Introduction
What is your most valuable asset? Could it be the
gray matter in your head, your brain with all its
abilities and all the knowledge in it? What, more
than anything else, determines your success, your
health, your wealth, your happiness?
What if the levels of your success, health, wealth,
and happiness depended primarily on the quality of
the decisions you make? And your decisions depend
on the quality of your brain and its knowledge? Isn't
it obvious that if you improved the quality of your
brain and its knowledge, you would make better decisions,
and hence enjoy higher levels of success, your health,
your wealth, your happiness?
What would happen if you continuously "upgraded"
your brain similarly to the way Microsoft upgrades
its software programs? Possibly even more important
to consider, what would happen to Microsoft if the
fired all their programmers, stopped issuing program
upgrades, and stopped developing new programs? They
would probably be out of business within a year!
What will happen as long as Microsoft can continue
to upgrade its metaphorical "company brain"
together with its personnel's brains and their products
and services, so they remain a step or two ahead of
the competition?
Just as Microsoft lives in a changing world where
the competition is continuously upgrading, we as individuals
also live in a changing world in which we can get
left behind, or even degenerate disastrously, if we
don't continuously upgrade our brains and lives.
Examples That Indicate a Need for Brain Upgrade
"Only two things are infinite, the universe and
human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."
-- Albert Einstein
"Who will argue that 98.6 Fahrenheit is the
right temperature for man? ... It may be that we are
actually freezing: hence the pervading stupidity of
mankind. At 110 or 115 degrees even archbishops might
be intelligent." -- H.L. Mencken
How often do you get emails similar to the
following?
>From: (withheld)
>Subject: (no subject)
>To: fm1@amug.org
>
>Hello:
>I am not proud to say that I have misplaced
both my passwords that I was given, can you help????????
>Thanks Tom
Passwords for what?
>I ended up having to send $10 cash to you. Only
sent it on the 20th.
>I spent most of the time trying to access e-gold.
I now have two accounts
>there, one of them recently funded, for which
my accounts and passwords
>absolutely do not work. I bought $100 worth of
gold from one of the
>companies to fund the newer account with. They
did so. But I cannot
>access the account and e-gold will not answer
my email nor return the
>messages I leave on the phone, on which they leave
no option but to
>leave your message. Inaccessibility has in the
past spelled crookedness
>to me. I won't trust e-gold any longer. But the
$10 is on the way if it hasn't
>already arrived. By the way, look at the return
address on the envelope
>to know that you got my money. I forgot to put
an identifier in the envelope.
The e-gold system works very well. Including the
above, I've never heard of a case of a password not
working. (You can open a free e-gold account at http://www.buildfreedom.com/e-gold.htm
-- highly recommended.) Given the number of people
who need to upgrade their brains so they can sign
up for things, log into accounts, etc., a company
like e-gold probably gets dozens of messages similar
to the above every day. I suspect that from their
point of view it's not cost-effective to respond to
them. ("I forgot to put an identifier in the
envelope" may be an important indicator!)
In my opinion, the e-gold system represents a huge
upgrade, especially when compared to using government
fiat currencies. Using e-gold is also less expensive
and more efficient than using government-fiat-currency
credit cards. E-gold is ideal for online transactions.
That's why the use of e-gold is growing so rapidly.
>Date: Tue, 2 Nov 1999 11:51:28 -0800
>Mailing-List: list seattlesun@onelist.com; contact
seattlesun-owner@onelist.com
>List-Unsubscribe: <mailto:seattlesun-unsubscribe@ONElist.com>
>From: (withheld)
>I don't want to be a member of the seattlesun
because you never send me
>stuff OK!
>I want to unsubscribe.
The unsubscribe instruction is in the header.
Now, you may think the above emails are not particularly
significant. Not so. In most cases, they reveal an
underlying pattern of taking actions that are unlikely
to work or produce desired results. The chances are
high that in other areas of their lives the authors
also don't take care to design their actions so they're
likely to work. Such emails are a strong indication
of a need for brain upgrade!
A member of one of my forums recently wrote:
>I have been trying to promote stuff on the Internet
without any success
>(about 3 months). I understand the numbers 'game'
you describe, however,
>everything I have tried has only packed my emailbox
with ads without ANY
>hits on my websites. I know that my ads wouldn't
win any Pulitzer prizes
>but I've tried to use all the correct buzz words,
etc. and I don't think that
>they are all that bad either. I realize that I
haven't cracked the code yet,
>but my performance so far has really dampened
my enthusiasm.
A brain upgrade, at least in the area of Internet
marketing, will enable this person to become a successful
marketer. See FAILURE SCRIPTS and WHERE THE ROCKS
ARE.
"The superior man is distressed by his
want of ability." -- Confucious
"I know of no more encouraging fact than the
unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life
by a conscious endeavor." -- Henry David Thoreau
"Our fundamental idea shall be that man as we
know him is not a completed being; that nature develops
him only up to a certain point and then leaves him,
to develop further, by his own efforts and devices,
or to live and die such as he was born, or to degenerate
and lose capacity for development." -- P.D. Ouspensky
How to Upgrade Your Necktop Computer
I have an old Macintosh Quadra with Netscape Navigator
2.02. I can still access websites with it, but it
doesn't work very well. I also have a Compaq Presario
with Netscape Navigator 4.7 and Microsoft Internet
Explorer 5.50. Periodically, I upgrade my computer
and software such as browsers and email programs.
Most of the time, the upgrades include improvements
that make the programs work better.
Dr. Michael Hewitt-Gleeson coined the term "necktop
computer." He has also provided some pretty good
software to upgrade your brain so it will work better.
One of his books is called Software for your brain.
It's available online at Thinkers.com and it's FREE.
Among its many treasures, it includes two very powerful
"upgrade formulas":
CVS --> BVS (from current view of situation to
better view of situation)
"I would love to have a management team that
really understood the CVSTOBVS equation. It's the
value added role in the management process."
-- Jack Welch, Chairman, General Electric
BVS = CVS X 10 ("The key to the practical use
of this powerful perception switch -- CVSTOBVS --
is the deliberate effort one makes to try to notice
the BVS that is TEN TIMES better than the CVS.")
Dr. Hewitt-Gleeson also provides a FREE Brain
Freebie! course.
In my opinion, by utilizing Dr. Hewitt-Gleeson's
brain software formulas, you can lay a foundation
(or create a context) that will make it possible for
you to upgrade not only your brain, but also your
body, your health, your wealth, and your happiness.
"All human beings, all persons who reach adulthood
in the world today are programmed biocomputers. None
of us can escape our own nature as programmable entities.
Literally, each of us may be our programs, nothing
more, nothing less." -- John C. Lilly
"Submission to genetic programming can become
quite dangerous, because it leaves us helpless. A
person who cannot override genetic instructions when
necessary is always vulnerable. Instead of deciding
how to act in terms of personal goals, he has to surrender
to the things that his body has been programmed (or
misprogrammed) to do. One must particularly achieve
control over instinctual drives to achieve a healthy
independence of society, for as long as we respond
predictably to what feels good and what feels bad,
it is easy for others to exploit our preferences for
their own ends." -- Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi,
Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience
"In the province of the mind, what one believes
to be true is true or becomes true, within certain
limits to be found experientially and experimentally.
These limits are further beliefs to be transcended.
In the mind, there are no limits." -- John C.
Lilly, Programming and Metaprogramming in the Human
Biocomputer.
Here's a report from someone who used the
CVS/BVS formulas (among other things) to upgrade his
brain and life:
>I discovered your websites two years ago. At that
point I was almost $20,000
>in debt (my girlfriend was minus $50,000). I was
convinced I had been effectively
>converted to slave status... Within two months
I stopped all collection action
>on my girlfriend's debt. Within a year my own
debt was completely eliminated
>and no longer did I view myself as a slave. As
I approach the two-year anniversary
>[of my discovery of your websites], I can report
that I now have $50,000 working
>for me, primarily offshore. My debt is zero! ...I'm
not going to pretend that I
>owe it all to Frederick Mann or his websites,
but at the same time... I can only
>encourage everyone to study diligently BuildFreedom.com,
BigBooster.com,
>and their recommended readings. -- SC (9/28/2000)
Following are some emails from someone who,
as far as I know, has not done nearly enough to upgrade
her brain and life:
>I lost all but $444 of my $4,000 investment. I've
been taking a beating from my
>husband's family with the trust case for 2 years,
then the interim trustee both
>lawyers hired recommended to the court that we
pay their $66,000 in legal bills
>that they spent "trying to preserve the trust."
We are appealing. More legal bills.
>$24,000 so far I owe 2 lawyers. Now I had hoped
that SG [Stockgeneration]
>would help me pay the $5,000 I borrowed from my
credit card to get my home
>out of foreclosure, and now that is gone. I wish
I had the guts to just slit my
>throat, and the only thing that's stopping me
is that I can't leave this whole
>mess for my daughter to straighten out. I wish
I never got on to the email
>and the Internet. I'll never make this up. G...
[her SG sponsor] and other
>Libertarians were making money, why should I think
I wasn't going to. What
>a horrible place this planet is. I wish I was
dead.
>
>l am still trying to come to grips over the theft
of my $4,000 by SG. I have
>spent my entire life working hard to maintain
my independence, and all
>through that time I had to fight to protect what
I had earned. My own father
>exploited my labor after my mother died. I was
a slave for 5 years until I
>"escaped" into my first marriage. That
was 12 years of physical and mental
>horror. I attempted suicide 3 times. But I again
"escaped" into a second
>marriage to an alcoholic. That was 5 years of
more brutal treatment. In the
>beginning things weren't too bad with D..., although
he was causing me
>many business problems then. But then we lost
our real-estate business,
>and the bankruptcy lawyers wiped out anything
that might have been left.
>We lost our home in O... D... lost his license.
My book about t... was
>plagiarized by a big distributor, which has all
but destroyed my sales. It
>was my best-selling book. The trust battle is
the most brutal thing that has
>ever happened to me. I sought to get myself out
of the legal expenses by
>borrowing money from my children and scraping
up every last dime I had.
>And now, its all gone. Nothing to fall back on.
It is the straw that has finally
>broke me. Even my daughter is fed-up with me about
giving SG $4,000.
>She hasn't spoken to me for over a week. Now I
have no moral support at
>all. The only reason why I am still here is that
I have to get my house in
>order so as not to dump this mess on my daughter.
I didn't know how to
>do it right the first 3 times -- did you know
a bottle of 100 aspirin doesn't
>kill you? -- Or that the slashed wrist thing doesn't
work if you are caught?
>-- Or that if you stab yourself, youÂ’re
not supposed to hit a bone? This time
>IÂ’ll get it right. Why stay on this
horrible planet? Every time something
>horrible has happened, I used to say this is the
last time, things are
>going to get better, but now I'm convinced it
won't stop.
When this person originally tried to send money to
SG, she sent it to the wrong company! Fortunately
they sent it back. She most likely has a pattern of
taking actions that are unlikely to work or produce
desired results. I invited her to participate in a
Prosperity Case Study, but she declined. I wrote to
her: "If you're not going to spend the time to
handle the psychological factors involved, acquire
the necessary money skills, get to understand the
programs you get involved with, etc., then you should
look elsewhere to make money... It seems very likely
to me that you've programmed yourself to fail with
one or more self-destructive "scripts" (one
might even be the classical "please kick me!"
described by Claude Steiner). I empathize with your
situation and I wish you strength." Last I heard,
she was still battling on.
How to Downgrade Your Necktop Computer and/or
Keep it Downgraded
1. Ignore, ridicule or attack (without having open-mindedly
yet critically examined) any new information (new
to you) that may be used for self-improvement. (See
How to Improve Your Information.)
2. As a child, draw conclusions and make decisions
about how you can't do things right. (See FAILURE
SCRIPTS and WHERE THE ROCKS ARE.)
3. As a child, in response to "injunctions"
("You can't do that!"; "Don't be crazy!";
"You'll never make it as a...!"; etc.),
make defiant and despairing decisions. (See FAILURE
SCRIPTS and WHERE THE ROCKS ARE.)
4. Attend a "compulsory government school"
-- concentration campus for mind destruction. (See
John Taylor Gatto.)
"Men are born ignorant, not stupid; they are
made stupid by education." -- Bertrand Russell
5. Accept the culture of your family, religion, society,
and/or nation. (See Obedience to Authority by Stanley
Milgram and The Unreality Imperative.)
6. Remain emotionally immature. (See How to Achieve
Emotional Control.)
7. Get stuck in some cult, religion, ideology, or
philosophy and regard it as the "only truth."
(See Snapping: America's Epidemic of Sudden Personality
Change by Flo Conway & Jim Siegelman and The Guru
Papers: Masks of Authoritarian Power by Joel Kramer
& Diana Alstad with Diana Alstead.)
8. Decide that because you're more intelligent and
successful than your family, friends, coworkers, and
contacts (or you have a PhD, MD, etc. and/or are a
Mensa member), therefore there's no need for you to
upgrade your brain. (See Doctors Are The Third Leading
Cause of Death in the US, Causing 250,000 Deaths Every
Year and Doctors Are The Third Leading Cause of Death
in the US, Causing 250,000 Deaths Every Year.)
9. Remain stuck in bicameral stage 2. (See
The Bicameral Model of the Mind.)
10. Don't give yourself permission to succeed. (See
Money Skill #9, Scripts: The Role of Permission by
James R Allen, M.D. & Barbara Ann Allen, MSW,
MPH, and 1998 Addendum by James R Allen, M.D. &
Barbara Ann Allen, MSW, MPH.
11. Don't develop self-esteem. (See Nathaniel
Branden and The Self-Esteem Institute.)
12. Remain stuck in a lifestyle such that much of
the wealth you create is being extracted from you
in the form of taxes, interest paid to financial institutions,
gradual currency devaluation. (See Strategic Wealth
Institute, Wealth Study, and Basic Money Skills.)
You may be stuck in a corporate job which primarily
makes the boss and/or shareholders rich, while you
get little more than enough to "get by."
One of the effects may be that you think you don't
have enough time to upgrade your brain and life.
13. Remain stuck in a physically unhealthy lifestyle
of inadequate diet and insufficient exercise. (See
Health Freedom & Life Extension.)
14. Allow yourself to simply plateau or stagnate;
don't make any conscious efforts to improve yourself,
your body or your life in any way. ("Our fundamental
idea shall be that man as we know him is not a completed
being; that nature develops him only up to a certain
point and then leaves him, to develop further, by
his own efforts and devices, or to live and die such
as he was born, or to degenerate and lose capacity
for development." -- P.D. Ouspensky)
Downgraded Necktops Produce Degraded Behavior
The Charles Darwin Award
DailyDarwin
Death by Government
Democide = Murder by Government
Drug War Clock
Drug War Facts
Dumb Bumpers
Dumb Criminal Acts
Dumb Facts
Dumb Laws
Dumb Warnings
Official Darwin Awards
TheDumb.com
Understanding Stupidity
Obstacles to Upgrading Your Necktop Computer
Maybe it never occurs to many people that they have
software in their brains that can be improved. This
may be particularly so for people who accept any particular
cult, culture, religion, philosophy, or ideology as
the "gospel truth" or "final answer."
Many people believe that the world would be greatly
improved if they could just persuade enough people
to convert to their cult, culture, religion, philosophy,
or ideology. In some cases, such beliefs are, in my
opinion, valid. By upgrading their brains, such "persuaders"
may be able to become ten times more effective in
their "persuasion efforts."
To upgrade my personal computer I can buy a new one
for $1,000 and have it working within a few hours.
A browser can typically be updated in 30-60 minutes
with only a few keystrokes and clicks. Upgrading your
brain is much more difficult and takes a lot longer.
A computer isn't attached (or addicted) to its software.
You just click the "delete" button and for
practical purposes the unwanted software is gone forever,
never to return. Not so with the human brain. In general,
most people can't just read a "self-help"
book and radically change their thinking and behavior.
For some people it may take years to upgrade some
aspects of their software. In a world where many expect
instant gratification, it's an obstacle for many to
have to spend many years on upgrading their brains.
Some people believe that it's best to keep a lid
on whatever "dark stuff" their might be
in the hidden recesses of their brains. If they start
digging to locate "bad programming" in order
to remove it, they might go crazy. Introspection and
self-analysis are dangerous! Better to not think about
the "hidden horrors" that might lurk within!
In Scripts: The Role of Permission, James
R Allen, M.D. & Barbara Ann Allen, MSW, MPH indicate
that some people are subject to expectations like:
