+006_Don't get hijacked by bad ideas (PARASITIC PROCESSING). Spiral up to enlightenment.

John Vervaeke explains how "the same systems that make us so intelligently adaptive can also lead to self deception/ self-destruction" ---> BUT, if there's a spiral down, there's a spiral up.

1. THE GOAL OF THIS POST

1.Learn how to stop idea-hijackings that lead you on a SPIRAL DOWN into harmful ideologies and “self deceptive, self destructive behavior.”

2.Aim that powerful meaning-making / self-organizing / process-creating impulse that you have towards something good: SPIRAL UP!

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2. Idea Hijackings.

A. VAX vs NOVAX wars in the COVID era.

We all know the feeling, whatever side you were on. It doesn’t really matter. It’s about that known feeling that the other person—your loved ones—were completely lost. Damned. Irredeemable.

And now, nobody cares. Basically.

It’s like we all just got held up at a red-light by an idea—an idea hijacker—and we’re trying to forget it ever happened.

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B. Meeting flat-earth-ers.

I met a flat-earther who changed my oil once. He jumped right into it. He had something to say. He was JUST arguing on the phone with his son about flat earth…at work…changing oil. Then he started on me. I didn’t even say anything, he was just running the script.

“You don’t really think the earth is round do you?”

That’s what he said.

Sometimes people just run a script…

David Foster Wallace had a good way of describing this kind of script dialogue people kind of snap into. There’s a portion in INFINITE JEST where a character confronts a ideological person in the midst of their rant.

You sound different now. Your voice. Why are you talking different when we get on this subject? It’s like the tone of your voice has changed or something.

It’s like it’s not even you, anymore.

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C. One time I got hijacked by the idea of “Systemic Oppression.”

First time I heard about Systemic Oppression it was in an interview with a music artist that I really respected.

The idea of Systemic Oppression was so salient (John’s Word) and obviously right to me and clearly the right way of framing the situation that I looked at other people as bad people if they down-played it. If they emphasized personal responsibility. I looked at them as racist. I was indignant. I was offended and angry and passionate.

Then I came across Steven Crowder’s CHANGE MY MIND stuff—and the indignant The woke-ness was reflected back at me and it was ugly…

Then i changed.

This was probably 2016-ISH.

Not that I’m super conservative now. I’m a real middle road guy.

But I made a note…I continually make notes. We get swept up. We can go to war and fight on behalf of and feel so personally convinced of ideas.

Now I would just tell past me to chill a little bit. Keep an open mind. Don’t condemn people with opposite views. Whatever you do—don’t get hijacked.

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SO NOW when I see people get swept up in ideas, I don’t think they’re bad people—or at least not any worse than I am—I just think that an idea’s got ahold of them. Like what happened to me—over and over again.

Forever now, I’ve been trying to figure out what to do about this, or how this process works.

Low and behold…

Enter Dr. John Vervaeke.

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3. SLEEP LIGHTLY. We are prone to “Parasitic Processing…”

“The very processes that make you adaptively intelligent, also make you vulnerable to self deceptive, self destructive behavior.”

- Dr. Vervaeke

Go to minute 25 of the video

to hear him describe the following process:

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For subscribers to The Creative Brief +PLUS+ this article continues with:

1. A written breakdown of the “parasitic processing” graphic.

2. More Personal Hijacking Experiences.

3. HOW TO SPIRAL UP ^^^