Correspondence and Coherence blog

[merjet]

Spheres of Justice #1

Spheres of Justice #2
 

[Peter]

Merlin wrote: Some group of men and women – class, caste, strata, estate, alliance, or social formation – comes to possess a monopoly or near monopoly of some dominant good or a coalition of groups comes to such possession. This dominant good is more or less systematically converted into all sorts of other things – opportunities, powers, wealth, and reputations. end quote

Good thinking, so of course, I agree! In so many ways “wealth” only exists in a social setting. The obvious examples that I thought of first were, “the head that wears the crown,” and gold and jewels. The crown would require a “coalition of groups” to be a viable form of government, elected or inherited. Gold and jewels would require an opportunity to exchange them for “human services” which also requires a social system.

Last night I was watching “The Son” on AMC which stars Pierce Brosnan, who also played James Bond in the movies. Here he portrays a Texan and the commodity is oil. A commodity as important, though more abundant and easily gotten, could be water. The people downstream must be sure those upstream don’t mess with the flow or content of the water.

Remember the movie with Tom Hanks called “Cast Away?” Excellent flick, and Tom came up with the basic premise. I had another idea based on the character from that movie. People who are recluses and want no human contact like the old man or woman character in a New York apartment building, or on a farm, do just fine, when basic necessities are delivered. They need little or no human contact to stay sane. Of course nowadays, they may also have TV or radio. But a person who is marooned going back to “Robinson Crusoe” first published in 1719 seems to “require” human contact to remain sane. I agree, but why is that? Peter  

Cast Away From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. “Cast Away” is a 2000 American survival drama film directed and co-produced by Robert Zemeckis and starring Tom Hanks, Helen Hunt, and Nick Searcy. The film depicts a FedEx employee marooned on an uninhabited island after his plane crashes in the South Pacific and his attempts to survive on the island using remnants of his plane's cargo.

The film was released on December 22, 2000. It was a critical and commercial success, grossing $429 million worldwide, with Hanks being nominated for Best Actor in a Leading Role at the 73rd Academy Awards . . . .  In a 2017 Actor Roundtable with The Hollywood Reporter, Tom Hanks stated: I made Cast Away because I wanted to examine the concept of four years of hopelessness, in which you have none of the requirements for living — food, water, shelter, fire and company. But it took us six years to put together the alliance that would actually examine that. I only had a third of it, and Bill Broyles only had a third of it, until Bob Zemeckis comes along and provided that other third. I had that original idea. I was reading an article about FedEx, and I realized that 747s filled with packages fly across the Pacific three times a day. And I just thought, "What happens if that goes down?" — Tom Hanks in 2017

From Wikipedia:  . . . . Epistolary, confessional, and didactic in form, the book is presented as an autobiography of the title character (whose birth name is Robinson Kreutznaer)—a castaway who spends 28 years on a remote tropical desert island near Trinidad, encountering cannibals, captives, and mutineers, before ultimately being rescued. The story has been thought to be based on the life of Alexander Selkirk, a Scottish castaway who lived for four years on a Pacific island called "Más a Tierra", now part of Chile, which was renamed Robinson Crusoe Island in 1966.^[2]

Despite its simple narrative style, Robinson Crusoe was well received in the literary world and is often credited as marking the beginning of realistic fiction as a literary genre. It is generally seen as a contender for the first English novel.^[3] Before the end of 1719, the book had already run through four editions, and it has gone on to become one of the most widely published books in history, spawning so many imitations, not only in literature but also in film, television and radio, that its name is used to define a genre, the Robinsonade.

[merjet]

Spheres of Justice #3

Spheres of Justice #4
 

[merjet]

Spheres of Justice #5

Spheres of Justice #6
 

[Peter]

“Distributive justice in the sphere of welfare and security has a twofold meaning: it refers, first to the recognition of need and, second, to the recognition of membership” (78).

That illustrates what it means to be living as a social being without *programming* like ants or bees with a *prime directive* packed into their genetic code. Our recognition of need and membership has carried on from our instinct-driven pre-human ancestors. When a baby is born and the child is placed in the arms of its creators something wonderful does happen. Mom and Dad become Mom and Dad in their minds. This facilitates the life of the baby and the continuance of their particular gene pool. I would not want to erase that particular attribute from the human genome, even if we could.

Living in a multiracial, and limited, multicultural society changes the individual mindset from an extended family level of “one of us, not one of us,” to “different, but still one of us.” I agree with social conservatives that the general trend of society should be to continue cherishing and nurturing our Enlightenment, English heritage.

Now the following thought is just a thought without proof, but I think our handed down image of a race of Dwarfs, (but not the Peter Dinklage Dwarfism) is the retelling of a tale from homo sapiens’ past when Neanderthals were still around. Dwarfs, going back to Scandinavian, German and English myths depict Neanderthals. Now pixies and fairies? Naw! Peter

[merjet]

Jury rules Oberlin College guilty of libel and owes $$$$$

Oberlin College and its social justice warrior students tried to destroy a business. The business sued Oberlin College and won in court. $$$$$.

Spheres of Justice #7

[Peter]

Thanks Merlin. The additional link to Asian American Michelle Malkin was illuminating. I only mention that she is Asian American because she is then entitled to speak out against “flipped on its back racism.” If I had a store I would pay for cameras. Put that back or I am calling Her Majesties police! Sir Veillance  

Notes. I’m an Oberlin Graduate. They Had It Coming. Michelle Malkin / June 19, 2019. After the college sent out Vice President, General Counsel, and Secretary Donica Thomas Varner’s June 7 email to alumni disparaging the verdict and lying about the basis for the trial, the jury whacked Oberlin’s calumnious crapweasels with an additional $33 million in damages caused by their libel, intentional interference with business and intentional infliction of emotional distress . . . . Because white townies are presumed guilty until proven innocent, minority students and their mentors leaped to protest alleged institutional racism by a bakery that has nobly and peacefully served and employed people of all races and backgrounds since 1885. Social justice agitators attempted to turn three black student shoplifters into Rodney King-style martyrs and the white Gibsons into the Simi Valley police of Lorain County in late 2016.

[Peter]

Merlin wrote: “Offices cannot or should not be appropriated by private persons, passed down in families, or sold on the market.”

In many ways “birth” to a person of wealth or renown confers upon that person an unearned status and the first examples that come to mind are The Royals of any country and the Massachusetts Kennedy Clan. The Kennedy’s were seen as entitled to public office by many, especially after the much beloved John Kennedy was killed in office. Generally, people did feel a “tug” of political and personal sympathy for his brothers Bobby and Teddy.

As an aside, there is an article on the web about how Elvis’s young adult grandson looks like him. He does. He never seems to smile in the online photos. I wonder if he can do an impersonation of his grand dad? I didn’t look to see. Peter    

Notes from Merlin’s blog. Offices cannot or should not be appropriated by private persons, passed down in families, or sold on the market . . . . The idea gradually descended into civil society. It was secularized in civil service jobs. Today governments control membership in many professions via licensing and enforcement of standards. In academia the means is accreditation. . . .

[merjet]

Nuanced Censorship

Nuanced Censorship #2
 

[merjet]

Spheres of Justice #8

Spheres of Justice #9
 

[merjet]

Trump’s Health Insurance Changes

[merjet]

Trump’s Health Insurance Changes #2

 

[merjet]

AOC strikes out

ProPublica Targets TurboTax Again #3

Spheres of Justice #10

[merjet]

Spheres of Justice #11

Spheres of Justice #12

[merjet]

Spheres of Justice #13

Spheres of Justice #14

Mathematician solves computer science conjecture in two pages

[merjet]

Democratic demagogues about health insurance

My review of a book about math
 

[merjet]

Crystal Fire #1

Crystal Fire #2

Crystal Fire #3

[merjet]

Attention intruders

Nobody asks Bernie Sanders these questions

[merjet]

Medicare for All and Insurance for None?

 

[Peter]

4 hours ago, merjet said:

Medicare for All and Insurance for None?

 

It's good how you liken BS to themes in "Animal Farm." Eff Bernie. He and Cortez are totalitarian siblings.  

[merjet]

Medicare for All Myths

Medicare for All: Chicanery from The Guardian
 

[merjet]

Medicare for All: Profligate Sanders

Medicare for All: Warren's Chicanery

[merjet]

Medicare for All: Pushback against Warren

[merjet]

Surveillance Capitalism

[stpeter]

9 hours ago, merjet said:

Surveillance Capitalism

I too started reading Zuboff's book, but found some of her assumptions off-base. Although I could say a lot more, I work directly in this area of technology so it might not be appropriate for me to do so.