Bill Maher had Bill O'Reilly on his show. O'Reilly said a couple of completely misleading things that really bother me.
The first problem was when Bill Maher was asking O'Reilly about Sean Hannity reading incorrect information about Obama's trip to India (something about the trip costing $200 million). O'Reilly's defense was that like him, Hannitty is an opinion guy and not a hard-news person. That was his whole defense. This defense doesn't stand up on any level. The station is called Fox News. This implies that whatever they're going to say on the television is fact, and not make believe. Even if Hannity doesn't report news stories, his opinions are supposed to be about facts, not blatantly incorrect statistics. O'Reilly, it is not OK for a news organization to report on fiction as if it were news. He's not reviewing a fictional book. He's commenting on current political events.
The second problem is this; O'Reilly was equating social justice with redistribution of wealth. He was talking about how Obama believes in social justice and that the Constitution does not say "transfer money". His problem is that raising taxes on the rich to pay for social programs to improve the lives of the lower class is wrong; America is about self reliance. This is infuriating because...
The Constitution also doesn't say anything about the type of economic system the U.S. is supposed to have. It doesn't say anything about Capitalism or the 'Free Market'. His argument is completely absurd.
The Constitution was written to benefit 'The People'. Of course, when it was written, it didn't include any rights to women or minorities or slaves or people that didn't own land. Although a revolutionary document at the time, it's outdated and changes have been made to it. Now the document is usually interpreted as offering equal rights for everyone. Nothing about it indicates a mandate to pull ourselves by our boot straps and go it alone. We're not isolated people. We live among and depend on other people all of the time. Where would these rich people be without teachers, maids, construction workers, waiters, cooks, and the thousands of other people that make their lives possible? The least they can do, is provide assistance to people that have made them rich, and sustain their lifestyle.
He makes the blatant claim "this is a Capitalistic society". This is not in the Constitution Bill. What we have now is a redistribution of wealth from the poor to the rich. Maher's statistic about the top 1% owning 8% of the wealth in 1980 and now it's 23% indicates the real redistribution of wealth. If you are so against the redistribution of wealth, you should encourage programs to bring the percentage back to 1980 levels.
It's really a shame that so many people listen to Bill O'Reilly. He is very smooth and self assured when he talks. Even when bullshit if dribbling down his chin. I like Bill Maher a lot, but I wish he would call him out on this on the spot.
Monday, November 8, 2010
Wednesday, September 8, 2010
Being a spectator versus being a participant
Since the advent of TV, people in the western world have been increasingly taught to be spectators. Being a spectator is a very old activity of course. TV just made it seem like being a spectator is the default way to experience the world. “Don’t experience it yourself, but watch others experience it.” This has encouraged many negative behaviors in our modern society.
A sedentary lifestyle is now standard for Americans. Outside of work, many Americans do no additional physical activity. Many jobs require minimal physical activity to begin with. Office jobs and working behind a counter come to mind.
Few adults play sports. They prefer to watch them. Few people as a percentage of the population cook their own meals. Microwaving Mac and Cheese doesn’t count as cooking. Almost no one grows any of their own food. Almost no one could fix their own car. Some people drive their car every day and don’t know how to check their oil. Skills have just fallen to the wayside, as everything can be paid for and done by an expert.
All of these daily losses of power (being incapable of doing any of the above things are all losses of power) make it very easy for people to be manipulated and led on by corporations and governments. People are literally powerless to take care of their health and possessions, and that in turn breeds powerlessness in thought. That’s partly why the outrage over the BP spill has pretty much subsided. Few people still think about it. BP has done a tremendous PR effort to get people to think everything is ok. In a world where people are active participants instead of spectators, BP would have been liquidated as a company with all top executives going to prison. But instead business as usual will continue.
Every time you stop being a spectator and become an active participant, you can change the world for the better.
A sedentary lifestyle is now standard for Americans. Outside of work, many Americans do no additional physical activity. Many jobs require minimal physical activity to begin with. Office jobs and working behind a counter come to mind.
Few adults play sports. They prefer to watch them. Few people as a percentage of the population cook their own meals. Microwaving Mac and Cheese doesn’t count as cooking. Almost no one grows any of their own food. Almost no one could fix their own car. Some people drive their car every day and don’t know how to check their oil. Skills have just fallen to the wayside, as everything can be paid for and done by an expert.
All of these daily losses of power (being incapable of doing any of the above things are all losses of power) make it very easy for people to be manipulated and led on by corporations and governments. People are literally powerless to take care of their health and possessions, and that in turn breeds powerlessness in thought. That’s partly why the outrage over the BP spill has pretty much subsided. Few people still think about it. BP has done a tremendous PR effort to get people to think everything is ok. In a world where people are active participants instead of spectators, BP would have been liquidated as a company with all top executives going to prison. But instead business as usual will continue.
Every time you stop being a spectator and become an active participant, you can change the world for the better.
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
Slow Down
As technology has increased, become cheaper and ever-present, the speed of life has increased significantly. 200 years ago, New York to San Francisco would have taken months with a strong possibility of dying. Now it's a 6 hour plane flight, affordable to most people that aren't living in poverty. The observation has been made many times now that although things can be done much quicker, it seems like we have less and less time. It seems trite to even mention it again.
And it's great that so many things are done quicker. But not everything should be done quickly. Industrialization has made efficiency such an important quality. And being efficient is certainly a good thing for many things. But some things take time. One thing that sticks in my mind is getting results from meditation. You can't just meditate for an hour the first time you try. Meditating for a few minutes at a time can be a monumental struggle. You can learn the technique in minutes, but you can improve your ability for decades. There is no shortcut.
Meditation is just one example though. So many things take time. You can't make a delicious microwave dinner. My concern is that soon people will be able to communicate directly with computers, and people will be able to use computers to communicate with other people much faster. What will be lost in the interactions between cyborgs? Will all of the things that require patience and effort be cast aside because they're not fast enough?
And it's great that so many things are done quicker. But not everything should be done quickly. Industrialization has made efficiency such an important quality. And being efficient is certainly a good thing for many things. But some things take time. One thing that sticks in my mind is getting results from meditation. You can't just meditate for an hour the first time you try. Meditating for a few minutes at a time can be a monumental struggle. You can learn the technique in minutes, but you can improve your ability for decades. There is no shortcut.
Meditation is just one example though. So many things take time. You can't make a delicious microwave dinner. My concern is that soon people will be able to communicate directly with computers, and people will be able to use computers to communicate with other people much faster. What will be lost in the interactions between cyborgs? Will all of the things that require patience and effort be cast aside because they're not fast enough?
Tuesday, August 3, 2010
DIY in hard economic times
Americans are used to convenience. Convenience is certainly a good quality. The problem is that convenience takes precedence over many other more important qualities for many people. As just one example, many Americans choose convenience over health with their food choices. It's the whole appeal of fast food.
Convenience relies on our monetary system. The reason we can do things conveniently is that money pays for it. We save time, but spend money. And we spend money on lots of things that we could do ourselves cheaper (and more healthfully). It's just that it takes time. It's a trade off between time and money. But the hidden cost of convenience is that it shifts your expectations of how long something should take. We fill our time with a lot more things to do. Doing a lot of things in a short amount of time can certainly have its virtues. But it really depends on what we're doing. If we are spending our extra time being lazy (i.e. watching TV), which convenience encourages, convenience is really robbing us of time. It also robs us of skills. It makes people less able to do things. Everything can be done for you if you have the money for it.
But if you don't have the money for convenience, you can still have things you want. You just need to spend time on them. In the process you become capable of more things. It's empowering to be able to fix your own car, or make your own pie. It can also help your self esteem. That is something this is slipping for a lot of people as they spend more and more time out of work. Time out of work gives you the time to learn new skills, and the time to do-it-yourself.
And what can you do yourself? Anything! Some things are costly, like welding, but plenty of things can be done relatively cheaply, or even free. You can make your own soap, cook your own soups, grow your own food, and sew your own clothes. You can make your own liquor or wine, you can build your own furniture, and you can design your own posters. And if you really want to weld, you might be able to rent or borrow the equipment for little to no cost. Being unemployed or underemployed is the time to learn to do these things, and the skills will last a lifetime.
Convenience relies on our monetary system. The reason we can do things conveniently is that money pays for it. We save time, but spend money. And we spend money on lots of things that we could do ourselves cheaper (and more healthfully). It's just that it takes time. It's a trade off between time and money. But the hidden cost of convenience is that it shifts your expectations of how long something should take. We fill our time with a lot more things to do. Doing a lot of things in a short amount of time can certainly have its virtues. But it really depends on what we're doing. If we are spending our extra time being lazy (i.e. watching TV), which convenience encourages, convenience is really robbing us of time. It also robs us of skills. It makes people less able to do things. Everything can be done for you if you have the money for it.
But if you don't have the money for convenience, you can still have things you want. You just need to spend time on them. In the process you become capable of more things. It's empowering to be able to fix your own car, or make your own pie. It can also help your self esteem. That is something this is slipping for a lot of people as they spend more and more time out of work. Time out of work gives you the time to learn new skills, and the time to do-it-yourself.
And what can you do yourself? Anything! Some things are costly, like welding, but plenty of things can be done relatively cheaply, or even free. You can make your own soap, cook your own soups, grow your own food, and sew your own clothes. You can make your own liquor or wine, you can build your own furniture, and you can design your own posters. And if you really want to weld, you might be able to rent or borrow the equipment for little to no cost. Being unemployed or underemployed is the time to learn to do these things, and the skills will last a lifetime.
Sunday, July 18, 2010
The Century of Self
I just finished watching a 4 hour BBC documentary entitled "The Century of Self". It's one of the most impressive documentaries I have seen in a while. It should be required viewing for all people in Western societies to understand why the world is the way it is. It chronicles how the ideas of Sigmund Freud and other members of his family have deeply affected our current society. His daughter Anna Freud and his nephew Edward Bernays have had a huge influence on our consumer and mental cultures.
Freud had many ideas about human nature, but the main point that has stuck with us is that people are irrational and are driven by unseen and unnoticed instincts. At the time, it was a very astute realization and it's undoubtedly true. He is the father of modern Psychology. Not discussed in the movie is the fact that Freud was a coke head, and he saw and studied (almost exclusively) mentally ill people. He concluded that people are unpredictable and dangerous unless their inner drives are suppressed or redirected. I knew all of this because I studied Psychology. What I didn't realize was how far reaching his conclusions have become in our society. This is thanks to Edward Bernays.
Bernays also had a decidedly negative view of human nature, as he agreed with many of Freud's ideas. He was concerned that Democracy was not sustainable if people's impulses were not controlled and manipulated. So he developed modern Public Relations. He believed that the elite few should control how people expend their energy and how they behave by directing their desires to consumer products and appealing to their basest emotions. He wanted conformity through consumerism, and boy how did he succeed! He was a mastermind of getting people to do what companies wanted. For example, it used to be taboo for women to smoke cigarettes publicly. One cigarette company was concerned that half of the market was unavailable to them. Bernays set up a publicity stunt. He got a bunch of well dressed debutantes to march at the front of an Easter Day parade and to light up their cigarettes all at once on his cue. He told the media that suffragettes were going to light up 'torches of freedom' at the parade. It got huge media coverage, and the idea that women were sparking cigarettes for freedom's sake appealed to women, as it challenged men's power. The taboo was broken, and now women wanted to smoke too.
That was just the beginning of Bernay's long career in making people desire things that they didn't need. He worked for the President of the United States as well as many companies finding ways to make people desire their consumer goods. He was a very rich and powerful person. His whole strategy revolved around targeting people's base desires and connecting them to politicians or companies.
Anna Freud moved to America after her father died, and began the study of child psychology. She based her findings on her work with 2 children. She believed that if she could influence the children to conform to society, that it will keep them mentally healthy. Her worked influenced many other psychologists and has gone on to be a dominant influence of modern child psychology. What is bizarre to me, is that out of the two children she based her conclusions on (who were brother and sister), the sister committed suicide, and the brother didn't seem to be too well off either. This leads me to the conclusion that modern child psychology is deeply flawed, and we have Anna Freud to blame for it.
Starting in the 1960's, there came a change to American society's view of conformity. More and more people and a different school of psychologists focused on individual needs, and thought that these are what really drive some people. These inner driven people want to be individual and unique. At first, manufacturers were scared; their business model focused on mass producing goods and conformity. If people didn't want to conform any more, they wouldn't be able to sell their goods. Luckily for them, the same focus groups that were used from the 30's to the 60's changed tactics. Instead of trying to get people to conform, they had people describe their base desires and whims. And then the companies started making products that they might want to buy. What a gold mine! Now instead of losing out on the people that were inner driven, they could keep the conformists and get the inner driven people to buy products that 'expressed' themselves. No consumer left behind?
And America and much of the rest of the world has suffered for this. Rational discussion is no longer possible with many people. They want what they want. It's like we're all spoiled children, demanding to get what is ours. This is why people want lower taxes, and better public services. These are opposite ideas. You need to raise taxes if you want better public services. But politics is now all about pandering to the masses. Whatever they want to hear, they'll say, because being elected is what matters. Later in the documentary is shows how Bill Clinton and Tony Blaire in England changed their political parties forever. At the start of Clinton's presidency, he was pushing for health care reform and welfare. But people saw the increase in taxes as a personal assault on them. He lost popularity and was afraid that he would lose the re-election campaign. He hired Dick Morris, a public relations genius who started doing market research on swing voters (people that might vote Republican or Democrat). From that point on, all Clinton did was pander to those people so that they would vote for him. There was no longer any long term goals, just the short term goals of satisfying swing voter whims. And it worked beautifully. Blaire's campaign followed the same strategy, and his Labour Party gave up on their long time political stances.
How badly has this damaged society? It's hard to tell, but it seems to be damaged beyond repair. How do you get people to realize that they're not independent in this world? Everything is connected. When people have been advertised to so incessantly, and told that they deserve the best of everything and to be focused only on themselves, you can't just strip them of this idea by reason. Because emotions are irrational, and that is what they have been following for so long.
The only thing I can think of right now, is that connections need to be shown. To a married woman with that expensive diamond ring: it depended on people doing backbreaking work for little money, company executives marketing to you, people shipping the diamond, the people at the store selling the diamond, your husband who worked however many dozens or hundreds of hours to afford it, and all the people he interacted with at his company and his customers who paid his wages. It didn't just appear out of nowhere. <-------- This message though is much harder to convey than what diamond commercials have to do. "A Diamond is Forever", show some romantic silhouettes, and the name of the company. Especially hard is the fact that a commercial showing how diamonds actually get to your finger would never make it to a television station. It would hurt their advertisers ability to sell diamonds.
What can be done? How can people be shown that individual well-being should be connected to the well-being of everyone? If rational discussion can't be had, how do you fight base instincts? Through other emotional appeals?
Freud had many ideas about human nature, but the main point that has stuck with us is that people are irrational and are driven by unseen and unnoticed instincts. At the time, it was a very astute realization and it's undoubtedly true. He is the father of modern Psychology. Not discussed in the movie is the fact that Freud was a coke head, and he saw and studied (almost exclusively) mentally ill people. He concluded that people are unpredictable and dangerous unless their inner drives are suppressed or redirected. I knew all of this because I studied Psychology. What I didn't realize was how far reaching his conclusions have become in our society. This is thanks to Edward Bernays.
Bernays also had a decidedly negative view of human nature, as he agreed with many of Freud's ideas. He was concerned that Democracy was not sustainable if people's impulses were not controlled and manipulated. So he developed modern Public Relations. He believed that the elite few should control how people expend their energy and how they behave by directing their desires to consumer products and appealing to their basest emotions. He wanted conformity through consumerism, and boy how did he succeed! He was a mastermind of getting people to do what companies wanted. For example, it used to be taboo for women to smoke cigarettes publicly. One cigarette company was concerned that half of the market was unavailable to them. Bernays set up a publicity stunt. He got a bunch of well dressed debutantes to march at the front of an Easter Day parade and to light up their cigarettes all at once on his cue. He told the media that suffragettes were going to light up 'torches of freedom' at the parade. It got huge media coverage, and the idea that women were sparking cigarettes for freedom's sake appealed to women, as it challenged men's power. The taboo was broken, and now women wanted to smoke too.
That was just the beginning of Bernay's long career in making people desire things that they didn't need. He worked for the President of the United States as well as many companies finding ways to make people desire their consumer goods. He was a very rich and powerful person. His whole strategy revolved around targeting people's base desires and connecting them to politicians or companies.
Anna Freud moved to America after her father died, and began the study of child psychology. She based her findings on her work with 2 children. She believed that if she could influence the children to conform to society, that it will keep them mentally healthy. Her worked influenced many other psychologists and has gone on to be a dominant influence of modern child psychology. What is bizarre to me, is that out of the two children she based her conclusions on (who were brother and sister), the sister committed suicide, and the brother didn't seem to be too well off either. This leads me to the conclusion that modern child psychology is deeply flawed, and we have Anna Freud to blame for it.
Starting in the 1960's, there came a change to American society's view of conformity. More and more people and a different school of psychologists focused on individual needs, and thought that these are what really drive some people. These inner driven people want to be individual and unique. At first, manufacturers were scared; their business model focused on mass producing goods and conformity. If people didn't want to conform any more, they wouldn't be able to sell their goods. Luckily for them, the same focus groups that were used from the 30's to the 60's changed tactics. Instead of trying to get people to conform, they had people describe their base desires and whims. And then the companies started making products that they might want to buy. What a gold mine! Now instead of losing out on the people that were inner driven, they could keep the conformists and get the inner driven people to buy products that 'expressed' themselves. No consumer left behind?
And America and much of the rest of the world has suffered for this. Rational discussion is no longer possible with many people. They want what they want. It's like we're all spoiled children, demanding to get what is ours. This is why people want lower taxes, and better public services. These are opposite ideas. You need to raise taxes if you want better public services. But politics is now all about pandering to the masses. Whatever they want to hear, they'll say, because being elected is what matters. Later in the documentary is shows how Bill Clinton and Tony Blaire in England changed their political parties forever. At the start of Clinton's presidency, he was pushing for health care reform and welfare. But people saw the increase in taxes as a personal assault on them. He lost popularity and was afraid that he would lose the re-election campaign. He hired Dick Morris, a public relations genius who started doing market research on swing voters (people that might vote Republican or Democrat). From that point on, all Clinton did was pander to those people so that they would vote for him. There was no longer any long term goals, just the short term goals of satisfying swing voter whims. And it worked beautifully. Blaire's campaign followed the same strategy, and his Labour Party gave up on their long time political stances.
How badly has this damaged society? It's hard to tell, but it seems to be damaged beyond repair. How do you get people to realize that they're not independent in this world? Everything is connected. When people have been advertised to so incessantly, and told that they deserve the best of everything and to be focused only on themselves, you can't just strip them of this idea by reason. Because emotions are irrational, and that is what they have been following for so long.
The only thing I can think of right now, is that connections need to be shown. To a married woman with that expensive diamond ring: it depended on people doing backbreaking work for little money, company executives marketing to you, people shipping the diamond, the people at the store selling the diamond, your husband who worked however many dozens or hundreds of hours to afford it, and all the people he interacted with at his company and his customers who paid his wages. It didn't just appear out of nowhere. <-------- This message though is much harder to convey than what diamond commercials have to do. "A Diamond is Forever", show some romantic silhouettes, and the name of the company. Especially hard is the fact that a commercial showing how diamonds actually get to your finger would never make it to a television station. It would hurt their advertisers ability to sell diamonds.
What can be done? How can people be shown that individual well-being should be connected to the well-being of everyone? If rational discussion can't be had, how do you fight base instincts? Through other emotional appeals?
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
True Belief
What does it mean to believe something? If I say I believe in Christianity, does that make me a Christian? How does that compare to me saying something like, "I believe you're a waiter". And is this the same type of belief as when I say something like, "I don't believe in global warming".
After taking a course in Vipassana meditation, my understanding of belief has changed. Belief in the first case has to be followed up by action. If you say you're a Christian, you need to do something that is Christ like. This point was driven home to me during meditation. If I was to say I am a Buddhist, I would have to meditate and follow the 8 fold path. Just saying I believe in the Buddhist mythology doesn't mean that I'm a Buddhist. The statement "I believe you're a waiter" follows a similar logic. My belief is only true if you are in fact a waiter (you act like a waiter).
How about "I don't believe in global warming." In this case, the truth is impossible to discern by observing for a moment. My personal belief has no bearing on whether global warming is true or not. It's not something I can ask the Earth directly, unlike asking you if you're a waiter. Therefore, our beliefs regarding global warming depend on 'experts'. Scientists and climatologists that research this topic may be able to tell you what they think, but the truth is impossible to discern immediately. The belief only becomes true or false in the future. Scientists never have all of the information, so they could always be wrong. There are always more variables than we can imagine.
Being that we can't know the truth of global warming right now, how should we behave? Should we just pretend it doesn't exist and then change our behaviors if we discover that it is happening? I would argue that we should believe that it is really happening, and act accordingly. Even if the experts are wrong and the trends they see are not indicative of global warming caused by human activity, we have to act as if global warming is actually happening. It's the type of event that can't be solved quickly. When the evidence becomes conclusive, it's probably too late to fix it.
Beliefs are important, because what we believe directly influences our actions. Having true beliefs is preferable, but when the truth is not immediately apparent, believing in what appears to be true until conclusive evidence is presented is preferable. Some things just can't be fixed if we wait too long.
After taking a course in Vipassana meditation, my understanding of belief has changed. Belief in the first case has to be followed up by action. If you say you're a Christian, you need to do something that is Christ like. This point was driven home to me during meditation. If I was to say I am a Buddhist, I would have to meditate and follow the 8 fold path. Just saying I believe in the Buddhist mythology doesn't mean that I'm a Buddhist. The statement "I believe you're a waiter" follows a similar logic. My belief is only true if you are in fact a waiter (you act like a waiter).
How about "I don't believe in global warming." In this case, the truth is impossible to discern by observing for a moment. My personal belief has no bearing on whether global warming is true or not. It's not something I can ask the Earth directly, unlike asking you if you're a waiter. Therefore, our beliefs regarding global warming depend on 'experts'. Scientists and climatologists that research this topic may be able to tell you what they think, but the truth is impossible to discern immediately. The belief only becomes true or false in the future. Scientists never have all of the information, so they could always be wrong. There are always more variables than we can imagine.
Being that we can't know the truth of global warming right now, how should we behave? Should we just pretend it doesn't exist and then change our behaviors if we discover that it is happening? I would argue that we should believe that it is really happening, and act accordingly. Even if the experts are wrong and the trends they see are not indicative of global warming caused by human activity, we have to act as if global warming is actually happening. It's the type of event that can't be solved quickly. When the evidence becomes conclusive, it's probably too late to fix it.
Beliefs are important, because what we believe directly influences our actions. Having true beliefs is preferable, but when the truth is not immediately apparent, believing in what appears to be true until conclusive evidence is presented is preferable. Some things just can't be fixed if we wait too long.
Saturday, July 3, 2010
Excellence or Quality
In the book "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance", Robert Pirsig discusses how the ancient Greeks believed in excellence. Excellence in a person wasn't defined as someone that could do one thing really well, but someone who could do many things well. He goes on to discuss how our modern society has lost this value of excellence.
From talking to people, it seems that most people in our modern society don't know how to do much really well. Usually they focus on their careers, or watching TV or halo 3 or some other specialty. What does a person lose when he/she focuses on just one or 2 things? Everything else. It's great to be able to do one thing really well. But to be able to do many things even moderately well is better. It makes you a more well rounded person. It exposes you to different types of people and cultures. It gives you varied life experiences. But in our culture, there is a definite push to do a lot of one thing, and not do much of anything else.
One particular problem I see with this is that people are becoming less adaptable. If the world you live in drastically changes tomorrow, and you can't do your job any more, what would you do? I think that is happening to people in the areas affected by the oil spill. Fishermen have lost their source of income. The ones that never did anything besides fish will have serious problems gaining employment. They either have to learn something new fast, or move. Either way, their lives are turned upside down.
The Greek quality of excellence has been lost, but can be regained. If our institutions and media aren't teaching people to be skilled at multiple tasks, it's up to people individually or collectively to start teaching themselves. The internet is a useful tool in getting people interested in new activities and learning new skills. The more that people value this ancient quality, the more adaptable our lives will be, and more enjoyable.
(As a side note, television watching actively keeps people from learning to do new things; another reason to turn it off).
From talking to people, it seems that most people in our modern society don't know how to do much really well. Usually they focus on their careers, or watching TV or halo 3 or some other specialty. What does a person lose when he/she focuses on just one or 2 things? Everything else. It's great to be able to do one thing really well. But to be able to do many things even moderately well is better. It makes you a more well rounded person. It exposes you to different types of people and cultures. It gives you varied life experiences. But in our culture, there is a definite push to do a lot of one thing, and not do much of anything else.
One particular problem I see with this is that people are becoming less adaptable. If the world you live in drastically changes tomorrow, and you can't do your job any more, what would you do? I think that is happening to people in the areas affected by the oil spill. Fishermen have lost their source of income. The ones that never did anything besides fish will have serious problems gaining employment. They either have to learn something new fast, or move. Either way, their lives are turned upside down.
The Greek quality of excellence has been lost, but can be regained. If our institutions and media aren't teaching people to be skilled at multiple tasks, it's up to people individually or collectively to start teaching themselves. The internet is a useful tool in getting people interested in new activities and learning new skills. The more that people value this ancient quality, the more adaptable our lives will be, and more enjoyable.
(As a side note, television watching actively keeps people from learning to do new things; another reason to turn it off).
Thursday, June 24, 2010
TV is the best sedative
Television is the perfect sedative for our society. It's better than conventional drugs and alcohol, because it has no overt psychological effects that last after you finish watching TV. It doesn't cause instant death from overdose. It just wastes more and more of your time, giving you unrealistic expectations of reality. It makes you feel safe and secure. It doesn't require any critical thinking for most programming. The more time people are distracted, the less time we have to make changes to our society. And besides distraction, it pushes out potentially important information and replaces it with bullshit. Whether it's sports statistics, what happened at an awards show, or the latest episode of Dexter, it's just a bunch of useless knowledge.
There are so many more exciting, productive, and fun things to do than watching other people do them on TV. Entertainment is fine in moderation, but average TV viewing for Americans is something like 3 to 4 hours a day. And then studies come out that there are millions of people that suffer from clinical depression, and in the future, it will be the most common serious illness. TV watching can't be helpful in that regard.
What I'm trying to say is, watch less TV and you'll be better off in life. From personal experience and knowing people that watch a lot of TV, it's a powerful drug that subtracts from your life far more than it adds.
There are so many more exciting, productive, and fun things to do than watching other people do them on TV. Entertainment is fine in moderation, but average TV viewing for Americans is something like 3 to 4 hours a day. And then studies come out that there are millions of people that suffer from clinical depression, and in the future, it will be the most common serious illness. TV watching can't be helpful in that regard.
What I'm trying to say is, watch less TV and you'll be better off in life. From personal experience and knowing people that watch a lot of TV, it's a powerful drug that subtracts from your life far more than it adds.
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
"Conservatism clings to what has been established,
fearing that, once we begin to question the beliefs that we have inherited, all the values of life will be destroyed."
-Morris Raphael Cohen
I want to relate politically conservative philosophy to the new immigration law and associated racist laws recently pass in Arizona. There is a fundamental problem with conservatism. It tries to keep things as they are, but in this world of space and time, nothing stays the same. The world progresses continuously and new problems constantly come up. Conservatism is a philosophy of denial. The denial of change, the denial of progress, and the denial of reality.
What are the underlying values that could drive conservative philosophy? One factor is the fear of loss of privilege. People at the top of the social and economic ladder are afforded all sorts of benefits that common people do not have. But there are plenty of working class people that are conservative. So obviously there are other values. Loss of general superiority seems to be a related factor. Conservatives tend to be white. As the new immigration law in Arizona seems to indicate, some white people are terrified of brown people. Arizona now will have nazi-like "where are your papers?" police harassing people that might be illegal, because well, they look Mexican. But there is a good reason why there are so many illegal immigrants from Mexico. It has to do with a conservative policy of free trade. Free trade has made some businessmen (mainly corporations) extremely wealthy, at the expense of whole nations. People in Mexico can no longer depend on having the cheapest goods for Mexicans; any country can compete with them. Many formerly successful farmers and business owners cannot compete with large corporations for cheap production. As their livelihoods have been destroyed, they risk coming to America illegally to be able to survive. So conservatives at the top are benefiting through profit, and working and middle class conservatives think they're being invaded by Mexicans and are passing fascist laws. Greed and fear are at least two strong values in people that have conservative values. All out hatred is not uncommon either.
Unfortunately for conservatives, the reality is that within a few decades, whites will be the minority in this country. The country is changing, and they don't like it. Who knows how far they will go to deny that reality? Will people in general ever realize that we can't live in the past?
-Morris Raphael Cohen
I want to relate politically conservative philosophy to the new immigration law and associated racist laws recently pass in Arizona. There is a fundamental problem with conservatism. It tries to keep things as they are, but in this world of space and time, nothing stays the same. The world progresses continuously and new problems constantly come up. Conservatism is a philosophy of denial. The denial of change, the denial of progress, and the denial of reality.
What are the underlying values that could drive conservative philosophy? One factor is the fear of loss of privilege. People at the top of the social and economic ladder are afforded all sorts of benefits that common people do not have. But there are plenty of working class people that are conservative. So obviously there are other values. Loss of general superiority seems to be a related factor. Conservatives tend to be white. As the new immigration law in Arizona seems to indicate, some white people are terrified of brown people. Arizona now will have nazi-like "where are your papers?" police harassing people that might be illegal, because well, they look Mexican. But there is a good reason why there are so many illegal immigrants from Mexico. It has to do with a conservative policy of free trade. Free trade has made some businessmen (mainly corporations) extremely wealthy, at the expense of whole nations. People in Mexico can no longer depend on having the cheapest goods for Mexicans; any country can compete with them. Many formerly successful farmers and business owners cannot compete with large corporations for cheap production. As their livelihoods have been destroyed, they risk coming to America illegally to be able to survive. So conservatives at the top are benefiting through profit, and working and middle class conservatives think they're being invaded by Mexicans and are passing fascist laws. Greed and fear are at least two strong values in people that have conservative values. All out hatred is not uncommon either.
Unfortunately for conservatives, the reality is that within a few decades, whites will be the minority in this country. The country is changing, and they don't like it. Who knows how far they will go to deny that reality? Will people in general ever realize that we can't live in the past?
Thursday, June 10, 2010
"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away."
This is a quote by Philip K. Dick. He is my favorite science fiction author. I don't particularly like science fiction in general, but his stories were prophetic in many ways. The underlying core of most of his stories though, wasn't science or the future, but the nature of reality. Everyone lives in their own unique world, and for most people, it seems like they can never truly experience what someone else does. Being that this is the case, it's rather amazing how coherent and interactive our experiences are. There is a basic consensus of what is 'objectively real', even though no one can observe anything objectively. All experience is subjective.
If you accept this to be true, and anyone who is honest with him/herself must admit this, it can be very liberating. What it means is that you literally create your own reality, simply by directing your thoughts and actions a certain way. On a personal level, this can be very powerful. If you are depressed and unhappy with your life, this means that it's your fault. Maybe there are valid reasons for you to be depressed, but the key to fixing it is by changing your thoughts and attitudes. This is of course the idea of existentialism, that you are responsible for everything in your life. It's also an idea that is used in Psychology. What is more interesting to me though, is how this applies to social, economic, and environmental problems.
For example, most of the world is in the midst of an economic crisis. There are many obstacles in the way, and they are usually framed in esoteric terms like liquidity, interest rates, inflation, etc...But none of these things are real. People made them up, and they exist because we treat them as real. The obstacles are self made and self maintained. We made our economic system a certain way. We continue to believe in this economic system. The solution then is obvious; we have to start believing and acting as if we had a different economic system. The current one is made for crooks in suits to make as much money as possible, and to keep common people happy enough that they won't demand a change.
We can't depend on the people that benefit from the current system to change it. We have to change our perceptions (and actions) on a personal level if we want to change it.
If you accept this to be true, and anyone who is honest with him/herself must admit this, it can be very liberating. What it means is that you literally create your own reality, simply by directing your thoughts and actions a certain way. On a personal level, this can be very powerful. If you are depressed and unhappy with your life, this means that it's your fault. Maybe there are valid reasons for you to be depressed, but the key to fixing it is by changing your thoughts and attitudes. This is of course the idea of existentialism, that you are responsible for everything in your life. It's also an idea that is used in Psychology. What is more interesting to me though, is how this applies to social, economic, and environmental problems.
For example, most of the world is in the midst of an economic crisis. There are many obstacles in the way, and they are usually framed in esoteric terms like liquidity, interest rates, inflation, etc...But none of these things are real. People made them up, and they exist because we treat them as real. The obstacles are self made and self maintained. We made our economic system a certain way. We continue to believe in this economic system. The solution then is obvious; we have to start believing and acting as if we had a different economic system. The current one is made for crooks in suits to make as much money as possible, and to keep common people happy enough that they won't demand a change.
We can't depend on the people that benefit from the current system to change it. We have to change our perceptions (and actions) on a personal level if we want to change it.
Monday, June 7, 2010
don't just boycott bp, boycott oil!
It's a lot easier to believe in things than to do them. People can say they care about the environment, but then they buy bottled water and drive every day. Can such a person still claim to care about the environment? We all know such people, and 99.99% of us are such people. Whether the issue is religious, personal, or social, it is very difficult to live your beliefs. What I think is important though, is to consciously try to live by your beliefs. Otherwise, we're all hypocrites.
Because of the BP oil spill going on now, I am thinking about environmental concerns more than usual. A lot of people are upset about the oil spill. And I'd guess that most of these people continue to buy gas and drive, or take airplanes to wherever they want. Some of these people are trying to get others to boycott BP, but boycotting BP is not the real issue. The issue is our over-reliance on oil. We consume far too much and rely on oil in order to do so.
Food consumption and transportation are the two major areas where you can make a personal difference in how much oil you are using. There are many things you can do to lessen your dependence on oil, including: eating less meat (or no meat), eating locally produced foods, using public transit, walking, or bicycling when possible, traveling less often, and having a garden. These are just a few of the many things you can do. Although boycotting BP is a step in the right direction, using less oil is the goal we should strive for. And it begins with our every day choices.
Because of the BP oil spill going on now, I am thinking about environmental concerns more than usual. A lot of people are upset about the oil spill. And I'd guess that most of these people continue to buy gas and drive, or take airplanes to wherever they want. Some of these people are trying to get others to boycott BP, but boycotting BP is not the real issue. The issue is our over-reliance on oil. We consume far too much and rely on oil in order to do so.
Food consumption and transportation are the two major areas where you can make a personal difference in how much oil you are using. There are many things you can do to lessen your dependence on oil, including: eating less meat (or no meat), eating locally produced foods, using public transit, walking, or bicycling when possible, traveling less often, and having a garden. These are just a few of the many things you can do. Although boycotting BP is a step in the right direction, using less oil is the goal we should strive for. And it begins with our every day choices.
Saturday, June 5, 2010
Shifting the focus of environmental concern
When it comes to environmental issues, people have a range of opinion. These opinions can be placed on a rough scale from extremely environmentally conscious to extremely environmentally unaware. On the unaware side, there are many variations, from people that just don't think about the environment as an issue at all, to people that think it's a non-issue and that humans should do whatever they want to benefit themselves selfishly or collectively. There is also a distinction between the people on the opposite end of the scale. Some people are genuinely concerned about wildlife and habitat and saving animals, while other people realize that being environmentally conscious is of utmost importance to humans.
I will be generalizing here, but in my observations on these attitudes concerning the environment, there is a real anger on the part of many environmentally unaware people. That anger is directed at the environmentally conscious people that want to save the cute seals and forests. They seem to have a worldview that humans are not part of nature, and that they are fundamentally opposed to nature. So the question for me is, how do environmentally conscious people break through to the environmentally unaware?
It is difficult to put a complex issue into a few words, but it is even more difficult to explain to the unaware that people are fundamentally a part of nature. I think environmentally aware people have their best option in simply stating that the health of the environment is a human quality of life issue. Because, if humans make the world uninhabitable for other species, it's not the end of the Earth or nature; it's the end of human civilization. Billions of people unknowingly depend on the health of ecosystems to feed themselves. Evolution will bring about new organisms that will be able to survive in whatever type of habitat is left. It's not the Earth that is in danger, but human society.
Framing the issue in terms of humanity is a stronger argument for the people on the environmentally unaware scale. For the people who are angry at those that want to save seals and foxes, we don't even have to bring animals up. For people that just don't think about the environment because it's not in their realm of consciousness, it might enter their consciousness if they think civilization is on the verge of collapse. I would urge any environmentally conscious person to start framing their conversations in such a manner - humanity depends on healthy ecosystems to feed ourselves, and saving the environment is crucial to saving people. If we destroy too many forests and seas, and too many species die out, it is people who will ultimately suffer. The Earth will rebound, even if it takes a milllion years. But if there's no arable land left, and not enough fish in the sea, it is humans who will suffer.
Let's call it the selfish self preservation argument...
Let's call it the selfish self preservation argument...
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