Josh Plovanic's Writings and Thoughts

Philosophy is not just a field of study. It is a psychological/spiritual tool. An instrument of mental liberation, spiritual development, and a sharpener of one's language skills, awareness, understanding, and thinking. It can even be a weapon. A weapon that can cut into and shape the hearts and minds of an audience, driving their thoughts, speech, and actions. "The Word of God is a sharp sword" as they say. All governments have roots in the ideas of philosophers. All religions have, at their core, philosophical systems of thought that form the essentials of their foundations and methods of operating in humanity. Without ideas, philosophy, and the systems of behavior and thinking these create in humanity human civilization and innovative capacity wouldn't exist. You can't have civilization without ideas. You can't have innovation without ideas. Ideas are the blood of philosophy, mathematics, and most of academia. I have covered a significant amount of philosop...

   "The first step in treating people as things is saying they are things."  Words are powerful things. They are how we describe reality and its contents, and how we identify things and their parts and relationships. In order to be able to manipulate, influence, or control an object or system, we must be able to label it and its parts as well as define properties and purposes. A name or label can do many things to an object. First and foremost, it enables our minds to be able to interact with that object, which then gives rise to influence and possible control. Labels are essentially word "tools." Sometimes word weapons. They can psychologically equip a person to influence, manipulate, or control an object, but that same process can be weaponized to do harm to a person. As tools, they inherit various degrees of value or power. Some labels, just like some objects in general, are held in higher value or esteem than others. The value of the label, and the value of obje...

        No choice is made without an incentive. A reason for it being made, no matter how senseless or illogical the choice may seem to outside observors, and whatever controls the incentives to your choices controls you to some extent.  Imagine informing people of the full depth and scope of the consequences of their choices as well as the nature of the choices they made. If we were given such an awareness and understanding, where we knew the nature and impact of what our choices were and the full long term effects of the consequences of our choices, I'm sure we would never make extremely poor decisions.         No one willingly chooses Hell if they truly know what it is. What leads to these decisions, what truly leads a person down the path of destruction, is a blindness. A corruption of our incentives and our ability to discern and choose between good incentives and incentives that cause us to do destructive or wicked things.  It...