Blowing the Whistle

We were young, we were foolish, we were arrogant, but we were right.
Daniel Ellsberge

I was searching through NetFlix for a movie to watch one afternoon and I found The Most Dangerous Man In America. This documentary was every bit as riveting as the documentary "An Unreasonable Man." Both of these were classic "David vs. Goliath" tales, that happen to not be fiction in these cases.

Lately I've been following the news about WikiLeaks releasing vast amounts of diplomatic communications and we're faced with exactly the same situation again as the famous Pentagon Papers. Once again the US Government is calling foul, accusing people of betraying 'military secrets' and how this will lead to military casualties. And not only the US Government, but governments all around the world.



What is going to be very interesting this time around is that the US Ambassador to Canada contacted the Canadian Ambassador to the US to 'warn' Canada that some embarrassing information might be revealed. Clearly this event cannot be contained to just US politics.

Daniel Ellseberg is one of the most famous whistle blowers of all time. The US Government tried to prevent the New York Times (and other publications) from releasing 'secret' documents, but was overturned by the US Supreme Court. Similarly, the US Government tried to convict Ellseberg himself, but failed.

I just hope Bradley Manning is as lucky as Daniel Ellseberg this time around.

I just hope people employ a little critical thinking at this time...

...and are able to read through the obvious bullshit and spin. Labeling the truth as a secret is the highest form of bullshit of all.

Thought, Logic, Reason and Critical Thinking

It is now no mystery that some quite influential ‘philosophers’ were ‘mentally’ ill.
Alfred Korzybski

I was going through a thought exercise one day and trying to figure out what it is that humans do best, what it is that sets us apart from other species to make us so successful. My first thought was: principal to any species is how well it reacts to its environment, to master the environment, and to thrive in it.

Thriving is really based on choices or decisions. One flatworm may not be able to sense that it is in direct sunlight and will perish, while another detects that it is in direct sunlight and decides to move into the shade - and lives on to propagate.

Human beings are particularly good at making decisions, and have developed thought, reason, and logic to help make those decisions. On the other hand, thought, reason and logic are merely tools that we have developed, and individual humans may choose to utilize them or not.

Ironically, though humans have developed thought, reason and logic, we have also developed this thing called 'society' which allows our members to still thrive even though they choose not to use thought, reason or logic. Even more interesting is that collectively we use even less thought, reason and logic - yet still thrive as a society - perhaps because these tools are so powerful that only a few need use them in order for the whole society to thrive.

Critical Thinking is interesting in that unlike all our other tools for making decisions and choices, critical thinking is more like an approach to using all the other tools of thought, reason, and logic to read through all the bullshit that people try to spin us that is disguised as thought, logic and reason. Amazingly many people (i.e. politicians, lobbyists, marketing and advertising, religions, etc.) go to considerable thought to improvise bullshit.

Now bullshit is an interesting tool, in that its goal is to defy thought, reason and logic in order to persuade other people into making decisions that are not based on thought, reason and logic. Now that's just astounding, that as a species and society we have developed tools that take fundamentally bad choices and decision making, and intentionally try to dress it up as good choices and decision making.

What I don't understand is that as a species, how long can we continue to thrive on this planet, while the most influential people keep getting better at bullshit, and increasing numbers of people keep buying it. I conclude that we will only be able to thrive as a species indefinitely if, and only if, our critical thinking gets better than our bullshit.

Zero Tolerance

Manta: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I learned all that in Drug Dealing 101

Every year I seem to hear more and more about 'zero tolerance.'

For the most part I never really paid much attention, I thought it was just a phrase people used like 'we're fed up and we're just not going to take it anymore.' I really thought it was just some hyperbole people used to emphasize a point they were trying to make.

I don't know if I'm really hearing the phrase more and more, or if I'm just sick of hearing it and so sensitized that I just think I'm hearing it more and more. One day I got so fed up with being annoyed I thought I better find out what the phrase means as see if there really is anything to be annoyed with.

Much to my surprise this is no idle phrase people use as hyperbole, this is a serious point of law in many places. Basically the idea is - that for certain 'crimes' the law prescribes a punishment, and neither the police nor judges can exercise any discretion arresting or sentencing offenders, nor consider any mitigating factors.

I read a news story (still looking for a reference to the actual story) about an incident down in the states. There were these teenage girls on the side of the road flashing their bare titties at motorists driving by. Some sorry dude decides to stop and take a picture with his mobile phone. Little does he know there is a police officer nearby monitoring the situation. So the officer arrests this guy, and the judge slaps him with a 15 year sentence. It turns out neither the officer nor the judge had any choice because that state has a zero tolerance policy on child pornography.

After mulling over the implications of zero tolerance a little more I can't help but wonder if the advocates for zero tolerance have ever read The Lottery. Part of me knows that even if they had read it, they never understood the message.

I don't know if I'm just paranoid or imagining the worst, but isn't zero tolerance just a little bit of a political spectacle - sort of like the gladiators and public hangings?

An Unreasonable Man

The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.

George Bernard Shaw, Man and Superman (1903) "Maxims for Revolutionists"
Irish dramatist & socialist (1856 - 1950)

I was flipping through Netflix and decided to watch the film "An Unreasonable Man" which chronicles the life of Ralph Nader. Now here was a 'loser' if you ever saw one. This guy pissed off way more people than he attracted to his ideals. And where is he today - who cares?

Well it turns out that the most rich and powerful people on the planet cared! This guy effected more change in American and world policy making than all US presidents in his lifetime. In the end, multinational corporations found that it was easier to comply with, and embrace his policies than to suffer the public scrutiny of disputing them.

Now I'm not taking sides yet - the left believes in 'social justice' and the right believes in 'initiatives to success' - but in the end, this guy did not take sides. At first he seemed to be leftist, but then the left betrayed him. The left is all about 'big government' and all that, but Ralph was all about enforcing existing government mandates. For some reason the left did not like that? He was clearly not for the right, but he always knew where he stood with them, and how to make money off them - suing General Motors financed the start of his career.

Somehow Ralph Nader really pissed of Ronald Regan and his friends. Once taking power, the Regan administration made it their mission to undo as many of the policies Nader was responsible for, as possible.

Memo - August 23, 1971
-- "The single most effective antagonist of American business is Ralph Nader, a legend in his own time and an idol to millions of Americans ...there should be no hesitation to attack the Naders ...and others"
Lewis Powell, General Counsel, US Chamber of Commerce.

Things went downhill for Nader and his ideals after that - he never stop believing in his ideals, it's just that more and more people stopped listening. You knew things got really bad when in 2004 Michael Moore actively campaigned against Nader, equating a vote for Nader to the 5 minutes of pleasure your parents warned you about... I guess Michael was really pissed because he campaigned for Nader in 2000, and the Democrats told him that they lost that election because of Ralph Nader, and Michael believes everything the Democrats tell him.

Anyway, I really get what Nader was saying, but clearly the majority of the world does not. Nonetheless, the foundation of contemporary social policy is build on Nader's ideals. If every seat belt and airbag had Nader's name on it, if every food product said "list of ingredients brought to you by Ralph Nader," if every automobile commercial promoting safety said "as inspired by Ralph Nader, we bring you the safest model ever..." - naw, people never pay attention to that stuff anyway.

My biggest regret is that Ralph Nader was past his prime when computers and the internet took over our lives, and IBM, Microsoft, and Intel flourished by preying on consumers, and profiting from illegal business practices. Eventually justice caught up with these three and matters were settled in a court of law, but I think if Nader had been involved they would have been tried more fairly in a court of public opinion.

First Steps

The more I learn, the less I understand.

The paradox seems to be that the more I learn, the older and wiser I get, the less I seem to truly believe or understand. Life gets more incognizable by the moment. No, I don't think I'm suffering from Alzheimer's disease - at least not yet. Setting aside any neurosis or other mental health issues, I'm guessing that this is the norm:

• The more I learn, the more I learn how little I know. -- Socrates
• The more you know, the less you understand. -- Lao-Tse
• The more you learn, the more you know. The more you know, the more you forget. The more you forget, the less you know. So why bother to learn? -- George Bernard Shaw

Anyway, I figured it was about time to inflict my misunderstanding of reality on the world - consequently this blog. The only standard I will to try to set is that I expect people to misunderstand what I am trying to say or to figure out. Feel free to argue with me, I may reciprocate, but then again I may just move on to something equally incognizable.