`Ibn Arabi has a splendid take on the entire affair. I read it in Toshihiko Izutsu’s Sufism and Taoism and it blew me away. In the Qur’an, the Muslim scripture, the story is touched upon, with an angel arriving just in the nick of time to tell Abraham to cease:
“””And when they had both submitted and he put him down upon his forehead, 104. We called to him, "O Abraham. You have fulfilled* the vision." Indeed, We thus reward the doers of good. Indeed, this was the clear trial. And We ransomed him with a great sacrifice”””
*Ibn Arabi has this as “you have believed the dream”.
“”” Then when the boy reached the age to work with him, Abraham said, “O my dear son! I have seen in a dream that I ˹must˺ sacrifice you. So tell me what you think.” He replied, “O my dear father! Do as you are commanded. Allah willing, you will find me steadfast.”
”””
In Izutzu [1] we read how Ibn Arabi, a very influential Muslim mystic-saint, had read the narrative as Abraham being still in thrall of the illusion of materiality (“the world”) and reading the signs of God literally. This vision then, a great trial, was entirely designed to knock sense into him, awakening him to a higher consciousness.
Typically the gods did not look favorably on inferior product being placed on the alter. Even King Kong demands the hottest young babe in the tribe, does he not? Did anyone ever “sacrifice” hoary old men or women to gods? (Only in passage of kingship did humans ritually kille the elder males.)
So “religious” thinking would tend to demand something dear. This is inline with an inherent bug in human psyche — a false thought - that God wants something from us and is prone to making unreasonable demands from humanity.
We live in an age so devoid of sacrifice that it's hard for us to wrap our heads around why this was so common and so important. This act would add a layer of irrefutable legitimacy to the groups religious beliefs, and as such would make those beliefs into a unbreakable social bond. Grief is a powerful social glue, and when you use it so intentionally and solemnly it becomes a core part of the social fabric that held these groups together for hundreds of years in an ultra-hostile environment.
“Strictly speaking, you see, it’s prayers that go up to the gods,” said the priest doubtfully.
“As I understand it,” said Moist, “the gift of sausages are offered to Offler by being fried, yes? And the spirit of the sausages ascends unto Offler by means of the smell? And then you eat the sausages?”
“Ah, no. Not exactly. Not at all,” said the young priest, who knew this one. “It might look like that to the uninitiated, but, as you say, the true sausagidity goes straight to Offler. He, of course, eats the spirit of the sausages. We eat the mere earthly shell, which believe me turns to dust and ashes in our mouths.”
“That would explain why the smell of sausages is always better than the actual sausage, then?” said Moist. “I’ve often noticed that.”
The priest was impressed. “Are you a theologian, sir?”
There is this possibility to consider. Another Muslim Saint, Junaid (R), said “Water takes the color of the cup it is poured in”. The Prophet (SAWS) said “There is no I but Allah”.
You can always fashion a new cup to suit your contingent condition. But the spirit of Sacrifice, and the Enjoying of the pleasures is eternal and immutable. Is it possible that ritual sacrifice, however distorted by the understanding of ancient people, is an intrinsic impetus of the conscious knowing, feeling, desiring (and at times afflicted) being known as Human, guiding us to detachment so that we may too enjoy without attachment, like God.
Clever is not sufficient. They also need to be informed.
From a practical point of view, they will be sleeping in that bed far longer than the older generations, so maybe “we should let them do their thing” and hope and pray that we won’t have to spend too much time in that bed. But then history and near-history call to remind that many instances of future generations almost cursing the lack of forethought of their predecessors when affecting fundamental changes. Those generations too have a claim in this sort of radical societal changes. Would a future generation trapped in a full-blown 1984 society think it “clever” of their grandparents that they have now put an end to “domestic violence”?
The overall red flag for me of this sort of remedy —- total surveillance to insure 100% compliance — are their absolute guarantees and promises of immediate results. Let’s take domestic violence as an example. Beyond pathological cases, in the main this is an area where we can aim for generational advancements in anger management, positive channeling of psychological stresses, and addressing other socio-economic conditions that contribute to engender this type of behavior. We won’t see immediate results but eradication seems in reach within a few generations. In the interim, there remains the possibility of social intervention via various legal and institutional channels.
> red flag for me of this sort of remedy ... are their absolute guarantees and promises of immediate results
This doesn't even cover the half of it. The problem with adding more central authority to any situation is the increased opportunities for confused deputies. In other words, abusers adapt their behavior - both conforming their behavior to the system's rules of what is considered acceptable, and leveraging those rules (and thus the power of the central authority) against their victim.
I share the opinion that it is psyop and it is a very long running project. At one level it is a nice psyop platform - like Star Trek for the psychological warfare professionals. Over the years they have influenced American thought about the government to a great degree. X-Files. For example, most Americans, and this “whistleblower” here, now accept that elements in the US government are operating entirely outside of the overview and control of the government, where the executive and legislature do not have “the clearance” to be informed about it.
Emotionally it is also slowly preparing humanity for the possibility of a confrontation with a power that we possibly can not resist and must obey. Aliens may turn out to have strong theological and sociological views that they want to share with us. This is more than just slowly boiling the constitutional frog in the cauldron of “national security”. Somewhat /g more far fetched but definitely one reason to have ex intelligence grandees from Mosad and CIA (and now this man) come and tell us all about aliens in our midst.
Unless there exists some really simple way to do FTL travel that we're soon to discover, any civilization advanced enough to visit Earth should be able to wipe us out as quickly as humanity can burn an anthill.
So, assuming members of such a civilization is actually here, they're likely to be friendly, and any psyop similar to what you describe would be staged for our benefit.
Using X-files or Star Trek as representations of what the future is likely to be like, is just as obviously improbable as using The Lord of The Rings to understand Medieval Europe.
Sorry, how long is this supposed to take? You're saying we're going to be dominated by aliens and must be prepared for that? That's not how conquests normally work is it? There's no consent involved. And you're also saying this 'preparation' has been happening for 70 years? How long have we got before they actually arrive and how much prep do we need?
There is no invasion as there are no aliens. It is psyop. A genre (“platform”) of psyop has been tried out over the years, and a developing thread (based on other propaganda channels, such as fiction, and film) is the coming ‘encounter’. Here “US is urged to reveal UFO evidence” is published by a major Western establishment press, The Guardian, based on 2nd hand information and not on actual personally witnessed evidence.
The issue of having “major world religions” that are not in accord (per orthodox understanding of respective faithful) remains an issue for establishment of a uniform social order on the planet. It’s going to be difficult to have a world government without a unified world religion. “Aliens” can help with that.
As a thought exercise, imagine aliens have landed. Aliens could inform us that for example ‘angels’ were really the aliens and that we sadly misunderstood their messages. Various syncretic efforts have also been ongoing since at least 19th century (“new age”) so the ground has been well prepared. To conclude the exercise, ask yourself what impact this will have on your belief system.
This is my thinking as well. Though the entire Admiral Byrd, Antarctica, supposed Nazi tech and Operation Paperclip, Werner von Braun founding NASA lends some credibility to the idea that there might be a weirder angle the tech aspect at least. Combine "alien tech" with a tumbling empire and this would get ugly.
Not a believer myself, but it was an interesting deep dive.
He is apparently BAM CEO (B) of the SEC’s Binance lawsuit [0], and also worked at Coinbase (to setup compliance) [1]. I was reading up on his activities on his wiki page and rather impressed. Was a comptroller of the Currency for a while in 2020, too. He’s still sitting on the board of another company that’s in block chains (BitFury [2] does infrastructure) and apparently a lot of “vision” related stuff [3]
“”” After working at Fannie Mae, Brooks was Chief Legal Officer of Coinbase from 2018 to 2020. Coinbase is an $8 billion Silicon Valley startup that is one of the largest digital currency platforms in the world. At Coinbase, he was responsible for the company's legal, compliance, internal audit, government relations, and global intelligence groups. “””
I got a chuckle from the “democratizing edge AI” since they are selling surveillance AI for the edge. Reminded me of Washington Post’s masthead. Are they being ironic? /g
If a dog takes a beating, it will remember that, will be affected by it, will suffer for it, long after the physical event has passed. Just like us. The question is whether a crab would remember getting a beating. That is the difference between pseudo-mechanical stimulus-response and learned behavior, and a being that is ‘sentient’.
“””And when they had both submitted and he put him down upon his forehead, 104. We called to him, "O Abraham. You have fulfilled* the vision." Indeed, We thus reward the doers of good. Indeed, this was the clear trial. And We ransomed him with a great sacrifice”””
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham_in_Islam#Sacrifice
*Ibn Arabi has this as “you have believed the dream”.
“”” Then when the boy reached the age to work with him, Abraham said, “O my dear son! I have seen in a dream that I ˹must˺ sacrifice you. So tell me what you think.” He replied, “O my dear father! Do as you are commanded. Allah willing, you will find me steadfast.” ”””
In Izutzu [1] we read how Ibn Arabi, a very influential Muslim mystic-saint, had read the narrative as Abraham being still in thrall of the illusion of materiality (“the world”) and reading the signs of God literally. This vision then, a great trial, was entirely designed to knock sense into him, awakening him to a higher consciousness.
[1]: https://traditionalhikma.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Sufi...