Monday, December 31, 2012

Nietzsche

This will be an on going post.  I have just started reading Beyond Good and Evil and have already annotated more than I have read.  My first impression is that like too many people he some how thinks that his or their current situation is not because of the people and institutions that came before.  The moral society that he rails against makes it possible for worthless philosophers, like himself, to exist in the first place. In a world without morals foolish people like him would have died of starvation or at the hands of a stronger competitor for the few scarce resources that are not already the property of even stronger individuals.

Just because his words are accepted by the foolish and fool hardy, which there are way too many, and the natural character of the majority of people is to take rather than give doesn't mean that they are justified, appropriate, or even acceptable it only means that the environment they are attempting to disband is somewhat persistent and adhered to by the last by a dwindling number of providers and givers of the world. His amoral society is not really society but the return to chaos long ago abandoned by the a much wiser people whose devolving descendants are perceive themselves to be superior but in reality are much inferior to earliest progenitors.

Eventually even the strongest can be destroyed by the weakest when the strongest can not be replaced by like minded people or institutions.  Liberalism works until you run out of other people's money. Charity ends when surplus is no longer available. Conservatives must guard against selfishness and greed. Capitalism consumes itself if there are no limits or a will to conserve and become a good steward of their resources.

Most importantly heretics and revolutionaries are plague upon the status-quo bring little to the effort if their purpose is self serving.

2nd entry

The entire argument about good or bad and truth is nullified by uncertainty.  The whole premise of the Socratic method is destroyed by uncertainty.  The notion that a witness can be sworn to tell the whole truth is absurd and that any person can be convicted of a crime on the standard of what a reasonable man would consider as sufficient is equally ludicrous.  Our justice system is flawed to the point of uselessness and our system of laws have been negated and are meaningless.

Society remains in tack solely on the whim and willingness of the individual to be honest and maintain their personal integrity.  We are living on the last gasps of  law and order, honesty and integrity, and the willingness of the individual to continue to participate.

Right now the alternatives are limited but as soon as the supply chain breaks down and food riots begin there will be numerous alternatives to staying in a big city and that will mean desperate times for the rural communities of this country.

The police state that will ensue is going to be disastrous for human freedoms.

3rd entry

This is a joke, right?  No one could actually believe this crap?  As stupid as I am I can see the false premise, the faulty reasoning and contrived arguments he pretends to use. There is no beyond good and evil because that presumes a condition of  'good' generally consider as better.  If any thing his argument should be outside of good or evil.  Then he could argue that his ideas are not conditionally good or bad but simply nonsensical. Which is what they would have to be.  They would have to be to be outside of our instinctive or cognitive reasoning.  They would have to be counter intuitive and extra sensory which man is not capable of.

Sunday, December 30, 2012

Research

Since loosing my job I have been unsuccessful at getting a new one but have been more than busy with life enriching projects.  One of those is the gaining of information. I am becoming a habitual reader.  I have read very little throughout my life.  However, I have been a consument learner.  I have watched as many educational programs as I could and as a result I am not uninformed just under informed about what knowledge exists outside of my sphere of understanding and knowledge.

As I attempt to articulate my ideas in this blog and other writing projects I discover I don't actually have enough knowledge about any particular subject to justify my positions or ideas.  As a consequence I am overwhelmed by my lack of knowledge and the illumination reserach tends to shine on everything that is out there. 

Wikipedia is an unbelievable source of information which I am using to get myself up to speed but it is also a source of confusion because there is so much an I have so little time.  At 61 my abilities to comprehend ideas and concepts is as great as it ever has been but my inability to retain many of the facts is as low as it ever has been.

It is interesting though, there are some things my mind immediately grasps.  I am not sure why but it obviously has something to do with my propensities for a paticular point of view.  When I encounter a tid bit that enriches my position my mind seizes upon it and it becomes part of my lixicon.

As I read Plato and come to the conclusion that Socrates is not a real person but a character in the literature my questions aren't about him or the authors but about the language. Where did the words come from?  According to wikipedia the greek languge dates back to 2500 BC.  Plato's writtings are fourth century BC so I suppose that 2000 years of talking and thinking is the explination but the etylogical process is only part of the story.  I suppose one can assume that in the process of thinking and discussing an idea or concept originates and in the author's efforts to articulate his idea a complimentary thought comes to him in such a fashion that a new word is originated.  Without dictionaries how were those words passed around so that others could learn and use them.

We use words so flipently today as if they always existed and that no one actually had to think up every word this sencented is composed of, let alone the garmmar and punctuntation.

I am amazed at the intelligence and prowess of our ancestors. All most everything we know and say was invented by them thousands of years ago.  Talk about standing on the shoulder of giants.

Saturday, December 29, 2012

Where?

Where do the democrats and progressives think they are taking this society? Of all of the literature that foretells the future I am unaware of any place good. Beginning with 1984 there seems to be a plethora of dooms day scenarios and dystopias but few if any utopias or even pleasant outcomes.

So where are we going? The Democratic republic model seems destined to be overturned. The communist model persists but is ruefully unable to centrally plan it way out of a paper bag. The Chinese take on communism with its state-run entrepreneurial programs are dependent upon the outside forces to energize it centralized planning ineptness.  South American socialists are riddled with corruption and ineptness.  The European socialists are descending into a black hole of debauchery and servitude. Russian despots have forever ravaged their people with no prospect of change.  The middle east theocracies can't rule without being changed by the people they try to rule thus ending their regime.

The Democrats refuse to provide a plan or state any goals.  All they seem to want to do is expand on failed social programs expecting a different result. They want to borrow more money on the misguided premise that we owe it too our selves.  They want of overlook the inconvenient fact that borrowing money from someone else requires a payback.  And pretend that if they could just tax the rich all of our troubles would disappear and that evil capitalists will continue to innovate and operate providing them with scads of money to borrow against and mother earth will not be touched or fouled in anyway.

Unfortunately, too many of the rest of us think that the role of government is to take care of them.  Too many politicians think that there is a never ending supply of money.  Too many people think that tomorrow will never come and that they only have to worry about themselves.  Too many people don't think they simply act and too many of them are in elected office.

I don't suppose there will ever be a world leader emerge in these times of Santa clause because living within your budget, going without, making do, and being inconvenienced is simply out of the question.  I can only imagine a fiscal collapse which may reset our social order breaking down the new world order into a chaos of city states as being the most likely future.  Even then I don't see a pleasant future for my grand children's grand children.

Something has to give.  Either we have to lower our standard of living or we exhaust the earth we depend upon.  That seems to be one of the guiding principles of the progressives but they are unwilling to actually own up to it.  They just let the environmentalist lead the charge.  Beyond that the progressives are absolutely clueless when it comes to leading a world population where inequities abound and corruption prospers. They are inept at managing the circumstances when they are elected to power.  Until the progressives are willing to not fight against responsibility and accountability this world will continue to descend into the same black hole as Europe.

Friday, December 28, 2012

Newtown

Most  people would not wish for a child to die either by a gun shot or in any other fashion. In reality, more children die in automobile accidents (1,210) than are killed by hand guns (408). Yet there is no serious discussion about outlawing the car. Many of those accidents are alcohol related but there is no hue and cry to outlaw drinking. The NHTSA estimated that in 2011 there were 218 children killed in non-traffic accidents with a car.  The NHTSA estimates that 6 children a day are killed in traffic accidents every year. Of the 1,210 children under the age of 14 dying in traffic accidents the CDC estimates that 211 are killed by drunk drivers. More startling than those figures are the abortion numbers. According to the Guttmacher Institute, there were 50 million legal abortions from 1973 to 2008. That equals an absolutely staggering 3,913 children aborted every day of every year for the last 35 years.

The voices calling for this society to change its misaligned values and deal with the deaths of so many innocent children are largely ignored by the press. the politicians and purposely obfuscated by special interests.  The general public is unbelievably silent and the public media doesn't hastily schedule the special episodes of their news programs or assign any of their talking heads to attend any of the funeral services, that will never be held, in honor of all of those young lives prematurely snuffed out.

There appears to be no real dialog taking place. Just multiple armed camps yelling and screaming at each other. No real solutions discussed because each side is dug in and willing to allow more children to die rather than accept the fact that our society has become so callus and uncaring.  There appears to be no real solution  to the very real problem of infanticide.

It may not be readily apparent that our behaviors are based on miss-perceptions, unrealistic expectations, and innate biases and prejudices.  It is little recognized that our positions are grounded in historic precedence or motivated by narrow minded selfish pursuits.

The issue is that most laws are written to address groups or trends which are broad brush in nature and as a consequence anyone can feel justified in disobeying the law because it doesn't really apply to them. Because laws require enforcement, usually by an understaffed agency, the idea that if no one catches me, breaking the law then I am not guilty of its infraction? Situational ethics seems to be replacing the concept of right and wrong.

I wonder what the answer is?  Should weapons be outlawed so that only outlaws will have weapons? Should no one be allowed to drink if it only succeeds in truing many of our citizen's into outlaws? Should we pattern the laws after the tax code? Should no one be allowed to fornicate?


Monday, December 24, 2012

The Mess

It is hard to imagine what this country would be like if its leadership has been moral, prudent, and brave.  The fifty's might be a good guess but that would not account for the technological advancements which seem to propel us into an unexpected future.

Assuming that the technological genie would not have been let out of the bottle one can only guess that we would not be facing armageddon because the Islamist factions currently in turmoil are largely so because of the rebellion against western influences and western encroachments facilitated by technology and its insatiable appetite for energy, influence, and pleasure.

Acknowledging the population bomb that is currently engulfing the world with its impact and affects, it is possible to imagine that because of the lack of technological advances death would be at a much higher percentage than it is with every possibility that famine and conflict would be more common than it is today.  Because of technology the bomb has increase in potential while the environment is being diminished. There is some hope that technology might save us plus there are some trends that point to a stabilization of population even a reversal. Which in its self will cause a breakdown of the current economies.

If the government had not been taken over by the immoral, the corruptible, and the narcissistic segment of our society the over-spending and the willingness to in-debt the nation to foreign countries would not be the noose tightening around our throats endangering our sovereignty let alone diminishing our well-being as it is.

Considering the immense resources this county has and the likelihood that our citizen's industry would have propelled innovation and change, it seems to be that it would have been at a less break-neck speed if the natural braking mechanism of capitalism's profit and loss had not been defeated by government.  Private enterprise is much more prudent when government isn't attempting to incentivise it tax collecting potential. The greed of business is naturally off-set by the potential for loss until government legislates avenues for risk-free adventures all in the name of influencing power and accumulating wealth.  The bread and butter off the legislative class of thugs and scoundrels in and around government.

We have met the enemy and it is us. Our willingness to put off the hard things and indulge in the easy things with no or little regard to the future or the environment has always been a character flaw of this species. Bravery exists in too few of us but it has enabled the rest of us to stand on the shoulders of giants and experience prosperity never before experienced. Even the kings and despots of the past would envy the luxuries many of us enjoy as commonplace.

So where do we go from here.  Obviously it will be different for each and every soul on earth. However, the resetting of the social norm is rapidly approaching.  With no place left to escape the peoples of this world are about to experience a profound change.  With little influence the average citizen is subject to the whims and unintended consequences of it governing class and the economic realities of greed, gluttony, and corruption.

Wistfully I long for a time where people would be truthful and our leaders would be honest.  I long for a time when expectations were diminished and desires moderated. A time where we respected one another and instinctively conserved our resources.

It is not going to happen. So I can only imagine a world that had infinite potential squandered by a heedless species with too much power over its environment and too little power over itself.  RIP planet earth.  If there are any survivors perhaps the few remaining resources will be limiting enough to extend their eventual demise but insufficient to enable their rise.  I don't see this species evolving into anything useful.

Even if we were to succeed at developing energy systems that do not deplete the environment we will still have to figure our how to be good stewards of the renewable resources, conserve the consumable riches of this planet, how to not pollute ourselves and countless other species into extension, and how to feed, cloth, and house a demanding if not an expanding population.


Tuesday, December 11, 2012

Big Picture

A long time ago I attended a seminar about problem solving and decision making. One of the most important illustrations was that people cannot contemplate more than two things at once. Today I listened to a pod cast of an microeconomics professor discussed his book about the affects of public policy rule changes that he believes are responsible for depressing the economic recovery and extending the recessionary pressures on the American economy.

His opinion is that each rule change is not the culprit which can be blamed but that it is the aggregation of the rule changes that disable the labor market and depress the economy.  A comment made by both the host and author was that many economists are not recognizing this and continue to insist that it is macroeconomic issues that are the single biggest influences.

The point is that the people responsible for the recession and depressed recovery are incapable of recognizing either the problem or the solution because it is the aggregation of rather than the isolation of the problem and solution.

The collapse of the economy does not have a single cause but is the victim of the perfect combination of factors resulting in the collapse. It is also the incompetence of leadership failing to resolve the issues and enacting the correcting legislation.

"What we have here is a failure to communicate" The leadership of this country has failed to represent and inform the citizens and the citizen's has failed to meet their responsibilities as members of a society.

The political class misunderstands it role of representing their constituents in the arena of ideas. The public sector class misunderstands it role of administering the resources.  The private sector class understands it roles but fails to consider it duty to fidelity. The worker class does not relish its role or is willing to acquiesce to the reality of their position in the structure of society. The welfare class unfortuantely embraces its role and expands it reach.

What we need is an understanding of the big picture and the willingness to adhere to the prudent course. The debt and deficit did not come about all at once. However, because of the unwillingness of Congress to deal with the problem the solution is going to be much more painful that everyone hopes. The question is when will the bubble pop?

Wednesday, December 5, 2012

Half full/empty

The adage of a half full or half empty glass is only partially explored. Even though it begs an immediate answer. When someone questions my view on life using that metaphor.  I question why because I believe that the level of the glass is dependent upon the circumstances.  If a pitcher of water is setting next to the glass I consider it half full because I can continue filling it at will. If my life circumstances are such that I think I have an opportunity to change things and affect the outcome then I believe that my glass is half full. If I exercise my options and I am able to in a sense to continue filling my glass then I operate from that frame of reference of Half Full.

If there is no pitcher or water and the level of the water is at the mid point of the glass then I consider it to be half empty because I do not have a source of water to finish filling it up. If my life circumstances are such that I do not know that I have an opportunity to change things and affect the outcome then I believe that my glass is only half empty and I must take care of what is left.

Which brings me back to the notion of half-full or half-empty. Is it a state of mind or a state of being.  Is it mind over mater or mater over mind.  Throw caution to the wind or play it close to the vest. Enthusiasm or wisdom.

I think it is a conditioned thought that only seems spontaneous. It is more a statement about the current state of affairs than it is a measure of one's personality. However there seem to be examples of people in dire circumstances unwilling or even unable to succumb to the negative aspect of anything. The proverbial half-full mind set.  Which are you?  why?