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Jimmy Gleeson's avatar

Interesting thoughts, but herein lies the rub. While this can facilitate success the thing that strong associations can also do if one is easily influenced is it can lead to the mass formation we have seen over the past three years. We saw a great many otherwise successful people become duped by a horrible narrative that while it may not have personally harmed them, it did harm many others who were not as successful.

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Jimychanga's avatar

True. Double edged sword!

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Michi Birk's avatar

💯😎

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jacquelyn sauriol's avatar

This is nuance in your general query; 'nature vs nurture' old discussion seems related to me. Is it what we surround ourselves with/our environment/our circle of friends, [IE NURTURE] vs. Something about our character/ self /morality [IE NATURE] that determines our fate? The answer is of course it's both, probably with some other things. Either choice (to surround yourself entirely with those like you, actually impossible, if you go out into the world and interact with people daily like most) or (to surround yourself with only different people, to make the point) is imbalanced and also impossible to obtain. It will be a mix, with also some interactions that wont be causal either way in influencing your outcome, one would guess. Until you consider the butterfly effect, and all bets are out the window.

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Chelie's avatar

Great minds think alike! Reach out to those in your circle, associate with and enhance one another’s critical thinking skills on a broad scale. Steer clear of those who easily grab ahold of group think. Those are the people who will panic and over react. We have at least over the past 3 1/2 years learned who will need to be talked down off a cliff when things go bad. But be mindful that we have to the ones that stay strong in those situations. Just my thoughts.

Thank you for sharing yours.

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ForkInSocket's avatar

What I've found is that our present situation has flipped a lot of metrics of success upside down. I no longer particularly want to follow my reference group, leaving me sort of stranded. In some ways it's like when the evolutionary landscape changes and traits that were exemplars of fitness are now liabilities.

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Catherine Brown's avatar

Good advice

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