Social Trophic Order

Agree or disagree; Electronics and machines supporting social networking, racketeering command and control is the gist of modern society. Philosophical questions of pros seem to be about trophic order (dinner place settings) in support of the quest for comfort civilization. A casualty of the human comfort prime directive society is the ecosphere. The pool and SUV have far higher priority than the lynx, cougar and forest.

Socrates said that failure at being virtuous was bad, and putting an innocent man to death was worse than dying oneself. Plato was a student-apprentice of Socrates acting like a scribe recording what Socrates said in the brilliant dialogues. Plato was quite a good writer. From The Apology page 41 "But you also, judges, must regard death hopefully and must bear in mind this one truth, [41d] that no evil can come to a good man either in life or after death, and God does not neglect him." Since Socrates was on trial for his life (or permanent exile) the statement was especially pithy.

Faith vs Assumption

An assumption is an unverified classification made with inference from similar cases/instances. Faith is nothing like assumption. Faith may be construed to be trust, yet faith may arise from any number of causes with none being an inference. Faith may be trust in witness accounts, and faith may occur outside a religious context obviously. An example would be faith that the world economy won't collapse because President Trump is good at business. An assumption might be that if the U.S. economy has a recession it would recover in due time because it always has. One could assume that any Democrat Presidential candidate would support some illegal drugs being made legal, abortion, homosexuality and illegal immigration, is cold to Christian fundamentalists etc, yet have faith that eventually a right-thinking Republican could be elected to right a few wrongs. One could assume that any given Democrat presidential nominee would want to add trillions to public debt, eliminate private gun ownership and would tailor environmentalism and environmental remediation to appeal to socialists because it has a large element of the commons to it. One might assume that some Republican candidates and President Trump would disregard the harm fossil fuel burning causes to the atmosphere, yet have faith that in some way an environmental economist would run for and be elected to office in time to curtail planetary mass extinction while there are a few rhinos, tigers and Kodiak bears remaining alive. One can assume candidates from both parties increase the concentration of wealth. A run-of-the-mill assumption can be made easily about future events- Faith requires more than that.

If most ideas were a form of propositional or syllogistic logic it would be easy to say that the premises of faith were verified when the conclusion verified the premises. If one has faith that a tenth planet exists beyond the Oort Cloud though the evidence is sketchy presently, the discovery of that planet would verify the accuracy of faith in that planet existing. Socrates discussed belief and problems of it in The Meno, I believe it was. 

https://www.coursera.org/.../knowledge-vs-true-belief-CG5vh

Suffering, Stimulus, Response, Challenges and Adversity etc

 Suffering is a form of adversity. The coefficient of adversity when too high precludes the development of civilization. Alternatively when it is too low societies tend to stagnate. Arnold Toynbee's paradigm of challenge and response is a parallel of stimulus and response. With no stimulus the mind and body atrophy (as in a sensory deprivation chamber for example), with too much stimulus the mind and body can break down I suppose; imagine stimulus as fire or heave weights (a couple of tons) or a dozen loudspeakers blaring one of the worst songs of the 1960s in an endless loop. An appropriate and high level of suffering such as a distance runner or a football player might use to build up stamina, endurance and strength is a golden mean.

Morality is a description of what people socially actually do behaviorally. Cultures repeat certain behavioral norms/patterns. Deviations from those are said to be immoral. A religion or re-allegiance is a horse of a different color. People have allegiance to certain objective ensembles for various reasons; some good, some bad and some ugly.

 I am not sure that materialistic minded people value relationships less than intelligent people. Materialistic minded could mean a behavioral doggishness regarding the bones of the world for-oneself and snarling or dog-fighting to keep control instead of thought about macro-social circumstances or philosophic reflection. Materialistic minded people can regard people as quite important too; for good people might have material value to the materialistic in that they bring good material things or security. Dos a dog love his master? Those that are energy minded (E=MC2) may also have a fair regard for people and relationships. Jesus; the spiritual minded sine qua non is said to have said; (Luke 14-26; "If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple."

U.S. Could Move Troops To Kurdistan from Iraq

Iraq's Shi'a leaders want American military forces to leave; maybe sending them to Iraq would be a good idea.

After the U.S. withdraws military forces a renewed Shi'a-Sunni conflict probably will evolve. The United States has no interest in general regional Middle East conflict occurring and yet would probably not intervene in the national spat. An Iraq civil war would place Kurds in an odd position of choosing sides or remaining neutral. Iran would probably be expected to intervene on behalf of the Shi'a theocracy that would grow under Iranian tuteladge. It would be good to have the U.S. secure the peace of certain neutral allies in the area that aren't adverse to an American troop presence; a new state of Kurdistan.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/iraq-asks-us-withdrawal-prime-minister-adel-abdul-mahdi-pompeo-phone-call-iran-strike-2020-01-10/

American foreign policy recently treated the Kurds rather badly as has the west for a few centuries. Maybe they don't trust Kurds as a consequence of Kurdish General Suliman Saladin defeating the last of the Crusaders at Acre, yet Kurds always were territorially protectively inclined and that isn't historically unusual. One must move on to trust and support allies with a certain pragmatism.

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

Turkey should  concede, with the proper incentives, the formation of a new Kurdish state with some Syrian and even a Turkish territory in order to stablish the Middle East while the Shi'a foment wars across the region and seek to attack Saudi better etc.

A strong upcountry base to defend various Middle East tactical requirements would be useful for maintaining peace in the region while Iraq moves into its desired interminable civil war phase. Maybe the Trump administration should think twice about blocking Iraq's right to have civil war free from foreign interference except for Iran.

The Ordinary Human Super-Power

Thought trumps evolution; it is the ordinary human super-power. Human thought is a higher power able to overcome evolution that rules mass and material objects. Matter and energy flow in the order of physical forces of nature. Talus slopes form at the base of crumbling cliffs and mountains when small rocks flow downhill in the Earth’s gravitational field; humans are able to move the rockpile upslope or even fix them back on with concrete patches if they wish; thought overcomes the blind physical forces of nature.

Human thought occurs in a higher level and fundamentally different order than insentient matter. Human thought isn’t deterministic in the same way that matter and energy are determined to exist in and part of physical forces of nature; gravity does not manifest itself much without the presence of matter and the energy locked in to mass.

Evolution occurs on Earth as reconfigurations of the forms of matter and energy. The human body is a part of that field of evolution yet thought is not. Thought is in the world yet not of it. Spirit is a higher super-power than thought. God is spirit and precedes the realm of thought, perhaps comparable to the way quantum reality and super-positions precede the steady state field of matter and energy.

The planet’s ecosystem challenges caused by humanity can be overcome with thought. Though that comprehends right configurations and uses of economic infrastructures and natural resources. Human thought does compile in a way that is analogous to material evolution, yet the analogy is weak and inexact as human thought may compile and constructions ideas and images in any way it likes or envisions. Not all humans evolve thought in a similar way or at the same pace. Thought is comparable to a construction project in mind that puts together structures and relations, orders and assemblies sometimes fortuituously with graceful inductions or methodically with plain work effort.

Humanity tends to seek after its own well-being as individuals, families and groups. It shares a doggish or wolfish trait in desiring the bone in the den and snarls when the employment bone seems ready to be snatched away. After the two great wars of the 20^th century and the rise of communism to statehood a large portion of humanity took to the practice of blaming nationalism for conflicts and selfishness. Communists found better welfare and well-being in a socialist paradigm theoretically; their bones and dens as individuals were thought incorrectly to be safer within the socialist paradigm. The human trait of not-thinking enough and satiety with simple unreflective doggishness remained. The fault was not in nations but in ourselves an in our leaders.

Sanctions on Iran are Probably Good for U.S. Oil Producers

The Trump administration's unfortunate stress relationship with Iran has the unintended effect of benefiting the U.S. economy by driving up the price per barrel of oil. Because the United States is the largest producer of oil on earth and Iran in fourth place sanctions on the fourth place guy tighten oil supply a trifle and with the restricted supply drive up demand. Luckily for the oil market whenever Iran sends missiles to Iraq or attacks ships or Saudi oil facilities there is a temporary increase in the price of oil as investors fear, or rather, bank on, the possibility of war.                   

When war in the Persian Gulf and Middle East becomes a serious threat or actually occurs that is very good for U.S. oil producers. With an actual conflict with Iran the price of oil could double. Full disclosure- I have no shares of any any oil producers or suppliers.

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/01/09/us-iran-conflict-charts-show-state-of-iranian-economy-amid-sanctions.html

President Trump's Iran issues actually benefit the U.S. economy.
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/07012020/arctic-drilling-trump-oil-gas-lease-sales-anwr-wildlife-refuge-petroleum-reserve-offshore

Democrat's Crank Impeachment Wave May Have Run Out of Gas

The crank impeachment wave of the Democrat Party may have hit the bottom and broken short of the beach where it was intended to be a tsunami that would wipe out settlements of voters that elected the President in 2016. The wave actually never reached the Senate with the articles squirelled away in Nancy Pelosi's drawer. Speaker Pelosi may be so ashamed of the flimsy impeachment process her co-cranks worked that she won't send them to the Senate hoping the furor will cool off.

Senator Lindsey Graham said that the Senate may go ahead and change the rules in order to process the impeachment anyway in order to not have to keep everyone in an emergency status. Very likely the Senate will dismiss the lawsuit as a worthless piece of junk as soon as they can. The crank Democrat wave might increase the number of voters that are skeptical about the value of the Democrat Party agenda.

https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2020/01/06/lindsey-graham-change-senate-rules-impeachment-sot-newday-vpx.cnn