It’s no longer a matter of living in interesting times. Democracy in the US has always been on a roller coaster. We got started on a big hill by men (women only in the background at that point) who were flawed giants. Their principal flaw was owning slaves, In their defense, we can say that slavery was common at that time, and it hadn’t yet occurred to many that slavery was (and is) an evil institution. The country has had a variety of ups and downs since its founding, we’ve had numerous wars, including the military actions required to complete . . . → Read More: Bad to Worse
|
||||
 Comments are closed  Blog  African-Americans, Carter, China, Civil Rights, Clinton, democracy, economic decline, economy, Eisenhower, George Bush, GOP, Great Depression, Great Recession, greed, Harley Davidson, honesty, housing, industrial base, Interesting Times, Interstate Highway System, laves, mobsters, Native Americans, Nixon, North Korea, Pogo, political decline, presidents, Reagan, Republican, rich get richer, robber barons, Russia, slavery, tariffs, Trump, Vietnam War, War in Southeast Asia, women, WWII According to a top Saudi cleric, driving damages women’s ovaries. Does the fact (reality) that some people believe that make it true, if only for them? What—exactly—is the relationship between reality and what we believe? You may know people who believe that their beliefs accurately reflect reality. If you’ve been reading this blog for very long, you know that one of my recurrent themes is the need for an evidence procedure that allows individuals to base their beliefs on reality to the degree that it’s possible. It was, for example, perfectly logical for our ancient ancestors to believe that . . . → Read More: The Reality of Beliefs Comments are closed Blog ancestors, ancient, atheism, atmosphere, babies, beliefs, border, Byron Katie, Catholic, cleric, CO2, driving, earth, fossil fuels, geography, global climate change, global warming, heaven, Hell, humans, Imagine, Islam, John Lennon, microscopes, mountain, Mr. Everest, Muslim, oceans, ovaries, Protestant, reality, river, Saudi, Shia, Sunni, technologies, technology, telescopes, war, women (function(d, s, id) { var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0]; if (d.getElementById(id)) return; js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id; js.src = “//connect.facebook.net/en_US/all.js#xfbml=1”; fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs); }(document, ‘script’, ‘facebook-jssdk’)); In a recent opinion piece in the Washington Post (Liberals and conservatives don’t just vote differently. They think differently.), Chris Mooney addressed some of the reasons the differences between liberals and conservatives have become so acrimonious over the past few election cycles. According to Mooney, “There’s now a large body of evidence showing that those who opt for the political left and those who opt for the political right tend to process information . . . → Read More: Possibilities and Necessities Comments are closed Blog "other", abortion, Chris Mooney, conflict, conservatives, conversation, cultural dynamics, different drummers, discovery, Eve, exploration, failed, forgiveness, George Lakoff, Gomorrah, Greek myth, job-killing, Liberals, Muslim, NLP, nurturant parent, Obama, Pandora, perdition, political, punishment, reality, reckless agenda, Republican Party, self-reliance, self-responsibility, sexuality, sin, slavery, slaves, social degeneration, Sodom, straight and narrow, strict father, strict rules, talking points, transgressions, Washington Post, women Those of us in the States (and perhaps the rest of the English-speaking world) currently have a wonderful opportunity to observe one of the lesser-known NLP Metaprograms at work: The Rules Metaprogram. Most behavior is “rule governed” in one way or another, so where and how rules apply is important in social interactions. The First Rule is perhaps to whom does a rule apply. Here’s one possibility: My rules for me. Your rules for you. Everyone chooses his or her own rules. This won’t work well in a variety of social situations. Imagine driving in a big city . . . → Read More: Rules Comments are closed Blog accident, atheist, children, contraception, culture, democratic, egalitarian, evolution, fabric, God, Japan, logic, marriage, Maude, metaprogram, metaprograms, NLP, nomination, party, pepperoni, president, rights, rules, same-sex, sex, sexuality, societies, spelling, sports, States, traditional marriage, U.K., U.S. pizza, variety, women The “Bell Curve” is the common expression for what is otherwise known as Standard Normal Distribution. The concept basically states that in any category, most members of the category will be grouped in the middle, with fewer members at the extremes. Wikipedia provides a fancy definition: In probability theory, the normal (or Gaussian) distribution, is a continuous probability distribution that is often used as a first approximation to describe real-valued random variables that tend to cluster around a single mean value. The graph of the associated probability density function is “bell”-shaped, and is known as the Gaussian function or . . . → Read More: The Bell Curve Theory of Life Comments are closed Blog apple, bell curve, black/white, blueberry, Byron Katie, conservative, Democrats, demonization, demonize, frame, framing, frozen evaluation, George Lakoff, liberal, lobbying, map, marketing, men, mental maps, metaphor, Pareto, perception, perspective, pie, pigs, polarization, poor, progressive, public relations, reality, Reification, Reify, Republicans, rich, standard normal distribution, strategies, strategy, territory, universal quantifiers, values, wealth, women |
||||