New Person

Start here, say hello, and tell us a little about yourself.
Deplorable1
Posts: 2
Joined: Fri Jul 17, 2020 12:34 pm

New Person

Post by Deplorable1 »

I discovered GD on Breitbart. So sad to see how John was treated by them. The U.S media is filled with opinion channels instead of news channels. Thank you John for hanging in there. There are few places telling the truth about China.

Kreng
Posts: 2
Joined: Sun Sep 27, 2020 4:13 am

Re: New Person

Post by Kreng »

Hi! I am also a new member of this forum.

pbrower2a1
Posts: 3
Joined: Wed Dec 30, 2020 2:18 pm

Re: New Person

Post by pbrower2a1 »

Hi! I am known in some other Forums as pbrower2a. I was frequently debating John Xenakis in another Forum now flooded with spam, and it really disgusts me to see people posting messages that suggest how to buy counterfeit money, passports, drivers' licenses, green cards, educational credentials and the like, all of which can get one into big trouble if one uses them. Maybe also fraudulent downloads. (Creative people and the companies that employ them need the revenue from direct purchases or from advertising if they are to stay in business. If you want an enjoyable life, you had better have a strong creative community to supply your entertainment if you can't entertain yourself. You can entertain yourself well, then maybe you can make a good living in the creative community doing something that you probably love doing anyway).

OK. I have a degree in economics, and I am a liberal. If it is a choice between getting one's way on some issue or a combination of liberty, the rule of law, law and order, reason, legal precedent, and old standards of morality as valid in the time of the Hebrew prophets as today, then you must defer on that issue or make sure that that issue enhances what makes life sane and tolerable. That is how we got most of our freedoms, and in more recent times, equality on gender, race, and sexual preference -- at least in theory.

So if you want my ideology, then look at how I see Presidents of my lifetime:

Trump -- thoroughly awful for reasons other than ideology. I can hit him even more easily for his violations of conservative traditions than for my liberal beliefs.
Obama -- above average. He made few mistakes, and even if you are a conservative, all that keeps him from being a fine conservative President is that he wasn't a conservative. Not Mount Rushmore quality, which is really tough.
Bush 43 -- below average. Too polarizing, fostered the speculative boom that led to the 2008 economic meltdown.
Clinton -- slightly above average, wise enough to adopt his predecessor's foreign policy. I disliked his fornication.
Bush 41 -- attempt to continue Reagan, and that got tiresome.
Reagan -- remade American politics in many ways... not all of them good.
Carter -- well-meaning Presidency, but snake-bitten. The culture changed, and he could not adapt fast enough. Reagan had less to change.
Ford -- honest and decent. Just never knew how to campaign for anything other than a safe US House seat.
Nixon -- did some good things, but had his spiders.
LBJ -- great social reforms, but the War in Vietnam threw those away.
JFK -- the sort of President that most of us miss.
Eisenhower -- Sober, decent, cautious, respectful of protocol and precedent, and free of scandals.

John
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Location: Cambridge, MA USA
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Re: New Person

Post by John »

Good to see you. Butler could use your help.

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Bob Butler
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Re: New Person

Post by Bob Butler »

John wrote:
Wed Dec 30, 2020 4:11 pm
Good to see you. Butler could use your help.
Only if you expect people to shift worldviews. That generally doesn't happen short of a Hiroshima scale event. Still, you might make them think a bit and drop some of their more absurd arguments.

John
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Re: New Person

Post by John »

Bob Butler wrote:
Thu Dec 31, 2020 4:16 pm
John wrote:
Wed Dec 30, 2020 4:11 pm
Good to see you. Butler could use your help.
Only if you expect people to shift worldviews. That generally doesn't happen short of a Hiroshima scale event. Still, you might make them think a bit and drop some of their more absurd arguments.
Lol! Back atcha!

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Bob Butler
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Re: New Person

Post by Bob Butler »

John wrote:
Thu Dec 31, 2020 4:38 pm
Bob Butler wrote:
Thu Dec 31, 2020 4:16 pm
John wrote:
Wed Dec 30, 2020 4:11 pm
Good to see you. Butler could use your help.
Only if you expect people to shift worldviews. That generally doesn't happen short of a Hiroshima scale event. Still, you might make them think a bit and drop some of their more absurd arguments.
Lol! Back atcha!
I'm currently working through a book "The Righteous Mind" by Johnathan Hait. As he puts it, the sense of morality in humans is emotional, intuitive, quick and decisive. Rationality does not determine what you do. It justifies the intuitive emotional decision after the fact. It just confirms a perspective I have long suspected. Changing the intuitions and snap judgments seldom happens. All you can effect is the rationalizations for those intuitive decisions. At that, the rational part of the mind is perfectly willing to throw out facts so long as it justifies the intuitions.

So partisans will have a quick intuitive feeling that something is right or wrong, and count on rationality to justify what they intuitively feel. If the intuition says COVID does not kill, or that racism is wrong, or there is a good reason the founding fathers wrote the Second Amendment as they did, the supposedly rational mind will ignore or throw out whatever facts contradict the conclusion that the intuition has reached.

So all I really expect to do is help people improve their justifications. The intuitions are beyond my reach, unless there comes a Hiroshima like event that makes it absurdly clear that something is wrong with the intuitions. That often happens on a massive scale only in a crisis, but that is what it takes for a culture to change. This usually happens with the crisis.

I'm currently guessing the COVID deaths and the BLM protests of last summer are not strong enough to change the intuitions for many. For others, the intuition is more compatible with reality, so they are ready to go with the science and new values.

John
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Joined: Sat Sep 20, 2008 12:10 pm
Location: Cambridge, MA USA
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Re: New Person

Post by John »

First, know thyself.

Deplorable1
Posts: 2
Joined: Fri Jul 17, 2020 12:34 pm

Re: New Person

Post by Deplorable1 »

Know thyself. Good advice. I believe that people can disagree and still respect one another. I appreciate the different points of view. No one person has all the answers. Especially me.

TyraNoah
Posts: 1
Joined: Tue May 25, 2021 5:00 pm

Re: New Person

Post by TyraNoah »

It's good when people see things from different perspectives,
after all, where all think alike, no one thinks very much.
appreciating diversity and versitility. :) :)

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