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Alex_Rush
Did you see that Landmark revenue is up 50% in the last two years from $50 to $75 million? Complete elimination? Reform? Equally improbable?

As someone else pointed out, it's impossible to know whether [b:1bc883a2d4]any[/b:1bc883a2d4] claims Landmark makes are true, because they're so secretive about their finances.

But assuming their revenue really is up 50% in the last two years, you do realize how little incentive they'd have to listen to your calls for reform? The very things you want to "fix" are the same things that make them profitable.

And sadly, the things you want them to fix are mainly cosmetic. It's the "education" you wish they'd spend a greater percentage of their time on that's the truly harmful part. It's like asking your abusive spouse to stop spending so much time working to make money when he could be using that time to beat you more.

Glam

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Did you see that Landmark revenue is up 50% in the last two years from $50 to $75 million? Complete elimination? Reform? Equally improbable?

Apply this logic to a Columbian drug cartel... if [i:99426093cd] their [/i:99426093cd] revenue was up from $50 to $75 million, that then [i:99426093cd] means [/i:99426093cd] that cocaine is good for society ? If revenue flows "prove" the goodness of something, then everything profitable is therefore good. If your profits from selling arms to third world insurgent armies where they conscript children as soldiers is up for $50 million to $75 million, that "proves" that arming impoverished cultures is good, right ? If selling counterfeit drugs has netted you a 50% increase in profitability in the last two years, then [i:99426093cd] that [/i:99426093cd] is a good thing ? Is it a good thing if we decare it a good thing ? How far does the linguistic power of [i:99426093cd] declaration [/i:99426093cd] reach, anyway ???

If we [i:99426093cd] declare [/i:99426093cd] that killing child soldiers is a great boon for humakind, and we further declare that infecting them with the HIV virus, then sending them off to combat, preferably armed with machetes to hack each other to pieces, but we [i:99426093cd] have [/i:99426093cd] increased our profitability by 50% in the last two years, let's [i:99426093cd] declare ourselves complete [/i:99426093cd] and move on to present concerns...

So, where do you draw the line ? How do you draw the line ? What are your reference points ? Where, then, does morality come from ? How does ESTmark explain the existence of morality ? What makes something moral ? what makes it immoral ? Just a function of agreement ? Just declaration ?

Save your breath again, nutrino. No one said growth = good.
As lightwolf understood, Landmark's growth says Landmark ain't going away. Outside criticism has severe limits. Impacting Landmark is an inside job.
Fernando Flores has a nice bio on Wikipedia. Know something darker?

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Outside criticism has severe limits. Impacting Landmark is an inside job.

Mmmmmm... and why do you suppose that is ? Because Landmark refuses to attend to any thinking about Landmark that doesn't originate within Landmark ? Isn't that indicative of an.... errr... incestuous dynamic of self knowledge ? Or incestuous something or other...

I am aware that the average Landmark customer has little to no idea of the [i:01b20fe6a5] geneology [/i:01b20fe6a5] of the theoretical underpinnings, nor the chains of being that brought the Landmark "technology", as they prefer to call it, into its' present form... they have no mechanism for analysing the validity of the many assertions that Landmark proffers as revealed truth.... and the Landmark orgsters aren't about to enter into such a discussion...

Becuase IF you walk the cat backwards from Fernando Flores to Heidegger you might have to take into consideration some of Heidegger's extremely questionable affiliations, as in the Third Reich, and the equally unsettling possibility that Heidegger's philosophy was interwoven with the philosophical fabric of the Third Reich's belief system(s)...

Fernando's restatement of Heidegger... and for Flores Heidegger was The Man...( Wikepedia's entry on Flores isn't even skeletal, it is a microscopic sketch of the man and his thought processes and his intellectual legacy... I honestly cannot believe that any serious thinker would even turn to Wikepedia to enlarge on this subject.... it would be like asking for the Classic Comics version of War and Peace....) well, having gotten that off my chest... Erhard and Flores were joined at the hip conceptually, and it was Flores who introduced much of the vocabulary that animates Landmark expression today.... what nobody at the helm seems to have stopped and asked was, what if Flores was fundamentally in error ?, What if Flores' beliefs about the function of language and it's relation to action were broken at their foundation ? What if Heidegger himself was an incompetent philosopher ? What if Heidegger's theories were hopelessly misguided... or worse, what if they were essentially fascist, essentially narrowing, or beyond that, imprisoning to the mind ? What then ?

So my question is, did any of the EST crew, any of the Landmark ( to use the term charitably ) "thinkers" , any of the people actually responsible for the ways, shapes and forms of EST thought and Landmark "thought" , actually perform [i:01b20fe6a5] due diligence [/i:01b20fe6a5] on Flores' ideas ? Did they consider the implications of swallowing such a large dose of a philosopher that was intimately associated with Nazism ? Or did they buy in because Werner Erhard was enthusiastic about Flores and Erhard had a Diktat in place that his follower were supposed to "recreate" him [i:01b20fe6a5] without critical reflection [/i:01b20fe6a5]. If Werner Erhard bought the Heidegger-Flores model, then so, By God, would they.

Darker ? I dunno. What's "darker" mean to you ?

Well Alex, in response to your:

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Outside criticism has severe limits. Impacting Landmark is an inside job.

I'll let Werner answer for me.

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So What ?

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Alex_Rush
As lightwolf understood, Landmark's growth says Landmark ain't going away.

Let me help you with understanding me, Alex (I'm trying to be nice here). I didn't say, and I don't understand, that "Landmark's growth says Landmark ain't going away."

The errors:
- I didn't say Landmark was growing. There are no independently audited, publicly available financial statements prepared according to GAAP procedures. I conceded your statement for discussion only. That doesn't mean I accept it as fact, which I don't.

- I said elimination of Landmark was improbable. This is not the same as "Landmark ain't (by the way, is that enlightened English?) going away. You have added an element of certainty that was absent from my statement.

- I didn't say improbability of elimination was related to revenue growth.

I feel complete now. Thank you. :wink: :lol:

-lightwolf

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Alex_Rush
The revolt is not crushable. If they considered it, they decided they couldn't or decided not to do so. Landmark wrote supportive words to the group.

Alex,

This is called "handling." Of course they will write supportive words. Why piss you off and alienate some of their best customers? But, as has been pointed out by many here, your reform effort is aimed at thier sacred cash cow, and they aren't about to let her be gored. Being marginally supportive, leading you along, giving you hope [i:56e492d146]without ever implementing your concerns[/i:56e492d146] is by far their best strategy. If I were as morally vacuous as Erhard & Brethren, I would do the same.

While we're at it, by saying "outside criticism has it's limits," are you disempowering us? If so, that's not nice. :wink:

Guess I'm in a winking kind of mood. :)

-lightwolf

Lightwolf: I stand corrected on your understanding of Landmark growth. You are totally in possibility about Landmark failing! Anything you want is possible (..if you did the Forum). :D
Agree with your thoughts on Landmark's response.
You have a great command of the situation + great care for the people. Must find common ground.

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Alex_Rush
You are totally in possibility about Landmark failing! Anything you want is possible (..if you did the Forum).

Actually some of us may be in possibility of the im possible becoming the possible which is that Landmark undergoes a profound shift towards a more evolved consciousness.... meaning that Landmark arrives at the point where they can be in the possibility of letting go of Landmark....

Which is, in action, a vastly different distinction than the distinction of being in the possibility of Landmark failing, it is the distinction of transforming the [i:1128e997d4] concept of distinction ...[/i:1128e997d4]

It means being in the possibility that the information temperature of the knowledge universe is higher than when Landmark was conceived, it means being in the possibility that the distinction of listening for possibility needs to be drilled deep into the central [i:1128e997d4] pieties [/i:1128e997d4] of the Landmark organization ...

In a nut, it means [i:1128e997d4] growing up [/i:1128e997d4] and outgrowing your sources, it means seeing certain people, influences, and philosophies [i:1128e997d4] as no longer sufficient for completion [/i:1128e997d4], it means rediscovering openmindedness, curiosity, ctiticality ... it means taking on the willingness to be as uncomfortable as the Church was with Gallileo, as many a true believer was with Darwin...

And that means being in the possibility of letting go of infantile dependencies and overidentifications with particular institutions and "institutional prestige" ... it means being naked and vulnerable to the new and being in the possibility of reshaping consciousness within the context of new possibility.

Institutions are notoriously inept at rebuilding themselves from within, not so much from a conscious desire to fail as the culture of consensus that has long extinguished any attitude of irreverent creativity that is crucial for spirited, life affirming change.

I remember my Landmark friend (who's been around since the Erhard days) talking about earlier attempts at reform. They had a big conference of some kind and presented
a request to lay off the hard sell, etc. I remember my friend expressing his astonishment that the Landmark leadership didn't "have integrity"
about implementing the reform requests. Can some of the other long-timers here comment? Even though
the history of Landmark is not spoken of, wouldn't a little bit of recent Landmark history be useful to the reformers?

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nutrino
Actually some of us may be in possibility of the im possible becoming the possible which is that Landmark undergoes a profound shift towards a more evolved consciousness.... meaning that Landmark arrives at the point where they can be in the possibility of letting go of Landmark....

Which is, in action, a vastly different distinction than the distinction of being in the possibility of Landmark failing.

It means being in the possibility that the distinction of listening for possibility needs to be drilled deep into the central [i:167aa78167] pieties [/i:167aa78167] of the Landmark organization ...

In a nut, it means [i:167aa78167] growing up [/i:167aa78167] and outgrowing your sources, it means seeing certain people, influences, and philosophies [i:167aa78167] as no longer sufficient for completion [/i:167aa78167], it means rediscovering openmindedness, curiosity, ctiticality ... it means taking on the willingness to be as uncomfortable as the Church was with Gallileo, as many a true believer was with Darwin...

And that means being in the possibility of letting go of infantile dependencies and overidentifications with particular institutions and "institutional prestige" ... it means being naked and vulnerable to the new and being in the possibility of reshaping consciousness within the context of new possibility.

Institutions are notoriously inept at rebuilding themselves from within, not so much from a conscious desire to fail as the culture of consensus that has long extinguished any attitude of irreverent creativity that is crucial for spirited, life affirming change.

Right on! Awesome! At last we meet.