Although per the Code he should frame in positively, i.e., social security is solvent or well funded.
Tuesday, August 5, 2014
Monday, August 4, 2014
Democracy or oligarchy
See Senator's recent speech on the topic. From the Introduction:
"We are at a pivotal moment in American history. The major issue of our time is whether the United States of America retains its democratic foundation or whether we devolve into an oligarchic form of society where a handful of billionaires have almost absolute control over the political and economic life of the nation. Tragically, we are headed on a perilous path toward the latter. When large corporations and a few wealthy families can spend unlimited sums of money to buy and sell politicians, it is now clear to most Americans democracy is under severe attack."
"We are at a pivotal moment in American history. The major issue of our time is whether the United States of America retains its democratic foundation or whether we devolve into an oligarchic form of society where a handful of billionaires have almost absolute control over the political and economic life of the nation. Tragically, we are headed on a perilous path toward the latter. When large corporations and a few wealthy families can spend unlimited sums of money to buy and sell politicians, it is now clear to most Americans democracy is under severe attack."
GOP House panel clears White House in Benghazi investigation
Let's see if Faux Snooze even reports on this, another of their fallen shibboleths (see #3):
"The House Intelligence Committee, led by Republicans, has concluded that there was no deliberate wrongdoing by the Obama administration in the 2012 attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, that killed Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans, said Rep. Mike Thompson of St. Helena, the second-ranking Democrat on the committee. [...] Thompson said the report 'confirms that no one was deliberately misled, no military assets were withheld and no stand-down order (to U.S. forces) was given.'"
"The House Intelligence Committee, led by Republicans, has concluded that there was no deliberate wrongdoing by the Obama administration in the 2012 attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, that killed Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans, said Rep. Mike Thompson of St. Helena, the second-ranking Democrat on the committee. [...] Thompson said the report 'confirms that no one was deliberately misled, no military assets were withheld and no stand-down order (to U.S. forces) was given.'"
Petition Walgreens to not desert its country
Petition is at this link. The text:
Walgreens is trying to merge with Swiss corporation Alliance Boots, for one big reason: It can then change its headquarters address to Switzerland – a known tax haven – and get out of paying as much as $4 billion in U.S. taxes over the next five years. Walgreens is not actually going anywhere. Its corporate leaders will still be here in America. It will still depend on our roads and bridges, our educated workforce, our legal system and many other things that its taxes are supposed to help pay for. It will still get one-quarter of its sales dollars from Medicare and Medicaid. And it will still need us to shop at our local Walgreens in order to make a profit. If Walgreens doesn’t pay its fair share of taxes, the rest of us will have to make up the difference.
Walgreens is trying to merge with Swiss corporation Alliance Boots, for one big reason: It can then change its headquarters address to Switzerland – a known tax haven – and get out of paying as much as $4 billion in U.S. taxes over the next five years. Walgreens is not actually going anywhere. Its corporate leaders will still be here in America. It will still depend on our roads and bridges, our educated workforce, our legal system and many other things that its taxes are supposed to help pay for. It will still get one-quarter of its sales dollars from Medicare and Medicaid. And it will still need us to shop at our local Walgreens in order to make a profit. If Walgreens doesn’t pay its fair share of taxes, the rest of us will have to make up the difference.
Cracking the Code, Chapter Thirteen
Continuing from this post.
Frames need to address the different
levels of consideration. E.g, making the big climate change argument
works for most (except for the 1%ers and their conservative cronies,
apparently). Yet it's harder to make the smaller argument about the
cost effectiveness of solar panels on one's roof. The big picture of
what's best for the planet has to balance with what's best in one's
own financial interest and limitations. And the intermediate levels
also need to be addressed: family, neighborhood, town, state,
country. The smaller the level relates to benefits or what, the
larger relates to features or why (see chapter 12), so both are
necessary.
Cracking the Code, Chapter Twelve
Continuing from this post.
We are motivated to move away from pain
and toward pleasure. In the short run the former strategy is more
effective, as it's based on our most primitive drives. Hence we get
conservative frames like if we vote for liberals we'll get attacked
by terrorists; they bring you pain, we avoid it. Over time it becomes
less effective due to over-stimulation of this drive. Moving toward
pleasure tends to be more subtle and resilient in the long term, and
more indicative of the liberal view of a world that gets
progressively better. Both drives are needed for motivation, so it
serves us to know both to know when we are being manipulated as well
as to consciously enact our hopes and dreams.
Still more
On
p. 14 I quote and discuss Tom Murray's article “Embodied realisms and integral ontologies,” which reiterate some points in the thread. Some
examples.
On 44 he is discussing various forms of flawed categorization, one being the "dialectical response" of thesis-antithesis-synthesis. He notes that this can miss unconscious and/or indeterminate aspects of theses like we've recently noticed above. Another is illusory recursive structures, like my complaint about the beautiful, self-same fractals of mathematical complexity. He said:
"Naturally occurring fractals have complex organic structure, not the hall-of-mirrors structure of precise nested containers. Natural organic structure can be shown to originate from simpler laws or tendencies. Illusory recursions seem to be generated by successive workings of the mind's need for order, simplicity, and meaning" (45).
“The embodied perspective is strongly supportive of the post-metaphysical stance on ontological issues, which avoids positing Platonic-type object (and ideals) that are said to exist outside of both physical reality and subjective (and intersubjective) reality” (11).
I'd add that it is also a critique of the Aristotelian model as well, which is of this physical world and its inter/subjective, necessary and sufficient logical categorical structure. He seems to address this is statements following the above quote, but not explicitly. On 14 he goes into the fallibility of classical rational/logical reasoning, which can be of either or both types, Platonic and/or Aristotelian.
On 44 he is discussing various forms of flawed categorization, one being the "dialectical response" of thesis-antithesis-synthesis. He notes that this can miss unconscious and/or indeterminate aspects of theses like we've recently noticed above. Another is illusory recursive structures, like my complaint about the beautiful, self-same fractals of mathematical complexity. He said:
"Naturally occurring fractals have complex organic structure, not the hall-of-mirrors structure of precise nested containers. Natural organic structure can be shown to originate from simpler laws or tendencies. Illusory recursions seem to be generated by successive workings of the mind's need for order, simplicity, and meaning" (45).
“The embodied perspective is strongly supportive of the post-metaphysical stance on ontological issues, which avoids positing Platonic-type object (and ideals) that are said to exist outside of both physical reality and subjective (and intersubjective) reality” (11).
I'd add that it is also a critique of the Aristotelian model as well, which is of this physical world and its inter/subjective, necessary and sufficient logical categorical structure. He seems to address this is statements following the above quote, but not explicitly. On 14 he goes into the fallibility of classical rational/logical reasoning, which can be of either or both types, Platonic and/or Aristotelian.
More on real/fase reason
From p. 7:
"The classical concept is defined 'by necessary and sufficient conditions' -that is, by set theoretic definitions on properties. It is an elementary theorem of logic that the whole of the operations of sentential logic, for instance, may be grounded solely in the primitive operations of intersection and complement. More generally, logical sets and categories are defined on presumed 'atomic properties' and are commensurable wholly based on the set-theoretic possibilities of those sets –i.e. union, intersection, complement, etc....
"This classical categorization therefore expresses an absolute, rigid and nested hierarchy of levels and containment. In Lakoff’s terms it expresses a hierarchical 'container schema.' Ultimately, (because they are nested), at the limits these processes specify (1) a largest concept: 'something,' (defined by no atomic properties), whose extension is 'everything,' and (2) a smallest concept: a particular 'object' in reality, (or possible reality), defined by all its atomic properties. Given the classical paradigm then, reason necessarily begins with 'something,' (the most general concept), and points, inexorably, to some 'thing,' i.e. a specific object."
"Prototype theory was a radical departure from traditional necessary and sufficient conditions as in Aristotelian logic, which led to set-theoretic approaches."
From Women, Fire and Dangerous Things:
"The classical concept is defined 'by necessary and sufficient conditions' -that is, by set theoretic definitions on properties. It is an elementary theorem of logic that the whole of the operations of sentential logic, for instance, may be grounded solely in the primitive operations of intersection and complement. More generally, logical sets and categories are defined on presumed 'atomic properties' and are commensurable wholly based on the set-theoretic possibilities of those sets –i.e. union, intersection, complement, etc....
"This classical categorization therefore expresses an absolute, rigid and nested hierarchy of levels and containment. In Lakoff’s terms it expresses a hierarchical 'container schema.' Ultimately, (because they are nested), at the limits these processes specify (1) a largest concept: 'something,' (defined by no atomic properties), whose extension is 'everything,' and (2) a smallest concept: a particular 'object' in reality, (or possible reality), defined by all its atomic properties. Given the classical paradigm then, reason necessarily begins with 'something,' (the most general concept), and points, inexorably, to some 'thing,' i.e. a specific object."
"Prototype theory was a radical departure from traditional necessary and sufficient conditions as in Aristotelian logic, which led to set-theoretic approaches."
From Women, Fire and Dangerous Things:
Real and false reason revisited
I'm discussing this IPS thread in a FB forum and posted the followed from it:
The following is from p. 2 of the thread from 2010. My ideas on this have evolved since then:
Tying together some of the prior posts in this thread, Murray mentioned that the higher human ideals like compassion might not involve hierarchical complexity but instead more of a going in the other direction. It might be more like a paring down of complexity, or returning to simplicity. Ross doesn't go along with this and is convinced that compassion, or anything for that matter, can be explained by MHC. I’m beginning to agree with Murray on this one and here’s why.
Wilber talks about the fulcrums of each level of development: fusion, differentiation and integration. And that dysfunction can happen at each fulcrum. With formal operations differentiation goes into dissociation with the kind of “false” reasoning we’ve been exploring above. Hence the prior levels are not adequately integrated and we get this sense of a separate and transcendent rational ego. Development can go on into postformal operations from here but it is tainted by this dissociation and infects all postformal operations with this same dissociation. This is what seems apparent in my discussions with Commons et al.
The following is from p. 2 of the thread from 2010. My ideas on this have evolved since then:
Tying together some of the prior posts in this thread, Murray mentioned that the higher human ideals like compassion might not involve hierarchical complexity but instead more of a going in the other direction. It might be more like a paring down of complexity, or returning to simplicity. Ross doesn't go along with this and is convinced that compassion, or anything for that matter, can be explained by MHC. I’m beginning to agree with Murray on this one and here’s why.
Wilber talks about the fulcrums of each level of development: fusion, differentiation and integration. And that dysfunction can happen at each fulcrum. With formal operations differentiation goes into dissociation with the kind of “false” reasoning we’ve been exploring above. Hence the prior levels are not adequately integrated and we get this sense of a separate and transcendent rational ego. Development can go on into postformal operations from here but it is tainted by this dissociation and infects all postformal operations with this same dissociation. This is what seems apparent in my discussions with Commons et al.
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