And, like all children, this cypher probably still believes in Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy. There is a time for authoritarian "government:" When one is a child, and is, and should, look to parents and elders for guidance.
However, we're supposed to eventually grow up, and seek our own counsel. If we're lucky, we develop critical reasoning skills. We try to gather reliable, credible facts and evidence. Then, from the facts and evidence, we form reasons for coming to certain conclusions, subject to a clear understanding of what assumptions we're making, and the possible risks and consequences of being right or wrong. Further, because we're only humans, we should remember how much we still do not know or understand, and thus, maintain the appropriate degree of humility.
Have you noticed how infrequently the MAGA hordes learn one new word they become so enchanted with, without understanding the word's meaning, they then treat it like a talisman they apply to everything. Never thinking (NEVER thinking) thoughts like "If the people I don't like ar 'woke,' does that mean I'm asleep? Maybe I'm even sleepwalking."
Too many of us seem not to do well with mortality.
But why should anyone expect us to do well with mortality? We're humans. As such, I subscribe to the findings and conclusions of Daniel Kahneman, co-author of "Thinking Fast and Slow." Essentially whatever we've evolved to be capable of, reason and awareness are not generally two of our long suits. We've only been out of the forests and jungles for 15,000 of our currently estimated 300,000 years as a species. We evolved to find food, to try to not become food, or to lose our lives competing for food or other limited resources, and to procreate. Our brain plasticity gives us the ability to go somewhat further, but relatively few of us seem to make good use of plasticity. The Greeks invented the first alphabet-based language about 6,000 years ago. Yet after 6,000 years, reading and writing remain one of our most common technological hurdles.
If we're going to try to live in some kind of democracy, we're going to have to acknowledge how primitive forces still guide most of us. In fact, paradoxically or not, it may be that democracy was easier for hunter-gatherer and forager tribes, even up through and including the indigenous peoples Europeans encountered when they arrived in numbers on the American continents, than it is for us more "advanced" humans. If you haven't yet, I recommend you take a look at David Graber's and David Wengrow's "The Dawn of Everything." I'm still trying to get through it. But for the next now less than 2 months, Death has advised me to do everything I can to most effectively and efficiently try to get the Harris/Walz ticket elected in the U.S. presidential contest, since we're not simply choosing between two candidates, two tickets. The November 5 election is in fact a referendom for U.S. citizens: Do we want to continue to work our way toward a real democracy? Or, do we want to abandon our democratic experiment, and choose a dictatorship. The thing about this choice is, one cannot most from both to the opposite with equal ease. It's always easy to abandon a democracy. All one has to do is NOTHING. It's much more difficult, if not impossible, to move from a dictatorship to a democracy. On that basis alone, I think people should prefer to keep trying to make democracy work. But at present, about 40% of the electorate, Trump's least shakeable base, believes that the only way they get their agenda attended to is thorugh dictatorship. And they may indeed be correct. BUt I don't think the MAGA Republican rank and file has given much thought to the conseqeunces most likely to obtain should they be granted their will. I don't find it too difficult to make a case that the MAGA Republicans will be at least as worse off as most of the rest of us. The people they choose to blame for their circumstances have little or nothing to do with their circumstances. I'd assert, through sins of commission or sins of omission, we're all pretty guilty of taking democracy for granted for too long. Now, we're all reaping the consequences of that neglect. Whatever happens on November 5th (And that won't be the end of it. The MAGA Republicans are committed to stealing this election. They will not stop simply because, say, Harris/Walz might win. They believe the only acceptable outcome is a Trump/Vance victory. And Trump and the MAGA majortiy Supreme Court Justices have all wiped their asses with the U.S. Constitution. Trump and the MAGA majority Supreme COurt Justices have decieded that they are all not only above and beyond the law; They ARE THE LAW.).
argumentum ad iram- the logical fallacy where anger, hatred, or rage are substituted for evidence in an argument. Written about and well understood since ancient times but I'm sure it surfaces in many other places and forms.
The problem with asking death is, you can derive two seemingly equally but opposite answers to any question. On the one hand, one can think, "I've only got so much time. Therefore, I should try to make the most of my time." But on the other hand, one can think, "We're all going to be dead eventually. What does it matter what I do while I'm alive?" I actually prefer to take the former perspective. Because I've never known how to not give a shit.
Death is woke then....
Who knew?
Climate change? Really?
"It’s been proven by science a thousand times over.".
Um. Nope.
It's been bribed, cherry picked and coerced a thousand times over though.
Most gun crime happens in gun control areas and the criminals who commit them, unsurprisingly don't follow any laws.
Get out of anger, friend. There are few limits to the nonsense an angry mind can come to believe.
I suspect you're replying to a chatbot.
Or, simply, an automaton.
And, like all children, this cypher probably still believes in Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy. There is a time for authoritarian "government:" When one is a child, and is, and should, look to parents and elders for guidance.
However, we're supposed to eventually grow up, and seek our own counsel. If we're lucky, we develop critical reasoning skills. We try to gather reliable, credible facts and evidence. Then, from the facts and evidence, we form reasons for coming to certain conclusions, subject to a clear understanding of what assumptions we're making, and the possible risks and consequences of being right or wrong. Further, because we're only humans, we should remember how much we still do not know or understand, and thus, maintain the appropriate degree of humility.
Have you noticed how infrequently the MAGA hordes learn one new word they become so enchanted with, without understanding the word's meaning, they then treat it like a talisman they apply to everything. Never thinking (NEVER thinking) thoughts like "If the people I don't like ar 'woke,' does that mean I'm asleep? Maybe I'm even sleepwalking."
Good luck with this "blog(?)," Hansa.
Too many of us seem not to do well with mortality.
But why should anyone expect us to do well with mortality? We're humans. As such, I subscribe to the findings and conclusions of Daniel Kahneman, co-author of "Thinking Fast and Slow." Essentially whatever we've evolved to be capable of, reason and awareness are not generally two of our long suits. We've only been out of the forests and jungles for 15,000 of our currently estimated 300,000 years as a species. We evolved to find food, to try to not become food, or to lose our lives competing for food or other limited resources, and to procreate. Our brain plasticity gives us the ability to go somewhat further, but relatively few of us seem to make good use of plasticity. The Greeks invented the first alphabet-based language about 6,000 years ago. Yet after 6,000 years, reading and writing remain one of our most common technological hurdles.
If we're going to try to live in some kind of democracy, we're going to have to acknowledge how primitive forces still guide most of us. In fact, paradoxically or not, it may be that democracy was easier for hunter-gatherer and forager tribes, even up through and including the indigenous peoples Europeans encountered when they arrived in numbers on the American continents, than it is for us more "advanced" humans. If you haven't yet, I recommend you take a look at David Graber's and David Wengrow's "The Dawn of Everything." I'm still trying to get through it. But for the next now less than 2 months, Death has advised me to do everything I can to most effectively and efficiently try to get the Harris/Walz ticket elected in the U.S. presidential contest, since we're not simply choosing between two candidates, two tickets. The November 5 election is in fact a referendom for U.S. citizens: Do we want to continue to work our way toward a real democracy? Or, do we want to abandon our democratic experiment, and choose a dictatorship. The thing about this choice is, one cannot most from both to the opposite with equal ease. It's always easy to abandon a democracy. All one has to do is NOTHING. It's much more difficult, if not impossible, to move from a dictatorship to a democracy. On that basis alone, I think people should prefer to keep trying to make democracy work. But at present, about 40% of the electorate, Trump's least shakeable base, believes that the only way they get their agenda attended to is thorugh dictatorship. And they may indeed be correct. BUt I don't think the MAGA Republican rank and file has given much thought to the conseqeunces most likely to obtain should they be granted their will. I don't find it too difficult to make a case that the MAGA Republicans will be at least as worse off as most of the rest of us. The people they choose to blame for their circumstances have little or nothing to do with their circumstances. I'd assert, through sins of commission or sins of omission, we're all pretty guilty of taking democracy for granted for too long. Now, we're all reaping the consequences of that neglect. Whatever happens on November 5th (And that won't be the end of it. The MAGA Republicans are committed to stealing this election. They will not stop simply because, say, Harris/Walz might win. They believe the only acceptable outcome is a Trump/Vance victory. And Trump and the MAGA majortiy Supreme Court Justices have all wiped their asses with the U.S. Constitution. Trump and the MAGA majority Supreme COurt Justices have decieded that they are all not only above and beyond the law; They ARE THE LAW.).
Is this an idea you borrowed from Carlos Castaneda's Don Juan Matus?
argumentum ad iram- the logical fallacy where anger, hatred, or rage are substituted for evidence in an argument. Written about and well understood since ancient times but I'm sure it surfaces in many other places and forms.
The problem with asking death is, you can derive two seemingly equally but opposite answers to any question. On the one hand, one can think, "I've only got so much time. Therefore, I should try to make the most of my time." But on the other hand, one can think, "We're all going to be dead eventually. What does it matter what I do while I'm alive?" I actually prefer to take the former perspective. Because I've never known how to not give a shit.