Related source » Douglas Murray Cambridge Student Union - Israel and Nuclear Iran
[This related source is recommended in its entirety.]
— Uploaded by blazingcatfur on Feb 3, 2012
Post 1,760 The Sound of Reason
Thursday, February 9, 2012
The Sound of Reason
Post 1,760 The Sound of Reason
Wednesday, February 8, 2012
Effective Value of Common Sense
What a waste it is to lose misuse one's mind.
Image via WikipediaRelated source » Common sense - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: 'via Blog this'
[This related source is recommended in its entirety.]
“Common-sense ideas tend to relate to events within human experience (such as good will), and thus appear commensurate with human scale. Humans lack any common-sense intuition of, for example, the behavior of the universe at subatomic distances [see Quantum mechanics], or of speeds approaching that of light [see Special relativity]. Often ideas that may be considered to be true by common sense are in fact false.”
— From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The effective value of common sense is grossly exaggerated. It can not be otherwise, if for no other reason than that most people believe they are above average. Moreover, common sense has a very limited range of validity, ordinarily not to be extrapolated beyond one's experiential familiarity and acquired knowledge. And in the common sense of the word "common", common acquired-knowledge is vanishingly small relative to the entire corpus of human knowledge. As a consequence, it can be argued that, in common usage, common sense is effectively common nonsense.
Punning aside, allow me to posit that the acquired knowledge which is of fundamental importance, albeit rarely appreciated, is the knowledge of the extent of one's ignorance. Knowing what one knows, and more importantly what one doesn't or can not know, is the first step toward building a personal storehouse of common sense that one can apply with a modicum of confidence. With this premise in hand we can examine a scheme for optimizing the rational application of common sense in our free society. Think of it as a leveraged hierarchy of delegated governance in our representative democracy.
No one person, without exception, can lead the United States towards a more-nearly perfect union of 50 States, some 2500 counties, encompassing nearly a third of a billion people, comprising the world's largest economy and a military of super-power proportions. It is absurd to suppose otherwise. The best we can hope for is an astute electorate that could, in principal, organize a hierarchical leadership-structure so as to harness the effective common sense and effectively-positioned expertise of the populus.
How would this scheme function in a Presidential election, given that enough people bought-in to the concept (as if)? A common-sensical voter would understand that his best choice would have to be based on a determination of which candidate most closely complements the voter's best interests for himself and his country. His determination would have to be influenced only by his own effective-value common sense, taking into account only what he believed to be the true intentions, capabilities, and trustworthiness of the candidate. Each candidate, in turn, would understand his own cognitive limitations and his abilities to choose the best advisers so as to arm himself with the indirect knowledge required to make good decisions in the pursuit of his perceived best interests of the Nation as a whole.
What are the odds? Not so good, I'm afraid. The vast majority of voters will cast their vote for the candidate who best resembles what his or her choice would have been for junior high-school class-president. That would have been the boy or girl they would have liked to go with to the dance. I needn't point out that in many cases such a boy or girl did not end up being the most likely to succeed as an adult.
Post 1,762 Effective Value of Common Sense
Punning aside, allow me to posit that the acquired knowledge which is of fundamental importance, albeit rarely appreciated, is the knowledge of the extent of one's ignorance. Knowing what one knows, and more importantly what one doesn't or can not know, is the first step toward building a personal storehouse of common sense that one can apply with a modicum of confidence. With this premise in hand we can examine a scheme for optimizing the rational application of common sense in our free society. Think of it as a leveraged hierarchy of delegated governance in our representative democracy.
No one person, without exception, can lead the United States towards a more-nearly perfect union of 50 States, some 2500 counties, encompassing nearly a third of a billion people, comprising the world's largest economy and a military of super-power proportions. It is absurd to suppose otherwise. The best we can hope for is an astute electorate that could, in principal, organize a hierarchical leadership-structure so as to harness the effective common sense and effectively-positioned expertise of the populus.
How would this scheme function in a Presidential election, given that enough people bought-in to the concept (as if)? A common-sensical voter would understand that his best choice would have to be based on a determination of which candidate most closely complements the voter's best interests for himself and his country. His determination would have to be influenced only by his own effective-value common sense, taking into account only what he believed to be the true intentions, capabilities, and trustworthiness of the candidate. Each candidate, in turn, would understand his own cognitive limitations and his abilities to choose the best advisers so as to arm himself with the indirect knowledge required to make good decisions in the pursuit of his perceived best interests of the Nation as a whole.
What are the odds? Not so good, I'm afraid. The vast majority of voters will cast their vote for the candidate who best resembles what his or her choice would have been for junior high-school class-president. That would have been the boy or girl they would have liked to go with to the dance. I needn't point out that in many cases such a boy or girl did not end up being the most likely to succeed as an adult.
Post 1,762 Effective Value of Common Sense
Monday, February 6, 2012
Dear Socially-Inept Person Who Can Not Be Avoided Completely …
… Can you hear me now?
Rooting for Obama (Photo credit: canelita0306)Related source » UNDIEPUNDIT.COM: Dear Facebook Friend,: 'via Blog this'
[This related source is recommended in its entirety.]
Can you comprehend the distinction between intrusive and non-intrusive commentary? If you can, you may safely disregard the rest of this post.
Still with me? Well, boys and girls, once upon a time there was a code of conduct in the grown-up world to which most gregarious people at least paid lip-service. This code of conduct had evolved way before the creation of the Web, which now completely obviates the need for social niceties, such as not foisting one's biased views on other people who, in one way or another, are not at liberty to tell the foister to go f*ck himself.
Suppose, for example, you happen to be affiliated with a leftist hellhole, like mainstream media or academia, but happen to be one of those rare people who do not worship the ground above which Obama hovers. Suppose you have to attend one of your organization's functions, which masquerade as optional social-gatherings. There you are, part of a captive audience, as one of the big-shot assholes launches into the usual "Obama is awesome!" tirades. You have no choice but to keep your mouth shut until your mad dash to the toilet allows you to expectorate the vomit.
I make no bones here about my antipathy toward everything the Obama administration stands for (or against). But please nota bene: a blog does not comprise intrusive commentary, despite being publicly accessible. Unlike directed communication, such as telephony or email, or pontification to a captive audience, you have to enter my domain of your own free will to read my opinions. I even allow you to critique my posts on my blog, so long as I feel your own comments are worthy of my consideration.
This is my blog. If you don't like what I have to say or you don't like my rules of engagement, no one is going to force you to stay here. This is what is known as non-intrusive commentary.
Post 1,761 Dear Socially-Inept Person Who Can Not Be Avoided Completely …
Still with me? Well, boys and girls, once upon a time there was a code of conduct in the grown-up world to which most gregarious people at least paid lip-service. This code of conduct had evolved way before the creation of the Web, which now completely obviates the need for social niceties, such as not foisting one's biased views on other people who, in one way or another, are not at liberty to tell the foister to go f*ck himself.
Suppose, for example, you happen to be affiliated with a leftist hellhole, like mainstream media or academia, but happen to be one of those rare people who do not worship the ground above which Obama hovers. Suppose you have to attend one of your organization's functions, which masquerade as optional social-gatherings. There you are, part of a captive audience, as one of the big-shot assholes launches into the usual "Obama is awesome!" tirades. You have no choice but to keep your mouth shut until your mad dash to the toilet allows you to expectorate the vomit.
I make no bones here about my antipathy toward everything the Obama administration stands for (or against). But please nota bene: a blog does not comprise intrusive commentary, despite being publicly accessible. Unlike directed communication, such as telephony or email, or pontification to a captive audience, you have to enter my domain of your own free will to read my opinions. I even allow you to critique my posts on my blog, so long as I feel your own comments are worthy of my consideration.
This is my blog. If you don't like what I have to say or you don't like my rules of engagement, no one is going to force you to stay here. This is what is known as non-intrusive commentary.
Post 1,761 Dear Socially-Inept Person Who Can Not Be Avoided Completely …
Wednesday, February 1, 2012
Winning the Game of Life
• Labels:
Life (and Other Concepts)
Image via Wikipedia
“Living well is the best revenge.”
— George Herbert
Related source » Scott Adams Blog: The Right Priority 02/01/2012: 'via Blog this'
[This related source is recommended in its entirety.]
“The way I approach the problem of multiple priorities is by focusing on just one main goal: energy. I make choices that maximize my personal energy because that makes it easier to manage all of the other priorities. Maximizing my personal energy means eating right, exercising, avoiding unnecessary stress, getting enough sleep, and all of the obvious steps. But it also means having something in my life that makes me excited to wake up. When I get my personal energy right, the quality of my work is better, and I can complete it faster. That keeps my career on track. And when all of that is working, and I feel relaxed and energetic, my personal life is better too. […] As soon as I publish this post, I'll feel a boost of energy from the minor accomplishment of having written something that other people will read. Then I'll get a second cup of coffee and think happy thoughts about my tennis match that is scheduled for after lunch. With my energy cranked up to maximum, I'll wade into my main job of cartooning for the next four hours. And it will seem easy.”
— Scott Adams, Feb 1, 2012 (dilbert.com)
It is easy feeling down. The meek shall inherit the earth? As if ... In three and a half score years I have observed the meek inherit mostly misery, which, in case you haven't noticed, loves company; lot's of company.
Winning takes energy, because you have to work at it. It is no accident that work and energy are measured by the same physical units.
Some people believe that winning the game of life comprises amassing lots of toys. I think that's misguided. I believe that winning, an active verb, is about living well.
It's not the goal that matters. It's the experience. Reality is a process, not a state.
Post 1,760 Winning the Game of Life
Winning takes energy, because you have to work at it. It is no accident that work and energy are measured by the same physical units.
Some people believe that winning the game of life comprises amassing lots of toys. I think that's misguided. I believe that winning, an active verb, is about living well.
It's not the goal that matters. It's the experience. Reality is a process, not a state.
Post 1,760 Winning the Game of Life
Tuesday, January 31, 2012
Obaminoids Need Not Apply
If you have drunk the Kool-Aid, fuggeddaboudit …
Related source » Peter Schiff RTTV - 24 January 2012 - YouTube: 'via Blog this'
[This related source is recommended in its entirety.]
For those of you who have not yet abandoned all reason, it behooves you to pay attention to someone like Peter Schiff who tells it like it is. The first step in protecting yourself to the best of your ability from government-policy run amok is to understand that government-policy has run amok under the current "administration", if you'll pardon the expression.
Post 1,758 Obaminoids Need Not Apply
Post 1,758 Obaminoids Need Not Apply
Sunday, January 29, 2012
Abandon all reason …
… ye who subscribe to “hope and change”.
“Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.”
— Dante Alighieri's epic poem The Divine Comedy
Image via WikipediaRelated source » Works and Days » What We Do Not Want to Hear Anymore: 'via Blog this'
[This related source is recommended in its entirety.]
“We were not forced to buy homes by "them". Some of us were greedy and wanted to keep flipping real estate and got caught when the music stopped. Some were stupid and leveraged their homes to pay down credit card debt and write off the interest — or take on even more consumer debt. Some were always better off in an apartment or rental. True, some just bought at the wrong time; but that’s called "bad luck" and not quite the result of a mustached black-hat forcing an innocent widow at gunpoint to sign on the dotted line. What are we to think when the president thunders, "We learned that mortgages had been sold to people who couldn’t afford or understand them"? What does "we learned" mean? Did we ever not know? And what does his passive-voice "had been sold" mean? Are we to learn now that it does not mean "bought"? Americans did not "buy" houses, but were [instead] pried out of their beds to have too costly homes "sold" to them? […] Human nature and the laws of physics, not technocratic liberalism, are still the best guides to the madness around us. Money borrowed has to be paid back or the debt eaten by someone, period. Poverty is defined by a want of material necessities, not by lacking the appurtenances that someone else better off enjoys. Gas and oil are miracle fuels and it is very hard to find alternate energies at comparable costs and reliability. And as a rule, the green class of environmental elites usually uses more fossil fuels per capita than do the muscular classes who mine and drill them out of the ground — and who do not jet, drive, or live in the comparable fashion of their critics. The content of our character alone matters; those who are not so confident in their own, usually demand that their tribal affiliations be essential and not incidental to their personas. Most accept that culture, not race matters, but it matters still more not to say that. Most of the political class has no interest in history; dogma is their creed. They assume that everyone (far less noble than themselves) in the past would have agreed with them, or now can be postfacto made to agree with them.” [emphasis added]
— Victor Davis Hanson, January 28, 2012 (pjmedia.com/victordavishanson)
It is a well known truism that you can't reason with unreasonable people. And yet, it is arguable that the overwhelming portion of our political polarization and bickering stems from a fundamental opposition of two major worldviews, not from the myriad of policy differences, which are their consequences. Such arguing over political issues can not be resolved because, at bottom, both sides of the argument are convinced that the other side is unreasonable, unethical, unpatriotic, uncouth, and, yes, unbearable. As a consequence, there are three major groupings that can be distinguished in our American political spectrum.
One group comprises those people who see the world as an imperfect association of imperfect humans who are motivated by self-interest and a provisional altruism of varying degrees. These are the people who acknowledge the inevitability of human failings, are inclined to do the best they can with the hand-of-life they have been dealt, and who rely on free-market capitalism for the growth and allocation of wealth that is demonstrably not characterized by a zero-sum game. For specificity's sake we could call them "realistic conservatives".
Another group comprises those people who see the world as an imperfect association of potentially-perfectible humans who can aspire to and/or be coerced by government to strive for an idealized society of largely selfless members inspired by the notion of brotherly love. We could call them "progressive liberals".
The third group includes all the people who remain outside the first two camps described above. These are the people who either don't know, haven't considered, or don't care which philosophical grouping would serve them best. For all the people who aren't sure where they belong but would like to learn more about one of the fundamental issues confronting our American society today, I can not overstate my recommendation for reading "A Conflict of Visions" by Thomas Sowell.
Post 1,757 Abandon all reason …
One group comprises those people who see the world as an imperfect association of imperfect humans who are motivated by self-interest and a provisional altruism of varying degrees. These are the people who acknowledge the inevitability of human failings, are inclined to do the best they can with the hand-of-life they have been dealt, and who rely on free-market capitalism for the growth and allocation of wealth that is demonstrably not characterized by a zero-sum game. For specificity's sake we could call them "realistic conservatives".
Another group comprises those people who see the world as an imperfect association of potentially-perfectible humans who can aspire to and/or be coerced by government to strive for an idealized society of largely selfless members inspired by the notion of brotherly love. We could call them "progressive liberals".
The third group includes all the people who remain outside the first two camps described above. These are the people who either don't know, haven't considered, or don't care which philosophical grouping would serve them best. For all the people who aren't sure where they belong but would like to learn more about one of the fundamental issues confronting our American society today, I can not overstate my recommendation for reading "A Conflict of Visions" by Thomas Sowell.
Post 1,757 Abandon all reason …
Thursday, January 26, 2012
The Real State of the Union
What Obama presented to the joint session of Congress and to the Nation was merely his re-election campaign speech …
Related source » The Real State of the Union - YouTube: 'via Blog this'
[This related source is recommended in its entirety.]
"Barack Obama does not like the 'invisible hand' that Adam Smith wrote about. He wants the heavy hand of government, he wants the government to organize us all as a 'team'." [emphasis added]
— The Schiff Report - January 25th 2012 (youtube.com)
Unless you are planning to join the coming idiocracy, it's time to hunker down:
Post 1,756 The Real State of the Union
- hang on to your job; any job;
- minimize your debt;
- avoid assuming new debt;
- do not buy anything you don't actually need during the next four years;
- save every last nickel and invest whatever you can in a balanced mutual fund;
- and pray like hell you survive the likely shitstorm if Obama gets re-elected.
Post 1,756 The Real State of the Union
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
Presumptuous Ignorance
Related source » A Brass Age? - Thomas Sowell - Townhall Conservative: 'via Blog this'
[This related source is recommended in its entirety.]
“This may be the golden age of presumptuous ignorance. The most recent demonstrations of that are the Occupy Wall Street mobs. It is doubtful how many of these semi-literate sloganizers could tell the difference between a stock and a bond. Yet there they are, mouthing off about Wall Street on television, cheered on by politicians and the media. […] No one has more brass than the President of the United States, though his brass may be more polished than that of the Occupy Wall Street mobs. When Barack Obama speaks loftily about "investing in the industries of the future," does anyone ask: What in the world would qualify him to know what are the industries of the future? […] From time to time, I get a huffy letter or e-mail from a reader who begins, "You obviously don't know what you are talking about …" The particular subject may be one on which my research assistants and I have amassed piles of research material and official statistics. It may even be a subject on which I have written a few books, but somehow the presumptuously ignorant just know that I didn't really study that issue, because my conclusions don't agree with theirs or with what they have heard. At one time I was foolish enough to try to reason with such people. But one of the best New Year's resolutions I ever made, some years ago, was to stop trying to reason with unreasonable people. It has been good for my blood pressure and probably for my health in general. […] One of the reasons for so much presumptuous ignorance flourishing in our time may be the emphasis on "self-esteem" in our schools and colleges. Children not yet a decade old have been encouraged, or even required, to write letters to public figures, sounding off on issues ranging from taxes to nuclear missiles. Our schools begin promoting presumptuous ignorance early on. It is apparently one of the few things they teach well.” [emphasis added]
— Thomas Sowell, 2012/01/25 (townhall.com)
Another in a long line of wonderfully observant columns by Thomas Sowell. He is a joy to read, albeit frequently a sorrow to agree with. Today's column, excerpted above, must be read in its entirety to fully appreciate its wisdom.
For serious readers, it is maddening to encounter the daily dose of rubbish from the semi-literati who have been pumped-up on self esteem and steaming horseshit. Nevertheless, one must come to terms with the impossibility to shield oneself from it. It is ubiquitous; it is perverse; and the leader of the free world is glorified for it by the asses who worship the ground he hovers over.
The only way to safeguard your sanity is to read more books and articles written by people who do know what they are talking about. The alternative is to submit to the idiocracy promoted by the Obamanoids.
Post 1,754 Presumptuous Ignorance
Friday, January 20, 2012
Inquiring minds are puzzled …
… Why is the Silver Star gold?
Image via Wikipedia
Yes, yes, I know there's "a 3/16 inch (5 mm) diameter silver star superimposed in the center". Still …
The Russian Red Star is red. The Star of David is Davidic. Holyshitwood stars are full of it. So, what gives?
Post 1,753 Inquiring minds are puzzled …
The Russian Red Star is red. The Star of David is Davidic. Holyshitwood stars are full of it. So, what gives?
Post 1,753 Inquiring minds are puzzled …
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