You were doing so well and I was enjoying it, until:
TOM: "The puny efforts to define humans through two or three axioms based on the phony science of economics is a ridiculous exercise akin to discussing how many angels can sit on the head of a pin. We would be better off playing chess for all the effect such a discussion really has on the important questions of what a human is."
I have never tried to define humans as anything. I merely suggest that as you begin the study of them, it is possible to make assumptions about there behavior.
That's all.
On the other hand your rant, which I enjoyed, says so much it says nothing. I suggest you take these 100 (?) separate bits of information and try to make sense of them. Look for characteristics that apply to all of them. Try to find a common thread.
Then, perhaps, you will be able to begin to understand people. (You won't understand them - you will begin to understand.)
People desire drugs. Let them have them (see my post to Brian).
Decriminalizing drugs would certainly take the profit out of them, give no incentive to dealers to get people hooked. (A junior high distributor can make $200 a week dishing out stuff to his classmates.)
However, the major problem with drugs is not being able to get them when you really need them.
The class that were the major users of drugs before the epidemic hit were doctors. A doctor could use drugs yet operate successfully for decades. He never had to worry about dealing with his habit. He had easy access to drugs.
I did a piece on drugs some years ago. Many people can take drugs or leave them. Such people are called "chippers". The drug with the fewest chippers was nicotine.
Think about that.
Harry
----------------------------------------------------------
Thomas wrote:
Here on FutureWork we debate and share information within certain specific
assumptions. As Harry and others trot out their perspective of man the
economic unit, we often discount many other factors - some of which we know,
like culture and race and the history of other peoples. Ray, valiantly
trying to bring into our awareness his people and their perceptions of
reality and Ed Weiss with his long experience in the Canadian North tries to
correct some of our misperceptions. Still, largely speaking we work with a
model of what a human is as defined economically and culturally and
politically.
Outside the awareness and knowledge of many on the list are many more bits
of information that continually get discounted as myth, improbable,
religous, or not within the University model of Anthropology and Archeology.
Still, information continues to crop up that does not fit into any models we
discuss. This is not just our limitation, it is also the limitation of
those who try to make the decisions of the world. And as we all might
agree, good decisions often come out of good information. If we, as a
society continue to deny and limit the information we find acceptable, we
will continue to make decisions that somehow do not seem to work as planned
in the real world.
Take the world of drug use. The Americans are rabid (check dictionary for
meaning) and have caused untold damage to millions of their own citizens,
interventions in other countries, major political influence to bring in laws
in other countries that support their paranio. Yet people keep using them!!
Why? Well, for one reason, they make you feel good and many people enjoy
feeling good. It's not rational to use drugs when you can go to jail, lose
your job, become ostrasized by your family and yet daily, millions of
Americans and Canadians defy their government's laws and toke up, shoot up,
or ingest various substances for the experience they provide. Our medical
Dr.'s daily proscribe tons of Prozac and other mind altering drugs - which
are somehow deemed ok, because they fit within the accepted business model
of pharmacutical companies. There is a major logical disconnect going on
here that rationally is an impossibility if we were rational actors as some
economic theories extol. I won't even go into the duplicity of our thinking
when it comes to alchohol!!!
Take experiences like those listed in the reposting below which is one of
only thousands of pieces of information that indicate that our assumptions
of human beings are severely limited. I, myself have been involved with
models of human behavior that consistently produce results that science,
history, anthropology would discount. How am I expected to discount my
personal experiences because some 'expert' who has never had the experience
but who has the bully pulpit states that what I have seen and experienced is
false. Obviously, I discount the expert.
Man is more than a political entity, more than an economic entity, more than
a social entity. How much more we haven't a clue, for we allow the powers
of economics and politics to limit what is admissable to the discussion.
Does acupuncture work? Can people walk on red hot coals? Can some people
recieve impressions of the future? Are we affected by a past that lies
before our current birth? Are other intelligent entities able to
communicate with us through chanelling? Does prayer work? Does faith
healing actually heal? Can martial artists use a force called ki to achieve
powerful effects? Are crop circles a hoax or a communication from another
species. Are there flying saucers, UFO's, aliens? Is the Universe
dimensional? Do other consciousnesses live in other dimensions? Are there
such things as shape shifters?
The puny efforts to define humans through two or three axioms based on the
phony science of economics is a ridiculous exercise akin to discussing how
many angels can sit on the head of a pin. We would be better off playing
chess for all the effect such a discussion really has on the important
questions of what a human is.
Well, that is my morning rant. Read the article.
Respectfully,
Thomas Lunde
In a message dated 3/13/02 10:14:38 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
<< There is much movement incorporated presently, Mikah. Your reality is
altering. This shift in consciousness is escalating.
Your sciences are changing. Psychology is not immune, and you may be
incorporating alterations in its expression also � not in fixing. >>
(Thomas: The above two paragragphs are 'channeled information' - obviously
inadmissable and to most of you unknown.)
Very interesting Lou, and to connect with that, I heard a radio program last
night with Brian Weiss, MD.
As a traditional psychotherapist, Dr. Brian Weiss was astonished and
skeptical when one of his patients began recalling past-life traumas that
seemed to hold the key to her recurring nightmares and anxiety attacks. His
skepticism was eroded, however, when she began to channel messages from "the
space between lives," which contained remarkable revelations about Dr.
Weiss's family and his dead son. Using past-life therapy, he was able to
cure the patient and embark on a new, more meaningful phase of his own
career.
A graduate of Columbia University and Yale Medical School, Brian L. Weiss
M.D. is Chairman Emeritus of Psychiatry at the Mount Sinai Medical Center in
Miami.
He has been doing past life regressions for thirty years, and although it is
still called regression, he is very familiar with future regressions also,
as far as 3000 or 10000 years into the future, and Weiss admits to the
possibility of simultaneous time. His books are filled with case stories of
patients that have come to him for unexplained phobias or anxieties, that
connected with another focus for the root source of the difficulty, and were
able to eliminate their "sickness" immediately. And his presentation is not
one of "fixing" but rather the offer of additional information to the
patient. So, they ARE out there working in the medical field, but changing
the traditional face of psychology.
He offers his regression process on CD, included with a book called "Mirrors
of Time, " promo below, which can be ordered through Amazon for 12.95, which
is very reasonable for both book and CD. I ordered the book because I have
trouble with learning to focus my attention, and both book and CD explain
this process, so I thought it well worth the investment. I'll let you know.
Mirrors of Time --- the new book by Dr. Brian Weiss, allows you to take
regression therapy to the next level. A CD is included that goes beyond
meditation and visualization exercises. It contains the actual regression
techniques Dr. Weiss uses with his patients. Now you can go back through
time
by remembering past events that may have led to symptoms or difficulties in
the present time.
http://www.brianweiss.com/
Love,
Sharon
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Harry Pollard
Henry George School of LA
Box 655
Tujunga CA 91042
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Tel: (818) 352-4141
Fax: (818) 353-2242
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