Bait and Switch Politics is Nothing New

Of course, people who want power and influence tell you what you want to hear. Its called seduction. They don’t want to create a new enemy. They already have an enemy in mid for you, you know who it is, and they’re going to protect you from that enemy. Its mutually advantageous for both left and right that the other exists. This form of mutualism is ironic and informative. It seems as though many leaders want to literally destroy any kind of opposition.

Remember Napoleon Bonaparte :

Napoleon came to power in France following the French Revolution, which was a period of intense political and social upheaval in the late 18th century. The Revolution had been fueled by popular demands for democracy, social justice, and economic equality. However, it had also been marked by violence and instability, including the Reign of Terror and the rise of authoritarian factions.

Napoleon emerged as a military leader during this period, and he was able to capitalize on the political chaos and instability to seize power. He established himself as Emperor of France in 1804 and proceeded to consolidate his power, centralize the state, and promote economic and social stability. While he preserved some of the ideals of the Revolution, such as meritocracy and religious tolerance, he also curtailed political freedoms, restricted the press, and promoted nationalism and militarism.

Q: What dictators used Marxist-Leninist or Maoist socialist or communist rhetoric and ideologies to become dictators?

ChatGPT:

There have been several dictators who have used Marxist-Leninist or Maoist socialist or communist rhetoric and ideologies to establish their regimes. Here are some examples:

  1. Adolf Hitler: He was the leader of Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945. Hitler claimed to promote a form of socialist nationalism, which he called National Socialism, or Nazism. Hitler’s regime was characterized by its fascist ideology, which emphasized the superiority of the Aryan race and the need for a strong authoritarian state. He used propaganda and repression to establish a one-party state and limited political freedoms, including freedom of speech and freedom of assembly. Hitler’s regime was responsible for the genocide of six million Jews during the Holocaust.
  2. Joseph Stalin: He was the leader of the Soviet Union from 1927 until his death in 1953. Stalin used Marxist-Leninist rhetoric to establish a highly centralized, one-party state in the Soviet Union. His regime was characterized by widespread repression, including the Great Purge, which saw the execution or imprisonment of millions of people. Stalin’s regime was responsible for the deaths of an estimated 20-30 million people.
  3. Mao Zedong: He was the leader of the Chinese Communist Party and the founder of the People’s Republic of China. Mao’s regime was characterized by his Maoist ideology, which emphasized the need for a “people’s war” and the establishment of a classless society. He used propaganda and repression to establish a one-party state and limited political freedoms, including freedom of speech and assembly. Mao’s regime was responsible for the deaths of an estimated 45 million people during the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution.
  4. Fidel Castro: He was the leader of the Cuban Revolution and served as the Prime Minister and President of Cuba from 1959 to 2008. He was a Marxist-Leninist and used communist ideology to establish a socialist state in Cuba. Castro’s regime was marked by the nationalization of industries, the collectivization of agriculture, and repression of political opposition. He established a one-party state and limited political freedoms, including freedom of the press and freedom of assembly.
  5. Pol Pot: He was the leader of the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia from 1975 to 1979. The regime claimed to be Marxist-Leninist and sought to create a classless society by eliminating all forms of private property and money. The regime was responsible for the deaths of an estimated 1.7 million people, through execution, forced labor, and starvation.
  6. Enver Hoxha: He was the leader of Albania from 1944 until his death in 1985. Hoxha established a Stalinist regime in Albania, and he was an ardent defender of Maoism. He isolated Albania from the rest of the world and established a highly centralized, one-party state.
  7. Kim Il-Sung: He was the founder of North Korea and led the country from its establishment in 1948 until his death in 1994. He was a committed Marxist-Leninist and used communist ideology to establish a highly centralized, one-party state. The regime he established is known for its brutal repression of dissent, human rights abuses, and nuclear weapons program.
  8. Nicolae Ceaușescu: He was the leader of Romania from 1965 until his overthrow in 1989. Ceaușescu promoted a form of Marxist-Leninism that was unique to Romania and emphasized the importance of national independence and self-sufficiency. He established a highly centralized, one-party state, and his regime was marked by corruption, repression, and widespread poverty.
  9. Mengistu Haile Mariam: He was the leader of Ethiopia from 1977 until his overthrow in 1991. He came to power in a coup and established a Marxist-Leninist regime. His regime was characterized by widespread human rights abuses, including mass executions and forced resettlement of the population.
  10. These are just a few examples of dictators who used Marxist-Leninist or Maoist socialist or communist rhetoric and ideologies to establish their regimes.

Q: And what about those who talked about personal liberties and freedoms and open markets, but then become dictators?

There have been several dictators who have used right-wing rhetoric about personal liberties and open markets to gain power and become dictators. Here are a few examples:

  1. Augusto Pinochet: He was the military leader of Chile from 1973 to 1990. Pinochet came to power in a coup against democratically elected President Salvador Allende, and his regime was characterized by authoritarianism and repression. However, Pinochet also implemented free-market economic policies, privatized many state-owned enterprises, and liberalized trade.
  2. Francisco Franco: He was the leader of Spain from 1939 until his death in 1975. Franco’s regime was characterized by authoritarianism and repression, but he also implemented free-market economic policies and sought to modernize the Spanish economy.
  3. Ferdinand Marcos was the President of the Philippines from 1965 to 1986. He came to power through a democratic election, but his regime quickly became authoritarian and marked by human rights abuses and corruption. Marcos used a variety of rhetoric to legitimize his regime, including appeals to nationalism, anti-communism, and the importance of law and order. He also promised to bring economic development to the Philippines through his “New Society” program, which included infrastructure projects and agricultural reforms. However, Marcos’s rule was marked by corruption and political repression. He used the military and police to suppress political opposition and censor the media. He also declared martial law in 1972, which suspended civil liberties and allowed him to rule by decree. During this period, thousands of people were arrested, tortured, and killed by Marcos’s security forces.
  4. Jair Bolsonaro: He was the President of Brazil, having taken office in 2019. He was a member of the Social Liberal Party, which he turned into a conservative party. Bolsonaro’s rhetoric emphasizes personal liberties and free markets, but his regime has also been characterized by authoritarianism and repression, including the suppression of political opposition and environmental activists.
  5. Viktor Orbán: He is the current Prime Minister of Hungary and has been in power since 2010. Orbán’s rhetoric emphasizes personal liberties and free markets, but his regime has also been characterized by authoritarianism and the erosion of democratic institutions.
  6. Rodrigo Duterte: He is the President of the Philippines and has been in power since 2016. Duterte uses right-wing rhetoric about law and order and the importance of personal liberty to justify his regime’s policies, which include a controversial “war on drugs” and attacks on human rights. His regime has been criticized for its extrajudicial killings and its suppression of political opposition.

Living in a Free World?

The classification of states as democracies or authoritarian regimes can be complex and varies depending on the criteria used. However, according to the Democracy Index 2021 published by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), there are 23 full democracies, 52 flawed democracies, and 55 authoritarian regimes in the world as of 2020.

The index classifies countries based on five categories: electoral process and pluralism, civil liberties, functioning of government, political participation, and political culture. Full democracies score the highest in these categories, followed by flawed democracies and then authoritarian regimes.

It’s important to note that this classification is not without controversy, and some may dispute certain countries’ categorization. Additionally, some countries may be in transition towards greater democracy or authoritarianism, so their classification can change over time.

______________________

You can see a couple of patterns here. Leaders say what they think will appeal to their power base, preferably a majority. Then, when in control, they rule as they please usually with ruthless suppression of any and all opposition.

In today’s world of highly advanced technology and highly sophisticated management methods, it should become easier for leaders to, not only lie and grab power, but hold power indefinitely using control over access to information and technology.

There has never been a better time to be an aspiring dictator. There has never been a time when so many people wanted control.

Still

Dear Diary:
All systems break down from too much noise, information that can’t be meaningfully interpreted and managed.
When change is too frequent for reaction.
When there are too many moving parts to track.
When the linkages and consequences are too long and diverse to monitor.
When learning curves are endless and not recyclable, and skills and knowledge are then not transferable.
When goals dissolve, lost in the flurry and the blurry.
When passion is diluted in the ocean.

This is when, in the heat of the boiling quagmire, entropy defeats order.
When in the dancing landscape, we have no melody to follow, the rhythm is erratic, harmony spills into conflict, and there are no meaningful lyrics to heed…

Still, there is the siren of the eternal and infinite wisdom of the cosmos.
Still, there is quiet within the noise.
Still, there is the oneness, connectedness with the beyond.
Still, there is order.
Still, the heart.
Still, the soul.
Still perpetual.
Still…

Castle of My Dreams

I was drawn from my tent into the long shadowing woods by the seductive melody of the Evening Thrush. The trees, tall and strong, form a quiet canopy over the old dirt road. The still and echoing forest is greater than the sum of its trees to resonate the verb. The dirt road propelled my feet and that lyrical song soon gave way to the lonesome call of the Whippoorwill of the darkened forest edge of night.

The forgotten road beneath my feet soon became rough and narrow.  Spruce bows lashed at my hidden face and the cool air dampened my clothes.  Soon the Barred Owl’s hoot haunted my ears – “Who? … Who cooks for you?” The waning crescent moon follows the sun to its resting place in dim and distant hills and valleys.

The fused dark trees soon turned to scrubs and shrubs as I entered an apparent opening. The sun had fallen behind the horizon leaving a pale golden glow to mark a distant foreign landscape in silhouette. The crescent moon briefly swelled a final sign before its final dive to that good-night. The land before me stole away in shades of grey to blackness. I then realised the trail had diminished to a meagre path traveled only by wild game. The distant twilight glow faded to shades of darkening blue then to ultimate midnight. My eyes began to fail.

I reached to my legs to find my feet, and then bent to crawl on the cool dewy grass. Two fingers in my mind’s eye were all I could envisage. Two, then one; addition then subtraction; existence and oblivion. Am I pulled into nothingness or pushed from form and pattern?

I felt my warm breath cooling to dew against my face. With outstretched arms I crawled forward for familiar objects to guide my way, escaping both the draw of dauntless sleep and the fear of the primal wild. Again, fight or flight? Approach or avoid? Creation or destruction?

The land before me now slopes forward. The ground hugs my prostrate body forward. Head-first I feel the grass change first to sand then to bedrock. I am on a baron slab of cold granite extending in all directions. I continue to grasp at whatever crevasse or ridge my fingers can detect. I pull myself toward the fading memory of the sunken sun. My aging joints suffer the seething pain of a penetrating frost.

What is this I grasp? A ledge? A cliff? My hands reach out to nothingness. I sense the void. I clutch the sharp edge with both hands and raise my heavy head to see with bulging eyes – nothingness! I call out in quickened desperation, “hello!” No hint of echo. My voice is swallowed by nothingness! This is my destination. I have arrived. This is my long sought oblivion! The parabolic bottom! But I am.

My blank mind spirals slowly askew into the abyss. I have no memory, no past. I merely am.

Yet my imagination is strangely fresh and vivid. From here is my creation and mine alone. Memories return of childhood hopes and fears. But this is not an end. I know it is a beginning, I tell myself. From here in this oblivion I create with endless passion. From here I behold the infinite wisdom of oneness. It is a new start if I say it is!

This is the place before time begins. This is the infinitesimal splice between the not-yet future and the already-happened past. This is the event in which space leads nowhere. It rolls onward without apparent direction. This is the time and space that should not exist. Yet it apparently does! This place is void of purpose and reason. Yet to date, I exist! I exist as one with logic and intent.

My fantasies turn to dreams of polar explorations, of endless winter seas of shifting ice and snow, of frigid darkness and starless skies. I am alone. No passion of a loved ones’ embrace will fill me. No friends to share a thought, nor laughter nor warm cup of coffee. No validation of my consciousness. It stands alone self-evident. No distraction from my losses. Only silence fills my ears.  And what am I beyond a curiosity; beyond a consciousness of experience; what am I beyond the will to explore? How am I to exploit this, my being, my essence?

I create my answers, my ideas. I am a creator of ideas. This is my essence. And what is there beyond ideas? What lies beyond ideas is also mine to create. There is nothing but what I make of things. An existence given is but a germ of an idea. And a pregnant idea begs forth it’s reality. The meaning, the essence of the thing created, is always mine to keep. Now I make of it what I will.

The last western star struggles in the lighting sky. I find myself on my back frozen to the ground in glistening white frost castles. I raise my hand to touch the sky to point to the empty space of that last faded star. Broken crystals fall from my sleeve to chink the icy ground. It is not yet dawn and I feel no pain. I am rested. The soft coo of the Mourning Dove revs my recovery. I remember – I create!

The breaking frost crackles as I raise my head from its frozen moorings. The rock, the grasses, the scrub brush and shrubs – all in shimmering glassy white! This is no ordinary morning, but the awakening of a deeper soul within. I create my world! Not the rocks and frost, but at every step of my journey, the meaning it all holds for me! For what is this without meaning? What is it’s reality without a mind to behold it? From this there is no escape. It is my destiny, my purpose, my path. I create!

What awaits me is the path of the wild to a trail to a road more traveled. The young Sun begins it rise twinkling between the trunks and tops of the distance forest. Crystals catch their inspirations and sparkle red and green then blue and yellow! To my back the cliff to which my hands did clutch now betrays the void now filled with dense colourless mist. No bottom exists to the void of oblivion. It stays with me and within me as I step toward the dawn and the game trail and the path. Chunks of crystals break from my clothes and fall to the crisping ground. My pace quickens to the road through the now familiar woods, frozen grasses crunching under my feet.

The tent is now my castle to hold my dreams’ potential. There awaits a new trust, a new covenant with life. “Hello!” “Hello”, comes the echo. I am born anew! I create! I create! I create!

Now and Forever

It was night forever. It seemed to never end. And it was completely dark too. And cold.  Very cold. I remember that. There was lots of time to think about things.  But there was little to contemplate. Infinity.  Eternity. Coldness. And then infinite eternal cold.

Suddenly and magically, it finally was dawn. The light was upon us and gave us energy. The light fed us and kept us warm. It brought us to life.

Things always seem smaller when you go back. I was smaller then too, I guess. The world seemed bigger to me then.  And yet, I now know that it has grown.  The world has grown faster and bigger than me, faster and bigger than I can know.

Life was simpler then. It was easier to get around.  Everything you needed was right there. And if you couldn’t find it, it wouldn’t be a big deal to make it.  I could make what I needed. I did.

You could find your way because the path was well beaten.  It was the same path you had always taken.  The same path your parents had used.  I remember my father told of his father taking that same path. I’ll bet even grandfather told of his father on that path. That is why I remember where to go.

At one end of the path was sleep, at the other end, food. Another path was to water, and yet another led to a great view of the valley.

But there are other paths. Maybe they are less traveled, but they go somewhere. Others travel them to different places at different times.

As I walk the path, trees appear before me and recede behind me.  Groves appear and disappear. Yet forests are never seen in whole, only in part. We assume they go beyond our view ahead and behind. What we learn farther down the path changes everything we knew about the path already traveled.

I learn from seeing more of the same path with its turns, rises and falls. Always the same and always different.

We live at the edge of the forest, where the trees shrink to shrubs and then to grass, and where the river comes to sit at the edge of the lake. The edges are rich and interesting. That is what makes us rich and interesting.

There were others, but not equal to us. We were given this special place and special ability to live in this place. There are none equal. It has always been this way.  It will always be this way.  We are the centre of a beautiful place where we belong. We are strong in our place. We continue.

That is the way it was told to me when we arrived a very long time ago.  Nothing has changed.  But things are different.  We know more. The more we learn, the more the world changes. That is the universal law.

Now we consume. We sleep. We rise and eat again. We have light and dark. There are paths to walk and places to go.  We are creatures of routine differences.

That is what they said when we arrived not long ago. That is what I am telling you now.

That is what it was like when I lived. So I am told.  By one who was.  And he is now gone, and then returned. If I remember right.

Universal Information Architecture

I think our imaginations are being stretched to the point where we can begin to believe anything is possible. The web connecting billions of people you don’t know is a fire-hose of information that overwhelms our cognitive capacities and sends us into shock, further reducing our capacity to manage information. Is there a way out?
This is a positive feedback loop, meaning that as a vicious circle it is self-reinforcing and only worsens until we hit bottom. We become evermore desperate for certainty. This leaves us vulnerable to both prophets of doom and prophets of hope as well as the draw of the crowds.
We are struck with a false sense of competence that keeps us going, with intermittent feelings of inadequacy, But we suffer the experience of either the Impostor Syndrome or FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out). We might become “Snowflakes“.
We may be driven by a manic desire to learn more, then get burnt out while climbing all those unending learning curves. After all, knowledge is power, isn’t it? Soon we have days of anxiety punctuated with moments of desperate hope.


We used to say “the more I learn, the more I realise how little I know“. Now twist that to, “the more information I have, the more uncertain I am about anything“.
There is a universal Scaling Law. We know that in an economy of scale, more is better or cheaper (per unit produced). But beyond some tipping point, there is also a diseconomy of scale – more becomes too expensive. At some point, very large companies, for example, become inefficient and ineffective. This is true for all living systems, including governments, communities and civilizations. Maybe we have adapted. Maybe we have adapted badly.


In Network Theory there is an algorithm that states that beyond a critical number of relationships among nodes in the network (complexity), there is a growing level of noise in the network. Noise is like entropy in energy physics. It is junk information that makes other information dubious or suspect. We apply mental filters to sift out the noise, but eventually, as information grows, we can no longer keep up. Its like a cancerous cell that got its DNA mixed up and grows cancerous tissue rapidly.


Civilizations are networks of organizational hierarchies and therefore subject to the laws of physics, information, complexity, scale, networks, etc. They have a life-cycle based on their specific organizational premises. Our civilization has grown so rapidly that we have lost our “system integrity“. We have little idea of the consequences of our vast collective actions and interactions. The inter-dependencies are far too complex to sort out. Only the more fantasy-prone futurists make longer-term forecasts.
Traditions, standard practices, legacy doctrines and dogmas, common sense — all become contaminated, disrupted and meaningless. This is probably what happened to previous civilizations that got too complex to manage and were abandoned (Mayan, Angkor Wat, Olmec, Babel, etc.).


We have come to believe that our political ideologies have a scientific foundation. They do not! Both left and right ideologues argue for both flat networks and pitched or centralized hierarchies. We should be searching for the optimum mix of the two, depending on civil conditions.
The apparent coherence of ideological positions is based on loyalty. In a highly complex world, we can find logic to make any two diverse ideas seem compatible. Left and right polarity is well beyond a simplistic model of our complex civil reality.

We don’t know reality directly except through consciousness and mental models of reality. These models, or worldviews, are always complex, incomplete, biased and noisy. So far, we have been able to get by because most of what we do is not critical to our survival. We drink, eat, sleep, talk and get through each day regardless of being right or wrong about politics, religion and even sex. Even homeless people can live for decades.
There are leaders who, knowingly or not, see opportunity in this. They see fear and exploit it for personal aggrandizement. Tell people bedtime stories of angels and demons, of good and evil, and the masses will follow.

This is why I am studying the universal information architecture, searching for an algorithm that will spell out, not only the sufficient civil order, but the optimal civil ordering process. The optimal civil order is not a utopia. It is a process, a way, or a path through chaos and entropy. It uses a fractal to order the world from chaos and randomness to some order that preserves the essential human identity, including its diverse expressions, and provides for the pursuit of happiness through self-actualization.


Energy, by itself is rather boring. It is information that gives the universe it shape and form. I believe that there is an elemental fractal algorithm that expresses itself repeatedly through all levels of organization, from force-fields and sub-atomic particles to galaxy clusters. We are sandwiched between complex organic molecules and planetary ecosystems, navigating a path largely by innate instinct.

Humanity has come of age, an age of relative self-awareness. We are learning awareness of our collectivity and our synchronicity in Nature. Will we succeed as we approach the tipping point? Are we already too late? Have we sufficiently tested our youthful naivety?

Practise! There is still more…

Dear Diary:
Practice makes perfect.
As I explore the universe I realize that meanings run out to infinity, as force fields dissipate into oblivion. Is there a sharp line between the concrete and the abstract?
No. It is a continuum from perception to perfection, with an asymptote at either end progressing toward the ultimate reality-in-itself, but never reaching beyond the mind.
All my life I have practiced projecting myself into the abstract in the perennial search for greater profundity. I got pretty good at it, even as a teenager. But as psychology goes to help the abnormal fit into a normal society, its not helping the normal fit into an abnormal society. I am a groomed and suited to this churn. Or am I? My soul levitates above the fray. For better or worse…
I have had my share of mindfulness, ecstasy, and peak experiences. I have felt transcendence toward nirvana. I have also felt the pull toward the philosopher’s exit strategy into nihilism.
I have plumbed the depths of soul migration to the beginning and end of time, to the edges of infinity. I see the fractal pattern of universal law permeate the order with rudimentary logic as a template. I follow the trumpet’s call.
I have come to believe that there is a universal memory and imagination, an inner consciousness accompanying all energy-matter, regardless of how simple or primeval.
I believe we can connect to that eternal bliss and improve the performance. It begins with a thin thread but with adherence it grows to a rope.
I have seen things. I know. But more importantly, logic alone has also taken me there with mathematical certainty.
All that has happened still exists in a universal collective memory. All that will happen now exists in the universal collective imagination.
Yet now the corporeal is instantaneous in an infinitesimally small and ignorant revolving glimpse.
Yes, Dad, I know! There is still more…

June 2076

Under extreme duress, such as the shock of a global pandemic, or a world war, the individual of homo sapiens sapiens will surrender its personal intelligence to join a collective intelligence, and surrender its will to the collective will.

This is a pattern repeated throughout nature and generally serves a species well in the longer term. There will be losses. A similar result is achieved when one hits a bee hive with a stick. Instead of pheromones, homo sapiens depend on symbolic communication and body language (signalling) to recruit others in the common initiative. Individuals may be sacrificed for the common good.

Crowd size and composition diversity are factors in social movement, crowd and group formation. There are healers and feelers, planners and reporters, soldiers and sages.

Personal instincts identify triggers that set in motion a series of resonant social behaviours. Talents are redirected to the apparent defense of the species.

Yet in the mass confusion the visionary goals are many, blurry and indistinct, sometimes at odds. In one moment its is perfectly clear, next it is all fog.

Mimicry, symbology, rhythm and rituals all play roles in well-constructed movements, crowds and groups. These reinforce a sense of identity, belonging, trust, loyalty and reciprocity.

Due to the population’s diversity, imbued by nature and evolution, not all individual homo sapiens will respond to the same call to action. Messages may hold many meanings, sometimes a deliberate dog-whistle, sometimes an incidental happenstance. Information and intelligence are seen as interchangeable.

Some will see the growing hoard as group-think and avoid it as a virus itself or a weapon of mass destruction. There will be a heightened sense of chaos and confusion, even paranoia, hysteria and divisive violence.

Friends and relatives will be cancelled, others radicalized to different causes. There will be a frantic search for the enemy to defeat his evil lies and deception.

There will be many losses.

Yet humanity lost shall survive.

(Skylark 2076)

Use Long-Term Memory or Lose it!

Problem: As we get busier and more distracted, we lose more long-term memory, capacity for recall, and even collective memory.

This is because, in order to increase our pace to keep up with change, we are constantly practicing and reinforcing quick intuitive and instinctive thinking, while avoiding deliberation. Deliberation is slow and takes effort, but is usually more effective and reliable. We reduce our use of long-term memory and therefore lose the ability to access it easily and regularly.

Unfortunately, the stresses of life can be cumulative as well as collective. So society as a whole, complete with our culture, economy and governing bodies, can forget past problems and their solutions. We lose memory of the long-term trends and cycles, which is important since that historical context is the foundation of meanings. No context — no meaning. No good!

Solution: Intentionally set aside more time daily to recall your life experiences and try to draw new lessons from them to explain what is happening today. Share those memories and reflections with others. Look for bigger patterns that have shaped your life and figure out how you can use them to manage some strategic planning – family, education, career, business, community …

We all need to find a better balance and step out of the short-loop mindset to add meaningful context. We used to call this “wisdom“.
Use your long-term memory or lose it.

Stress

Stress is drive. Too little stress and nothing gets done. Too much and you collapse. You want the Goldie Locks zone where your stress level is optimum for performance. Manage your stress level or you may enter a vicious circle – at some tipping point additional stress reduces your capacity to manage stress.

Stress makes you go to your areas of strength. Its instinctive. This brings out your best performance, but because most tasks are complex, it also implies that you need to be engaged in a group, or collective intelligence.

In the collective intelligence of a group, you are working with diverse other specialists who are also focusing on their greatest strengths. It helps then, if your second strength is either to empathetically collaborate or just take orders from those who lead. Its easier to work with people who share values and goals.

I believe people can generally become more collaborative under stress. Sometimes you can want to withdraw because people who are new or different add to your stress. If you are going to collaborate, you should find people who share common values and goals but have different skills and knowledge bases to contribute to the common good of the group. You need to have people on your team whose strengths align with aspects of the tasks or problems you’re working on as a team.

Workout Exercise Fitness Health Concept

If you are an introvert, then under stress you may become more selective about social relationships and spend more time in reflection. If you are an extrovert, then you spend more time seeking out social relationships and less time in reflection.

If you are more of an intuitive type, then you will do more imaginative problem-solving and disengage from the box of the concrete world. If you are more oriented to your senses, then you will seek greater grounding in the facts, and spend less time dreaming about possibilities.

If you are more of a feeling person, then you will spend more time evaluating how you feel about things. If you are more of a thinker, you will spend more time figuring out how things work.

If you are more of a perceiver, you will spend more time exploring, pivoting, testing and changing your mind. If you are more of a judge, you will spend time persisting and staying the course.

We live in an ecosystem of talents that together match the opportunities and demands of the natural ecosystem. Each of these personal strengths are important to sorting out reality and taking the best path forward. But no individual is going to get it right alone. Collective intelligence is needed to integrate the best ideas from all people. In this way, we all win.