1/5/24

Social Castes and Concentration of 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.

1/4/24

Epictetus; a 2nd Century Stoic Existential Philosopher

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.

Fake 28th Amendment on Ecologically Sustainable Economy

 The Twenty-Eighth Amendment

Section One; Congress shall establish a basic income for all adult Americans in order to prevent homelessness and time wasting futility with loss of possessions while unemployed that shall be indexed to one quarter of the average annual national income to take effect when an individual’s income falls below one-quarter of the annual average income.


Section Two; With no Americans being destitute it shall be practical to begin restructuring the national economy to a modern ecologically sustainable basis. Incentives and guidelines for business opportunities shall be favored that add no or minimal harm to the environment. Tax incentives for ecological sustainability shall be created.

1/3/24

Ends and Means; No Justification↔Ends Justify Means

 It seems it’s all a discrete process rather than an objective means/ends fact. It occurs separately from the empirical world; that is means-ends are a neuro-ratiocination. One enacting a means-ends ratiocination would apply one’s own ethical valuation while others might be unaware that a means-ends ratiocination had even occurred and implemented. Negative impacts would be badly regarded by others victimized by actualization of the ratiocination.

Gravitational Extremism is the Worst

 

  Draws everything toward a singularity
severything interested in elsewhen
eigenvalues and gage symmetries
flipped fields forward with a Higgs
allegedly, after the strong force separated
from the electroweak disintegration
that Higgs and weak force paradox
typologies of strung together mass
until gravity brought them down
its irresistible force
original massless field
burgers flipped above grills
thinner air everywhere
taking them home
more than fields concentrated like ultra coffee
waiting to fly apart
unbalanced balance of scalar field extensions
space-time warped ineffable patterns
directed by a Spirit
in the know.

1/2/24

Aleme-Novenary; Chapters (a poem)


The novel, paradoxically
stands unwritten like a shadow now
a silent visage I’ll write somehow
the book would be a fait accompli
while snow does melt from frozen ground
chapters may bud from oblivion’s tree
tough to believe, yet I must see
one dozen chapters flow around
when the unknown grows with words in spring.

The Art of Time (poem)

 

  As an art
time structured itself
for natural quarks
with beauty marks
apples of the eye
give to death the lie
hope paints infinite breaths
giving time all the rest.

12/29/23

On the Proximal Source of the Higgs Field

 Some wonder about the Higgs Field that is said to give mass to all of the massless particles that it encounters (except for photons and neutrinos etc.?). I wondered where the Higgs field comes from and what powers it, if it continues to have energy go in to it, if it is subject to general relativity and sundry other questions the least of which was not 'does it continue to expand if the space-time of the Universe is expanding at an increasing pace.

Some of course say that the metrics of the mass of the Universe are changing instead of space actually increasing, because the idea is that since space is non-existence it cannot expand; it already must be everywhere infinitely except where there is mass, massless particles or fields present.

The Higgs field reportedly started existing early in the history of the big bang; some say just before inflation and some say after. The time was t ≃ 10−11 s, and the source of the energy for the Higgs Field was in the electroweak epoch when that force separated from the strong force in a symmetry breaking event.

There are some fairly exotic theories and explanations for the Higgs field. It became an low energy phenomena.

Vincent Hsu has a good, mildly technical account of the way gravity seperated first followed by the strong force from the electroweak force and how the electroweak yielded the Higgs Field

https://www.quora.com/Why-did-strong-force-split-away-from-weak-force-in-the-early-universe

It is all theory. Apparently the electroweak theory required particles to be massless and Hsu explains the Higgs field was developed theoretically as a way to allow particles to get mass.

Obviously there are myriad questions and points of view one may develop or encounter if one has some cosmology hobby time.

12/28/23

World Population Will Reach 8 Billion in a Day or Two

 The human population of earth is expected to reach 8 billion in a couple of days. There were 75 million more people born this year. If the new people are to have a fair chance to breath clean air, have global heating slow and get a chance to experience wilderness and a healthy population of wildlife politicians will need to get active on repairing the environment and eliminating automobile exhaust gases.

ttps://apnews.com/article/world-population-census-bureau-growth-b2a32ff77b9f3ae977c943014fe2b853

On the Original Name for Africa etc.

A popular(increasingly) name for ancient Africa is 'Alkebulan'- it means garden of Eden or something like that. Africa or African names are mentioned more than a thousand times in the Bible. Here is a scholarly article on the subject. http://www.scielo.org.za/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext...

It's an interesting topic, that is, the origin of names for what today is called Africa. The name Africa supposedly originated when the Romans named the land after a tribe-possible the Berbers, living in Tunisia who they called the Afri. So Afri-terra or land of the Afris. Apparently Alkebulan, used in the Koran, may have either an Arabic or African origin. It requires research. The word is increasingly popular yet it may be from an old Arabic word 'al-qalb' meaning 'heart or interior'. I would guess that several tribes had their own name for various regions locally. The Bible refers to Africa generally as Cush or Kush. Kush was 'the most powerful kingdom in the nile valley in 1750 BCE". That's pretty early. For a while the Kushites or Nubians ruled Egypt.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/melissakravitz/2022/01/04/harlem-and-london-are-getting-a-brand-new-african-food-hall-alkebulan/

Some Europeans took Biblical names to a certain extent rather than the reverse. The Bible hasn't got names like Swedenborg, Rasputin, McTavish or Stanislaw in it. The names were originally Hebrew and translated-sometimes crudely, into English. To be more correct one might use the Hebrew spelling instead of English. Christianity had a centralized origin geographically speaking in the era before the settling of the western hemisphere. It needed to be near enough to pagan Europe that missionaries could bring the word of God to the pagans lost in their primitive ways. It was a transitional catalyst in bridging the older, fading civilizations of the fertile crescent with the rising civilizations of the north. Africa and Israel are 422 miles apart. Europe was closer to being colonized by an African religion than vice versa. Islam is also from the Middle East not Africa. Jesus was taken to Africa for a while as a kid by his parents, as Barrack Obama was removed from Hawaii and raised in Indonesia.

Christianity has been in Africa since the first or early second century A.D. The disciple Mark is said to have taken the gospel to Alexandria. Coptic Christianity has existed in Africa since the year 55 A.D. and is one of the oldest Christian churches.

It is the case that economic colonization has occurred with other cultural elements simultaneously. It is wrong to conflate the causality and meaning of all issues with those of the primary power and political force though. Even in history one should follow the money to determine power. Land used to be nearly equivalent to money. before machines proliferated even human labor as slaves was of great value to the rich. Today maybe technology is the main creator of economic value as an equal with natural resources while human capital is decreasing in value. Lawyers will face tough competition for work with Artificial Intelligence one of these days I would guess.

Millions of Africans risk their lives to migrate to Europe because it has economic power that southerners desire to obtain. I am concerned that they do not get anything like a true Christianity from Europeans these days. Being a nominal Christian was a convenience for many and a necessity for others. Mankind is corrupt with original sin and there isn't a pure society where one may contemplate philosophically and critically spiritual concerns without pressure if one were so inclined. At some point the economic power of the ultra-rich draws many followers to their values that today is more of a decadence, soma and homosexual, trans-genderized, mono-sexual, atheist mileau rather than Christian. Not everyone is chosen to be a Christian; "all are called and few are chosen". If one is just outwardly Christian and not spiritually renewed with the Lord's grace it may not have effective eternal value.

I tried using microsoft's AI Chat for a search of the Koran and it found nothing. Yet it insists that it is the oldest name for Africa. I will quote it's answer to my question about Alkebulan- "The term “Alkebulan” is believed to come from the ancient Egyptian name “Alkebu-lan”, which means ‘mother of mankind’ or 'garden of Eden’1. It’s an ancient African word that has been used to describe the African continent for centuries1. The word “Alkebulan” is derived from the Arabic adverb “qabl” meaning “before”. “Al” is the definite article “the”, and the suffix “lan” denotes the plural form of the adverb. Thus, the Arabic word “Alkebulan” means “the ones before”, or simply “the indigenous people”2. It’s also interpreted from Arabic as the 'Land of Blacks’3. It’s considered to be the oldest name for the African continent, used by many African cultures, including the Berbers of North Africa1. It symbolizes a sense of pride and identity for many Africans1. However, the exact origins of the term are still unknown1.”

The age of colonization didn't start for about two thousand years after the start of the events in the Bible became recorded. AVRM (Abraham) lived in Ur circa 2000 B.C. before famously wandering to the site that today is Jerusalem. The age of colonization is said to have started circa 1500 with Portuguese in South Africa etc. Yet European people like the Carthaginians and other like the Phoenicians have lived on the North Shore of Africa for a very long time. So they and Alexander the Great's military might be said to have begun an earlier age of Euro-settlement in the region. The history is complex. You may know that the Septuagint version of the Bible- the Jewish Old Testament, was made by 72 Jewish scholars translating Hebrew to Greek in Alexandria Egypt. Jews also lived in Africa while slaves of Egypt. Moses- a Jewish prince of Egypt (the Pharaoh didn't know he was Jewish), led them out of Africa and to the land named Israel presently. One should lose the racism and simply learn history from zillion sources.


Capitalism is More Natural Than Socialism

 Capitalism is probably more natural than socialism although economically challenged people are probably happy enough if either works reason...