--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, tartbrain <no_re...@...> wrote:
>
>
>
> --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "curtisdeltablues"
> > In the context of our involvement in Afghanistan it has quite of bit of
> > validity.
>
> Polite but firm challenge.
>
I am probably using a mistaken understanding of your point to rift off into my
own thing. So apologies there.
However, I also challenge Obama's (and many before him) who say "sometimes you
just gotta fight. Sometimes armed violent conflict is inevitable and necessary"
Fascists (not to use explosive terms) may say the same -- just argue about
when its necessary. For the later -- it's almost always. For the former, it's
sometimes. How about never?
War is necessary only if and when you have F'ed things up so bad for so many
years that it takes war to clean up the massive sewage left by the inept for
generations.
I throw out the challenge. I believe a case can be made that every war the US
has been involved in could have been avoided. (I was in the TMO for years. I am
adept at making bold claims) No, not avoided one month before the outbreak.
But avoided by many prior years of good work and good policy.
> The short of it, big problems don't just manifest out of thin air. They are
> the results of decades of doing stupid things.
>
> If the world community had come to the aid of "heros" (now our enemies --
> this type of casting people in extremes to fit the current occasion or
> propoganda campaign is an elements of the "stupid path".) and helped rebuild
> the nexus where a strong, longterm disruptive, exploitive aggressive force
> was finally stopped and put to rest (may sounds a little right-wingy, but
> these are not talking points handed to me to read -- and progressives have
> usually been against raw aggression -- its how you resist it that counts and
> perhaps distinguishes various groups. And large banks are as disruptive,
> exploitive and aggressive as the soviets -- they just dress better) -- then
> the Afghan hot spot would not be bubbling over now. And it goes much further
> back in time than that - the roots of disruption and poor collective action
> of the world community.
>
> Bottom line if the united world community (not a facade of the coalition of
> the duppped and arm twisted) spends 50 years building schools, and a strong
> education infrastructure in impoverished and raped over lands, you won't find
> wastelands like Afghanastan emerging as world trouble spots. It will not
> happen. Badness typically stems from mass ignorance ("have you been to the US
> lately!!?" as Bill Maher would ask emphaticly) ).
>
> And aggression/violence always results in more aggression and violence. I
> pray (to nature or course) that this is a Known Known. Or will soon be.
>
>
> >But then there was Iraq. And the problem there was not that we were
> >subjected to unknown unknowns, it was ignoring the "knowns."
> >
> > When dealing with statements by Chopra and Maharishi I don't believe that
> > the most important option to keep alive is that they might be right about
> > everything. Their claims are too grandiose and self-serving. Our mind
> > doesn't have to stay so wide open that our brains fall out and we forget
> > that by now, most of us have come up with some sense of what is likely or
> > probable for us. It is an individual vision of how the world works and is
> > hard earned. It will most likely be wrong in many specific ways. So we
> > all aim our world view grid on guys like Chopra and Maharishi and see what
> > fits.
> >
> > For me I see patterns of bullshit techniques in Chopra, the king of the
> > equivocal non-assertion assertion. I find it unlikely that he will be the
> > source of any profound insight into how the world works. I'm putting my
> > chips on other bets. With all the brilliant people whose ideas I follow,
> > Chopra is at the bottom of any of my lists. (except bullshitter, he ranks
> > pretty high there and I have a bunch of those lists)
> >
> > Going into Iraq was a stupid idea from what was known IMO. Even though
> > there was a chance that we might be greeted as liberators and a stable
> > American loving democracy might have been created in the Mid-East after
> > finding huge stockpiles of WMDs. But it wasn't probable given what we did
> > know. It was a massive blunder of group consciousness gone wild and groups
> > that should have been looking out for us (Democrats and the media) drinking
> > the wine coolers like a co-ed on Spring break at Daytona.
> >
> > And on my low probability scale are meditator's mental states affecting
> > anything outside their own skulls. (At least I got the distinction between
> > affecting and effecting re-established from this series!)
> >
> > YMMV
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > >
> > > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "Hugo" <fintlewoodlewix@> wrote:
> > > >
> > > > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "authfriend" <jstein@> wrote:
> > > > >
> > > > > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "Hugo" <fintlewoodlewix@> wrote:
> > > > > >
> > > > > > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "authfriend" <jstein@> wrote:
> > > <snip>
> > > > > > > BREAKING NEWS: You don't have to share a person's beliefs
> > > > > > > to defend them from unfair attack.
> > > > > >
> > > > > > But using them as an excuse to launch and attack of your own
> > > > > > is OK.
> > > > >
> > > > > Maybe you'd want to review what I said to Curtis and
> > > > > see whether it could actually be classified as an
> > > > > "attack," as opposed to disagreement. If one is
> > > > > defending somebody from what one considers an unfair
> > > > > attack, it's kind of hard to avoid expressing
> > > > > disagreement.
> > > >
> > > > I'm just calling it how I see it. I see Curtis has
> > > > already resonded to that better than I could.
> > >
> > > Neither of you is very good at it, then.
> > >
> > > <snip>
> > > > > Curtis says that if the mind *could* affect the
> > > > > physical world, it would have to be "some new thing,"
> > > > > because at this point we don't know of any way it
> > > > > could happen.
> > > > >
> > > > > But we still haven't figured out what consciousness is
> > > > > or how it operates, so I think we should leave a bit of
> > > > > room for "some new thing."
> > > >
> > > > It would really be some "Old Thing"
> > >
> > > It would be "new" from the scientific perspective.
> > >
> > > and we can see where
> > > > the belief comes from and it isn't experience.
> > >
> > > We don't know that.
> > >
> > > We can't
> > > > tell at all whether the mind can affect things so why the
> > > > big hoo-ha in the TMO about the marshy effect? Because you
> > > > can't have a belief in consciousness as the unified field
> > > > without accepting that outcomes like earthquakes and
> > > > political upheaval are somehow connected with people sitting
> > > > around with their eyes closed.
> > >
> > > Is it possible there would have been more and worse
> > > earthquakes without people sitting around with their
> > > eyes closed?
> > >
> > > On that scale, it's unfalsifiable. And as to political
> > > upheaval, one person's disastrous chaos is another
> > > person's liberating revolution, so that's unfalsifiable
> > > as well.
> > >
> > > We just don't know what it is we're trying to measure
> > > or how to go about it.
> > >
> > > <snip>
> > > > > Yes, that's an "argument from ignorance," at least in
> > > > > terms of whether the possibility of such a phenomenon
> > > > > should be ruled out (as opposed to claiming it's true,
> > > > > which I'm not doing).
> > > > >
> > > > > But you and Curtis are countering it with an "argument
> > > > > from personal incredulity" as to whether such a "new
> > > > > thing" is possible, so I figure we're even.
> > > >
> > > > I wouldn't say incredulity, I have given it a lot of
> > > > thought, a chance to work in my life and observed how it
> > > > fails to demonstrably fails to affect world as predicted.
> > >
> > > Yeah, but it's still personal incredulity to believe
> > > that because you haven't seen any evidence that
> > > convinces you (even for very sound reasons), therefore
> > > there *can* be no such evidence.
> > >
> > > > Suppose we didn't know about plate tectonics, then you
> > > > might be able to say things are happening for reasons
> > > > unknown and search about for mystical reasons which is
> > > > how we got here in the first place I'll wager.
> > > >
> > > > The thing is if it's consciousness affecting the earths
> > > > crust then there can't have been any earthquakes before
> > > > man evolved and started meditating.
> > >
> > > Why couldn't earthquakes happen without human
> > > participation? I'm not following you.
> > >
> > > <snip>
> > > > and they may well be valid--but gee, seems to me
> > > > > there'd be quite a few potential real-world benefits if
> > > > > we could nail down that "mental states" *can* affect
> > > > > the physical world, and how this occurs.
> > > >
> > > > Like preventing earthquakes or improving the stock exchange
> > > > and preventing war? I shall remain happy sceptic until that
> > > > happy day.
> > >
> > > You're entitled, but be a *skeptic*, not a skeptopath.
> > >
> > > "There are known knowns. These are things we know that
> > > we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there
> > > are things that we now know we don't know. But there are
> > > also unknown unknowns. These are things we do not know
> > > we don't know."--Donald Rumsfeld
> > >
> >
>
