– Zaadz is not I-I or Ken’s biatch.

– my understanding and experience of social networks technology, blogging, and “Web 2.0″ is more vast than you Tom. (prove me wrong Tom, prove me wrong). here’s a couple of links for you.

me using other social networks, before and during Zaadz.

here’s another one.

i choose to work for Zaadz because it’s the ONLY social network that fits my current ethics and values. it’s my right livelihood at the moment.

Tom, what technology out there fits your values? what work would you rather be doing that fits your values?

for the record, i don’t “herd” people. i set example as compassionate as i can. one of my reponsibilities which i’ve chosen for myself is to increase TARGETED SERENDIPITY. that’s a blogging term Tom, and as a blogger you should understand the meaning of it. i, or Zaadz, am not in the business of “herding” people to JOIN. i only want people here who are interested and inspired enough to join. people here are free to come in and go out as they freely choose. Zaadz is not a “cult” it’s a social networking platform with meaning and purpose.

lastly, your criticism of Zaadz is so partial at best and laughable at best. why? because you don’t have a first-hand experience of Zaadz to prove your assertions. you continue to stay of out the “illussory”boundaries and walls then throw rocks from afar. and to my knowledge, i don’t think you have a good grasp or Social Networking technology and Web 2.0 in general. again, prove me wrong here Tom, prove me wrong.

btw, one more thing: how come you deleted my comment on your blog post? i only rebutted your criticisms point by point. what happened to the “openness” of the blogosphere?

if you’ve got what it takes, then let’s debate about Social Networking, Web 2.0 and not just your triskaidekaphobia and quesy feeling about Ken and Integral Insititute. frankly, those things bore me to death. otherwise, i will ignore your criticisms and this will be my last time of

oh one last thing, this is a cool blog post Elliot, i bookmarked it.

~C (for “Criticize by creating”)

What I can say is this: anyone capable of writing an attack such as Wilber’s is seriously disturbed. Anyone who senses their authority to act in this manner is someone undeserving of authoriy. Anyone who makes excuses for it is in a psychological prison from which they should flee as soon as possible. Normal people involved in normal debate do not act this way. Maybe only a person on the outside can see this clearly.

Ken Wilber has not cornered the market on the non-dual. There is a difference between the non-duality he exudes and represents and the thought systems he creates.

And, anyway, most people would react negatively to finding out that someone with whom they are doing business has written a public assessment of the degree to which they are a cult leader. People are fickle that way.

Besides, in the business world of our day, a breach of contract is just another ho-hum penalty on the decision matrix. It’s not like he will have taken off his white glove and chivalrously slapped you with it. It can be that the price of breaching the contract is just something he is willing to pay.

As for C4 and me, there isn’t any antagonism. It’s all nose twisting, and perhaps a little Three Stooges eye gouging and maybe a few instances of bomb drops. But I do think that C4’s paid role is to herd sheep and rope any dumb woolly animals he can that come close to the compound wall. C4 doesn’t really know this yet, because — surprize! surprize! — Zaadz won’t be meeting its revenue expectations so one day soon C4 will get a list of quotas he’ll be expected to meet.

As for your negative blog post, I would wager that it either wasn’t all that negative or didn’t suggest the beginnings of a pattern of behavior or you are now too knitted into the community for them to want to be rid of you, or to easily be able to make you “Disappeared.” Also these things may only happen in cataclysmic purges. The Big February purge resulted in ousting 1500 out of a 2500 membership. Yowza! Why, that’s Soviet style!

Elliot: I don’t know what assessment you can make from whether your paper is accepted or not. After all, you are immodestly servile [with it being non-significant whether you mean it or not]: “To me he truly is a great philosopher.” On the other hand, they might see an implied threat that you will upgrade the I-I Bonewits score if your integral-mathematics paper is rejected. And they might either not like being threatened, or the threat might work. Or, you might just be seen as an enemy that is worth trying to influence, so Wilber will accept your paper. Or, Wilber could accept your paper, invite you to his loft to celebrate and lace your glass of Charles Taylor Cabernet with strychnine. Or, your paper could be rejected simply because it was finally decided that your vision does not adequately comport with Ken’s, or because Ken doesn’t like your abs or the shape of your head. Or, Ken could reject your paper, invite you to the loft to commiserate and then beat the crap out of you. There is just no knowing.

I have to admit I was feeling just a tad anxious after reading Tom’s 9th July post. Along the lines of what’s going on here? But this morning while crusing the blogosphere I stumbled across this post by Tom
Is Zaadz a Den of Rattlesnakes!? http://zenunbound.com/2006/05/is-zaadz-den-of-rattlesnakes.html I also found this reply by C4Chaos http://coolmel.typepad.com/iblog/2006/05/re_is_zaadz_a_d.html All of which gave me a better idea of the background of such assertions, and the antagonistic nature of the exchange between Tom and C4 (i am pretty new to the world of blogging, that is why it took me so long to get onto this; also i have lots of other things to do apart from reading blogs)

For what it is worth (and I can only speak from my own experience), I have only had positive experiences at Zaadz, and as i said i find it a really great networking forum.

Tom’s assertion (in his Blogmandu post linked above) of Zaadz “(giving) every indication of being autocratic and intolerant to any who don’t fit in with its ideas of forthright behavior and being always positive and upbeat” does not fit my experience. One of my blog posts there was quite pessimistic in tone, but no-one censored me or told me to get into line.

Re the graphic that Tom took offence to, i think it’s quite neat really. Call me new agey if you must….

Regarding what Paul has said about Zaadz approaching KW for partnership or whatever, imho in the unlikely event that if Wilber does get involved on any level beyond the most superficial, he will be in for a disappointment, because my impression (at least so far!) is that the people at zaadz are a lot more diverse and varied in their opinions and inspiration than KW’s own cultic devotees.

Of course, I may be wrong, and I may yet be disillusioned about Zaadz. A lot will depend on how things turn out, and if Wilber and I-I do indeed try to determine policy there. If they ever do, I’m out of there, believe me! (and will owe Tom an apology…)

By his own account after contacts with Ken and I-I he was frustrated that his work was apparently not being published. He also felt that due to his not towing the line he was being treated with less distinction and some distance was being created. This is part motivated him to write his article now. He includes a caveat (threat?) that if his work doesn’t appear in I-I publications after this article he mightl change his tune. He still hopes his work will appear so perhaps to some degree he’s toned down his rhetoric. That his work appearing is now tied into his conclusions should indicate at least partial evidence for my thesis.

Motivation is such a key to why we do the things we do or don’t do. And it is a complex thing that informs our personal perspectives. It is much more complex than just impersonal pronouns posing as “perspectives.” It’s the “personal” that makes all the difference in perspective(s). But that’s a blog entry for another day.