Veganism Experienced Inflated Food Prices Too

Apparently there are two major branches of veganism; dietary and ethical. The first is for health and the latter to stop cruelty to animals. I found a web site where they explain their outlook on that, that I will post.

It can be expensive to be vegan though. Fresh fruit and vegetables can be costly for the poor. One needs a refrigerator and range for food storage and prep- even running water to remove residue chemicals and germs from.handlers.

Steak can be costly too. Some need just to find affordable food like Bologna and cheese or even tacos made from beef.

The Impossible Whopper at Burger King is good enough yet all that transport and farming can cause environmental harm to wildlife as well. It can destroy habitat and make the animals homeless. Thank goodness for All Saints day when even armadillos may feel free and safe for a few hours.

https://www.vegansociety.com/news/blog/foundations-ethical-veganism

On the First Democracy

The first modern Republic occurred in Holland led by the Dewitt brothers who were eventually torn apart by a mob of political opponents in favor of a return to royal rule.  Locke, Hume, John Stewart Mill and even Aristotle seemed to favor democracy in some form; they did not excoriate it.

The Roman Republic was created in 509 BC.  It actualized some of the shape of the Republic Plato wrote about. Rome had two consoles and The Republic had two philosopher-kings. Plato wrote The Republic circa 375 BC. Socrates wanted a restoration of oligharchy and  Rome may have provided and abstract template to synthesize with a Spartan social structure. Rome's Republic was more like a democracy than Plato might have liked.

   American founders of democracy were in revolt against authoritarianism and social class supremacy; those were perennial challenges for the polis in needing to get rid of royalty.

Nature Gets Rid of "Things That Do Not Work"?

Nihilism only takes the broken and 'non-working'? Things that exist necessarily work, even corruption? Forever evolving is a natural selection removing just things that don't work from existence? Plate tectonics is getting rid of the Pacific Ocean because it doesn't work and expanding the Atlantic because it does?

The Twin Towers didn't work so nature removed them? Cities destroyed in war didn't work? Peace doesn't work so wars end the terrible decay. Planets shattered by asteroid collisions didn't work, and stars that blast as supernovas just cleanse a galactic parsec of things that don't work? At least Pacific Palisades homes burned in the wildfires were known not to have worked? 

Destruction is recognized by some as creative cleansing. At Auschwitz the gas chambers were for those that did not work as well? German guards walked in under the sign that said 'Work makes you free'. They saw improvement in destroying things that do not work as if they were abortionists ridding the world of fetuses that do not work.

So many things exist and change form, like mountains that became beach sand. Every change and process of being is part of a continuum. Humans alone can choose to work against entropy and for a time prevent destruction. 'Do not go gently into that good night  Rage against the dying of the light' (Dylan Thomas).

Wisdom

Wisdom could be said to be understanding social behavior and development of an ability to understand human behavioral characteristics. It is also knowledge of the natural world and man's place in nature.

There are innumerable specialized applications of an appellation of wisdom to a guru of computer science, an understanding of weather, and a thousand area of expertise that merit the term 'wise'. The book of Proverbs is about wisdom. Solomon wrote it- reputably the most wise man to have ever lived. He concluded that all is vanity. God said that what is wisdom to man is foolishness to God. Perhaps for a reason like that Paul said that he would know nothing among his brethren except Jesus Christ, crucified.

The Problem With N.A.T.O.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Writing and the Point of No Return

I read somewhere that one should always finish what one starts if it was worth doing to start with. Just put your head down and ride into the wind coefficient of adversity typing late through the night until dawn's early light at the last line of the final chapter.

One may experience doubt taking a skiff into rising difficult water. When the point of no return arrives one need put away doubt and focus on the task.

The West and Russia Need to Share Ukraine

Germans and Poles have fought with Russia over Ukraine for hundreds of years. For most of history Ukraine was Russian. Communist revolutionaries are the middle term that Democrats believe makes Ukraine not Russian. They are wrong about that. Sharing Ukraine with the west is a good deal for the west. Crimea though is Russia's Florida. Any intelligent human and maybe some chimps would know Russia would never give it up.

AI Hasn't Self-Awareness

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

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

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

Manufacture Water to Put Out Calf Future Fires

Cutting enviro protection is wrong. More water needs to be manufactured by desalinating salt water. A trans-continental border security canal system filled with saltwater could evaporate under the sun and freshwater collected from a gabled roof capture structure. Salt water pumped to the Continental divide would flow east and west. Intelligence needs to be applied to maximize cost effectiveness.

I have written about desalinating water in a border canal for at least 20 years. Soon the federal government will declare a disaster and give billions to rebuild homes of California millionaires. With manufactured water from a border desalinating canal the lack of water could have been avoided 

Philosophy and Religion Share Some Data and Form

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

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

Inner Peace with Self-Acceptance for Slobs?

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

A season of discontent can be edifying.

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

Writing Fiction- A Method

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tax Cuts for the Rich Instead of Border Security?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Concerning Evidence for the Existence of God

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A Reply to "Why are White People Good at Everything"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

There is additionally the criterion of values. Were the values of Diogenes the Cynic more like those of Bill Gates or Lao Tzu. I would really hate to live in a jungle in a primitive condition being ate by mosquitoes. Overcoming some of those challenges required biology at a level barely reached today- not a thousand years ago.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Conservation of Meaning

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

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

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

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

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