Blitz Chess 3M Alekhine Defense

        A festival of blunders and inaccuracies. I played black.. Using a chess engine for analysis is revealing. 

Response to an Article; 'Against Empathy'

In my opinion Bloom's article about empathy is the sort of thing people in Boston might like, yet not those of more reasoning cities with less leftist drift. It lacked any sort of philosophical merit. It was rather immature regarding experience and had the sense of careerist screed.

http://bostonreview.net/forum/paul-bloom-against-empathy

Compassion and empathy are equally fine states of mind a rational individual might use when necessary. It should not be taken as a solely emotional condition. One whom has had toothaches themselves for instance, could feel compassion or empathy in equal measure upon encountering someone complaining of a toothache, as they prefer. Yet of course they would not experience the real pain of a toothache-perhaps a memory of what is was like that is in no way as intense.

I believe that being a cognitive human being allows one to have a Cartesian kind of experience of mind and extremities concurrently. One knows what one knows and regarding and evaluating the reality of the existence of others is part of that. I suppose one could classify it as a proactive utilitarian regard for the well being of all people and finding the best way to bring the best for all people into actuality at any given moment in history. Necessarily the active, learning, creative individual can have empathy and compassion as components of his thought experience with or without rational detachment. What should not be lost is the rational element, and perspective too.

It is amazing that people feel it reasonable to go from textbook to career with abstract careerist lexical structures to classify the experience of mind for-oneself and for-others. Yet Mr. Spock of Star Trek and the Bodhisattva would seem to lack empathy and not be pathological indifferent about the well being of  others. We know that Mr. Spock sometimes had a rare fling as well, the scoundrel. Would that be supportive of the notion that Mr. Bloom has an implicit logic error in his progression developing empathy as a less than optimal aspect of human nature comparable even to the behavior of chimpanzees?

Psychologists sometimes appear to be lacking an element of compassion for Platonic realism in their treatment of words and concepts that describe emotion. They haven't empathy for Kripke's neo-realist regard for words as having a semblance of transcendental identity. Empathy for the nominal meanings of words persisting in memory might promote a phenomenological epiphany of insight for the field practitioner. He or she might be able to grasp the generality of human existence better as  mass experience with individual differentiation and creativity with common elements of being and experience. Seeking the good for oneself and for-others are two sides of a common coin.

The Lord replied  when asked; Matthew 22:36-40King James Version (KJV)

"36 Master, which is the great commandment in the law?

37 Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.

38 This is the first and great commandment.

39 And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.

40 On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets."

An Example Fake News Headline from CNN

Following is a fake news headline from CNN. 

Kim Jong Un ends visit to China with a message for the US

That is the headline makes the reader believe that Kim Jong Un had a message for the United States when his trip to Beijing ended and there wasn't one. Read far into the article expecting a quote from Kim Jong Un and not a trace. Instead their was something from Bill Richardson, former Governor of New Mexico, saying he thought China was sending a mesage about trade tariffs and denuclearization. It was the political equivalence of interpreting an ink blot.

https://www.cnn.com/2018/06/20/politics/kim-xi-meeting-trump-summit/index.html

U.S. Government Provides Commercial Air Transport for Illegal Aliens

While President Trump may not go so far as to establish illegal alien family reconciliation centers across the border with air conditioning, cable T.V,  and jacuzzi, Homeland Security apparently does spend public money buying air tickets for illegal aliens while some Americans can never afford to fly. 

There must be a cheaper way for the Federal Govenment to repatriate those in federal custody to their homelands than to buy commercial airline tickets and once more kicking back to the 1% that own them.

Homeland security should have a fleet of a few discarded air force jets of its own, operated by the Air Force or Forceplanes leased to Error America, as a bus service to get those people home quickly, cheaply and with a good sack lunch and Seattle's Best coffee or orange juice.

http://money.cnn.com/2018/06/20/news/companies/american-airlines-children-detention-border-trump/index.html

ICE charters aircraft, and should not. It ought to fly its own and when aircraft are needed, returned to the Air Force

Ice Air  https://www.cnn.com/2017/05/26/us/ice-air-deportation-flights-explainer/index.html

Gulfstream IV's are used to transport violent offenders. Violence in that case promotes to first class.

Steve Schmidt Flees GOP; Another Merchant of Doubt?

Top Republican party strategist Steve Schmidt has quit the GOP and said he will vote for Democrats. In effect he confirmed the lavender red-blue Republicratic one party system in Congress if there is so little difference between them that a GOP strategist is comfortable with being a turncoat. No conviction-driving content to differentiate one side from another enough for members to care.

The now former-GOP strategist apparently was unhappy with President Trump's policy of holding children brought in by illegal alien adults separately. At the end of the day it is about money and prospects for profit. perhaps Schmidt sees greener grass for Democrats ahead.

Republicratic strategists may be a result of the pay-to-play nature of elected government. There was a movie about professional advocates and tacticians that built up public relations strategies for big tobacco and big corporations against regulations to remediate global warming greenhouse gassing by humans. That movie called Merchants of Doubt described adepts at manipulating public opinion for pay. I would guess that Steve Schmidt doesn't work as a volunteer without pay for his political schemes.

At least the U.S. Senate isn't smoking dope recreationally yet, like their Canadian class-peers.

State Minimum Wage Inequality Could Affect Social Security

It is a fact that states have several different minimum wages. The money paid into the social security system from workers in the various states is recognized as having the same value. So the retirement account contributions from workers with a low minium wage is less than that of states with a higher rate and that affects the retirement check amount for workers drawing social security. For some reason it seems unfair that a worker in the state of Washington is paid more in retirement than a worker in Texas because the minimum wage is much higher.

In an era where people relocate from state to state the concept of commity might reasonably be applied to wages for work in regard to minimum wage and employee contribution to the social security program.

Minimum wage levels are set in part as a consequence of political will by the political class. A choice to pay a low minimum wage means that the retirement account of the entire state's workers will be inferior to those of states with higher minimum wages. The minimum wage affects workers not just presently, it is a future designator of retirement income. The race between states to have a highest minimum wage is a low intensity conflict.

Merchants of Doubt and Skepticism

I will get to the Merchants of Doubt movie questions father on. Let me say first that in my opinion there are several assumptions about large political ideas and why people are in agreement or disagreement about them and their context that are incorrect in the movie. It might have been beyond the scope of the video to consider social reality very far. 

Sometimes people are incredulous that people can believe certain things, yet the context for that belief may be the inability or unwillingness for people to invest in finding out the truth or falsehood of an issue. That may occur for several reasons, the least of which is not that people may feel it doesn't matter what their opinion is believing wealthy controlling interests will have their way with the political system anyway.

I have discovered another reason that people do not take a wide range of issues seriously that involve change to more energy efficient and sustainable economics. It is that some people are simply crude and prefer to use the narrow interest reinforcing easy, and often dirty economic establishment that does not require change or adaptation. It is just better in that paradigm to disregard global warming, greenhouse gassing from fossil fuels and so forth and continue to take home a good paycheck from those businesses. It is also relevant to keep one's head down and not voice support for any sort of change from the financed establishment. Many people are just not that bright, through no fault of their own, don't feel they can change things and are glad enough to simply earn a living. Sometimes they will not invest time in researching abstract issues. Good leadership needs to find solutions without expecting majority support in some cases, when the majority are more focused on just personal and narrow self-interests.

There is the additional problem of the political institutions themselves being incapable of promulgating remedies to certain large scale challenges, especially when it requires political reform. Politicians are in government for a fairly brief time and individually may be out-powered realistically by the 1% of establishment wealth. Capitalism has degraded into corporatism today and reforming capitalism as it is applied within law would be far more difficult than reforming the Christian Church.

Now that I have got this little prolegomena to my essay out of the way, I can continue and answer the questions about the movie. Well, nearly. I should point out that the link to the movie didn't work for me. One can rent it however, or find an alternative link such as; 

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iMxMPdkcknM

The three assigned questions shouldn't be too difficult to answer; 

"How are seeds of doubt sown?"     

"Do political views play a role in when and why people take skeptical alternatives seriously? Pay special attention to how some libertarians in the documentary vigorously respond to data indicating climatological effects of human influences."

"How do you evaluate their response? Are they really reasoning critically? Or could one say, in this context as well, that they fall short in creative reasoning?"     

I should stipulate that I am naturally a little skeptical of many things especially after reading Sartre's Critique of Dialectical Reason. That tome describes the social reality and its machinations of interaction. One is observing that from an existential viewpoint with detachment intentionally. All of reality viewed as such is contingent and conditional. Doubt as temporality and phenomenality is an element of everything. Well thats good enough since epistemological certainty is really absolutely possible anyway. In the era of quantum uncertainty the point is easier to understand, yet one has working hypotheses and probability estimates about the complete complex of compresence.

Pro advocates and expert witnesses are not unfamiliar in jury trials especially involving large potential settlements and awards. The problems of sophists arguing in support of a position they were paid to support has been around for a while (2500 years). Television and other media allow for oceans of propaganda and false advertising for profit to occur. Not only tobacco and oil have put out some whoppers, so have labor unions through omission and commissions as well as the broadcast media generally.  Global warming remedies are not the only thing lacking from government- so is adequate taxation on the 1% that own most of everything. As far as mass political and media organizations go, one would need to be skeptical that any were very truthful or unbiased rather than the opposite. It is like Diogenes looking for an honest organization.

Maybe people expect smart leaders to lead to smart things and hope that government that cannot design economies except in planned totalitarian systems historically are not really the only people that can get it done concerning fixing global warming and the ecosphere. Too many average people want to believe the world eco-cornucopia is a limitless box full of good things forever.

Social organizations tend to have similar goals as do political movements insofar as they accomplish objects of desire for insiders versus outsiders. Modern politics packages too many issues together. Use-truths arise and corrupt worthy initial organizational goals. Global warming remedies may not be so important as the will-to-have-power of those pursuing remedies to it ostensibly.

There are many people that would accept global warming and the need to fix it yet would not vote for politicians that would work to correct it if that also means accepting a package of atheism, homosexual marriage, socialism and so forth. There may be few global warming remedy seekers that would be willing to vote for a politician who did not also support homosexual marriage, abortion, legal intoxicating drugs and so forth. Political issues are not addressed individually in politics always and that has unfortunate consequences. Voters must choose the lesser of evils, and much of the left-leaning global warming remedy seekers also desire promotion of the rest of a political agenda that would displace the established.

The economic changes required for a healthy ecosphere are not addressed at all by either major political party in the United States. The Green Party is inarticulate and virtually dead without even 1% support nationally. Ecological economic theory is not understood by most though it is part of  college curricula in many places. Forming a stable and enlightened body politic is nearly impossible with the left-supported surge of illegal migrants with little education or ecospheric conservation interest; they move to increase consumption.

Libertarians in the movie 'Merchants of Doubt' illogically associated Global Warming remedies with government regulation increases. Government could help find a remedy that is true yet nothing can substitute adequately for the will of smart, industrious and able business people with a will to lead to a sustainable and recovering ecosphere. Libertarians in the fil were dogmatic rather than creative or critical in reasoning.

Libertarians may regard the dangers of totalitarianism in the form of socialism as a grave danger yet have blinders on usually to the equal and similar dangers of corporatism and plutocracy in repressing individual development and expression. To reform government to a functional democratic condition and capitalism at the same time such that it limits the concentration of wealth, limits the size of corporations to 10,000 employees and number of corporations anyone may invest in at three, while providing better business terms for ecospherically efficient business is requisite for a sustainable planetary environment ecologically speaking. In a green economy where no individual may have more than a thousand times the wealth of the most poor member of society surplus wealth through taxation can be spent on restoring the ecosphere and other large public-interest projects such as space colonization.

Abogadao Takes a Green Road to Keep National Family Together Illegally (Not Really)

Sarah's friend is a Mexican lawyer (also known as an abogado in Mexican language) and former presidential candidate who was caught up in the cruel arrest and separate policy at the U.S. border. He was seeking political asylum with the gringo after running for the Presidency against his former wife, who won and sent the legal sicarros his way.

  I will use a pseudo-name for the former candidate in order not to embarrass his family. Obrador Rodriguez Zavala Antonio Cortes has some really excellent policies that would quickly end the drug gangs, fossil fuel extraction industry and illegal migration to del Norte.

Obrador is a loyal family man that would like to keep his nation together, provide solar lighting for every home and backpack and one day provide decent public education so every common kid can learn to speak Japanese fluently. When the sicarros arrested Oba and took him to his wife the President at her command, perfidious disloyalty emerged and the former couple were handcuffed together just like that.

Obi bribed the sicarros to take him and his wife to the border with their infant son Theodore. Dumped in the desert by gang coyotes they were quickly arrested and separated into Trump family separation centers and thus Oba could breathe a sigh of relief, being safe at last.

There was some contentious discussion about the separation. The President wanted her former husband's assets that were not recovered in her day in court. Rumor has it the funds she seeks were hidden in banks in the north.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/mexico-rebukes-u-s-over-policy-removing-immigrant-children-from-parents-1529432369

Does Separating Families at Border Discourage Illegal Immigration?

President Trump's policy of separating adult criminals leading their families illegally across the border into the United States may discourage families from attempting illegal entry into the U.S.A. I suppose one would need to view statistics on the policy after a few months to see if it is working.

The stats would tell many interesting facts about illegal aliens; are those willing to have their families separated more inclined to try criminal entry into a nation than those that consider family more important than money and choose to remain south of the border?

Without question minor children taking into federal custody should be put on a progressive and intensive educational program with computer learning modules while idling away the time waiting for their parent or parents to be adjudicated and returned south or given asylum. Democrat Party hysteria on the issue won't help.

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/editorials/compassion-and-rule-of-law-at-border-family-separation

Illegal alien law breakers should be given equal protection of the law with citizens. If citizen families that commit crimes together may be incarcerated together, so should illegal alien law breaking families (even the Cliintons if they had been convicted of anything).
image credit: U.S. Government

CHpt 2 On Liberty- JS Mills (my comments)

The end of chapter two concerns the ethics of the public debate in the marketplace of ideas.Mill's ideas about public debate; that it should be done without abuse and deceit, malignity and so forth, are in line with many principles of the Internet's chatrooms. Trolls and abusers can definitely shut down the rational exchange of ideas.

Today there is a surfeit of ideas. Alvin Toffler wrote about society having too many choices in 'Future Shock' (1972). There are so many ideas that individually they have less power to persuade or inform; most are never seen by even a tiny fraction of the populace. The most common, general, large ideas are known by many, yet those ideas too pass like rain clouds.

I must note that Mill's criticism of Christianity as an establishment social element is something like Tolstoy's. After the reformation people continued to criticize the ecclesia. In my opinion Mills entirely misunderstood John Calvin and reformation theology. The liberation of free thinking after the reformation is interesting to historically watch retrospectively.

Europe has had problems that stemmed from feudalism and church establishments and land holdings that Americans of the United States never did-it is like talking about the social history of Mars if such existed- and so the theological criticism from Mills and his generation are of a different nature than theology as an object of pure reason without land relations or royalty issues. Americans can be blind to that, though the abomination of royalty still exists in Europe here and there like some refuge of tyrannical Neanderthals.

The marketplace today is not more free than the Wall Street market; it is under the power of corporatism and financial power controls access. Words tend to be of a cetain monetary value and may be viewed as items in exchange theory. In 'the age of fracture' and subjectivism people tend to have opportunities to select commodities that are material and verbal, and produce far less individually. Ideas are promoted in the marketplace for their ability to return profit and social and financial power. Unpopular ideas, though good; those that won't profit the existing concentrated wealth best, are marginalized.