The Total Failure Of The War On Poverty

[Penguin]

Re: The Total Failure Of The War On Poverty

Thank you for the kind words. I admit to having very deep feelings over this matter. It is hard to watch your culture being ripped limb from limb while the rest of the world shrugs with complete indifference.

I've seen the blame laid at the doorstep of a lot of different ideologies and politicians. In the end I think you need to step back and take a bird's eye view sometimes. It allows you to see broad changes in the nation/economy/politics. If you lay aside the whys and hows of the matter you see a pattern. That pattern is (at least to my eyes) one that bit by bit, and piece by piece, we have sliced off various parts of the middle class as time has progressed. One of my favorite bloggers argues that this was done in an attempt to increase the middle class standard of living past where it could go in a closed system.

IOW "We'll throw this bunch to the dogs so that those of us who are gainfully employed can purchase the stuff they made at lower prices when we ship production overseas."

I'm not sure I buy that. But I assert that at this time we have a system that, intentional or not, is actively sacrificing one bunch after another in an attempt to stay above water. Unless something does change in the future most of us are on borrowed time. Eventually, one group after another, we are being lined up and taken down. Debt is probably what allowed it to go on so long without general recognition.

Maybe this way of looking at things is correct, maybe it isn't. But if it is then understanding the whys and hows becomes much more important. And it makes it imperative that you don't just allow history to be rewritten in a way to shift blame to those who were victims all the while allowing the system to chewing up more of us.

Will

[vinoveri]

Re: The Total Failure Of The War On Poverty

But I assert that at this time we have a system that, intentional or not, is actively sacrificing one bunch after another in an attempt to stay above water. Unless something does change in the future most of us are on borrowed time. Eventually, one group after another, we are being lined up and taken down. Debt is probably what allowed it to go on so long without general recognition.

Succinctly put. This situation is obvious to anyone of good will, willing to take an honest look at what's happening. I have lost any confidence I had that our "ruling class" is operating in "good faith" to remedy the situation. Maybe we shouldn't be too surprised; a generation or two of liberation from conventional societal and cultural moral norms, the naked public square, emphasis on social Darwinism and individual happiness through material wealth, and voila, should we be surprised the pursuit of individual wealth and power dramatically trump the common good in the calculus of decision makers? We reap what we sow and for every season ....

[gwynedd1]

Re: Are Rector's facts wrong?

Woodsman, it seems to be very important to you to answer every post I make with several ugly ad hominem insults directed at me.

Perhaps its more adaptive.

You've called me a Nazi, a psychopath, and compared me to the villain in '1984' - and that's just in this one response of yours. You've responded to almost every post I've made here, and always with the same theme: that I am scum, mentally ill, and a Nazi.

Why do you make an appeal to justice?

It's very tired, Woodsman. Try to calm down a little, take a breath, and make an actual argument that actually responds to what I am saying instead of dripping your dislike for me all over the screen. Alternatively, just ignore my posts. You suggested I do the same in another thread, and I've been taking that advice and ignoring you. I suggest you take the same advice and ignore me. No one is interested in your insults of me or mine of you.

So you would like to make a social contact with someone then?

Don't worry, the world will not fall apart if you fail to follow up every posting I make with another chunk of hyperbole suggesting I am sick.

For everyone other than Woodsman: I am not advocating a world that is Darwinian. I am observing that the world is Darwinian. It is a simple fact, an observation. Therefore the apppropriate response is to argue that the world is not Darwinian. There is no purpose to arguing that the world should not be Darwinian, or that I am rotten for observing that the world is Darwinian. Show me that the world is not Darwinian, otherwise you are not responding to my point but rather reacting in a Pavlovian fashion to a word you don't like.

I have observed from your own behavior that you are a social animal. As such the concepts you raise are not so easily determined. I also note a selection bias to justify the point of view, which is ironic.

[gwynedd1]

Re: Are Rector's facts wrong?

I'm not sure if your comment is directed to me or not, but I don't think I've ever "justified what we have now as a healthy ecosystem." It absolutely is not. The banks, GM, AIG, etc should have been allowed to fail in 2008. Actually, they should never have been allowed to grow - with the help of government regulators and legislators in their pockets - to a size where they were a systemic danger.

Agreed.

And if you are referring to me when you suggest that someone was "getting ready to get out the knife and castrate those who happen to sit lower on the economic ladder,", well, put the hyperbole back in your bag. I said nothing like that.

It is eye-opening how quickly people jump to conclusions. I simply say the word "Darwinian" and people assume I approve of castration, gassing, starving or otherwise heartlessly killing off poor people. Geebus. Get a grip!

People often like to construct me in similar effigies. Then they begin the usual rituals of exorcism without having any idea who it is that actually haunts them.

How about this for an actual suggestion I think might help: any woman who applies for public support must agree to have that subcutaneous birth control technology implanted. (I've forgotten the name of it - it's good for six months or so.) She is certainly not FORCED to use this form of birth control; she can go to private charity if she wants, or family, or what-have-you. But if she is going to be living off of the public dole, she is not going to be making new children. She can't support them, so she has no business creating them. If we can develop a similar technology for men, then we require that of men too. Anytime she wants the implant removed, she can do so - but there will be no more public assistance without it.

There are better ways. Some of them include social pressure. I also don't believe in any financial assistance. However this will not prevent other people who live off the public dole from breeding. You are just looking at the direct transfer payments.

Is that so heartless and extreme? I think it is common sense. No one forces anyone to be sterilized, castrated, or shoved in an oven. But if you can't support yourself and are asking the rest of your countrymen to support you, then for the duration of the period that they are supporting you, you have no business creating children - and your good faith action in that regard is to agree to that sort of temporary birth control measure for as long as you expect to be supported.

Anything that does not ultimately support itself is a vice. Tobacco does not help one grow more tobacco. Wheat or potatoes helps one grow more tobacco and more wheat or potatoes. However that does not mean that wisdom is entirely reductionist. Creativity is not a vice.

Oh, and let's also get rid of this idea of "too big to fail" and stop big government from cozying up to big business. That is as obviously destructive of society as subsidizing the unrestrained reproduction of people who can't or won't support themselves.

My ideal is a society that prizes excellence, determination, self-reliance, hard work, discipline, and a gentlemanly/ladylike character. Yes, of course you look out for those who can't take care of themselves, but "equality" and "social justice" are not the paramount values. Excellence is. That kind of society can flourish for the long run.

Many of us would agree, but we see very different landscapes on the road ahead.

[Polish_Silver]

Free will, determinism, and empathy.

Thanks for the link; hadn't heard of mirror neurons. I'm not sure how it answers "plato's question"; would you be able to elaborate?

My difficulty with where this line of thought seems to be going is to explain all morality (all action if you will) via genetics, selective adaptation etc, which ultimately limits the idea of "free will" (or perhaps I misunderstand?), and we all know (or at least perceive) that we do make determined choices, sometimes very difficult (sacrificial) ones but sometimes very selfish ones (e.g. murder, meanness). In any case, even if one's morality is a result of adaptation that enhances the survival of the species, one as a rational being understand this and thereby can choose to serve the organism, oneself, and not concern oneself with the species. OK, so one may feel a little guilty torturing animals, raping women, stealing from widows and orphans, but like it so much that one does it anyway; no eternity to answer to; one neither cares about the species or "goodness".

The problem of evil is not easily solved, so some decide to ignore it by postulating that it does not exist; that every action of men can be explained (at least theoretically if not empirically) as a manifestation of the natural world. There may be a host of "plausible" natural reasons to explain why a man gets intense enjoyment in skinning a cat alive, but evil is alive and well do to the wrong choices of the human will.

The Republic is a series of discussions about the nature of justice. Various definitions are tried and found wanting.

At the end, the characters reach the conclusion that "to treat a man justly is to treat a man in a way which makes him more just". The idea being, that if you show mercy to a person, he becomes more merciful. Plato held that justice (moral capacity) was the most important quality of the soul, so the prime directive is to improve the quality of the person's soul --- make him more just.

The modern understanding of empathy means that an essential aspect of being human is empathy. So "just treatment" means taking into account the feelings of all parties involved. Plato's definition was a bit circular because he didn't have a physiological and evolutionary way of understanding empathy.

As for determinism and free will, they go great together. To have a will means to have distinct preferences, ideas, and make decisions as you want. Someone else in the same situation would choose differently, because they are a different person, with different priorities, ideas, and preferences.

The best essay is still the one by Hobart. This view is called "Compatibilism" in philosophy and I think most contemporary philosophers subscribe to it.

I make choices. There is nothing outside me compelling one choice or another. All the irrational and subconscious factors are part of me.

[gwynedd1]

Re: Free will, determinism, and empathy.

The Republic is a series of discussions about the nature of justice. Various definitions are tried and found wanting.

At the end, the characters reach the conclusion that "to treat a man justly is to treat a man in a way which makes him more just". The idea being, that if you show mercy to a person, he becomes more merciful. Plato held that justice (moral capacity) was the most important quality of the soul, so the prime directive is to improve the quality of the person's soul --- make him more just.

The modern understanding of empathy means that an essential aspect of being human is empathy. So "just treatment" means taking into account the feelings of all parties involved. Plato's definition was a bit circular because he didn't have a physiological and evolutionary way of understanding empathy.

As for determinism and free will, they go great together. To have a will means to have distinct preferences, ideas, and make decisions as you want. Someone else in the same situation would choose differently, because they are a different person, with different priorities, ideas, and preferences.

The best essay is still the one by Hobart. This view is called "Compatibilism" in philosophy and I think most contemporary philosophers subscribe to it.

I make choices. There is nothing outside me compelling one choice or another. All the irrational and subconscious factors are part of me.

determinism and free will is like your dog, and not like your pig.


With a pig, you can have half and I can have half. Not so with any animal you plan on keeping as a pet.

There simply is no viable distinction. Human action can be viewed as either one, but neither of them alone are viable concepts.


Thus its inevitable , given my nature, that I had a will to decide to agree with you.

[shiny!]

Re: Empathy: the evolutionary basis of morality

We finally agree. I'm not at all convinced that love is adaptive. Neither is hope, charity, faith, forbearance, kindness, gentleness, temperance, and peace. If anything, they seem to be supernatural.

Homo sapiens is distinct in it's high degree of cognition and empathy. Both traits contribute to cooperation, and hence to survival. Right or wrong means "Consistent or inconsistent with empathy for fellow humans and to a lesser extent with other organisms" . The discovery of mirror neurons, a neurological and genetic underpinning of empathy, and hence morality, may be the greatest discovery of modern science.

As an example of this, Animal Planet had a survey of predators. The most successful is the predator that has the highest percentage of successful hunts. The most sucessful was the African Painted Dog. These are feral dogs that hunt in packs. It has been well established that wolves are more intelligent than dogs. Then why are the dogs better at hunting? Because, in the millennia of domestication, cooperation was enhanced at the expense of competition and aggression.

They mentioned an example of a crippled dog that was fed by pack members for two years, without being able to contribute to hunting. The dogs are not wondering "will sharing food help our Pack?" or "Will sharing food increase my chance of reproducing?". Their empathy motivates them to help group members. The trait of cooperation with the group has very strong survival value, even if some of it's specific consequences do not contribute to individual or pack survival.

Morality is no longer based on social concensus, fear of exile or divine retribution, but on our evolutionary heritage as caring human beings.

The word "inhumane" reflects a lack of empathy observed in socio-paths, who lack empathy and exploit the trust and empathy of the larger population.

We can now answer Plato's question "What is justice?"

I'm not smart enough to know if love, trust, compassion, empathy and all those other fine things are adaptive or supernatural. But they do serve the survival of species, which makes them not weaknesses, but strengths. The psychopath would consider these "soft" emotions to be weaknesses, but I subscribe to the theory that psychopaths are a distinct sub-species of homo sapiens, in competition with homo sapiens for species dominance.

Psychopaths/sociopaths do not belong to any one particular political party or socioeconomic group. Perhaps the real nature of our conflict isn't between Rich and Poor, Left and Right, Liberal or Conservative, Dem or Repub, but between homo sapiens and psychopaths/sociopaths. Sociopaths in high places are well-equipped to manipulate us into contrived conflicts so that we destroy ourselves. Their agenda is to get us so busy distrusting and hating each other that we do their work for them.

[shiny!]

Re: Empathy: the evolutionary basis of morality

Love and empathy are not the exclusive domain of humans. Have you heard of Ginny, the dog that rescues cats? Amazing story!

Book: The Dog Who Rescues Cats

Short video of Ginny:

When I was young, my boyfriend had two sister cats from the same litter. They both got knocked up at the same time. Cat#1 had a healthy litter of kittens. A day or two later, Cat#2 went into labor. It did not go well. She was in labor over twelve hours with no kittens in sight.

Eventually Cat#1 did something quite extraordinary. She picked up her kittens one by one and took them to her sister, placing them in her nest across the yard. My boyfriend was alarmed by this, thinking that Cat#1 was abandoning her kittens. So he picked up all the kittens and returned them to their nest with their mother.

Once again Cat#1 took her kittens over to Cat#2 and deposited them in her nest. Once again he returned the kittens to their mother.

The THIRD time Cat#1 took her kittens to her sister's nest he decided to simply observe and not interfere. The kittens began to nurse, whereupon Cat#2's contractions got stronger. In short order she started birthing her kittens. Once all the kittens were born, Cat#1 picked up her kittens and carried them one by one back to her own nest. Both cats successfully raised their kittens.

That mama cat had the ability to understand what her sister needed, and shared her precious kittens to help her give birth, thereby saving her life.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A week before 9/11, my late husband and I rescued a cat after she jumped into our car (onto my lap) while we were parked in a dark warehouse district one night. She was starving, filthy and pregnant. She talked a mile a minute- I suspect she was scolding me for being late- and refused to leave. We decided to take her home for the night and get her to a shelter the next day. On the way home she curled up in my lap and her water broke.

By dawn she had birthed only two kittens, but they were the biggest newborn kittens I've ever seen. Both boys, pure white with blue eyes and totally deaf. (I still have one.) From the moment those kittens were born she totally trusted us with her babies. When they were only a few hours old and I peeked into her box (expecting to have my eyes scratched out), she rolled onto her back while they were nursing and asked me for a tummy rub. Whenever we came into her room she would leave the kittens in our care while she ate and groomed herself.

She was not naive, however. Male cats often kill kittens. When one of my male cats tried to approach her (in friendship) she tried to kill him. I still have a scar from breaking up that fight. But when my female cat got into mama kitty's room where the kittens were, she was wary but non-aggressive.

One day I watched as she bathed one of the boys. As she licked him he kept biting her tail, which she didn't like. Finally she was done with his bath and he latched on to nurse. She immediately leaned over and bit his tail, hard. She wanted him to know what it felt like. That was very high level thinking for a cat.

Here's Luciano, one of her babies:

luciano.jpg

[Woodsman]

Re: Empathy: the evolutionary basis of morality

Love and empathy are not the exclusive domain of humans. Have you heard of Ginny, the dog that rescues cats? Amazing story!

And there's old Greyfriars Bobby as told by Jack Palance, believe it or not .

And this welcome home.

Only these are the best of all.

Good thing there's a two vid limit here. I could do this all night.