americans don't do stoicism! | behaviour and intelligence news at abelard.org
abelard's home latest changes & additions at abelard.org link to document abstracts link to short briefings documents quotations at abelard.org, with source document where relevant click for abelard's child education zone economics and money zone at abelard.org - government swindles and how to transfer money on the net latest news headlines at abelard's news and comment zone
socialism, sociology, supporting documents described Loud music and hearing damage Architectural wonders and joys at abelard.org about abelard and abelard.org visit abelard's gallery Energy - beyond fossil fuels France zone at abelard.org - another France

news and comment
behaviour and intelligence

article archives at abelard's news and comment zone topic archives: behaviour and intelligence

for previously archived news article pages, visit the news archive page (click on the button above)

news and comment at abelard.orgrecent articles:
thinking
another sociology text on parenting reviewed
mollycoddle children, fuel mental illness in teenagers?

New translation, the Magna Carta

site map
'Y


americans don’t do stoicism!

I’m amazed by the whining coming out of the USA.

Anything goes wrong and they collapse into an emotional heap.

I just saw some dippy ‘news reporter’ whining about wanting her life back for all the time she’s been worrying about some 16 year-old in a boat.

Of course, the 16 year-old hadn’t been wasting years in a state ‘school’. She’s been home schooled so she’s far more independent and capable, far more adult then the ‘reporter’.

Marker at abelard.org

So they’ve got a spill in the Gulf, as if it hasn’t happened before. And in the warm waters of the Gulf, the oil will soon break down and disperse. It’s not “the biggest ecological disaster”. There have been far bigger and far worse.

The dead zone at the mouth of the Mississippi is the worst on the planet, and it’s more or less the same area as the spill. That is, the waters there are already dead!

And it’s all their own damned fool fault, including using nitrates to grow corn for ethanol which is totally pointless, or worse.

Clean it up, America, and stop your continual childish whining.

Even your damned teleprompter president parrot is whining!

You should be ashamed!!!

related material
the gulf oil spill - obama’s motivations
once again obama shows he is control of events: “oil spill will be controled”
are the gulf fishers claiming compensation from bp under false pretences?

the web address for the article above is
https://www.abelard.org/news/behaviour032010.php#us_stoicism_not_120610





advertising
disclaimer


advertising
disclaimer


advertising
disclaimer




don’t leave your car window open....

...in case the police impound it and demand £150 to return it.

“Mr Morris, 25, had parked the car near to Leeds city centre as he went for a job interview but returned an hour-and-a-half later to find it had gone.

“He contacted West Yorkshire Police believing it had been stolen but was told they had removed it to protect it from thieves.”

There is an old Fearless Fosdick cartoon character.

Al Capp, one of the great satirical cartoonists, invented Fearless as social satire, and as a send-up of another great cartoon hero, Dick Tracy. By all accounts, Chester Gould, Tracy’s puppeteer, was not greatly amused. The outrageous Fosdick and his trusty gun seek justice wherever they go.

“In the following brilliantly demented pages, no one is spared Capp's merciless needle. From the venality of the justice system to the crookedness of the media; from the corruption of big business to the fickleness and stupidity of a complacent populace. The diabolical plot, which concerns product tampering, presages the 1982 Tylenol case by some 30 years.” [Quoted from animationarchive.org]

Somebody poisoned a can of beans in the local factory, so Fearless goes around shooting the citizens in order to save them. Go to it, detective, fill ’em full of holes!
[Not for the politically correct.]

The whole dreadful story can be read here (twenty-page cartoon). It starts about half way down the page, search on “THE POISONED BEAN CASE”.

[Lead story link from James Hammerton]

the web address for the article above is
https://www.abelard.org/news/behaviour032010.php#police_protection_060610

what motivates the left and right wings?

What are the underlying philosophical differences between the two political wings?

They are not seriously linked in any way.

But looking at what motivates extremists, which is a much more complex issue, some of it requires some Freudian notions. Fundamentalists do share a conviction that they know and that it is their duty to impose what they know on others - for their own good, of course. (The Left are more concerned with ‘the good of society’.)

But the beliefs of Left and Right are very different. The essential difference is that the Right believes in personal responsibility. The Left believes in the ant nest.

The drive to control emerges from insecurity of various aetiology. The drive can be thought of as arising from paranoia.

Here is National Socialist Adolf:

“Everlasting peace will come to the world when the last man has slain the last but one.”

It is necessary to distinguish why people say they do things - for instance, in order to save your soul; and from whence the motive emanates - for instance, from fear of differences, or perhaps fear of social disturbance, which can be forms of cowardice.

Individuals each have their own motivations of varying complexity. Every individual is different from all other individuals. Group thinking such as ‘equality’ is empirically unsound, and leads to many confusions in the minds of humans.

the web address for the article above is
https://www.abelard.org/news/behaviour032010.php#left_wing_right_wing_300510

what is wanted in a political c.v.

A dull correspondent suggested that an MBA, the Harvard ‘Advanced Management Program’ and/or an engineering degree are relevant qualifications for a national politician.

Politics is not an engineering issue, unless of course you are a mindless socialist.
Neither is management, democracy; unless of course you are a mindless socialist.
Management is about controlling staff in a company, democracy is about the people controlling the management.

related material
Henry Ford, mechanical man - Model T, modern times

the web address for the article above is
https://www.abelard.org/news/behaviour032010.php#political_cv_070510

cause and effect - marriage versus poverty

“A sound anti-poverty strategy must not only seek to increase work and marriage...”

This article inverts cause and effect. Dogmatism on the Right is just as distasteful as the dogmatism of the Left, although the dogmatism of the Left is, of course, much more dangerous.

Problems are not solved by misunderstanding causes.

In the linked article, Robert Rector does not mention the real reasons for poverty, but concentrates on bigoted nonsense like marriage and work.

Telling these poor people to work when you give them every incentive to do the exact opposite is just puritanical cant, as is telling them to marry.

These people ain’t poor because they don’t marry, or because they don’t work. They are poor because the socialist idiots are making it daft for them to work.

Why work when you’ll get very little and you can live for free?
Why ‘marry’ as a man when you can do what’s natural and move on?
Why marry if you’re female, and put up with dependence on some oaf if the state will pick up the tab?

I have dealt with people in this position. They whinge on about not being able to work. So I offer them work, and when I get their trust, they tell me that it isn’t worthwhile for them to work.

I have dealt with some of them who have shown me that they will end up with 10p (1/10th of £1) per hour if they work. You wouldn’t work for 10p an hour, neither would I.

In fact, I would work for 10p an hour, but I would have the full confidence that within a few weeks I would have several promotions and would be on a useful wage. But that is not an option for most on the dole.

These people often do not have the wit or ability to get promotions. So the real offer you are giving them, from their world view, is 10p an hour without prospects.

The socialist society is setting up the situation that leads inevitably to poverty, and even to breeding and passing that inheritance on to their children in a ever widening circle of dependence. As parents widely do, they teach their children to survive the way they, the parents, know how to survive.

I blame the idiots on the Left for setting up the dysfunctional underclass, and the idiots of the Right for using the incompetence of the underclass as an opportunity to sell their own bigoted snake oil.

Yes, I certainly do call the writer ridiculously ignorant.

related material
Losing Ground: American Social Policy 1950-1980 by Charles Murray Five GoldenYak (tm) award

the web address for the article above is
https://www.abelard.org/news/behaviour032010.php#cause_and_effect_260310

money and responsibility

“The England manager conceded for the first time yesterday that the recent scandals involving John Terry, Wayne Bridge and Ashley Cole have had an impact on the camp. Capello believes that the huge salaries collected by the leading players — Terry’s basic wage of £160,000 a week is the highest in the squad — cloud their judgment and lead to a culture of irresponsibility.

“The Italian has experienced similar problems as a coach in Spain and Italy...”

It’s interesting to see similar problems on the socialist ‘New’ Labour front bench - just more poorly educated strivers unused to money, let alone the responsibilities of power.

the web address for the article above is
https://www.abelard.org/news/behaviour032010.php#money_responsibility_040310


You are here: behaviour and intelligence news from March 2010 < News < Home

latest abstracts briefings information   hearing damage memory France zone

email abelard email email_abelard [at] abelard.org

© abelard, 2010, 04 march
all rights reserved

variable words
prints as increasing A4 pages (on my printer and set-up)