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I am not sure whether the US population has become markedly dumber in recent years or it is simply more visible now through social media. But the amount of moronic memes and general stupidity from Americans visible on social media is staggering.
From the rise of Flat Earthers to a wide range of nutty conspiracy theories, religious fanaticism, right wing extremism and rejection of science.
The US is clearly in rapid decline. We are seeing a nation imploding from lack of intelligence, empathy and responsibility. The current political polaization is but a symptom. Trump is a symptom.
And I believe the social media – predomenantly created in the US – has been a catalyst for the US decline. Call it karma, call it our Great Filter. But whatever it is, the rest of the world may be wise to start planning the future without the former super-power.
Good bye USA. It was nice while it lasted.
Conservatism is about conservation. It is about limiting change.
From the multitude of conversations I’ve had about the right side of politics, it seemss clear to me that the further to the right a person is, the more he or she is driven by fear. Fear of the government, fear or limitations or having freedoms or rights taken away. Fear of other cultures or unfamiliar sexual orientations – the Us versus Them. Fear of someone “in control”. Fear of change, of progression. Even fear of damnation or Hell.
It is a political belief mired in fear, of which paranoia is born. Paranoia begets conspiracy theories. From the Illuminati, “the bankers” and “reptilians” to all kinds of “Truthers”; be it 9/11, fake moon landings, hollow or flat Earth, telepathic beams from Polaris, HAARP, chemtrails or governments hiding alien life forms.
Paranoia and fear clouds the rational mind and promotes aggressive behaviour – as so often seen in online discussions with labelling of opponents, name calling, threats and the usual wide range of logical fallacies.
To have an intelligent discussion with a right-wing believer, you must first help him feel safe, or you will waste your time while he or she remains afraid.
Truth is what is real and factual. Application of logic yields new facts, new understanding of truth.
But logic breaks where emotions rule.
We see this easily in betting games. The term “pot committed” comes from poker. A person’s reasoning and logic goes out the window when he has committed so much money in the pot that he disregards his actual chances of winning and keeps throwing money into an already losing proposition.
We see this in science where a scientist can become so emotionally committed to a theory that no amound of contrary facts will sway him. Witness the late Fred Hoyle and his commitment to his Steady State theory. Regardless of how much evidence pointed to a Big Bang or similar theory, he kept on insisting that the universe was in a steady state.
We see this so often than in politics. People get so committed to a certain ideology that their intellect has taken a permanent leave of absence.
And of course religion. Forget the facts, the Earth is 6000 years old. Because an old book says so.
Science owns the realm of facts and truth. Politics and religion should be confined to areas where certainty is elusive – like what solutions to apply to global warming or praying for a loved one’s life. But when science comes up with a definite answer to how we should mitigate climate change, politics should step aside and let the factual solution be applied. And when the doctor with scientific certainty prescribes the medicine that will save your wife’s life, you can still pray – but you should not reject the medicine. Only when there are uncertainties regarding the medicine, then it boils down to judgement, ideology, religion or hunch. But when there is certainty, let facts and logic prevail.
Facebook discussions are rampant with emotions and virtually devoid of logic. And the way you can see this is the incessant display of logical fallacies; Straw Man, Argumentum Ad Hominem, No True Scotsman, Appeal to Authority or other Red Herrings. And the way you handle it is to keep calm, remain on the subject, observe the facts, listen carefully and stay with logic.
Logic: The science or art of exact reasoning, or of pure and formal thought, or of the laws according to which the processes of pure thinking should be conducted; the science of the formation and application of general notions; the science of generalization, judgment, classification, reasoning, and systematic arrangement; the science of correct reasoning. [1913 Webster]
Business people, salesmen, game theory mathematicians, Donald Trump and negotiators would advice you to get the best deal possible. And the best deal would often amount to getting the biggest share of the pie that you can possibly get.
While that strategy may get you rich when selling refrigerators to Eskimos, it is not the best long term strategy for a partnership.
Whenever you try to get a bigger piece of the pie, the other parties gets less. And their motivation for baking pie suffers proportionally.
Trying to get the “best deal” by getting an unfair portion may be a viable short term strategy. But in the long run it kills partnerships.
The best way to ensure affluent pie making and long term profit is for every party to insist on a fair deal for everyone involved.
The best strategy is not to simply cater for one’s own interests. It is to cater for everyone’s interest. Putting my interest first hurts the other parties’ interests and kills off that much motivation to make the partnership work in the long run.
The best strategy would be to impress as much as you can by delivering value to the partnership as often as you can. Give life to the partnership by continually giving and insisting on a fair deal for everyone involved. Empathy, transparency, putting all cards on the table and dropping all chess gaming are keys to a good partnership. Don’t do tactics. Don’t do strategies. Just ensure everyone succeeds.
From the data I’ve seen and been able to verify, it does seem that humanity’s greatest challenge is Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW – Humanly caused Global Warming). The data supporting AGW is overwhelming. Still there are those who choose to deny it or remain sceptical.
I can understand and appreciate the sceptics – as long as they make an effort to inform themselves – by being open to the underlying data and science and dig down into the underlying physics and statistics.
But when I encounter deniers, uniformily they come across as very certain that either 1) there is no Global Warming, or 2) the Global Warming is not caused by humans. They also tend to believe that there is some sort of conspiracy to forward the idea of AGW to funnel money into research and green energy. I have yet to meet a denier that has been to areas affected by Global Warming or who has any scientific knowledge to understand the physics or statistics involved.
It seems the belief in conspiracy theories is the driving force for the majority of deniers. They loudly proclaim that one should “follow the money trail”, because money is the driving force of conspiracies. It baffles me how they do not heed their own advice. The amount of money to be gained by oil companies in denying AGW totally dwarves the money gathered into scientific research and Green Energy – by a factor of at least ten. Much, much more is gained by “The Establishment” in lobbying against AGW than for it.
For some deniers, it seems safest to kill AGW at its roots by denying there is any rise in temperatures at all – citing local “cold spots” as evidence, or simply just invent data or opinions to counter facts. This type of deniers are marginalized and may soon find themselves as scarce as the Flat Earthers.
The majority of deniers would admit there is warming going on but deny there is any human connection. Again, the data and science is mounting against this position. The problem is that they almost never try to actually defend their position with any facts. They use opinions, hand waving or Internet memes trying to “discredit” science.
The deniers I’ve met are usually right-wing extremists. Denying AGW seems to be a political position and has very little to do with facts. It is the old conflict between propaganda and science.
It’s strange how people still would defend the fossil energy industry when there are more jobs to be made in the green industry. And wouldn’t the deniers also want cleaner air and water at least? And wouldn’t you rather err with science than take a position that could potentially be catastrophic for mankind?
I have been to the arctic and seen the effects of AGW with my own eyes. I understand the statistics and physics involved. The deniers I’ve met rely on second hand information and none have been able to show any signs of understanding the underlying science. If anything would motivate me to man the barricades, this issue would be it.
After several weeks of trying to raise awareness of the disaster it would be to elect Donald Trump as the president of the USA, I have changed my mind.
I will now support Trump and cheer on him from abroad – hoping he will hit a Home Run next week.
I will support him precisely because it will be a disaster. It will set the effort to curtail global warming back decades when he pulls the US support for the Paris Agreement. Trump is notoriously anti-science and pro-conspiracies and conveniently believes climate change to be a hoax. I believe global warming is the single most important issue facing the Earth for the next century. And we cannot fail in our efforts to not fuck up our planet.
But, it’s better to fail hard and fast than to fail in ten years when the crisis is even tougher. And I don’t believe we can afford not to fail now. We must let Trump win so that he can fail in public so that the US can learn fast – and then join in with other nations that want to pull our weight together. The alternative is worse – having 150 million disaffected Americans sulking and bitching for the next 4 years.
Shielding the US from Muslims, Mexicans, Syrian refugees (which is largely due to the US intervention in the Middle East), free trade and everything Mr. Trump doesn’t like is certainly not the way forward. But no amount of rhetoric, persuasion or facts will convince Trump supporters that we need to pull together. The egoism runs too deep. He needs to wreck havoc in order for people to understand that this right wing lunacy is a dead end.
I believe in failing. And learning. It’s core to my coaching of athletes, executives and artists. US needs to learn. Since the world has never been socially better off than now, we should afford 4 years of crazy shit to accommodate for better decades to come.
It apparently wasn’t enough for Bush to fail, he’s simply been written off later as “part of the establishment”. We need another fast and solid failure.
Vote for Trump. Make America Fail Again.
We need to handle our environmental problems, limit the centralization of power, ensure transparency of government and privacy of citizens. The rest will take care of itself.
It is not enough to tolerate religions or personal convictions or beliefs. We should recognize the power in beliefs and religions.
Yesterday I attended the International Panel of Parliamentarians for Freedom of Religion or Belief (#IPPFoRB) in Berlin.
Tolerance of religions and beliefs is an important human right. Taking action to stop or limit prosecution based on faith is paramount. But I think we can take this one step further. Beyond stopping oppression of faith, passive tolerance of faith or even promotion of a tolerant society, there is recognition of the power of faith.
Religion or belief gives purpose. Purpose gives strength, and with strength can come accomplishments.
Witness the early civilizations, the building of ancient Greece, the Roman Empire, the Mayans and social structures throughout our history. Religions have given purpose, strength and accomplishments to the benefit… and detriment of many. The strength has yielded the foundations for civilizations. It has also brought oppression, even terrorism. In any case, with conviction comes strength.
Religion or Belief -> Purpose -> Strength -> Accomplishment
This we should recognize and help use for the greater good. Faith can be a basis for individual strength and strong societies. Thus faith should be applauded regardless of what the person chooses to believe in.
The diversity of this conference is amazing. More than 100 MPs from more than 60 countries. All major religions are represented. Academia, NGOs and other interested parties attend.
Having attending this conference, I am left with a couple of questions. Firstly:
How can people with directly opposing purposes honestly cooperate for Freedom of Religion or Belief?
I spoke to people at the conference who have the goal of their religion winning at the expense of others.
Answers to this question could serve also to answer how we could make anarchy work in practice.
Another impression from the conference was that several of the attendants insisted that there was absolutely no connection between religion and terrorism. I believe such a refusal to discuss such a connection is both naive and dangerous. It can obfuscate a possible cause of terrorism. The blunt refusal of a discussion is never healthy.
Then there is the question of a battle of two basic human rights. Which takes rank – the freedom of religion and belief or the freedom of speech? What’s your answer to this potential dilemma?
This needs wider recognition:
“A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a simple system that worked. A complex system designed from scratch never works and cannot be patched up to make it work. You have to start over with a working simple system.”
From Gall’s Law on Wikipedia.
Thanks to Geir & Jonas @ Telemark Fylkeskommune for bringing this law to my attention.
Geir Isene - uncut 