Worked out Adaptable ideology, so far. If you have a better name, please suggest it, as I don’t really like it currently.

The core of the ideology is a highly adaptable and evolving lifestyle. In the broadest sense, focused on finding the truth trough testing existing and new beliefs using contradicting knowledge. The ideology can be compared to a living organism that evolves based on its environment.

What are echo chambers?

Many existing belief systems are very fixed, unchanging and too simple, which causes them to lead to contradictions. Some of these belief systems even have mechanisms in place to prevent their members from finding out just exactly how incomplete they are. These belief systems that try to keep contradictions away from their members are called echo chambers, and they are not pretty. They use certain censoring mechanisms to mask their implicit contradictions to keep their members in the dark. Sometimes, they are even worse, and actively teach lies to their members, using these same mechanisms to keep their members from finding out these lies. They can ensnare innocent victims looking for answers, infecting their minds and making them a new member. You could see them as idea-viruses, and they are very dangerous if not careful.

These echo chambers are often completely incompatible with each other, which I believe to be the reason strong polarization exists in so many places of the world. We could just throw away every echo chamber’s teachings, but a problem is that many echo chambers contain a portion of truth next to their lies, and the baby should not be thrown out with the bath water. We need to extract the truth out of echo chambers somehow, without falling prey to them.

This requires us to know how echo chambers work, in order to identify them so that they can be neutralized. All echo chambers have certain principles:

• They have an agenda
• There is a clear danger
• The echo chamber always dismisses information that comes from this danger
• The echo chamber becomes increasingly stronger in its beliefs

See https://unilem.org/post/120862 for more details. In essence, be very careful of anything banning certain types of information, or classifying certain sources of information as dangerous. This technique is the foundation of all echo chambers.

Echo chambers are not always in the outside world, echo chambers with the same properties can even form in our own minds. These are internal echo chambers, using fear or shame to keep you from discovering and engaging with contradictions. This is a big part of how certain irrational fears come to be and sustain themselves, like social anxiety. Someone has bad experiences with people, and therefore will always assume that all people are out to hurt them. Because they now think that all people are out to hurt them, they will actively choose to avoid encounters with other people and remain stuck in that idea because of a lack of contradicting experiences. Trying to overcome this will be very shameful and fearful, which are some of the preferred censoring techniques of your mind, but this needs to be overcome to become free.

How to discover echo chambers

The Adaptable ideology tries to tackle both internal and external echo chambers. I assume many people that read this are already in both external and internal echo chambers without their knowledge, including myself, so we first need to establish some tools and practices to identify them. The problem is that both types of echo chambers actively try to hide from us to keep themselves alive, so it’s required to do some digging. These tools also help to check if you’re not being lured into a new echo chamber whenever you’re learning new things. I’ve succesfully used and am still using the following practices to discover echo chambers:

• Morning Pages
• Meditation
• Actively searching for contradictions in my learned knowledge

See https://unilem.org/post/392635 for more details

There might be more tools, I can imagine that different tools work better for different people, so you’ll need to experiment. I can definitely recommend Morning Pages for a starter, as they have been my corner stone in this whole process. I’d like to have a more comprehensive list at some time, but I personally haven’t had the need for more practices. Essentially, the tools are ways to reflect on our thoughts and on our day-to-day behaviour, to identify certain patterns.

When trying to discover hidden things in your mind, be aware of teachings that try to categorize certain aspects of your mind so that you can find a balance between these aspects. Think of the 16personalities test and the four male/seven female archetypes. These are very similar to Zodiac signs, in the way you identify with them, but at the same time also try to actively fit into their non-existant categories in your own life. It’s half truth, half lie. These categories often don’t actually exist, but they will skew your perception because you will try to fit your personality into them, and they will compromise your work. For a detailed explanation of the dangers of categories, see https://unilem.org/post/120849. Often, these teachings first present you with certain categories of your psyche that don’t actually exist, and then they say you need to find a balance in them.

The work of discovering echo chambers is extremely similar to Jungian Shadow Work, but be very cautious about those teachings. In Jungian Shadow Work the idea is taught that we need to integrate our shadows to become whole. The problem with this teaching is that some parts of ourselves can’t be safely integrated, as they will try to overtake us. Remember, echo chambers have their agendas, and they will try to suck us into them to keep themselves alive. They are malicious and need to be broken down. We can bring them into awareness to extract their truths and to discover how to break them down, but trying to fully integrate them is very dangerous. We’re looking for objective truth here, not a “balance” in the sense of being half evil half good, because that’s still just evil. I almost fell for these ideas, but discovered their lies when I researched these beliefs critically. We need to be very careful.

The core

The core of this ideology is testing beliefs by actively looking for contradictions, and extracting truths from echo chambers while shielding yourself of their lies. This core needs to be protected from outside influences. Because this core might be flawed initially, it’s necessary to also test if it causes any contradictions or has any pitfalls, because if it does, it also needs tweaking. It shouldn’t be perverted into another echo chamber. When testing the core, be extremely careful, because you don’t want to accidentally encapsulate it and fall into another echo chamber, but do test it. The core is vital to this whole ideology and needs to be strong, and once it’s strong it needs to be protected.

There are some other truths we need to establish. There is an objective reality that everyone is part of, and which has the power to provide us with new information to discover faulty beliefs. It’s true that we experience reality based on our knowledge. We experience reality subjectively, but reality itself is external and objective. There’s a reason our eyes and ears can be compared to measuring devices. We measure the objective world, even if our brain does all its magic on the received information. We can’t escape the fact that contradicting information keeps coming our way. We can’t shut the real world out, as the real world is external and always there. I’ve tried to live in a subjective reality, to brainwash myself, but it’s impossible and unsustainable. The best thing we can do is to accept these contradictions as gifts, as our liberation. To align our perceptions with truth, which is the objective outside world.

I’m a believer in God. For me God is whatever is outside of my knowledge, the saviour from our wrong ideas in the form of contradictions. The great question mark, destroying our preconceptions left and right. The great creative force, always bringing a fresh light to the things that are dull and fixed. I pray for contradicting knowledge to set me straight. We entirely depend on the outside world to bring us new knowledge, even if we seek it out ourselves. Things just don’t exist in our perceptions before discovering them. God helps us discover our contradictions if we’re open to His help. Being a believer in God is optional. The belief system is entirely compatible with atheism, as long as you understand that the outside world is the key to our freedom.

Closing words

This is my proposed belief system so far. I’ve been working for quite a while to test it rigorously and to find out all the pitfalls. Still, we’ll definitely find more, so I’ve made this document alive. It will change from time to time to become more robust. I might also have missed anything, or made certain things too verbose. If you have any feedback to improve the Adaptable belief system and this document, please leave a comment down below. I hope this can be useful for you, because the belief system certainly has been for me.