultural and personal factors, when push comes to shove.

"The single greatest problem was stated this way. When green attacks orange, amber wins. And believe me, amber is winning, just ask Karl Rove. Despite a democratic victory here or there, the ranks of voters have downshifted towards amber, unmistakably and strongly. All of this thanks to the likes of green Harvard, which has finally succeeded in deconstructing it's own deconstructionists"

I would say that the hollowing out of news reporting, does downshift power towards amber. The prizing of vapid fame over important issues means, that in the main news world, important information doesn't get reported until it bites "the people" in the rear-end. Too late to do anything about it.

But how is that "green attacking orange?" The externalist factors I describe above - the search for ratings - account for the dumbing down of the news.    That isn't green, correct?

This is why Wilber's analysis fails so badly - so incredibly, awfully badly - on this point.   "Green" because a magic talisman of sorts, the boogieman, to not actually engage what is happening in the "real world".

Personality Change Possible for Adults?

ebuddha — Wed, 23 May 2007 18:23:14 -0700

If true, this is actually good news.

The static-character research is typically based on a definition of personality comprising five features, called the five-factor model, including openness to experience, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness and neuroticism.

While these factors are important to a person's character, Dweck argues they aren't the definitive word, and results generated from the model could be missing subtle, yet critical, aspects of personality. She will present her research this week at an annual meeting of the Association for Psychological Science in Washington, D.C.

"My point is that there's a really big in-between area that they don't talk about, and these are the crucial beliefs that people develop as they grow and learn," Dweck told LiveScience in a telephone interview.

From the always must-read Integral Options. Bill is simply a monster (in a good way), both physically and in terms of his prodigious blog output, as well as his constantly valuable speedlinking.

The rest of us simply are not worthy. But I'm cool with that.

To the Integral Color-Coders - What Color Is Al Gore?

ebuddha — Mon, 21 May 2007 13:40:46 -0700

I was looking briefly at this article in Time today - The Last Temptation of Al Gore - and then referring back to the Integral Politics in Brief tract I linked to earlier today.

Here's a quote from the Time article:

The Assault on Reason will be hailed and condemned as Gore's return to political combat. But at heart, it is a patient, meticulous examination of how the participatory democracy envisioned by our founders has gone awry—how the American marketplace of ideas has gradually devolved into a home-shopping network of 30-second ads and mall-tested phrases, a huckster's paradise that sells simulated participation to a public that has all but lost the ability to engage. Gore builds his argument from deep drafts of political and social history and trenchant bits of information theory, media criticism, computer science and neurobiology, and reading him is by turns exhausting and exhilarating. One moment he is lecturing you about something you think you know pretty well, and the next moment he's making a connection you had never considered. The associative leaps are dazzling, but what will stoke the Democratic faithful are his successive chapters on the Iraq war, each one strafing the Administration for a different set of misdeeds: exploiting the politics of fear, misusing the politics of faith, misleading the American people, throwing out the checks and balances at the heart of our democracy, undermining the national security and degrading the nation's image in the world. For anyone who stepped into the Oval Office now and tried to end the war, he says, "it would be like grabbing the wheel of a car that's in mid-skid. You're just trying to work the wheel to see what pulls you out of it." But the mess we're in can't be blamed solely on the President or the Vice President or the post-9/11 distortion field that muzzled the media, immobilized Congress and magnified Executive power. "I think this started before 9/11, and I think it's continued long after the penumbra of 9/11 became less dominant," he says. "I think it is part of a larger shift driven by powerful forces"—print giving way to television as our dominant medium for examining ideas, television acting on our brains in ways that scientists are just beginning to unlock. As such, it's not the sort of problem that legislation is going to fix. Gore hopes that the Internet, which is so good at inviting people back into the conversation, will be the key to restoring American democracy. "It's going to take time," he says. "After all, we've been veering off course for a while."

Now first off, I'm going to buy the new Gore book, An assault on reason - but take the paragraph above DESCRIBING Gore's book, and compare it to the shallow analysis given by Wilber above. (And again, I'll have more on this later.)

Which sounds deeper, more true, more resonant, more attendant to the facts as they are happening, not generalizations that fit a theory?

Integral Politics: A Summary of Its Essential Ingredients

ebuddha — Mon, 21 May 2007 10:18:27 -0700

Ken Wilber has been publishing stuff on Integral Politics. This is recent on the subject.

I've read through page 25.

I must say, I'm underwhelmed. Three points -

a. Ken can't seem to write "lingo" very well. Very stilted, cardboard, and silly, all of the people, and all of the dialogue between people.
b. The bringing in of integral theory, seems to be acting as a sort of deus ex machina. The concepts and explanations are brought in, but aren't actually hooked up with any real time practicalities.
c. Left and right are reduced to generalities that are basically content free. This is then expanded into the typical integral rap - levels and lines, etc. But nothing really to sink one's teeth into, outside of the integral concepts.

For example, there is exactly ONE reference to power, almost as an aside, when referencing Nietzsche.

Probably the only reference to any current situation (and I'm skimming now) is this quote: "The single greatest problem was stated this way. When green attacks orange, amber wins. And believe me, amber is winning, just ask Karl Rove. Despite a democratic victory here or there, the ranks of voters have downshifted towards amber, unmistakably and strongly. All of this thanks to the likes of green Harvard, which has finally succeeded in deconstructing it's own deconstructionists."

Umm...Harvard? That's the problem? That caused Karl Rove?

There's quite a lot of undisciplined thinking in this piece, that I've read so far. Really, you get better analysis at the smarter liberal and conservative blogs, frankly.

I hate to say it, but this type of piece is nothing so much as...silly. I don't even find much to be outraged about, as the piece is so clearly lacking in any substantive content, it could have been written by a particularly bright, 1st year political science student, exploring integral concepts.

I'm again skimming (this is realtime, I'm reading then writing), and it looks to get a little better towards the end. A few more distinctions brought in, that are useful. What do other people think of this piece?

Oprah endorses Obama

ebuddha — Thu, 03 May 2007 19:04:52 -0700

Better judgment that The Secret, certainly.

Bill Moyers and Jon Stewart

ebuddha — Sat, 28 Apr 2007 19:05:10 -0700

This Bill Moyers interview with Jon Stewart is very illuminating, on a lot of levels.

For one, he truly continues a level of self-depracation of what he does, that I find admirable.
Two, his general analysis, say, of the Gonzales administration, is very right on.
Three, regarding Virginia Tech - near the end of this interview with Bill Moyers, there is a segment showing Stewart interviewing Allawi, and commenting on the fact that, in Iraq, there is a Virginia Tech massacre, "every day". In that, this is similar to my thoughts on the subject.

Worth watching.

Virginia Tech

ebuddha — Thu, 26 Apr 2007 16:35:16 -0700

I haven't written anything on Virginia Tech. The truth is, for, me, I've been, choosing, in a way, to hear about massacres for the last 4 years.

I have an RSS feed for Iraq Coalition Casualities. It brings all the updates to the "news" portion, on the right side. (The feed is down below).

As such, for the past 4 years, I've gotten messages of new bombings, mass graves, etc, filling up my Reader, on a daily basis.

And actually, within a week, the number of casualties in Iraq were 10 times the number of people killed due to violence, than were killed in the VA Tech massacre. And 11 american troops on Apirl 23rd.

Maybe I should stop receiving the feed?

I can't help but view this, as simply another tragedy, yes, horrible, and yes, deeply sad. I can't make it "bigger" than tragedies that happen across the globe, or more meaningful than those either.

In this sense, it seems I am clearly in the minority. Even in integral circles.

Nevertheless, that is what is noticed, from this perspective, and this pair of eyes.

Dalai Lama a target of assassination by Al-Queda?

ebuddha — Thu, 05 Apr 2007 16:49:37 -0700

Actually, a link to another group which has cooperated with Al-Queda, but a lot of these Pakistan/Afghanistan Islamic groups exchange people, information and resources.

Here is the article. Notable quote:

A three-tier security ring has been thrown around the 72-year-old Buddhist head, who lives at Dharamsala, in the Himalayan foothills, Indian police spokesman Prem Lal said.

All those approaching the exiled Tibetan chief will be closely watched by highly trained Tibetan security guards as well as heavily armed deployments of Indian police.

Visitors are being body-searched before being allowed to approach him.

This makes me incredibly sad, but it's part and parcel of the age.

And then it brings up, of course, how non-violence may be an inappropriate response, to determined aggression. We knew this of course, simply from China's extermination of the Tibetans as a separate people, over the last 50 years.

Thanks to Matthew Dallman for the link.

The National Review article, throughout, conflates priests practices Buddhism, with people who are primarily Buddhist, but acting out of nationalism - but the main point still remains that in certain situations, even practicing buddhist priets have responded to force, with force.

Nice! Zaadz riffs on MySpace

ebuddha — Mon, 02 Apr 2007 09:28:16 -0700

Shades of Apple/PC, but the Zaadz guy is even cooler.

Definitely a funny ad.

First were blogs - now blog communities born every second

ebuddha — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 16:59:34 -0700

Okay, that's an exaggeration.

But a good article here on, how easy it is to set up a blog community, and then the inevitable questions regarding how to manage membership in multiple communities.

The quote:

Any whoozit with a hundred bucks can install an elgg or a drupal or a moodle or a wiki and spam the bloggosphere saying that “this is the new community… supporting (insert obscure bit of cartilage on the long tail here)” We are increasingly collaborative, increasingly involved in collaboration… We are members of our banking sites, our research sites our community sites our schools our communities of practice…

Now THIS is an environmental home I could live in!

ebuddha — Thu, 15 Mar 2007 14:01:51 -0700

From Plenty Magazine:

3000 square foot home
Hydrogen run car
Hydrogen run golf car

And only 500K to build.

Shoot, in the San Francisco, you can't find a studio apartment with 750 square feet, under 500K.

Spending Priorities!

ebuddha — Thu, 18 Jan 2007 11:04:50 -0800

This image certainly isn't a very integral way to spend your money, is it?

From the New York Times, on the cost of the Iraq War.

Fun Buddhist Fact: Buddhist Don't Meditate

ebuddha — Thu, 11 Jan 2007 10:37:48 -0800

Read this Tricycle post to find out why.

Noticed this at Blogmandu.

Buddhist Geeks Launches

ebuddha — Mon, 08 Jan 2007 09:30:36 -0800

Check it out!

What's Next at WorldChanging - 32 Perspectives Look Ahead

ebuddha — Thu, 04 Jan 2007 12:50:02 -0800

True to it's groundbreaking nature, WorldChanging has published an end-of-the-year "What's Next", for 32 of their contributors. True to form, the articles tend towards the informative, without being overly long.

While there is some repetition - lots of "this will be the year", I definitely got a lot of reading this articles.

This one from Gil Friend:

The key words I'm watching for 2007: generative feedback. Performance feedback that doesn't just track behavior; it drives it.

I think this also tracks with any "spiritual science", and tracks with integral feedback.

Also, from one of the articles, found the site Instructables - collaborative web 2.0 site for How-To. Looks interesting!

Fresh Cohen Fodder

ebuddha — Wed, 03 Jan 2007 09:21:16 -0800

Since I have a comment by a reader, in a previous post, I will go ahead and point to a new article up at What Enlightenment, by a major contributor (millions of dollars) to Andrew Cohen's work.

She details out, from her perspective, the process that Cohen went through to secure a 2 million dollar donation from her.

Now, individual posts like this, you have to be cautious of - but given that, in this post, she details some of her own personal issues honestly, as well as gets some corroboration from other NAMED individuals in the comments, the post is worth paying attention to.

I'm not sure what it will take for Integral Institute and Ken Wilber, to STOP giving any oxygen to this guy, but hopefully it will happen soon. After a year of exposure, from various sources, it can't come soon enough. (I vote, with my Sponsor Plus membership in Integral Institute, to drop this guy). When will Ken wake up about this particular issue? Anyone at I-I ever do a Q&A with Ken on this particular issue?

(Note - don't do a Q&A NOW - Ken's had a marvelous and inspiring recovery, as detailed in this blogpost, but at some point maybe someone can find out Ken's stance.)

Michael Crichton - Gracious and Civil Global Warming Critic

ebuddha — Tue, 19 Dec 2006 08:57:46 -0800

Or maybe not...

Spiritual Intelligence (SQ) and Competencies to Define It

ebuddha — Thu, 14 Dec 2006 11:52:24 -0800

A very interesting post at Parzifal's Blog.

I think this has been linked to before, but what is interesting about this, is that this attempt to define what is spiritual intelligence, and what defines that, is backed up with research that has been compiled through various workshops.

The results utilize the framework of the quadrants, as well as the framework of competencies and assessments, and an attempt to separate out levels - or consolidate ALTITUDE. Very consonant with Integral Spirituality.

I also simply like the SQ distinction as well. As multiple intelligences go, why not an SQ? And the assessments which measure it?

Arctic ice could be gone by 2040

ebuddha — Tue, 12 Dec 2006 14:33:08 -0800

here is a link to a good video, on projections of arctic ice disappearance. Only 2 minutes long.

Gary Stamper on Ken and I-I

ebuddha — Sat, 09 Dec 2006 18:51:30 -0800

Some good thoughts.

NOTE: In case you were unaware, Gary has created the largest grassroots integral community (of course, you knew that, right?)

Pongsathorn Experience of Dzogchen

ebuddha — Fri, 08 Dec 2006 12:02:28 -0800

An interesting report from Pongsathorn on meeting Dzogchen teachers.

Haves and Have Nots

ebuddha — Thu, 07 Dec 2006 15:55:16 -0800

Saw Peter post this at Zaadz:

“The report, from the World Institute for Development Economics Research at the UN University, says that the poorer half of the world’s population own barely 1% of global wealth.”

Then I saw this report on World Bank efforts to reduce poverty the last ten years:

Despite an intensified campaign against poverty, World Bank programs have failed to lift incomes in many poor countries over the past decade, leaving tens of millions of people suffering stagnating and even declining living standards, according to a report released Thursday by the bank's autonomous assessment arm.

Clearly, these two articles are related. There has been a vast effort, on the part of the economic elites, to "grow the wealth" over the last several years. But doing this, without paying attention to who benefits, simply makes sure the haves get more - in the article:

"For a sustained reduction in poverty over a period of time, it really pays to worry about both growth and distribution," said Vinod Thomas, director-general of the Independent Evaluation Group. "It has been a mistaken notion that you can grow first and worry about the distribution later."

There are also many social issues, that have to worked out internally, before economic use can be of aid. You have to "pick your spots", so to speak, and take an integral, holistic, and pragmatic approach - paying attention not only to the economic picture, but the levels of consciousness and power distrubution, clan rivalries, etc - in a country.

Adding Music to Zaadz

ebuddha — Thu, 07 Dec 2006 10:54:07 -0800

I saw this from C4Chaos -

Very cool functionality at Zaadz. You can choose the song, and using "open" functionality, this uses another application - Project Playlist

Although, I have to say, some of C4's music selections are seriously sappy!! Life By the Drop though - that is cool.

(But hey, anyone who sees my IPod would say the same. We all have those sappy songs that "get" us).

Still, a small poke at C4 - why isn't Changes on there? That would be perfect for this playlist!

Phillipines, Typhoon Durian, and Infrastructure

ebuddha — Mon, 04 Dec 2006 09:40:32 -0800

This weekend, the effects of Typhoon Durian is assumed to have killed 1000 people in the Phillipines.

These type of tragedies, are simply pointless, given that smart infrastructure can mitigate the damage and death that comes from these type of natural disasters.

Take a look at this list of severe European windstorms. Notice, as time progresses, the lesser number of deaths. This is mainly due to stronger infrastructure, buildings, tolerance testing in architecture, canals for decent runoff, etc.

I simply cannot comprehend the type of value system that spends 3 billion on a destroyer, as well as other military boondoggles, when the opportunity exists to sow UNIVERSAL good will, by utilizing these funds for helping nations out with good infrastructure.

Perhaps that is naive - but I do believe that this creates both:

a. Goodwill
b. Economic partners that are more interested in productive commerce, than being a "bad" neighbor.

NOTE: This of course doesn't mean that ALL the effects of natural disasters can be mitigated. But some can.

Of course, we see this same type of blindness with global warming - and the exact same poorer countries will suffer the worst effects.

Integral Blogging And Calling Bullshit -The Integral Way

ebuddha — Fri, 01 Dec 2006 11:43:59 -0800

I saw this article about Calling Bullshit, over at the Watchdog blog - it is an article mainly about the vapidness of our current press, especially as it comes to being stenographers for the White House, rather than skeptical inquirers.

I will fess up - I am built in a skeptical way - if I perceive something that strikes me as B.S., not truthful, I immediately am psychically galvanized. "What is going on?" "Why did they say that?", or even better "WTF?"

This particular voice - this identity - is a particularly strong identity in the awareness field comprising myself.

Now, I do have SOME space from this voice. Especially when you sit in meditation, and as the chattering mind runs down, runs out of places to hide, I get treated to a spectacle of the "bullshit detector mind", inside of me, and seeing in a sense, just how shallow that particular voice can be.

The problem is - this voice is very very useful, to me, and very, very valuable. That ability to distinguish truth from falsehood, to make determinations about people, positive and negative, to be truthful and blunt with oneself - it really is quite a good survival mechanism in the world. Even in the job situation, to see a path through to a clean product.

As such, this voice can be very hard to disidentify with, as my self-identity - to the degree that I a identified with anything, has a big degree of identification with this voice.

Now, here's my sweeping statement - BLOGGERS especially, INCLUDING integral bloggers, have that voice in spades - it's not just me!!

And I think there is some proof to this fact, given all the integral bloggers activity regarding Ken's Wyatt Earp post. (yes, this means YOU reading this!) Especially since a lot of integral thinking has to do with SYNTHESIS, as analysis. When you engage in synthesis anlysis, you engage the limitations of one train of thought - focusing on the contradictions (and b.s.) of that particular train of thought for - hopefully - a higher view.

And the thing is, there are problems with this voice - there is bullshit in the bullshit detector, if you don't mind my language. A few spring to mind -

a. Not all B.S. is equal. To give an example, from the political world - what type of b.s. is more damaging - lying about a sexual encounter in the White House, or lying to the american public to get people into a war? (I'm not providing answers to this, just laying out the scenario.)
b. You can "fool" the b.s. meter, by appealing to the frame (this is a lie/self-contradiction) by setting up fake b.s. - we see this a lot in the current political market via smearing of opponents, dishonestly, or trumping up the charges, or blowing out of proportion an inconsistency in behavoir as a HUGE character issue.
c. The b.s. meter can be misapplied - for example, in one sense, b.s. and ethics are related.

Example: Someone isn't "in integrity" between their stated beliefs and their actions - but recognized that , is not the same as saying that person is unethical. So a sense of "moral outrage", which is found when someone else transgresses against a moral value of another (moral turpitude!) - is often conflated with a straight out b.s. meter. Thus people will accuse each other of this or that, or people will say "you are coming from an amber place - improve your colors - get your a$$ into violet!".

Or some such.

So, what does this have to do with integral, or with spirituality?

Well, I'm just exploring ideas right now (and by the way, saying "I'm just exploring, while true, is a good defense against the b.s. meter, because you aren't, you know, saying something authoritatively!), but here goes.

I'd like to see what an "integral b.s. meter" would look like. Or, without the integral language, how a b.s. meter "should" work, from a higher consciousness place. As I can't see us integral bloggers getting less attached to our b.s. calling (although it would probably be a good personal growth experiment, if I, for say three months, said nothing that was "critical", or pointing out the limitations of a particular point of view or action. But given my job, that is nearly impossible.)

a. Focusing on "the facts maam". My main issue with the Wilber Earpy posts, was the obvious misrepresentation of another's views. While there were others who had some moral problems with the language, or the harshness, that didn't seem to come from a higher perspective, if you deem those as "subjective", then the obviousness of the misrepresentation of Frank Visser's actual post, was still problematic.

b. Developing a "ranking scale" of b.s. I think this would take awhile, but - it might be worth doing. Does one episode of anger, suddenly discount 10 years of being a saint otherwise? Can that type of judgment be made. This is also important, in the spiritual community, as - should spiritual leaders have human foibles? Should they always be exemplars of human behavior? Are they allowed to laugh at bad jokes? Can they fart in public? (I figure three bad episodes do disqualify a particular teacher. Maybe even two - sorta like the "fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me".) Does repeated horrible integral analysis that misrepresents both facts, and then also lies by omission, discredit that analysis? I could say this about a couple of integral bloggers out there - and back it up, based on MANY different instances of their writing - but I don't, for three reasons.

1. In the spirit of comity (brotherly love!)
2. because hey, my perspective is limited, and
3. There are few enough of us, that it doesn't make sense to argue about angels on the head of a pin, right?

Lastly, when we engage our b.s. detector, it is important, from a spiritual perspective to remember "You are not that". And - for me at least - distinguishing between that "outraged reaction" or "that's B.S!" and the fundament of awareness that is my true nature - that is important as well. If my energy is in the b.s. detector, rather than enlightened awareness, then that is a problem.

So, I ask the question - how would an "enlightened" or "integral" b.s. detector work? I would REALLY appreciate some thoughtful responses to this post.

Thanks!

Smart Energy Efficiency

ebuddha — Wed, 29 Nov 2006 14:16:47 -0800

Good World Changing Article on saving energy, using technologies we have - some decades old:

The world is ripe with efficiency opportunities. ("The low-hanging fruit," as Lovins puts it, "is mushing up around our ankles.") His Rocky Mountain Institute points out that in industrial settings, "there are abundant opportunities to save 70% to 90% of the energy and cost for lighting, fan, and pump systems; 50% for electric motors; and 60% in areas such as heating, cooling, office equipment, and appliances." In general, up to 75% of the electricity used in the U.S. today could be saved with efficiency measures that cost less than the electricity itself.

The post goes into how the incentives to adopt these measures, just aren't there - energy costs still are a low percent of overall costs, even at 70%.

If this becomes a priority, regulation would have to be adopted, for this to happen.