Yoshida Kenko, Tsure-Zure Gusa
I just can’t make up my mind about this.
Is it the figment of an idealist monk’s imagination, the factual description of how things happened in Medieval Japan or a wise advice coming from a great teacher?
Archives for category: limited rationality
Favorability: People in the News, Gallup, April 2, 2016
Source: AP
So, it looks like that the concerned Democrats – those who bothered to show up for the preliminaries, and specially the ‘super delegates’, are going to send Hilary Clinton to compete on the national stage, despite her constant ‘negative favorability’ and despite the fact that Sanders is constantly improving his chances – both favorability and ‘never heard of’ scores are slightly better now than they were at the start of the year. Furthermore, Sanders is the one who can ‘grow naturally’ – simply by making himself known – while Clinton needs to convince the voters that their erstwhile opinion about her was mistaken. An almost impossible feat, given the length of her public career…
On the Republican side things are even stranger.
Trump gathers more and more delegates while his ‘negative favorability score’ becomes slightly even ‘more negative’, Cruz gets a second lease on life despite his ‘unfavorable’ score increasing dramatically while Kasich, the least favored by the hard core Republicans, climbs nationally from +4% to + 18% in 4 short months. And if you look closely almost all new opinions on him, those that have been developed during the last 4 months, have been in his favor.
One of my Republican friends said “I can’t speak for the other candidates, but people support Cruz because they believe in what he believes, and feel that sometimes it’s more important to stand up for what’s right, rather than what’s popular.“.
OK, I can understand that. The despondent and/or exasperated use Trump as a banner for their state of mind while the hard core, value toting, Republicans hope that by backing Cruz they will somehow bolster those values.
But let’s see what some ‘significant Republicans’ have to say about the matter.
Scott Walker, Governor for Wisconsin and ex candidate, being interviewed on WTMJ’s Charlie Sykes Show:
““If you’re someone who is uneasy with the frontrunner, right now there’s really only one candidate—I think if you’re just looking at the numbers objectively, Ted Cruz, Sen. Cruz, is the only one who’s got a chance other than Donald Trump to win the nomination,” Walker said in the Wednesday interview on WTMJ’s Charlie Sykes Show. “Statistically, my friend Gov. Kasich can not.””
Then there is Lindsay Graham, Republican Senator for South Carolina and ex candidate who endorsed Jeb Bush when dropping from the race:
“Graham said there are other candidates he likes better, but he doesn’t think they can win. “I prefer John Kasich; Cruz is not my first pick by any choice,” the South Carolina senator explained. “But I don’t see how John Kasich can mount the opposition that Ted Cruz can to stop Donald Trump from getting 1,237” (the number of delegates needed to secure the nomination).
Graham has made it abundantly clear that he really doesn’t like Cruz at all. In January, he said Cruz has “exhibited behavior in his time in the Senate that make it impossible for me to believe that he could bring this country together,” adding that choosing between him and Trump is “like being shot or poisoned — what does it really matter?” Last month, he joked about Cruz’s general unpopularity among his colleagues, saying, “If you killed Ted Cruz on the floor of the Senate, and the trial was in the Senate, nobody would convict you.””
The way I see it, these guys, the Republican ‘apparatchiks’, are more concerned about derailing Trump than with promoting the more suited candidate among the trio. Suited for Presidency, that is.
source: Huffpost Pollster
So, according to the polls compiled by Huffington Post, Sanders would lick the entire Republican field – if allowed to compete, while the Republican candidates are stacked, at least for now, according to the ‘who has the least chances on the national front’ criterion.
?!?
Does any of this make any sense? Any at all?
Here’s my Republican friend again: “In the case of Clinton, despite her unfavorability in the polls, there’s a sense in the Democratic Party that it’s her “turn.” ”
Some others think she is ‘in cahoots’ with the ‘big business’… “Family charities collected donations from companies she promoted as secretary of state“… Coming from Wall Street Journal this is a powerful allegation indeed…
But at least in this camp things are unfolding, lets say, ‘naturally’. The guys with vested interests (the super delegates, for example) are acting according to those interests while the rank and file Democrats are slowly (too slowly, maybe?) finding out what’s going on.
What really baffles me is what’s happening on the Republican side.
Some of the rank and file have adopted ‘the Donald’ as their mascot despite the obvious fact that he doesn’t belong, at all, in politics. He might have been a successful business man – read chock full of money, but the way he made that money disqualifies him from holding office. Does ‘eminent domain‘ ring any bells with you? Not to mention his antics on the public stage: “Excuse me”, ‘I’m the best thing that could happen to America!’
Are all these people delusional or are they so fed up with what’s currently going on in America that they can’t see the trees because of the forest (is on fire)?
Some others have gone ‘back to basics’ and try to revive what they consider to be the ‘sound Republican values’ – I’m speaking now about those who support Ted Cruz, if you didn’t figure that out by yourselves.
But what are these ‘hard core Republican values’?
How come some of Cruz’s followers are blaming Lincoln for being the first ‘statist’ in American history – not for abolishing slavery but for imposing that measure by force to the unwilling Southern States.
And how come those values have come to be embodied in someone so ‘popular’ among his Senatorial colleagues that “If you killed Ted Cruz on the floor of the Senate, and the trial was in the Senate, nobody would convict you.” ?
And isn’t it strange that so many Republicans are so mesmerized that they are willing to give up almost any chance of electing a Republican President?
OK, I can understand that way of thinking being used by ‘lay people’. But what is the real meaning of ‘pundits’ rallying behind the ‘value laden’ Cruz when it is obvious that Kasich is in a way better position on the national front?
Could it be that these pundits are more concerned about their own careers than with the fate of the Republican party? And even about the Republican values?
Farfetched?
Are you sure? Don’t you see that by energizing their constituencies into a frenzy they are simply building Republican (local) fortresses for their own use, leaving the rest of the (national) Republicans out to dry?
Well, I was under the impression that Conservatism was about maintaining a common way of life, not about conserving privileges.
I still believe that.
Ever since people have become aware of their own awareness philosophers have entertained opposing views as to what is more important: matter or soul.
The materialists point out that everything, including us, is made of matter and, hence, nothing would be possible without it while the idealists maintain that everything that exists is nothing but a projection of our own thoughts.
As an engineer who had designed (material) objects before actually building them I find it strangely rewarding that both these fiercely opposing sides are, simultaneously, right.
Just as we are simultaneously made of flesh and animated by souls.
If you disagree, just pinch yourself.
Now tell me, ‘did it hurt?’.
Who felt it? Your flesh or your soul?
And who’s able to meditate about the whole experience? How come are we not only able to feel things but also to think about them? Then to communicate, efficiently, among ourselves about our relatively different experiences?
Surely, there must be something shared amongst us, something that constitutes not only a medium for our communication but also a common base for our experiences.
I’m going to use ‘reality’ to designate that commonality, irrespective of the fact that reality is a two tiered thing.
A material reality, something that exists per se – according to its own, natural, set of laws, and a social reality, something that we, the people, have agreed upon – either willingly or by omission to protest, efficiently, against it.
These two tiers of reality are no longer independent.
In fact they have never been. The social reality has grown, as a bud, ‘on top’ of the material reality. And this has happened according to an opportunity enshrined in the natural laws that govern the very existence of the material reality.
Now, after its birth, social reality has started to alter the material one.
In two ways.
By developing an ever more sophisticated understanding of the inner workings we gradually discover inside the material realm and, subsequently, by using various aspects of that (inherently limited) understanding in order to effect voluntary change.
I’m going to make a brief pause here.
Social reality is a human construct, one that came to life fueled by our own volition and shaped by the sum of the choices we’ve made during our entire history.
The mere fact that we are also ‘animals’ – and have changed the world around us by our mere, and long time unwitting, existence, is something else. Related to our social existence but nevertheless different from it.
What I’m trying to say is that by coming of age – by becoming aware of our own awareness, we are currently adding a third dimension to that Ouroboros thing.
The ‘serpent’ has been ‘eating its tail’ from the very beginning of the world. New stars have been born from the dust left after the older ones have exploded and decaying organic matter is what used to feed our crops until a few short years ago – and still does for the organic farmers.
But now, that we’ve become aware of the entire process – and of our contribution to it, we are in a position to influence its direction.
We can turn it into a vicious or a virtuous circle.
Which will it be?
And please, please, don’t make this confusion.
People do, as for now at least, need ‘nature’ in order to lead what we call/feel to be a normal life.
But nature also somehow needs us. Otherwise it wouldn’t have allowed us to become what we are today.
Until now, during our development, we haven’t broken, not significantly at least, any natural laws. Otherwise we wouldn’t have reached this stage – according to Ernst Mayr’s interpretation of Darwin’s teachings, anyway.
‘Evolution is not about the survival of the fittest but about the demise of the unfit.‘
We’re not dead yet, are we?
Let’s keep it that way, lest we’re gonna be replaced.
Fast.
“Middle income or middle class?
OK, so even those who rely heavily on money as an indicator for who belongs to the middle class concede that there are other connotations to the concept.
Let’s consider the situation from a functionalist point of view. As in how the members of various social strata react to the day to day challenges of the normal life.
‘Day to day’ meaning not only ‘normal’ things – waking up and brushing your teeth – but also things that we wish will never happen, although all of us know they are ‘normal’ occurences. A car accident, a broken leg or even having three children in one go when you were praying for one.
Usually the wealthy take them in one stride, those belonging to the middle class manage to cope – sometimes welcoming some help from their friends, relatives or even insurance company, while the really poor almost certainly sink under the burden. But not always.
Sometimes even the wealthiests loose it when faced with adversities they were not accustomed with while some of the poorest find it in themselves to rise from the ashes.
Then how about setting a slightly different system of ‘classes’: the extremely resilient, the ‘middle class’ and the very fragile?
As a rule of thumb it’s true that a certain amount of wealth does miracles when some resilience is needed so, roughly, these two classifications look more or less the same, but, on a qualitative rather than quantitative level, we are speaking of two different things here.
When we are speaking of ‘money’ we are dealing mainly in ‘resources’ while when we’re speaking about resilience we have to take into account the attitude of the concerned individuals. It is true that the above mentioned attitude is, more often than not, heavily influenced by the affluence of the respective individuals but the function is hardly a direct one.
Based on these considerations – and on my personal experience of dealing with people, I’m going to propose the following synopsis.
The ‘resilient’ are those convinced they are able to cope, more or less on their own, with almost everything life can throw at them. Unfortunately some of them grow ‘spiritual callouses’, simply because they have never experienced any real hardships.
Or because they have over-compensated after dealing with those hardships, sometimes after succeeding to do so without receiving significant outside help.
The ‘fragile’ are those who, by lack of material resources, spiritual stamina or both, behave more like leafs driven by the wind than like masters of their own fate – as every human being should.
By now you’ve probably figured out that ‘my middle class’ is composed of individuals who have a certain degree of resilience but who, on the other hand, are perfectly aware that there are things on this world that they wouldn’t be able to face on their own.
In a sense, possession of money – or other resources, ‘encourages’ an individual to reveal his true nature.
If a person is naturally inclined to grow ‘callouses’ then being ‘insulated’ from the outside world by a thick wad of money will provide him with enough space to let those callouses grow but if his skin is ‘in the game’ then those callouses will be constantly shaven while interacting with his peers.
But if the stakes of the game are very meager – and the insulation provided to the players by their respective possessions is practically nonexistent, then instead of growing callouses most of the players will be rubbed raw during the intercourse. Mind you, neither the ‘stakes of the game’ nor the ‘individual possessions’ need to necessarily be of a strictly material nature.
In conclusion, the ‘callously resilient’ will tend to mind to their own – simply because their sensitivity towards the outside world is dampened by their callouses, the ‘fragile’ will tend to mind to their own raw wounds while those belonging to the ‘middle class’ will be the only ones really interested in maintaining the well being of the social organism. The one to which they ‘knowingly’ belong.
Because they are the only ones with enough time/energy/resources on their hands to consider the matter, the real interest to do so and the willingness to put some effort into this endeavour.
Just finished reading about the West as an object of hate.
Next in line is a book about the Orient as an object of study.
Bearing in mind the fact that the Occident is still very much hated by a significant number of people residing in the Eastern part of the World it seems that we, the Westerners, have been rather poor students of the Orient.
Or that some of us don’t give a damn about the long term consequences of their actions?
I’d say these are very wise words which constitute an excellent starting point.
Towards the end of their book Ian Buruma and Avishai Margalit argue that “despite Christian fundamentalists speaking of a crusade, the West is not at war with Islam. In fact the fiercest battles will be fought inside the Islamic World.” (translation belongs to me, I have a Romanian version of the book)
How about us, in the West, helping the ‘right’ side in an innovative way?
By giving them an example.
By mending our own ways, before telling others to mend theirs!
I recently shared this meme, originally posted on FB by Black Atheists.
The broad spectrum of the commentaries made on this subject enticed me to elaborate on it.
There are people who blow people up under religious pretenses and people who blow people up under their own ‘rationale’.
This meme can be interpreted as God praising those who do not use his name when committing heinous crimes.
Who do not misinterpret religious teachings to fit their callously narrow goals.
Who do not make up self-serving nonsense simply because they have enough sleigh of mind and an audience who, for various reasons, is willing to believe anything that might provide some psychological comfort.
Who do not use religious pretexts when horribly mistreating others.
And don’t get me wrong. God doesn’t praise them for what they’re doing – there is nothing to be praised there.
He praises them for what they are not doing.
Using false pretenses, that is.
Grandson of TV’s Miss Sweetie Pie gunned down in St. Louis. (AP)
“St. Louis police say they found Andre Montgomery dead at a home Monday night. A second man was taken to a hospital in critical condition with gunshot wounds.
Police say that after someone shot Montgomery, the second man ran upstairs to help him. A third man who was in the home saw the second man carrying a gun and shot that man because he feared for his safety.”
So.
A guy invites some people in his home.
Judging by the way in which they interact they don’t know, or at least don’t trust, each-other.
Somebody – not necessarily from among the invited guests, shots the host.
Somebody else – presumably alerted by the noise, draws a gun and hurries to assist the victim.
A third person, fearing “for his safety”, draws his gun and shots the good Samaritan, simply because he was carrying a weapon.
Is there anything to be learned from here?
OK, by somehow removing all privately owned firearms in America, personal safety, on average, would be somewhat improved. But since something like that would be very unlikely to happen let’s concentrate on something more plausible.
How about taking grater care about who enters your home?
And something else.
Ever since reading about this I cannot stop thinking about the similarity between cars and guns.
Both are tools and both are dangerous. Yet almost everybody has the right to buy one.
But no-one is entitled to use a car without a license while so many people advocate that everybody should be allowed to carry guns, everywhere.
Some could say that there is not any significant difference between the two situations and, as a consequence, a carry permit would not change much.
Are you sure about that?
Currently most guns do not follow their owners when they leave their houses – for various reasons. This is why I’m afraid that if more and more people would chose to carry their weapons, things would become a lot more complicated.
Not because people are bad or ill intended.
Simply because most ‘civilians’ are not trained to asses dangerous situations in an effective manner nor the necessary skills to use their weapons safely.
You see, defending your home – everybody else but you and your family becomes an enemy in this scenario, is very different from trying to help in a complex setting. When people might freak out at the sight of yet another gun.
That’s why not all those who own a gun should ‘drive’ them around without a license.
After all, how safe would you feel when driving in a country where no driver’s license is necessary and where DUI is not forbidden?
I’m not a huge fan of the EU but I have a mostly positive opinion about it.
This morning my stance on this matter was about to change, dramatically.
I had found in my email a link towards a newspaper article, in Romanian, which said ‘the European Court for Human Rights in Strasbourg had ordered that starting with March 1 2016 people in Europe are no longer allowed to baptize their under-aged children‘.
Hard to believe something like that, isn’t it?
Are you really sure about that?
Now try to read articles like this – which are reasonably ‘well’ written, using the right lingo and having enough details thrown in to make them sound credible – through the eyes of a guy already worried by the so much hipped ‘migrant invasion’. Who was already pissed off by the various rules and regulations handed over from Brussels and acquiesced by the local, and supposedly sovereign, governments without any fuss.
Most people do not have the exercise of doubting everything they read, specially if the message comes from somebody they trust – a friend, for instance, or if the site where they read it seems legit.
OK, a certain proportion of them – not all, will exert some discretion if money is involved. That’s why phishing has a limited, yet certain, impact.
But when a particular piece of information apparently confirms an already entrenched stereotype – the bossiness of the EU, for instance – quite a large number of readers will fall for it.
Yesterday evening I was reading a comment added by Nassim Nicholas Taleb on his own Facebook wall: “What social media finally did: destroy the press. It is more organic to get information from word-of-mouth, which it accelerated.”
Corroborate that comment with a quote from an excellent article published by the same guy on Wired.com: “I am not saying here that there is no information in big data. There is plenty of information. The problem — the central issue — is that the needle comes in an increasingly larger haystack.” (Nassim N. Taleb, Beware the Big Errors of ‘Big Data’, Wired.com, 08.02.2013) and things start to gain some perspective.
What we’re dealing here is the famous lack of symmetry that currently bothers the strategic planners who presumably shape the future of the humankind.
In the ‘good ole’ days’ – when we had writers, publishing houses (newspapers, magazines, you name it) and ‘specialized’ readers, things were a lot simpler.
The writers had a certain notoriety and most of them didn’t want to jeopardize it by publishing bullshit.
Publishing houses didn’t dare to publish bullshit – except for those that did it on purpose, because most of their readers would no longer have bought their papers.
The specialized readers – those who usually bought a certain kind of magazines or books – were able to recognize most bullshit when they saw it, simply because they had some experience in the fields that used to elicit their interest.
Bullshit was being pushed in those days too, for sure. But it was a specialized job, that had to be done carefully.
And in that era, for bullshit to be effective, you had to have very ‘favorable’ circumstances.
Communism didn’t take hold but in very poor countries and fascism only in war torn Italy, Germany and Spain.
Nowadays, “…any simpleminded partisan with a political ax to grind can find an online community of like-minded whack-jobs who’ll be happy to provide him with plenty of ideological ammunition (e.g., bogus stats, pre-fab arguments, etc.). Before long, what was once a more-or-less harmless, single-issue troll has morphed into something far more monstrous and formidable: a veritable Swiss-army knife of bullshit, a perfect storm of bad ideas, a walking Wikipedia of stupid.” (John Faithful Hamer, From Here (2016) )
And since it’s very hard to police the Internet – even harder if we are determined to preserve the ‘freedom of expression’, we are in a very delicate position.
Is there anything to be done about this? Considering that there will never be a real shortage of ‘simpleminded partisans with political axes to grind’?
I think there is.
I started this post by mentioning three related concepts.
Freedom, responsibility and discretion.
We should not tamper with Freedom. Basically this is everything we’ve got, our most precious achievement.
So, we are left with ‘responsibility’ and ‘discretion’.
How is it that most sites manage to stay on line?
They are either sponsored by somebody or they sell advertising space, right?
Who provides that money? Who buys those advertised products? Who spreads around the news about those sites?
Who reads those bullshit laden articles and swallow them hook, line and sinker, simply because some of the (seemingly legit) arguments presented there happen to be consistent with our previously held convictions?
So, if you wish that your kids will be able to live in a better world, stop distributing bullshit through social media, stop buying things advertised on bullshit peddling sites – or, even better, stop going there altogether, and, above all, learn your kids to think with their own heads.
Even if that means they’ll end up contradicting us. As long as they’ll do it in a respectful enough manner – the second most important thing we’ll have to teach them about, all will be OK.
Update. A friend of mine, thanks Lucian, has done some digging over the Internet and found out where all this has started from:
