Getting clotheslined by a bear who's choking on his full strength sort of makes the same point, only a lot more efficiently.

I recently watched a documentary on the late great pornographer and magazine magnate Bob Guccione. He disliked yes men and thought people were kissing up when they agreed with him. So he surrounded himself with advisors who weren't afraid to tell him he was wrong. Trouble was, Guccione's attitude was that the more people told him he was wrong the more it proved to him that he was right. Bob ended up bankrupt. His ghost is now posting on 2+2.


PairTheBoard

I knew I would know it. I just didn't know that I knew it until after I knowed it.


PairTheBoard

When I find something, I'll usually continue searching a for a bit longer to avoid always finding it in the last place I look.


FoldnDark

Far less poetic though

I've been watching documentaries on the Manson family.

Should Leslie Van Houten be released on parole? I think yes. Or at least, that to think no is to discount the possibility that everyone has the potential to commit a similar crime.

I could understand and maybe be persuaded by an argument that she should never be released as pure punishment for what she did.

The idea that she now poses more of a threat to society than the average person makes no sense to me. I don't see it. She is a brilliant actress if she is.

Everyone is a criminal. Everyone poses a threat to society. It is all a matter of degree. And therein begins argumentation that has no end; an exponential bickering of philosophical ramblings and sanctimonious sophistry leading down the rabbit hole of justice and the strangling of liberty and freedom. Avoid that hole. In addition, not going through the Looking Glass is also sound advice. Just enjoy the image.

The_Economist_Books_of_the_Year_2012

Just ordered number 12 on this list (as we all known and respect, 12 is a magic and powerful number): Joseph Anton: A Memoir, by Salmon Rushdie.

Looking forward to an anticipated good read, it is about Salmon's years in hiding in the UK after the issuing of that infamous Fatwa.

___________________________________

And what's with the UK?

Donald-Trump-uk-ban-debate/

From above Link:

An online citizen's petition to ban Trump from the United Kingdom garnered more than 568,000 signatures, well above the 100,000 threshold required for a measure to be considered for a debate, since being filed on December 8.

The petition says that because the country has banned entry to people for "hate speech" before, "the same principles should apply to everyone who wishes to enter the UK."

Last week, the UK government released a statement reaffirming that Home Secretary Theresa May has the power to "exclude a non-European Economic Area national from the UK if she considers their presence in the UK to be nonconducive to the public good."[my bold]

******************

What-ho, Jeeves; a complete ban on comedians coming to the UK. Who are the wankers that started this? I slipped through the cracks; so should The Donald.

That's rich.

I don't follow politics, but doesn't Trump want to ban an entire religion from entering the US?

Banning their adherents is what you mean of course. Religions are not like radio waves moving about willy-nilly through the air or causing problems with actions at a distance. But I bet I'm wrong in that premise.

Banning just one "entire religion" from our sacred shores is of course rather silly; ban them all I say and let the consequences fall where they may.

I checked the Wikipedia. Her parole was plausible enough for a court to grant. Value of punishment is a nice can of confirmable sacred beast to open.

To be fair to Trump there's no reason for a permanent ban. Just ban him for now.

Perfect.

Discrediting wanna be authority who promote sharp social division and excessive hubris is a necessary science of the times considering the position and capability of our world's leaders; combined with the array of identifiable social problems to work on. That is particularly if you want war and need to end. No quitting in that pursuit and it doesn't happen without the effort.

This is 100 percent real
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AEAJrT8PeOo

You come in here, with your nose, and your tea, your ****ing exotic tea - ronnie kray
best scene... Tom hardy is a legend

President Trump declares martial law "until we can figure out what's going on".


PairTheBoard

Terrorism is an existential threat to mankind actually. I always thought that the emerging power of 1 is a major problem that only scientific society can handle.

Things like what Trump is now saying that are and appear extreme will soon enough appear very soft and innocent compared to what is coming if we keep being naive and divided and happy to promote islam worldwide etc as a good idea that its ok for others to have and all will be fine...lol (not insisting at all on islamic world to pick up its own internal responsibilities like its the most important cultural issue of their times). (we should be doing our best actually for their future generations to reformulate their own culture as soon as possible and be happy doing it. And of course you cant do any of this without being an example of ethical structure and prosperity yourself. So gl to that under current money culture.)


The shocking thing is actually why we are not already living in a daily hell. It is extremely easy to destroy a society with terrorism if only the terrorists are a bit smarter. You can bring an economy to its knees very easily (as more and more top brains are added to these groups and think what they can do further, expect unthinkable damages and asymmetric warfare never imagined that is very hard to defend against/ it will prove cheaper to actually go there fix their world and make them happy lol). This is why allowing systems like ISIS without the entire planet joining forces to end them at once and solve the local political issues sensibly by allowing all sides to have a stake in future prosperity and establishing peaceful societies there is a massive priority failure of all of us.

When you have an enemy that has a country and something to lose you can actually find peace eventually. If the enemy is inside your society across all the planet there is no victory possible other than the one born out of a revolution that reshapes society so that being angry about the world no longer makes sense but to only a tiny tiny fraction of individuals that with higher security and technology in place can be managed until we expand to the rest of the solar system and secure survival.

Imagine how more pathetic it will soon be if we are all forced to be instantly localizable and have absolutely no more secret transactions with cash or have all our moves traced and recorded because that is the only defense against the terrorism (to have an instant check on all people and their actions). Then terrorism has finally won installing the ultimate dystopia. Forced by law to always be able to be found and have all your activities and personal body movement history etc known as if we are all cellphones. What does freedom finally mean in that system? If that is an inevitable outcome only a super ethical system can be the monitor, a system that will be so happy as to invite us to be anything we like without fear of consequences and which will only monitor major deviations that can threat society.

But then something very important is lost even then. The choice of a human being to be an ethical person must be their own. If it is forced by the system because all your secrets are known then any spontaneous creativity that stems from not being a conformist is in trouble as suspicious and risky (your own self and the norm become the big brother). People will simply dislike to take any risk to be seen as dangerous. So only a very advanced scientific society can handle a world with no more secrets (and the secrets must never be known by other people actually). A society that is monitored by a super ethical AI that doesnt care if people dislike it (it embraces it and changes accordingly) or act against it, provided they do not destroy the society itself with their actions (it will have to tolerate some crime that knows will happen). All other worlds where various interests are in control will create the ultimate nightmare world in order to neutralize terrorism by embracing it at a profound level of daily existence.

We can postpone these things if we are united as a planet unlike now.

Yes, but apparently the severity of her crimes are sufficient to entitle the parole board to choose to ignore that.

Is a parole board a court? Who sits on a parole board and to whom are they answerable?

As I recall from the wiki, a higher court upheld the parole boards decision to reject and reverse the lower courts ruling to release. It's all centered around interpretation of the local law which requires life sentences to include opportunity for parole.

I don't know who makes up parole boards. In TV dramas, the prison warden often sits on such boards.

Masque, I like the gist of the 'no keeping secrets' angle you offer. Reminds me of the McKennaism "no secret knowledge'. Requires delving into why people keep secrets and hide knowledge. Challenging topic of concern as eventually we have to face and get to know all the areas that people don't want to face and are driven to hide.

It's a worthwhile effort because openness with trust disrupts the stupifying consequence of denied trust which comes with deceptively hidden or distorted information.


Knowledge kept secret can lead to stupidity and distrust. Which in turn disrupts communication. Openness incentivizes communication, which results in networking information in a way which keeps the full array available to process. Correct information doesn't need to hide erroneous information to remain correct. Noise can only partially hide information.

Keeping full arrays of information available results in correct answers and accurate information being available to know.

I

In the big picture a Trump-like demagogue is rare, which provides an illusion of being exceptional. The effects of magnification caused by the media can be discounted.

It's uncanny to have fear most straight forward and out in the open. Looks strong, but it's actually persuasively weak given the disposition that proposing division and controlling movement by groups is being proposed as unquestionably the best choice to solve what is being so openly feared. Unquestionable choices of fear is a big tell.

Can that social theory and practice withstand all due skepticism towards the value of actually being safe?

Anybody familiar with the podcast "Philosophize this!"? I am 30 episodes in and enjoy it.

It is pretty good as long as you keep in mind that it is just one dude's interpretation of what various philosophers have meant.

Edit: He is enjoyable to listen to even if you don't keep that in mind.

Thanks Brian.