Biblical Scripture is Edifying

Scripture is edifying and enlightening. John Calvin wrote a paper on every book of the Bible except the Revelation and cited scripture in thousands of sermons. Sermons may be built around explaining what the biblos (little books) mean.

Romans 8-28 “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.”

I found a free on-line course from the Univ of Geneva on John Calvin. He was a founder of the reformed movement who lived a little before the King James version was published. The course is in French with English subtitles and is very informative.

https://www.coursera.org/learn/calvin

Calvin is a good roll model for Christian for his focus on scripture. One of the books he wrote was on the Gospel according to John. It is a brilliant work and is free to download as a pdf file here…

https://archive.org/details/commentaryongosp01calvuoft/page/20

Calvin writes that God’s language in the Bible is accommodating to human beings and has a pedagogical character too. It is rather surprising in being illuminating as it is. The course instructors point out that Calvin wrote before modernism or its reaction-fundamentalism- existed. He wasn’t compelled to choose what sort of way to interpret the Bible as might moderns.

I hadn't heard of that before. It wasn't created by John Calvin. The idea of duty not being requisite- a deontological inference perhaps scripturally based- to be saved through belief on Christ- gets a bit convoluted and drifts away from dogmatics (Barthian). Calvin got involved in the persecution and execution by the town council of one Spanish heretic named Servetus- he was burned at the stake. So it could be that some people have formed a generalized movement about the concept of hyper-Calvinism as something like inquisition-level beliefs. Servetus if I recall, was somewhat like the Arians in denying the trinity aspect of God. The political problems of Geneva in separating from the Duke of Savoy's power as well as that of the Catholic Church (the Smalcaldian war following Luther for example-illustrates the volatility of the era and challenge for scholars and reformers in taking true yet neutral lines if possible instead of being politically charged. Giordano Bruno was a student at Calvin's Academy in Geneva- that is irony and should show scientists that use Bruno as an example of persecution by Christians that there is more than meets the eye to history.

Calvin died of natural causes in bed at age 55 in Geneva. The town council of Geneva burned to death a Spaniard named Servetus, who was a free scholar rather than a representative member of the Catholic Church of the day. The triune character of God (the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit- three personalities of one true God- is/are Biblical. Numerous mentions of it can be found in the synoptic gospel. Constantine was Emperor of the Eastern Roman Empire and famously converted to Christ before a battle. He made Christianity the official state religion of the Eastern Empire. In a sense he was the secular founder of the Orthodox Church. There were later theological scuffles about about the trinity in that era assuredly, yet valid exegesis and reasoning made the facts plain as it was in the time when Christ said to his disciples.

John 14:9-11 King James Version (KJV)

“9 Jesus saith unto him, Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? he that hath seen me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou then, Show us the Father?

10 Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? the words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself: but the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works."

The Non-Sense Poem; 'Gall Four Naught'

Scrolls the drolls of differs swelths
clangs the bang of dingers shells
moonscape’s runeshapes gufflinks ‘nored
rise the hearties wit pinkles tells
ponc loik twangs of ever’d vessence
shingling sparlkles like tinker’s bells
swamprythin svarks oearn crocolyles mainge
gore four gorked theek bullet’s pained.

Foreign Trade Policy and Inflation

I am not an economist. Even so I will share some thoughts regarding inflation. Consider money supply. The 1% have a lot of money. More than 50 million Americans have less than one-half of one percent of the national income. The rich own the media, Wall Street and have appointees in the Federal Reserve, U.S. Treasury, Too Big to Fail Banks and the International Monetary Fund; they control money supply. Inflation can be generated whenever they deem it useful for political control or to influence political opinion. Their tight or easy money policies can increase or reduce inflation too (including domestic investment).

The Big Banks were loaned trillions at zero % interest after the 2008–9 derivatives and banking crash. For each dollar loaned to them and held they could loan out five electronic dollars created from nothing. In effect the big banks could electronically mint their own money by the trillions. The poor on the other hand, encounter prices with their 1/2 of 1% national income that fluctuate a little-really a very tiny fraction of the total national money supply, and the corporate owned media sensationalize that to spin it whatever way is required to gain the desired political control.

The political economy of uncreative citizens with a lot of money led by politicians that are uncreative too- and seek primarily to expand government to neo-socialism is ponderous. Without a physical commodity like gold to base the value of a dollar on, and the value of a dollar tied to physical capital infrastructure, production and good will, the role of foreign and domestic investment on the value of a dollar is substantial. It is worthwhile for those seeking to expand medicare for all to consider the problematic relation of the dollar to good will and expansion. Providing health service from the government directly to the nation’s poor through an expanded V.A. and Homeless care network would reduce its exposure to inflation by the trillions.

International investment and production policy matters tremendously concerning inflation. Consider the Tesla for example. Warren Buffet recently spoke critically of Tesla. Warren Buffet is invested in a Chinese electric car manufacturer; a rival. They will want to export Chinese electric cars to the United States (I believe one plans to do so next year). The cost of electric cars in the United States, and of Tesla in particular, will be impacted by the foreign trade and tariff policies of the United States and China. Elon Musk is incidentally building a very large Tesla factory in China- and I suppose the Chinese will want to own half, or 51% as they have required before a foreign corporation may establish in China.

Wal-mart claims to pay its employees 2x the national minimum wage of the United States while managers average $175,000 annually. One might buy canned corn sometimes for thirty cents.Poor Americans might buy some items cheaply and stretch their 1/2 of 1% far enough to live, while the prosperous and rich have more capital to buy into foreign nations and install profit making infrastructure. The rich get richer and the poor are more concerned about inflation in their little piece of the pie.

Plainly national and international policy including trade policies could be moderated in most circumstances for the rich to eat inflation rather than the poor. That’s just the way it is. Presently the poor are experiencing ecological inflationary policies too. The environment globally is paying for the rising cost by shrinkage. That is the environment pays the bill for unsustainable economic practice and can do so until it has had its ecobank reserves exhausted. Then the poor experience the ecological inflationary prices as toxic, crowded, over-heated, and paved.

What if the Global Economy Collapsed

There is not a single ecospherically sustainable economy on Earth so far as I know. Capitalism and communism too were built on expanding and exploiting limited natural resources. One million species presently are in danger of extinction because of human economic practices. I would guess that when the economy crash; really collapses such that it can’t be restarted, a couple of billion human lives will be lost.

I would be happier if there was at least one political party that understood what ecological economics is and tried to gradually transition the U.S. economy to that basis. One would want to keep free enterprise because of the creative leadership of individuals that simply doesn’t arise from bureaucracies or politicians. I have suggested that the House form some kind of permanent committee to study the problem of ecological economic transition nationally- it is much more than global warming remedies that are needed, yet so far no spark of interest has appeared with Democrats where it should.

In my opinion a mad scrambling for survival on a scale never before seen would happen if food supplies globally collapsed. A green new deal won’t transition the nation to ecological economics; it is focused on fixing just atmospheric heating from CO2 and is politically untenable.

With a possible limit to public debt- nearly a trillion annually goes to pay interest on the debt, there is a possibility of a catastrophic transition when investors flee abroad leaving the poor holding the bag on a defaulted economy. The Bubonic plagues of European history killed off 2/3rds of the population of that sub-continent. It is easy to imagine modern biological wars doing much worse after the global economic collapse.

To transition to an ecological economic foundation there would need to be regulations for favoring green synergy leading businesses. Environmental restoration would need public prioritization- perhaps people would need to have different zoning that would build hollow mountain ranges for people to live within while letting the wildlife recover outside. Electronic mass transit designed to go above and below ground. A limit on the amount of capital one could concentrate, a limit on the number of corporations one could invest in (3), a reduction of the term for patent exclusivity to three years with the inventor getting 10% royalties from any using the patent after it becomes public domain; there are innumerable changes required to make capitalism and free enterprise work to restore the world ecosphere so far as possible while advancing the quality of human life at the same time. That would not be easy, yet no party is really trying either.

It is necessary to defend freedom for humanity and individuals against the numerous totalitarian oppressors that will exploit economic or environmental collapse to try to force some kind of dictatorship over the masses-even a dictatorship of the proletariat would be onerous and offensive.

Unfortunately Democrats have taken the time of concern about the ecosphere to divide the people as much as they can. Some believe they would appreciate collapsing just the U.S. Government in order to impose the North American portion of global socialism under a planetary junta of communist-socialist leaders. Those people seem rather extreme.

Humans have Invented the Worst Weapons

I would think that the worst weapons ever created would be those that can destroy the Earth, or end its livability for human life. The present human economic structure would qualify in that regard, and second, maybe daft Democratic Party politicians. Third might be a device I read about in a newspaper a half century ago; the Cobalt Bomb. I have googled it to find a reference to it in the last decade and couldn’t find anything about it. It was said to be the size of a shoe-box and capable of destroying the atmosphere of Earth.

After that it would be using the hydrogen and oxygen of the world’s oceans as an explosive. Big bang with the right primer.

Gene recombinant weapons are very dangerous- a subtle change in the human structure could convert all human life into Democrats or worse if possible, as odd chimeras.

Lastly there would be smart-boulders hurled at the Earth from space- perhaps putting a small rocket or ion engine on an asteroid with an artificial intelligence guidance system directing its (or hundreds) course to impact the Earth at tens of thousands of miles per hour.

Deserving honorable mention are weaponized microwave devices to burn up life with a large water content (such as human) at a megacity scale, chemical weapons, nuclear bombs and television.

Democrats Were the Party of Slavery- Now It's Illegal Aliens

Southern Democrats owned about 4 million slaves when the civil war started. Republicans did not own slaves, the party was formed to combat slavery. That is, it formed in 1854 in opposition to expansion of slavery to western states.

Southern Democrats led the rebel way of succession so they could keep their slaves. Today they must settle for illegal aliens.

Southern Democrats - Wikipedia

After the war during reconstruction southern blacks were Republicans.

Human Business Model to Exterminate a Million Species

A U.N. study warned that one million species are threatened with extinction. That means fishing prospects aren't good in Alaska either.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/05/06/extinction-report-1-million-animals-plants-risk-uns-ipebs-says/1115842001/

Wrangell Alaska formerly was the location of the Alaska Pulp Corporation that cut a half billion feet of trees each year. It was a Japanese owned corporation that devastated Alaskan coastal forest old growth. Though it closed about 25 years ago, tourists are just now replacing the income a little with 60 cruise ships scheduled to make port calls this summer.

Humans in such vast numbers today- approaching 8 billion, wreak huge impact on the land and water as well as the atmosphere. It would be possible to have some fishing of quality for sports and subsistence fisherpersons for some time to come if the commercial catch was reduced at least to equal proportions with the other to sectors.

There actually is a fourth estate that wants a share of fish too- animals. Animals need fish to eat and to help keep the ecosphere alive. It is all cut of one cloth. It is just human economic structure virus killing off life instead of multiplying it. The Biblical admonition to be fruitful and multiply is applicable, quite likely, to the biosphere as well as just humans. Just humans in a godless shag carpet screwball empirical experience is more toward the yippee side of things than the responsible, sober and accountable.

Live Electron Rocket Launch, Hamas Rockets Target Civilians, Rockets for Peace and War

There is a video of a live rocket launch by Rocket Lab in about ten minutes...

Rockets are popular devices for lifting payloads. Rockets are useful for peace and war. State terrorism like the Hamas rocket attacks on Israel target civilians indiscriminately. That sort of K-Sam rocket isn't like a shoulder fired anti-tank rocket used by an individual soldier at close range upon enemy armor.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-48167234 Hamas rocket barrage on Israel

Ecosphere Decline Report From U.N. Due Tomorrow

A B.B.C. article summarized the grim yet well known findings that the world ecosphere is in serious decline due to Human Economic Structure virus (HES). Bad politics of Democrats and Republicans in the United States including invasive human species of non-citizens contribute to the destruction of wild ecospheric health. Some day that may become really serious, with deleterious consequences for Americans. As it is the destructive effect of 320 million Americans on the ecosphere is substantial.
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-48169783

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-48104037

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/indonesia-sinks-foreign-boats-illegal-fishing-vietnam-malaysia-china-a8899836.html

The Garden of Earthly Delights

Apocalypse Orchestra

Born from the void and still pristine
Tranquil, vast and cold
See the orb of blue and green
When he spake the light shone gold

Brought to life, in the image of god
In this holy place
settled amoung the creatures odd

Eve, dear girl, avert thy gaze

Claims to love them all
his world below
Minding not their fall
a mirthful show

Merriments in the centerpiece
Weird things in galore
Is this the cradle of the disease
that man alone must answer for?

Joy and delight, forever ceased
Sufferings abloom
Eaten alive by the cauldron beast
Let the drones ring to the sound of doom

Songwriters: Mikael Lindstrom / Erik Larsson

Free Yale-Coursera Courses on-Line

Here is a link for twenty five courses at Yale through coursera that are free, on-line. Each requires perhaps 3 or 4 hours a week to complete. Some have interesting stuff for anyone.

Coursera courses at Yale- Free

Does a Human Fetus Have Less Rights than a Dog?

Does a human fetus have less right than a dog to exist? There are laws against cruelty to animals yet a human fetus in most states has not even the right to exist. What kind of morality is that?

Having recently completed a free Yale course offering on everyday morality put on by a professor of moral psychology I wondered about the omission of abortion as a topic. Apparently morality is thought to have some resemblance to positive laws where good laws that have been decided are no longer controversial; that is they are res judicata. That is convenient for the left that would force bad policy into law from on high.

Morality has a Kantian aspect to it consistent with democracy where the categorical imperative of doing onto others as others should do unto you-only support laws that work universally (for everyone). Universal laws are determined electively in a social context. 

Morality is a balance of personal intersocial power abstracted to a Universal level. Moral norms become those that support individual and group continuity or existence. Circles of morality are those where the elective power of morality is recognized. Unenfranchised creatures aren't electors and are morally exploitable.

Slaves, women and children in past times of history had little or no elective power and were socially exploitable. Then they became enfranchised and exploitation decreased. They became part of the general moral circle. Children were brought into more so than the past and were given limited rights; even pets and dogs were accorded some legal protections because they were liked by enfranchised humans. The glaring omission from the circle of morality prevalent in the U.S.A. was human fetuses that continued to be aborted by the millions annually.

Human fetus' have the problem of being incommunicado and unable to vote or participate in circles of morality. One must think that human fetuses have as much intelligence at least as a puppy at some point in their pre-birth existence. If one could poll a fetus on its opinion about existing or not, it would be unlikely to agree that it wanted to perish.

So at some point in the not too distant future technology may make it possible to test the mental capacity of fetuses and determine if they are as smart as puppies, and even if they can be made to communicate opinions, or learn anything while interacting with experimental researchers wired in some way to communicate. Then perhaps, fetuses may be given some right to exist within the human moral circle prevalent in the United States.

Reincarnation-Catch Alternative, Purgatory and Salvation

I wrote this reply to a post in a course I am taking...

 The ideas in your post are interesting and informative. The 'just world theory' does tend to be a post hoc rationalization especially useful to those that are well-off compared to those in more challenging circumstances.

I have often thought that the theory that 'this is the best of all possible worlds' is wrong. I personally could envision innumerable ways that it might be made better. That is, to clarify, from a secular point of view rather than a metaphysical one.

The 'catch alternative' theory was interesting. I am a Christian and don't believe in reincarnation. The theory of 'catch alternative' is comparable though to the Catholic idea of purgatory where souls must labor to improve their character before being deemed worthy to enter heaven. It is a salvation by works paradigm that was deemed unworthy by protestant theologians first and later by catholic theologians too.

Reincarnation is a good paradigm for working off sin and for finding some just way to pay for bad worldly deeds and benefit from good conduct/actions. Christians have a different idea about finding a just world (reincarnation is a kind of metaphysical justice for the world paradigm)- fundamentally they stipulate that everyone has original sin (thermodynamics make humans consume mass to make energy for living and reproducing and that leads to adverse social relations). The world has people who are naturally wrong and cannot save themselves- God alone can save them as so that is why he sent His Son Jesus Christ to intervene. Those that believe Jesus is God and accept His atoning sacrifice will be found acceptable to God in eternal life.

Sin is a human condition. Those that follow Jesus try to be without sin. God sees Jesus' perfect life without sin in those that accept the Lord as their redeemer. God is perfect and those that would be with God for eternity must be perfect too. Only Jesus Christ could accomplish that, and he conveys his sinless nature to those that have faith in His salvation work. God sees the character of Christ for the saved when they die and go to eternity.

The U.S.A. has many atheists. People that are entirely worldly tend to chase after promotion and wealth. They tend to kiss the derriers of the powerful and richest in order to prosper. Politicians tend toward being shallow, superficial and self-serving. Sometimes they can be hired to work for the good of the people materially at least, and that isn't necessarily bad.

The Lord said that the meek shall inherit the Earth and that it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God. They are things to think about.

Mind-Matter Duality Reconsidered

People have common misunderstandings about mind/matter duality. Mind is different than lifeless matter, unless one was to stipulate with Leibnitz that 1-dimensional monads form the core of subatomic material existence and they are made of spirit.

I wonder if people would argue against the ability of A.I. to generate questions or sub-routines for-itself and to make 'free-will' choices with its new constructs? Free will might be modeled  within an initially  deterministic A.I. paradigm. To controvert Prof Bloom's defense of reason and free will in his article, one might also want to controvert the capacity for A.I. to write its own code and act on its self-written new code. The biomechanics of the A.I. programming might be said to be in the initial program written by a human programmer.

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/03/the-war-on-reason/357561/

Spirit as the foundation of matter-as if zero-dimensional points and one-dimensional strings of M-Theory, embedded in a meta-field phenomenal existence like decohered virtual particles were criterion problems, is challenging to appreciate. Humans regard mass and energy from the inside as it were; like fish made of water swimming in an ocean of water wondering reflectively if their thoughts are made of something besides water or if thought is a different substance than water. So one might arrive at the questions; can water think for itself without sentient being as fish-for-themselves? Can a knower know without existing (perhaps relying on the sentient ocean to think-for-others and for-oneself?

I believe one might distill the question of how and where sentience exists within or without the water-column and find the answer to be within structure. Structure gives rise to sentience. Form of mass and energy is qualitatively different that the components of elements. That is easy to see at the molecular level in relation to atoms and in the assembly of complex machines from kits with and without instruction pamphlets.

A Nobel prize winner; Robert Laughlin, wrote a good book on materials physics titled Reinventing Physics from the Bottom Down https://www.amazon.com/Different-Universe-Reinventing-Physics-Bottom/dp/0465038298 the book relates some of the ideas about qualitative states of matter and form comprising significant differences.

I should point out here to the fallacy regarding God that His existence is contingent being, contingent upon severability of mind from matter. There are numerous problems with that idea not the least of which is ideas about what matter or energy is or are. Besides, a soul in my opinion is the information God has about what a human is; a record of his life, and address of each particle comprising the form of beings etc. God can recreate that soul from dust if He prefers to. The soul might be said to be information. God hasn't data-loss issues.

In my opinion God would have a far more subtle math (actually foreknowing all answers to any equation making calculations superfluous) regarding data mapping a soul than phase space maps of Hilbert Space information. Wiki has an article on phase space- "Expectation values in phase-space quantization are obtained isomorphically to tracing operator observables with the density matrix in Hilbert space: they are obtained by phase-space integrals of observables, with the Wigner quasi-probability distribution effectively serving as a measure." 

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phase_space

Matter is a condition of flux from a primordial field. There is information available about photons as carriers of electro-magnetic field, and how there actually are two kinds of photons; those that do not interact and those that do at short range breaking into virtual particles, electrons etc. Photons are emergent characteristics of a form of energy and the entire field behavior of photons is a metaphor for gravity and gravitons perhaps including dark energy.

Max Tegmark of M.I.T. has described a Universe or Multiverse with a foundation of pure mathematics; literally. The quanta or point has form that becomes the Universe as a context of relations. Yet the entire Multiverse complexity from the shape or form of Multi-dimensional matrices is itself a field perhaps in spirit. Sprit (of God) generating a Universe in some mysterious way was described by a neo-Platonist philosopher named Plotinus in 54 little tractates known as The Enneads.

I wanted to note that healthy minds have free will. Use reductio ad absurdam and contemplate that no one has free will to make choices and getting to work, stopping at Starbucks or not, making decisions concerning work etc and are all done automatically without free will. It gets rather silly to consider. Not all humans are healthy of course; all prisoners or people being put on felony trial should have free Magnetic Resonance brains cans and blood tests (if they aren't harmful) to inform courts of the health of the accused. Impaired free will may allow elements of determinism to enter. It is not an either/or.

 Determinism would occur where a finite, Newtonian mechanical system could account for all of the behavioral conditions of matter within a given environment. Experimentalists as is well known are a meta-factor corrupting the finite experimental condition, yet one may use thought experiments such as with mathematics and do so without corruption; maybe. There are always the problems of uncertainty and experimentalist bias existing even within thought experiments regarding math that influence results. That is easily demonstrated on math exams.

With Bishop Berkeley one might develop a bias toward the opinion that everything is idea and that mind determines matter; even if it is the mind of God, and that mass and energy are made at the smallest level of spirit; a field spirit, that allows relationships and differentiated forms to arise that have the quality of solid being in a steady state field decohered from the realm of quantum uncertainty whereat all possible positions of particles exist simultaneously as if they were in a great spiritual field calculating engine that a spirit-actuator set to utility.

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'.