Archives for category: Choices we make
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‘Pro whose life?’

August 28, 2015 //
2

The two sides are fighting this tooth and nail.

But what are they really fighting for?

With the pro-choicers things are relatively clear. They want the mother to have the ultimate say about the fate of the pregnancy, at least during the first three months. That doesn’t necessarily mean they are condoning abortions. All reasonable human beings finds this is not a commendable method for birth control and most pro-choicers agree that it should be used only as a last resort escape out of an untenable situation.

With the pro-lifers things are a lot more nuanced. They insist that the life of the fetus is sacrosanct and must be preserved at all costs. Only those costs are going to be supported almost exclusively by the mother and/or by the child itself.

Let’s see some facts about the abortions that take place in the US

“• Half of pregnancies among American women are unintended, and about four in 10 of these end in abortion.[1]

• About half of American women will have an unintended pregnancy, [2] and nearly 3 in 10 will have an abortion, by age 45.[3]

• The overall U.S. unintended pregnancy rate increased slightly between 1994 and 2008, but unintended pregnancy increased 55% among poor women, while decreasing 24% among higher-income women.[1,6]

• Overall, the abortion rate decreased 8% between 2000 and 2008, but abortion increased 18% among poor women, while decreasing 28% among higher-income women.[3]

• Some 1.06 million abortions were performed in 2011, down from 1.21 million abortions in 2008, a decline of 13%.[4]

• The number of U.S. abortion providers declined 4% between 2008 (1,793) and 2011 (1,720). The number of clinics providing abortion services declined 1%, from 851 to 839. Eighty-nine percent of all U.S. counties lacked an abortion clinic in 2011; 38% of women live in those counties.[4]

• Nine in 10 abortions occur in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy.[5]

• A broad cross section of U.S. women have abortions:[3]

First of all 1 million abortions is a huge number but it is decreasing. A 13% decrease in 4 years is no small thing, right? How about concentrating the efforts towards the prevention of unwanted pregnancies instead of trying to outrightly ban the abortions?

What would happen if abortions were to stop tomorrow? Besides some of the women traveling abroad and others attempting empiric, and very dangerous, measures to ‘obtain’ a miscarriage?

How many of the women in their 20’s will be able to go on with their lives, even assuming they will give up for adoption their ‘unwanted’ children? How many of those who already have children will be able to afford another one? Specially those that are unmarried/not cohabiting AND economically disadvantaged? What will be the fate of these children? And of their brethren?

I find it rather strange that those who insist on saving the lives of the unborn don’t realize that at the same time they insist on ruining the lives of people who are already living.
Hence my question.
What makes one life more precious than the other and how come the pro-lifers are so sure about their beliefs that they would empower the government most of them distrust with imposing a certain belief, theirs, on somebody else?
While all the costs will be supported by, you guessed it, that very ‘somebody else’, not at all by the proponents of the imposition.

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Categories Choices we make, Frames of mind, Psychology

If Trump didn’t exist we would have had to invent him.

August 28, 2015 //
1

“A top GOP pollster tried to find out why people love Donald Trump – and left with his legs ‘shaking’ “.

His conclusion? Republican Leadership “need to wake up. They don’t realize how the grassroots have abandoned them. Donald Trump is punishment to a Republican elite that wasn’t listening to their grassroots.”

I can agree with that but this is only the tip of the iceberg. According to Lowell Weicker, former Republican Senator and independent Governor, there is a “total disconnect…between reality and Republican Party”.
Most civilized people believe that democracy is ‘good for you’ but only a few of them are able to differentiate between bona fide democracy – a political space where all things are discussed openly and which is dominated by a hefty dose of mutual respect among those involved – and ‘mob rule’ – where a portion of the electorate is manipulated into voting for one party/candidate or another.
Mob rule sucks. It divides the society into barricaded compounds that hardly exchange any information. Business slowly grinds to a halt because of mutual distrust and the nation dissolves itself into a collection of individuals too concerned about their private interests to notice what is going on around them.
Real democracy works. Not because more brains think better than one  – that is not necessarily true – but because all ‘brains’ make mistakes. And if the brain at the top goes around unchallenged those mistakes might have huge repercussions for the entire society. During the negotiation phase of a democratic process (otherwise known as the electoral campaign) there are huge chances that most of the potential mistakes will be pointed out and eventually purged. But that happens only if the process is really free. If not, if the public discourse is hijacked by special interests or if the public itself suffers from (temporary?) blindness  things do not go as smoothly as they are supposed to happen.
And here comes Donald Trump.
It’s very hard to say on which side of the things he really is.
Until recently he was saying that he funds his campaign with his own money so that nobody will be able to ask anything from him ‘afterwards’. Now he says he’ll accept donations, big and small.
OK, people can have second thoughts. I have no problem with that. Not even when somebody flips a lot.
I have a big problem though with the con artists who say what the people want to hear instead of honestly speaking up their minds.
In this sense both Lowell Weicker and Frank Luntz, the GOP pollster, are right. The Republican elite has primed their grass roots so hard against the ‘liberals’ that no dialogue seems possible between the two sides. And when dialogue dies out, misunderstanding promptly catches up from behind.
I’m afraid that people who are happy that Trump voices, very loudly, some topics that have either been neglected and/or mismanaged, don’t understand that he doesn’t do it with the intention of solving any of them but because he knows that this is the sure way of mesmerizing the public.
Maybe all this is for the better. The neglected subjects are out in the open and must now be addressed.
Just as important, the pundits, on both sides of the political divide, should have understood by now that it’s high time for them to clean up their act.
Or get replaced by the Trumps of this world.
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Categories Choices we make, collective identity, corruption, democracy, fail better, Frames of mind, limited rationality, Mutual Respect, politics

Adulthood?!?

August 27, 2015 //
0

Nope.
That’s self imposed servitude.
Becoming an adult means reaching behind the nape of your neck and removing the collar.

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Categories Choices we make, Frames of mind, Psychology

What goes around, comes around.

August 27, 2015 //
0

I recently stumbled upon this book and devoured it.

Then something really interesting downed on me. Maslow’s Pyramid and Csikszentmihalyi’s Flow suddenly had a new meaning.

Basically all three of them say the same thing, using different words and starting from different vantage points. Looking from each of those vantage points offers the traveler a vastly improved perspective on the subject.

Maslow says that after it was able to satisfy its basic and social needs it’s up to each individual to ‘spread its wings’ and determine where it wants to go from there on – ‘self actualization’ in his own terms.

Frankl says that it’s more important to understand than to have.
“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing, the last of the human freedoms — to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”
No, it doesn’t contradict Maslow, it just starts from where Maslow has set his subjects free. While Maslow had taken his students up to a wide plateau and set them free to choose their own paths, Frankl – after having to endure conditions way crueler than any of those mentioned by Maslow as ‘basic and social needs’ – takes his students by the hand and leads them away from the precipice.
Maslow couldn’t conceive that anybody would go back after being shown the light, Frankl had experienced on his own skin the consequences of some idiots doing just that.

Finally Csikszentmihalyi brings forward a ‘how to’ guide, some very powerful advice about how to reach the pinnacle of our own potential.

From here it’s really up to us.

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Categories Choices we make, Frames of mind, Psychology

Two of the most common misconceptions of today.

August 21, 2015 //
0

huge errors

a. Asking your broker for advice. If he had any reliable understanding of the market he would have been trading his own money for his own profit, not your money for a lousy commission.

b. That you can buy your way out of every situation you’ve got yourself into. You will, eventually, use all the canned goods and ammo you were able to buy. And no, buying huge amounts of any of them won’t help either. The more goods you have the more ‘attractive’ to the thieves you become so you’ll have to hire a lot of guards. Who, at some point, might decide that they don’t need you to tell them what to do: they have the real power and all that you really have under your ‘command’ is the receipt for the goods. What good will that do for you in a lawless world?

How about becoming your own man? Learn to make your own trading decisions, to grow your own food and to become a person who is respected for his ability to help those around him, not for what he owns. Canned goods, ammo, whatever…

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Categories Choices we make, collective identity, Frames of mind, Psychology

Theology of rape?!?

August 13, 2015 //
0

ISIS Enshrines a Theology of Rape Claiming the Quran’s support, the Islamic State codifies sex slavery in conquered regions of Iraq and Syria and uses the practice as a recruiting tool. Written by RUKMINI CALLIMACHI; Photographs by MAURICIO LIMAAUG. 13, 2015

This is not as much about a particular religion as it is about the dominant religion of a certain place loosing its ability to fulfill its mission.
By ‘religion’ I understand the set of ties that transforms a certain population into a community, the rest is ritual.
When those ties no longer do what they are meant to do – make the individual feel that he belongs and therefore impart a certain sense of safety – many members of that erstwhile community start to loose their marbles.
Some kill themselves, pretending to be martyrs who die for a sacred cause, some others rape the innocents that happen to cross their paths.
The fact that some ‘religious leaders’ use the teachings of a particular religion to encourage these abominations only proves that the so called leaders are nothing but fraudsters that feed on other peoples’ misery.
More than a hundred years ago Emile Durkheim, one of the founding fathers of sociology, had wrote ‘Le Suicide’ and fully explained all this. Maybe what we need is to re-read it. All you have to do is follow the link.
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Categories Choices we make, collective identity, Frames of mind, Social justice

Decisions, decisions…

August 3, 2015 //
0

We are very proud of our ability to make ‘rational decisions’.

So proud as to delude ourselves into believing that if we have enough information about something and enough time to consider it our opinion/decision about that subject will be “true”.

Take as much time as you wish.

“Alex prays on his own now, studying the Koran to work out what it really seems to say about gender and sexuality.

Yet he fantasizes about attending Eid festivities in Oakland next year where his mother celebrates. “She can’t deny me when I’m right there in front of her friends,” he says.

But it now feels like the hardest fight is in the past, not the future.

“When your mother hurts you, no one can hurt you as much as that,” he says. “My strength comes from that.” ”

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/how-a-transgender-muslim-man-brings-his-worlds-together/ar-BBlgNNU?ocid=iehp

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Categories Choices we make, Frames of mind, limited rationality

Of Abel and Cain

July 30, 2015 //
1

It seems that people have finally started to understand what rape really means and to care about the victims.

But why rape in the first place?

When considering this subject we need to clearly define the concepts if we really what to understand what all it’s about.
Sometimes people get carried away. Maybe under some ‘influence’, she (half) willingly agrees at first and gets cold feet at some point but he doesn’t stop. That is indeed rape and should be punished as such but that is not the kind of rape I’m concerned about now.
What I had in mind when starting this is the ‘predatory’ rape. That kind of rape that is planned before hand by the perpetrator and cannot, under any circumstances, be treated with any degree of understanding. For instance gang or serial rape.

At this moment I feel the need to draw your attention to some less obvious kinds of predatory rape. For example the kind of ‘big game hunting’ that is going on now in Africa. Regardless of who does it. Law abiding citizens who pay for their permits and then bend the rules or poachers who act in a completely callous manner.

Another kind of predatory rape that is less discussed about is prostitution. Some of you will tell me that whatever takes place between consenting adults (two or even more) is nobody’s business. True enough but have you considered the role played by the pimp? You know, that guy who under the pretext of taking care of the ‘sexual worker’ exploits her savagely? Have you noticed that most of the prostitutes come from someplace else and have usually been lured under some false pretexts? That so many of them are very young and not so bright?
I can’t stop wondering what kind of satisfaction can be had during or after such an encounter… Specially today when there are so many single’s bars and internet dating services… But there one has to pass a certain exam, the partner has to agree, has to find you at least acceptable. There is a certain risk that you might be found wanting. While when hiring a prostitute there is no such risk. She has no say about her ‘clients’. And that’s why this IS rape.

So could it be that rape, predatory rape, is an action through which the rapist proves to himself that he is in ‘total control’?
And in the case of gang rapes – which are usually initiated and led by one of the gang members, very seldom this kind of things happen ‘spontaneously’ – the initiator does it to prove not only to himself but also to the rest of the gang who is the ‘top dog’.

To be continued.

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Categories Choices we make, Frames of mind, Psychology

Gang Rape

July 29, 2015 //
2

dolce-gabbana-gang-bang

Some 30 years ago I stumbled upon a book by Desmond Morris.

The Naked Ape.

I read it overnight because next day it had to be returned to its owner. Books published in their original languages were hard to come by in communist Romania…
Little did I know at that time that my interests will slowly shift from Mechanical Engineering to Sociology and then on to decision making… Anyway…
In that book Morris tries to convince us that women have so many periods because in this way they are a lot readier to receive their mates, thus ensuring a tighter bond inside the couple. In turn this is beneficial in an evolutionary sense because a tightly knit couple is better suited for raising the kind of slow growing children that is characteristic for the human species.
In short Morris proposes that monogamy was a step forward in human evolution.
I tend to agree with him and I even have a further argument. Imagine what would happen if a small number of alpha males would ‘corral’ – one way or another – most of the available nubile women, as it’s the case with the chimps or the gorillas. Do you think the rest of the males would be able to cooperate in any way towards the survival of the community they belong to or they’d be constantly obsessing about how to get laid?

Which brings me to my subject.

Emile Durkheim used suicide as a pretext to introduce us to his theory about social solidarity and the social function played by what we consider to be a crime.
Durkheim’s research had led him to see suicide as an individual decision but one which is heavily influenced by the cultural medium to which the decision maker belongs. More over, the same line of thinking produced his conclusion that a society must keep a fine balance between ‘solidarity/intolerance’ and ‘laisez-faire’. One that is too intolerant drastically reduces its own ability to adapt to changes that occur in its ‘environment’ while those that do not care about the fate of their members will eventually auto-dissolve.

What if incidence of rape was to be studied in the same light?

Bill Cosby – a man who, let’s face it, could have had legions of willing women – is accused  to have drugged and raped some 40 women in more than 30 years before anything came to public notice.
Jimmy Savile, a British “larger-than-life character”, used “his celebrity status and fund-raising activity to gain uncontrolled access to vulnerable people across six decades” and to unabashedly rape them.
Rape not only occurs randomly in war time but has also been used as a weapon:
“Sexual violence is also used to destabilize communities and sow terror”.
Meanwhile France – Durkheim’s own Motherland – has become the stage for some 7000 ‘tournantes’ every year. The English term for ‘tournant’ being gang rape.

As Durkheim said more than a hundred years ago suicide is indeed an individual act/decision but it’s incidence is heavily influenced by what happens around that person.
Same thing is valid for rape. A rape appears at the intersection between the history/experience/upbringing of the rapist, the social/cultural milieu in which he lives and his ‘on the spot’ decision.

Sex sells.
“It’s been said that as human beings, we have a lizard or reptilian brain that responds to certain primal urges. Food is one. Sex and reproduction is definitely another. This underlying, pre-programmed disposition to respond to sexual imagery is so strong, it has been used for over 100 years in advertising. And the industry, while abusing it more and more, would be foolish to ignore the draw of sexual and erotic messaging.”

How far are we willing to go in order to make a sale? As far as Dolce and Gabbana went when they published the picture above?

Morris said that our first step towards humanity was to change our very physiology in order to promote (at least an apparent) monogamy. It seems that we are now altering our culture in order to sell more…

Gang Rape taken to the next level… Manipulation went wild…

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Categories Choices we make, collective identity, corruption, evolution, Frames of mind, Money as goal

How real ‘reality’ is?

July 19, 2015 //
0

I’ve just read that

“Mind-blowing Experiment Confirms That Reality Doesn’t Exist If You Are Not Looking at It”

I won’t enter into details now, read the article if you need to.

Then I watched this video:

Suddenly the quantum physics experiment started to make a lot of sense to me.

Duncan Lou Who doesn’t know, the way we humans do, that he’s a crippled mutt. That’s how he’s able to enjoy life the way he does. By the way, have you noticed that the other dogs don’t stare at him?

It’s we who cannot fully understand reality and sometimes pretend it doesn’t even exist.

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Categories Choices we make, Frames of mind, physics
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