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HEAVEN ON EARTH MARKS THE END OF ‘EGO SUPREMACY’

“The real cause of human suffering lies in the lack of education (social awareness) about the ‘ego’ and how it controls our perception (without being detected).” -Anon I mus (Spiritually Anonymous)

THE EGO

“From the time that we were little children, we began to form mental images of who we think we are; a fictional identity based on our personal and cultural conditioning. When we identify with this phantom self (body-mind entity), we are in ‘ego mode’. None of us are born with an ‘ego’ (social mask), it is learned; an artificial construct that is built into the fabric of how we see, think, speak, feel and behave. The real cause of human suffering is holding onto false narratives that we are powerless, defective, worthless, fearful, limited and disconnected beings from each other and the universe as a whole. To protect our distorted self-image, we unconsciously think and act out behaviors that are the exact opposite of what we internalized in order to ‘compensate’ for our lack. To transcend the prison of our egoic programming is to be aware of how it functions inside us and remove our personal identification and attachment with it (as witnessing presence).”  ~Anon I mus (Spiritually Anonymous)

CHARACTERISTICS OF THE EGO:

The ego attaches and identifies with your personal story and world history * it resents change * it needs to control through dominance * it wants approval from others (external validation through recognition, attention and praise) * it craves more power over people and/or circumstances * it lives in constant comparison to others * it feels the need to be right (mental standpoint) * it thinks it is the personal doer of actions * it believes itself to be the mind-body entity only * it is conditional * it promotes separation/exclusivity * it feels a sense of lack, craving more and more (for its needs are never satisfied) * it is insecure * it feels a sense of entitlement * it feels guilt * it gossips * it worries * it is shallow * it holds grudges * it unconsciously seeks out drama (to feel important) * it focuses on past/future (at the expense of the present) * it is emotionally reactive * it depends on the opinions of others for a sense of self * it does not trust * it is defensive (taking things personally) * it is co-dependent on people * it represses * it cannot love unconditionally * it is possessive * it accumulates * it projects expectations onto others (expecting others to meet its standards or wishes) * it creates resistance to what really is * it seeks meaning and happiness from external things * its envious * it lives in the dark (confusion) * it labels and judges people and things * it plays victim role or perpetrator * it projects blame * it complains * it is unconscious of itself*    

~Anon I mus (Spiritually Anonymous)

*for more information on this subject visit

http://egoawarenessmovement.org/

http://spiritualenlightenment4nobodies.com/

https://wikisearcheranonimus.wordpress.com/about/

https://www.youtube.com/user/SpirituallyAnonImus

“Give me five minutes to explain taxes to you: The top marginal tax rate is currently 39.6 percent, which remember, is an altogether different thing from the effective tax rate that wealthy people end up actually paying after taking advantage of various tax loopholes. What does that even mean - a ‘marginal tax’ rate of 39.6 percent? Does it mean the average person pays 39.6% in taxes? No. Does it mean that the income earners in the top one percent pays 39.6% in taxes? NO! Here’s what a marginal tax rate of 39.6% means: First, as of 2013 the top tax rate for individuals currently doesn’t begin unless you earn $406,750 dollars. Actually, that tax rate doesn’t even take effect until you make $406,750 + $1 dollar. Got that part? That’s important. Here’s the tricky detail that most people miss: the 39.6% tax rate is only applicable on anything OVER $406,750 dollars. So if you made $406,752 dollars, then only two ($2) of those dollars will be taxed at the highest rate of 39.6%…and the other $406,750 is not. Of course, this does not take into account the numerous tax loopholes that I alluded to earlier. Thus, if the top marginal tax rate is 39.6 percent, then after using any number of tax loopholes, write offs and various other cheats, it’s entirely possible earn over $406,750 dollars per year and still pay even less in taxes than a working class American earning much less. SN: this applies only to people who do actual work for a paycheck. If, on the other hand, your primary income is from inheritance or stock investments and you pay all your bills off of that interest (aka “capital gains”), then your taxes work differently altogether (hint: they’re even lower). Take multi-billionaire Mitt Romney, for example. In 2010 he only paid an effective (real) tax rate of 13.9 percent, odds are that’s much lower than the tax rate you (or your parents) just paid. Here’s the last thing you should remember: Only one percent of Americans make $400,750 a year or higher. Stated differently, the top income tax rate effects around 3.5 million —out of 350,000,000 Americans. And that’s only on the dollars ABOVE $400,750. BOO HOO right? Approximately 3.5 million Americans might, maybe, perhaps *possibly* have to pay the top federal income tax rate…but only on anything above $406,750 dollars…and only if they refuse to take advantage of ridiculously huge tax loopholes so big you could fly a jumbo jet through them. THAT is what conservatives are crying about when they complain about the top tax rate. That’s it.”

— This is why whining about the top tax rate is a joke and Republicans are the party for the Greedy One Percent (and the deluded suckers “future millionaires“ who repeatedly vote for them)

Sarah Learns Cyber Security (Part 1 - Passwords and TextSecure?)

In my hands I hold a weapon of mass destruction and madness, a tool that only a few short years ago was every science fiction movie’s wet dream.

I own a smart phone. (LG Nexus 4, running Android 4.3 Jelly Bean) Now I kinda hope that people who know more than me will read this and maybe throw me a bone. And I kinda hope that people who know less than me will read this and perhaps reconsider their own security practices.

I am terrified of my cell phone. I’m not scared of cancer or radiation or that my head will explode while pumping gas. But I am very, very afraid for my safety.

And perhaps the biggest problem is that I want to have my cake and eat it too.

I want to be social and take awesome selfies with my friends on my adventures. I want to be able to quickly check my bank account so I can discreetly see if I can grab dinner with my friends. I want to be able to look up a map for new places to check out or directions when I am lost.

But I also want to be safe. I don’t want to inadvertently become an accessory to a crime because I was geotagged in a location while on a photo adventure. I don’t want my financial information stolen from me, or my location broadcast to predators. Or anyone for that matter. It freaks me out that Google knew within a week that I had left my last job.

Maybe I watch too much Person Of Interest. But what scares me the most about that show is how dead on it is. It’s not that hard to get people’s information, most people give it away willingly, and there is a Machine. It’s called Google. But watching this show really opened my eyes to how blind I’ve been and how ignorant I am when it comes to my own safety.

The fact is, I don’t feel safe with my phone. I am terrified of this thing. I am so scared every time I check my Facebook, or send a text message. These scenarios I describe are not worst case scenarios. These are common, real life situations that are not that difficult to accomplish.

When ATM’s first became a thing, my mom was terrified of them and refused to use them. It took some hard core convincing on my dad’s part to convince her that it was okay. I remember telling Ocean the following story:

“Like, I don’t get it. My mom is a computer scientist project manager who’s afraid of an ATM. How lame is that?”

His response: “Your mom was afraid because she’s smart and her fear was not irrational at all.”

And now here I am, the next generation of paranoia, and it’s my cell phone that I am trying to avoid using.

I am thisclose to selling my smartphone, and jumping back on the CDMA network with a talk and text phone. CDMA is way more secure than HSPA. (One of many reasons why it’s considerably slower.) But knowledge is power and I see many people I look up to using their smart phones. Professional hackers, cyber security experts, mobile security experts, military and police personnel, developers… they are not afraid of their phones. And if they can feel safe using their phones, then maybe with some knowledge, I can feel safe using mine too.

It’s not that I have anything to hide (well, perhaps a few questionable pictures), but rather the fact that I feel like my life isn’t my own. I feel like I can be blackmailed or made very, very vulnerable by an inanimate object and that’s scary to me.

Step 1 - encrypt phone… I don’t really know how this works, but encryption is good, right? Sounds legit. Seriously. I know what encryption is, but how this works to keep me safer, I’m still not really sure.

Step 2 - password protect that shit. When I still worked in mobile sales, I used to cringe every time someone would hand me a phone with no password. In fact, if you do nothing else, put a password on your phone. (Thank you Ocean for drilling that one into my head a year ago.)

Step 3 - turn off GPS, Bluetooth, NFC, Wi-Fi when you are not using them. My resurgence of smart phone paranoia started again when I was messaging someone over Facebook and all of a sudden, I saw that it was also messaging my GPS co-ordinates and a handy dandy little map of where I’m messaging from. It’s a damn good thing I know him and trust him.

Step 4 - Realize that you don’t trust Facebook’s ever changing privacy policy because you don’t understand it, change the password on your phone, go in and remove location permissions *again* because Facebook seems to find some way to reinstate those without my knowledge far too often for my liking. Start messaging this guy over email.

Passwords are supposed to be the key to our safety. The cliff notes crash course on passwords… the longer, the better. The more you mix up, numbers, special characters, capital and lower case letters, the safer you’ll be. And have a different, unrelated password for everything. Great fantastic advice. Now back to the real world for a moment… how the hell am I supposed to remember all these passwords and still be safe? AAAHHHHHH!!!!!!!

Step 5 - Install TextSecure. All my security smart friends are using it, so it must be legit. Almost lose my shit when half of my text messages stop sending properly. Lose ability to send multimedia messages. Hand phone to Amadeus and say “fix it!!!!!” Regain ability to text him, but no longer able to text Smile or Wink. Wait until next morning to have Wink walk me through what happened, why it stopped working and how to fix it. Smile has zero issues with the installation of his app or sending and receiving messages between TextSecure users.

I think that maybe a huge part of this is that I just don’t understand how the technology works. Even with the safe practices I have put in place, I really am mostly following what I see the people at the hacker space doing with their phones, watching Person Of Interest and trying to do the opposite.

And after all of this, if my phone is safe and yours is not, then we’re all at risk. God, I almost feel safer having unprotected sex with strangers. Or in this technology revolution that we are living in, is our ignorant smart phone use equivalent to the sexual revolution of the 60’s? Will this be all fun and games until people start to get seriously hurt and we all have no choice but to scream out “for god’s sake wear a fucking condom!”.

One day in the future, my kids will be sitting there telling their friends, “Oh my god, like, my mom is a computer scientist security expert who’s scared of her own phone. How lame is that?”

And I will totally deserve that one.

So I will now also publicly say, Mom you were right to be scared of the ATM. You were right and I was wrong, you can now sing the “I was right” song.

Also, I think my next step is to learn more about what encryption is and how it works. And passwords. There must be a magic trick to remembering safe passwords.

In April 2015, a paper by Chinese scientists about their attempts to edit the DNA of a human embryo rocked the scientific world and set off a furious debate. Leading scientists warned that altering the human germ line without studying the consequences could have horrific consequences. Geneticists with good intentions could mistakenly engineer changes in DNA that generate dangerous mutations and cause painful deaths. Scientists — and countries — with less noble intentions could again try to build a race of superhumans.

Winnie Byanyima brought the hammer all the way DOWN!!

Start your mornings right. Watch the full video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wrP4lTlYUM4