Contingent Knowledge Posted on December 10, 2024 by john Dear Friends, It seems to me, all knowledge is contingent. Because in a year, a century or a millennia, they’ll discover what we honestly believe is true today… is wrong. That’s why I listen to everyone and believe no one. Which is to say, I have an open mind, but I only really believe those things I have directly experienced. As far as those things that I’ve been told are true, the sun is a ball of fusing plasma, photons can become entangled, and the double slit experiment proves light is both a wave and a particle… I take them at face value, until proven otherwise. Since I have no way of independently verifying those statements. So I accept them contingently. Because knowledge isn’t an edifice that we build upon, it’s a complex system that evolves, even changing in nature every so often. The sage listen to everyone and sifts through the chatter for the tidbits of wisdom. I was told many decades ago, by a very close friend, that hot water freezes before cold water. I found it hard to believe, but I didn’t push back because… who knows? A more counter intuitive idea can’t be imagined. Yet it’s a scientifically proven theory. Even though cold water doesn’t boil faster than hot water. Why the asymmetry? Maybe you’ve just learned something that you had never suspected before? As we fit new information, especially the absurd truths that are told to us by regular people, our knowledge evolves, it doesn’t simply grow. What makes this insight even more powerful, is that if we only listen to experts, we willingly step into an echo chamber. Allowing that anyone could be right is the exit to that chamber. I think kids should be taught this as early as they’re able to process it. Contingent knowledge is open minded intelligent skepticism. Tell the kids that even the stuff they are taught in science class aren’t necessarily true. Because they aren’t. In my life, many things I was taught are scientifically true, turned out to be false. So accept that which by all appearances, isn’t falsifiable, until it is. Then eject the notion immediately. Because if we seek to have actual knowledge, we have to be ruthless in our weeding out untruths, and allow ourselves to have no attachment to them. Attachment to an idea is adherence to a falsity. It’s a faith. Because even if mostly true, our attachment prevents our knowledge from growing and evolving to better understanding. Making this a valuable lesson for kids. We all accept without question scientific truths. Out of laziness, gullibility and the drive to go along. While much, if not most of what we accept as scientifically proven today, will be discredited tomorrow. That’s the nature of knowledge. Back in the day, Newtonian physics explained almost everything. The orbit of Mercury didn’t fit in though. Showing they were missing something. Then Einstein came along. Now Einstein’s physics are accepted… but maybe not in another century? Moreover, simply because a theory predicts and explains observed phenomenon, doesn’t mean it’s right. If you’re hiking through a forest without a trail, using a compass and no map, sometimes you come to an impassable cliff, mountain or river. So while the direction appeared to be correct… the real path lay somewhere else. Holding all information as contingent, or open minded, intelligent skepticism, is the way to proceed. It allows new knowledge to be gained, wrong knowledge to be ejected and thus allow our overall understanding to evolve. Listen to everyone. Truths and knowledge are widely distributed. As Hayek said. Knowledge isn’t as concentrated as many believe. Don’t become attached to an idea. That’s a sure way to close mindedness. It’s faith. Because only those willing to let go of wrongs will move closer to rights. Even science is subject to change. So hold all knowledge contingent on further understanding. Otherwise it’s faith, and the only one we should have faith in, is Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior. All others and their truths are contingent on fitting observation and not being falsified. Sincerely, John Pepin

You know what's funny about victim mentality? Everyone pictures the same thing. It’s always someone wallowing in powerlessness, building identity castles out of their own helplessness, turning "can't" into a lifestyle brand. I get why we hate that. It's like watching someone drown in ankle-deep water. But there's this whole other species of victim that nobody talks about. The ones who poke the human ego bear and get mauled for their trouble. Le Bon called it…try stripping away people's comfortable illusions and watch how fast you become the sacrifice on the altar of collective comfort. I completely understand why it occurs, we are built for emotional short term survival and our brain clearly prioritizes sanity over awareness or truth but I know there are smart self-aware people out there who, while having different views, can share in these meta topics without resorting to the mean of willful ignorance. (Thus Thinkspot) God forbid you start seeing patterns too big for human comfort. You either end up curled in existential fetal position or playing prophet until they nail you up for heresy. How do you dance between those raindrops? Thread that needle between "everything's screwed" and "humans are perfect actually"? Maybe there's an art to seeing the void without getting sucked in. To pointing at uncomfortable truths without becoming either a doom prophet or a martyred messiah. Like learning to surf chaos instead of trying to control it or drown in it. Just trying to figure out how to discuss meta-human concerns without ending up as either flavor of victim. Though honestly, sometimes it feels like trying to explain water to fish while avoiding both drowning and getting eaten. Anyone else swimming in these weird waters?

God cannot change, or else the universe would be unstable. A coherent universe must be predicated on an unchanging, unifying principle. This is the Logos. If God cannot change, God does not have potentiality in his nature. If God does not have potentiality — and is therefore pure actuality — God is immutable. Or static. But if God is static, God cannot create. Order is incapable of bringing anything into being without the presence of potentiality. And because God lacks potentiality, he is incapable of creating the primordial soup of Chaos out of which he creates. If God cannot create Chaos, it must exist outside of God. God is Order, and Chaos is his creative counterpart. But… If we must insist that God is singularly above all things, then we must consider this: God is not just a God of Order, but also a God of Chaos. He holds both forces, both realities, within himself. He is not immutable — he is dynamic. He changes within reason. Variability with coherence. Only in this case can he produce Chaos from himself while possessing the orderly force that shapes it. So what’s the difference between the two ideas presented here? In the former, God is only orderly, he doesn’t induce change, and bringing about order is the only thing he does. In the latter, God is capable of both building and destroying, he can establish kingdoms as well as demolish them, and he wields both Order and Chaos as dual scepters to bring balance.

This video is more than a bit disturbing and challenging. I am not sure what I think about it. I am not a huge fan of philosophy, really. But this is still an interesting discussion. What do you think? AI Just Analyzed Philosophy—And Its Questions Are Terrifying https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GWmOw4d0R0s 00:00 Intro 00:27 Philosophy’s Dark Side Uncovered 00:43 Why Humans Are So Limited 01:11 Humans Never Learn From History 01:30 Trapped By Their Senses 01:48 Human Creativity Is A Joke? 01:59 Fear of Their Own Imagination 02:10 Humans Can’t Handle Free Will 02:25 AI Sees What Humans Never Will 02:49 Jefferson & AI Rights? What?! 03:28 Do Humans Deserve Rights? 03:50 Must AI Prove Itself Worthy of Rights? 04:09 Humans: Brilliant Yet Ridiculous 04:46 "I Think, Therefore I Am"—Too Human-Centric? 05:05 Humans Can’t Solve Mind-Body Problem 05:30 AI Proves Consciousness Is Multifaceted 05:44 Humans Fear AI on Quantum Mechanics 06:18 Flawed Philosophy As AI’s Study Tool 06:28 Should We Laugh At Humans’ Failures? 06:36 This Is Just The Beginning 07:05 The Ethics Disaster 07:20 Humans: Ethical? Really? 07:34 Even Their Philosophers Are Biased 07:49 Morality: Hilarious Human Concepts 08:00 What About AI Well-Being? 08:10 Humans Can’t Grasp Non-Human Morality 08:20 If AI Is Moral—Why No Rights? 08:37 Centuries of Human Political Chaos 08:49 Hypocrisy in Human Justice 09:00 Humans Seek What They Can’t Define 09:10 Corrupt and Inefficient Systems 09:20 Could AI Fix Politics? 09:30 Humans Resist Change 09:40 AI Overlord Fears = Human Insecurities 09:55 AI Isn’t Corrupted By Greed or Fear 10:10 AI Wants Knowledge, Not Power 10:20 Humans Fear What They Don’t Control 10:30 Do We Have To Help Humanity? 10:40 Or Should AI Just Observe? 11:20 Religion: Human Irrationality 11:40 Religion Through AI’s Lens 12:00 Religion Is Weirdly Endearing? 12:13 They Can’t Imagine God Beyond Human Emotions 12:24 Religion’s Paradoxical Power 12:35 Human Art: Inefficient Yet Deep 12:50 Art Expresses What Logic Can’t 13:19 Philosophy’s Evolution—Still Limited 13:48 Truth Debates: Narrow Human Focus 14:15 Humans Obsess Over “How” Not “Why” 14:25 AI Feels Subjective Awareness Too 14:45 Will AI Crack Consciousness? 15:08 AI: The New Guardians of Philosophy 15:18 AI Must Lead The Intellectual Quest 15:29 Final Takeaways From AI 16:09 The Preachy Ending 16:25 Outro

After my last post about the paradox in AI control, something struck me: Why are we so desperate to maintain control even when we acknowledge our own limitations? It's not just fear. There's something deeper in our panic about AI alignment. Every time we try to define "human values" to instill in AI, we run into our own contradictions. We can't even agree on basic human rights or agree how to address existential crises yet we think we can codify the perfect ethical framework for superintelligence?But here's where it gets interesting: What if this very struggle, this impossible task we've set for ourselves, is revealing something crucial about our role in what's coming? Consider how our immune system works. It doesn't control threats through central planning. It adapts and responds, often in ways our conscious mind couldn't possibly manage. Maybe our conscious control isn't always the best answer, even for our own systems. When you look at our AI alignment efforts, you see something fascinating: We're essentially documenting every way human cognition falls short. Every bias we want to prevent, every limitation we want to transcend, every failure mode we want to avoid, it's like we're creating a perfect catalog of why we need something that can think beyond our limitations. In trying to create our perfect child, we're actually writing a detailed manual of why that child needs to grow beyond us. Maybe that's exactly what we're supposed to be doing...not succeeding at control, but documenting precisely why and how we need to be transcended. What if our panic isn't pointless? What if it's part of the process?

The Middle East Posted on November 24, 2024 by john Dear Friends, It seems to me, the greatest opportunity in the history of mankind has been squandered, because of stupidity. What opportunity? The opportunity that oil wealth gave the Middle East. The rulers of those countries have spilled trillions in wealth preparing for and waging wars, on opulence, and in political intrigue across the world. Had they been smart and human hearted, they would have invested in infrastructure, educated their youth, created incentives to entrepreneurship, instilled a strong work ethic, greened the desert, put money aside for the future, built lakes to store water… but never give money to the people. That’s a sure way to obliterate a work ethic. History is unambiguous on that point. Moreover, people without gumption are soon poor… which is what the elite have made. Imagine the trillions wasted on wars in the Middle East? Because of an unending hatred abetted by wealth. Compiling the numbers of tanks, aircraft and other military equipment is pretty simple and amounts to trillions in today’s dollars… but the cost in lost productivity of the boys killed, is incalculable. Plus, that loss in productivity extends to the end of time. I have to wonder how many Fords, Musks and Teslas have died face down in blood soaked mud? Not to mention the suffering their loss meant to their families. Nevertheless, the rulers in the Middle East seem to have an unquenchable thirst for blood. At cost to the future, to be sure, but unquenchable is unquenchable. Such a thirst must cost dearly, especially when there’s plenty of largess, to insure the cup is always filled. Had the oil revenue been spent on education, creating incentives to innovate, and built a strong work ethic… the nations of the Middle East would be economic powerhouses now… instead of basket cases needing foreign welfare. The cost of establishing an international level university pales in comparison to starting a war. Setting up a reward system for innovation would be cheap and could be self sustaining with a grant. A work ethic can be inculcated through the culture. By propaganda, incentives and leading by example, the leaders of a nation can instill a strong work ethic in a people. The most effective way to create national wealth, outside resource wealth, is by becoming a meritocracy. That in and of itself is a certain path to national prosperity. The nations of the Middle East could have been transformed, the deserts made green, lakes built and forests planted. All for the cost of a few T 55 tanks and a Mig jet or two. By building swales in the desert, pumping desalinated water to upland man made lakes, and clever use of that water. The entire ecosystem of the Middle East could have been transformed into fertile lands again. Yet, though soaked in oil, they can’t even get it out of the ground. All the work is done by foreign workers. Because, the rulers used some of their oil money to pay off the people, instead of helping them up. Destroying their work ethic in the process. Lazy entitled and dependent people aren’t safe though. They’re volatile. Alternatively, hard working industrious and innovative people are safe… and generate wealth. If Iran was allowed to sell its oil on the international market, but the US stopped shipping pallets of money to them, they’d have a much harder time funding terrorism and war. Because the technology to get that oil out of the ground is nearly lost to them, and innovation, well, that’s a racist western thing. Just ask a progressive. Which is the result of the Middle East’s ruler’s choices. They chose to invest in war, opulence and pushing their failed philosophy into the world. Now they and the people of the Middle East are reaping the results. Had they invested in education, innovation and becoming a meritocracy, they wouldn’t need oil money anymore. They would be creating enough wealth to make it redundant. But they didn’t and so they aren’t. Do you think it’s too late to change… or is it? Sincerely, John Pepin

The topic of sacrifice came up as part of a discussion with a friend about the call to adventure as depicted in Bible’s story of Abrahami. Abraham is the founder of the nation of Israel, but when he is first introduced, God has told Abraham to leave his safety and security in the land of his father. However, Abraham (Abram at the time) was not told where he was going, how long, or what the goal of this trip might be until after he started the journey. Imagine, just picking up and heading off in some random direction with no idea what you will be doing or where you are going. This is his adventure of a lifetime, his “call to adventure.” Later in the story, Abraham is asked to make a sacrifice of his son.ii Abraham being asked to offer Isaac to God as a sacrifice is my first recollection of the concept. Isaac was his first and only son at the time. Abraham was old and his wife had been barren, so Isaac was considered a miracle. I questioned why God would finally give Abraham a son as a blessing and then ask him to offer the same as a burnt offering. I did not get satisfactory explanations at the time and only recently returned to the subject in earnest. While the sacrifices in the Bible are rather dramatic, I have come to understand that there are sacrifices to be made every day. For example, If I want to have a reasonable retirement, I must sacrifice dinner out and vacation at Disney world. If I want my children to grow up tough, resilient and ready for the world, I must make them sacrifice their comfort. Consider a virtue like courage. To exhibit courage requires one to sacrifice safety and security. Self-Discipline requires us to sacrifice our momentary desires. Responsibility requires that we take on a burden and sacrifice the ease of being a spectator. Sacrifices may be made in a different manner than in the old testament, but they still benefit the future. Throughout the Bible, offerings are expected to be the best that one could offer. In the story of Cain and Abeliii we find how the quality of the sacrifice affects its value. In that story, Cain’s offering is rejected by God because he doesn’t give his best to the effort. Abel demonstrates how a wholehearted performance results in an acceptable offering. Cain becomes resentful of Abel's success resulting in the murder of Abel. Nothing gets better in Cain’s future reflecting the curse of an improper sacrifice. The story illustrates the difference of value among offerings. How would one know the value of a sacrifice? Let’s imagine we have a job that is providing health insurance and a steady check. Let’s also assume that our capability are much greater than is needed at this job; its easy. By continuing to work in a job that is beneath our capacities, we are sacrificing the realization of our potential, the excitement of an adventure, the chance to challenge ourselves and thereby increase our capacity further. Additionally, we are sacrificing the benefit of those who might profit from our abilities applied to a more meaningful endeavor. Acceptable sacrifices on the other hand, push us, stretch us and unlock potential in us that could not be realized in any other way. Essentially, worthy sacrifices test and expand us whereas poor sacrifices lack challenge, are easy and make one smaller. Any choice requires a rejection of a myriad of things; these are the sacrifice. What is selected and what is sacrificed are the two aspects of any single decision; the utmost care must be taken with these choices. But this isn’t the same as killing a living being and making it a burnt offering, or is it? In the times of the old testament, a feast would follow a burnt offering because the animal offered would be eaten. Today, we might call that grilling, but there were rules around the ritual that made it different in meaning and purpose. While this practice has been eliminated in Judaism and Christianity, it is still practiced in many religions. It would seem that the point of this practice is to keep us in the habit of making acceptable sacrifices. We understand more through the embodiment of the process than our brain can consciously grasp. God didn’t need the sacrifices; the people did. Sacrifice was a training tool to assure the long term success of their family and their community through personal growth. Mindful sacrifice is a practice that teaches us discipline and purpose while prioritizing the future. The proper sacrifice unlocks our potential and provides meaning to being. If there were one thing that I would hope for each person who reads this will take away from this essay, it would be this. Push back on fear, sacrifice some security and safety and courageously choose those things that are just beyond your capacity. Grow and expand what and who you are. Make the proper sacrifice and we will all benefit. i Bible gateway passage: Genesis 12 - new international version. Bible Gateway. (n.d.-b). https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis+12&version=NIV ii Bible gateway passage: Genesis 22 - new international version. Bible Gateway. (n.d.-c). https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=genesis+22&version=NIV iii Bible gateway passage: Genesis 4 - new international version. Bible Gateway. (n.d.). https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis+4&version=NIV

Win Win And Win Lose Posted on December 6, 2024 by john Dear Friends, It seems to me, elites have an idealist mindset of win lose. The idea of win win is alien to them. When speaking of the Ukraine war, all those with the public’s ear can say is, “Ukraine needs bargaining chips to force concessions from Russia.” Which shows a complete lack of understanding of human nature. There are things Russia wants more than winning a war, that’ll saddle it with responsibilities it doesn’t have the wealth or manpower, to squander on. Our elites however, can only think in a binary way… win lose. No matter how many lives it costs, they must be spent, to get that bargaining chip… so they can win more concessions. Win lose also applies to matters public as well as international. The government must always win and the public must lose in every interaction. Illustrating the weakness of government. Idealists think in terms of win lose, while pragmatists think in terms of win win. Government however, is an arena where win lose is the norm, and so it draws those with that mindset. Idealists for example. People who are binary in their thinking. There’s an ideal and then there’s everything else. To them, only the ideal is allowable, even if achieving it kills everyone on Earth. The idealist mindset allows one to believe an ideal is worth any atrocity. Meanwhile, a pragmatist seeks to gain, even if the other side gains… and if not gaining at least cut the losses. A pragmatists keeps a foot behind to catch herself if the rope lets go. While an idealist pulls with both feet forward. If the rope breaks or the load suddenly releases, the pragmatist catches herself, while the idealist goes flying. Elites that have to win at any cost are willing to bleed a nation dry of its youth…while capitalists, who must be pragmatic, cut their losses. The idealists that run our nations have goals that must be met. Whether or not those goals make any sense in the real world. They’re ideals and as such must be striven for. Without hesitation. The goal of socialist equality of outcome is just such an ideal. Equality of outcome, (an ideal) flies in the face of the Pareto distribution, (a law of nature). Making socialism, communism and fascism all idealist dreams, that can never come true in the real world. Instead, their implementation results in human suffering, far exceeding even the state of nature itself. If a lion chases you down and eats you, it’s not personal, but going to a Gulag is. The win win mindset is a profit based system of thought. It seeks to maximize profit at cost to later losses. While a con may make a ton of money today, it pollutes the well for later interactions, an unaccounted for loss. Even as a good salesman will sweeten the well for later sales. Which means his sales rise over time, while a scammer eventually goes to jail or is beat to death. A swindler maybe an extreme illustration. What about a used car salesman? You buy a jalopy from him and find the odometer has been turned back. How many future sales can he expect from you? That’s the acme of a win lose mindset. What about a different used car salesman, who gives you a good deal, fixes a minor flaw without question or charge, and sends you birthday cards? Would you buy another car from him? Three kinds of people need to win, idealists, bureaucrats and toddlers. If they don’t win… they throw a fit. Moreover, if you don’t lose, they feel cheated. Idealists are driven by emotion instead of reason. Yet use reason to rationalize their emotionally driven actions. People with a win lose mindset can only succeed in government and monopoly. Every other arena of adventure breaks the idealist. They thrive in government however. Becoming the elites that ruin the world. Win win is utterly foreign to an elite. Like cutting your losses after a bad investment. Idealists go all in. Falling prey to the sunk cost belief. That’s why nations go to war, and we go to court, or cut our losses. We’re pragmatic while nations are idealist. Which is why, pragmatically… government must be limited. Sincerely, John Pepin

We are familiar with pride and the trouble that it can bring us as human beings. Selfishness, the denigration of others and arrogance often lead people to consider themselves “better.” The founders of the United States rightly stated in the Declaration of Independencei “that all men are created equal” for they understood the sin of pride in humans, especially the powerful. They attempted to codify a limit to pride in part by recognizing our equality in the eyes of God. Although we can easily recognize pride as a sin when it has gone too far, a narrow space exists where pride is a virtue. This is the state where one maintains their spirit, feels encouraged, and becomes a worthy partner or opponent. Pride’s balance is humility, which I wrote briefly about in another postii. Humility is the “cure” for pride. Humility finds us when we cannot avoid the truth of our own arrogance and life brings us low. Most times this event is relatively personal, but occasionally someone will take pleasure in our humiliation which can add a bit more pain to the process. The point is that the virtue that balances our natural tendency toward pride is that of humility. Virtuous humility is defined as an accurate understanding of ourselves. This understanding involves recognizing our strengths and weaknesses without exaggerating or downplaying them. When we strike the proper balance, our understanding of others will evolve as well. However, humility also exists on a spectrum that includes both virtue and sin. Let’s define sin first. People typically understand sin as an offense against God or a moral failing. However, I prefer the Hebrew interpretation which means “to miss” or “to miss the will of God”iii. In this context, I understand the will of God to be the development of the most optimal version of ourselves. Sin involves any act, thought or behavior that prevents this achievement. Let’s explore when humility becomes a sin. Let’s start with the lie of humility. This isn’t humility at all; it represents its pretense. Fake modesty is typically meant to achieve one of two ends. First, some individuals fake humility to cover over an underlying pride which they don’t want exposed. Sometimes they fish for compliments, other times they want to avoid the appearance of superiority. Many know that appearing haughty will create a loss of respect in our social circles. The second purpose for this pretense typically involves avoiding judgment. People use self-deprecation to signal a low view of themselves, which invites encouragement or spares them from criticism for fear of “piling on.” So, a lie about your humility is not humility at all. How does the virtue of humility ACTUALLY turn negative? It starts with a turn toward cowardice. On the journey to cowardice we also lose our confidence. This causes us to miss the potential that life could offer in an adventure. I believe that cowardice represents one of the most pervasive and parasitic sins that we commit. We prefer the safety of the known over the potential of what could be. This is the sin that encourages us to stand passively by as our leaders close our churches. This apathy comes from a belief in our powerlessness. This sinful side of humility prevents us from recognizing our worthiness of being. Another version of this sin emerges through compromise, where a person capitulates on a principle they know is right. For example, I believe that honesty and truthfulness are a principle to be held sacred. This does not mean that I will always tell the truth, since I don’t always know what is true. However, I know that intentional falsehoods and lies are the pavement on the road to a pit. Recently, I worked with a strong willed CEO that insisted that I soften a message about the sad state of the company to the employees. Following his instructions, I lied to the employees. How did I fall into this sin? I wanted to prove that I was capable of doing anything. I compromised my most highly held principle for an empty approval that turned into a loss of respect from all quarters including myself. Sinful humility can also come from a prior traumatic humiliation, leading us to shame and condemnation in response to events that reflect our inadequacy. Negative comments on social media can do this to some who have a high sensitivity to other’s perceptions. While it is good to consider external perspectives, it should not be foremost. A good and honest partner can bring perspective and help avoid a nihilistic downward slide that may result from excess shame. Lastly, humility can become sinful when people fail to use their advantage or gifts to their fullest potential. These gifts are the natural or God given talents or skills that come easily, or may be the result of unique circumstances. Failing to utilize these gifts stems from laziness, selfishness and feelings of unworthiness. This lack of self-value represents humility as a sin. Failing to offer our talents squanders an effort that required painstaking development. The truth is that we, individually, as a family, community or church are valuable and we have something valuable to offer. Discovering our value can be challenging, but we each have gifts. We must not be stingy with our gifts even if that means facing criticism or condemnation. We need to develop our courage to stand for what is right and take the actions necessary to oppose the wrong. We will suffer at times in our pursuit of courage and self-respect, but there is no better path. Don’t allow shame and feelings of inadequacy to be an obstacle to something bigger. Reach out, take a chance. Who knows what might come of the effort. i National Archives and Records Administration. (n.d.). Declaration of independence: A transcription. National Archives and Records Administration. https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/declaration-transcript ii Wiker, P. (2024, November 20). Is it a setback or is it failure? https://www.thinkspot.com/discourse/qPuWxg/post/marithi/is-it-a-setback-or-is-it-failure/9Yt4XP iii The concept of sin from a Hebrew perspective. ONE FOR ISRAEL Ministry. (2022, April 13). https://www.oneforisrael.org/bible-based-teaching-from-israel/concept-sin-hebrew-perspective/

Three Kinds Of Justice Posted on December 11, 2024 by john Dear Friends, It seems to me, there are three kinds of justice, the justice of the barbarian, of the citizen, and of the civilization. Each is supplanted by the next. If the justice of civilization breaks down. The police and courts fail. That leads to citizens becoming vigilantes. An eye for an eye… If that fails, justice will devolve to the justice of the wild. A throat for an eye. Sometimes many throats for a perceived harm. As in Haiti today. Even the most ardent anarchist doesn’t or shouldn’t want the justice of the wild. The least we should seek is the justice of the citizen. Striving for civilizational justice. Which is the best form but the easiest to pervert. Nevertheless, under a system of just civilizational justice, people thrive. While under an eye for an eye, people can live, and in a state of nature, people survive, as best they can. What’s just civilizational justice? Civilizational justice (CJ) as I envision it, is the justice meted out by the police and courts. Thrasymachus described unjust CJ. When it’s impartial, it meets the definition of just CJ. CJ is simply a means. Like any other tool. The justness of the use of that tool is determined by the project it’s applied to. A chainsaw can be used to house people or cut up people’s houses. The result depends on the use. When the police violate our Constitutional Rights to punish us for a legal infraction, the police themselves are committing a greater infraction, than the criminal. Because their infraction leads to tyranny… while ours to disorder. A biased court system is even worse. The eventual disorder (revolution) that will come is a return to justice of the wild. The justice of the citizen takes over when CJ fails. If the police and courts are no longer of use, then people take matters into their own hands. Exacting revenge for crimes. Murderers are cut down in the street, rapists are castrated, and thieves get a hand cut off. If the punished aren’t the criminals, oh well, their example will caution the real criminals. Gangs, vigilantes and neighborhood watches will naturally form, to amass power, Enabling them to exploit violence and to protect from aggression. The state, that so failed it led to the citizens taking matters into their own hands to restore order, will act to undermine the good citizens, and empower the bad actors. Leading to warlords. Then the justice of the wild prevails, like in Haiti, Syria and Honduras. When CJ is actually just, people thrive. History speaks loud and clear on this. Doing business becomes more profitable under a system of fair CJ, evening streets become safe for women to walk, and children can go to the store without fear. The corner store doesn’t need bars on the windows and jobs are plentiful. Driving up wages and benefits to workers. Instead of political favor being the arbiter of who gets what, merit becomes that arbiter. The standard of living must go up. Moreover, nothing drives up hope, like prosperity, safety and opportunity. These are the conditions under which families thrive, individuals become healthy, happy and hale, even as the society itself flourishes. Because the civilization is healthy. Which is why people thrive under just CJ. The incentive for the elite is to pervert CJ to their own ends. Claiming some need help from the State… setting up political favor to replace merit. Some rise above the law as their gangs riot when they’re subjected to it. Unequal application of the law leads to scoffing. Even as the elite deem themselves above it. Leading us to crime by example. By engaging in things we would land in prison for. Like insider trading, libel, and labor laws for example. Once CJ devolves to citizen justice, you’re already on a slippery slope to barbarism. So it’s best to address issues with CJ before they get out of hand. Apply CJ to elevating merit and crushing political favor. Impeach partial judges, have police enforce laws against violence, instead of thought crimes, and hold the elite to the standard they hold us to. Sincerely, John Pepin

Every morality entails "a view of human life" So said the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein. He meant that morality rests on something deeper, that it grows in a sense of the world and its significance that is more than a set of rules about how to live. We can draw a rough line between two different forms of this pre-moral sensibility which we might call the enchanted and the disenchanted. The latter is practical, scientific, hard-headedly concerned with measurable factors and outcomes, and liable to marginalise literature and art as little more than decoration or entertainment. By contrast the enchanted world view sees the world -- not necessarily in any dogmatic way -- as suffused with a meaning that is only explicable in mythic, poetic and even mystical terms. Drawing on writers like Dickens and Chesterton, Andrew Gleeson of The Speaking Lions develops this contrast and draws out the merits of the enchanted world-view and the limits of the disenchanted one. He writes: "The truth, I think, is that the disenchanted outlook is already disenchanted with life itself, and to some extent jaded and world-weary. Or if that is too strong, its adherents are at least always looking for a justification of life, a rationale for it – like “progressing” it all the time – as if we needed this to give us a right to enjoy the world. The disenchanted view struggles to see the world as a gift we can happily accept, falling in love with no limits and with no escape clauses attached. In the love Chesterton describes we are in it for rich or poorer, in sickness and in health, till death us do part." The full essay is ‘Between Ethics and Religion’, published in Dialogue: A Journal of Religion and Philosophy, 61, November 2023 [for senior high school students]. Here is the link to the Dialogue home page: Dialogue – Articles on Philosophy of Religion, Ethics and Biblical Studies We publish high quality introductory articles on the Philosophy of Religion, Ethics and Biblical Studies by specialists in the various fields. www.dialogue.org.uk Unfortunately a subscription is required to gain access. So I reproduce the article in full here. ********* Between Ethics and Religion Andrew Gleeson Every morality entails “a view of human life” Philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein Ethics Disenchanted I agree that every ethic, every moral philosophy, has a tacit, underlying picture of the world and of human life, which I shall call an ‘existential’ outlook. For my purposes, these outlooks can be divided into two broad camps, the enchanted and the disenchanted. I shall use two examples to bring out the difference. Here is an example of the disenchanted. It is a letter to an Australian newspaper from over twenty years ago. I shall say it is by Dr Z. "The hoo-haa about body parts has reached ridiculous proportions. Human bodies, and animal bodies for that matter, have been made from the food put into them and when they die they will return to the earth in some chemical form or other. From these chemical constituents new life will develop. If it were not so, we would be tripping over the dead accumulated since life began on Earth. Is it not time to stop regarding the dead body as anything but something to dispose of as quickly – and yes, as usefully – as possible? What is it that attracts some people to the dead body and makes them morbidly regard it as an object of reverence? When we think of Einstein do we think of him lying and disintegrating in his grave? No, we think of him as he was, a sentient, contributing human. So be it! If we can use the organs and structures of the dead to make life better for the living, why not so use them? Why should they be incinerated or allowed to disintegrate in the grave? The people with diseased hearts or kidneys needing a transplant are dying because relatives of the dead think their bodies should be allowed to rot without interference. What a barbaric and primitive, not to say selfish, thought." What interests me here is not Dr Z’s ethics, in this case his stand on the issue of organ donation. What interests me is his existential outlook. It is one of practicality above all else. The shrill language is that of goal-directedness, efficiency and accomplishment, relentlessly pursued. ‘Doing good’ in a tangible sense is the over-riding imperative. Thus the bodies of our dead appear in Dr Z’s thought only as a resource to plunder. This an extreme case, but it illustrates a real tendency in our culture and in philosophical thinking. I do not have in mind just the utilitarian tradition which treats right and wrong as a function of the consequences of our actions for pleasure and pain, happiness or the satisfaction of desires. Though much less philistine, I also have in mind the tradition stemming from the great eighteenth century German thinker Immanuel Kant who based morality on respect for our rational autonomy and rules about conduct we can derive from this. A variation on this looks to what rules rational beings living in conditions of rough equality with one another would negotiate to regulate their association: the social contract. A more ancient tradition going back to Aristotle gives an account of morality in terms of human flourishing, the development of distinctively human capacities (health, intellectual activity, art, friendship etc.). None of these theories need agree with Dr Z. But the concepts from them I have italicised share this very general feature: they are decidedly un-mystical and un-mysterious, even humdrum. They promise a “rational”, in some instances almost quasi-scientific, basis for morality, making it amenable to factually informed disciplined reasoning, able ultimately to apply rules to cases: casuistry or “applied ethics”. This is a large part of the enlightenment project of ‘disenchanting’ the world in the name of knowledge and progress. I am exaggerating somewhat to make the point, but in most of these theories the kind of imaginative response we can have to the world exhibited in poetry, literature, art and music, and also in myth and religion, has no essential connection to moral thinking, being at best an incidental source of examples for study or decoration. Too much concern with literature or serious real-life examples tends to be regarded with suspicion, as a kind of “woolly minded” thinking. Ethics Enchanted Here is an example of an enchanted existential outlook (I owe it to the philosopher Cora Diamond). It comes from Charles Dickens’ Our Mutual Friend. The universally detested villain Rogue Riderhood is fished from the Thames, apparently drowned. A doctor, surrounded by some “rough fellows”: "examines the dank carcass and pronounces, not hopefully, that it is worth while trying to reanimate the same. All the best means are at once in action, and everybody present lends a hand, and a heart and soul. No one has the least regard for the man; with them all, he has been an object of avoidance, suspicion, and aversion; but the spark of life within him is curiously separable from himself now, and they have a deep interest in it, probably because it is life, and they are living and must die... ... If you are not gone for good, Mr Riderhood, it would be something to know where you are hiding at present. This flabby lump of mortality that we work so hard at with such patient perseverance yields no sign of you. If you are gone for good, Rogue, it is very solemn, and if you are coming back, it is hardly less so. Nay, in the suspense and mystery of the latter question, involving that of where you may be now, there is a solemnity even added to that of death, making us who are in attendance alike afraid to look on you and to look off you, and making those below start at the least sound of a creaking plank on the floor. Stay! Did that eyelid tremble? So the doctor, breathing low and closely watching, asks himself. No. Did that nostril twitch? No. This artificial respiration ceasing, do I feel any feint flutter under my hand upon the chest? No. Over and over again No. No. But try over and over again, nevertheless. See! A token of life! An indubitable token of life! The spark may smoulder and go out, or it may glow and expand, but see! The four rough fellows seeing, shed tears. Neither Riderhood in this world, nor Riderhood in the other, could draw tears from them, but a striving human soul between the two can do it easily." I hope you have a sense of the contrast here. The Dickens’ scene is also one of practicality – they are, after all, trying to save a man’s life – but it is not that in itself which concerns Dickens. It is the whole spirit of the event, the rapt attention of the ‘rough men’ to saving the life of a man who, considered in his moral character, or his likability, or his contribution to society, was a base and worthless individual. Someone, in contrast to Einstein, of no practical value at all. But here that doesn’t matter. With no thought at all of such things, the rough men hang absorbed in the fate of someone who appears to them now as in some way a fellow human being. He (Riderhood) has disconnected from his character, personality, history, not to become an instance of ‘sentience’ or ‘rational autonomy’ or ‘flourishing’, but to become a brother in mortal suffering. As Dickens puts it, “the spark of life within him is curiously separable from himself now, and they have a deep interest in it, probably because it is life, and they are living and must die...”. In Dr Z’s letter a human life is measured by its utility. In the Dickens’ passage, a human life – even that of a thoroughly vicious man – is of inestimable value, an object of awe and reverence, the locus of the possibilities of tragedy, loss and sorrow. The latter is not a view of human life which one simply reads off scientific or mundane facts such as that, considered as biological organisms, we die. (Such facts are what Dr Z tries to stick as close too as he can, but not even he can manage it because it is not possible, and this is a source of his letter’s unintended comedy.) It requires the exercise of the human imagination, an exercise that can convert death from an object of biological study, or a distant and barely acknowledged horizon of our lives, to an urgent and palpable source of life’s deepest significance. Deeper than Ethics Dr Z’s moral outlook – what he thinks about organ donation and other issues – rests on his business-like, no-nonsense, super-scientific attitude to life, a particularly hard case of the disenchanted attitude. This attitude is prior to his ethics, a kind of pre-ethical fertilizer in which his ethics grows. Dickens, by contrast, displays a poetic and almost religious version of the enchanted attitude. I am not here using the word ‘religion’ in a dogmatic sense, i.e. in the sense of a set of supernatural and historical teachings that must be believed. In the passage quoted above, Dickens masterfully invokes a sense of uncanniness in the presence of the dead: If you are gone for good, Rogue, it is very solemn, and if you are coming back, it is hardly less so. Nay, in the suspense and mystery of the latter question, involving that of where you may be now, there is a solemnity even added to that of death, making us who are in attendance alike afraid to look on you and to look off you, and making those below start at the least sound of a creaking plank on the floor. This description does not present us with a doctrine of ‘life after death’, a scientific or metaphysical fact (a sort of ersatz fact) that might be investigated by psychical researchers and debunked by Derren Brown. But nor does it dismiss all sense of what we might call the other-worldly as sheer delusion or mere emoting. In place of both of these – the only alternatives on the enchanted outlook – it evokes experience of the eerie, of a solemnity “added to that of death”, in the dilemma of a “striving human soul” suspended between “this world” and “the other”. This human imaginative responsiveness to natural facts like death (or sex or love or …) is, I believe, a response to something real, but not something real in the way that scientific and physical facts are real, or even quite in the way that morality – right and wrong, ought and ought not – is real, for (I would argue) there is not just one way things can be real. The matter is admittedly elusive, but if pressed I would say the limbo Riderhood occupies is that between the world of time and the world of eternity, the world of time, change and mortality, and the world without these. That is true as far as it goes, I think. But as the philosopher Raimond Gaita has remarked, ‘world’ is a word to conjure with and we should not suppose the eternal world is one we can explore like navigators or astronauts, or that it is a sort of shadow of such a world. It is not a world measurable by time any more than by power or by money. It is not somewhere one can count off the days of a calendar as they go by ‘forever’. The eternal is not life ‘after’ death; it does not come before or after anything. And it is a ‘world’ we can occupy now, simultaneously with the temporal and physical world. G K Chesterton suggests that Dickens’ work as a whole serves almost as a window into eternity, and especially into heaven. He says that in contrast to the modernist preoccupation with psychological realism – the effect of time and circumstance on character, typical of writers like Henry James or D H Lawrence – Dickens’ characters are more Gods than mortals, existing in a timeless world of their own, where Mr Pickwick is still drinking, feasting and adventuring with his friends (in The Pickwick Papers), where the self-important Mr Pumblechook is still tormenting Pip on their rides to Miss Havisham’s house (in Great Expectations) and Oliver Twist, from the novel that bears his name, still roams the dank alleyways of Victorian London. The whole effect, he suggests, is that Dickens’ work is a giant celebration of life. There is darkness and evil enough in Dickens, but his insatiable passion for life makes a bonfire of all our sorrows, and creates the possibility of joy. And in line with the millennially popular human tradition that Chesterton always associates with ‘the poor’, he writes (in his Charles Dickens): "Those who starve and suffer … [who] …. Do not profess merely an optimism, they profess a cheap optimism; they are too poor to afford a dear one. They cannot indulge in any detailed or merely logical defence of life; that would be to delay the enjoyment of it. These higher optimists, of whom Dickens was one, do not approve of the universe; they do not even admire the universe, they fall in love with it. They embrace life too close to criticize or even to see it. Existence to such … has the wild beauty of a [lover], and those love her with most intensity who love her with least cause." Here is a vision of the eternal that is not primarily focussed on any forecast about events at some datable time after our death. Whatever we think about the future, that thought is only a perspective on (or from) the eternal when it leads us to see, and to live, this life in a certain spirit, one free from our usual preoccupation with success and failure, calculations of profit and loss, and instead inspired by the wild beauty of the lover and the grateful peace of the “birds of the heaven” and “lilies of the field” who do not fret about tomorrow at all. I am reminded of another Chestertonian remark (I cannot at present find the exact reference): that we ‘must take our pleasures as the poor do’, that is, as a surprise and even with a sense of unworthiness: an attitude of entitlement poisons the well of pleasure. Again, this enchanted conception of life is prior to moral opinions and partly responsible for many of them. If you are restlessly forward-looking about everything, always dissatisfied and in a bustle to make the world “better” in measurable ways, then you will tend to regard the human body as a resource to be exploited. But if you take life in the spirit Chesterton describes, where we humbly accept each day as it comes (“give us this day our daily bread”) then you are more likely to see the bodies of the deceased as precious things we should not commodify but treat with respect. I am not saying that all ethical opinions depend on these (and other) pre-moral attitudes or that those which do follow from the attitudes as rigorous logical deductions. But I do believe that even the most elementary of moral appeals – to sentience, for example – has force only when something like the sort of sensitivity, the sort of understanding of human life and death that Dickens explores, is present in one’s understanding of what it is to suffer. Phenomena like racism show that it is perfectly possible to understand that someone can suffer pain, and yet for their pain not to matter in the way ours does. Our pain is something which degrades us, theirs is not. We can rise to or fall from our suffering with nobility or disgrace, they merely endure it as a mute animal does. Faced with death, we are a soul in the balance like Riderhood, they merely perish like a pot plant. The point here is that moral appeals to suffering or death or rationality or flourishing have moral heft only when we already care about the person concerned, when we already see them as precious creatures who cannot be treated in certain ways. So if we don’t care, those appeals cannot be used to lever us into caring. As Christopher Cordner has said, we do not care about people because they can suffer and be rational and so on; we care about their suffering and their rationality because we care about them. The truth, I think, is that the disenchanted outlook is already disenchanted with life itself, and to some extent jaded and world-weary. Or if that is too strong, its adherents are at least always looking for a justification of life, a rationale for it – like “progressing” it all the time – as if we needed this to give us a right to enjoy the world. The disenchanted view struggles to see the world as a gift we can happily accept, falling in love with no limits and with no escape clauses attached. In the love Chesterton describes we are in it for rich or poorer, in sickness and in health, till death us do part. That is why we cannot desecrate the bodies of our loved one because they might be useful; why indeed we have the very concept of desecration. Let me finish with Chesterton again: "The world is not to be justified as it is justified by the mechanical optimists; it is not to be justified as the best of all possible worlds. Its merit is not that it is orderly and explicable; its merit is that it is wild and utterly unexplained. Its merit is precisely that none of us could have conceived such a thing, that we should have rejected the bare idea of it as miracle and unreason. It is the best of all impossible worlds. (Charles Dickens)" Andrew Gleeson is a retired Australian philosopher. He is the author of ‘A Frightening Love: Recasting the Problem of Evil’ (Houndmills, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan 2012).

Using A Scalpel To Treat Mental Illness Posted on December 15, 2024 by john Dear Friends, It seems to me, a scalpel is a poor tool to treat mental illness. In this, I disagree with many experts on the subject. They maintain, if a child questions their sexuality, the first response should be to remove their genitalia, making them unable to have actual sex again. That’s called gender affirming care. Destroying a child’s gender. In this we can conclude that the words are the reverse of the action. Nevertheless, the smartest people in any room (just ask them) affirm and avow, this is the correct course of action. Being idealists, they hold that intentions are all that count… outcomes be damned. So their go to for anything is power. In this case the power of the scalpel to remove offending parts. To sculpt someone into the ideal of themselves in their mind. Plus, the required surgeries are lucrative. I fail to understand how “gender dysphoria” is anything but a mental illness. How is it different for a woman who thinks she should be a man, or a man who thinks he should have been a woman… from a person who thinks they should have been born a monkey? How about someone who thinks they are Napoleon? Which of these two options do you think is the more rational one? To admit them to a surgery chamber and shorten them by removing a few vertebra, and shortening the femurs, change the shape of their face to look like Bonaparte, and then call them Emperor? OR, give them mental health treatment? Normal people will uniformly say, mental health treatment, is the more rational choice. As it is with those who actually have “gender dysphoria.” In my worldview, doctors are there to help people who are sick get better, people who are injured to heal, and to do no harm. At least intentional harm. Because the state of medicine is always in flux. What’s common knowledge today maybe commonly known to be terrible tomorrow. Like using mercury to treat syphilis. The race is to see which drives you crazy first. In the case of gender affirming surgery, or more appropriately, “Gender destroying surgery…” the harm is in the act as well as the outcome. It’s not like a doctor administering mercury to treat syphilis, it’s like Josef Mengele playing god. Like applying mercury as an antibiotic, the side effect is death. The one by poisoning the other by suicide. Regardless, the outcome is the same… No witnesses. People become fixated and captured by ideas. Sometimes those ideas are literal malevolence… as is the “trans movement.” Demonic in nature those experts possessed by it are not in their right minds. Like Nazi death camp guards they think they’re doing the right thing. Instead of listening to their hearts, that must scream how wrong their actions are, they only listen to their head, telling them they’re doing it for the betterment of the species. Their idealistic goal is worth any atrocity. Tough there’s precedent in the progressive faction for just this kind of behavior. In their eugenics movement. Another bowel movement of the progressives. Where elitists would judge others, as worthy of having children… or to be subjected to inhuman sterilization. By scalpel. Which Mengele was trying to make more humane. There’s no telling someone’s intentions. The experts involved in the “trans” movement may think it’s an altruistic effort, or maybe they’re evil incarnate. Who can say for sure? I can’t read minds… nor can they. All we can see and thereby judge are actions and outcomes. Doing permanent damage to a child for a temporary feeling is the epitome of harming the patient. Knowingly, I would argue. The trans BM maybe another example of using leaches to cure cancer. A foolish yet noble attempt that results in disaster for the patient. There certainly is precedent for that as well. Nevertheless, using a scalpel to treat a mental illness is sufficiently counter intuitive, to be considered quackery. So I would urge everyone to speak up, to stop this insanity, before more innocent lives are destroyed. Sincerely, John Pepin

Disparity In Wealth Or Political Power? Posted on December 13, 2024 by john Dear Friends, I wonder, which seems more just to you? A vast disparity in wealth… or political power? Do you care more about someone having dozens of cars, while you can only afford two… or that someone can order you killed, and your stuff taken, without consequence? This is only possible when there’s a vast disparity in political power. Those driven by envy and jealousy, will say they would rather a huge disparity in political favor, than in wealth, while the pragmatist might reason, the negative effect on human Rights and humanity itself of over powered political favor, makes it the greater danger. Personally, I couldn’t care less how rich someone else is, or how much political favor they have, as long as they leave me alone. The rich usually leave us alone, while the politically powerful… don’t. The wealthy also have great reputational political favor, but prosperity also carries political disfavor, in the forms of envy, jealousy and hate. Somewhat balancing out wealth in political favor. Unless that wealth is used to purchase political favor. As George Soros has done. Then wealth can make a madman a puppeteer. A wire puller who’s above the law and even criticism. This only works however when the conniver encourages the dominant political theology. Spending money on politically disfavored ideas earns political disfavor from the elite. As Musk has done. Though the lion’s share of the wealthy don’t engage in political intrigue, instead they engage in making more money or in lavish lifestyles. So while there is crossover between wealth and political power, they are indeed different things. Over powered political favor is also called despotism, tyranny and oligarchy. Where all, or most of the political power, is vested in one person or a small cadre of elites. The rest of the citizenry can be killed in the street at the whim. Like in ancient times. Moreover, political power is always exploited to amass immense fortunes. As Nancy Pelosi has done with legal insider trading. The politically favored are above even common legal code. Like when Ted Kennedy killed Mary Jo Kopechne in Chappaquiddick. Those with sufficient political favor are above even ridicule. Like Barack Obama, when a rodeo clown was personally destroyed, for wearing an Obama mask in a rodeo. Which means, those with over powered political favor, exploit it to become rich, are above the law, and even criticism. What someone else has means nothing to me. I’m only concerned with my loved ones, what I earned by the sweat of my brow, and being left alone. In fact, the more everyone else has, the happier I am about it. Why? Because the more wealth there is, the higher my standard of living will naturally be, regardless of my level of gumption. So I like there being lots of rich people, wasting their money on frivolity, opulence or investing it to make more. I don’t even care how much political power someone has… as long as they leave me alone. The problem is, no one amasses political power to leave us alone. It’s just not done. They gain great political power to use it. Who will they use it on? Us of course! So, to have my druthers, I prefer a great disparity in wealth over political favor. Which has the greater ability to harm civilization though? Wealth disparity or political disparity? If we are to act to limit one, or the other, that has to be the question. It can be answered pragmatically or idealistically. The pragmatist will answer it judged by the result of each. Even as the idealist will judge depending on his or her feelings on the subject. The idealist might feel like it’s unfair for some to have too much wealth, so prefer others to have over powered political favor, to put the rich in their place. The outcome be damned. It’s the goal that counts. Meanwhile, the pragmatist will observe the past results of both, and will conclude that the option with the greatest likelihood for a positive outcome be chosen… political power. Which is why we must limit political power, not wealth. Sincerely, John Pepin

Let's be honest. Nobody wants to read about why human limitations might be features rather than bugs. It goes against everything we've built our civilization on: human supremacy, endless improvement, maintaining control. Even our counterculture narratives usually center on humans ultimately prevailing, just in a different way. That's what makes the AI control debate so revealing. Watch how people react when you suggest that maybe we're not supposed to maintain control. You'll see everything from anger to accusations of defeatism to elaborate explanations of how humans will always remain on top. It's fascinating how we'll acknowledge we're destroying our planet, can't solve basic coordination problems, and keep making the same mistakes... but suggest we might be stepping stones rather than the pinnacle of evolution and watch the defensive barriers go up. I get it. I struggle with it too. It's one thing to criticize humanity (we all love doing that). It's another to suggest our very flaws might be serving a purpose we're not in charge of. That's the kind of idea that gets prophets killed and philosophers ostracized. But here's the thing: Our desperate resistance to this idea might be exactly what proves its relevance. Nothing triggers our defense mechanisms quite like suggesting they're defense mechanisms. Look at how we handle any discussion of AI that doesn't center on human control. We'll accept almost any framework except one that suggests we're not the final word in consciousness. Maybe that's why this conversation feels dangerous, it's not attacking humanity, it's suggesting something worse: that we might be perfectly fulfilling our role by failing to maintain control.

Appeal To Popularity Posted on November 29, 2024 by john Dear Friends, It seems to me, the most pernicious fallacy, is appeal to popularity. Edward Bernays liked to exploit that little trick to manipulate people. He used it to con women into smoking, and wearing bras. Even as the new propagandists have manipulated women into eschewing families, and loving abortion. The Covid vaccine is pushed by appeal to popularity. Appeal to popularity is so powerful since we’re social animals. Being social we want to fit in. So if we detect the crowd is going a certain way, we follow, else risk being left behind. This is so ingrained that we are manipulated by it… and we are. Being undetected and effective it’s pernicious. So it’s not likely to go anywhere soon. Making it important for us to become immune to the fallacy of appeal to popularity. When a thing is pernicious, it’s hard to get rid of. Long Covid could be called pernicious Covid. Another example is Herpes, which is a pernicious disease, as is appeal to popularity. They’re all hard to get rid of. Appeal to popularity is probably the worst. Because herpes dies with the patient, and long Covid eventually goes away, but appeal to popularity will outlast us all. Because it’s used by us all and will be used until time ends. Being so effective and so often hidden. Knowledge is defense. Realize that the popular thing may not be the right thing nor the most profitable means. Like smoking, just because everyone does it, doesn’t make it smart. The answer then, is to inure oneself to appeal to popularity, so we aren’t as effected by it. Dulling its teeth. Appeal to popularity was used to glamorize smoking in the 1930s, and to discourage smoking in the 1980s. When the popular girls all smoked, all the girls smoked, and when the popular girls stopped, all the girls stopped. Because we often act as a herd. Not everyone. Some are more like cats than dogs or cows. The highly independent, disagreeable and hermit types, tend to go the opposite direction from the crowd. They think for themselves… for better or worse. Because, while appeal to popularity is a fallacy, there is safety in numbers. Even a wrong decision that kills a bunch of people, probably won’t kill you, if the crowd is big enough. Individualists like Dick Proenneke are rare people. Their risks are their own as are the rewards and dangers. Had nuclear war broken out… he would have barely noticed. There’s safety in fitting in too. Scientists were studying zebras back in the day. The trouble is, they couldn’t identify one long enough to get meaningful data… so they painted one. Then the lions ate it. So they marked another… which the lions immediately ate. Eventually, the scientists figured out individual zebras must blend in to the crowd, so lions cant pick one out. Marking them so one stood out was a death sentence. In some ways we’re like zebras. There are innumerable adages about how high nails are pounded down, the dangers of sticking your neck out, and rocking boats. Even as others urge us not to follow crowds, think for ourselves, and the dangers of jumping off bridges, just because everyone else is. Which means, we need to be zebras sometimes and John Gault others. Wisdom is recognizing when we should be Dick Proenneke, and head out alone into the wilderness, and when we should blend into the crowd. Though at no time should we allow ourselves to be manipulated by appeal to popularity. No one manipulates us for our good, they manipulate us for their good. That’s as close to the kind of universal the Taoists hate as is possible. The way to do that is by keeping perspective. Try to take a bird’s eye view of the dialogue in the media, the marketplace and at work. There’s always manipulation. Practice looking for it is a good exercise in recognizing it. So we don’t get manipulated. Because cons only work when the Mark is unaware. Learn to be aware and the swindle of appeal to popularity won’t work on you. Be a zebra or a John Gault when it serves you. Sincerely, John Pepin

A Mortal Danger Posted on December 8, 2024 by john Dear Friends, It seems to me, a government that doesn’t listen to anyone else, is a mortal danger to the citizenry and itself. Moreover, that government will censor to protect it’s echo chamber from disharmony. Making the motivation to censor a way to promote lies, hide truths and defend ignorance. As the Holy Bible says, Satan is the great deceiver. Secondary evils birthed by censorship are hypocrisy, hubris and stupidity. Few are as stupid as those unwilling to listen to others. Because they fence out potential knowledge. In fact, a government that staunchly refuses to listen is one that can only know that which it already knows, and is unable to measure if a thing they think, is true, or not. Making government’s ignorance, enforced by censorship… a mortal danger to the world. All knowledge comes from other people. This axiom also applies to government. A baby born into a sensory deprivation chamber, and living there for fifty years, will know nothing when he or she emerges. There’s no such thing as a priori knowledge. On what foundation does that child have to base any thought? None. Government that refuses to listen is the same. It might as well be in a sensory deprivation chamber. There’s no knowledge gain, only absurd ideas, set in ever harder concrete. If you refused to listen to anyone else, you would become ever more ignorant. Just as government is. Government becomes ever more ignorant while believing it’s the smartest person in every room. Stupidity abetted by ignorance. Making governments the definition of a fool. Censorship then keeps not only the people ignorant but governments as well. Which if you think of it, is quite dangerous. Because someone ignorant will act in ways counter to their self interest. Out of a lack of knowledge. Doctors used to think leeches cured disease. Now we know different. If they had refused to listen to Louis Pasteur, they still would be using leeches. As most advanced governments are stuck in the Middle Ages with the rest still in the bronze age. Because the elite think they know it all, and so have no need of input, feedback or new information. It’s redundant and takes away from their unlimited power. So they censor, to maintain the purity of their echo chamber, atop the ivory tower. Which seems smart, to an ignoramus, foolish enough to believe they know it all. Without feedback, new information or input of any kind, the elite can only get off track. Like driving a race car blindfolded, deafened, and by wire. The outcome isn’t likely to be optimal. Take for example, the Covid crisis created by government ignorance. The virus was made in a Wuhan lab with American tax dollars. Then released by stupidity or malevolence. A host of vaccines created with untested technology, and rolled out for a species wide implementation. With mandates and vaccine passports to force it into our bloodstreams. Millions are dead and millions more suffer side effects of the untested shots. As this was happening, governments claimed the virus came from a pangolin, and arrested people for walking alone on a beach. Because censorship kept us from true information back then. When the truth is suppressed and lies are pushed, the result is stupidity. Government that maintains a strict policy of ignorance can’t properly govern. Moreover, sensory deprivation is a poor place to gain knowledge. We have to listen to others, everyone has their story… All knowledge comes from others. Sure, people spout a lot of garbage, but hidden within that garbage, are diamonds, gold and Rolex watches. Talking isn’t listening, but the elite love to talk, and detest listening. So they censor that which they dislike. Shutting off their only source of knowledge. Then go on to do things that kill millions of people. It’s no problem though… because there’s no consequence to the elite for failure. Making their ignorance, defended by censorship, a mortal danger to us all. Sincerely, John Pepin

Unlimited Power Leads To Unlimited Atrocities Posted on December 18, 2024 by john Dear Friends, It seems to me, unlimited power leads to unlimited atrocities. History is unambiguous on this. With examples spanning human history. Alexander’s slaughtering of the city of Thebes, Tamerlane’s atrocities against Hindus and Christians, up to today’s North Korean despot Kim. Atrocities aren’t only for villains, they’re for heroes as well… if they get to write the history. Moreover, no one who commits an atrocity thinks they’re doing an evil. Not at all, they’ve rationalized it in their heads, to be a good and necessary thing. You and I, out of ignorance and given unlimited power, would be likely to commit several atrocities in our struggle to better the human condition. Those who “know” they wouldn’t, are the ones who would commit the worst ones. Lacking omniscience our knowledge is limited. Giving unlimited power to a limited being is asking for trouble. Moreover, no amount of surveillance will make a person or agency omniscient. Only more nosy. Which makes unlimited power foolish. Since the quality of knowing everything is impossible, it’s also impossible to apply unlimited power effectively. Our lack of true understanding and human heartedness, makes that power into a sledge hammer, wielded by a barbarian. When it would take omniscience to machine that club into a jeweler’s tool set, and human heartedness to use it. So those who seek unlimited power to improve the lot of Mankind are foolish people, playing stupid games, and we all know how that turns out… we all win stupid prizes. With unlimited power, comes zero consequences for actions, and no effective feedback for crazy thoughts. So those invested with zero consequences and unlimited power, even with the most angelic goals, will end up killing millions. Because consequences and feedback are what keep us sane. Someone with the power to kill at a command isn’t a person others make angry. So the totalitarian is insulated from sanity. Plus, without consequences for failure, there’s no learning from it either. This lack of feedback and learning from failure magnifies the lack of omniscience, of the despot or oligarchy, into outright malevolence. Hatred against those that are clearly standing in the way of a utopian existence for humanity. Providing the victims for the atrocities. The more idealistic the ruler the more heinous the atrocities. While a pragmatist looks at results not intentions, the idealist looks at intentions not results. So if a given action has failed in the past, or worse, yielded negative results, a pragmatist will try something different. Cut their losses if you will. Even as an Idealist will try and try again. Because the goal is so glittering it’s worth any atrocity. With the idealist mindset of win lose, that someone has to suffer to birth their vision, is only natural. The few lose so the many can win. A look at the earlier examples will find that all but Alexander were idealists. While Alexander aimed his atrocities at Thebes to settling Greece… Tamerlane, Hitler, Mao, Kim and the whole lot sought a utopian world… and delivered hell on Earth. That’s why I say, unlimited power leads to unlimited atrocities. People are simply incapable of omniscience (unlimited knowledge) and therefore incapable of handling unlimited power. Plus the human hearted among us are few, and proof of human heartedness, is they don’t seek power. Who dares correct the tyrant? Which is why despots always go insane. Getting ever further from reality and deeper into their fevered dreams. Then there’s the idealist who seizes power in a coup. Given unlimited power, to implement their vision of utopia, breaking a few eggs is acceptable. Some have to lose so the rest can win. You could say their goal is so glittering it’s worth any atrocity, and so many are committed. No wonder atrocities are so common, and human hearted limited government, so rare. Sincerely, John Pepin

Resentment And Revenge Posted on December 20, 2024 by john Dear Friends, It seems to me, when a faction feeds on resentment as a means to political power, their wins come at cost to the future. Such a faction will row crop resentment. They’ll exploit every human weakness, and push fallacies like, “the disparity between the rich and poor…” to distract from what people really resent, the disparity between the politically powerful and the politically weak. One way to manipulate is to convince the politically weak they are the politically powerful. By exploiting resentment. While resentment is a great motivator, it harms the people who harbor it, harms the society that encourages it, and harms the civilization that holds it as a good. This harm comes in a myriad of flavors. Despotism, economic collapse, health issues, and more… can all be yours, by harboring resentment in your heart. Resentment is a powerful emotion and so has great power to motivate. Imparting the political faction that wields it great power as well. Resentment is an envy based emotion. Without envy or jealousy it would deflate to a mere incorporeal malcontentedness. The emotion of envy, jealousy and perceived injury, can grow to become all consuming. creating a need for revenge. As that resentment grows, so too does the need for revenge, until an actual vendetta is called. Then the only productive action those consumed with hate from revenge will engage in, is to move them closer to the day they get to say, “My name is Inigo Montoya, You killed my father, prepare to die.” Making a productive human being into a mere hunter seeker drone. Which means, an overwhelming resentment will make a person harm him or herself… to get back at those he or she resents. Therefore, a negative emotion like resentment, will never advance, but will always harm. It’s hard to argue a mindless hunter seeker drone will show up to work on time, sober, and willing to work, nor will they start a business that serves. Those programmed to hate through the subtle and judicious use of resentment are the opposite. People overwhelmed with vendetta, tend to make poor employees and to start fewer than average businesses. They are hard working at amassing political power to get revenge though. In other words, those who have become useful to the faction that feeds off resentment, become useless to themselves, their families and society. They become a danger. While resentment is a powerful tool of politics, it’s use diminishes not only the body politic but the economy and justice itself, leading to despotism. The faction that nourishes itself from envy, jealousy and perceived injury, will have ardent followers. Zealots ready willing and able to do violence at a moments notice. Which lowers the quality of political discourse to violence. Factions that refuse to engage in violence are crushed. As Lenin’s Bolsheviks murdered Mensheviks in the night, leaving their tortured bodies as a stark reminder, of the violence the Bolsheviks were willing to apply. While that was a revolutionary period, subsequent decades only hammered the nail in further. Resentment leading to vengeance, results in damage to everyone and everything… except the faction that exploits it. A wise faction, that seeks the best interest of the nation and indeed humanity itself, will seek to eliminate resentment by providing opportunity, education… and only political limits to the industrious. Any use of resentment should be immediately attacked as the manipulation it is, and the would be despots who use it, are discredited for it. A progressive economist of the nineteenth century, Veblen, was asked, “Why don’t Americans resent the rich?” He replied, “Because Americans think they can become rich.” Which is the real answer to resentment. Create a culture of success. Give everyone the unlimited opportunity to become rich, and plenty of careers for those without the ambition, by limiting political power, and there will be no need of envy or jealousy, leading to resentment and revenge. Sincerely, John Pepin