The Happiness of Stereotypes and Social Epistemology

 Perhaps academia finds happiness in deconstructing stereotypes. In an age of automatic transmissions and self-driving cars it is a noble effort. Disambiguating the several meanings of the term stereotype in order to be referencing a similar meaning probably is worthwhile generally. I suppose Professor Bloom sees a linear growth of subjective and collective social epistemology because of his work in cognitive progress for infants to adults. Professor Bloom took up some very old philosophical studies regarding words and objects reference relations and lightly went over the way percepts are categorized and compared to other concepts for purpose of classification, labeling and so forth. At some point that process gives rise to explicit and implicit stereotypes or stored judgments in mind. I am not content to let the notion go unchallenged at least without making a couple of remarks about the use of the word as a pejorative use-truth that presumptively need be corrected.

Human minds are not quite computers with stored data from sensory input. Yet human thought does give the ability to form clusters of associated percepts and form meaningful neural pathways and iterations among them, without arbitrary limits. Stereotypes are incomplete information in a world experience of incomplete information. would point out the usefulness of stereotypes for sailors in dealing with weather and coastal phenomena regarding rocks, sand. fogs and so forth that allows one to evaluate partial information and make a judgment regarding a stereotype recurring in real time. Even such stereotypes or information regarding the draw down of water on a beach might give one time to flee from an approaching tsunami.

Logic structures regarding though classification from percepts and abstract data from studies provide a data base for individuals from which they may form opinions. Opinions different from true knowledge as Socrates pointed out so long ago, yet opinions are often the best one has. Incompleteness theorems abound in human experience because of temporal decay of any complete complex of compresence. Past, present and future along with position are never still. Accurate sorting and classifying of data regarding input with speed allows one to win at blitz chess and comprehend given worldly circumstances as they occur. Sterotypical patterns of behavior, presentation, or meaning of objects where they occur are useful tools for addressing empirical challenges.

It might not be too scientific to place moral values with economic values and cognitive or implicit epistemological mind construction patterns and neural virtual wiring. For me, moral questions should be something else. The concern about stereotypes psychologically speaking might rightly be considered as learning and epistemological concerns instead of morality.

Perhaps psychology has reacted differently to words and objects (W.V.O. Quine) differently than some philosophers in the post Two Dogmas of Empiricism era of linguistic philosophy regarding meanings, language and how they relate to 'objects'. Philosophers realize that words and objects are constructions rather than things in-themselves, although there are consistent patterns of physical interpretation of sensory input from the heterodox physical field that we regard as the quantum Universe field.

Stanford's Encyclopedia of Philosophy has an interesting article on social epistemology. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/epistemology-social/

Social epistemology is different than individual subjective epistemology (it is more modern anyway). Some words and meaning values are socially defined- at least the lexicon of a group is from a social context. I just wanted to point out than anyone can use some practice on improving their personal epistemological tools. Stereotypes are a kind of higher level programming language of phrases that an be very useful when not incorrect. They may also be upgraded with better knowledge. Dumbing things down isn't necessarily the best option.

Epistemological limits to what anyone knows about anything including themselves should prompt some self-skepticism regarding the capacity for certainty about anything. Yet one should be able to have something like a 90% probability of accuracy, at least, in having opinions about ordinary matters of experience. Inaccuracy, falsehoods and so forth can be deceptive for-oneself as well as for-others.

I think its wrong to conflate cognitive associative tendencies regarding interpretation of sensed, input semiotic objects/patterns with morals and economic questions of value. People choose choose things on the basis of value to-themselves rather than making choices solely because of archetypal or stereotyped prioritization.

A Sketch of Historical American Population Discovery and Dispersion

The majority of Eurasians settling the Americas arrived via Sibir-Berengia-Alaska. Recent discoveries of human footprints in Chile were dated circa 13,500 b.c. There were two basic theories of human dispersion from Berengia (Bering Sea walkover area when sea level was lower). One was the coastal route and the other via the interior after glaciers receded at the end of the Wisconsin opening the way past Watson Lake, toward the Peace and Frazier Rivers and points south. The coastal route would have allowed faster transit to South America (the Pacific coast).

There was a late settlement by Dorsett Eskimos with dogsleds that were the jet fighters of the day. It took them only 200 years along the Arctic shore to cross from Bering Strait to Greenland. They arrived about the same time at Greenland as the Vikings and Viking Settlements at East Bygd and West Bygd.

Some Eurasians travelling the interior route travelled down the Stikine River to settle the coast too. The Eurasians had more genetic similarity to Caucasians than Africans. They were mixed races that arrived in different waves.

Scientists have discovered the oldest human footprint ever seen in the Americas
https://www.realclearscience.com/blog/2018/04/17/six_of_the_oldest_human_remains_found_in_the_us.html

There were other people that arrived from Western Europe, across the Pacific, and there is a possibility that some Mediterranean people arrived via boats that were caught in the Gulf Stream with the sailors being cast like lifeboat survivors on a sea voyage. Most of the small groups that made it to America were lost to history. What remains in history are the large, more numerous groups.


The Hai da of the Canadian coastal islands were boating people. Some believe they crossed the Pacific. Hai in Chinese language means ocean (like Shang hai). maybe they and others (Aleuts?) paddled along the Eastern littoral of Eurasia to Alaska and points south.

People like the Vikings arrived and made a lasting record of their presence. Farley Mowatt wrote a book named ‘The Farfarers; Before the Norse’ that describes a historical theory of Vikings following an earlier darker, shorter Mediterranean people to America plundering their camps on the way.
The Farfarers: Before the Norse: Farley Mowat: 9781883642563: Online Shopping for Electronics, Apparel, Computers, Books, DVDs & more: Books

It is possible that the Irish reached America before the Vikings by a couple hundred years. They may have crossed the continent and continued on to Hokkaido with their light skin boats facilitating trekking.

Interesting inferences may be made about some Viking or Irish influence on certain indigenous structural developments in the upper Midwest. Cahokia’s rise may have been precipitated by some exogenous leadership from European travelers, and a darker side; in North Dakota, has evidence of the first and possibly only stone defense wall around an indigenous village, in North America. There was evidence of a battle at the wall with skeletal remains from the conflict. Europeans and Middle Eastern people used defense walls for thousands of years.

Cahokia - Wikipedia

Cahokia was the center of a true pre-Columbian civilization that reached to Mississippi the Carolinas and beyond.

Another pre-Columbian civilization was a tremendous construction in Amazonia that disappeared into the jungle just a few years after first contact. The biological isolation made the civilization vulnerable to disease from the first Spanish explorers.

Alex Jones Banned From Another Corporate Site

Facebook banned Alex Jones confirming again the policy of corporatism to allow free speech until one says anything corporatists don't want said.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-facebook-extremists-usa/facebook-bans-alex-jones-other-extremist-figures-idUSKCN1S82D7

Jones is an entertaining figure with useful things to say about the corporatist state of political control. The deep state needed to silence its best critic.

Are Moral Questions Really Economic Questions?

I am somewhat unhappy with the association of morality with economics. It seems somewhat primitive to base moral question on economic questions regarding allocation of resources. It seems that Wright's exchange theory of non-zero sum relations is the preferred alternative for the 1% so that's the way moral psychologists line up as sycophants.

Maybe that is a bit harsh. It does seem that Ayn Rand's theory of objective value is regaining popularity now, and that says something for Allan Greenspan, the Austrian School of Economics and others that might consider moral philosophy to be informed by economics and vice versa. It’s a nice materialist paradigm said with Marx’s objective theory of labor value to compare favorably to Rand's objective theory of value. Crank realist-empiricists can all be happy together with neo-objectivism. Can that be worse than supply--side economics or supply-side morality?

Her theory of value apparently is based on needs for survival like water being objectively valuable. For humans though moral questions should run deeper intellectually than biophysical requisites for existence. Ecological economics textbooks today tend to have objective theories of value for empirical, natural resources, yet though natural ecosystem sustainability have objective value within Rand's paradigm and that of science it is challenging to say that Wall Street has objective values concerning the ecosphere of the world such that restoring it is of the highest value and a new yacht is of far lower value to investors.

https://newideal.aynrand.org/ayn-rand-on-economics-how-capitalism-hinges-on-philosophy/

https://www.theobjectivestandard.com/2014/06/economists-subjective-value-ayn-rands-objective-value-reconciled/

From my point of view value theory is entirely subjective. That is human beings determine what of the world is valuable, and that is a matter of education. If the well being of others was the highest value and the heart of a social value system; altruism, then it would seem that all the other issues would be resolved with good faith and determination.

Of course one would have the problem of determining what is good, yet that may be simpler than determining what the prime lending rate should be to control inflation yet increase employment expansion though the ecosphere is being degraded from over-use.

The problem of morality at a distance runs into logic question right away. One cannot verify the need for or the effect of intervention in helping someone at a distance instead of up close. One may not be happy or trusting about giving $10 to some African relief organization as questions about what really happens to the money arise. I think though that if one could actually identify a particular individual in Africa that ten dollars would actually directly benefit meaningfully then far more people would intervene with a contribution.

How can one rescue a drowning swimmer thousands of miles away- fly like superman or teleport? Really, such questions are not practical and practical reason matters.

Language and Race Experimental Test Questions

I also wondered about the validity of experimental tests results for race and language. That is, group inclusion may have deeper or more philosophical elements. Mere association and identity with a group through superficial habituated biases aren't sufficient to account for  language preference.

One I traveled to Dublin Ireland and needed directions to a spot I was searching for with a rental car. I saw a policeman and asked him for directions. He gave me a very lengthy and complex set of directions- more than I would usually get from a stranger, and I followed them.

I wasn't from Europe and Irish accents even so are not as unusual as some Brit accents to understand. I drove right to the location as if I had recorded program code I could use with 100% recall.

Everett and Chomsky had different ideas about the origin of language. Regardless, it is easier to understand people with similar cultural history for language; the syntax and semantics are deeply structured or imprinted in mind.

So one may return to Sartre's tome The Critique of Dialectical Reason wherein he explains at great length how people collectively interact in a social environment each individual from his own point of view in it. Groups are like individuated social dialectical phenomena in-themselves. To understand the group and the language lexicon of the group-even nominal groups where the group symbol is the color of a shirt for example that is also the sole group identifier, is to find meaning.

Individuals find meaningfulness and coherence preferable to meaninglessness, and that is wrapped up in language. How deep the language structures go innately, and even inherently at least with language-brain capacity tailored to eco-social system challenges, is difficult to say.

Reduction of World Violence With Rise of Absolute State Power

Pinker and Wright seem to indicate that an interpretation of social history finding that violence is diminished in the presence of absolutist state power is a consequence of the inability of individuals to get away with murder, etc, and further, that trade and communications progress create a non-zero sum relationship that is reason enough not to club one's trading partner to death.

Democratic party leaders seem to care more about Latin American citizens, Africans, Chinese  and anyone else on Earth (except Russians) over citizens of the United States. The Democrat Party is regarded by many U.S. citizens as pursuing zero-sum strategies with a world of illegal aliens seeking to migrate illegally to the United States. Democrats say that America is a nation of immigrants so its o.k. to be here illegally. Several 2020 presidential candidates advocate lax border security or open borders, though opposite political opinion is that illegal immigrants hurt citizen economic and physical security and, alternatively, that the nation already has 320 million people and won't be improved with the addition of tens or hundreds of millions more. 

Democrats might reply that the environment will benefit with forests conserved, pollution reduced, and housing cheaper with a hundred million illegal immigrants each willing to raise five kids per family if they can only fulfill their dream of paying taxes. Environmentalists might be skeptics regarding the value to helping restore ecospheric decay tens or hundreds of millions of illegal aliens would bring. Would it be easier to solve ecospheric restoration challenges with a population of 500 million than 320 million?

Violence in the world may be reduced with the ubiquitous Orwellian state electronic surveillance and tracking presence made possible with smart phones, tracking chips, cameras, rft devices etc. Yet reduced as well would be the opportunity for political dissent as corporatism forces their will upon the world. Those violating corporate polices will be fired, marginalized and made to count pine needles in remote Canadian provinces.

Fundamentally the new morality is not so new. It is the modern Sodom and Gomorrah ethical ideal of universal conformity and familiarity under a benevolent dictatorship of the proletariat. It should be possible to keep the peace without institutionalizing the mindless violence of repressive state socialist-elitist rule by decree which is an opportunistic expropriator of  a fortuitous historical development of the social dialectic.

My Video on Deistic Evolution

I read a passage of about six and a half minutes on evolution theory and artificial intelligence from my novel 'Pieces of Eight'.

Democrats Invented the Politics of Fear?

I wasn’t aware of Democrat voters as reactionaries in fear. I did read about Senator Wyden speaking to college students in Oregon telling them ‘not to be afraid.’ I wondered then what kind of college students they are raising in America these days that need to be hugged and counseled not to fear because a Republican was elected to office.

That seemed rather pathetic. Democrats are themselves something to be fearful of if fear is a reasonable response to danger. Democrats are oppressors; not liberators. While the Constitution did provide a paradigm for the gradual social equalization of human and civil legal protections, Democrats have a profound tendency to simply use the law to repress people that naturally fare better economically than their members do, for they are a party of repression of those that aren’t natural Democrats.

Ideas are what are important. Democrats have moved toward identity in race and godless atheism, gender and sexual perversion or lack of to define their membership class. Apparently Democrats would like to live in a dream world without sharp objects or bright colors suitably muted as to flow like an amniotic medium. If Democrats are afraid, buy a gun.

Democrats ought to go for real politics with secure borders so the nation can exist without continuous strife, reformation of capitalism that would task it with regulations and incentives to the purpose of effecting ecospheric recovery and reduction of U.S. public debt. Porous borders are like a leaky bucket; if one pours the water of good policies into it they will just flow through into the desert sand. 

It is ironic that with the past century of support from the white male class in government toward social equalization of all American citizens it is the Democrat Party that works to destroy the United States and to end the constitution based freedom for individual economic self-determination with socialism. A basic trust in the constitution and the spirit of God is lacking from the Democratic Party. Patience and good sense are required to get legislation through such as prison reform. That issue alone is terribly complex to move through political economy structures. Democrats cannot get things done faster by following demagogues appealing to better angels in a party of atheists.

Democrats should stop trying to divide Americans. They should support a few plain and honest political goals that might reasonably be accomplished within a couple of presidential terms that most Americans could get on board with. They also should have practical ways to pay for those policies.

Rhetoric for Democrats often is used to fill in for their failure to have good ideas.

Democrats are the Tax Predator Party

Democrats are all about victimizing Americans. They have a plain identity profile for people that aren't natural Democrat party members and when they can, victimize them.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2019/05/01/hillary-clinton-democrats-china-donald-trumps-tax-returns/3647913002/

What right have democrats to try to force the President to publish his tax returns and throw his business methods as a free enterpriser entirely to the open? If they believe the President listed payments from the Russian government on his tax returns the Mueller Investigation couldn't discover elsewhere that would be the only valid reason. If Robert Mueller's team did not peruse the tax returns if might be reasonable that some neutral party could privately comb through it for the smoking rubles that would very improbably be located therein.

Hillary Clinton has asked the Chinese government to go after the President's tax returns. When the Clinton administration gave nuke technology to China they apparently made some friends there. Advancing socialism is a Democratic goal because it gets rid of democracy and the constitutional parameters created by a class the Democrat Party hates; strait white men.

https://capitalresearch.org/article/flashback-bill-clinton-gave-china-missile-technology/

http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/1997/10/29/china.summit/

Democrats use socialism as a lever to empower themselves. They seek to be more than equal through the power of government. They never fail to victimize Americans whenever they get the chance.

It is ironic that the Democrat Party also is one with anti-Semitism within its members. Some blacks and Muslims just don't have the best interests of Israel in mind. And then there is Bernie Sanders.

Former Senator Sanders is Jewish and pro-socialist. Socialism is a softer dictatorship of the proletariat sort of thing. Why Mr. Sanders seems unaware of the history of Jewish leadership in the revolutionary movement toward the end of the First World War that levered the end of the government to bring in the Weimar Republic and all that followed is unknown to me. Jewish socialist leadership in that German revolution enabled the rise of Adolph Hitler. Hitler's beer hall speech was the same Munich beer hall that a Jewish socialist leader had begun the movement against German aristocrats to end the war.

There are political actors that would foment strife within the United States for the benefit of external parties. Sanders has blundered into providing fuel for some of the gullible dummies that sympathize with Nazi socialists. Maybe a neo-Hitler will even arise from within the Democrat party.

While I support Israel and appreciate Jewish contributions to the United States, Mr. Sander’s failure to recognize too many similarities of history repeating itself in a diluted form is plainly not helpful to the United States or Israel, especially while the Venezuelan socialist tyrant Maduro is actively repressing the masses with Chinese, Cuban and Russian assistance.

The Democrat party is quite untrustworthy for Americans these days. They are a party of socialist treason globally with porous borders and paradoxically rising with concentrated wealth Democrat leaders aspire to be part of.

Bernie Sanders should have transitioned from pro-socialism to pro-reform of capitalism and free enterprise tying it into ecospheric restoration. Within a free-enterprise, non-socialist political economy the United States may continue to flourish and serve simultaneously as world leaders in ecological economics. Being a died-in-the-wool Jewish socialist is almost a caricature of things past and emblematic of the globalist lunacy of the Democrat party.

Defeating Malthusian Problems With Determination, Intelligence and the Willl of God

Man does not live by bread alone; he needs a healthy ecosphere too, as well as spiritual liberty. Some ecologists have said the carrying capacity of the Earth is two billion people. Yet there is no reason to panic immediately (save that for later). Human prospects are limited by their lack of good sense, foresight and engineering rather than necessity. Malthus regarded people as one might regard bacterial growth in a Petri dish that exhausts its food supply. Hopefully people are a little smarter than bacteria and can do better at sustaining their existence and ecosphere-medium culture.

It would be possible to convert the Earth into an ecosphere park for humanity. Humanity would live mostly off-world in space constructs. Inorganic material could be harvested from other planets and moons for industrial purposes. Projects to build vast new ecospheres in various solar system niches could go ahead. Imagination and determination is all that is lacking.

In the meantime as much of the Earth that can be restored to ecospheric health as possible should be attempted. Because pragmatic scientists like James Lovelock have said that the Earth may tolerate human economic development in its present form just another century or two before breaking down (from a human life sustainability point of view), it might be good to limit new city development to forms that would survive ecospheric breakdown better than steel-glass box cities. Humans could build artificial mountain ranges and develop a pollution free electric transportation infrastructure with clean energy. Wildlife could be tagged and tracked so large mammals could return to wander freely. Even so, if global atmospheric and oceanic heating crashes world agriculture human survival might fare better within temperature-controlled hollow mountain ranges.

Agriculture on places like the moon should be productive. In low gravity one would expect vegetables to grow 600% to 1800% larger than on Earth. In zero gravity there may be no real size limit to vegetable growth…maybe potatoes could grow the size of domed football stadiums. Sealed growing micro-ecospheres would recycle and conserve water on Earth and in space. Space products could be grown, dehydrated and sent to Earth with the water mostly remaining at the source.

Ecological economic policies will be requisite throughout the solar system in the centuries ahead (and sooner hopefully). The primitive unsustainable and wasteful historical ways just won’t work on a tight environmental budget.

Humanity need apply reason, knowledge and common sense to solve the worlds’ problems to its survival. The problems are within us rather than in the stars.