Best Post of the Week [Archive] - Discussion World Forum

Michael

Feb 8th 2009, 12:11 PM

Here's the first one...

I thought of this thread this morning on my way to work. I often listen to sports talk radio on the way to and from work, and the Michael Phelps had hit there. It was interesting to listen, because the subject inevitably turned to "what do I tell my children?"

It was at this point, as the deejays discussed this subject, I realized the true essence of the cognitive dissonance on the matter that is ingrained into society, and particularly sports. The conclusion that they reached was that the appropriate thing to tell a 13/14 year old who admires Phelps is that he "made a really bad decision". And, I realized the reason for this. There is a basic truth that we as a society, and especially in the sports world, are asked to accept. Marijuana is evil and it will inevitably ruin your life. Ergo, the only way to explain Michael Phelps winning a slew of gold medals and also being photographed smoking pot is that he just did it once. He "made a really bad decision".

Charitably, the deejays agreed that there was no reason to order their children to take down the posters of him, because athletes are human, and they can make really bad decisions just like anyone else. One said his daughter had decided that she really liked him, even if he did something "really, really dumb". Of course, someone who allows himself to be photographed expertly holding a bong is clearly not someone who smoked pot only once. But, never mind that.

In a way, the irony is beautiful. When you parse out the bullshit, the real message here is that the dumb part about this was getting caught, and that the "bad decision" was allowing someone to take a picture. That's the real message here, and the one that anyone with half a brain, including teenagers, will get. It isn't a "bad decision" to smoke pot in any sense of impeding his success - how could it be? The guy's 14 or whatever medals are a testament to that. It's a bad decision in terms of suffering the wrath of society - it's a bad decision because of the clucking done by the various people calling it a bad decision. I doubt those same people would say "boo" if Phelps were photographed sipping a Heineken.

In a way, it sort of reminds me of the claptrap about why homosexuals shouldn't be allowed to adopt children - because other children will make fun of them. In other words, "we're creating a stigma surrounding this and will persecute you, so it's a bad idea for you to do it."

http://www.discussionworldforum.com/forum/showpost.php?p=4855&postcount=10

I doff my cap in honor of such a fine post! :hatoff:

Michael

Feb 15th 2009, 09:50 AM

Here's our next entry...

In my experience South American "Latino" culture is decidedly western. Sure, it differs in some way, which is that which makes it "Latino" of course.

I specify Latino culture, because there are other cultures in South America. I would say that the city of Buenos Aires, and probably other parts of Argentina have a culture that is very distinct. It is very European, so that of course falls into the western culture even more so.

The mountains and plains of South America are your standard "Latino" I think, in many ways. Depending on where you are, there can be a lot of indigenous influence, mainly Quechua, such as in Bolivia, Ecuador and Peru. These peoples self identify as different to a certain extent. I think the mountain cultures are slowly being eroded and mixed with the Spanish Catholic culture, as well as westernized, as globalization sets in. This is a 500 year process though...

It is in the jungle, somewhat on the western side of the Andes, but mostly in the Amazon basin where things get different. There are of course the "sin-contacto" tribes that have essentially nothing of Western culture. Then there are the myriad of tribes and ethnicities (Shuar, Guarani, Quechua, etc. etc.) that inhabit the waterways of the jungle. They hold tightly to their culture and their identity. They are, to a certain extent (at least in Ecuador) brought into the political fold, and it isn't rare to see a "Dale Correa!" sign in a house hours and hours into the jungle. Their own local politics have taken on Western names, and they use western days of the week (which is entertaining because you'll here someone railing along in Shuar and then they'll use Spanish days of the week and and units of time), but I think that to a greater extent they are just nominal applications to a more communitarian political structure which is relatively organic.

They are to a greater extent pacified (though they still proudly talk about one tribe or another's reputation as warriors and whatnot), but I think that for the most part it is safe to say that their culture is relatively intact and not western.

(Lest there be any pretension of the "noble savage," the culture of the jungle can be pretty ugly. It is severly misogynistic and abusive, much beyond the latino "machismo" and I'm not at all sure that the good gets anywhere near outweighing the bad.)

http://www.discussionworldforum.com/forum/showpost.php?p=5111&postcount=30

I doff my cap in honor of such a fine post! :hatoff:

Michael

Mar 1st 2009, 09:07 AM

Yes, fearmongering is what it is but do not forget that psychology is a sound - and badly studied - part of economics.

We have heard both messages : on the one hand the Wall Street arrogant right wingers who bragged American superiority and on the other hand the leftist intellectuals sending warning messages and writing long books on the subject for the last ten years at least.

We knew that the Americans were living on credit, borrowing heavily from the rest of the world but making the rest of the world dependant on their level of comsumption, we knew that the US Trade deficit had already reached not the sky but the deepness of hell, we knew that the financial system was completely disconnected from the real economy, some people might have known that it was under-regulated, we knew that globalisation raises the income of a few while the income of the middle class stagnates at best if not decreases and the poorer become poorer, a few bubbles have burst in the recent past and all serious economists know how Bubbles come to be and what Supercycles and economic waves are (Did you know that Kondratiev got was sentenced to the Russian gulag and excuted because his thesis did not fit the Soviet adminisration ?).

In any case, we knew all this but denied it at a conscious level and went on shopping (at least I did ). And now "The Time has Come" - This is the End of the World we were all waiting for. Not surprising there is an hysteria.

http://www.discussionworldforum.com/forum/showpost.php?p=5567&postcount=14

:hatoff: for a fine post!

Michael

Mar 8th 2009, 11:49 AM

The problem with GM is that, since the '80s, American car quality has dropped dramatically. Due to safety regulations and "design features," the cost of production has increased dramatically. Cars aren't lasting as long as they used to, but they are becoming increasingly more difficult to afford. You don't see many '90s model American cars on the road (although you can still see plenty '80s or older models).

Meanwhile, Nissan, Honda, Mazda and Toyota are producing good quality vehicles that last 200k+ miles. Not only that, but these brands, until the past few years, were offering "basic" packages on most of their vehicles, making them much cheaper than the "flashier" American products. I think I could skip on the third row monitors and On*Star (which is a fucking evil product anyway) for a reasonably priced vehicle THAT LASTS.

So, no, GM is not going to last in their current format. Does that mean they should close shop? Maybe. Can they alter their vehicle platforms to become more affordable? Can they focus on the motors and chassis that should be the true focus on every automobile? Will the government wake up and see that their innumerable safety regulations are slitting the throats of the automakers? And, ultimately, will Americans buy cars that will get you places without television/media center/GPS/quintuple-side airbags/mp3 player/27 outlets(without one goddamn cigarette lighter)/panoramic windows/massaging seats/retina-scan starters/vibrators?

I would happily pay $10,000 for a new Jeep Wrangler. And they can produce one and profit at that price, but they throw in all the flash and bang which more than doubles the price.

More and more, I feel that the economic collapse is my age group's fault (25-35). We wanted stuff and didn't have the money to buy it, so we financed everything. We wanted the H3s and F150s with all the gadgets they sell with them just as much as we wanted the house next to Mom and Dad's, so we looked for a short cut. And the banks answered with balloon payments and ARMs and tied the noose. It seems that they forgot to tie the other end to the gallows and, instead, tied it around their own neck.

America needs to grow up. My age group needs to realize that we're no longer the kids that watch American Pie and get drunk on the weekends. We're fucking adults with responsibilities and repercussions. Until that happens, we're not going anywhere.

And we all should have a SHTF plan ready for when us assholes have to take control of everything. We may well bounce back from this one, but what happens when our parents aren't around to help us out the next time?

http://www.discussionworldforum.com/forum/showpost.php?p=5795&postcount=5

:hatoff: to a fine post!

Michael

Mar 15th 2009, 09:56 AM

My comments were not meant to be a thread-killer but the tide seemed to be stemmed shortly after.

A good chunk of my life has been dedicated to studying Culture in a professional capacity. Ironically for anthropologists, whether they are socio-cultural anthropologists, linguists, physical anthropologists or archaeologists, the one element that ties us together (Culture) is surprisingly the one element that very few of us can agree upon a definition for. This is the major reason I stayed out of this thread in any meaningful way at first because it was honestly a bit of an experiment on my part that presented itself.

There is an old joke that if you get a group of ten of the most brilliant and influential anthropologists in one room they'd emerge with ten different definitions of the word Culture. The same is true of anthropologists regardless of their own origins in Europe or North America or South America or Africa or anywhere it seems. We just can't agree on what it is.

Culture is, to me, an amorphous abstract that is the best means of adaptation that humans have at their disposal. However, I do not believe Culture to be uniquely human. What makes human culture different is that we, as a species, are utterly dependent on it. Not only is it our best tool of adaptation but it is our essential tool of adaptation. Horrifying experiments were done on orphans in the late 19th/early 20th century to see what would happen if children were raised in a zoo-like setting limiting their cultural contact with other humans. The results, in a nutshell, were non-humans. We are the cultural ape and we cannot be anything but. Without Culture, we are not human. Our difference from other animals and their limited but interesting examples of cultural behaviours is one of degree rather than kind.

That being said, what I've defined here is Culture with a capital "C". It is the abstract amorphous thing that defines us as a species. Under the auspices of this word can be gathered such diverse things as shelter, clothing, any object you can point to that is made by people (called material culture), but also lying, economies (sorry, linked those unintentionally), politics, induced states of trance, meditation, music, and so forth. The particular and specific products of each of these tangible and intangible things that make up a group of people's way or flavour of this abstract is a culture (lower case "c"). This is what the OP tries to address but you have all stumbled into the abstract at various points too tedious for me to piece out at this time. This is not a bad thing, I'm just trying to point out that we can't talk about cultures without talking about Culture.

One of the things that makes Culture so annoying to anyone that looks from the outside in at anthropology or sociology is that its amorphousness is both entirely intentional and a functional component of its perpetuation as a tool of adaptation. In order for a behaviour to be classified as cultural it generally has to be transmitted extragenetically from one generation to the next. While this doesn't require language, it is often facilitated greatly through language.

And therein lies one of the two reasons that Culture and cultures are amorphous. Anyone who played the game of “Telephone” as a child knows that transmitting anything through language is an inexact exercise. Remove language and you have an even tougher time replicating the behaviour both as the originator intended it and as the receiver interprets it. The layers of meaning of the behaviour can be grossly misshapen with and without language from one generation to the next, especially when two people don't agree on this. This hints at the second dimension of amorphousness, time.

Over time cultures change. They have to. Investigating the mechanisms of culture change has been the pursuit of every top-notch anthropologist worth their salt since the inception of the discipline. Cultures are built to be changed and when this change is resisted, the culture either changes anyway through the very act of resistance or it dies. The interesting thing about Culture as an abstract is that it provides its own means of change through behaviours. We don't have to throw the baby out with the bathwater when we change culture. Just because we no longer execute criminals in Canada for heinous crimes doesn't mean they go wholly unpunished. Just because the Maya no longer practice human sacrifice to their gods doesn't mean they no longer worship their gods or that their gods no longer exist. The very shapelessness of culture, the very fact that it can't ever be totally pinned down, summarised or placed into a box and labelled is both confounding and self-perpetuating at the same time. It is what keeps the abstract … abstract.

So, what then is Western culture? I think this is too broad of a question and that it has to be framed in temporal restrictions. SMadsen made this point very late in the threads and demonstrated that elements that people have identified as belonging to Western culture only apply to certain time periods and even only to certain parts of Western culture. The irony is that many of the things in a list of what elements bear out in Western culture, even if they are long-standing and well-established elements present in a vast majority of the groups included appear elsewhere in one form or another in places you've never heard of amongst groups so small and different in so many other ways it would be pointless to even consider them part of Western culture. What I'm saying is that I don't think many of the things we've identified in this thread are actually unique. What may be argued to be unique is the combination of these elements at a particular time in history.

Let's look at how the experts study culture. Culture is usually broken down into the following broad categories of study:

Religion
Language and Communication
Identity Formation
Family and Kinship
Socialisation
Subsistence Systems
Sexuality and Gender
Politics and Power
Collectivity and Group Cohesion (including legal systems)
Medicine and Perceptions of the Body

These are the most typical ones you will find in any introductory text on the subject. I chose the ones from my own introduction course. In order to proceed on defining what Western culture is I propose that we need to first of all agree on the above list of areas of study about culture and come up with elements that fit into each. We then need to evaluate these based on their merits and applicability to a particular time period, I would propose “the present” as a vague time period that we can debate the usefulness of. I would say that no more than 50 years would be useful to truly categorise a culture. Beyond this you run the risk of including things so vastly out-dated that people at either end of that period would be unrecognisable to each other. This does not mean we have to discard discussion of earlier elements, we simply have to recognise the modern versions or descendants (if any) of earlier elements.

My only warning on this, if some of you are agreed to undertake this course of action, is that we should not get too specific in our language use on some of these. For instance, it suffices to say that a discussion of Christianity's influence in most of these spheres is imminent but that the elements we decide upon should be parsed more vaguely, such as monotheism rather than belief in one God, or religious freedom rather than liberty from the bonds of God's commandments.

Just one more comment that may or may not be helpful. Culture as a tool is probably very old. I would peg it beyond the origin of Homo sapiens and, if we're talking about a hominid reliance on it as I have characterised it in the outset of this post, I would have to say it's at least 2 million years old. In its pre-human form it is probably much older and I would go so far as to say that some of its characteristics date back to the Miocene split of the apes at 20 million years ago. That being said, this long-established tool in our arsenal of adaptations (which is a very limited list for hominids in general and humans in particular) has always had another peculiarity to it that I would cite as the sole reason for every glorious discovery and every horrifying conflict in recorded and unrecorded history. Culture keeps itself intact and has the curious effect of arousing protectionist attitudes in its practitioners at all costs. It is a fundamental tool of our survival and, as such, when it is threatened through the disruption of our particular flavour or brand of it (cultures) we move to protect it. So vehement a reaction, cultural survival is the root cause of every major world conflict you can point to today and I would argue every such conflict before. We are probably hard-wired to create groups of “us versus them” so much so that our versions of cultures are often the winning version of the day in regards to whatever element you're identifying. This does not spell “better” and should never be mistaken for “superior”. I'm making a Darwinian argument in one sense that, for each culture, the elements present often represents what works best in the particular cultural milieu and context that exists for those people at that time. Culture has a way of selecting out things that don't work en masse. The things that are really at the core of popular rejection have laws created against them.

There is the distinct possibility that any of you who have participated up until this point now think I've lost my mind in asking to do this but I think that a proper treatment of the OP requires this. Culture is not only amorphous, it's fucking big! In a strange and wonderful twist of fate, it is the only reason we are here to talk about it.

http://www.discussionworldforum.com/forum/showpost.php?p=5944&postcount=41

I doff my cap in honor of such a fine post! :hatoff:

Michael

Mar 22nd 2009, 10:35 AM

I find this intriguing. Can you explain the model farther? Three axes would yield 8 regions, I presume.

Yes, it would yield eight regions. Eight being the regions yielded. It would not yield nine, nor would it yield seven, excepting that you then added an eighth. Ten regions is right out.

Let's see... the idea started with a continuum of "faith" and "doubt" that I conceived of, with the the middle being what I called the "crisis of faith," the point at which doubt overcomes faith, or vice versa.

With the assistance of one of my friends, however, we cleared up some definitions and ambiguities, and added another two axes.

Anyway: The first axis is the continuum of belief and anti belief in the existence of a divine entity. We are not specific as to whether it is a single God, many gods, or whatever. Just the belief in the existence of what my friend (he's a religion major, fwiw) the "wholly other." The farther toward absolute belief you get, the more certainty there is about the existence. The center is lack of belief. The opposite end of the spectrum is absolute certainty that the divine does not exist.

The second axis is faith and doubt. This idea was properly elaborated by my "colleague" and while I understand it, it's a little harder for me to explain again. The best synonym for faith, in this circumstance, is "trust." It doesn't have to refer to a belief in a divine: you can have faith or doubt in god, humanity, political ideology, karma, whatever.

Meaning is a word that I don't particularly like, but I think it is appropriate to use here. This is the third axis. How we defined meaning is "applied implication." If you register high meaning, then "it all means something" and you have a role. Technically the role is not necessarily active, if for you the meaning is inactivity (me telling you to do nothing is not the same as me not telling you to do anything).

I don't know if that makes any sense, so I'll try to throw out some examples (I might be wrong about where I place certain philosophies, so feel free to correct me).

Absurdists, Buddhists, me, and Hitler would fall into the meaning, faith, anti-belief region.

Existentialists and nihilists would fall into the lack of meaning, doubt and anti-belief region.

The pope, my roommate, and a Muslim fanatical extremist would fall into the meaning, faith and belief region.

An extreme compartmentalist would fall into the lack of faith, belief and lack of meaning region.

Is any of this making sense? I hope so. Anyway, I have to run off because I'm getting a free meal. Holler.

http://www.discussionworldforum.com/forum/showpost.php?p=6122&postcount=6

I doff my cap in honor of such a fine post! :hatoff:

Michael

Apr 19th 2009, 11:17 AM

Wilde's whole point in writing The Picture of Dorian Gray was aesthetics. The driving motivation for it was art for art's sake, and he advised against trying to make any more out of the book in his preface. However, since humans seem to think that the more harmonious and symmetrical something is, the prettier it is, I can't imagine all the ethical points tackled in the book don't round out to something concrete. All that Lord Henry says, the obvious rewards and punishments, and references to conscience in the book can't be Wilde just spouting flowery words. Trying to make rhyme and reason out of all the contradictions in the book is quite a challenge, but I am bound and determined to see it through.

Lord Henry, seen as the corrupter of Dorian and the catalyst for his downfall, says outrageous things, in Victorian English context. He says that life should lived for pleasure and sensory experience, and morality's only function is to fill us with fear and regret. Dorian decides to make this his life, his unaging beauty making it possible to live out Lord Henry's ideas. He also has the benifit of bodilly disconnecting his conscience from himself, in the form of the painting that bears the physical consequence of his evil. However, the picture torments him in a different way. He can't sleep, paranoid that someone might find it. He checks and checks to make sure no one has been in the room that houses the painting and begins to suspect that everyone around him is trying to see it. So the simple moral of the story could be that you shouldn't live your life in a hedonistic way or you will pay. But that's boring.

I don't think that it's Lord Henry's poisonous words that corrupt an innocent soul. The good Lord H spends his time studying people and questioning the norms that most people just accept. Tapered down and used by a person not prone to extremes, I can't see whats wrong with living for delights of the senses and new experiences. Dorian's faults existed before he adopted this new way of life, and these faults combined with a decadent lifestyle turned him into a montser. As soon as we meet him in the beginning of the novel, he is a brat. He is selfish and whiny. He doesn't like to be told things that make him think or make him uncomfortable. A month later, through the incident with his first love, we see how prone he is to self-deception and justification of his actions. He has a well-developed skill of redirecting blame so neatly that it becomes impossible for him, in his mind, to be in the wrong. Even at the end, where we are finally alone with Dorian and his thoughts (as most of the book has him parroting Lord Henry), we see that he has decieved himself into thinking that, in not doing the absolute worst thing in a scenario that he could have, he was doing something good for the sake of goodness. He can't understand why the picture isn't getting better. I wonder if the whole book is warning against deception.

Even that doesn't work very neatly. Any other book lovers/analysts who've read this gem want to speculate?

http://www.discussionworldforum.com/forum/showpost.php?p=7206&postcount=1

I doff my hat to such a fine and thoughtful post! :hatoff:

Michael

May 3rd 2009, 10:03 AM

I spend about 4 lectures in my Humankind class discussing the origins and uses of the IQ tests. They were originally designed by French anthropologist/psychologist/naturalist Alfred Binet in the late 1800s. Binet was a student of Paul Broca, one of the founding French anthropologists. Broca asserted that external cranium size would correlate with intelligence. After gathering some data and leaving out those that didn't prove his theory, he published his data. Binet attempted to expand Broca's data by collecting the same information. Binet didn't lie about what he found though and he trashed his teacher's theory.

Binet went in search of a better measure of intelligence but was never able to find one. In the meantime, he was asked by the French government (I can't remember which branch nor at what level) to design a test that would evaluate children and separate out those who were intellectually less developed for their age than their "normal" counterparts. This performance score was termed the child's "intellectual age" Those whose intellectual ages were significantly below their biological ages were termed "mentally retarded". The purpose of all of this was to be able to put children into two groups. Binet began by assessing the scores by subtracting the biological age from the intellectual age. A negative score would indicate a problem and at a certain level of significance, intervention by the school/teacher would be encouraged to help the student catch up. Binet was corrected in his methodology and a German psychologist (name escapes me) suggested that the intellectual age be divided by the biological age instead. This quotient would then be multiplied by 100 and would better represent the statistical gap in development if there was one. This is why 100 is an average score.

Unfortunately, Binet's warnings about his test, which later came to be called the intelligence quotient test, were rarely heeded. He warned that:

1) This test was designed to assess the intellectual development (not end state) of a child.
2) The scores of children of average scores and above had no bearing on each other - they could not be internally compared because the test questions weren't designed to do this.
3) The questions and answers were greatly influenced by cultural upbringings, so much so that Binet even suggested different questions be developed for children in the different regions of France and even from town to city where an urban and rural setting might represent an influence.

And so, the story continues with several American and European scientists of various stripes doing different things with this test. Most of them to the dismay of poor Binet because none of them took heed of his cautions. Binet recognised that intelligence was such a complex thing that to reify it (and I'm using my 20th century analysis here, not his 19th) into a tangible thing that can be measured, let alone boil it down to a few criteria, was a terrible mistake. It cheapens human intelligence by giving it a single score. It's about like describing a picture by saying, "It's nice".

The most horrifying misuses of the IQ test took place in the United States and Canada - or at least the examples I'm aware of. A psychologist by the name of R.M. Yerkes used a modified version of the test on new army recruits in WWI. He got a huge sample of course once all the bases started to co-operate with administering the test. It was supposed to divide the recruits into the tasks they would be best suited for. The intelligent could be kept back to operate the machinery, the not so intelligent could go to the front lines as cannon fodder. Unfortunately, this ended up dividing the army recruits along very racist lines. White naturalised Americans were the most intelligent, followed by first generation Western and Northern Europeans, followed by Southern and Eastern Europeans, followed by US Blacks. Interestingly, the White naturalised Americans on average ranked at an intellectual age of 13.08, just above moronity!

These test results then leaked into the hands of eugenicists. One in particular, Brigham, a psychology professor at Princeton University, pushed for the restriction of immigrants into the US in the 1920s. This in turn was used by Laughlin in his presentations in congress to support the Immigration Act of 1924. It resulted in as many as 6 million southern, central and eastern Europeans being turned away from immigration into the US.

The amazing thing to me is that those in the US who were in favour of this eugenecist agenda ended up being pretty close to siding with the Nazis in WWII on a cultural level. What a different world it would be if they'd have gotten their way. They had an almost identical build up towards the sort of racism the Nazis were promoting in the 1920s and 1930s. Scary.

The other example is of course of the thousands of Canadians and Americans, specifically those in the state of Virginia, who were sterilised on the grounds that the American population had to be purified and that those performing poorly on an IQ test would water down the nation. This was still going on in both countries up until the 1960s on unwed mothers, prostitutes, children with behavioural problems and petty criminals.

So, at the end of this essay/rant I have to say that IQ ratings are bogus and measure nothing I'm interested in. I have seen the "intelligence" of knowing how to weave a basket and conveying this information from grandmother to grandchild without the use of language - by showing the child what to do with the child in the lap of the grandmother and the grandmother weaving the basket with her grandchild's hands in her own. This was from someone who never learned to read or write. I have heard the "intelligence" of a musician being able to hear a piece of music once and replicate it on their own instrument of choice in perfect pitch without being able to hold a meaningful conversation with other people. Intelligence is almost as amorphous as culture and I shutter to think of the lives that have been lost or irrevocably altered in the name of supposedly being able to measure it. I remain ever skeptical of the efforts by humans to claim to know themselves in this respect. I care not to live in that Brave New World. Intelligence is too big, too varied and too faceted to describe with a single number.

http://www.discussionworldforum.com/forum/showpost.php?p=7679&postcount=7

I doff my cap to a such a fine and thoughtful post! :hatoff:

Michael

May 10th 2009, 09:37 AM

I've always been surprised conservatives don't attack Star Trek. I mean you basically have a Humanist Utopian society, without money in what can only be described as a communist economy, going around preaching humanism and fighting or at least resisting the forces of objectivism, nationalism, and religious extremism. The show is pretty much a liberal propaganda piece.

http://www.discussionworldforum.com/forum/showpost.php?p=8112&postcount=19

A bit lighter topic than our usual selections, but still a thoughtful and interesting post! :hatoff:

Evangeline

May 12th 2009, 12:45 AM

That's basically a rightwing bait-and-switch plan for status quo politics. I'm talking about politics, not economics here. Politics rules this issue. Economists have ignored/dismissed pollution as an "externality" for too many decades to be taken seriously on the issue of how to deal with it now.

A carbon tax is massively regressive - which means it hits poor people harder than rich people. Now the rightwing knows the leftwing won't go for that - or if it does, they have to bring in a big 'tax credit' system to offset the hit on poor people. This makes the tax & giveaway to poor people very easy for the right to attack.

Similarly, a carbon tax would likely act like any other tax - something that Republicans can campaign for cutting it or gutting it when they get in office.

Ergo, the rightwing politically favors the 'carbon tax' type proposal - as a way to manage the process in their favor. It is a very traditional form of tax that they feel most comfortable about dealing with.

A cap and trade system is one that is quite likely to become supra-national soon enough, given that Europe has one too, and that means international tribunals for disputes and all the stuff the rightwing hates the most about the UN, NAFTA and WTO - technocratic decisions made on the merits of the case alone - by bureaucrats outside the ability of the US political system to control.

http://www.discussionworldforum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=274&page=20

No comment needed. :D

Michael

May 17th 2009, 09:38 AM

This week was a tough call between this and one of Daktoria's jargon heavy but highly information-packed posts. I chose this one because it is short, sweet, clear, concise, well researched and loaded with information. :)

Unfortunately, as I've done a little more research on this, it seems there's no chance it'll hold up. No matter where you turn in this country, the commerce clause is there to beat down anything that remotely looks like state sovereignty.

First, there's Wickard v. Filburn.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wickard_v._Filburn

The court upheld that Filburn, a farmer, could not grow more wheat than allowed by the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1938 even though it was for his own personal consumption. The supreme court said that the wheat Filburn grew would affect the price of wheat among the several states because if he had not grown it, he would have needed to purchase it. Therefore, the court ruled that the interstate commerce clause applied to Filburn's personal consumption.

Secondly, there's Gonzales v. Raich.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gonzales_v._Raich

This time, the commerce clause was used to prevent Raich from growing medical marijuana in California. Like in Wickard v. Filburn, the commerce clause was used to justify congressional regulation. This time, the court said that Raich's legal medical marijuana grown in California would affect the commerce in illegal markets between the states.

Personally, I think the current interpretation of the interstate commerce clause is crazy and antithetical to the idea of federalism this country was founded upon. It's used to regulate personal use of everything from guns, to marijuana, to wheat. It's out of control, and could probably use a thread of its own.

http://www.discussionworldforum.com/forum/showpost.php?p=8550&postcount=8

I doff my cap to such a fine post :hatoff:

Michael

May 24th 2009, 09:49 AM

The following thoughts were spawned by listening to an NPR report on American MBA programs. Apparently, in the wake of financial crisis, business schools are expanding their ethics-related curriculum and striving to teach their students the importance of social responsibility as well as the pursuit of profit. They want to instill in their students the desire to "make the world a better place" via their business practices.

Assertion: We (humanity) currently have the ability to end world hunger, nearly eliminate suffering from disease and disorder (relative to the current amount), end war, murder, rape and abuse, provide every child with a high quality education and every individual with a combination of employment/luxury/free-time superior to that enjoyed by the vast majority of the population, even in first world countries, today.

Notably, we don't do this. We certainly possess the necessary technology, mechanical knowledge, physical resources, and labor force required to pull it off. In fact, I'd hazard we could manage it in a decade if we all worked in unison. That we do not do this is now entirely a reflection on us, indicating the limitations of the human mind and, speaking collectively, culture, rather than the species’ physical/technological capacity.
This situation is a relatively recent development. As late as two centuries ago (perhaps even later, but I'm sticking with an era I'm familiar with), one could persuasively argue that such achievements were physically impossible. No matter how unified, altruistic, trusting and devoted they were, the people of that period would still experience widespread and intense misery and death due to forces they could neither understand, control, nor compensate for (e.g. weather, germs, human, animal and plant biology, etc).
But this is no longer the case, or rather, it is only marginally the case. We have the ability to make earth a universal Eden compared to almost any historic situation. We could, but we don't.

The reason we don't is, in a sense, all in our heads. If we were all good, trusting, altruistic, unified people we could do all this. Of course, we aren't all those sorts of people (I refer you to the actual state of the world). My question is: Should we be working harder to become them? Should we be teaching ethics before business school? Should we be actively pursuing a “good, trusting, altruistic, unified” culture?

The issue of culture/morality/worldview is something we liberal westerners proudly confine to the private world of the personal. We cringe at the idea of teaching these things in school, but perhaps we shouldn't. We tend to be repulsed by the ideas of an acknowledged and promoted "national/global culture," but perhaps we need one. We are "multi-cultural," pluralistic and heterogeneous, but simultaneously disunited and ineffectual.

In practice, we hold to the curious “a rising tide lifts all boats”-theory of making the world a better place, trusting that if we can just produce enough stuff and develop enough technology then it won’t matter if we’re all greedy, self-serving bastards. History (and the present) indicates that this is, at best, a remarkably inefficient approach.
http://www.discussionworldforum.com/forum/showpost.php?p=9371&postcount=1

I doff my cap to such a fine post! :hatoff:

Michael

May 31st 2009, 09:15 AM

One of the horrible things that keeps nagging me about this case is the alternative medicine. I don't know enough about the alternatives they're referring to and that's the problem - no one does.

We have to understand this case in the context of the explanatory model of the universe that has ascended to and taken its place as chief authority in most matters pertaining to the human body in the West - science. I'm certainly not going to dispute the proven validity of using chemotherapy to reduce tumours. There is an excellent track record for it and years of research to back its application to curing cancer.

The problem comes from having to weigh that against an alternative that has no such grounds based in science. Part of the problem of that is that the proof is not even available to weigh it. This stems largely from the fact that most alternatives to scientifically proven methods are either a) not scientifically testable because they have some abstract component, like prayer or b) not scientifically measurable, thus rendering them untestable or c) so individualistic that they cannot be standardised in the way that doses of medicine can, again, thus rendering them scientifically untestable or d) and here's my favourite folks, directly interfere with the profitability of a pharmaceutical company's monopoly on a synthesised drug that is actually less effective than some cheaper, naturally grown and/or abundant alternative.

We can't reliably test the alternative that involves spiritual components, relaxation techniques, breathing techniques, yoga, mental focussing, or even alternative substances such as teas, tinctures, oils, or plants because none of these has the same effect on any two people. Combine these into a patient-specific regimen and you have a very difficult time piecing out which component is doing what. We believe that science can provide us with the tools to describe all responses in human physiology because it has massively improved and extended the lives of so many people. Unfortunately, this is just not possible. The human body and mind, and if you believe in it, spirit, are just too complicated for us to grasp at this stage of our capabilities. Left to its devices of measurement and documentation, science cannot replicate the benefits of the body's own healing properties brought on by things like laughter, happiness or good memories. Heck, even sleep is still poorly understood as a renewing event in our lives.

The real truth is, in a world where one measure of authority trumps all others in most peoples' minds, we run the great risk of allowing its proponents to deliberately create unchallengeable truths to ensure their own maintenance of power. If you find this too much like a bad conspiracy theory you have only to look to the same stranglehold that religion has had on the world as the authority in most everything for the previous 2,000 to 6,000 years (depending on where you live). I don't think that alternatives to scientifically proven methods can be validly dismissed or supported. We simply just don't know the benefits or poisons that other methods might hold. To actively enforce one way of doing things onto a parent is not such a black and white issue in my mind. Ultimately, the medical system is almost as uncompromising as nature. Especially when dealing with the old and ailing, there is a real cost/benefit analysis that comes into play here. The state is interested in prolonging the life of the child for a few reasons:
a) increase the population
b) receive payment for the procedure
c) make the child live long enough to become a potentially productive citizen from whom labour, spending and taxes can be extracted

There is probably a healthy dose of religiously motivated life preservation going on here as well. For the same reasons that the state will sometimes interfere with things like abortion, children's lives are well protected in the laws of most states. Child welfare is one of those things that is closely guarded by the state because all states realise that the children are the future of that state. Mind you, some of them are just as happy to have the children turned into factory automotons because, a lot of them are needed in this "mature industrial age". It's even better if they're patriotic, thankful-to-be-alive automotons too.

I have to side with those of you who have pointed out that this young man is as yet uncapable of grasping what it is he is dealing with. He cannot, at his young age, understand the gravity of death. I lost no fewer than three close relatives by that same age and it still took me a great number of years into adulthood to arrive at what I believe is a plateau in my own understanding of the gravity of death. His parents are charged with the task of his welfare under the law. If they cannot provide such, the state must intervene - this is the law. The problem is, can the state or any of us rightfully put our total trust in science in all circumstances over any alternatives to provide said welfare to any child? We have to question the placement of our trust in the authority of science always. After all, anything less would actually be bad science.

http://www.discussionworldforum.com/forum/showpost.php?p=9734&postcount=19

I doff my cap to such a fine post! :hatoff:

Michael

Jun 7th 2009, 09:21 AM

This week was tougher than usual - there were several posts worthy of the honor. Alas, I can pick only one!

Being a student this is where I feel I get hit the most with the economy. From the time we are children we are taught from our parents and other institutions that we MUST attend college and obtain a degree to make it in life. It sounded like an alright idea, until I decided to further my education. I have seen and experienced quite a bit concerning the economy over the past few years.

I blew my free ride to the first university I attended and since then I have been royally fucked! When I decided to return to school, I went to a branch of a community college in the small county I was living in. This is where I started seeing problems.

Due to living at home with my parents (and my mother taking money out of her retirement) I did not qualify for any grants therefore having to take out student loans. FAFSA even sent me a letter stating that my EFC was over $20,000! I about croaked. There was no way my parents could fork out that much money for my college in one year, and if that was the case I sure as hell wouldn't be going to a community college. I found a job, doing what I do now, and started making $7/hr (within a year and half I was making $8.25).

In this small county, the economy itself is in horrible shape. Most people work small jobs, are on government assistance, or drive at least 30 minutes to the next city to work in a factory just to make a little more money. To my surprise when I entered the first day of classes, there were only a few students that were in my age group. Everyone else was 40+. A local factory has been shut down and the jobs shipped out of the country.

These poor people had been given this option: In order for them to gain their unemployment, they had to attend school and obtain a degree in two years. Their school and books were all paid for. Sure this might sound like an alright deal, but most of these students were lucky to have even graduated high school, let alone middle school when they were younger. A majority of them had to start out taking remedial courses just to catch up, which also interfered with them gaining their degree in two years. Most wound up dropping out, because school was "too hard", they had no one to watch their kids/grandkids (yes, I had a class with a 70 year old man), or they could find a job making $8/hr and be alright according to them. This was their standard of life and that was alright.

I stayed there for two years, finishing out my basics before I transferred to another school. Before I was able to work 40 hours a week or more and still attend school. I hate to admit it, but even having worked that many hours and living at home, I was having a hard time supporting myself. I was always boggled at how other people in this county supported whole families on the same amount or less of an income than what I was making.

Now, that I am on my own and living with someone else I still find that I struggle. I am actually making more money an hour that what I was prior, but I am not able to work full-time. I thought I would have it made this year while filling out my FAFSA: I had finally reached the age where I didn't have to include my parent's tax information and I met the requirements in the tax bracket to finally get some assistance. WRONG! I received another nice letter from the state stating that although I did qualify for the Federal Pell Grant, but due to the economy there wasn't enough funding to go around. For the first time, since first enrolling for college I had qualified and wasn't going to get it. Naturally, I was and still am tore up about that. And, once again I am going to have to apply for the subsidized and unsubsidized loans just to attend the university I am at now.

The Student Loan People are going to get a nice chunk of money once I get my fucking degree. I guess my point in all of this is: The ones that truly need the help, the assistance don't. They beat this idea into our heads, knowing full well that they are going to screw us over good. I guess it's too bad, I don't work for GM or some large ass bank so I can a fucking handout.

http://www.discussionworldforum.com/forum/showpost.php?p=10211&postcount=3

I doff my cap to such a fine post! :hatoff:

Michael

Jun 14th 2009, 09:53 AM

Another entry from Greendruid!

I think all of this needs to be referred back to our many threads (too many to have me go back and re-post them here) that concern the differing ideologies in place here. All of you who are opposed to anything but proven medical science have that position because you were raised to have that position. There are so many cultures around the world that have no concept of the scientific method and yet have developed very effective cures and methods of healing that would have you laughing.

If you hold the position that illness is only physiological and, thus, the same as disease, then you will always pooh-pooh alternative methods that stray from this model. The fact is, the world is filled with people and healers in other cultures who have no such model as their primary one and recognise a spiritual component, an emotional component, an ancestral component, a magical component, etc., to suffering illness. All of them are different and many of them are indeed much older than modern medicine. In fact, you probably owe your existence to an ancestor or two that was a patient of such a healer and was cured of their illness.

And before you bring up the survival rates card, in the end, we're all dead. What value is there to a life ended with struggling for a cure that doesn't exist. I watched my father die for seven weeks in a hopeless effort to cure him of something he was largely stoic about for several months leading up to his death. Our medical system needs more humanism and less medicalisation in my opinion. Our culture needs a better attitude towards illness and death.

http://www.discussionworldforum.com/forum/showpost.php?p=10826&postcount=17

I doff my cap to such a fine post :hatoff:

Michael

Jun 21st 2009, 09:58 AM

I wish I had all the answers. I don't. But, I do see the problems every single day in the ER. An example: a 70-year old woman presented with a pinky finger that she had injured two weeks prior. She told the triage nurse that her primary care physician (PCP) had ordered xrays, they had been taken, had shown a small fracture and that she had been referred to an orthopaedic doctor. Her complaint? She couldn't see the ortho for another week, her finger hurt, so her PCP told her to come to the ER. That office had told her they would arrange to send her xrays to the ER. Of course, they never arrived.

Our ER doctor ordered another set of xrays. Yes, there was a very small fracture. We gave her a splint (one that someone could buy in Walgreens for a couple of dollars), gave her a script for Ibuprofen and a referral to another ortho and sent her on her way. In the best scenario, the ortho will do nothing but tell her to continue to wear the splint, take ibuprofen for pain, and that would be the end of it. But, this one ordeal had costs in the thousands.

In my opinion, here's what should have happened: the woman visits her PCP, the doctor examines the finger, tells her she may or may not have a small fracture, (may or may not order an xray, depending on the deformity -- there was none) gives her an aluminum splint (or directs her to Walgreens), tells her to take Ibuprofen and tells her it's going to hurt for a few weeks. Don't use the finger. End of story. But, because of the fear of lawsuits, the PCP orders an xray and refers her to an ortho. Because this woman was not educated on how these small digit fractures are truly treated or what to expect, she thinks "something is wrong" and calls the doctor again. The doctor sends her to the ER. Because the hospital is afraid of a lawsuit or wants to increase revenue (take your pick), she is xrayed again, and again sent to an ortho. Who knows what this ortho will do? He may actually put her in a cast for a few weeks. He will most likely xray her again, not trusting the hospital's xray since it is now a week old, or wanting to increase his own revenue or avoid a lawsuit.

The bottom line? Her outcome would most likely be no different had her PCP taken the correct action on the first visit, but since he or she did not, the cost of the women's care skyrocketed with little to show for it.

This is healthcare in America.

http://www.discussionworldforum.com/forum/showpost.php?p=11354&postcount=4

I doff my cap to such a fine post! :hatoff:

Michael

Jun 28th 2009, 12:14 PM

Some recent discussions have gotten me thinking about the idea of intervention, so I thought I'd try raising the issue in a broad sense:

When (if ever) should one individual, group, or nation intervene in the private, internal, or separate affairs of another/others?
Or,
When should individual/group/national sovereignty be violated?

Some possible scenarios:

A man on the street is assaulted by a another man or perhaps of group of unruly teens; should onlookers intervene if they are able?
A neighbor is in the process of in some manner abusing/assaulting their spouse (or child, or guest, or pet...) in their home; should the neighbors intervene?
A woman is attempting to commit suicide; should those who see her intervene?
A man is obviously sliding into extreme alcoholism/drug abuse/other-self-destructive-behavior; should those aware of his problem intervene?

---

A national government initiates a genocidal program against some element of the its population; should other nations intervene?
The population of a nation is starving en masse because of political mismanagement and a drought; should other nations intervene? Does the answer change if the nation's government has/has not explicitly requested assistance?
An armed group lays claim to political power in a nation through a combination of force and fraud and uses brutal coercion to silence all resistance and dissent; should other nations intervene?

Possible considerations:

Is there a connection (loose or strict) between when one should intervene and when it is in one's personal/national interest to intervene?
There are many types of "intervention", ranging from offering suggestions to direct physical coercion. What type is appropriate? Is there a kind which is never appropriate?
Do the same rules apply to nations/group-entities as to individuals? What about relations between national/group-entities (e.g. the government) and individuals?
Finally, there's a difference between intervention being a good thing, intervention being obligatory (i.e. not intervening is bad), and non-intervention being obligatory (i.e. intervening is bad).

Thoughts?

I doff my hat for such a fine post! :hatoff:

Michael

Jul 5th 2009, 08:55 AM

On Death
by KSigMason

Death, the Great Equalizer, has gone by many names: Anubis, Grim Reaper, Charon, etc. Death's very name can caus chaos among or humble the most arrogant men. In most civilizations and mythologies there lies some kind of physical embodiment of Death.

Who is Death? Should he be feared? Many think that this topic isn't appropriate and in many circles it is taboo. For most he is seen as some kind of grim tyrant that cuts the strings of life and steals them away from their loved ones. In essence he is a guide for the departed's soul to their final destination.

Many ancient cultures did not see him as some evil being. In Greek mythology, life and death dealt with several beings. First you had the Fates: Clotho, who spun the web of life; Lachesis, who measured its length; and Atropos, who cut it. Once someone died their soul was ferried to the Underworld by Charon. Anubis was considered the god of the underworld and judge of those have left the world (embalming methods were attributed to this god). Not even the Viking gods could escape the final cut of the Norns (an equivalent to the Greek fates). The Norse believed that the great Dead Warriors of lore and history were taken by the Valkyries to Valhalla presided over by Odin, who swelled his ranks with these warriors in preparation to Ragnarok. Grimnir, an alias of Odin, is the root of the word "Grim" in the phrase "Grim Reaper".

The Abrahamic religions each have a view of death and what awaits afterward. Whether it be the Four Horseman or an Angel of Death.

From the 15th century to modern times, Death's physical appearance is a skeleton, sometimes clothed in a black cloak armed with a scythe. The scythe is seen as an implement of death in many cultures. This stems mainly from the Christian Biblical belief of death as a "harvester of souls." You also see a scythe used by Cronus and Kali, the Hindu goddess of Death.

Here are some symbolic symbols of Death:

The HOUR GLASS is an emblem of human life. Behold! How swiftly the sands run, and how rapidly our lives are drawing closer to a close! We cannot, without astonishment, behold the little particles which are contained in this machine-how they pass almost imperceptibly; and yet, to our surprise, in the short space of an hour they are all exhausted. Thus wastes man! Today he puts forth the tender leaves of hope; tomorrow, blossoms, and bears his blushing honors thick upon him; and the next day comes a frost which nips the shoot; and when he thinks his greatness is still aspiring, he falls, like autumn leaves, to enrich our mother earth.

The SCYTHE is an emblem of time, which cuts the brittle thread of life, and launches us into eternity. Behold! What havoc the scythe of time makes among the human race! If by chance we should escape the numerous evils incident to childhood and youth, and with health and vigor arrive at the years of manhood, yet, withal, we must soon be cut down by the all-devouring scythe of time, and be gathered into the land where our fathers have gone before us.

I can't help, but bring in the Freemasons into it. In one of the lectures this is an exert:

Time makes fools of us all and Death eventually comes to all. Through this view I believe Death cannot be purely evil.

Quotes concerning Death:

End? This is not the end. Death is just another path, one that we all must take.
- Gandalf, LOTR

After all, to the well-organized mind, death is but the next great adventure.
- Dumbledore, Harry Potter series

There are more dead people than living. And their numbers are increasing. The living are getting rarer.
- Eugene Ionesco

You only live twice. Once when you are born and once when you look death in the face.
- Ian Fleming

A man begins dying at the moment of his birth. Most people live in denial of Death's patient courtship until, late in life and deep in sickness, they become aware of him sitting bedside.
- Dean Koontz

Death hath not only particular stars in heaven, but malevolent places on earth, which single out our infirmities and strike at our weaker parts.
- Sir Thomas Browne

Death is an angel with two faces; to us he turns a face of terror, blighting all things fair; the other burns with glory of the stars, ad love is there.
- T. C. Williams

Death is but a name, a date, a milestone by the stormy road, where you may lay aside your load and bow your face and rest and wait, defying fear, defying fate.
- Joaquin Miller

As old age approaches, man's strength declines. His sun is setting in the West.
- Masonic Lecture

Interesting note: Anubis was the Lord of the Westerners as it is said the gate to the Underworld lies in the West. The people believed this since the Sun closed the day by setting in the West.

http://www.discussionworldforum.com/forum/showpost.php?p=11892&postcount=1

I doff my cap for such a fine post! :hatoff:

Michael

Jul 12th 2009, 11:04 AM

I'll admit I don't know much about classical economic theory, but I do know this much: in our economy a tree is a raw resource used to make napkins. We don't ask many questions about what happens when that tree is not longer where it once was (although that's getting a bit more attention), much less what resources or waste goes into or comes out of producing that napkin. We in the West go to the store and buy the napkin (advertising tells us the best one to buy). What economic model would change that non-thinking?

Now, we have the rapid rise of the middle-class in a whole bunch of other places in the world -- China, India, S. America, Middle East, etc. -- who are following in our footsteps. They want that white napkin, too. And many of these countries seem to have adopted the same market-driven economy we have here. All of this new wealth hasn't seemed to equate to new ways of doing things; it's just produced more things.

Polar caps aren't sexy. For that matter, neither are polar bears. The 30-second spots aren't changing anybody's mind. I think the average Joe is completely overwhelmed even thinking about the problem of global warming and scared to death of the impact that any of it might have on his standard of living. Voila! Denial. Is it any surprise that our economists are whistling past the graveyard?

Thomas Friedman, in his book Hot, Flat, and Crowded, writes "The Stone Age didn't end because we ran out of stones." His point being, we need a new revolution, new ideas and most of all, we need to try harder. He states we cannot regulate ourselves out of the coming enviornmental destruction. We need engineers and scientists and thinkers. Out with the old, in with the new. Somewhere there are students of economic theory who are taking all of this into account. They will graduate, look for jobs and for now, be ridiculed and silenced for trying to change the system. But, I have faith in serendipity and great minds. Someone will break through.

http://www.discussionworldforum.com/forum/showpost.php?p=12244&postcount=2

I doff my cap for such a fine post! :hatoff:

Michael

Jul 26th 2009, 08:31 AM

I've thought about starting a thread like this before, but never got around to it. As an historian-in-training I find the topic of historical "truth" especially interesting.

These examples do a good job of pointing out that it is not enough for history to simply be "accurate". Two histories may be equally accurate with regard to their account of what events transpired but seem entirely different based on the choice of what events to include or exclude and what interpretation is given to the events.

There's a considerable debate about to what extent historians should focus on the 'utility' of their work when it comes to the selection and interpretation of events. It now seems clear that there is not (and cannot be) a truly objective, unbiased account of the past, but few people are willing to admit that, therefore, one selective/interpretative bias is just as good as another. There is a difference between history and propaganda, but the line can seem awfully fuzzy at times.

It raises all sorts of questions about what the point of writing history is and how precisely can one determine the difference between a fact, an opinion, and an interpretation.

On a different, note, I generally enjoy reading histories that mix types A and C from your examples (political/imperial and social). Not that I would denigrate the importance of the economic or gendered histories, but I personally find the former dry and the latter boring.

http://www.discussionworldforum.com/forum/showpost.php?p=12688&postcount=6

I doff my cap to such a fine post! :hatoff:

Michael

Aug 2nd 2009, 10:47 AM

Sounds like it's not the matter of a legal "right" being established that matters, but how compulsive misconceptions about the law influence behavior. How could there be any influence in the first place if it was recognized that the law won't be enforced? Kind of like the 10 commandments you know. Why would anyone respect them if it's understood that the church's power isn't deemed effective? Some people follow the church because they recognize the church as an effective and honest charitable institution. Others ignore it because they dismiss the church as a selfish and conceited manipulative institution.

Regarding legality and morality, I don't see how legality is equivalent to morality (both within and beyond definition of rights) if we're going to agree that might doesn't make right (such that there's something to justice beyond utility in order to show that "justice" is not a manipulative technique of the naive). Actually, I don't see how morality can exist at all if it isn't superior to legality with respect to justice.

http://www.discussionworldforum.com/forum/showpost.php?p=13169&postcount=31

I doff my hat in honor of such a fine post. :hatoff:

Michael

Aug 9th 2009, 12:05 PM

Indeed. Smart men.

However, a right is not more than just a human political issue. It is brought forth as more but that has a very good reason. In all its simplicity, a right must not only be protected by the state, it must also be protected from the state. Rights aren't worth anything if they can be altered or repealed by the wims of any sitting government or judicial body. Therefore they must be granted by something conceived to be above the state. Thus, the state is only left to recognize the rights.

In some countries, such as mine, this maneuvre succeeds by simply referring to the constitution as the superior instrument (rights are inviolable through the constitution only). I don't know why USA chose a different maneuvre and referred to another conception such as a creator (if I had to guess, I'd say that independence of the British crown had something to do with the cronology of things) but it's probably an even smarter move to have an instrument conceived to be above even the constitution through which to grant rights. It's a double protection of sorts. It doesn't mean, though, that rights are actually granted by anything else than the state (as in nation and not as in government).

http://www.discussionworldforum.com/forum/showpost.php?p=13298&postcount=44

I doff my cap in honor of such a fine post! :hatoff:

Michael

Aug 16th 2009, 11:53 AM

Protectionism of a failed US company now majority owned by the US government in the form of publicly subsidized rebates would create an interesting dilemma in some of our trade agreements. If I were say a Japan I'd start offering my products in the US with a $3500-4500 government rebate and effectively eliminate most of GM's remaining market share.

The seldom mentioned economic ramification of destroying all those still serviceable clunkers is what happens to the used car market, which is 75% of vehicles sold in the US. People who buy $4000 vehicles for basic transportation out of necessity can't afford new cars and market forces of reducing supply will effectively drive their costs up while reducing used car dealers, service and parts demand. That's a substantially larger negative impact then the positive flow-through from selling government subsidized new cars and it's where it hurts the most, at lower income levels.

http://www.discussionworldforum.com/forum/showpost.php?p=13658&postcount=14

I doff my cap in honor of such a fine post! :hatoff:

Michael

Aug 23rd 2009, 11:13 AM

It's only a melting pot when new immigrants assimilate into the American culture, including our language. What we have now is more akin to a salad bowl-- a mix of various unrelated ingredients that may or may not work well together. What concerns me is that our American "salad bowl" isn't merely a bunch of disparate ingredients, it is a bunch of disparate ingredients thrown together haphazardly with no consideration for how they interact.

Respectfully, I disagree with you. It is not our diversity of cultures that makes us great. It was our ability, now fading, to take good people and good ideas from other cultures and make them our own.

When immigrants do not adopt our culture, they do not contribute to it. They do not become a part of what makes us great, and for the most part they do not reap the benefits of belonging to our society. By allowing people to come to this country, live and work in this country, and not become a part of this country, we are promoting division and strife within our society.

http://www.discussionworldforum.com/forum/showpost.php?p=13804&postcount=8

I doff my cap in honor of such a fine post. :hatoff:

Michael

Sep 13th 2009, 11:50 AM

While lifespans could definitely shoot up to 150-200 years, i don't think death will ever cease to be certain; and developments in neurology thus far, should be enough to undermine any faith if examined with an open mind(regarding the existence of a soul).

In the next few decades I hope to see consciousness being explained, advances in biotech allowing everyone to receive medicine according to their own genetic makeup, and also food which is catered specifically to meet your daily caloric requirements, full organ regeneration through stem-cells in labs, and the breakdown of all barriers to communication, with nanotech bots for fighting diseases and helping boost abilities embedded in more and more human beings with all of us becoming more cybernetic as a result.

While people always have and always will come up with belief systems that can give them certainty, hope, and a purpose; I hope to see Christianity and Islam(in their most basic human-animal denying sense) ,along with Sikhism and Hinduism, fade away, with liberal religion and a sort of deism becoming dominant, and it neither odd nor taboo to be an atheist.

Specifically, I hope to see an increase in scientific literacy resulting in the spread of metaphysical naturalism and a more humanist, life-affirming outlook(acknowledging the human-animal and seeking to better it through education and a purely pedagogic education system allowing everyone to become the best person they can be) o become prevalent if not dominant. What a wonderful world that'd be.

http://www.discussionworldforum.com/forum/showpost.php?p=14382&postcount=3

I doff my cap in honor of such a fine post. :hatoff:

Michael

Oct 11th 2009, 09:51 AM

I'm attempting this thread again, this time I've composed it in WordPad and will transfer it instead of having Firefox crash on me after an hour of dedicated thought. There are several things that are inaccurate, misleading and just plain wrong about this article that need to be addressed. I always considered National Geo as that pretty pictures magazine, not as a reliable source of science reporting to disseminate news to the masses. It has simply gone on to perpetuate mis-truths yet again and it really irks me! So, let the tirade begin!:

1. There is no such thing as a missing link. True, dedicated scientists have not been looking for one since Raymond Dart found the Taung Child in 1924 in S. Africa and the Piltdown Skull was shown to be a hoax. The fact is, this idea of a link between chimps and humans has several facts of evolution completely wrong. The first thing to understand is that chimps and humans are cousins. Humans did not evolve from chimps. The two species evolved from a shared, ancestral population of some other creatures which we have yet to find. There is no "link" that exists between the two of us. The second thing is the rather static view of evolution that so many people have in the popular understanding of the concept. People think about the human species as though it is one thing that exists and has existed from point A until present day. This is patently false. Homo sapiens is a unified species of individuals who are more or less the same but we are hardly static. Humans are constantly evolving and changing. The third thing is the concept of the way speciation occurs. People often believe in some new species springing forth one afternoon, or suddenly all the Australopithecus afarensis woke up one day and were suddenly transformed into Homo habilis or some version of this. Speciation occurs in some members of isolated populations, and occasionally the whole population, whereby the separation, physically or culturally, causes the two species to no longer be able to mate and produce viable offspring. This is not a rapid process and it is probably not entirely evident to those that its happening to either.

2. There are no Ardipithecus ramidus bones - they are now fossils. This distinction is important because bone would imply the ability to extract DNA from the remains.

3. The study of chimpanzee anatomy and behaviour will never be largely irrelevant to understanding our beginnings. No anthropologist should have said that and I'd be shocked to find that one did. It looks like the comment isn't in quotes so I'm sure it was just journalistic commentary. The study of chimpanzee anatomy and behaviour, regardless of how they are related to us in the end analysis, has been extremely relevant to understanding our beginnings. Understanding what makes the difference between an efficient tool-maker (us) and a sufficient tool-maker (chimps), the anatomy associated with knuckle-walking, the behaviours around the killing and sharing of meat, there are too many for me to list here but the work that primatologists who study chimps have done to help us understand our beginnings has been invaluable.

4. The fact that Aridpithecus has a very generalist skeleton is not only not surprising but was to be expected. We have a generalist skeleton and you can almost never evolve a generalist from a specialist. It is not in the least bit surprising that this creature is neither well-suited to climbing trees nor to walking upright - neither are we. Any of you that have kids or remember your childhoods well will note the exuberance that most human children exhibit when given the opportunity to climb a tree. We do it - we don't do it as well as a chimp or orang-utan but we do it nonetheless. Some human societies actually live in trees were flooding is prone in the Southern Pacific. We also don't walk upright very well, at least our bodies take a bloody hard beating for it. Eventually we mess up our backs, knees, hips or feet or all of the above because our skeletons are based on a tree-dwelling blueprint. None of the adaptations are shocking to anyone doing this kind of work. The report of such is sensationalism.

5. Tim White likes the limelight. For him to claim that he's able to do biology with fossil remains is a bit like Dr. Frankenstein claiming he can do psychology now with his creation. No matter how hard any palaeoanthropologist tries, we can never reconstruct the biology of the past. We can certainly theorise about it but there are just too many variables to piece everything together again. This is why Tim White is an anthropologist and not a biologist. He deals with dead things, not living things. Just because they were once living doesn't make him an almost biologist.

6. The fact that they resurrected Lovejoy's Sex for Food hypothesis was the cherry on top for me. What a line of bullshit. This outdated, outmoded and sexist theory is a load of bunk that places the role of men in the importance of ancestral human societies far above its likely place. In all studies ever done on hunting and gathering peoples, 80-90% of the caloric intake of the groups was dependent on the gathering skills of women, not the hunting skills of men. It also removes the role of the woman from manipulating social situations for her advantage. As though women had no choice in making those decisions about whom they would mate with. Just wait around until some guy brings you food. When he does, you're set for life! Crap!

End tirade.

http://www.discussionworldforum.com/forum/showpost.php?p=16165&postcount=7

I doff my cap in honor of such a fine post! :hatoff:

Michael

Nov 8th 2009, 01:27 PM

A good summary of the events which led to the fall of the Wall of Berlin
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MM2qq5J5A1s (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MM2qq5J5A1s)
(German with English sub-titles)

A very dramatic video on the opening of the Bornholmer Strasse, the first "Grenzübergang" to open in that night, giving way to the pressure of the crowd
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_eCVhCGYwE (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_eCVhCGYwE)
(German with English sub-titles)

Another, very reaslistic, video, at Potsdamer Platz (also German with English sub-titles)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HEbsCYLx2TI (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HEbsCYLx2TI)
There is a dramatic scene with this woman pleading to go through the Brandenburger Tor, at least once, and swears with blazing eyes that she will return - on the head of her children -
"Ist das so schwer zu verstehen ?"

And the Wall being dismantled piece by piece in front of the eyes of the border police, arguing with the demonstrators:
"Why do you think we built the Wall in 1961 ? We built it to protect ourselves from the West !"

Last but not least : the famous international press conference, where Günter Schabowski announced that "private" people are free to travel.

Schabowski did not attend the ZK meeting in the afternoon. The new rule was a draft and had been packed together with other documents for the press conference. He was reading the content of the announcement for the first time. In fact it was a mistake : the opening of the borders was a proposal drafted on the same morning - When a startled Western journalist called in-between : "When will it come into force ?", Schabowski, obviously puzzled by what he had just read, stuttered ...
"... Ab sofort ... Unverzüglich" (From now on ... Immediately ...)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TQiriTompdY (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TQiriTompdY)

The last video is a remake of this press conference with consequences, a montage made up of interviews of former witnesses and old footages.

A fascinating reportage on what happened in that dramatic night : how a mistake and bureaucratic mess lead to the fall of the Wall.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GoT6ZNYTeHM (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GoT6ZNYTeHM)

Unfortunately, I could not find any video with English translation of Schabowski's press conference. They are all in German.

There will be some celebration tomorrow in Berlin and I cannot see any of these images without tears coming to my eyes.

http://www.discussionworldforum.com/forum/showpost.php?p=17483&postcount=1

I doff my cap in honor of such a fine post! :hatoff:

Michael

Nov 29th 2009, 10:04 AM

While it is within the Constitutional rights of a political party to do this, I think it violates several unwritten principles. Tests like this are a number one sign of fundamentalism (whether it be religious or political). Religious fundamentalists often subject their leaders and followers to such tests in order to determine their orthodoxy. Conservatism has been at it's best when it is resisting this kind of fundamentalism in politics. The most respected Conservatives in history are marked by practicality, not an ideological whitewashing politics. Good leaders are not discovered by a checklist based in a theoretical realm, but by their response to real situations.

http://www.discussionworldforum.com/forum/showpost.php?p=18406&postcount=9

I doff my cap in honor of such a fine post! :hatoff:

Michael

Dec 20th 2009, 10:56 AM

I go to a small, no-name university in my home town. I wound up here because I am poor, and also because my post-op Ma seemed like a person who needed a little looking after (goddamned brain surgery is a goddamned drag. Damnit).

The school I go to is a school full of daddy’s little angel’s who couldn’t get in anywhere else, but who need to get a degree. They zip around in their BMWs, collecting DUI’s like their going to throw a ticker-tape parade with them when they graduate. Daddy foots the bill, and his sweet son or daughter destroys his or her liver and gets a business degree. YAY! I’m taking 21 credits a semester in order to escape this hellhole. In six months I’ll have my BA. It will have taken me two and a half years.

I think Zarquon is right- critical thinking is key. Make school about learning and, more importantly, learning how to learn. My sister and I have a phrase used when we’re criticizing bad literature or movies: “cut the hookers.” It means that there are too many distracting secondary characters. Kill them. I feel the same about school- cut the hookers. School isn’t for sports, or clubs, it is for academics. Do that other shit on your own time, and with your own money. That way, when school is about school from day one kids who trot off to college know exactly what they should be getting out of it. They’ll give a shit.

I think there should also be emphasis on state-run vocational schools. You, with your finger in your nose, there’s a place for you, too. And way higher standards for any college. In short: segregate that shit. Make college a goal, not an expectation. When I was in high school I didn’t go to my graduation. I didn’t get it. You’re proud of yourself for doing this? The bare minimum? WTF? Graduating high school ought to be just that- an expectation. Moving on to college, however, should be something to be proud of.

We’re structured stupidly. We teach to the lowest common denominator. Academic achievement is valued the exact same as athleticism, or money (or art). Only, money and athletes and art don’t cure cancer, do they? People should be proud to be smart, strive to be clever, value intelligence more than it is currently valued.
http://www.discussionworldforum.com/forum/showpost.php?p=19533&postcount=3

I doff my cap in honor of such a fine post! :hatoff:

Michael

Jan 10th 2010, 12:00 PM

No, the Senate was Republican controlled for most of the Reagan years. Reagan was President from 1980 to 1988.

97th Congress (1981-1983)
Majority Party: Republican (53 seats)
Minority Party: Democrat (46 seats)
Other Parties: 1 Independent
Total Seats: 100
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
98th Congress (1983-1985)
Majority Party: Republican (54 seats)
Minority Party: Democrat (46 seats)
Other Parties: 0
Total Seats: 100
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
99th Congress (1985-1987)
Majority Party: Republican (53 seats)
Minority Party: Democrat (47 seats)
Other Parties: 0
Total Seats: 100
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
100th Congress (1987-1989)
Majority Party: Democrat (55 seats)
Minority Party: Republican (45 seats)
Other Parties: 0
Total Seats: 100

http://www.senate.gov/pagelayout/his...s/partydiv.htm

And Reagan and the Senate Republicans DOUBLED almost TRIPLED the national debt.

09/30/1988 2,602,337,712,041.160
9/30/1987 2,350,276,890,953.000
9/30/1986 2,125,302,616,658.420
9/30/1985* 1,823,103,000,000.000
9/30/1984* 1,572,266,000,000.000
9/30/1983* 1,377,210,000,000.000
9/30/1982* 1,142,034,000,000.000
9/30/1981* 997,855,000,000.000
9/30/1980* 907,701,000,000.00

http://www.treasurydirect.gov/govt/r...ebt_histo4.htm

Yes, the Democrats controlled the House, but the Senate was Republican majority, so Repubs exec and senate. You can't go blaming the Dems for that almost tripling of the deficit.

Republicans need to stop claiming fiscal responsibility. They obviously don't have it.

http://www.discussionworldforum.com/forum/showpost.php?p=20609&postcount=14

I doff my cap in honor of such a fine rebuttal! :hatoff:

Michael

Jan 17th 2010, 09:17 AM

I'm in the midst of reading a large collection of books on the American Revolution, the Confederation, and the Early Republic.

This morning's reading was particularly good, so I thought I'd recommend it and share my brief write-up of the book (I try to crank these out for each book I read so I can quickly remind myself what it's about later). If you're interested in an enjoyable and clever analysis of the origins of the American Constitution that steers a course between the idealists and the economic-determinists, this is a good candidate.

Holton, Woody. Unruly Americans and the Origins of the Constitution. New York: Hill & Wang, 2007.

Holton explores the makings of the Constitution, particularly the motives of the Framers and the ways in which the protestations of 'unruly' lower order Americans (e.g. small farmers and debtors) forced the Framers to alter their original plans, most notably by accepting the addition of the Bill of Rights. Thus, Holton argues, it was the unruly Americans who opposed the Constitution, not the Framers in Philadelphia, who were responsible for some of the nation's most cherished liberties.

Holton frames the debate between two perspectives of the "critical period" between Confederation and Constitution, both of which saw the Articles of Confederation as failing. On the one hand were the elite Framers (such as Madison), who bewailed the "excesses of democracy" that made the state assemblies too responsive to the popular will. They lamented the willingness of the states to hand out tax relief, suspend courts, print paper money, and drag their feet in raising continental funds. On the other hand were the debtors themselves, men like Daniel Shays, who perceived the burden of taxation as crushing and found tremendous difficulties in obtaining any sort of currency with which to pay their debts. They believed the state legislatures were not sufficiently responsive to the people and that the troubles in the land stemmed from the misrule of the elite.

When the debtors and farmers could not obtain their ends through the state legislatures, they escalated the confrontation through 'rebellion', refusing to pay taxes, shutting down courts, and assaulting officials. When Madison and the Framers were unable to achieve their objectives under the existing system, they took the fight to the national level and sought to create a Constitution that could do what the state assemblies would not, a federal government that would be more insulated from popular opinion and less democratic.

In seeking out the motivations of the Framers, Holton acknowledges but rejects Charles Beard's argument (The Economic Origins of the Constitution of the United States) that they were driven primarily by their own self-interest as creditors and the holders of government bonds. While some of the supporters of the Constitution certainly fit that category, other prominent figures (such as Madison and Hamilton) do not. Holton also acknowledges the competing ideological claim (Gordon Wood, The Creation of the American Republic), that the Framers were holding to their revolutionary Republican views that called for a virtuous populace willing to sacrifice for the good of the many, and feared that self-interested demagogues had taken over the state governments and would destroy the nation. In looking at the context of the debate and the writings of the Framers, however, Holton finds "a still more pressing motive": the fear that "unless the federal government was thoroughly overhauled, the American economy would never be able to attract capital." (23) Their overriding goal was to make the new nation economically viable: by empowering the federal government to pay its debts (both foreign and domestic), to secure the sanctity of contracts, to remove native Americans from Western land which could then be surveyed and sold, to enforce treaty agreements that the various states were violating, and to collect taxes on imported and exported goods. These methods, it was believed would decrease the tax burden on small farmers and encouraged capital investment. And indeed the Constitution did achieve these goals.

Yet, Holton notes in concluding, however much the Constitution may have benefited (and been meant to benefit) the general populace, "what [the Framers] meant to give the ordinary citizen was prosperity, not power." (277) Holton's analysis strongly implies that the Constitutional approach was one solution to the Confederation's economic and social troubles; but it may not have been the only one. The state's strenuous efforts to collect taxes and enforce contracts ended up creating some of the very problems the Constitution was created to solve (rebellion, inflation, and debt relief); the alternative approach, lessening taxation and increasing the money supply in order to increase the prosperity of the middle and lower orders, was not truly attempted. In his final pages, Holton again reflects on the irony that the Constitution's most cherished liberties (enshrined in the Bill of Rights) are primarily attributable to the men who opposed the Constitution itself.

An example of Holton's nuanced approach to economic causes:
Holton suggests that, pace Beard, elite securities speculators did not directly bring about the Constitution's clauses on taxation in order to secure repayment; they lacked the influence for this. Rather, they put pressure on the state governments, which in turned put pressure on their tax base, which in turn demanded relief. The states responded to these demands by issuing paper money and interfering with the collection of debts, and it was this, as much as anything, that encouraged men like Hamilton and Madison (who were not speculators themselves) to take steps to terminate such relief in order to secure America's good credit.

http://www.discussionworldforum.com/forum/showpost.php?p=21279&postcount=170

I doff my cap in honor of such a fine book review! :hatoff:

Evangeline

Jan 17th 2010, 02:12 PM

http://www.discussionworldforum.com/forum/showpost.php?p=20609&postcount=14

I doff my cap in honor of such a fine rebuttal! :hatoff:
Wow I made the list :D Thanks Michael. :cool:

Michael

Feb 14th 2010, 07:41 PM

Pro's

1. Liberty without equality results in oppression

While Liberty is an admirable goal, liberty without some semblance of equality results in oppression by the minority. While societies naturally form aristocracies of some sort, a society that solely focuses on liberty will exaggerate the stratification of society. Liberty naturally allows some citizens to prosper more than others (as Alexis de Tocqueville noted). With prosperity often comes power and those with power will always use all available means to keep said power. So while liberty is a good goal for Western society, we must also add in equality to make sure the minority does not control the majority. Unions provide a valuable service in restraining the minority and keeping a balance between those with power and those without. Liberty does not exist in a vacuum.

2. Almost everything is an artificial construct

Short of God, creation, and perhaps an eschatological view of the church all things are artificial. The Corporation is just as much an artificial construct as the union is. In fact, the corporation is even more of a construct considering it is consistently given the rights of an actual human being. Governments, nations, and all institutions function under artificially created premises. The actions undertaken by a union derive from the rights that we as a society have agreed upon (most notably the right to the pursuit of happiness)

3. Wealth is the goal

While management styles may very, but the all consuming goal of profit is a constant. Wealth corrupts and "is the root of all kinds of evil" (1 Timothy 6:10). To argue that management will willingly take a hit to profit just because it is proper to give people a fair wage fails to take into account human nature.

Furthermore, one cannot rely on the courts, legislative bodies, or government executives to protect the rights of the worker. History has consistently shown that these bodies are often the easiest to corrupt with the wealth of the minority. Given this reality, it is the right (and duty toward democracy) of the people to safeguard their own livelihood by whatever means necessary. Unions happen to be the most peaceful means.

Now i am going to make sure I am not struck by lightning...
http://www.discussionworldforum.com/forum/showpost.php?p=22834&postcount=2

I doff my cap in honor of such a fine post! :hatoff:

Michael

Mar 14th 2010, 10:56 AM

Well, I teach a course that basically goes over some very similar ground here. While it is admittedly a philosophy of science course more than anything else, I am always adamant to point out that my goal in the discussion is never to prove faith or religion wrong to the deference of evolutionary theory.

My position is always that science and religion, specifically where the two come into contact on the issue of creation and evolution, cannot speak to each other. Science is always about making observations about phenomena in the universe and then creating theories to explain said phenomena. These theories must be testable with hypotheses, preferably falsifiable hypotheses in the tradition of Karl Popper. Because religion, including a stance that holds human beings were created, is based entirely on faith, not on observations of phenomena that lead to testable hypotheses, then we have to conclude that religious subjects cannot be submitted to scientific testing. Likewise, scientific testing cannot be subjected to scrutinising with articles of faith.

The two approaches are two ways of understanding the universe. I am definitely not a post-modernist and I believe that there is a "true" universe with "true" phenomena that can be observed. However, I'm not so arrogant to believe that human beings are capable, or ever will be capable, of observing ALL phenomena in the universe. We are a very limited but fascinating bunch of intelligent apes. There is one universe out there (let's not get into multiple time-lines for the sake of argument here) and there are many ways to explain that universe. Science goes about it one way, religion another. Neither are right, neither are wrong. Both set up the terms by which to explain the universe at the outset and both satisfy those terms with their own types of "answers" about the universe.

Where evolution and creation are concerned, we have irreconcilable differences to answer that age-old question, "Where did we come from?" Evolutionary theory sets forth to explain this with a model of mechanisms that are testable and observable in the world. None of these mechanisms has been shown to be wrong in 150 years or so. I suspect that we will have to find a different planet with completely different players (chemical and biological) to really see if this model holds water. Creationism is not a model with testable hypotheses. It supposes that a supreme god created humanity. God is presented as unknowable and untestable. There are so many interpretations of Genesis 1 and literalism is one scale by which these interpretations can be measured. Michael is quite correct to assert the Catholic position as being one most removed from the literalist camp or end of the scale. Jehovah's Witnesses would be at that end of the scale. Regardless of this, all the Abrahamic traditions hold that God is unknowable and untestable by his/her/its very nature. The terms of explanation of the universe from this position make the outcome (creationism) irreconcilable with a scientific explanation (evolutionary theory).

I would finally like to note that evolutionary theory NEVER proposes a mechanism, reason or impetus for the start of evolutionary theory. It does not seek to explain why these mechanisms exist or came into being. It only seeks to present them as existing. The reasons for that are rightly the property of philosophy and religious studies. They are untestable questions that science cannot address and so it doesn't seek to address them. Both camps (science and religion) have their share of idiots that make this an evolution VS. creationism debate. Unfortunately, the real explanations presented by both aren't even showing up to the same debate hall, let alone talking about the same thing. Religious explanations are more interested in "why are we here?" questions. Science explanations are more interested in "how are we here?" questions.

http://www.discussionworldforum.com/forum/showpost.php?p=24460&postcount=7

I doff my hat in honor of such a fine post! :hatoff:

Michael

Mar 21st 2010, 03:21 PM

What caused the American Civil War?

It's an old and well worn historical question, but since there's almost always someone interested in discussing it and I'm in the midst of reading multiple books on the topic anyway, I thought I'd throw it out there again. Since I also put a version of this on USPO, I'll be interested in comparing responses (if any) based on forum.

I'll mostly just leave it open to anyone who wants to get things started. That said, however, here's a bit of a framework to build off of:

There are, for the most part, two broad interpretations that divide the professional historiography on the war:

One, the fundamental or "irrepressible conflict" interpretation views the war as the almost inevitable result of a long process of differentiation between the North and the South. In short, the two sections developed so differently (culturally, economically, socially, politically...etc) that perpetual union was not possible without the norms of one side establishments dominance over the norms of the other. If the war hadn't happened in the 1860s, it would have happened eventually.

The alternative, or revisionist, view is often called the "blundering generation" interpretation. This approach tends to focus on the politics of the 1850s and 1860, holding that the war was in no way inevitable but resulted from the poorly conceived (and often self-serving) efforts of politicians who risked national disintegration in order to be elected. According to this interpretation, the differences between the sections could have been peacefully reconciled (or simply ignored), had politicians and extremists not fanned the flames of partisanship, sectionalism and paranoia in order to achieve personal power.

There is, of course, plenty of room for overlap here, and most serious interpretations incorporate both schools of thought.

Regarding the ever contentious issue of slavery, in his second inaugural address Lincoln said that slavery "was, somehow, the cause of the war." And personally I find that impossible to disagree with, though that "somehow" masks immense complexity.
http://www.discussionworldforum.com/forum/showpost.php?p=24897&postcount=1

I doff my cap in honor of such a fine post! :hatoff:

(btw, it looks like a bit of healthy competiton between Greendruid and dilettante here!) :)

Michael

May 2nd 2010, 09:38 AM

At risk of turning this into the "Best Snark of the Week Post", here are two excellent posts with some humor.

OMG, I almost forgot to bring up Stephen Hawking's new documentary in which he warns not to look for alien life because if we find them, they will likely be as rotten as we are but much smarter.

http://www.discussionworldforum.com/forum/showthread.php?p=26810#post26810

Well, it started out with Drill, Baby, Drill.

Then came Spill, Baby, Spill.

Now it's Burn, Baby, Burn.

Maybe someone will come up with Stop, Baby, Stop.

http://www.discussionworldforum.com/forum/showpost.php?p=26905&postcount=10

I doff my cap in honor of such fine and amusing posts! :hatoff:

Michael

May 9th 2010, 11:34 AM

I rather think that the loftier theoretical points that we're pinpointing here have never crossed the minds of the corporate entities that make these decisions/blunders/environmental catastrophes/whatever. I think it is much simpler than that. Greed for money and the things that money buys in their immediate lifetimes, and maybe enough to send their sniveling brats to university MBA programmes is their driving force. That's it - this is their life vision and it is fuelled by greed for material possessions and a life of ease. Whatever blows up, dies, starves or burns in their wake has nothing to do with them because they do not think systemically, they think about their own selfish needs. It is symptomatic of capitalism but the root causes are not considered by those who perpetuate it. In other words, the theoretical underpinnings are not articulated in the manners we're pointing out here. Capitalism breeds this kind of person and their selfishness reinforces capitalism without a need to understand the process themselves. It is internalised in their making.

I doff my cap in honor of such a fine post! :hatoff:

http://www.discussionworldforum.com/forum/showpost.php?p=27437&postcount=53

Michael

May 16th 2010, 09:23 AM

You say that the science of chemistry works "fine for our human centered purposes" and so it doesn't matter if it's "true" in some metaphysical sense. and I agree. But morality isn't about finding something that works "for our purposes", its about determining what our purposes should be. That's a fundamentally different objective.

Put another way, chemistry equations "work" because they allows us to accurately understand and predict what the material universe does and will do. You can test those equations through experimentation and scientific procedure. And if they are verified they can be useful to you in achieving your goals.
But morality isn't about what happens or what will happen, its about what should happen. It isn't useful in achieving your goals, it defines what your goals should be. There's no way to set up an experiment that addresses that.

E.G. You could certainly deploy the scientific method of discover whether or not feeding mice arsenic is detrimental to their health. If you exclude extraneous variables, have a control group, use a statically significant sample size and otherwise engage in the procedures that define good science, you will eventually come up with a solid factual conclusion: arsenic is unhealthy for mice.
But there's no way to set up an experiment to determine whether or not you should detrimentally affect the health of mice, whether its good or bad. Scientific procedures don't help you here because you can only observe what does happen, not what should have happened.

Well, suppose one scientist declared that "consuming large quantities of arsenic is beneficial to the health of a mouse." Another scientist could then demand that he verify his statement via the accepted scientific methods and procedures, and eventually they would discover whether or not he was correct.
But if instead he declares that "killing mice is morally wrong", science offers no procedures with which to evaluate that declaration. In fact, science offers no way to even engage with it because it doesn't involve any factual claims that can be addressed through scientific methods.

Now, science is useful in deriving moral codes in the sense that they often combine moral and factual claims: e.g. "Feeding mice arsenic is bad because it kills them." Science could engage with and verify the factual part ('feeding mice arsenic kills them'), but it can't engage with the moral part ('killing mice is bad'), because none of its defining methods deal with such a question.

So while we don't have to (and perhaps shouldn't) give any credence to a purveyor of morality who states that "senseless suffering is good", our basis for rejecting his claims isn't scientific: it doesn't involve any of the methods or procedures that define science.

I doff my cap in honor of such a fine rebuttal. :hatoff:

http://www.discussionworldforum.com/forum/showpost.php?p=27765&postcount=95

Michael

Jun 6th 2010, 11:20 AM

I flagged this post for BPOTW honors from two weeks ago but didn't post it, so in lieu of one for this week, I'm posting one for last week! :lol:

You will find some examples in past anarcho-syndicalist societies, such as Makhno's Ukraine, or CNT/FAI Spanish Republic, or existing anarcho-syndicalist-like economies, such as certain Kibbutz and Amish communities in the 60s, or the Recovered Factory Movement in Latin American post 2001, particularly in Argentine. Of course the degree of democratization varies. There are a few key elements which distinguishes anarcho-syndicalist economies from traditional capitalist ones.

The first thing is that there is no ownership of the means of production. A factory plant is "owned" by the people who work in the factory, a land is "owned" by those who til it, and so on. If a person stops working at a workplace, then his say over the workplace's decision is also nullified, that he would cease to "own" it with his former colleagues. But then when he enters a new workplace (get a new job), he resumes his say over the decisions made by the new workplace.

Second thing is there are no hierarchies of power based on division of labor- there are divisions of labor, just no managers giving orders to workers and executives giving orders to managers. Decisions are collectively made by worker's councils, which everybody in the workplace participates. These institutions also tend to pay everyone similar amounts of salary for the same duration of work. Not all examples I mentioned conform 100% to this second point, however, they generally strive to reduce disparity of income and break down top-down power structures that you find in corporate boardrooms of feudal societies.

Of course there are different decisions which affect different people on different levels. Therefore the workers council has a kind of bottom-up structure that is based on granularity of issues concerned and how directly/or abstractly it effect the participants of the workplace.

For example, suppose the workplace is a publishing house, we publish monthly magazines about current affairs, politics, and issues and so on, and books related to those topics. Suppose I work in a team of 6, and our job is to design the cover of the magazine, and arrange the layout inside of the magazine so that contributions from other workplaces in the publishing house- photographers, journalists, columnists, advertizers, are all happily fit into the pages we are confined to every month.

Okay, there are several decisions which affect different groups in the tasks liable to me and my team. Who decides what goes on the cover of the magazine? Since it affects us very much as it's one of our primary responsibilities that will take up most of our work time, we have a lot of say about what should be on the cover- but within certain constraints, insofar as it does not affect other people negatively, or affect them to a sheer extent- so for example we are not allowed to put pornographic pictures on the cover of a political magazine, because the consequences will affect everyone strongly and negatively- we ought to get permission from them for such radical moves. Or if we want to put religious or racially controversial contents, we ought to discuss with other work councils who are effected by this decision. The key difference with a capitalist publishing house is, you don't get orders from an editor, or an executive, about what to place on the cover. The power to decide is largely rested on the people doing the work, and when the decision affects others, then other workers council will have the right to take part in the decisions.

Same thing goes to allocation of space for different contents in the magazine. A lot of negotiations must be had to reach a consensus who gets the front page, who gets how many pages, etc. You may be asking "how does this all work together? Seems awfully complicated". Well, there is a bottom-up structure of worker's councils based on granularity of the issues concerned and how directly it effect the participants of the workplace. Picture a pyrimid with me and my team being one of the councils on the bottom. When our decision only affects us, then it stays there. When decisions affect more than just me and my team, it gets passed up to the next level- let's say a collective editing worker's council- I will represent my team, and discuss with representatives from other lower worker's councils, such as the photographer's council, the journalist's council, the marketing council, and so on. The decisions can be reached via consensus, or by majority votes, these are strategies, not principles- the principle is your decision making power is proportional to how much that decision shall affect you, and different strategies are adopted to accomplish that principle. The difference of this pyrimid structure from the capitalist structure is that decisions are first made on the lower levels, and negotiated further up. In a capitalist structure, the decisions are made on the top and passed all the way down.

There are bigger decisions which affect a much broader spectrum of people beyond the publishing house- like what kind of paper to use, how many pages to include, and so on. The whole publishing industry has to come up with representatives to discuss with other industry's representatives- like the waste disposal industry and the paper producers, and they negotiate the social cost, opportunity costs, and the externalities of printing such a magazine, they will also determine the kind of price (called indicative price, which is brought to the consumer's councils, another new concept I have not explained) which is reasonable to cover those social costs, and so on. With this kind of council system, the market is basically elimnated. The virtue of it is that there are minimal externalities in the economy, and it's highly democratic.

I've written a lot but only touched the surface. There's a couple of books on anarcho-syndicalism, in theory and in practice, by Rudolf Rocker, and a more modern version, very well elaborated in Michael Albert's Parecon: Life After Capitalism, and Looking Forward: Participatory Economics in the 21st Century. If you wanna know how exactly it works, and make some criticisms about the system, I recommand reading these books first. I mean, it's very easy to present the capitalist market system, but in practice, markets are extremely complex, and it's only easy to present the concept behind the market because people are familiar with it already. It's the same with councils- in theory it's not so complicated, but it appears to be complex because we are not used to it. However, in practice, councils are just as complicated as markets. Except that councils are intrinsically democratic, and I mean, meaningfully democratic.

http://www.discussionworldforum.com/forum/showpost.php?p=28003&postcount=30

I doff my cap in honor of such a fine post. :hatoff:

WFCY

Jun 6th 2010, 12:04 PM

Oh hi, thanks! Much appreciated, even though it was not a very good account of anarcho-syndicalism, it still took a long time to write up.

Michael

Dec 24th 2010, 10:54 AM

Haven't had one of these in a while! :o

Anyway, without further ado, here is this week's entry:

However, as much truth and beautiful simplicity as there is in the rules we learn in Kindergarten, I would add three caveats:

1. The world is not like kindergarten (material necessities): In kindergarten our material needs are supplied for us with no work on our part, which is good because little kids aren't really equipped to provide for themselves. But the truth is that, for most of us outside of kindergarten, "by the sweat of your brow you will eat your food." These necessities, to create food and shelter, not only for ourselves but for our dependents, create ethical challenges not encountered in kindergarten.

2. The world is not like kindergarten (evil): In kindergarten we are, to a considerable degree, sheltered from great evils. Again, this is a good thing. But for most of us in the world outside of kindergarten there is great evil to contend with and we must have a ethics or philosophy of how to handle (or endure) it. Kindergarten does not (and should not) provide answers for what to do when one must choose between two evils. It may teach us not to hit people. But it does not teach us what to do when someone else keeps hitting us, or someone we love. All we know to do there is to "tell the teacher," which brings me to my last, and most important, point:

3. Kindergarten is a world governed by a supreme and omnipotent authority who is the source and justification for all its ethics: The ethics of kindergarten are accepted and work only because they come down from "on high": from a teacher or parent. The children don't develop these rules on their own; consider "Lord of the Flies." Yet they generally just accept these rules with childlike faith in the ones who provide them. Furthermore, the whole system only holds together because their is final authority who will, at the end of the day if not moment by moment, render just judgement and comfort to those who followed the rules, or at least to those who honestly say they are sorry for breaking them (i.e. repent). Without that source of authority, there is nothing standing behind the kindergarten rules and no explanation why they should be accepted.

In short, while there's lots of good in kindergarten ethics, those ethics aren't quite sufficient for the world outside of kindergarten. And, to the extent that they are good and sufficient, they presume some sort of reigning authority. I'd say the ethics of a kindergartener are most definitely "ethics-with-God," or at least "ethics-with-a-God-like-figure."

http://www.discussionworldforum.com/forum/showpost.php?p=36419&postcount=79

I doff my cap in honor of such a fine post. :hatoff:

Michael

Mar 5th 2011, 05:28 PM

I'm curious as to why you find those circumstances shocking. You seem to be a well read person who must be aware of how society has functioned throughout the ages. Why should this particular era be any different?

Not shock. Barely contained rage. Just because something has been perpetrated for ages doesn't make it anymore acceptable. Deplorable behavior is no less deplorable because of its frequency.

Murderers have always murdered....should we just quit caring that they murder? Should we toss our hands up when we see a corpse and say, "What are you gonna do? They murder people all the time. Big whoop."

Likewise, corrupt bankers and politicians have always found new ways to maintain their power and riches. That doesn't excuse them. It makes them just as villainous as the first day they created corruption.

http://www.discussionworldforum.com/forum/showpost.php?p=39121&postcount=35

I doff my cap in honor of such a fine retort! :hatoff:

Michael

Mar 13th 2011, 11:53 AM

Pavlov's dog, Skinner's rats, and thousands of other examples can be found to illustrate the effects of operant conditioning; When one is rewarded for a behavior, he/she/it will tend to repeat the behavior and negative stimulus will tend to inhibit a particular behavior. This is true to a great extent right down to single celled, brainless organisms.
A significant additional finding is that once the stimulus is withdrawn, spontaneous behavior returns in a predictable fashion.

For instance, a rat that has been trained to complete a maze via the quickest root to obtain the stimulus at the end, will experiment with other routes when it realizes that there is no longer a stimulus in effect for the learned route.

This is a sound evolutionary practice that encourages a constant exploration of the environment in search of life sustaining or reproductive goal attainment.

It can be accurately gauged that a failure to return to spontaneous behavioral patterns indicates one of two things: 1) sustained stimulus, or 2) damage or impairment - specifically to the hippocampus.

Several experimenters have found that the influence of alcohol, for instance, is to delay the return to spontaneous behavior after operant conditioning. Is it possible that this is why we "drunk call" former lovers? It is certainly why drunk rats return to a lever time and time again, long after their sober compatriots have gone on to a search for other stimulus or simply stopped wasting energy on the lever that brings nothing. Energy is sustenance.

Science is a study of the natural world. If this were not applicable to you and I, it would not have been investigated in the first place. It is a study of behavior and neuroscience - in the natural world. What it reveals, is that we are subject to stimulus which will curb spontaneous behavior and it is spontaneous behavior which leads to the obtainment of knowledge. Knowledge leads to survival.

If we are rewarded for some superstitious behavior - trained to press the superstition lever, we will not likely explore our environment.

If we are practicing and being rewarded for superstitious behavior, then we will not understand things like global warming, practical conflict resolution, how our bodies work - medicine.

Religion is operant conditioning. One is promised for rewards for behaving in certain ways and punishment for behaving outside the prescribed dogma. The rewards come from the community - safety and acceptance. So comes the punishment.

Release from religious community removes the stimulus and encourages one to explore one's environment.

http://www.discussionworldforum.com/forum/showpost.php?p=39642&postcount=1

I doff my cap in honor of such a fine post. :hatoff:

JHC

Mar 13th 2011, 03:08 PM

Thank you for this compliment and for your participation.

WFCY

Mar 13th 2011, 03:11 PM

my picture of the pink unicorn didnt win

son i am disappoint :(

edit: I think it was pony

Michael

Mar 14th 2011, 08:14 PM

Thank you for this compliment and for your participation.
Yes, well I will honor good posts, even if I disagree with the argument. ;)

I haven't had a chance to reply yet. :D

my picture of the pink unicorn didnt win

son i am disappoint :(

edit: I think it was pony
:lol:

Yes, well, I was joking about the BPOTW, though it was indeed a mighty fine post - very topical and relevant too! :lol:

Michael

Mar 20th 2011, 10:26 AM

u can actually apply the theory in the op in a even broader sense and say that people living in civilized societies for their entire lives are too tame/conditioned to know about many of the fundamentals of human conditions (and its consequences). So one of them is class struggle, something that happens wherever there is an economy.

So for example, people who are born into free societies, those whose families provided them with wealth and prestige, never have to struggle for their rights to working conditions and bargining power. Well they often turn out to have very dogmatic and naive views about the realities of labor movements.

So for example, in a thread about the ongoing demos in Wisconsin, you'd notice many conservatives voice beliefs that the 14 Dems who left state are despised by their constituents for not "standing up" against the governer. You'd see idiotic posts like these.

In reality, the Dems' absence from state is celebrated, because absence is resistence in this context. But not in those people's frameworks. Because they never had to think about how political process works, especially when you are on that side of the barricade, that different economic class. In their framework "running away" is just that, it can't have other meanings or purposes. So all their predictions are always wrong when it comes to issues they never had to struggle for. And they are surprised when taken out of their privilege and comfort to find world a harsh and unpredictable place.

So it isn't only religion. Likewise for some white people about the civil rights movement, and many men about gender equality, and so on. The privilege in being in those positions certainly can dupe you into unexamined, unrealistics mindsets.

http://www.discussionworldforum.com/forum/showpost.php?p=39811&postcount=14

I doff my cap in honor of such a fine post. :hatoff:

Michael

Mar 27th 2011, 10:07 AM

Indeed. There is a small movement of us here in Cape Breton that on route to this and many of us have been for the last decade. There are several other threads I could mention this in but a great documentary called The Power of Community: How Cuba Survived Peak Oil (http://www.powerofcommunity.org/cm/index.php) is worth taking a look at. I think there are even parts of it on Youtube as well.

It's no surprise that the most developed sub-tropical nation is leading the way on this. They are the ones who have the combination of technology, climate and have bought some time with their wealth to really think towards how these problems will be mitigated.

For our own efforts, permaculture is only one piece of the self-sustainability puzzle, but a hugely important one at that. There are aspects of permaculture that touch upon responsible forestry as well because of the necessary integration of our forests into the whole picture. We live in a moderately rural area 15 minutes from the second largest municiple area in the province. I'd like to be more rural than that but it's a balance between time, money and commuting for work. We have also put a lot into this particular piece of land. So we work towards bringing ourselves to the point of providing for ourselves and, eventually, others. We have been involved in volunteering organisations to host people interested in learning about this way of living in exchange for a few hours contribution to the farm chores for a few years now. However, that programme is turning out to be more appealing to youth seeking cheap travel arrangements while going abroad. Our next goal is to move toward intentional community living because our land has lots of room on it for such a thing and we want to share that with other families with similar interests.

We were lucky to have permaculture plants already re-establshing themselves here: A pond with an island made up entirely of cranberries - completely wild too, wild lowbush blueberries, wild raspberries and blackberries, wild winterberries and service berries. Our contributions were to re-establish the orchards of apples and plums while newly planting more plums, pears, peaches and grapes. Our gardens are never monocropped and we always rotate. The seeds are 85% organic from start to finish, while the other 15% are non-GMO but not organic from start while being grown under completely organic conditions. Fertilizers haven't touched our land for the entire time we've been here but that is only five years now. I don't know for sure about before that.

Getting all this to happen has taken me (a city boy) and my wife (a mid-Western farm girl and daughter of hippies) quite some time to wrap our heads around. The complete cycle to accomplish all this involves an intricate, experiential knowledge starting with soil and working through all the needs of each species of plant and eventually animals too. Though my wife is vegetarian she is practical about the needs of animals on farms. There isn't a vegetation system on earth that doesn't have animals as part of the ecosystem and this speaks to the need for them on the farm as well. The lack of petrochemicals means we have to be careful about depleting nutrients in soil and we remedy this through a cycling of different families of plants and plenty of manure that is aged for two years and derived entirely now from our two miniature equines (one horse, one donkey), four goats and 20-40 chickens. This is key to keeping the organic components in an area of the country where the soil wouldn't exist if we removed all the rocks :) The clay here is unstoppable and is good for some things and very bad for others.

Another good source for this sort of thinking is Elliot Coleman and his wife Barbara Damrosch (http://www.fourseasonfarm.com/). They are a true inspiration to Atlantic northerners who live in a very limiting climate. Their techniques for mitigating this are something to behold and I have learned a lot about my own situation from their wisdom. We simply have to become culturally aware of where we all live. Although your video outlined a fabulous market for the Philippines, I will never see local oranges at my market. Peaches maybe, but never oranges. And that's a reality people have to wake up to. We can't get our vitamin C from these wonderful fruits if it is going to cost us our grandchildren's futures to continue in this manner. We have to learn to include things like kale and bok choi in our diets to stay healthy and balanced in our own nutrition systems. Fat chance of that catching on here any time soon though - this is the region in Canada that boasts the highest number of cases per capita of diabetes. We have a long way to go. My only gilmmer of hope is that we came a long way to get here in a short period of time. There are classic stories (http://capebretonsmagazine.com/modules/publisher/item.php?itemid=60&keywords=orange) from my own father's generation growing up in the 30s and 40s about how special it really was to receive an orange on Christmas Day in your stocking and about how they used to use that orange multiple times in ways Floridians would find amusing just so that they could literally squeeze every last useful drop out of it.

So, in a nutshell, permaculture is about using what will grow and thrive in your climate that is appropriate to that climate. It is not just about agriculture but about a cultural shift in thinking about the uses of what is suited to your local biological niches and how humans can exploit that without being wasteful or too damaging to that. Finding the balance is key and we have to start using our giant brains to accomplish this again. My fear is that we will be one of the first Western places to experience the slowing chugs of the gravy train of Western standards of living. I'm not as worried for myself as I am for my neighbours who have abandoned the idea of appreciating how special an orange in Chéticamp really is.

http://www.discussionworldforum.com/forum/showthread.php?p=40505#post40505

I doff my cap in honor of such a fine post! :hatoff:

Michael

Apr 10th 2011, 09:17 AM

I accept that the earth revolves around the sun because past and modern science has proved that fact. There is no need to presume.

Science seeks to prove nothing. This is the most common and widespread error of public and even professional thinking on the nature of science itself as a model for understanding the universe. Science seeks to investigate and arrive at the simplest explanations for phenomena in the universe based on observation, direct or indirect. These observations must be framed as testable and preferably (if you follow Popper's lead) falsifiable hypotheses. At the end of the concluded testing, you must be left with either a rejection of the hypothesis or a rejection of the null hypothesis. A collection of hypotheses that relate to an underlying phenomenon are called a theory, which can also be refuted based on an incorrect hypothesis that is testable and preferably falsifiable. In other words, at no point does a scientist attempt to prove anything to be correct. A scientist always starts with the approach of proving several other explanations wrong and the one(s) that is/are left standing are the best explanations for said phenomenon observed in the universe. This allows the possibility of revising the theory and/or hypothesis by future means of observation of the same phenomenon that may be more informative or, more typically, employ a different form of technology that gives insight to observations previously undetectable to human inquiry. Theories, including that about the heliocentric solar system, must NEVER be regarded as proved right or correct lest we fall into the dangerous trap of science mimicking dogma or canon law as unchangeable and always just so. This applies equally to gravity, Newtonian physics and evolutionary theory. All must be available to be tested, re-tested and open to revision upon discovery of an observation or condition that refutes a hypothesis of the theory or the theory itself in its entirety.

Further to this, Donkey's position (and please correct me if I'm wrong Donkey) is being interpreted by you in the narrow sense of, "if not heliocentric then geocentric", when in fact this is a false dichotomy. There is more than one position.

http://www.discussionworldforum.com/forum/showthread.php?p=41248#post41248

I doff my cap in honor of such a fine post! :hatoff:

Michael

Jun 12th 2011, 09:14 AM

What is it?
Where does it come from?
How is it different for Homo sapiens than it is for, say, a bonobo or a cockroach?

I'd like to talk about this.

As a former cognitive scientist and someone whose profession is to program AI/heuristics to imitate intelligent behavior such as natural language understanding, I could start with Descartes and go all the way to Searle and Rorty. But I won't bother you with academic text speak.

When people ask a question like this, I'll revert back to a pick up story I once used. People are not who they appear to be, physical entities, they are more like waves, or radiation (did you know if you get sucked into a black hole, it spits you out in that form to balance itself out? In fact, that is why black holes are not black), or to use a metaphor, people are songs.

As much as behaviorists would have you, your body completely regenerates in 7 years time, none of the water particles inside of you right now will be there in a week's time, your brain cells a year from now are unlikely to stay there then. So the thing that is moving the machine, the ghost, as Ryle would deride, that's the actual you. What tells your body how to remake itself, that's you somewhere. People are like songs, songs can be stored on a lot of different media, their character is completely independent of their physical existence. And there is no categorical mistake about distinguishing songs and storage devices, why should there be one between your body and your consciousness?

Where does it come from? No idea. And btw, just because something exists, does not make the question where it comes from relevant or important.

How are we different from beasts of the wild? Our songs are better- more expressive of our experiences, more beautiful.

http://www.discussionworldforum.com/forum/showthread.php?p=45730#post45730

I doff my cap in honor of such a fine post! :hatoff:

Michael

Jun 19th 2011, 10:25 AM

This is what I mean by the question; should people ever be punished for doing wrong?

Optimally, I think those who do wrong should be helped to understand why it was wrong and to become better people. When that's not possible, the next best thing might be to simply protect other people from them.

Either of those might involve forcing experiences on them they would not choose for themselves (e.g. rehab, imprisonment, community service...etc), and that might fairly be called "punishment." But that punishment is simply a means to the end of helping the person being punished, or at least protecting others from him. If punishment becomes an end unto itself, then I think it becomes mere vengeance.

http://www.discussionworldforum.com/forum/showthread.php?p=46310#post46310

I doff my cap in honor of such a fine post! :hatoff:

NickKIELCEPoland

Jun 19th 2011, 05:08 PM

Do assists count?

Michael

Jun 20th 2011, 08:17 PM

Do assists count?

Sorry, no. :lol:

But it is a friendly competition. Greendruid and dilettante have the most citations here (see page one of this thread for the score card). :)

JHC

Jun 21st 2011, 03:36 AM

One must never end his sentences a preposition with. If he does, he never earns best post.

Michael

Jul 17th 2011, 09:58 AM

Actually, I think Nick's Is it sexist to only be attracted to one sex? thread is an insightful commentary here. Calling someone "sexist" because they were more attracted to one sex than to the other would horribly cheapen the term and make it significantly less useful.

It seems to me that the same holds true of the term "racist." To call someone racist simply because they find some complexions, hair types, facial structures, etc. more attractive than others cheapens the word and does a favor to true racists by including in 'racism' sentiments completely beyond one's control and actions not morally objectionable. It would also make practically everyone on earth a racist, since the only way to avoid the label would be to feel precisely equally attracted to all the physical characters associated with race (a broad and ill-defined group).

Now, to be fair, if someone's preference for dating only from their own race is derived from the belief that their race is somehow objectively superior and that it would demean or somehow taint them to be associated with someone from a 'lesser' race, then yes, that would certainly be racist. But I hardly think that that's always the case.

http://www.discussionworldforum.com/forum/showpost.php?p=48980&postcount=33

I doff my cap in honor of such a fine post. :hatoff:

WFCY

Jul 19th 2011, 09:27 PM

It's a deconstruction that obfuscate the issue and has nothing to do with reality. I've thoroughly debunked it. Dunno what's worthwhile about it.

dilettante

Aug 7th 2011, 06:04 PM

I want to defend my assertion that people work to increase their standard of living. I mean that in a very basic sense. I did not mean to imply that people only work because they want a yacht, fancier cars, a bigger house, etc. They work to provide for themselves, yes, but I want to make something clear.

People consume their resources everyday. They are always working to replace them. That is the sense in which I meant people work to improve their standard of living. Filling empty cupboards with food is an improvement in one's standard of living. Unfortunately, that is what many people are doing today. They are living paycheck to paycheck, refilling empty cupboards.

I have only skimmed this thread so far, but that is a point I want to make because I think it is an important one that clarifies the perspective I approach economics. There are real people every day working to replace the resources they consume every day.

It is from this perspective I see the biggest flaw in the Keynesian approach to
economics, and consequently the flaw in the approach taken these last several years. There is little recognition that details matter. Aggregation and statistics like GDP rule the day. Spending absurd amounts of money to boost a GDP number is incredibly wasteful and misguided if all that economic activity amounts to is putting people to work so they can fill empty cupboards. There's no real growth in the economy if all the work is wasteful. That people still talk about boosting the housing sector of the economy shows me they have learned nothing. Capital resources in this country need to restructure before there will ever be a sustained increase in employment. Shoving our resources into areas, like housing, that are oversaturated can not be a solution to long term employment.

All these short-term spending projects temporarily employ people and increase GDP, whatever that is worth. But is anyone here honestly surprised that this is a double-dip recession? It seems as if Washington is trying to recreate the economy of 2005, which ultimately proved to be unsustainable and a huge misallocation of resources. There will never be a long-term increase in jobs in this country until we let go of holding on to the economy of the past. What is the economy of the future? Of the now? Nobody knows for sure, but unless we allow it to take shape on its own, we are destined to wallow through the muck of our past mistakes.

Michael doffs his cap in honor of such a fine post. :hatoff:

Michael

Sep 24th 2011, 11:06 AM

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_lm2JI7sGwYI/TSe7nW0QJQI/AAAAAAAAL5I/i4T_OsfFjr4/s320/class+war+when+we+fight+back.jpg

I doff my cap in honor of such a clever post. :hatoff:

ThirumalaiselviP

Sep 30th 2011, 09:07 AM

:lol: sorry i didnt see any msg :):bounce::banana::banana::banana:

Michael

Oct 2nd 2011, 09:50 AM

Extremely negative. It doesn't make any rational sense whatsoever given the arbitrariness of the subject of the idolatry. Psychologically it's a form of extrapolated narcissism.

A thousand years ago I would have been supposed to be patriotic about my village to the exclusion of the village 5 miles away. 500 years ago I would have been supposed to be patriotic about the local city and would have to deem the city 50 miles away as 'them', 'the others', 'foreigners' and often enough 'the enemy'.

Now I'm supposed to patriotic together with the inhabitants of the villages and cities that once were the enemy. Now it's the 'nation' that one has to submit to. But nations are with very few exceptions completely arbitrary constructs, in most cases literally lines drawn on a map without any regard for what that map represents.

What do people have in common after all that live in the same country : that country, that nationality and nothing else. Who has more in common : an Oxford don and a Manchester United fan or that fan and a Borussia Dortmund fan ? A Flemish neo-nazi and a Flemish anarchist or that anarchist with an anarchist in Mexico ?

Another issue with patriotism is that it's one of the necessary ingredients for genocide. To mobilize people to commit genocide the other side, the victims to be have to be dehumanized (propaganda/hate speech serves that purpose) and the own side has to be considered without blemish and that's where nationalism/patriotism comes in.
This aspect of nationalism has brought us the Holocaust, the genocides in former Yugoslavia and the oft forgotten mass slaughters in Rwanda, Burundi and Congo.

Finally, it seems to me that the less reason there is for a real feeling of communality the more the artificial feeling of nationalism is stressed and enforced, with the USA being a prime example.

I doff my cap in honor of such a fine post. :hatoff:

http://www.discussionworldforum.com/forum/showpost.php?p=52373&postcount=15

NickKIELCEPoland

Oct 2nd 2011, 10:33 AM

Best Post of the Week making a statement that Michael agrees with, as always.

Donkey

Oct 2nd 2011, 12:29 PM

Best Post of the Week making a statement that Michael agrees with, as always.

This isn't the place for it (I hope michael deletes both this post and yours), but that is a non-factual comment. Michael has posted a BPOTW here, and then gone and argued with/objected to the points in the actual thread.

So...

NickKIELCEPoland

Oct 2nd 2011, 12:38 PM

This isn't the place for it (I hope michael deletes both this post and yours), but that is a non-factual comment. Michael has posted a BPOTW here, and then gone and argued with/objected to the points in the actual thread.

So...
But Michael agrees with Dominik about patriotism. And patriotism is the subject of the BPOTW.

I'm just asking whether this is a coincidence, or not.

Michael

Oct 2nd 2011, 12:52 PM

But Michael agrees with Dominik about patriotism. And patriotism is the subject of the BPOTW.

I'm just asking whether this is a coincidence, or not.

I try to pick posts that are generally well written, or well presented, or clever, or humorous, but also show some passion, conviction and a good rational argument on a topic of general interest.

Whether or not I personally agree with particular post is beside the point, though I'll certainly admit to being human and tending to favor such posts. :shrug:

I'd also request that you take all discussion about this issue to another thread if you want to discuss it further. This thread is meant to be just a showcase of particularly good posts. :)

NickKIELCEPoland

Oct 2nd 2011, 12:58 PM

No, I won't make a thread on this issue, since I am not passionate about it.
Just thought I'd give you a subtle nudge, so that you don't rest on your laurels, old bean :)

Michael

Oct 23rd 2011, 11:03 AM

Selfishness will be the downfall of our species. It simply can't just be about "as long as I got mine, screw everyone else."

Heartless as the question is, it seems to be worth asking: Why not?

If "I got mine" and the people I care about (family, friends...etc...) look like they've "got their's," what exactly is my motivation for caring about something as abstract and distant as the future of the species?

I'm not sure today's brand of secular, democratic, capitalism offers any response to that. No noblesse oblige, no Divinely mandated "love thy neighbor," no association of workers as 'family'...
It's difficult to come up with a good reason not to be selfish that the prevailing economic, materialist, hedonistic worldview won't quickly (and logically) categorize as so much subjective sentimentalism to be discarded as soon as believing it ceases to bring me happiness.

Not that I'm pining for the "good ol' days" of past justifications for oppression. But it does seem that the general trend in outlook makes it much easier to be a selfish bastard without being philosophically inconsistent or hypocritical. :shrug:

http://www.discussionworldforum.com/forum/showthread.php?p=53478#post53478

I doff my cap in honor of such a fine post! :hatoff:

Michael

Oct 30th 2011, 09:53 AM

So... there's a broad swathe of society that views society's problems as a law enforcement issue. People getting rowdy in the street? It is apparently easier to taze them or beat them or gas them or whatever than actually nut up and address the reasons they are being rowdy in the street. It's a cowardly perspective, but unfortunately it's rather pervasive.

You could call it the "hammer" doctrine. I'm sure you've heard it, "when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like nail."

Ok, so we're all nails. But we're not just existing, hanging out in a tray of nails. No. The nails hold the structure of society together. So when that structure experiences extreme stress and pressure (and if you deny that our structure experiences extreme stress and pressure, especially with back and forth madness, you're either kind of stupid or really drunk) those nails start to come loose. So those hammer wielders, desperate to preserve the structure, send out their little State hammers to bang those nails back into place. The problem is, every time those nails get pounded back in they get a little looser. Sure, pound one back in, and the structure stands up a little bit better than before the pounding, but keep pounding them in, year after year, stress after stress... sorry, sooner or later all of the hammers in the world aren't going to keep that structure together. Fucker is coming down. The police state might keep the elite sitting at the top of the structure up there for today, or for tomorrow... but they just keep building the tower taller and taller and putting more and more stress on the structure (especially the bottom).

Good luck with that.

http://www.discussionworldforum.com/forum/showthread.php?p=53994#post53994

I doff my cap in honor of such a fine post. :hatoff:

NickKIELCEPoland

Oct 30th 2011, 10:04 AM

Well deserved, Donx! A truly excellent post.

Michael

Nov 6th 2011, 12:53 PM

Silly semantic games is the exact reason we have a huge industry of legal services. Semantic debates are what happens when the Supreme Court hears an appeal. That is the essence of the legal system.

Therefore, you used the wrong dictionary to define detainment. Lawyers would say that the man was "delayed", but not "detained". See, here's the crucial point....the man could have walked out. He was not physically restrained.

If anything, he was peer pressured into backing up his truck and parking it. He could have easily called for the police, who I'm sure weren't very far away, if he felt he really couldn't leave. He could have rolled up his window and honked his horn for a while, also getting police attention. But, no, he backed up and parked. That was his choice. The protestors didn't jump into the cab of the truck and park it, nor did they tie Omar up to other protestors to prevent his 'escape'.

So charge away those pesky culprits. False imprisonment wouldn't stick. And there's no crime on the books for being a shitty neighbor. Yes, I would love to see the villains brought to court, but mainly because I would love to see a judge's face when he hears why they are there. :lol:

I doff my cap in honor of such a fine post! :hatoff:

http://www.discussionworldforum.com/forum/showpost.php?p=54943&postcount=609

(And no, I didn't pick this one because I agree with it, I picked it because it makes a darn good argument about the law)

Michael

Nov 13th 2011, 03:29 PM

This question was posed to me in another thread...

While our government may be as equally corrupt as the day the Constitution was signed, the most dramatic change to effect our political world has been the failure of mass media. Where once investigative reporting was respected, applauded, and encouraged, we now find fluff stories and opinion pieces.

To find the facts and truths of the world, one must dig for facts independently. With the integration of the internet into most homes, finding information is easier than ever. Unfortunately, misinformation is far easier to find and often compounds the process.

For instance, let's say an avid Fox News fan decides to do some fact checking of their favorite talking head. Bill may have mentioned a blurp on television or radio about the favoritism "mainstream media" is showing the Occupy Movement. The person could search for "mainstream media on occupy" via Google and find the top article, "Mainstream Media Doing Damage Control for #OccupyOakland" on BigJournalism.com, a Tea Party/Establishment GOP media site. The second article is "The Mainstream Media's Fear of Occupy Wall Street" on TruthOut.org, a liberal news site.

Both articles are heavily laden with opinionated 'truthish' statements that support their respective sides of the debate. So where are the facts? Could your average American, a high school graduate with an IQ of 98, tell which article hosts more facts? Even so, wouldn't the cognitive dissonance they've held onto for so long distract them from ascertaining the truth?

Bias in the media has forever been present. That will never go away and there is no denying that. But when any Joe Dohn can start a blog and call himself a reporter, how can your average American tell opinion from fact? I've seen fully functioning adult men start to freak out because they read some crazy-ass blog about Communist infiltrators in Congress. In 2010. :rolleyes:

Americans want to learn more, but the corporate media prevents the spread of knowledge. Rather than running reports about the success of lobbyists buying congressmen, they talk 20 hours a day (the other four are about sports and weather), 12 months a year about some alcoholic whore that's went missing in Barbados. So, where do Americans go to find the info they're missing? The blogosphere. :eek:

As I said, the internet has tons of valid, honest information. More than one person could ever read. But for every truthful statement, the internet hosts five opinions pieces that fudge the truth in a vain attempt to validate a point. Without the support of national (and even respectable local) media outlets, truth gets lost in the echo chamber.

This is the Age of Misinformation.

And our corporate rulers love that. They love that they have talking heads on the television and radio 24 hours a day to make passionate pleas with the public to abandon all reason and logic and go with that gut feeling. Most Americans were never truly explained what Socialism is in high school, but they all KNOW that Obama is a Socialist. And every gun owner thinks that every Democratic bill is a ploy to take their guns, and every feminist thinks every Republican bill is another slap in the face of women across the globe.

Yes, the onus of knowledge is on the individual. HOWEVER, in a society as complex and connected as modern America, the individual needs a real force to assist in ascertaining the truth of the matter. Opinions are acceptable, but only as commentary to the facts.

This is where change must begin.

http://www.discussionworldforum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=2790

I doff my cap in honor of such a fine post! :hatoff:

Two in a row for Drunk Guy too! :thumbsup:

Michael

Nov 27th 2011, 10:38 AM

I'm assuming that you're talking about in the USA specifically. If so, why is this? By what specific mechanism are poor people unable to become not poor? What are the barriers to this?

I ask because my perception is that these barriers are largely self-imposed. Getting loans and going to school seems daunting. Having children kills any time to burn the midnight oil for self improvement. And so on and so forth.
By any number of mechanisms.

Environment:
* The poor are far more likely to live in an environment where they are exposed to toxins, and from a young age. Especially of concern are things like lead and mercury, which have a demonstrated effect on learning and development - and are most likely found in highest concentrations in poor neighborhoods (old paint, near coal burning or petroleum distilling plants and heavy industry, etc.). These toxins have a direct impact on the impoverished's ability to better themselves because they start out several steps behind in mental and emotional development. Moving out of these neighborhoods requires money.

Schools/education:
* The poor are far more likely (especially with the end of busing) to end up in ineffective and underfunded schools, and face significantly higher challenges in getting out of those schools, because of the costs in doing so (transportation being a significant barrier, but not the only one). These "neighborhood" schools set a culture of failure, and there is often little reinforcement at home as struggling parents work multiple jobs in an attempt to keep the household together. Once of working age, the children of poor households will many times be pressured to work to contribute, putting even more stress on an already endangered education.

* As far as higher education goes - well, without that ACT/SAT score, scholarships are difficult, and without credit, loans are too. There is measurable and demonstrable culture bias in standardized tests as well - being an impoverished, nonwhite, and/or female more difficult.

Culture
* In addition to the cultural reinforcements within the impoverished, which I'm sure we'll get an earful about, let's talk about the cultural biases against the poor. Show up to a job interview in a suit that's out of style and threadbare - a thrift shop special, and you've got several strikes against you. We have a cultural reinforcement to want to hire the successful to continue our successes. Additional factors are already demonstrated - have a funny name on your resume and you're significantly less likely to be called in for an interview. If you can't afford a car, you are very likely to be weeded out for any number of positions that require "reliable transportation" and the ability to move freely around, especially in cities like mine where public transportation is a joke. If you don't have a job, you are also much less likely to be able to get a job.

I fully admit that there are contributing factors of choice within some groups of the impoverished that are unfortunate, and that contribute substantially to the cycle of poverty. Enculturation is a powerful force, and one that has to be recognized, rather than just simply looking down on an individual and saying "you are weak." When an individual is raised to believe that having babies at a young age is acceptable and desirable, and her social group reinforces that belief, and her parents reinforce that belief, and the media reinforces that belief, it is very difficult to step outside of that. Some individuals certainly do, but they are the exception, just as some individuals certainly are able to escape being poor (like my mom), but they are the exception.

http://www.discussionworldforum.com/forum/showthread.php?p=56143#post56143

I doff my cap in honor of such a fine post! :hatoff:

Michael

Dec 18th 2011, 09:52 AM

The state of today's GOP seems to me like the logical conclusion to events over the past 10 years, perhaps more. I've been predicting since during the second Bush term that we'd see something like this (though, in all fairness, I thought it would happen in the 2008 election).

Specifically, the lionization of Reagan during the Bush presidency has led to the GOP appearing as comical as it does currently, though the disparate interests of the GOP constituents is the real issue. Ronald Reagan would be a pathetic excuse for a politician and a man when compared with "mytho-Reagan" as he exists in the minds of GOP constituents - slaying communism single-handedly while balancing the budget, cutting taxes, and doing all sorts of other generally awesome, and contradictory things. He's sort of turned into Santa Claus.

And, to many of these constituents, the single most appealing thing about him was the everyman appeal, personified best, perhaps, by the "there you go again" line. He embodied what has since morphed into a weird kind of GOP version of affirmative action - the idea that folksiness, oversimplifications and sound bytes are equally valid stand-ins for nuanced consideration, or, more appropriately, that idiots are every bit as capable of doing things that require intelligence as intelligent people.

Like a movie producer making a good movie and then subsequently trying to keep the dream alive with parts 2, 3, and 4, the GOP keeps trying to give people "Reagan, The Sequel." With part 2 (George W Bush), it worked, but turned sour in the end. However, with money left to be made from the gullibility of the movie-going populace, the message was sold that the movie just didn't rehash enough jokes or action sequences or gore from the first one, and so Sarah Palin, Donald Trump, Christine McConnell, Sarah Bachmann, Rick Perry, and even Joe the Plumber were trotted out as the political equivalents of Friday the 13th part X. It's like that South Park where Stan becomes cynical... "This February, Donald Trump hosts blah, blah, blah, whatever, fuck you!"

The only question at this point is whether the GOP is actually at the bottom of this slide, realizing that it's time to think of a different movie idea, or whether they're going to nominate someone who is, literally, mentally impaired. At some point, they're going to figure out that the problem isn't that they haven't found someone stupid/folksy/extremist enough, and that maybe they've tottered a little too far in that direction.

But, the real underlying issue here is that the GOP's constituency is, and has been for a long time, fundamentally incompatible with itself. Evangelical Thumpers, Libertarians, Rockefeller Republicans, pro-government military lovers, Deficit Hawks, etc are not only sometimes misaligned, but some of them actually have interests that are diametrically opposed. Reagan was charismatic enough to unite these groups in what should have been a temporary alliance, but this was never something that was built to last. The brief success of Clinton/Contract with America and the quasi-evil, realpolitik genius of Karl Rove allowed this doomed arrangement to stay on the shelves long past its expiration date, but now it's rotting beyond the point of being able to ignore it.

As far as I'm concerned, the preposterous charade that's currently playing out is more in the category of weird, irrelevant details than it is a comment on the state of the GOP. The current crop of candidates and the game being played is a case of deck chair shuffling on the Titanic. The iceberg has already been struck and the boat is already sinking - this started a couple of decades ago. The 2012 election is a lost cause for the GOP, especially if it were to win the presidency because a Gingrich/Bachmann/Perry/whatever presidency would just drive home the point that manipulating the electorate into voting for idiots/extremists is possible, but bad for everyone. It would be the GWB feedback loop, but shorter and more disastrous. A more likely 2012 trouncing by Obama would be a more subdued, but equally potent signal that it's time to stop putting lipstick on pigs and consider a genuine strategy change - a realignment of constituencies.

http://www.discussionworldforum.com/forum/showpost.php?p=57210&postcount=189

I doff my cap in honor of such a fine post! :hatoff:

Michael

Jan 8th 2012, 10:43 AM

Alright, in my last comment I mentioned four things that modern scholars call into question regarding this part of Thomist thought: two logical and two causal relations.

1) If the best good cannot exist without evil, this seems to place a limit on God because it seems that God cannot create good without evil. There should be absolutely no limit to the amount of good God can create, but Aquinas argues that evil is necessary for more good.

2) As Non Sequitur mentioned earlier, evil is understood by Aquinas as a privation of good. With this understanding, all we mean by 'good' is 'not evil' and all we mean by 'evil' is 'not good'. This brings us right back to pramjockey's problem with how we're going to define good. Aquinas gives a non-answer - and, as I mentioned before, even when we include Aquinas' understanding of achieving good through virtuous action, it still winds up circular with no definitive meaning.

Those are the logical problems, now for the causal problems.

3) Evil is seen as a necessary means to good (this is better drawn out with an understanding of Aquinas' 1st, 2nd, and 3rd order goods/evils, which I didn't mention; I can talk about that a bit if anyone's interested). If this is true, that means that God is subject to causal laws; this is contradictory with the positive attributes God has for Aquinas and, again, would be a limit on God.

4) As an expansion on the three points so far, if the best of all possible worlds requires some evil, and a universe that allows for contained progress is better than a static universe, we are led to believe that evil improves good. That's shifty stuff.

At least on my understanding of Aquinas and his critics, I'm not left convinced. I may be completely wrong, but I don't think that a Thomist approach to the problem of evil is a successful one.

I'm also not convinced by other religious arguments to the tune of, "evil is defined as being against God's will" understood via scripture, apologetics, or otherwise. In my experience, which is admittedly very limited, there aren't any non-circular religious arguments to define evil in any objective way.

So from what has been mentioned so far, that leaves evil understood as 'unjustifiable reality' or evil understood relativistically.

I'm not familiar with Henri Blocher, but I suspect his arguments are probably vulnerable to either similar issues brought out in Aquinas, or else to the relativist counter: says you.

So, relativism. Well, in the original post, we're definitely looking at individual relativism: each individual decides relatively what is good or evil and is justified in acting according to their views. I think it's fair to say they're wrong insofar as we judge them from the overarching view of their community: murder is seen as wrong, so their actions, even with the best intentions, are wrong.

That still leaves us with at least cultural relativism: each community is able to decide what counts as good/evil, but only within the community and for members of the community. So if the actions of the rebel officers are wrong, that doesn't mean it applies outside of their particular community - so we don't have any objective view of what constitutes evil.

The best answer to this kind of relativism I can think of, if we need one, that I can think of is something like Mill's harm principle: people are free to do as they please up to the point that they limit anyone else's freedom. Of course, we are left with the problem of what constitutes enough harm to be considered a limit to freedom? Murder, definitely, but the exhaust from driving a car? It all gets kind of funky from here.

I've read a couple really interesting papers recently that attempt to give extra weight to a Millian account of harm using Yoga philosophy. Really cool stuff, although I'm in no position to talk about it, really.

http://www.discussionworldforum.com/forum/showthread.php?p=58063#post58063

I doff my hat in honor of such a fine post from a new member! :hatoff: