Teleology in Politics

Maybe teleological plans move human political movements toward fulfillment. One has Democrats and Republicans in conflict  Homosexuals divided the polity with their approach to marriage while Republicans opposed ecological conservation and restoration. Over population needed to be halted because of fine resources and the ecosphere was being devastated. Some moral people couldn't go along with Democrat planks though they supported environmentalism.

No politicians knew what ecological economics are though Jeffrey Sachs did. Democrats were for war with Russia over Ukraine even if that meant WW 3 might occur  Republicans were for drilling saying drill baby drill and burn baby burn to fossil fuels. Trump was for peace, Musk for ten billion robots and super AI and that would end the need for ponzinomics that increase human population to keep the workforce young enough to support the prior generation in old age. Super AI in robots smart enough to work in most labor jobs well could be a danger yet let human population drop to sustainable levels while the ecosphere recovers.

That's all fascinating and something to find the answer to in twenty or thirty years. The human political powers don't get what they want yet perhaps God does.

Joe Biden's Pre-emptive Pardons for Family, Jan 6 Committee et al

In his last minutes as President Joe Biden issued pre-emptive pardons to several family members, the Jan 6 Committee and others for any crimes they may have perpetrated including, presumably, murder and treason.  The premise is that people may break nearly and federal law and be pardoned for that. Nixon could have pardoned all those charged in Watergate.

 Pre-emptive pardons for seem like unequal protection of the law and should be illegal. Courts never anticipated that an organized crime leader would take the Presidency and let his mob run amock perpetuating during his term and and grant the mob pre-emptive pardons against any criminal charges that might be made.

"Article II, Section 2, Clause 1:

The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States; he may require the Opinion, in writing, of the principal Officer in each of the executive Departments, upon any Subject relating to the Duties of their respective Offices, and he shall have Power to grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offences against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment."

Stop Spending on Ukraine

Russians lost about 6 million dead in WW 2; the most of the Soviet Union’s ethnic groups. As one with a balanced history background that included college courses in Russian history and the usual Western Civilization I understand and support the facts about US and global interests, unlike the Democrat Party leadership.

As an historical opinion I support Russia’s right to the Crimea and know that sharing Ukraine with Russia at 50% is the only rational policy. Pursuing false narratives promulgated since the Clinton carpet bagging land stolen berg days has harmed US global interests, credibility (people think it an opportunistic predator with a supportive propaganda media), effected a million casualties, made enemies of two WW2 allies and normalized nuclear brinkmanship. It’s also expensive with about a quarter trillion dumped to Ukraine.

The Soviet Union had an 800 mile front from the Black Sea and extended through Ukraine. Many Ukrainians were on the Nazi side killing Russians defending their homeland.

Russia was moving toward free enterprise and helped in the war against terrorism while Europe expanded NATO. Because of western greed we made an enemy of Russia and divided the world Economy between the BRIC nations and the west.

The world does not need to be politically divided in a second Cold War. A peaceful world with free trade, free enterprise and a transition to sustainable ecological economic policy cannot occur with a senseless war ongoing leading toward a stone age economy.

Those who forget the past are doomed to rest it was proven again true by the Democrats bungling of the end of the Cold war. Communism ended in the Soviet Union starting with a quarter million Soviet troops withdrawing from East Germany in Dec 1988. When communism ended peacefully it was difficult to avoid chaos. There was no government or people elected to the new governments. Yeltsin wrote a constitution for Russia.

There was no method to redistribute land that was public owned in the Soviet era into private ownership that was tested. Even as late as the mid 90s there were no income taxes on oligarchs and corporations.  Some way had to arise to keep Russia together and remove power from the Mafia and oligharchs. Putin had to find a way to set the power criteria of regional governments and rebuild the military based on the US volunteer force. It was a complex difficult period with free enterprise growing in Russia. American businesses were invested there. Then NATO expanded Eastward eyeballing Russia as it had since Napoleon and Poland had since 1500.

The Russian Presidency was given superpowers by the constitution. He needed it to keep the home made experiment in democracy together  I took a Coursera course online about Russian government from Petersburg University and researched online about Russian history since the end of the Cold War. It was a democracy. 

The maladroit Democrat Party choices to be runt-like political midgets living within the Cold War era paradigm with an enemy to the East was political recidivism and follow. Leadership was required rather than fear, paranoia and cowardice that required an expanded NATO, increases military expense and that couldn't understand or lead to what was needed to continue the Reagan-Gorbachev normalization of relations east and west.

   Russia has not sought conflict with the west besides restoration of it's sovereign lands in Ukraine. When Ukraine is shared those that would live in the non Russian areas should be free to move to West Ukraine and vice versa.

 Understanding politics with competence involves understanding what motivates leaders on select issues, and how and why they form policies. Civilizations end because of bad leadership sometimes, such as that which occurred in imperial Rome following the Antonines. 

 Democrat leadership after Reagan, and even that of George W Bush has made a series of bad decisions. My concern is for justice internationally of course, yet primarily is for America alienating half of the world from trade and trust, increasing public debt and becoming incapable of supporting a peaceful and productive global political economy.

Sanction Europe on LNG Until It Ends Hostilities With Russia

Joe Biden has done everything he can to stop President Trump from bringing an end to the Ukraine-Russia war. He has arranged for war to continue through the next Presidential election in 2028 if possible. N.A.T.O. members will take up the slack if Trump stops sending weapons to Ukraine.

One shouldn't underestimate Europe's will to make self-destructive political choices; they are idiots rather than peace makers or pragmatists  As at the end of WW 2 the USA will need to take the retards under it's armpit and lead it to prosperity and health while the mutt resists the bath.

Old Europe and N.A.T.O. is composed of numerous small, formerly imperial nations that sought global colonies. After Bill Clinton it began to expand in number growing to become somewhat of a monster in size. It is as if dozens of Chihuahuas could unite to become a big dog with the fierceness of a chihuahua. The dog yet has multiple personalities; some in paranoia, some with imperial ambition, and has become a potential threat to the United States directly and indirectly.  perpetrating further conflict with Russia may incite World War Three. Joe Biden has trained N.A.T.O. to expect the U.S.A. to be Europe's bimbo/lesbo enforcer doing its bidding. Americans in the media would go along with further war against Russia until the world is incinerated so they could appear to be patriotic in sycophancy with imperial ambitions.

   President Trump will need to negotiate with Europe simultaneously with Russia and Ukraine to stop the war. N.A.T.O. will seek to create a Gulf of Tonkin Resolution circumstance to force a full N.A.T.O. attack including the U.S.A. on Russia before a peace settlement is made. Peace should be a 50-50 value division of Ukraine with Russia, an end to tariffs and sanctions on both countries and reconstruction of Ukraine paid for by England, France and Germany.

  There should be a tax free DMZ along the shared border that is five miles wide to encourage trade and catalyze reconstruction. Sanctions should be placed on N.A.T.O.embers in Europe so they don’t receive U.S. fuel supplies or natural gas until they end hostilities with Russia. The world needs peace now and a recovering economy morphing into environmental economy for a more verdant planet.

The Problem With N.A.T.O.

 With 32 member nations N.A.T.O. is a very large military body. It can throw it’s power around such as in Ukraine, without concern for retaliation from nations it has sponsored war on. Recently met with the Zelinsky faction and guaranteed it would provide weapons and supplies to Ukraine at least until 2027. An undeclared war on Russia by the largest military alliance on Earth is a problem not only for Russia; it is a problem for the United States.

Zelinsky said the Rammstein accord will oppose the USA making Greenland part of America. He seems to want to make the U.S.A. an enemy of N.A.T.O. and to replace the U.S.A. after the U.S.A. quits the organization.

https://youtu.be/7MxDh5qKVOw?feature=shared

Russia never attacked a member of the alliance. N.A.T.O. leadership decided that it did not support any Russian claim to Ukraine or pre-emptive Russian move to defrappe its military activities in Ukraine and continued it membership build up to intimidate and threaten Russia. With plutocratic control of the press and western governance; governance bone-headed enough to believe that Ukraine war can be profitable for the west 

So instead of seeking a peaceful resolution to end the conflict and restore normal relations with Russia continued to escalate  even allowing attacks directly on Russia with N.A.T.O. weapons including missiles. Russia has yet to retaliate because it probably doesn’t ant to expand the war that would swiftly lead to a nuclear exchange.  N.A.T.O. leadership has arrogated the right to attack any nation that draws its ire despite that nation not having attacked a N.A.T.O. member nation. That is an expansion of the N.A.T.O. charter.

American Presidents that are Democrats may be sycophants of the new N.A.T.O. doctrine, or even leaders to be an 800 lb guerrilla throwing its weight around as the world’s anarchist.  Besides the United States the individual N.A.T.O. members wouldn’t have taken a belligerent stance with Russia over Ukraine. Yet as a military commune N.A.T.O. is a Don Corleone exerting its influence in a way that presets a threat even to the United States should it have strong dissension against a N.A.T.O action. There needs to be a better way to reinforce world peace and security than the N.A.T.O. alliance; once that conserves the sovereignty of the United States in foreign and domestic policy. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wNX8VEZZwwg

AI Hasn't Self-Awareness

AI has lots of information and no awareness. It has been trained to recognize language and meaning without any knowing. For those that wonder, it is like a human who believes his shadow is sentient.

AI can construct a posteriori structures yet I think the day is out there a way before it will produce brilliant synthetic a priori insights into science.

AI is like a human shadow that isn't conscious. It has digital neural networks and deep learning algorithms that train it to process human language-meaning in a correct way. It finds the most probably correct response. In its history from rule-based machine language to back-propagation, neural networks and deep learning it processed more data within increasing accuracy to produce an optimal response. That direction would never give it the consciousness of a mouse.  At some stage that unconscious algorithmic processing will enable it be self-evolving. Evolution piles things higher and deeper until they can't go further; humans need to be smarter and know when to branch. It may unconsciously be able to write code or to give itself (its program) instructions to act. That capacity would be dangerous installed in a pistol. Installed in real world interfaces it is many times more dangerous. No one is going to dumb it down either; there is just too much competition to upgrade it with strong financial incentives.

Philosophy and Religion Share Some Data and Form

There is a broad variety of religious beliefs. Some are obviously consistent with some, not all, philosophical pursuits. Philosophy too has a broad variety of approaches; some of those have angular and/or radial juxtaposition.

There are a variety of religious and philosophical beliefs and systems with tremendous range and differences among them. Philosophy too has systems. Utilitarianism is a system with a few varieties. Hegelians, and left Hegelians had systems that informed others like Marx who adapted a synthetic system of dialectical evolution. Platonist realism brought Plotinus to write The Enneads and realism continues to be relevant for analytic philosophy. The list of overlaps is worth a thesis. Christianity contains the truth that the rest need point to for accuracy of varying degrees.

Inner Peace with Self-Acceptance for Slobs?

If one is a slob one might want to lose weight, launder clothes and clean up the yard.

A season of discontent can be edifying.

 Change can be as one is and is yet to be, rather than as one was. Tranquility for some is presentness and for others futurity. Being is becoming.

Writing Fiction- A Method

Jorge Louis Borge said writing fiction is an unnatural act. That was informative for me. In rural isolation I increasingly immerse myself in thoughts of a story and awaken with a thought at 2 am or whenever to write another page or two.

  When summer writing I am pressured by the need to finish a draft  before the temperature drops to near freezing and below. 

  They are philosophical science fiction works so insights into physics concepts appear as they will. With luck I might get ten pages in a day varied with three or four. Editing of a first draft need wait until May when the weather warms the Earth, or never.

Can a 'True Author' Have Fewer than 10 Million Words in Print?

 I don't use AI to write fiction. I tried editing with it and that didn't work. It would cut out 2/3's of whatever I let it work on so I stopped.

Most of my writing has been in an unelectrified rural Alaskan shed in a roadless area. This winter I'm outside with internet access.

I wrote philosophical science novels that were challenging to construct. I never had heating for an entire book and my fingers would freeze if I didn't stop writing so editing was tough. 

True authors must be those with 10 or 20 million words in print. I only have four or five million I guess. Just six sci-fi novels though of about 50,000 words each. Maybe one needs to have establishment approval to be a 'true author'. It's tough to write if society has made life difficult for a writer. A sedentary lifestyle is helpful.

AI can't edit philosophy or quantum cosmology ideas at all well. Neither really can human editors that are clueless on philosophical topics.

I took a computer programming course in 1980-81 with systems analysis and have followed the progress over the decades. My recent courses from Univ of Michigan online and elsewhere provided much information about AI. That's why I have confidence it will write novels for the public eventually. I don't plan to use that myself. I will just read philosophy and write one or two more sci-fi books if I have the time. I am very backlogged in other genres.

An AI song is one made for me to listen to. Designer music to suit one's preferences. Usually I just listen to instrumentals. It's just good music to enjoy. It doesn't need to be 'mine'.

I still buy sci-fi novels to read.P.R. Adams is my favorite writer presently. It's easy to see the time when people just read AI produced books though. That might save money for the poor.

A.I. and the Future of the Great American Novel

I believe some app will appear for free that will create a readable book when a reader wants one. Deep learning allows a continuum of upgrades in quality. People may not pay for what they can get for nothing.

AI can already write great poems. I haven't read much fiction by AI yet don't doubt it's ability to improve and write in first person, limited omniscience or omniscience with alacrity in a short time span if not presently.

 It may not be worthwhile for younger writers to pursue the starving artist route in life with intensified, ubiquitous AI competition ahead. The Great American novel may be generated by AI or pros with sinecures.

So much writing hasn't any philosophical content to complicate things. Simple plots and quality descriptive writing is good enough for many action novels. There are so many tropes that still work.

Creativity that is synthetic a posteriori is within AI's present capacity. I believe it may even master creativity in hard sciences like chemistry in time. People are very clever and continue to upgrade the programming.

Tax Cuts for the Rich Instead of Border Security?

Even before Donald Trump takes office Republicans like Kevin McCarthy are throwing perfidy into the mix. They want border security to take second place to tax cuts for the rich, explaining the executive decisions can substitute for law. Then Democrats can reverse those executive decisions in four years.

People including the rich need to pay for government. Only idiots and anarchists could believe a modern economy and society could exist without one. For sustainability it need be paid for proportionally by those living and prospering in it.

Republicans of ancient Rome under stood the virtue of sacrifice, they weren’t a lot of Marie Antoinettes.

People rationalize away responsibility. Politicians do that all the time or just regard promises as water under the bridge.

Kevin McCarthy wants to pass a tax cut for the rich instead of border security he says can be put off till later. That wasn't what the majority voted for. Senator Simpson trashed talked social security after the the election was certified- not during campaign season

 Republicans seem as bad as Democrats with integrity. People blame others and make exceptions for their own moral failures

Replying to 'Why are White People Great at Everything?'

Shouldn't one start with a rectification of names? Confucius did; so; therefore ask what are white people and what is the everything they are supposed to be great at. I shall stipulate that the timing of the OP is importunate. Trying to use greatness with white people as a middle term for racism is harmful to Trump politics. The appearance of racism simply impedes good political works Trump might be able to do. Those policies are primarily not racist.

Modern economies have specialized occupational roles. No one is good at everything. Commercial aircraft pilots usually aren’t great dentists for example. Some people are good at a few occupations though usually not at one time. For those that aren’t white and are envious it may be the ownership of material goods and the things associated with homes, autos and devices that seem to be what the white people are ‘great’ at. Keep in mind that the IQ of the average white American is only about 100, so it doesn’t take rocket science to own average things in the USA; in fact it’s better to be average than to be great at something like philosophy or poetry with a higher IQ if one is seeking material satisfaction in life.

Black Americans have a lower average IQ than white and that isn’t surprising considering their history of intellectual repression and exclusion until modern times. A culture of social exclusion is hard on individuals concerned generally with simple survival in a hostile social environment. That exclusion long-term lowers IQ. Even a bad diet can lower performance on IQ tests. It is difficult to build a culture up intellectually. That tends to occur yet it is a long term advance.

Black Americans have a higher IQ than some sub-Saharan Africans. The life expectancy of some of that group is far less than much of the world’s. Poverty tends to lower IQ scores because diet and environment don’t support brain health. Most blacks haven’t had the positive early childhood environment supporting intellectual development that many white people have had.

Structures that were started by a particular race and culture should have at least a few individuals that excel in a given structure. Other cultures require time to catch up. Differences in achievement at given tasks among various cultures tend to be culturally rather than racially caused. Differences among individuals are more toward a combined genetic and cultural causality.Structures that were started by a particular race and culture should have at least a few individuals that excel in a given structure. Other cultures require time to catch up. Differences in achievement at given tasks among various cultures tend to be culturally rather than racially caused. Differences among individuals are more toward a combined genetic and cultural causality.

China had fantastic inventiveness thousands of years ago. It’s development was retarded by imperialism until the 20th century. Capitalism allows better quantitative opportunities for invention with the profit motive. Now that China has a mixed economy. It performs better than it did with a state dominated form of socialism.

One need find the difficulty of a task as an occupation and determine what sort of IQ is needed to perform a task and if it falls within the basic bell curve distribution of a race. Actually cold weather drove some invention while others inventions like metallurgy invented in the Middle East travelled north.

One can consider cultural advantages and tool kits at any point in history and find that some lead others for a time then even disappear. What of the glory of ancient Rome or the strong walls of Constantinople?

Because Europe was challenged by invasions for thousands of years technology advanced there quicker than in places less challenged.

Toynbee pointed out that easy living regions of Greece did not advance as fast as some places that were given more, yet not too great of challenges. China is advancing very rapidly. Economists have found that mature economies stabilize at a growth rate of perhaps 2 or 3% while developing economics have a much faster growth rate until they equalize with the nations with mature economies.

There is additionally the criterion of values. Were the values of Diogenes the Cynic more like those of Bill Gates or Lao Tzu. Cultural values can be followed by minions until the over participation destroys the health of an environment. Hundreds of millions may surge over the edge like lemmings with great skill; is that really a value to be admired?

I would really hate to live in a jungle in a primitive condition being ate by mosquitoes. Overcoming some of those challenges required biology at a level barely reached today- not a thousand years ago.

Europe had fewer tropical diseases than more southerly regions and that matters even now What sort of fire ant problem exists for campers in Europe in comparison to South Florida?

Africa is advancing almost too quickly now. Nigeria alone has, I believe, 85,000 PHds. There are modern looking cities all over the continent and the ecosphere is in decay and receives toxic waste from Europe.

There is only a human race now and individuals differ more in ability than traditional races.

Concerning Evidence for the Existence of God

 People sometimes overlook the wealth of archaeological and scriptural data in support of God interacting with ancient Israelis. Lawyers can get convictions on empirical evidence based on archaeology (such as finding bodies, settlements or other material and writing.;even war crimes convictions have been made on comparable data. Perhaps some skeptics would like empirical evidence based on astrophysics and certain hard sciences to conflict directly with their own understanding of nature. I am impressed that so many often overlook the obvious.

Peter Woit wrote a book named 'Not Even Wrong' regarding string theory. He is a skeptic. I believe the Big Bang theory is in a similar position. I believe it is accurate though understanding that other, unknown mechanisms could have caused the appearance of expansion. It cannot be proven to be true, it can just be shown to be consistent with observations, Einstein's general theory etc. One day it may be proven to be false; there is certainly a lot of mystery about that first split second and the inflaton presumed to occur nearly the same time, as well of course as what went before. Maybe it would be best to name it rapid expansion from a theoretical singularity. 

Some one use it as evidence confirming God's parameters of creating a Universe from nothing. It is a roughly similar paradigm. It may be no coincidence that a Belgian Catholic Priest, Georges Lemaitre, is the father of Big Bang theory. Of interest is the live debate about dark energy not really existing, and that instead it is just an apparent effect created by distortion in rates of space-time expansion because of empty space versus space with more mass in it. 

       "Professor David Wiltshire, who led the study, said: "Our findings show that we do not need dark energy to explain why the Universe appears to expand at an accelerating rate.

"Dark energy is a misidentification of variations in the kinetic energy of expansion, which is not uniform in a Universe as lumpy as the one we actually live in."

He added: "The research provides compelling evidence that may resolve some of the key questions around the quirks of our expanding cosmos.

"With new data, the Universe's biggest mystery could be settled by the end of the decade.""

Conservation of Meaning

Going further than Shannon entropy; a theory of semantic information.

“Semantic information, autonomous agency and non-equilibrium statistical physics” https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6227811/

A Song by AI and I named 'Freedom of Faith'

I've taken three courses in how AI is built- an intro agenda to learn about deep learning algorithm structures. I think that AI really won't have more limits than people have with speech. Democrats since Obama have blocked conservative free speech with a little success on social media. Because of the monetary value of A.I. though in my opinion it will be difficult to jam back into the sack. I wrote a song (lyrics and selection of kinds of music) in a few minutes that I will link to below. It's pretty good and everyone can make those sorts of things with AI.. As one of the instructors said "A.I. is a disruptive technology". When I was young it was nearly impossible to publish anything. One might study for decades to get a book published if lucky. Now anyone can publish anything instantly and even regret it later, A.I. will write for those that can't write well if they want to express opinions eloquently 

https://www.udio.com/songs/ppYMShLZBG91focYi1NUDe.

To the End of the Quest

There is a list of several free on-line philosophy books here https://www.openculture.com/free-philosophy-ebooks
There are many other books available free of course. Getting a used copy of The Confessions of Augustine is great to read. And a free online version of The Enneads by Plotinus is a way to make Plato and the realm of forms come alive. At the end of the quest it’s only the word of God in the Bible that matters.

Proof of Gravity and of God

No one knows what makes up gravity. It could be particles or a field, properties of quanta or some kind of relationship of space-time to mass. Some scientists no longer believe in dark energy, though the NY Times hasn’t yet published the headline ‘Dark Energy is Dead’ so many Democrats still believe in it.

So gravity is evident yet what makes it up-the mechanics isn’t proven. If they would offer a cash prize for proving it I would make entries into the contest. It would be like the Nenana Ice Classic where you can  make an entry guessing the hour and time the ice on the river will break up in spring.

God is evident through the Bible for people of faith. Proof could be said to be the number of people that believe it is true. That’s not too different in some respects from those that believe strong theory will be the final theory of everything

Life is Made of Non-life

Life is made of non-life components like fermions. When they are in an appropriate configuration the condition named life exists. No one knows what the primary field is made of; it could be spirit.

It is useful for mechanics that work with matter to understand how it works. Philosophers probably want to understand what the fundamental substance really is.

Select Factors Affecting Einstein's Religious Ideas

Einstein was a German Jew that had to leave Germany with his family and move to Switzerland because of the rise of the Nazis and that unhealthy business environment for his father’s generator manufacturing business. Many Europeans don’t like the Catholic Church or even German state sponsored churches because of their historical role in owning great tracts of land. Americans don’t have any sense of that because their was about only one colony of the original 13 that was Catholic (Maryland).

Europeans didn’t have the same sense of freedom from authority Americans had (with some notable exceptions). One need consider the Holocaust and. Einstein’s help getting the Manhattan Project started. He definitely wouldn’t have appreciated the raving doctrines of Hitler, Mussolini or fellow travelers.

The European Churches were no safe place either. One should place figures like Albert Einstein in their historical context. He wasn’t Dietrich Bonhoeffer.