What’s on your mind?

"@Michael I apologize. I erroneously believed you were equivocating about the meanings of "projection" and "prediction". I can see now you were being precise instead. I believed you to be misinformed, but now I can see that your position is highly nuanced. I can also see that you care about the environment. However, I feel I was unfairly labeled a troll. It's true that I do troll social media looking for writing prompts. However, I try to keep my comments polite, but admit to occasional snark. In this case, I addressed my assumptions about a person without actually knowing the person. I'll pick up the rest of what I have to say on my blog."

 That's the trouble with social media. You're really talking to people you don't know. It's easy to fall into tribalistic tendencies. And that's what people seem to be doing. Social media is like high school all over again. Thoughts tend not to be addressed at deep levels, and people fall into habits of using cheap shots and poor arguments. An article in Scientific American discussed the difference between arguing to win and arguing to collaborate. It's the first type of argument that has taken over social media.

I find myself wondering what goes on in people's minds. I try to be objective but what I believe to be true, other people believe to be false. I know why I believe those things to be true, but I can't understand why others don't come to the same conclusions that I do. I suspect that they are being misled. I even suspect a certain social classes or political groups of misleading people. Am I a conspiracy theorist? I don't think so. But, I haven't found any other explanation, so I'm still looking. I realize now that I' won't learn how people think on social media. Here, the desire to belong to a group, to impress others, to be clever or cruel, seems to rule.

Another social media climate debate

He says it's a hoax. I ask, "How do you know?" He tells me it's a matter of logic and of looking at raw data, like my thermometer.

I respond: You're telling me to trust raw data like the thermometer outside my window. But that's naive. Small samples of data prove nothing. Climate change data is gathered by interdisciplinary teams looking at ice cores, tree rings, satellite and historical data, etc. Did you know that 97 percent of peer reviewed science articles support the climate conclusions you doubt? When you say you're being logical, I suspect it's the logic of a conspiracy theorist who reasons that it must be true because it's only believed by the three percent who know what's really happening.

Then there's another fellow who agrees with the first. He says the conjecture that, "climate change will reach a tipping point by 2030," claiming, "This is speculation based on computer model projections (not predictions), based," on unproven scientific hypothesis.

I reply: Aside from the fact that projections and predictions are more or less the same thing, I must agree that these assumptions have not been scientifically tested through experiment. It's a little difficult wrapping an experiment  around an entire world climate. The argument is always present, and always valid, that correlation does not equal causation. However the evidence responsible for putting those warning labels on cigarette packages was largely correlational.  Sometimes one can't have the best forms of proof. And on those occasions,  projections, or predictions if you prefer, are what we fall back on. I don't mind if you wait until you have sufficient proof of climate change. But please wait on some other planet, because some of us here would like to take reasonable precautions.

But in replying so, I fail to address the underlying issue which is that the prediction comes from an arm of the United Nations "which seeks to bring less developed nations up to the material cultural level of developed nations, and seeks way to force developed countries to pay to reduce the disparity.  This ignores the fact that the Earth cannot sustain 7-8 billion people living at the standard of living of the United States and some European countries."

So really it's an out-of-pocket issue. There's no way the earth can keep these billions of people living at a standard similar to that of the United States and a few other countries. So I don't get it here. What you're saying then is that you won't make an out-of-pocket sacrifice and so the earth will get hot because you won't share with poor people. Right?

But you don't even know what's being asked of you yet. Perhaps there are blessings in disguise. Yes, you may have to make a few sacrifices. In fact we should all be making those sacrifices. But it's just a collection of little things, like using paper instead of, plastic drinking straws, or better yet not throwing shit in streams. There is much that must be done to make our environment sustainable. Without your cooperation we are already making great strides in renewable energy. With your cooperation we could go further faster.  I think there's an unstated argument here. You believe things should stay exactly as they are. The problem is nothing ever stays as it is. Citizens in developed nations live excessively. Exporting our excesses through a process of globalization doesn't help any. Yes, it's simply too bad that things can't stay the way they are. But that doesn't mean they can't be great up ahead. If eating less meat sounds like a bad thing, maybe it's because you haven't tried it yet or thought about lowering your cholesterol. The point? Don't fear change. Embrace it.

Go forth and propagate

All last year whenever anyone asked what I was writing I said it was a propaganda piece. Lately I’ve been trying to begin a first novel and it’s not quite coming together, but if you ask me what I’m writing, I’d still have to say it’s a propaganda piece.

I don’t seem to be making it as a writer, despite all the classes I took and loans I took out. But I keep writing instead of looking to upgrade my skills to something more lucretive. I’ve been trying to figure out why, and I guess George Orwell said it best. He said that “... every novelist, has a ‘message’, whether he admits it or not, and the minutest details of his work are influenced by it. All art is propaganda. Neither Dickens himself nor the majority of Victorian novelists would have thought of denying this.” So I guess my job is to go forth and propagate. Funny, I never thought of myself as a propagandist. 

Democracy repair kit

In the game Monopoly the winner is the one with the most money. The other players are broke, or nearly so. In real life, the share of America’s wealthiest has grown, while 80 percent of its citizens increasingly struggle with economic uncertainty. Among developed nations, American income inequality ranks close to the top. Extreme inequality threatens Americans’ welfare, their environment and even their democracy.

The American dream of opportunities for all has been hijacked by, “large corporations, Wall Street, and very wealthy individuals,” claims Robert Reich. Additionally, such conditions are, “no more in their interest than in the interests of the rest of the population, because under such conditions an economy and a society cannot survive.”

Our country is ailing, but we can fix it. This quick-reading, yet enlightening, book tells how our democracy broke, explains our current peril, and shows how we can restore American democracy to our people.

Click to fix it

Maybe this time we can fix it

Because, it’s different this time. This time the victims are fighting back. Hearts and prayers are no longer a sufficient response. Less than six weeks after Nikolas Cruz unleashed a Valentine’s Day massacre in Parkland, Florida, the state’s gun laws have already changed.

It’s sad that so many students died before one group of survivors channeled their grief into political action. But it’s glorious that American young are stepping up to insist upon what their elders have failed to achieve. And it couldn’t come at a better time.

Washington is a circus now, a dark and dangerous one. While most Americans are either brainwashed or paralyzed with fear, toadying sycophants delude themselves thinking they can restrain the dangers they’ve unleashed. This does not bode well for democracy. There are problems, grave problems, that the circus isn’t addressing.

Assuming all else goes well, that the government doesn’t implode or the world doesn’t explode, by the time the youngest millennial graduates college, many of the two-thirds of his peers who didn’t attend college will be losing their jobs to robots. Vital economic issues are either not being addressed, or addressed only with voodoo economics and naivete.

Our government responds to the desires of moneyed interests while ignoring the needs of the four fifths of the people who share only ten percent of the nation’s wealth. The baby boom generation coined the phrase, “Don’t trust anyone over thirty.” They proved the adage by failing to nourish democracy. America badly needs a wake-up and a shake-up. If American youth refuses to become victims, they must fight—and fight hard. God bless them. With their help we can see this job through. I know this—if we work together we can fix and reclaim our democracy.

Get your copy. We Can Fix It! Reclaiming the American dream 

The back story

Now that I've launched the eBook, I've begun thinking about the summer release on Amazon and in paperback. I've been working on the back cover. Originally I wanted to do something with the Norman Rockwell version of Rosie the Riveter. But, when you work with 3D models you've got to use what you've got. The real Rosie has a rivet gun across her lap. The fake Rosie has a blowout in her clothing. I posed the retro ray gun to conceal the blowout. However people said it looked rude. So, Rosie stepped out and Ms. Liberty stepped in.

Get it here

Sunday morning chat

This morning, the parents took the twins to Sunday School. I stayed home on religious grounds. I claimed I was a Buddhist. I wasn't, but Junjie was. It didn't matter. They took advantage of me. You grasp hold of whatever advantages you can. Junjie taught me that.

Malik was good with the kids anyway. So it didn't matter too much if I wasn't there. Not that the parents weren't capable of dealing with them. They just didn't like the bother.

I had a feeling Brook would be done about now so I walked over to the Holder estate. I saw him through the solarium window as I approached. He was just getting out of his chair. I stayed out of sight. I don't think he cared for me. I waited until he'd left before I approached the solarium. Brooke signaled me to enter as she unlatched the solarium door before carrying the breakfast tray to the kitchen. She smiled as she served me coffee. But then I began to notice she had the wrinkle in her eyebrow and that frown she gets at the corners of her mouth. “Did he do it again?” I asked.

“Last night, she said. And then he threatened to fire me.”

“He threatens you lot doesn’t he?”

“Almost constantly. I guess it's part of the job. How are you doing?”

“Oh, I started writing something new."

“Another novel?”

“No. This is something new. It’s about economics and neuropsychology, I guess.”

“You don’t know?”

“No, my muse says she’ll explain it as we go.”

“Your muse?”

“That’s what she calls herself.”

“Weird.”

“Even weirder, I saw her in broad daylight the other day. And for once, I wasn't half asleep."

Horrors

"The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the light into the peace and safety of a new dark age."

I think H. P. Lovecraft got it wrong. The mind has a wonderful ability to build maps of the world. We can expand those maps, building models of what we cannot see. We can bend our thoughts in all sorts of useful directions while drawing from a variety of inner resources. What we cannot do is see the world as it is, for the world doesn't exist until our eyes see it and our brain models it. But it's a mistake to believe that only one's own world is real or that what you do in the real world has no consequences.

It's your choice

Are you a racist? I know I am. Behavior scientists have discovered that people have implicit bias that colors their reactions below the level of conscious awareness. This is what makes me clutch my purse more tightly when I pass an other-race stranger on the sidewalk at night. I shouldn’t—my good friend Malik is of another race. But I react this way anyway. Of course, Malik is a friend, not a stranger, but just the same …

It’s like a reflex how we initially react to strangers who don’t look like ourselves. Just as I’d move my finger away from a candle flame, I clutch my purse more tightly near an other-race stranger. It may not be me, but it’s what I do. It’s the way my brain was designed. I like to think of myself as being in charge but the reality is there are many viewpoints in my brain and they are constantly competing to express themselves, and occasionally a viewpoint wins the argument and acts without my even being aware of it.

Why? According to William Wan and Sarah Kaplan writing in the Washington Post, “’An us-them mentality is unfortunately a really basic part of our biology,’ said Eric Knowles, a psychology professor at New York University who studies prejudice and politics. ’There’s a lot of evidence that people have an ingrained even evolved tendency toward people who are in our so-called 'in group.’

But how we define those groups, and the tendency to draw divisions along racial lines, is social, not biological, he added. ’We can draw those lines in a number of ways that society tells us,’ he said.”

I learned in church to, “Judge not according to the appearance, but judge righteous judgment.” That’s John 7:24. I’d like to think my judgement was righteous, but I know it isn’t always. But that’s not my fault. It’s the way I was wired.

But there’s still hope for me. I may always clutch my purse more tightly when I see an other-race stranger, but I can behave differently in situations where I know I’m safe. So it’s really not so much about my being a racist—we all are—it’s about how I choose to act despite my racism. Spiritually I’m made in God’s image, but physically I have an animal nature. I can use the free-will God gave me to challenge myself to be a better person instead of acting on the emotional animal impulses and viewpoints that compete for control of my behavior. That side is always there trying to convince me to hate and fear those who don’t look the same, even though both God and science teach that there’s no difference between people. Sometimes it’s a struggle, but I want to do what’s right. Sometimes the racist arguments are convincing, but they always fall apart when I look more closely.

I know who I want to be. Now let me ask you, what kind of racist do you want to be—the kind who fights implicit bias, or the kind who indulges it?