tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post5496415046309525865..comments2024-03-18T21:52:45.757-07:00Comments on CONTRARY BRIN: Futurespection: How do we get better?David Brinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14465315130418506525noreply@blogger.comBlogger73125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-90513687253581016702016-06-10T12:49:25.542-07:002016-06-10T12:49:25.542-07:00A recent discussion on infant mortality:
http://t...A recent discussion on infant mortality:<br /> http://theincidentaleconomist.com/wordpress/the-u-s-is-failing-in-infant-mortality-starting-at-one-month-old/<br /><br />JADnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-34617491491721749262016-06-10T09:08:54.612-07:002016-06-10T09:08:54.612-07:00The numbers for infant mortality are somewhat fuzz...The numbers for infant mortality are somewhat fuzzy, especially the government figures. Different governments use different descriptions of what constitutes a live birth. The UN data is probably about the best: the government numbers are modified by local spot checks, and the methodology remains constant over time. Or you can use the inequality-adjusted human development index (IHDI), a combination of infant mortality, average years of education, per-capita income, and the level of inequality in the economy (the average income in the US is a lot higher than the income most Americans make, for example). By the measure of the IHDI, the US came in 28th place, with a figure of 0.755 in 2014. This was a substantial relative drop (12 places) in the prior year. Norway remained at the top, with an IHDI of 0.891. If you remove the inequality factor, Norway remains number one, but the US moves up to 5th. I'm interested in seeing how 2015 turns out. Daniel McIntoshhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16397896622886358394noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-63569651877131490542016-05-26T17:20:46.815-07:002016-05-26T17:20:46.815-07:00To bring up one of the precursors of Dr. Pinker, m...To bring up one of the precursors of Dr. Pinker, may I offer this quote from Eric Berne's book, _Sex in Human Loving_, © 1970, p. 187 (1971 paperback edition), "Sex and Ethics" section<br /><br />"Somewhere there has to be a simple and sensible system of values, and I propose one that is not only simple, but that I think makes some sort of sense. Furthermore, it can be judged from one set of pretty reliable figures, so that different countries can be compared and barroom arguments settled with a wet thumb in the right book. It is based on the single idea that if anything in life is significant and worthwhile, it is the love between mother and child. It assumes that mothers (and fathers and uncles and grandparents too) want their babies to live. Although this is not always so, it is as hard a fact as anything that can be said about human desires. <br /><br />The proposed ethical system is therefore based on one item which comes out of that. Here is my proposition. The goodness or badness of any society shall henceforth be judged by its infant mortality rate. If that is low, the society is good; if it is high, the society is bad. In between there are gray areas for those who don't like black and white. (The infant mortality rate is the number of deaths of children under one year per 1,000 live births.) This mortality rate is really a matter of national management and is decided by the prejudices of each government and where it puts its money...<br /><br />We consider the total infant mortality rate from all causes (disease, starvation, ignorance, and murder, whether in peace or war) in all the territories controlled by a government...<br /><br />By using this approach, all problems of sexual ethics can be solved by asking only one question: which decision will result in fewer deaths among babies born alive? It is not a question of making babies; almost anybody can do that. The real test is to keep them going after their first cry, and that takes careful thought, good governing, and decent concern for things that count..."JADhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05620172199032526826noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-38883142460992347572016-05-24T10:22:24.153-07:002016-05-24T10:22:24.153-07:00onward
onward
onward<br /><br /><br />onward<br /><br />David Brinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14465315130418506525noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-69104280004218220642016-05-24T09:52:32.309-07:002016-05-24T09:52:32.309-07:00That plus Bush Jr saying "I was justabout rai... That plus Bush Jr saying "I was justabout raised by Prince Bandie and pictures of him kissing the SA king on the mouth. And Bush Sr ordering Gen Schwarzkopff to betray the rebelling shiites in Basra, the act that MADE our present mess, just because the SA folks did not want to see a shiite arab entity, next door.<br /><br />(They sure got one, eventually; I didn't say they were truly smart... just canny and bright enough to talk themselves into a story.)David Brinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14465315130418506525noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-25488133950740685682016-05-24T07:11:56.876-07:002016-05-24T07:11:56.876-07:00Thanks. I see from the last few paragraphs what wa...Thanks. I see from the last few paragraphs what was going on - except for the mystery about who exactly owned which plane. One supposes the CIA was involved. They do need their untraceable airplanes, don't they?Jumperhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11794110173836133321noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-70127153907574065432016-05-24T03:54:33.243-07:002016-05-24T03:54:33.243-07:00Hi Jumper
I had heard it in context of the 911 in...Hi Jumper<br /><br />I had heard it in context of the 911 investigation committee<br /><br />http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/September_11,_2001:_Evacuation_of_Saudi_Nationals<br /><br />http://www.sptimes.com/2004/06/09/Tampabay/TIA_now_verifies_flig.shtml<br /><br />Lots of people saying Saudi's were flown out while the no fly was in place - nobody seems to be denying itduncan cairncrosshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14153725128216947145noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-14183886450927579962016-05-24T02:53:02.728-07:002016-05-24T02:53:02.728-07:00I see radical Middle Eastern terrorists as having ...I see radical Middle Eastern terrorists as having similar goals as American radicals but not having the awareness of their similarities. I'm pretty sure Beck, Limbaugh or Murdoch don't see it that way. Those outside both those bubbles see it clearly. I doubt daesh consider their gang as on the same team as the Florida Koran-burner preacher. We can see the resemblance though.<br /><br />Duncan, that 9-12 bit may be an urban legend.Jumperhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11794110173836133321noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-10267416857840776802016-05-24T00:39:14.615-07:002016-05-24T00:39:14.615-07:00Hi donzelion
I would have said the best evidence ...Hi donzelion<br /><br />I would have said the best evidence of a Saudi "link" was the events of 9-12<br /><br />While there was a complete ban on Americans flying a large number of prominent Saudi nationals was flown out of the USA<br /><br />Just Saudi's - nobody else - not Iranians or Afghani's or Russians .... duncan cairncrosshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14153725128216947145noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-43892030133410856632016-05-23T22:46:29.293-07:002016-05-23T22:46:29.293-07:00@Dr. Brin - I have no interest in defending the Sa...@Dr. Brin - I have no interest in defending the Saudi government, let alone rationalizing their decisions. My concern is improper conspiratorial thinking. Your analysis is to cogent to tolerate error, when it can be averted. That said - <br /><br /><i>"[Saudi Royals] were responsible for the pan Arab declaration after the 1948 war that Palestinian refugess shall be kept locked in camps..."</i><br /><br />Indeed, they played a significant role. Read through the rest of the colonial history (applicable to every government in the region at that time - except theirs), and it wasn't an anti-West plan, so much as anti-British/French. They actually welcomed America (at first), as a more 'fair' arbiter than the colonial powers. That would change by '73, but up until then, the British and French militaries backed Israel, while the Americans shrugged it all aside as a sideshow to the "Soviet plot."<br /><br /><i>"Keeping them locked in camps was not Israel’s doing."</i><br />I never claimed it was. Reprehensible decisions in 1948 were made by a large number of players on all sides - short-sighted, yes, but not a plot against America.<br /><br />Or rather, if it was a longstanding plot against America, then our military (which has been helping build the Saudi forces since Reagan) was either in on it, or duped. Our corporations (which were building them up since the '30s) was in on it, or duped. Our banks (which financed them since the '40s) were in on it, or duped. Our academics (who taught their leadership) were in on it, or duped. Either a fairly vast conspiracy has been at work by people you might otherwise like and respect - or a large number of very smart people read the facts differently from you and have concluded that there's no plot, just some really dumb (and in some cases, venal) decisions.donzelionhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05991849781932619746noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-71294366578110117752016-05-23T21:54:49.034-07:002016-05-23T21:54:49.034-07:00@Paul451 - "I'm saying that the same radi...@Paul451 - <i>"I'm saying that the same radicalisation doctrine that created people like Osama Bin Laden are also creating a Saudi leadership"</i><br />Hmmm...well, first off, Sayid Qutb's the source of that doctrine, an Egyptian regarded by the Saudis as a heretic. Ayman Zawahiri, a proponent of Qutb's, guided OBL's operational thoughts - and is enemy #1 to the Saudis. Both advocating eliminating the Saudi Royal family, which is regularly targeted for death by these groups. To suggest the "same radicalization doctrine" is at work is to miss some pretty profound differences (at least to them). <br /><br />The sort of category error in suggesting "they're the same" is about as profound as suggesting that Hitler was really a Soviet agent sent to divide up Germany so the Russians could dominate Eastern Europe. One can re-read the historical record to assert "it was all the plan, all along" - but our basic familiarity with history suggests that's a silly notion. Most of us lack a similar familiarity with history in the Middle East, and hence, we regularly reach ridiculous conclusions.<br /><br />All that said, look at the evidence of what the Saudi leadership is doing in America. Buying houses in Beverly Hills? Investing in Silicon Valley, taking stakes in a large number of U.S. companies, buying U.S. treasury bonds? Murdoch takes no orders from Prince Waleed (and his network called Prince Waleed a terrorist financier, publicly, numerous times). Educating their children here? <br /><br />There is a conspiratorial interpretation behind every such action (e.g., the Caliphate will be launched from Beverly Hills and/or London) - but Occam weighs against such an interpretation when there's a simpler one: rich people, hiring the same sorts of advisers, reach the same sorts of strategies for what they do with their money. When they support charities, they do so without much attention to what the charities actually do. Sometimes, they make pretty big blunders.<br /><br />The best evidence so far - textbooks and 1948 - have alternative stories as well. Have American K-12 schools ever produced politically incendiary textbooks? (Yes, regularly - and evolution is but one vector in those fights.) Has America ever made dishonorable decisions about foreign refugees? (Yes, 1938, and many other times.) Not a plot, just a political reality.<br /><br />That said, the only evidence of a Saudi-Murdoch link I've seen cited here (which is hilariously far off) looks to Prince Waleed's stake in Fox News. It ignores comparable ownership of stakes in Citibank (by the same prince), as well as indirect stakes by others in Google, GE, Intel, Microsoft, Goldman, and many other companies. To apply that evidence consistently is to indict the entire corporate structure of America (of which, Saudis own between 2-8%). Either the vast conspiracy is much vaster than its proponents realized - or it doesn't exist. How would Occam weigh that?donzelionhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05991849781932619746noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-30785195025497606522016-05-23T20:34:01.463-07:002016-05-23T20:34:01.463-07:00@LarryHart: My Vonnegut-foo is weak. My mother tri...@LarryHart: My Vonnegut-foo is weak. My mother tried hard to get me to read science fiction earlier, but I was a science fact kid. Analog issues contained only a few pages that interested me, thus I lost out on all those formative stories until I began to self-correct as a late teen. It wasn’t the characters that got me to change, though. It was the scenes and tech. I’m a terribly slow learner in this regard, but I get it now. 8)<br /><br />Your turn toward Vonnegut is probably a healthy thing. I have boxes full of Marvel’s material and most of it retells the same story if you squint a bit. The stories aren’t even all that long or complex. A mature human mind needs a huge library of characters, plots, and settings to develop beyond the hopes of our parents. I spent a number of years doing the dungeons and dragons thing and came away from it all with one very clear lesson. The players who came into a game with huge personal libraries already established were a whole lot more fun, while the illiterate youngsters were pathetic. I could see where I was on that scale and realized what I had to do. <br /><br />Read, Imagine, Write.Alfred Differhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01170159981105973192noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-48180644606951600062016-05-23T20:05:55.726-07:002016-05-23T20:05:55.726-07:00gator, the parallel between guns and cars is actua...gator, the parallel between guns and cars is actually VERY strong. Guns are not meant to kill but to give a plausible appearance of potency and deterrence. The law frowns very harshly on misusing guns to kill, as it does with cars. Moreover, every single aspect of law that makes cars better and safer and less lethally abused — insurance, registration, licensing etc — would work great with guns.<br /><br />The only excuse not to compy this spectacularly effective method is the “slippery slope” argument. It is all they have and they deem it to be sufficient.<br /><br />All locum can do is double down. Perhaps he is aware of the logical fallacies… especially DEFINING all terms to that they fit his needed conclusion… but I see no point in engaging this round’s feast of strawman circularity.<br />David Brinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14465315130418506525noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-41475685770057397912016-05-23T19:59:47.221-07:002016-05-23T19:59:47.221-07:00Alfred Differ:
“How much longer can I go on being...Alfred Differ:<br /><i><br />“How much longer can I go on being an atheist?” Another way to look at it is He doesn’t mind because your heart was in the right place. It doesn’t take but a fraction of a second to imagine the kind of person you’d become had you chosen NOT to jump in after the kid.<br /></i><br /><br />First of all, I do appreciate the compliment. I'm not sure you're conversant enough in Kurt Vonnegut to get the reference to "How much longer can I go on being an atheist?" That was a sort of catch phrase that the protagonist of "Hocus Pocus" would insert after any kind of coincidence. It was meant as ironic.<br /><br /><i><br />I suspect every courageous character you’d ever read about (they get stuck in our heads) would have guilt-tripped you for ages.<br /></i><br /><br />Yes, my character was formed by Marvel superheroes, back when the comics were good. :) But as an adult, I find myself identifying more with Vonnegut characters. The one that hit home recently was the protagonist of "Jailbird", when his old girlfriend told him that it's ok that he never had a heart, because he observed what people with hearts did and tried to emulate them. I was going, "Yeah, that's me."<br /><br /><i><br />I also suspect that’s precisely what our stories are for. They keep us aligned with our culture’s virtues. Now your story will be added to the mix. 8)<br /></i><br /><br />Yet another Vonnegut passage from his very first novel, "Player Piano" is appropriate here.<br /><br /><i><br />Here it was again, the most ancient of roadforks, one that Paul had faced before, in Kroner's study months ago. The choice of one course over another had nothing to do with machines, hierarchies, economics, love, age. It was a purely internal affair. Every child older than six knew the fork, and knew what the good guys did here, and what the bad guys did here. The fork was a familiar one in folk tales the world over, and the good guys and the bad guys, whether in chaps, breechclouts, serapes, leopard skins, or banker's gray pinstripes, all separated here.<br /><br />Bad guys turned informer. Good guys didn't--no matter when, no matter what.<br /><br />Kroner cleared his throat. "I said, 'Who's their leader, Paul?'"<br /><br />"I am," said Paul, "And I wish to God I were a better one."<br /><br />The instant he said it, he knew it was true, and knew what his father had known--what it was to belong and believe.<br /></i>LarryHartnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-40493129879316008032016-05-23T19:30:40.610-07:002016-05-23T19:30:40.610-07:00A wee question
Dr Brin has been talking about cell...A wee question<br />Dr Brin has been talking about cell phone peer to peer systems - sounds like a great idea - hopefully some people on this forum will know about cell phones<br /><br />I have been told that all cell phones since the analog ones went away have a GPS chip in them which is used when communicating with the towers<br /><br />Is this true??duncan cairncrosshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14153725128216947145noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-91240156582379829572016-05-23T19:29:46.622-07:002016-05-23T19:29:46.622-07:00I've learned to deal with the expanding defini...I've learned to deal with the expanding definition of Misogyny much like the confusion around the word Equality. If we treat everyone in a manner that encourages equal opportunity, we don't have to sweat too much about unequal outcomes. Women ARE different, but it is a stupid thing to think we already know how to bias the field of opportunity in order to maximize a collective social outcome. Level the field and drop the effort to maximize a collective outcome since that is just as immoral as our old bias.<br /><br />Yes, yes. Unequal outcomes have a way of creating unequal opportunities. I get it, but don't think for a moment I think anyone is bright enough to know how to prevent the problems that will arise. The best we can do is address them when they do. I contribute to this by making fun of misogynists in front of other people. CITOKATE again.Alfred Differhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01170159981105973192noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-90863041014295585332016-05-23T19:19:11.793-07:002016-05-23T19:19:11.793-07:00The more I think about CITOKATE the more I see it ...The more I think about CITOKATE the more I see it as a melding of the classic virtues of courage, temperance, hope, and prudence. It’s not young because there are many ways in which we can be wrong and have to face up to the consequences. In old times, plant your field at the wrong time and you might lose the crop and starve later. No doubt your family would point out the error to you as they picked the landscape clean of every bug they could find to eat. Craft a new whiz-bang to sell in a nearby village and misjudge their interest in it and you’ll have wasted your money, assets, and time. No doubt your family will point out the error when you leech off them on your path to recovery. <br /><br />In our modern markets, we get to test our possible errors every day, so the need for courage is obvious. Hope should go without saying as we obviously wish not to be in error. The need for prudence is far older than our identity as humans. What mammal doesn’t understand prudence as the growth of practical knowledge, hmm? Temperance is the tricky one. Stifling our responses to criticism is difficult, but we’ve been doing it for a few thousand generations in our marketplaces, so it’s not like we don’t have SOME experience. All you have to do to learn is sell stuff to people you do not know, but you have to be able to bargain.<br /><br />If I had to pick which one dominates, though, I’d pick Temperance. That makes CITOKATE a close synonym. As a market participant, I have to be prepared to face my erroneous conclusions about what will work because the other participants demonstrate a path toward Truth when prices are settled. If I ask for one price and fail to get it, I stand criticized and must adjust. As a scientist, there is no easy analogy for the price signal, yet the market is still there. We trade ideas, papers, and attention to grow our reputations. The failed trade offers are obvious to us and just as ego rattling. A rejection from a referee or conference peer is criticism and the temperate adjust.Alfred Differhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01170159981105973192noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-28140022715044426352016-05-23T19:16:04.909-07:002016-05-23T19:16:04.909-07:00Hi Gator
Re Guns and suicide
Most people who att...Hi Gator<br /><br />Re Guns and suicide<br /><br />Most people who attempt suicide and fail seem to regret the idea and don't do it again,<br />But guns are efficient - suicide by gun is mostly fatal<br /><br />If we look at suicide rates we see actual cultural differences - Japan for example<br /><br />But if we compare the USA to similar countries the suicide rate in the USA is much higher - this is probably because guns are used in the USA and they do do what they are designed to do <br /><br />From this it is a good guess that if you guys didn't have such easy access to guns your suicide rate would drop to something like the UK <br /><br />from 12/100,000 to 6/100,000<br /><br />saving about 18,000 lives a yearduncan cairncrosshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14153725128216947145noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-16281016313913464152016-05-23T18:54:05.688-07:002016-05-23T18:54:05.688-07:00Re Misogyny and "women are different"
I...Re Misogyny and "women are different"<br /><br />I was firmly convinced that the differences between men and women was cultural - any biological differences were too small to matter<br /><br />Then I had a son and watched him interact with the other babies and toddlers<br /><br />That destroyed my confidence in the "same" idea! - just one data point but I am no longer "certain" about the differences duncan cairncrosshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14153725128216947145noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-16159946130825661112016-05-23T18:53:23.878-07:002016-05-23T18:53:23.878-07:00@locumranch: You are doing the Platonic Chain thin...@locumranch: You are doing the Platonic Chain thing and demonstrating the obvious nonsense results. That has nothing to do with David’s point. The Pinker quote isn’t a chain. Rather it is a set of ordered pairs where the ordering agent is a human being at its most subjective. In a space of many, many directions along which we can choose our actions, these orderings suggest a desire to move on the part of the human agent. This dark, dank corner here where I am now is less desirable to me than that apparently shiny one over there. Hmm. The grass really IS greener in this new place, but looks even better over there. We don’t all necessarily agree on the global nature of this sense of order (Progress), but individually, we DO appear to have a local sense for it.<br /><br />Is Humanity getting better? I’m inclined to say we are because I perceive an aggregate drift of our swarm in that multi-dimensional space. Something changed in the last couple centuries enriching practically every human on the planet. There is enough history to suggest people spend their riches feeding and educating their children, yet our riches are still piling up. Women can’t have babies fast enough it seems or choose not to have them. It doesn’t matter, though. Whether or not you see the global drift, the riches available to any single one of us improves our options to act for our personal embetterment. That means each of us can respond anecdotally to your skepticism based on our person knowledge. For example, I can say I AM BETTER OFF now than was my father at my age. I suspect many here can say the same thing.Alfred Differhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01170159981105973192noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-317967343251897252016-05-23T18:40:03.237-07:002016-05-23T18:40:03.237-07:00Tacitus2:
Regards progress I would add some cavea...Tacitus2:<br /><i><br />Regards progress I would add some caveats.<br /><br />Poverty can spur ambition, a striving that prosperity sometimes dulls.<br />War is perhaps the single most effective catalyst to technological advance.<br />Death is a constant and advances in health should be measured in years of good quality life.<br /><br />I don't wish to go Full Darwin but an idyllic world would be a stagnant one.<br /></i><br /><br />While I don't personally subscribe to the "comfort and contentment are bad" meme that Dave Sim and (probably) locumranch would assert, still, I recognize where you're coming from.<br /><br />A relevant line from "Dune" which I just came across:<br /><br /><i><br />He seemed too submissive to Paul, but then the Sardaukar had never been prepared for such happenings as this day. They'd never known anything but victory, which, Paul realized, could be a weakness in itself. He put that thought aside for later consideration in his own training program.<br /></i><br /><br />Or this one:<br /><br /><i><br />The Guild navigators, gifted with limited prescience, had made the fatal decision: they'd chosen always the clear safe course that leads ever downward into stagnation."<br /></i>LarryHartnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-25441627573124190602016-05-23T18:31:31.068-07:002016-05-23T18:31:31.068-07:00Yes, the culture / hormone feedbacks are pretty fr...Yes, the culture / hormone feedbacks are pretty fractal in their results. Can't ignore them.<br />Thanks for the Pinker remind.Jumperhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11794110173836133321noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-10132335553612003412016-05-23T18:23:21.196-07:002016-05-23T18:23:21.196-07:00Jumper, I think it's Steven Pinker's "...Jumper, I think it's Steven Pinker's "Better Angels of Our Nature" you are thinking of. And yes, hormones and culture also matter, but culture can affect both hormones and, to some extent, brain structures (and don't underestimate brain structures - size matters with neural real estate, because more size means more neurons devoted to a particular set of behaviors, pattern of memories, etc.) On top of that, brains influence the timing & release of hormones, though to an extent it goes both ways.Paul SBnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-7414098820372648432016-05-23T18:22:38.733-07:002016-05-23T18:22:38.733-07:00If you postulate that Progress (forward motion) re...<br />If you postulate that Progress (forward motion) represents an Unqualified Good despite a preponderance of evidence to the contrary, then every day is Opposite Day:<br /><br />(1) Progress (forward motion) is 'Good';<br />(2) CO2-mediated climate change is 'Progress'.<br />(3) Ergo, Climate Change is 'Good'.<br /><br />Of course, the above argument makes absolutely no logical sense because proposition (1) represents a subjective value judgment rather than a statement of material equivalency; however, this rather poor excuse for an argument is no more illogical than much of subjective value judgment moralizing that (often) passes for rational discourse.<br /><br />In order to benefit from THIS useful criticism, you must first admit the sacred mantra of science: “I might be (at least partly) wrong.” And to be clear, even scientists, who are raised and disciplined to be able to recite that holy catechism have to struggle, daily, to live by it.<br /><br />And, by admitting that you might "be (at least partially) wrong", I mean that you must admit that Progress may have devastating consequences to those who can & cannot adapt to it and, in this sense, it may not be an unqualified, unadulterated or even a basic 'good'. <br /><br />Progress may even represent 'badness' to some, perspective-wise.<br /><br /><br />And, as for the suggestion that we could "treat guns EXACTLY the way we treat cars" because motor vehicle operator licensure is "an extremely successful experiment", this is a counterfactual assertion as up to 25% of US drivers involved in fatal accidents do NOT have valid licenses.<br /><br />http://abcnews.go.com/Travel/story?id=118913<br /><br />Furthermore, US Firearms (numbered at 357 Million, accounting for less than 12,000 deaths/yr not counting suicide) have a much BETTER adjusted safety record than US Automobiles (numbering a paltry 253 Million, accounting for >32,000 deaths/yr), meaning that you'd be increasing your child's life expectancy if you gifted Junior an Uzi instead of a Driver's License on their Quinceanera.<br /><br /><br />Best<br />____<br /><br />Dum dum dum!! How can you tell if you're moving forward, advancing or 'making progress' if you don't know where you're headed? <br /><br />"Faster, faster", screamed the Progressive who was lost but making damn good time.locumranchnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-315453997399241752016-05-23T18:01:29.634-07:002016-05-23T18:01:29.634-07:00On Heinlein, I suspect he observed women generally...On Heinlein, I suspect he observed women generally more submissive and placid (lucky him) and assumed it was biological.<br />My own thought is hormones matter, much as other drugs affect personality. Brain structures, not so much, except for years of operation under the same "drugs." All with lots of social conformity pressures atop these other factors.<br />Paternalistic? Heinlein is guilty. Misogynistic? Hardly.<br /><br />On different note, who's the author who recently has written on how so many metrics worldwide have improved? My memory is not helping and I have a depressed / hypnotized friend who needs some evidence.Jumperhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11794110173836133321noreply@blogger.com