The Smartest Man and Twenty Questions

An anonymous philosopher was told by someone that the oracle at Delphi said that he was the smartest one on Earth, so he went and asked for himself and the oracle said "Yes, you are the smartest man on Earth". Thereafter he started a career asking people twenty simple questions like 'Can you write an algorithm to create a Universe and make it expand in an orderly, logical way to maturity until it burns up or is cold and dead'. No one was able to answer the questions correctly until he reached Donald Trump and Joe Biden- each with an IQ of 168. There is a punch line but one needs an IQ of 268 to understand it so I won't burden readers with that here.

A Note on Writing Computer Code to Make a Universe Expand from Singularity

 This is just a note for making the point that it might be possible to write computer code to make a Universe expand from a singularity with much detail of various processes. Probably its already been done countless times in physics science labs. I am not aware of a popular video game with adjustable, variable parameters for modifying one's designed Universe though. 

I believe that a spherical gravitational collapse of a scaler field, arriving at t=0 is a paradigm comparable to quanta of the cosmic microwave background running in reverse to an inflation and singularity if one posits a phase change and radical deceleration at the inflation. Physicists have a lot of data and probably model algorithms for the expansion consistent with observable properties of the universe. Perhaps there are numerous algorithms exploiting observable quanta and fields that would reach t=0. Recent papers suggest the Universe is one-off rather than cyclic.

President Putin Didn't Declare 1867 Sale of Alaska 'Illegitimate'-Fake Ukrainian News

 Declaring the Russian colonial era sale of Alaska to the United States in 1867 "illegitimate", the logical assumption is that President Putin meant that Russia didn't actually own Alaska and was instead a usurper of pre-existing Alaska native ownership of what is presently a U.S. state. Snopes said the statement was bogus, but the U.S. State Department replied anyway thus giving support and credibility to fake news.

That support for aboriginal rights would have some resonance in the U.N. where various native peoples around the global have long-standing complaints about colonial conquests that went against them. Some are for Jewish aboriginal rights in Israel, others for Russian rights in Ukraine, and still others for Palestinian rights as sea peoples in Crete and Gaza. Luckily there presently aren't any known lunar aboriginal peoples- except maybe Neal Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin.

If Alaska does disintegrate eventually it probably will renounce its share of the 33 trillion dollar public debt that should reach 40 trillion by the year 2029. The Aleutians could become independent as well as S.E. Alaska, The Copper River drainage, the North Slope and three interior nations. They could contract out defense with various militant nations selling defense services in exchange for some real estate in the nations of the former state of Alaska that will in time become a refuge from the incinerator of global warming rising in presently temperate nations.

President Putin will need to rebuild whatever portions of Ukraine he can recover for Russian patrimony. Russian ownership of much of Ukraine wasn't ever the result of colonialism as much as nativist reconquista.

The fake news apparently originated with a Ukrainian seeking to sew problems for the United States in order to get more military support from Democrats and fellow travelers in the U.S. Congress; "a social media post on X by the Ukrainian user Igor Sushko claimed that Putin declared the 1867 sale of Alaska was illegal: “Putin signed an order insinuating the sale of Alaska to the United States in 1867 was illegitimate. This mofo is trolling the West and our leaders shake in their boots in response."

President Zelensky also declared several areas of the Russian Federation historically Ukrainian thus setting out an expanded war platform for Democrats to lust over.

 https://intellinews.com/zelenskiy-signs-decree-claiming-half-a-dozen-russian-regions-arehistorically-ukrainian-lands-308948/

https://www.newsweek.com/us-laughs-off-putin-alaska-not-getting-it-back-1863137

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/1/21/2218371/-Ukraine-Invasion-Day-698-successful-drone-strikes-against-targets-in-Leningrad-and-Tula-oblasts

What Extremism Is

 Extreme views are nothing more than those that are not mainstream. For quite a while and even continuing today the green economic movement was regarded as extreme by the fossil fuel and coal mainstream votaries. The result is global warming. Mainstream opinions are driven by social inertia and are not necessarily the best. Instead they simply dominate for sundry reason including the concentration of wealth and power invested in the established order.

The historian Arnold Toynbee pointed out that one of the basic reasons for the failure of a civilization is that once its economy becomes established it is very difficult to get it to change. Not just economics; politics too. He used ancient Greece as an example of a failed civilization with a cause of being unable to upgrade to a Republic like Rome with a unification of all of the city-states into one nation. Without unification they were easy prey for the Roman legions.

Common mainstream views need be upgraded for a society to continue to advance after it has already reached maturity. Usually societies do not. If they are successful the wealthy become globalists so far as possible and neglect upgrades to their own country. I suppose the United States is a contemporary example. Fundamentally anything that would actual change the established social structure is considered extreme. It is the media that presently defines what is or isn’t extreme anyway.
Leading, new ideas are often perceived as extreme in comparison to established mainstream ideas. I believe that some ideas are good and others bad. Mainstream views are safe because they have been around a while. new ideas may be good or bad because they are untested and haven't been implemented. Remember that in the ante bellum south abolitionists were regarded as extremists.

One Should Hate Some Things

 On the subject of hate; people can hate anything. One can hate things that harm oneself, and that may be the primary cause of it. Some things are hateworthy and others not; therein one should have fine powers of discernment. I know I hate getting caught in a cold rain and squall in a small open boat and go to some pains to avoid that. Being in jeopardy of drowning for an extended period of time is tiring and somewhat stressful though occasionally necessary. Still one can hate that or various insults and stupidities perpetrated by goons. What if one hates war or bad political leadership that piles of dozens of trillions of public debt and yet doesn't have a basic minimum annual income for the poor? Some things should be hated more and if they were maybe something would be done about it. I hate the fact that the Lakers don't have the best team in the N.B.A. They could have drafted a guy that is 8 feet tall, weighs 400 lbs. and can shoot 3 point shots at a 77% rate if they had tried harder. Of course it's vital to use reason and intelligence whenever possible instead of hate. Save hate for when its necessary like when helping move something heavy and it gets dropped on your toes!

Order Underlies the Universe

 Plato writing in The Timaeus suggest that there is divine order underlying the Universe. Everything is thought to be constructed from mathematics.

An underlying order to the Universe is an interesting conception. Tegmark's mathematical Universe arrives at the idea that math may be the actual basic constituent of the Universe/Multiverse. The notion that some have that order may arrive from chaos, and that the universe may have arisen from chaos, need stipulate that something first existed, and in a chaotic order at that which does seem improbable.

A singularity at T=0 was the opposite of chaotic or replete with maximum entropy and disorganization. It was instead highly organized presumably with a finite quantity of energy that could become matter eventually.

Apparently recent studies found that a cyclic Universe isn't likely because the entropy would increase in each cycle drawing it toward extinction. In the eternity that exists before time a cyclical universe should already have expired into complete disorder. One wonders though about the organizing, anti-entropy factors that attracts mass toward singularity if that is what occurs pre-Universe. Gravity should need to exist before energy, and that is unlikely. And gravity is thought to break off first from a unified field. It is interesting to think about what created all of the energy and drew it together as a unified field at singularity T=0. At that point it should have an infinitely high temperature contained in zero space. marvelous configuration to consider.

The Ukraine War Isn't Necessary for World Peace/Economics

 Now is a good time to end the Ukraine war and start rebuilding both sides of a shared Ukraine. Because Democrats want a loose border with millions of aliens invaders in addition to war with Russia over Ukraine that conflict hasn't received much recent funding from Congress and the world is safer for it. Recognizing Russia as legitimate stakeholders would help reason prevail and secure peace ASAP.

Euthyphro Rewritten- Socrates and Euthyphro Dialogue about Troubles

 Dramatis Persona;

E=Euthyphro

S=Socrates

S- Good day Euthyphro; how goes it bud?

E- Fine my friend. So you are out of jail again?

S-Indeed Euthyphro, the charge of hate speech won’t stick. It was just petty calumny by establishment insiders throwing shade. What about yourself? I hear you have a day in court ahead?

E-Quite so Socrates. It’s payback time for my old man. He murdered one of our slaves so I have charged him with that capital offense.

S-No, that can’t be; he is you blood.

E-Makes no difference Socco; he did the deed and need pay the piper.

S-Yes Euthy- the piper must be paid. How did this crime occur?

E-My drunken da thought the slave was a killer and chained him to the gallows while he went to ask the prophetic oracle of ChatAI what the right moral action is; should he ang the lout or just keelhaul him beneath the largest trireme in the Athenian fleet. While da was on his mission to talk with the oracle of ChatAI the slave died from hypothermia overnight in the snow. That was a cold blooded murder by da I say.

S- Yes, piety need be pursued to the logical spring of truth. Are you confident your decision to have your Da punished for not attending to the well being of the slave is just and pious?

E-Same difference Socco.

S-What is justice and piety Euthy?

E-It’s what is fair and just, and God loves it.

S-I see; God loves it because it is pious or it is pious and just because God loves it?

E- Were you smoking crack in gaol Socco? Those seem like pretty fine hairs to split.

S- Indeed the Spartan in gaol had some fine green yet I did not inhale for I have been charged by Miletus, a youngster with a scraggly beard and a hooked nose, with corrupting youth and inventing false gods of science for the masses to worship with legal dope and free brothels for everyone.

E-None of that is true, plainly.

S-Plainly.

E. Now what is justice?

S-You don’t know Euthy?

E-Just saying, if you remember, because crack makes you forgetful, or is that age? Never mind; piety is doing the will of God in all things because God is good.

S- Is God good because he is God, or God because he is good?

E- God is a great mathematician that built the Universe with math. Everything is a triangle or a portion of something like that; strings, quarks, gluons; you know; a math Universe.

S-So sin is to provide wrong answers to questions involving the underlying order of the Universe?

E-Certainly. Would you like me to be your instructor?

S-Yes Euthy, I will be your disciple for you have the wisdom of youth.

E-Modestly speaking Socrates, I post at Facebook and Iinstagram a lot. People wait to watch me post at Tik Tok sides.

S-Excellent! I can tell the court that I was misinformed about dope, brothels, abortion, illegal entry to Athens, hate speech and sundry items that I supported and that may have corrupted youth. I will say that now that I am your disciple I attend to the strait and narrow path of proper mathematics underlying the constructions and order of this Universe or any other with reasonable quarks, scintillations of excited forms and virtual energy emerging from fields such as the Higgs that are pervasive though sometimes imperfect copies of forms in the mind of God.

E- Yes Socco; I can see that I have corrected you in part already; for you must know that morality simply means conforming to the will of God and the order of the Universe he has constructed of real, irrational and rational numbers with righteous gage theory, Abelian algebra, Lie groups, Eigenfunctions, Differential equations, Hilbert Space with machine language content quantum computed etc. The underlying order of the Universe may be interpreted as natural law sentient beings need comply with to avoid being folded, spindled and mutilated through time, or in the beyond. Willful sin and impiety means being odd when evenness is required for passage through innate filters of structured order.

S- Do you take American Express Euthy?

Could 81 Year old Joe Biden Coach a Pro Football Team if he was Competent at Football?

 Would you hire Joe Biden to be coach of a pro-football team if he was competent at football? Does being President of the United States take less skill or energy than coaching a pro football team?

Joe Biden is already 81 years old. Donald Trump is 77. If he is elected when he finishes a single term he too will be 81. Thankfully he won't be able to run for a third term.

If Ralph Nadir was 77 instead of 89 he would be a viable candidate against these too guys. If buying a horse though, one might take the younger of the too because it might trot around the track better than the other one.

Some Kind of Being Has Always Existed

Energy always exists, or something does. As Parmenides said being exists and nothing is impossible. Virtual energy from a vacuum is energy from a field. A singularity is something. Some phase of something always has existed. Science doesn't understand all about fields. They speculate a gravitational field emerged first followed by the strong force then the electroweak breaking up into the Higgs, electromagnetism and the weak force, yet certainty about that isn't plain. Virtual particles appear and disappear yet they are from some kind of field- maybe fluctuations of the Higgs as some kind of leftover. Imagine that the Higgs covers the entire region of space-time in a very thin way yet enough to entangle massless particles and give them the appearance of mass because they acquire a third dimension rather than the usual 2 dimensions of massless particles. The Higgs field must have energy or potential energy as a field that yields virtual energy. There could be micro-dimensional slipping of energy occurring too. Even God exists (or if for the atheists and agnostics out there) and is 'something' always existing capable of issuing stuff. Some people want to believe in nothing as a kind of moral reverence reassuring their faithlessness . Parmenides was right; being is the sole possibility

Trump or DeSantis; Does Either have Virtue/Arete?

 I'm enjoying taking a second course in ancient philosophy. It's a great review since the days when I read the Socratic dialogues and other ancient works passed long ago. Within the course the concept of virtue appeared; what did Socrates mean when he investigated virtue, or rather what did others mean when using the term.

The Greek term for virtue was arete. Classical virtue is somewhat vague to moderns. Apparently in the Meno politicians like Pericles and Thermistocles were held to have virtue. I would think that Winston Churchill 'had it', as well as Franklin D. Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln. Virtue was bravery and great, effective leadership that benefits the nation rather than just the politicians and his family members.

Modern ideas of virtue or classical virtue were about good character, wisdom, patience, stamina, sound judgment, benefiting the state, moderation in use of materials- rather Stoic characteristics to a certain extent. And one must include self-sacrifice or personal risk to benefit others. Numerous example exist such as a young woman in Portland that risked electrocution to save a baby in danger of being electrocuted where three attempts and deaths had already been made.

DeSantis may have elements of both types of virtue, whereas Donald Trump has more of the be-like-Pericles kind of virtue. Modest demeanor-not being a braggart is a classical virtue and Donald Trump tends to fail at modesty and excel at international relations rather than waging unjust and superfluous wars. It is a virtue to seek after peace when reasonable prospects for it exist instead of running willy-nilly into wars in pursuit of glory and profit at the cost of other's lives.

Original Sin Expressed/Contained Via Entropy Converting Order to Disorder

 Original sin is expressed as entropy converting order to disorder. Something of a bit of humor in that; ha ha hanahar!-הנהר. Human nature is embedded in thermodynamic fields that may be the containment for original sin. Converting order to disorder-energy to mass and the most disordered state of mass, expresses the nature of original sin. Humans require energy input and have drives for that, reproduction and sometimes power to increase the ability to input energy. Capitalism is a great converter of energy from a high state of order in nature to a low state of energy and eventually disorganized waste. Ecological economics would be more efficient and sustaining social stability and creativity with 8 billion souls on earth yet thermodynamic drives converting energy to mass make most people insecure, avaricious and in quest of expansion in the case of billionaires and eventually trillionaires. People want a lot more than they need and use the extra income to convert nature into disorder with thermodynamic entropy.

Will Africa be the Pot of Gold for Illegal Migrants Seeking the American Dream?

It just an idea suggested by the recent actions of the U.K. to relocate illegal migrants to the U.K. to Africa. The United States has a backlog of more than three million souls claiming political asylum in the United States and the federal government has turned them loose in a catch and release policy. There are millions more migrants here illegally that haven’t claimed political asylum. Since the government cannot deal with the problem with competence perhaps it could consider relocating detainees to some safe neutral nation until their court date arrives in a few years.

https://www.foxnews.com/world/uk-will-ignore-international-law-deport-illegal-immigrants-sunak

Plainly the special asylum seeking quasi-legal-illegal category is challenging for Democrats to address with a measure of intellect and competence. Rather than make them temporary legal guest workers and hand a victory to hundreds of thousands or millions of bogus claims it might be better to relocate them to some nation that could use the income of sheltering a few million should in refugee camps with good security and facilities.

It is useful to have order in a nation and not undermine the efforts of legal residents to improve the quality f their lives by dumping millions of workers and resource users that had not the consent of the people of the United States through their elected representatives to arrive here. In the United States the economy is stratifying between the 1% and everyone else. Though a reasonable standard of living is common there are many that don’t own a home these days. Wealth is concentrating. Presently the distribution of wealth is beginning to resemble that of a caste system. Flooding the nation with badly educated foreign workers with dubious legal status is a way to break down traditional America and the Middle class so it is more like that of India or Mexico. Perhaps Wal-mart shifted its door entrances to the left from the traditional right in order to help condition American shoppers to political ineffectiveness and prole status as if they were living in an updated Orwellian society. Could Namibia or South Sudan be the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow for illegal aliens pursuing the American dream?

It is important that every human being on Earth has opportunity for a good life. That can only occur with order since the wild is no longer capable of providing a bountiful larder for eight billion people. The world political economy need change one an ecologically sustainable format, and civil stability need be the rule rather than exception.

A foreign diplomat was quoted recently in reply to a question asking him about the future of the United States. He said; “The U.S.A. is a fat buffalo trying to get a nap while a lot of hungry wolves are approaching.” Plainly he was trying to elicit military support for the European/N.A.T.O. was on Russia in Ukraine in the effort to exploit the west’s military advantage over Russia to benefit Western Europe. Europeans would like to seem like the victims of Russian aggression and expect the United States to be the military bully to provide advanced weapons to allow Ukraine to defrappe Russia’s efforts to recover some of the historically Russian land lost in the Bill Clinton era when Russia was basically helpless.

Yet the United States is largely divided between those seeking to make America a part of a global caste system ruled by the 1% with the masses being peons, serfs or communard proles living in a kind of open air prison/lunatic asylum happy with dope and slopped with jobs that allow payments on new cars and homes they don’t own until a new economic shock makes them lose everything they own to the 1% holding mortgages, and those that prefer a little civil order that isn’t ephemeral and disappears like morning dew.

https://youtu.be/-c6qmsL_Qto?feature=shared

On the Notion that Plato Influenced Christianity

 There were several philosophers before Socrates and Plato that wrote about the Logos and God. People like Thales, Heraclitus and Parmenides, Anaximander and Anaxemenes all presented fascinating ideas concerning being, change, nature, God and substance. Some Christians were influenced by Plato, yet one knows that people like the disciple Mark were unsophisticated in philosophy and that the Q document, or Quelle/source mostly just relates the life the Jesus Christ and His work as God in saving mankind, or at least those with faith, from the inevitable destination of eternal hell. Parmenides presents a paradigm almost as a precursor of Sartre, a loquacious Sartre unafraid explain a logic for his ontology, of being and the necessity of being and impossibility of nothingness. In that paradigm Jesus Christ being God himself, as one of the Trinity, delivers the faithful to a good place in being while the lost find their way to hell- a bad place. Interestingly physicists have speculated that below absolute zero the temperature may be infinitely hot. Some later theologians like Augustine were influenced by Plato, or properly Plotinus, for he was a Plotinian before becoming converted to Christianity.

The gospel is simply narratives by disciples and the Apostle/Doctor Luke from personal and first hand sources. The letters of Paul are by an author who was a Rabbi in training and a student of Gamaliel or Schlemeil and steeped in the torah yet not so much a reader of Plato or Peripatetic philosophers which he could have read as readily as those of the Academy if he were so disposed.

Nothing Cannot Exist- Parmenides

 It is something of a classification or categorical error when one says something like 'the Loch ness monster does not exist'. It does exist as a thought, yet not outside of thought or language. Whatever one says creates something at least as an idea including the Loch Ness monster. The question is how it exists or in what form- perhaps no more than as an idea.

The fallacy of equivocation concerning Parmenides' formulation of the impossibility of change is a valid objection. It should be noted though that if change has always existed then nothing changes because change is a constant. Observational physics seems to support the idea of constant change in a thermodynamic field. Being always exists, non-being doesn't and change is constant so nothing changes. God always exists, at least a seed of the Universe always exists, pre-determined in His thought and continues if emerged as a singularity and expansion.

Language is rarely the material that exists in-the-world. Instead, language refers or points to things/referent objects of the world of mass. Even fictional referent objects exist as fictional referent objects at least...that is what so much of television is about. Does Jason Bourne exist or not? Well there is no real Jason Bourne or Loch Ness Monster in the real world, yet those referent objects exist in language, in books and in thought. In that sense they do exist. One may say that there is no Loch Ness monster materially existing in Loch Ness except as a thought about Nessie swimming in Loch Ness rather than the 'real world'. Thus is the stickiness of language and linguistic philosophy in trying to exceed it's own limits in language. It cannot directly be the material objects it refers to for the time being. Maybe quantum computing and AI will change the reality of that to a limited degree.

Parmenides, Heraclitus and the Milesians saw nature as God or providing the substance for nature in various ways. Less than pantheistic, it was a useful way to understand being while eschewing non-being and atheism. They tended to believe in being as the sole possibility and non-being as impossible; the argument tended to be about how change occurs. Yet if change has existed from eternity then nature could be said not to change because the nature is change. All forms are embedded within precursor forms actualizing in time. Jesus directs those of faith to the right relationship with God and being while the lost discover a hot way to hell. Below absolute zero physicist speculate the temperature is infinitely high- another mystery for most of the faithless.

Christians believe in the eternity of soul- possibly in one direction starting with birth. Once a soul exists it will exist forever, even after physical death. The destination for the saved is different from the lost. Jesus is captain of the soul through eternity- God, rather than the satanic forces of chaos, evil and faithlessness. So if mankind brings a war to fruition that wipes out most of mankind that is a product of the original sin that affects all mankind. I would guess that it was corrected by the thermodynamic fields in which humans are embedded that drives to to input energy as food to exist. Thermodynamic drives in human nature are the cause of conflict as much as anything. People have insecurity in matter and want more than they require for staying alive, being productive and happy and generally don't have a clue about how to change to sustainable environmental economics. Christians have different eschatological hermenutics. I am a post-tribulationist and partial preterist with the belief that this is the age of the increase of the kingdom of God within the hearts of the elect rather than the edge of some kind of neo-theological apocalypse based on bad pre-tribulationism. Plainly human economics, political leadership and ignorant attacks on the faith communities are driving the world to a good chance for a bad end.

Sartre, Epictetus and Epicurus version 2.0

 I wanted to write something about the late first and early second century philosopher Epictetus's idea concerning death. The Roman was a well read individual who actual spent time as a slave during the reign of Nero. The Emperor Domitian banished philosophers from Italy so the freed slave move to Greece where he established a school. Because he wrote a lot; primarily his 'Discourses' history informs us of his way of thinking about many concerns. What is remarkable about his view of life is that it is similar in outlook to the 20th century French philosopher of Existentialism/aka French rationalism, Jean Paul Sartre.

Epicurus' thought about death is 'that it isn't anything to fear because one fears existing bad things rather than non-sense' (to paraphrase). Life is sense experience and death is the cessation of sensory input (Epictetus believes), hence there is nothing to fear because there is no sensation. Sensation is required to have anything to fear in Epicurus' experience.

The premise that one does not exist after death cannot be confirmed while alive. Non-existence after physical death is an assumption. One knows that information cannot be destroyed (Shannon Entropy) and that an omnipotent God could map or store all of the information comprising a human life (maybe even quantum computing will achieve that capability some time), and so restoration of a human life after death could occur whenever anyone with the information wanted to do so. Thus one could arrive at the premise about existing after death with something new to experience. That is nearly as plausible as existing now.

Epicurus was a hedonist. Epictetus was a stoic who believed in God in nature at least yet his viewpoint isn't too different concerning death than that of Epicurus. The main differentiator is that Epictetus might not go so far as to say about death; something that he hasn't experienced, that it is the absence of sensation, for that is an assumption- a logical yet unsupported inference. Instead Epictetus might say that he hasn't knowledge of it personally; there is no thought within his experience that knows it first-hand.

Epictetus and Sartre each regarded the human mind and its content as existing within the control of the individual. Some things are within our control and somethings aren't. Those things within our control are easy to think about and those without one's control are not to be too concerned about since the thought one uses about such things and relationships exists within the individual mind. One shouldn't allow one's own thought to act like a dog chasing its own tail around in a circle. That is an individual shouldn't create or generate thoughts to be fearful of or deceive oneself about the reality of one's thinking or necessity for thinking particular things; that existential viewpoint covers even death.

Epictetus believe there is nothing to fear of death because if there is, the fear is created within one's own thought. Dividing things within one's control and things that aren't, death is finally one of the things that aren't and so one should not spend much thought being troubled about it. Epictetus and Stoics believed God rules nature and the natural order. God's will and nature has its course and the things it has given to an individual, such as life or real estate it can recover and return to other purposes-even the lives of others.

Though Sartre believed that death is "the complete triumph of the other" he does not well describe what the heterodox otherness is, or who it is-perhaps nature or God or God through nature that is not the content of one's own thought. In that regard neither Sartre or Epictetus are solipsists.

There is an implicit valid logic regarding the Stoic outlook on death and the unknown. One should not invent troubling thoughts concerning things one hasn't muck knowledge of nor control over. Epictetus apparently knew little of Jesus Christ and the way to eternal life in the gospel; he believed in God or Zeus as an omnipotent ruler of nature. He has read Plato and Aristotle apparently being in agreement with the heterodox nature of the phenomenality of life.

Castes and Concentrated Wealth

 The Indian caste system is about 3000 years old and is still strong. Despite some liberation following independence in 1947 with the untouchable class being outlawed or abolished, the majority- 85% of the population remain in lower castes. The caste system affects the economy pervasively; is the development of the concentration of wealth in the United States the equivalent of developing a national caste system?

"In the third quarter of 2023, 66.6 percent of the total wealth in the United States was owned by the top 10 percent of earners. In comparison, the lowest 50 percent of earners only owned 2.6 percent of the total wealth"-quote from https://www.statista.com/statistics/203961/wealth-distribution-for-the-us/#:~:text=In%20the%20third%20quarter%20of,percent%20of%20the%20total%20wealth.

https://www.britannica.com/topic/caste-social-differentiation

Real discrimination follows economic lines. Caste systems of priests and warriors developed long ago for practical reasons, yet the value of those for protecting or advancing social development stopped long ago and instead, economic classes resembling castes became oppressive and a factor of economic retardation.

Intellectual liberation occurs when intellectuals of any social background are free to develop their interests with equal opportunity. Social and intellectual repression occurs when castes, classes and those supported by political power without intellectual merit rise to dominant intellectual culture. In a purely material culture the primary value of  positions of prestige are regarded as economic advantages and are desired for that reason by materialists.

The Biden administration has not done enough, if anything to outlaw the development of a caste system in the United States along economic lines. The increasing concentration of wealth in the United States has continued after the Obama administration strong armed congressional passage of a law to make the Bush II tax cuts permanent. Despite having control of the legislation branch of the federal government during the first two years of the Biden administration to tax increase on the most rich saw the light of day.

India is a great nation with a good future and a caste system that makes its international economic role a little suspect; that is the most rich may too easily emulate or otherwise soak up elements of a caste system that segregates society economically. In my opinion economic advantage is the primary reason for caste systems, slavery and oppression of various social classes. It is rare when individuals are economically segregated and not socially segregated too.

The U.S. Congress should pass a law or two banning caste systems or rescind most favored nation status to nations that have caste systems in order to encourage more egalitarian policies with equal economic opportunity and basic national income for all citizens as a more pragmatic application of the minimum wage ideals. Ad hoc caste systems assure that people will be poor or become poor through numerous means including forcing people out of work.

Record Global Warming on Von Biden's Watch

 Last year was one with record global warming. The administration's effort to slow or reverse atmospheric heating were plainly ineffective. The nation can look forward to another four years of ineffective or toxic leadership from Republicans and Democrats in the 2024 Presidential election if the Charybdis and Scylla pair of dinosaurs hold place as likely party nominees,

France just appointed a shiny new 34 year old queer Prime Minister. The west has such unusual political leadership that one may be confident that public affairs will be all f ' d up for the rest of the decade.

No one has good sense in politics...no not one.

https://climate.copernicus.eu/copernicus-2023-hottest-year-record#:~:text=2023%20is%20confirmed%20as%20the,highest%20annual%20value%20in%202016

Pantheism is Wrong

 God is not the Universe. He is not the moon or stars, a forcefield or particle and waves though responsible for making them.. Consider an arm. Is an individual his arm? If the arm is lost does the individual no longer exist? If someone manufactures an electric car, is she also the car? If the car is hijacked by rabid dogs is the manufacturer also the dogs because they are in the car? Everything in the Universe passes though God is none of that.

I would say that the universe is the sole individual being containing everything else. Within its monism there is pluralism.. The pluralism emerges as stars,, galaxies, hadrons, muons, people and everything else that sentient beings may distinguish as individuals. The Universe at the start was said to occur from one unified,, individual field.. In an instant probably just at the big bang or initial field instability caused perhaps by a word from God gravity separated, then the strong force followed by the electroweak force breaking down into electromagnetism, the weak force and the Higgs field that let massless particles acquire mass.. God was not subject to the fields he issued though His omniscience remained aware of what and where everything he planned was.. Universals and particulars in the Platonic sense are more applicable to the structures of particles, language categories and classes than to the set of all sets, Godel's idea of what might be compared to the Platonic realm of forms. It would be a logical categorical error to posit God as contained within something he created.

The Icon and Axe; A Billionaire and a Destroyer Concentrating Wealth

 Joe Biden is hard to classify. His platform is to enrich his family and promise anything to anyone that will get him elected. He is a globalist for open borders, dope, abortion, low tax on the rich, a concentrate wealth pragmatist delivering mediocrity on any plank including global warming. He continued the Democrat's start-lasting-wars tradition of the 20th century. His likely opponent is a a neo eco-Luddite billionaire for the concentration of wealth. The billionaire should have one the Nobel Peace prize during his term of office and would probably end the Ukraine conflict on terms Russians could live with and get the global economy back on track working together if Democrats let him- as doubtful as that is. Mr. Trump might let global warming increase by a full half percent in fours years while Mr. Biden's failure would be somewhat less.

NFL stars are in the 5 per cent of the 1 percent economic class serving as promoters of economics concentrating wealth while moving America toward being a second world country for the majority. The very rich need deflect public attention away from interest in anything that could move move policy toward economic egalitarianism with a moderate distribution of class wealth. The masses love bread and circuses now as in imperial Rome.

Ron DeSantis may be the last chance for the nation to conserve a little stability. People do prefer excitement, AI, illegal aliens labor and defenders known as MICE (or is it ice to illegals?) so long as deficit spending financing of government continues.