SteveWolfer

I'd rate deficit spending and the national debt as a higher threat than anything else... except maybe for the their cause, the political/economic idiocy in the country that let them become like that. I'd also put the regulatory state way up there as a threat since it is now rated a greater burden on businesses than taxation. And it falls far heavier on small businesses than large (small businesses are not just the main source of employment in the country, but they are the seed crop for the next generation of major businesses. Add those things all up and they spell a near certain death to our nation - one that will come sooner and more likely than any other threat. (However, those who don't rank Islamic terrorism very high - maybe Johnson - are making a mistake of not grasping these two factors: an exponential increase in fighters and terror events, coupled with the likely adoption of ever higher levels of technology applied to killing.)

Maybe you can create something that is like Passive Aggressive behavior to suit some appropriate goal, but passive-aggressive behavior is neurotic in nature - at its core. You don't so much adopt it, as exhibit it's symptoms. You should choose another name for whatever you are thinking of. This is really just troll stuff. Bait. And there is a passive aggressive style to trolling... making people annoyed and enjoying frustrating them. Non-cooperation, working below the level of one's competence, being slow to respond to others... these are not elements of Rand's Galt's Gulch. None of her characters stopped cooperating with others in order to enjoy their frustration. They weren't slow to respond. They didn't work below the level of their competence to frustrate others. The theme of the novel is well known and it isn't about making people unhappy for the purpose of enjoying their unhappiness. None of the elements of passive aggressive behavior are there. Passive aggressive behavior is a neurotic defense. "That gets even with the bad guys and who cares how many innocent folk are buried under the rubble?" That wasn't in the novel... is it a personal statement of your feelings?

I googled for some Internet definitions of Passive Aggressive: "of or denoting a type of behavior or personality characterized by indirect resistance to the demands of others and an avoidance of direct confrontation, as in procrastinating, pouting, or misplacing important materials." [That names some external behaviors, but fails to mention the purpose of annoying the other person and fails to note that their annoyance is a secret delight to the passive-aggressive person.] "A defense mechanism that allows people who aren't comfortable being openly aggressive get what they ..." [Good that it is categorized as a defense mechanism, but not very specific about what it defends against - low self-esteem and self-anger projected out. It does imply the fear of being openly assertive."] "being, marked by, or displaying behavior characterized by the expression of negative feelings, resentment, and aggression in an unassertive passive way (as through procrastination and stubbornness)" [Conveys the characteristic of a kind of veiled, deniable, minor attack on the sense of well-being of others. Good in showing that it is an attack, a desire to make other's feel bad.] --------------- Here is a pop-psychology article on Passive Aggressiveness from Psychology Today: Passive aggression is defined as a deliberate and masked way of expressing covert feelings of anger (Long, Long & Whitson, 2008). It involves a range of behaviors designed to get back at another person without him recognizing the underlying anger. [This is the best definition so far, and it implies the cowardice and deception involved.] These 10 common passive aggressive phrases can serve as an early-warning system for you, helping you recognize hidden hostility when it is being directed your way: 1. "I'm not mad." Denying feelings of anger is classic passive aggressive behavior. Rather than being upfront and honest when questioned about his feelings, the passive aggressive person insists, "I'm not mad" even when he or she is seething on the inside. [There is also a tactic of not showing any emotion and being all Spock-like in a situation that calls for emotion. I've heard wives say, "He acts like he doesn't feel anything - like a robot" when what is really happening is a passive aggressive husband has found a way to stick it to his wife while pretending that he isn't torturing her.] 2. "Fine." "Whatever." Sulking and withdrawing from arguments are primary strategies of the passive aggressive person. Since passive aggression is motivated by a person's belief that expressing anger directly will only make his life worse (Long, Long & Whitson, 2008), the passive aggressive person uses phrases like "Fine" and "Whatever" to express anger indirectly and to shut down direct, emotionally honest communication. [There is a secret communication that says 1.) Yes, I feel crappy, 2.) It is either your fault or you should at least try to fix it, 3.) I won't admit any of this and will keep baiting you to try to fix what I'll never let you fix. 4.) My goal is to make you feel crappy but I won't admit that, maybe even to myself.] 3. "I'm coming!" Passive aggressive persons are known for verbally complying with a request, but behaviorally delaying its completion. If whenever you ask your child to clean his room, he cheerfully says, "Okay, I'm coming," but then fails to show up to complete the chore, chances are he is practicing the fine passive aggressive art of temporary compliance. 4. "I didn't know you meant now." On a related note, passive aggressive persons are master procrastinators. While all of us like to put off unpleasant tasks from time to time, people with passive aggressive personalities rely on procrastination as a way of frustrating others and/or getting out of certain chores without having to directly refuse them. 5. "You just want everything to be perfect." When procrastination is not an option, a more sophisticated passive aggressive strategy is to carry out tasks in a timely, but unacceptable manner. For example: • A student hands in sloppy homework. • An individual prepares a well-done steak for his or her spouse wife, knowing the spouse prefers to eat steak rare. • An employee dramatically overspends the budget on an important project. In all of these instances, the passive aggressive person complies with a particular request, but carries it out in an intentionally inefficient way. When confronted, he or she defends the work, counter-accusing others of having rigid or perfectionist standards. 6. "I thought you knew." Sometimes, the perfect passive aggressive crime has to do with omission. Passive aggressive persons may express their anger covertly by choosing not to share information when it could prevent a problem. By claiming ignorance, the person defends inaction, while taking pleasure in a foe's trouble and anguish. 7. "Sure, I'd be happy to." Have you ever been in a customer service situation where a seemingly concerned clerk or super-polite phone operator assures you that your problem will be solved. On the surface, the representative is cooperative, but beware of the angry smile; behind the scenes, he or she is filing your request in the trash and stamping your paperwork with "DENY." 8. "You've done so well for someone with your education level." The backhanded compliment is the ultimate socially acceptable means by which the passive aggressive person insults you to your core. If anyone has ever told you, "Don't worry; you can still get braces, even at your age" or, "There are a lot of men out there who like plump women," chances are you know how much "joy" a passive aggressive compliment can bring. 9. "I was only joking" Like backhanded compliments, sarcasm is a common tool of a passive aggressive person who expresses hostility aloud, but in socially acceptable, indirect ways. If you show that you are offended by biting, passive aggressive sarcasm, the hostile joke teller plays up his or her role as victim, asking, "Can't you take a joke?" 10. "Why are you getting so upset?" The passive aggressive person is a master at maintaining calm and feigning shock when others, worn down by his or her indirect hostility, blow up in anger. In fact, the person takes pleasure out of setting others up to lose their cool and then questioning their "overreactions." ------------ Sometimes you see passive aggressive behavior in people with very high levels of intelligence, but low levels of self-esteem, and some bitterness about being smarter than those around them, yet not being properly recognized or rewarded. They develop an anger directed at everyone else, but lacking the assertiveness to express it in a direct fashion, they go passive-aggressive. They end up focusing on the annoyance they create in others while not leaving a clear target for the victims to shoot back at. Life becomes more about success at this sad pattern then it does about any real achievements.

The true passive aggressive only 'succeeds' by finding people he feels hostile to and arranging things so that he will generate negative emotions in them, but do it in a way that has lots of deniability. It is becoming a parasite to those they annoy and thriving off of their anger and frustration. That is so NOT John Galt. The strike wasn't about taking on those armed to the teeth, it was withdrawing from them. They were left, alone, to stew in their own juices. That isn't a passive-aggressive approach Beware those epiphany feelings. Too often they are like when the emotion that you want to follow, but in some fuzzy way, know you shouldn't, encounters a meme that hasn't been critically examined, none-the-less seems to provide a justification for the emotion and then what feels like an epiphany is just the joining of a defensive emotion to a disconnected rationalization to make a feeling of "Voila... THIS is the true path!" Psychologically, passive aggressiveness has lots of problems, and no redeeming features.

Dr. Viktor Frankl was a young man in Vienna who was studying neurology and psychiatry and spent time with Freud and Adler. He was writing a book on psychology - on a new theory that for humans, life was about meaning, that the nature of man was to strive to find meaning, and that meaninglessness was a state where one hadn't found a meaning, and that attaching one's self to meaning is a way to survive painful experiences. He specialized in depression and suicide. He started a program where over a course of years he supervised a research project and treatment program involving about 30,000 women who had shown suicidal tendencies. His application of his theory was a striking success. But it was pre-WWII and the Jews were being rounded up. He sewed the pages of his manuscript into the lining of his coat to keep it safe. But he was loaded onto the cattle cars, shipped to the concentration camps, and his coat was taken from him. He lost his mother, his brother and his wife all of whom died in the camps. He survived Auschwitz and two other concentration camps and the horrors of slave labor. I heard him speak in Anaheim at a conference, just a few years before he died. He had become one of the leading lights of Existential Psychology. He stayed alive in the concentration camps by imagining that we was really in a comfortable study in his home and he was just remembering the horrors of his time in the camp so that he could write about it. Branden called that kind of defense, "strategic detachment" - some kids are able to get through an abusive childhood that way. Frankl didn't just survive the camps, but went on to flourish.

Yes... and even if change were in the right direction, change can be very turbulent and there can be short periods of violent civil unrest and the cities would be risky places.

Psychology - a human science of great benefit to the lone occupant of an island. Alone there with thoughts in his head, thoughts about his thoughts - psychology.

True. But if they lack even a minimal understanding of the political principles that support liberty, that blood generated focus may take them in one of the many wrong directions (fascism, socialism, strong-man?).

Worry not, Yoda. Holding my breath, I am not.

Not so. On a desert island occupied by one human that person would be greatly benefited by an understanding of psychology and he would still need to pay attention to morality - the values he chooses to pursue. In addition to morality, he would benefit from a grasp of philosophy - much of which would be a good base for attempting to make a good life on this island. Not all human sciences are about society. That sentence, in the context of your post, seems to imply that things like thoughts or relationships, for example, aren't in this world.

Then please tell me how to falsify that statement that I just quoted. And explain how one derives the applicable context. I still think you aren't getting it.

It's easy to envision fixes for some of the specific problems. For example, a nice constitutional amendment that only allows one term in the senate and one term in the house (with the house kicked up to a 4 year term) and that is solved. And it gets rid of much of the issue of spending all their time in office sucking money out of special interests to get re-elected. And since there has to be something that is sold to the special interests to get those campaign funds, it also kills much of the motivation for legislators to keep spending at such great levels. BUT, congress won't vote for it and the people won't organize in a way that forces them to. AND, there will never be a silver bullet, a cure-all... The right president, the right supreme court nominees, the right party in power, the right constitutional amendments, etc., are all just more Charlie Brown football kicking attempts. In the end, people need to be educated. They have to grasp the correct political principles - the basics of liberty via a constitutionally limited government. Nothing else will get the job done. And nothing else will really matter - not the number of parties, or a parliamentarian versus our presidential system.

The point I've been trying to make is that if context isn't maintained for this concept of falsifiability, two things can happen. When it is applied outside of that context it will result in people trashing valid thoughts, lumping them with pseudo-science, and doing so inappropriately. The other thing is that falsifiability will be trashed as a concept unless we stay focused on the context - the area - where it is an invaluable intellectual tool.

Does calling it "META-scientific mean that it isn't pseudo-science? And how could you prove such an assertion?

Even if many American were wrong about a Hillary-by-nose election being a stolen election (and if it were a squeaker, I'd be one of the cynical doubters), they wouldn't be wrong about the political system as a whole. Our country has moved into that area where being a nation of laws, and where we are all equal under the law, exists only in principle - and in historical intentions - but not so much in practice. That which the progressives call "conspiracy theories" are more and more becoming the denied processes that actually go on behind the scenes. I think the "outsider - Insider" popularity split tells us that people already think that the fix is in and the system is rigged. But there is some kind of social process where a belief comes more to the front, becomes less deniable, and assumes greater motivational power. I think that we will see this continue. And it isn't a bad thing, because the current systems are seriously flawed and need to be torn down. But given that the predominate ignorance of sound political principles would make what would appear as the replacement scary.

Show me the math behind Popper's philosophy of science. Show me where falsifiability is falsifiable.

You appear to have tightly grasped certain principles, ones that are excellent in their context, but your are running about attempting to apply them everywhere. Here is an example: The very foundations of logical thought, the primary axioms of logic, are not falsifiable. An explanation as to why they are not falsifiable is also not falsifiable. Popper's theory about the need for falsifiability is not falsifiable any more than his claim that falsifiability is the only proper demarcation between scientific and non-scientific. There is a very valid context within which falsifiability is an extremely valuable requirement, but not outside of that. Many major theories that matured to the point where they now consist of falsifiable theories started that way. Natural selection is a major theory in the biological sciences, and it is questionable as to whether it can be cast in a form that is falsifiable (Popper first thought it could, then changed his mind and said it couldn't be. Do we say that the theory of natural selection is pseudo-science? I don't think so.) Atomic theory had a start in ancient Greece in forms that were clearly not falsifiable, but have matured into theories that are - and I'd suggest that nearly every science has its start like that and retains its own underlying philosophy that is unfalsifiable. Context, context, context. It is as if I saw you trying to change a flat tire with a frying pan. When asked why you insisting on that approach you provide me some law about frying pans that is true and useful in the entire world of cooking. I keep asking why you insist on treating everything as if were cooking and you tell me that is because all things are cooking. By the way, did you listen to George Smith's recordings where he talks about human sciences?

When I read that sentence it confirms my belief that the GOP sustains itself mostly on delusion. Look at it. If Pence is Trump's VP pick (which we now know he is), and if Trump gets nominated (probably will), and if Trump wins the general (doubtful), and if Pence is actually going to advice Trump on serious monetary reform (maybe), and if Trump listens (not likely), and if Trump makes that a priority (still less likely), then this advise in the minds of those starved for hope, grows to being the start of a trajectory leading to a small, constitutional government based upon individual rights and the existence of a gold standard. Maybe it wasn't a good idea for our parents to have exposed us to fairy tales when we were little.

I don't think he is looking that far down the road. His pattern is to focus intensely on what is right in front of him. This choice makes me think that he is still concerned with keeping the rules committee from changing things such that the delegates can vote any way they want on the first ballot. He knows that despite all the chatter to the contrary, that even if they are bound by state delegation rules, they can go rogue. Even if the rules committee were to firm up Trump's support, they could go rogue. Like putting out that Heritage foundation list of potential Supreme Court Nominees, he is still fighting to keep the establishment and the NeverTrumpers from stampeding the delegates to vote Cruz or parachuting in Ryan. Whoever they vote for will be the nominee. It might shred the GOP if they bolted, but the anti-Trumpers think he will shred the GOP anyway. (I think the GOP has come to a natural end no matter what - rotting away in random fashion from a lack of core principles). I think Pence is just to give the anti-Trump people another reason for maybe holding their noses and accepting Trump. Pence doesn't bring in any votes, to speak of, in the general election. Might even cost him a number of votes among independents and doesn't help with working class democrats. Pence doesn't solve any problem beyond the first ballot. Trump sees this as all about Trump (surprise! :-), and when he passes the first ballot milestone, Pence will be irrelevant and won't much be seen or heard from and Trump will focus on the general election. (There are some people in the Establishment who can't stand Trump, and that want Hillary to win, because they figure they can ride out a single term of Hillary, keep most of their power, and come back strong in four years - their delusion is of a GOP fashioned in their image that is powerful, riding a strong anti-Hillary sentiment, and with them in control. Trump is (my guess) doing backroom deals to win some of these people over - that's something he and they both understand.)

Very well said jts.

I would pick Johnson in nanosecond over anyone else. But, I can't put into words how disgusted I am with his failure to even try to project the gravitas, the presidential demeanor, that it would take to make voters feel just a tiny bit safe with him as a choice. It is like he is a clown who happens to hold all the right principles, and has a really good record as a two term governor, but he is a fucking clown. It isn't that I hate clowns. Someone with a sense of humor and a light touch would be charming and it would play well. But not a clown. I am disgusted because with the extremely low favorability polling of the two major candidates, and the severe lack of trust in either of them, this was the FIRST TIME a serious Libertarian candidate actually could have won the presidency, and he has thrown it away by not perceiving that being a clown killed that chance.

Here is a fun thought I had one day. I was reading about the outstanding safety record of Google's self-driving cars. And all of the strange things they had to program for - like bad drivers, dogs or balls coming into the road, road work, etc. I was reading how their cars have already reached a level of competence such that switching to them would reduce overall traffic accidents. (Pay attention Tesla, the concept is good, your application may be lacking). Any way, I realized that the 1950s sci-fi prediction of flying cars, which was supposed to have become a reality by now, did NOT depend upon advances in the technology of having a car take to the air, nor even to the issues of where they would all land. The problem was the driver/pilots. There was no way to get John Doe to competent pilot license status in that kind of environment - clearly not somewhere like Manhattan or Rome or Bangkok. But self-driving/flying cars would work. The rules of altitude, restricted zones, computerized use of radar and transponders... all a piece of cake to program for with modern GPS. Technology did have to advance, but in ways we would not have imagined back then. Back then we didn't know of GPS satellites, or the software capable of driving a car. Like a friend of mine once said, until you have lived with a particular technology for a while, you have no idea how it will end up being used.

But, Yoda-Korben, its a soul made of photons!

Rightfully so.... This is my first exposure to the categorization of sciences, at least at this level of competence. Thanks.

I agree with what you're saying, but just wanted to point out that the willed consciousness - the act of focusing - does make one more effective (reason being the best way to formulate approaches), and it will also increase self-esteem. But it is doing those things somewhat separately. Let's say a person exercises their reason in putting together a plan, but the plan fails. If that person was diligent in willing their consciousness and focusing, they will get an increase in self-esteem even though chance or circumstances or even an honest error in reasoning did not favor them with success in implementing the plan. The self-esteem is like an always on duty monitor and score keeper who pays no attention to how things are working out in the external world, and only pays attention to how the consciousness is being used. "Was that an act of focusing, or avoiding?" "Was that intention/choice/act in line with values or not? (integrity)" And so forth.