I’ve been talking about complementarity, equality and freedom.
The implication being that unless people treat each other fairly – as in consider the others as being equal, and equal with themselves – none will be actually free. Free to fully complement each-other. Free to ‘boldly go where no one has yet been’. Together.
What’s keeping us from doing it?
To figure that out, we need first to understand how we got here.
‘I’ve been talking about…’
To talk about something means the talker is aware about the existence of that something. They may not fully understand what’s going on but they have already noticed that something’s afoot.
Furthermore, for a human to attempt to communicate about something means that that human considers there’s at least a small chance that others will understand the message. That others understand the language used and that those others already have a modicum of interest in that matter.
In other words, any attempt to communicate means that those involved are not only aware that something’s afoot but also have reached a certain degree of consciousness. That they are not only aware of something being there but also aware that they, together, can/should/must do something about it.
They key word here being “together”.
Why bother talking about it when/if you’re able to deal with it on your own?
Which brings us to ‘war’!
How many do we need to be in order to ‘deal’ with this ‘thing’?
How many of us will be able to ‘feed’ themselves after this ‘thing’ will be dealt with?
How much will each of us have contributed to the whole process?
How will the spoils be distributed among ourselves?
How will we deal with the ‘loose cannons’ among ourselves?
How will we know who will do what?
Who will lead? Who will be responsible for the whole thing?
This is the moment when I’ll remind you that this is a blog about the consequences of our limited consciousness. A blog where I gather my attempts to understand the limits of our ability to make decisions – as individuals, and the manner in which different societies have come up with different methods to mitigate the consequences of those limits.
Happy reading, every one.
War
You are entitled to your own opinion.
But you are not entitled to your own facts!
Daniel Patrick Moynihan
“a practice or interest followed for a time with exaggerated zeal : craze”
Destination first. If you know where you’re going, getting there will be a lot simpler.
According to Daniel Moynihan – “you are not entitled to your own facts”, facts are obvious.
So obvious that doubting their existence, their factuality, would push us beyond the realm of the reasonable.
Appropriating facts – transforming them into ‘private property’, banishes the perpetrator from the community….
Hm…
Let me put it differently.
Moynihan had said something.
What was it? A fact? Or an opinion?
Currently, we – well, most of us – believe that freedom of opinion is the cornerstone of our Weltanschauung.
When it comes to facts… We’re OK with the definition – we do use the word/concept, quite extensively – but we seem to have some problems when dealing with the actual reality. Remember the still famous ‘alternative facts’?
Let me add something personal to all this.
My opinion about ‘facts’.
The current definition is somewhat incomplete.
We take something for granted. To the tune of no longer mentioning it.
We assume all of us see the elephant in the room and no longer talk about it.
For something to become a ‘fact’ we have to notice it.
First.
And then we have to agree among ourselves about its meaning!
Things used to fall down since ….
We’ve been discussing the matter since… we’ve learned how to speak!
But gravity had become a fact only after Newton had noticed the famous apple, wrote about it and we agreed. Gravity had become a fact, and continues to be one, only because his contemporaries had agreed with Newton on this matter. And we continue to believe Newton was right!
In this sense, alternative facts have been with us since day one. Well, something like that…
God had told something to Adam and Eve, the serpent had said something else… and the rest is history! For some…
Newton had said something to us. And most of us had chosen to believe him. Or ignore his words…
Darwin had said something to us. Many of us have chosen to believe him. To accept his arguments about the matter. While some others have chosen to dispute Darwin’s findings. To actively negate Darwin’s explanations about how we’ve got here.
Gravity is a fact while Evolution is still a theory.
Statistically speaking, of course.
In this sense, Moynihan was wrong.
For his words to ‘hold water’, we must to agree on how to separate facts from opinions.
Until we agree among ourselves about how to determine ‘factualness’, we’ll keep having to deal with ‘alternative facts’.
I actually cannot wrap this up before ‘unveiling’ my litmus test for factualness.
Consequences.
Does it have consequences?
Yes? It’s a fact!
No? Then it’s not – not yet, at least – a ‘fact’. It did happen – otherwise we wouldn’t be speaking about it. It even does have consequences – we do speak about it, but that occurrence doesn’t yet have meaningful consequences. It is not a ‘factual’ fact.
On the other hand, Newton was also ‘discredited’ by Einstein…
Not to mention how discredited had been Aristotle, the scientist, by those who came after him!
Yet nobody speaks badly about either Aristotle or Newton.
Because they are considered ‘stepping stones’…
What WE know about the reality WE are speaking about drives ME to the following ‘inkling’:
We are living inside a three layered reality.
The ‘real’ one, the ‘perceived’ one and the ‘result’.
We ‘measure’ reality using our conscience. Through our senses.
Very much like when we gauge a length using a tape measure.
We apply the tape measure over the length and ‘read’ the number.
We apply the standards we’ve been groomed into over the underlying reality and we decide according to those standards.
Then we attempt to deal with the consequences of our decisions.
“Sheer hatred of the regime”….
Who’s painting the pictures we’re hanging on our walls? Who chooses them? Who has to make do with the ‘aftermath’?
2017
2022
2016
2022
2022-06-24
No home means ‘no sleep’.
No place secure enough for you to let you guard down – no matter how shortly, and relax.
Survival becomes problematic and occupies all your time. And brain power….
An uncomfortable home means ‘no dreams’.
Every waken moment is occupied by ‘how do I get a bigger home’ and whatever sleep you might muster is fitful.
You cannot rest properly so you cannot do much during your active hours. You’ll never reach your full potential so you’ll never be as useful/productive as you could possibly be.
Too big a home means ‘nightmare’.
Difficult to maintain – for your means, impossible to ‘explore’/’exploit’, always afraid somebody would try to steal it from you.
And, above all, too big a home means ‘insulation’ from the real world. You’re so far away from what’s really happening out there that you’re no longer able of proper decision making.
Nightmare.
I wish you a string of very good nights and some pleasant dreams.
Ooops!
According to Reuters, he never uttered those words.
But “Burke did say something resembling the quote in his “Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents” (1770): “When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall, one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle.”“
‘OK, and where’s the difference?
The meaning’s the same…’
Not exactly!
Burke was speaking about the fate of individual people while the quote attributed to him is about evil itself.
According to Burke, the good people must associate in order to protect their livelihoods and their way of life while the mis-attributed quote pretends that there are circumstances in which evil might prevail.
‘I still don’t understand you! Good people loosing their cause doesn’t mean that evil has prevailed?!?’
No!
Good people might loose from time to time. Being good doesn’t mean those people are perfect.
People make mistakes. Some of which can’t be undone.
Evil things do happen. From time to time. Either through sheer bad luck or through good people making horrible mistakes. But evil cannot prevail. Not on the longer run!
For two reasons.
Small enough mistakes can be overcome. Either individually or collectively.
Serious enough mistakes will kill you. Individually and collectively.
This was the first reason.
If evil hadn’t been that bad, we wouldn’t have called it that way.
If evil would have led to survival, we would have called it ‘good’.
Good people doing nothing doesn’t mean that evil will triumph.
Good people doing nothing only means, as Burke had said, that those good people will fail. One by one.
Bad people having it their way doesn’t mean much. Historically speaking.
After they had finished vanquishing the good, the bad had always started to fight among themselves. It’s in their nature to do that.
That’s how each evil eventually dies out…
Until the next one appears?
Indeed! Weeds will always spring up. Specially if the soil is rich.
That’s what hoes are for! If only people knew how to make good use of them…
In physics, ‘temperature’ measures the intensity of the interaction between the elements which ‘inhabit’ a certain place.
The more energy exists in a certain place, the more intense the interaction. If the place is inhabited by a gas, each molecule is able to ‘travel’ a short distance before actually hitting one, or more, of its neighbors. If the place is occupied by a liquid, the molecules glide against each-other and if we speak about a solid, the components just shimmy together.
The more energy exists inside a place – the higher the temperature, the more intense the interaction between the individual components. And if, for whatever reason, ‘too much’ energy accumulates into a given space the interaction becomes intense enough for ‘change’ to happen. As temperature raises, solids melt, liquids boil and evaporate while gases become plasma.
Adding energy isn’t enough to determine change. Temperature might rise without anything noticeable to happen. Specially when we speak about liquids and solids. If enough outside pressure is applied, the liquid cannot start to boil and the solid stays in place.
Same thing when it comes to a society.
High output societies need a very intense social interaction to make things happen.
To make so many things happen at once… that being the reason for which those societies need to be democratic. Autocracies are too rigid, they cannot accommodate the continuous adjustments needed to ‘absorb’ the huge amount of ‘social change’ warranted by the amount of energy ebbing through the system.
One way to measure ‘social temperature’ – other than the ‘output’ of that society, is to gouge how vulnerable a society is when confronted with a highly infectious disease which is transmitted through direct contact. Cholera will sweep through an entire community which drinks from the same well, regardless of how much contact individual people have with each-other. Covid, and Ebola, need people to ‘touch’ each-other in order to jump from one to another.
But don’t forget to factor in ‘pressure’. And other things specific to each individual ‘place’.
Otherwise the analysis might produce less relevant results.
The above phrase makes a lot of sense.
Every beating which had become ‘public knowledge’ does make life ‘easier’ to those men who are known to be ‘peaceful’. In a sense…
On the other hand, every beating which becomes public knowledge but the beater isn’t chastised for his actions makes life harder for everybody.
For women. The beaten ones are discouraged from making their plight public. Those not beaten yet are taught that being beaten isn’t such a big deal.
For men. Those who already do it, feel no compulsion to stop. Those who would do it feel encouraged to ‘experiment’. Those who would like to do it but cannot – for whatever reasons, feel frustrated. Those who abhor it feel ashamed for belonging to the same gender. And discouraged from doing anything about it.
For the entire species. Violence become normalized. Socially accepted. Expected, even… Mothers and fathers don’t teach their sons that this is an unacceptable behavior while teaching their daughters to not be ‘surprised’ if it happens. All the more so when children witness their mother being abused while nobody does anything about it. Not even the abused mother… Not even when the abusive husband abuses the children along with the mother…
So what ‘awards’ are we talking about here? What’s the real meaning of “All men benefit from the actions of violent men”?
Or the real meaning of the phrase is that there is no such thing as a really good man?
Another logical ‘extension’ would be ‘All people benefit from the actions of thieves. This is why locks are being built and the police is being paid’. For humans are, by definition, nothing but sinners… right?
How about doing something about the whole situation instead of peddling in double edged memes?
Because the only explanation for women – along with children and peaceful men, being abused is the lack of social reaction whenever a beating – or any other form of abuse, becomes public knowledge.
Resources, Time, Evolution.
Information, Learning, Revelation.
Opportunities, Experience, Self-Improvement.
Things, Structure, Understanding.
Limits, Interactions, Outgrowth.
Smells like The Dow Theory?
Because that was my starting point….
But we should not forget Abraham Maslow.
If you think of it, Maslow’s stages are nothing but the three thrusts up which define a bull market.
For an individual to be able to master the ‘self actualization’ phase, they need to have mustered enough resources, have had enough relevant social experience and to have ‘properly digested’ the information accumulated during the process.
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As much as I love writing, I do have to eat.
And to provide for my family.
Earning money takes time.
If you’d like me to write more, and on a more regular basis, hit the button.
Your contribution will be appreciated!
As much as I love writing, I do have to eat.
And to provide for my family.
Earning money takes time.
If you’d like me to write more, and on a more regular basis, hit the button.
Your contribution will be appreciated!
nicichiarasa 