the b**** is toast...

[Brant Gaede]

"Government education." Greg, we all got it, even if we didn't go to school. It's cultural osmosis. The only way to transcend it is by critical thinking, one thing most emphatically NOT taught in school. Even Objectivism in the 1960s did not teach that. If it had tried the students would have evaporated (too much work) and Rand would have blown her top at Branden ("I've done that! Teach the conclusions! Teach the details! Teach the schematic! No contradictions! Objectivism has no contradictions!"). So Objectivism died on the vine, first top heavy with Rand genius and Branden brilliance, then just top heavy, falling down to the ground. That's the philosophy as an intellectual construct. One can walk by and pick up and use what one wants. As a cultural force, I think Objectivism, especially via Atlas Shrugged--does that word even appear once in the novel ("objectivism" or "objective reality")?--has made a huge difference, especially as reflected in the way countless people are living their lives, including you.

--Brant

we aren't all Pod People regardless of government imprinting (but if I had children I wouldn't let them in or near a school for the drugs alone)

government wants "good" citizens--that's why its illegal in Germany to home school your children (so I've read)--guess why--it's a Sparta for docility while over here it's a Sparta for docile warriors used to blowtorch the world here and there as needed and as possible, especially the Middle East (France concentrates on its African colonies, all Britain has left of that is Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the United States [which is too big to handle directly, but as a horse it runs down the right track])

so, I use a little hyperbole: it's fun!

[moralist]

2 hours ago, Brant Gaede said:

"Government education." Greg, we all got it, even if we didn't go to school. It's cultural osmosis. The only way to transcend it is by critical thinking, one thing most emphatically NOT taught in school. Even Objectivism in the 1960s did not teach that. If it had tried the students would have evaporated (too much work) and Rand would have blown her top at Branden ("I've done that! Teach the conclusions! Teach the details! Teach the schematic! No contradictions! Objectivism has no contradictions!"). So Objectivism died on the vine, first top heavy with Rand genius and Branden brilliance, then just top heavy, falling down to the ground. That's the philosophy as an intellectual construct. One can walk by and pick up and use what one wants. As a cultural force, I think Objectivism, especially via Atlas Shrugged--does that word even appear once in the novel ("objectivism" or "objective reality")?--has made a huge difference, especially as reflected in the way countless people are living their lives, including you.

--Brant

we aren't all Pod People regardless of government imprinting (but if I had children I wouldn't let them in or near a school for the drugs alone)

government wants "good" citizens--that's why its illegal in Germany to home school your children (so I've read)--guess why--it's a Sparta for docility while over here it's a Sparta for docile warriors used to blowtorch the world here and there as needed and as possible, especially the Middle East (France concentrates on its African colonies, all Britain has left of that is Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the United States [which is too big to handle directly, but as a horse it runs down the right track])

so, I use a little hyperbole: it's fun!

I count myself fortunate to have escaped knowing anything about the internal personal workings of the Objectivist bureaucracy and that my sole inspiration from Rand was Atlas Shrugged... because that was more than enough information on how to run a business and live a good life.

These are the two basic views:

The cultural meme is being given a job by a corporation or the government... Atlas Shrugged is creating your own job by building your own business.  

The cultural meme is buying a home in the city... Atlas Shrugged is building your own Galt's Gulch. 

The contrast is stark. Two totally different paths.

Greg

[jts]

2 questions:

1.  Eddie Willers in Atlas Shrugged was an employee. Was he therefore the wrong kind of guy?

2. If there were no employees, then there would be no employers. Then how would a large building get built? Would one guy build a skyscraper all by his lonesome? And how would a large business be run, for example Taggart International? Or even something as small as a restaurant? How would the world work without employees and employers?

 

[BaalChatzaf]

11 hours ago, moralist said:

(shrug) So what, Bob. It has done nothing to alter your becoming the end product of government education in that you will always bear their indelible imprinted mark of an employee on your psyche. This is because the sole purpose of government education is to create employees.

And because I have no government education I'll always have the view of a Capitalist entrepreneur.

...and those two views will always be irreconcilable.

Greg

I am smarter than 95 percent of the entire human race.  Not only that, I CANNOT be conditioned by propaganda.  Being an Aspie I am FIXATED on facts and literal logical  inferences.  I am totally immune to ANY propaganda,  government or otherwise.  No one controls MY thinking but ME.  I am far too smart to be fooled by agitprop and I am a damned sight smarter than you are.   Just because one goes to a school funded by tax looters does not mean one is in the thrall of tax looters.  My studies consisted of Math, Science, Logic and the Spanish Language.  I paid no attention to anything else. Social Studies bored me and I ignored most of it.

[moralist]

3 hours ago, BaalChatzaf said:

I am smarter than 95 percent of the entire human race.  

Well, Bob... that attitude is what makes people dumb.

You've been had... I suspect by your parents. The government only finished the job. Your own lack of self awareness is what granted them the permission to do it.  Heck, you're even proud of having no self reflection and that's just plain dumb.

Quote

Not only that, I CANNOT be conditioned by propaganda.

And that's what makes you fall for it hook line and sinker.

 

Greg

 

 

[BaalChatzaf]

16 minutes ago, moralist said:

Well, Bob... that attitude is what makes people dumb.

You've been had... I suspect by your parents. The government only finished the job. Your own lack of self awareness is what granted them the permission to do it.  Heck, you're even proud of having no self reflection and that's just plain dumb.

And that's what makes you fall for it hook line and sinker.

 

Greg

 

 

Horse shit.  My practical religion is doubt and skepticism.  The only unqualified beliefs I have (aside from my own existence) is the law of non-contradiction  and the Second Law of Thermodynamic.   Everything else is  conditionally held and constantly subject to scrutiny.  And I am a damn sight smarter than you are.

[Brant Gaede]

3 hours ago, BaalChatzaf said:

I am smarter than 95 percent of the entire human race.  Not only that, I CANNOT be conditioned by propaganda.  Being an Aspie I am FIXATED on facts and literal logical  inferences.  I am totally immune to ANY propaganda,  government or otherwise.  No one controls MY thinking but ME.  I am far too smart to be fooled by agitprop and I am a damned sight smarter than you are.   Just because one goes to a school funded by tax looters does not mean one is in the thrall of tax looters.  My studies consisted of Math, Science, Logic and the Spanish Language.  I paid no attention to anything else. Social Studies bored me and I ignored most of it.

You mean in a room of  a hundred people, 5 are smarter than you, say in high school? Tell me, is 100 the average intelligence of the human race or the average intelligence of those taking an English language IQ test? If the latter you may very well be smarter than 99% of the human race, but we don't know and who could care? That's just IQ.

I can't claim any more for myself, but in a room of a thousand my dad would have been the smartest person by any IQ metric. Boy! He did a lot of dumb things.

Would you be in the top 5% if you were competing against a billion educated Chinese?

Do you understand being a genius one way can easily mean being dumb in eight other ways? Do we tell Beethoven you're no Euler? Newton, you're no Michelangelo? It's the same for us lesser mortals.

We can say there are two types of dumb: a dumb person being dumb and a smart person being dumb. I think Greg is onto you about the latter, but I can't say that he has come at you 100% that way. Do I think Greg is right about government imprinting on you (and not him but he too went to school)? Nope. I think it's mostly your genes. As for social studies (high school, liberal arts college), anybody can do it if not bored but they're usually bored because they really can't get their brains around it. They aren't smart enough. They cannot deal with broad and complicated abstractions integrated over multiple disciplines. That's why Edward Teller was off key and not very smart outside mathematics and physics. What he did say was well worth thinking about but had to be heavily criticized by (a) well educated, broadly educated, mind(s). For example, his book,  A Shield Not A Sword. Einstein did much better that way; he was not unbalanced by his brainpower as Teller was (and you are, btw), but, still, millions who may have cared could, and a few who did care, take him on in that area even though, unlike him, they were not geniuses. To be blunt, most of your postings here are simply out of your bailiwick. It's not much math and science on OL, it's boring social studies. You're welcome to be here as far as I'm concerned, but why you're here trying to argue with a beyond logic irrationalist like Greg seems to be dumb, albeit superficially. Superficial is all that's available to observe. I decline to psychologize. That would be crap. That would be unfair. That would be Greg and his "imprinting." Sometimes that's right and sometimes that's wrong, but his mistake is in treating it like some kind of an inevitable operable law of physics.

--Brant

[BaalChatzaf]

7 minutes ago, Brant Gaede said:

You mean in a room of  a hundred people, 5 are smarter than you, say in high school? Tell me, is 100 the average intelligence of the human race or the average intelligence of those taking an English language IQ test? If the latter you may very well be smarter than 99% of the human race, but we don't know and who could care? That's just IQ.

I can't claim any more for myself, but in a room of a thousand my dad would have been the smartest person by any IQ metric. Boy! He did a lot of dumb things.

Would you be in the top 5% if you were competing against a billion educated Chinese?

Do you understand being a genius one way can easily mean being dumb in eight other ways? Do we tell Beethoven you're no Euler? Newton, you're no Michelangelo? It's the same for us lesser mortals.

We can say there are two types of dumb: a dumb person being dumb and a smart person being dumb. I think Greg is onto you about the latter, but I can't say that he has come at you 100% that way. Do I think Greg is right about government imprinting on you (and not him but he too went to school)? Nope. I think it's mostly your genes. As for social studies (high school, liberal arts college), anybody can do it if not bored but they're usually bored because they really can't get their brains around it. They aren't smart enough. They cannot deal with broad and complicated abstractions integrated over multiple disciplines. That's why Edward Teller was off key and not very smart outside mathematics and physics. What he did say was well worth thinking about but had to be heavily criticized by (a) well educated, broadly educated, mind(s). For example, his book,  A Shield Not A Sword. Einstein did much better that way; he was not unbalanced by his brainpower as Teller was (and you are, btw), but, still, millions who may have cared could, and a few who did care, take him on in that area even though, unlike him, they were not geniuses. To be blunt, most of your postings here are simply out of your bailiwick. It's not much math and science on OL, it's boring social studies. You're welcome to be here as far as I'm concerned, but why you're here trying to argue with a beyond logic irrationalist like Greg seems to be dumb, albeit superficially. Superficial is all that's available to observe. I decline to psychologize. That would be crap. That would be unfair. That would be Greg and his "imprinting." Sometimes that's right and sometimes that's wrong, but his mistake is in treating it like some kind of an inevitable operable law of physics.

--Brant

Choose one hundred people  -at random- and there is a .95 probability that I am smarter than 95 of them.   A room at school is NOT a random sample.

[Brant Gaede]

44 minutes ago, BaalChatzaf said:

Choose one hundred people  -at random- and there is a .95 probability that I am smarter than 95 of them.   A room at school is NOT a random sample.

I didn't put that in for it changes nothing. That's why I threw in a billion Chinese. You're still implicitly assuming equivalence between IQ, which is measurable, and actual, overall intelligence which can't be. (You have to be referring to IQ; there's nothing else.) A genius, Watson, who helped discover the double helix had less IQ than you seem to, but I wouldn't say that about Franklin. I suspect hers was off the charts.

--Brant

[moralist]

 

1 hour ago, BaalChatzaf said:

Horse shit.  My practical religion is doubt and skepticism.  The only unqualified beliefs I have (aside from my own existence) is the law of non-contradiction  and the Second Law of Thermodynamic.   Everything else is  conditionally held and constantly subject to scrutiny.  And I am a damn sight smarter than you are.

It's your belief that you are smarter than others which makes you dumb, Bob.

You don't see that truth because you lack the self reflection to realize it.

Greg

[moralist]

7 hours ago, jts said:

2 questions:

1.  Eddie Willers in Atlas Shrugged was an employee. Was he therefore the wrong kind of guy?

2. If there were no employees, then there would be no employers. Then how would a large building get built? Would one guy build a skyscraper all by his lonesome? And how would a large business be run, for example Taggart International? Or even something as small as a restaurant? How would the world work without employees and employers?

 

Good questions Jerry. People do what is consistent with their personalities. It's for each individual to work out for themselves.

Greg

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

5 hours ago, BaalChatzaf said:

I am smarter than 95 percent of the entire human race.  Not only that, I CANNOT be conditioned by propaganda.  Being an Aspie I am FIXATED on facts and literal logical  inferences.  I am totally immune to ANY propaganda...

Bob,

I can't resist.

Would you be immune to propaganda made by the 5% smarter than you if it were so constructed as to specifically manipulate Aspies through literal logical inferences? After all, that 5% is smart enough to do it.

And if that were the case, what makes you think you are not already controlled by it?

   

Michael

[BaalChatzaf]

3 hours ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

Bob,

I can't resist.

Would you be immune to propaganda made by the 5% smarter than you if it were so constructed as to specifically manipulate Aspies through literal logical inferences? After all, that 5% is smart enough to do it.

And if that were the case, what makes you think you are not already controlled by it?

   

Michael

Can't be done.  Logic is logic. If the premises are false, no matter how good the logic is the conclusion cannot be trusted.

Us Smart Guys  who are three sigma from the average intelligence cannot be taken in  by blatant agit prop.  At least, not the three sigma guys who specialized in math, logic, physical science or engineering.  We are all too reality oriented to be fooled by government agit prop. 

My own strategy is this: no matter what the government says,  I look for private independent confirmation.  I assume ab initio and a priori  that government people  lie through their teeth when they talk of policy or values.  If they talk of facts,  that can be independently checked.   That is why I never bought the IPCC climate models.  Too many holes.  

[BaalChatzaf]

3 hours ago, moralist said:

 

It's your belief that you are smarter than others which makes you dumb, Bob.

You don't see that truth because you lack the self reflection to realize it.

Greg

What truth?  The only Truth you have told me is you are bound and gagged by your prejudices.

You don't like tax funded schools?   Consider the Bronx Highschool of Science.  Tax funded.

Now look at this about the Bronx High School of Science

 

Eight Nobel Laureates, more than any other secondary school on the planet:

• Ray G. Glauber '41, 2005 Nobel Prize in Physics
• Leon N. Cooper '47, 1972 Nobel Prize in Physics
• Melvin Schwartz '49, 1988 Nobel Prize in Physics
• Sheldon L. Glashow '50, 1979 Nobel Prize in Physics
• Steven Weinberg '50, 1979 Nobel Prize in Physics
• Russell A. Hulse '66, 1993 Nobel Prize in Physics
• H. David Politzer '66, 2004 Nobel Prize in Physics
• Robert J. Lefkowitz '59, 2012 Nobel Prize in Chemistry

Note they all got their awards in physical science.  Not bullshit like the Nobel Peace Prize or the Nobel Prize for Literature.

They were too busy with science to pay attention to government lies. 

[Brant Gaede]

Looks like a lot of super smart Jews went to that school. So, is it the school or their smarts?

I speculate this school is smack dab in the middle of an extensive Jewish community which has demanded very smart and able teachers for their children.

You aren't dealing with Greg's arguments, which aren't arguments, btw. He's speaking for dumb goys and you for smart Jews et al.

The biggest "imprinting" is from the home, not the school. I'd say from remembered school experience that the smarter the kid the less the school managed to imprint itself on him and the more the influence of the family comparatively. I always thought I was surrounded by sheep until the last two years of high school when I went from seemingly no Jewish classmates to a lot.

I truly think the biggest imprinting is the jejune prison nature of public education's schools and the Pledge of Allegiance.

--Brant

Greg is on to something, but it all too frequently doesn't come out in a correct and proper form distorting if not invalidating the substance (Greg is always onto something)--you too are always on to something: it's like watching two hippos on land (OL) onto something

[moralist]

4 hours ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

Bob,

I can't resist.

Would you be immune to propaganda made by the 5% smarter than you if it were so constructed as to specifically manipulate Aspies through literal logical inferences? After all, that 5% is smart enough to do it.

And if that were the case, what makes you think you are not already controlled by it?

   

Michael

Excellent point, Michael.

Bob would also be a total sucker for propaganda engineered to make him FEEL like he was smarter than others...

...and he'd never even know it, because he lacks self awareness.

 

Greg

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

1 hour ago, BaalChatzaf said:

Can't be done.  Logic is logic. If the premises are false, no matter how good the logic is the conclusion cannot be trusted.

Bob,

Heh.

Propaganda is not about trusting logical conclusions.

Here's a different way to say this. A good propagandist or manipulator would give a person like you all you want in terms of logical conclusions as a form of misdirection. He would probably set up a dilemma with hefty stakes just to make it interesting and take the side he imagines you will not take. He would make it difficult, but would let you win the logical argument and your self-congratulation (squirt of serotonin) would further blind you to what he was really doing. 

It's like a magician doing something quick or odd with one hand so you will take your glance off the other for however brief an interval. You can't help it. And during that interval, he does his monkey-business with that hand you are not looking at.

Frankly, I think you would be an easy-peasy target for a master manipulator. You would do his bidding all the while saying you were immune to manipulation and he (the manipulator) would even agree with you, also saying you were immune. But that last would be just to feed your vanity as icing on the cake, not as an essential component of engineering your compliance, which he would get with very little effort.

 

That doesn't fit you self-image, I know, and I expect you to disagree with me. But you do have a limbic system (on down) and your brain does use neurotransmitters like dopamine, serotonin, endorphins, cortisol, etc. All that operates automatically underneath your awareness. And there is where the master manipulator does his magic.

By telling yourself you do not need to be vigilant because you are so awesome, you let down your guard in the awareness part of your brain (neocortex), the only part that has a chance at blocking him. Why would he even combat your neocortex when you turn it off on purpose?  All he needs to do is mental Judo, that is prompt you to set it in motion through misdirection and use your own momentum against you.

Michael

[moralist]

48 minutes ago, Brant Gaede said:

The biggest "imprinting" is from the home, not the school.

That's where it begins. The government just finishes the job.There is a correlation between the incidence of autistic children and their government educated intellectual parents.

"Clusters of children diagnosed with autism tend to occur in places where parents are older, more educated, and white..."

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=122256276

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

11 minutes ago, moralist said:

"Clusters of children diagnosed with autism tend to occur in places where parents are older, more educated, and white..."

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=122256276

Greg,

I would be careful with that one.

Kat lives in this world (her son, my stepson, is on the autistic spectrum) and I did not see anything in that article that even remotely resembles the things I see.

That 2010 article is more of the same old same old, that is, they always say they don't know what causes autism, that nobody knows, but they are 100% sure they know what does not cause it (i.e., chemicals and pharmaceuticals where oodles of government money flows).

A much better statistic is that autism occurs many, many times more in males than in females (there are lots of statistical and qualitative studies of this from all kinds of different sources). At least this one correlates to reality for real and there is no hidden agenda angle that deals with obscene amounts of money and power.

Michael

[BaalChatzaf]

6 hours ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

Bob,

Heh.

Propaganda is not about trusting logical conclusions.

Here's a different way to say this. A good propagandist or manipulator would give a person like you all you want in terms of logical conclusions as a form of misdirection. He would probably set up a dilemma with hefty stakes just to make it interesting and take the side he imagines you will not take. He would make it difficult, but would let you win the logical argument and your self-congratulation (squirt of serotonin) would further blind you to what he was really doing. 

It's like a magician doing something quick or odd with one hand so you will take your glance off the other for however brief an interval. You can't help it. And during that interval, he does his monkey-business with that hand you are not looking at.

Frankly, I think you would be an easy-peasy target for a master manipulator. You would do his bidding all the while saying you were immune to manipulation and he (the manipulator) would even agree with you, also saying you were immune. But that last would be just to feed your vanity as icing on the cake, not as an essential component of engineering your compliance, which he would get with very little effort.

 

That doesn't fit you self-image, I know, and I expect you to disagree with me. But you do have a limbic system (on down) and your brain does use neurotransmitters like dopamine, serotonin, endorphins, cortisol, etc. All that operates automatically underneath your awareness. And there is where the master manipulator does his magic.

By telling yourself you do not need to be vigilant because you are so awesome, you let down your guard in the awareness part of your brain (neocortex), the only part that has a chance at blocking him. Why would he even combat your neocortex when you turn it off on purpose?  All he needs to do is mental Judo, that is prompt you to set it in motion through misdirection and use your own momentum against you.

Michael

Reaching logical conclusions and hugging my grandchildren are the only things that excite me.  Everything else I pay limited attention to.  Because of my condition (Aspberger's Syndrome) my mental rage is somewhat limited and my emotional range is very limited.  There are no propaganda slogans or political dogmas that get "my blood up".  There is no way I can become a member of a mob or join a political cohort. 

[Brant Gaede]

7 hours ago, moralist said:

Excellent point, Michael.

Bob would also be a total sucker for propaganda engineered to make him FEEL like he was smarter than others...

...and he'd never even know it, because he lacks self awareness.

Greg

Bob knows he is smarter than others. Actually 7 billion people are as long as there are at least two bottom of the barrel morons who aren't and one of those would be smarter than the other moron I suppose but I doubt it could be measured. So, let us correct you: Bob knows he is smarter than most others. BFD. So am I. I find Bob quite believable about his Aspie-ism and how it affects his mind and you about Bob not at all. If ever a mind was unprintable it's a mind like his.

As for self-awareness, he's obviously aware of what is there to be aware of. We cannot experience it only infer it. He's in the same boat in regard to us. Your inference, btw, isn't even good enough for government work. You're assuming he's "normal" and therefore printable (by his schools) merely by having gone there. You yourself were not even though you went to them thar government schools too. You don't even begin to understand it's never influence per se but how the conscious mind interprets experience, never mind you letting yourself off the school hook through your own interpretation of your school experience.

--Brant

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

3 hours ago, BaalChatzaf said:

There are no propaganda slogans or political dogmas that get "my blood up".

Bob,

Maybe not from those you have seen, but there sure could be.

Going from your post alone, all any good manipulator would need is to show you a serious short-term threat to your grandchildren that you perceive as credible.

Kaboom!

3 hours ago, BaalChatzaf said:

There is no way I can become a member of a mob or join a political cohort.

You are presuming that this is what a manipulator would want from you.

Big mistake...

Michael

[moralist]

10 hours ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

Greg,

I would be careful with that one.

Kat lives in this world (her son, my stepson, is on the autistic spectrum) and I did not see anything in that article that even remotely resembles the things I see.

That 2010 article is more of the same old same old, that is, they always say they don't know what causes autism, that nobody knows, but they are 100% sure they know what does not cause it (i.e., chemicals and pharmaceuticals where oodles of government money flows).

A much better statistic is that autism occurs many, many times more in males than in females (there are lots of statistical and qualitative studies of this from all kinds of different sources). At least this one correlates to reality for real and there is no hidden agenda angle that deals with obscene amounts of money and power.

Michael

We have in laws with an autistic son... both professionals, very highly educated intellectuals. While purely anecdotal, it's just my subjective opinion there's a connection.

Greg

[moralist]

4 hours ago, BaalChatzaf said:

There are no propaganda slogans or political dogmas that get "my blood up".

...except a baby killing God. That gets you running with the mob of angry atheists.

 

Greg

[BaalChatzaf]

57 minutes ago, moralist said:

...except a baby killing God. That gets you running with the mob of angry atheists.

 

Greg

the most I can manage is contempt and annoyance.   I am too old for Anger and Hate.