An invitation to join in cooperative efforts to do something about some real problems.
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BRING COMPREHENSION
 

DEMONSTRATE
 

INFORM
 

PERSUADE
DEMAND

Rational Politics
Is it possible?

Can we invent something??

...or what???


BRING
COMPREHENSION

DEMONSTRATE

INFORM

PERSUADE

DEMAND

ADVERTISER GOALS
TEACHER GOALS

Three powerful insights
that are simple but subtle
.

1
2
3
We need
The Whole Truth
 

otherwise we fall victim to the
ProveAnythingPloy

We need to identify
What's Relevant &
What's Irrelevant

otherwise our decisions become
Ineffective

We need to see
Multi-dimensional
Ranking & Ordering

otherwise we substitute
 one single factor
for
whole webs of factors

given an attractive hypothesis we:
glean confirmations
&
trash disconfirmations

and open wide the door
to self-deception

Relevance
is necessary for
rational decisions.

Irrelevance
is sufficient for leading us toward 
pseudoscience
gullibility
foolishness
disasters
and many etc's

This one is just at the fuzzy limits of human understanding.  Rank ordering by putting things in a line is obvious. 

Putting them in a many dimensional array is a real puzzler.  But it's the right thing to do.

Here lies the curse
(one of them)
of the Liberals
 "Reality is in the mind of the beholder."
"Anything is true in your reality."
Post-modernism
New Age
nonsense

LIST TO PORT

We are prone to slip into these errors, these irrationalities.

Two ways to tilt: 
to the left............to the right
Wake up!
Here lies the curse
(one of them)
of the Conservatives
  Solipsism (self is all)
Egocentrism (self is served by all)
Ethnocentrism (Uns über alles!)

Reality is as far as you can see.

LIST TO STARBOARD

At the roots:

If we tend to see but one cause for each effect and one effect for each cause, when we find some "The Cause" we sense that we need look no further.

At the roots:

This is a matter of sorting variables:  first, recognizing that there are many variables acting all at once, then determining the correct relationships between them. 

Necessity and sufficiency are often not seen as clearly distinct: they get confused with each other.  Nevertheless, relevance is not sufficient for rational decisions, and irrelevance is not necessary for pseudoscience and gullibility. 

Not seeing that race and ethnicity are usually irrelevant easily slips into bigotry and racism.

At the roots:

Infants sense only themselves.  Children sense themselves, but also others as others relate to themselves.  Adolescents sense a wider set of interpersonal relationships. 

Societies are multidimensional webs of interpersonal relationships. Mutual reciprocity is a "golden rule" among these relationships.

TO KNOWLEDGE FOR USE

Pseudoscience stirs in a lot of wishful thinking into its mix.

Evolution is always an occult (hidden) element in our lives.  Wishful thinking might lead to mistakes, perhaps fatal mistakes.  Evolution is slow and statistical.  And protecting individuals from their foolishness might set our evolution back.

PSEUDOSCIENCE
PROVE ANYTHING
EVOLUTION
Poster # 2

TO KNOWLEDGE FOR USE

Misidentified relevance usually stirs up a lot of trivia, especially when the relevant factors are a bit abstract—as they are, for example, in the errors of "Energy is the capacity to do work." 

Pseudoscience stirs in a lot of irrelevancy into its mix.
 
 

WHAT IS ENERGY
THE LOGIC THAT'S SUBTLE
AVOID SUNBURN
PSEUDOSCIENCE

Poster # 3

TO KNOWLEDGE FOR USE

"Value" of different people cannot be rank ordered on a line (one dimensionally). 

People cannot rationally be assigned a dollar value, except by a single (scalar) criterion— and that one usually turns out to be  fame (the "genius" of the star system of movies).  Contribution to society is actually multidimensional.

MULTIDIMENSIONAL RANK PATRIOTISM

Poster # 1

Link to da Vinci Days posters.

RELIGION and RATIONALITY
out of depths seldom heard from


What really counts?
 

a world at peace
 

faith
beauty
good health
hope
safety ?
?
a happy marriage
equality
?
wealth
strong leadership

     ?
fame
good reputation
?
.
freedom
privacy
respect
wisdom
.      tranquility

eliminate poverty

self-respect
?
economic security

 

two concepts
central to politics & economics:
 Freedom and Equality

Freedom

Freedom from people who deny my personal "reality": each person's reality is defined by each person's faith.

Freedom from the disasters of decisions and actions taken by people who believe reality doesn't really exist "out there." 

Freedom to "better oneself," perhaps by manipulating people to be subservient to yourself. 

Freedom from being manipulated into subservience to others. 

Freedom from the agonies of decisions. 

Freedom from interference from people who will make decisions for you if given the chance (or perhaps they need a strong leader).

Freedom to invent, design, and operate tollgates to the public domain.

Freedom from arbitrary tollgates to what should be the public domain, but the gates are installed by people who contribute nothing to the public domain but their tollgate.

"PRIVATIZATION"

A word that makes no distinctions carries no information.

 

MORE AND MORE BEYOND THE EDGES OF EASY HUMAN COMPREHENSION


Equality

Equality of opportunity.

Equality of access to the essentials for maintaining life.

Equality of access to the public domain.

Equality of access to tollgate privileges.

Equality as an element of fairness.

Equality: blind to race, ethnic origin, wealth, social status, ...

There is no equality: people are different.

What's "equality"?

When there are a quasi-infinity of rankings by which to line people up, "equality" means only that no one can be rationally stated to be superior to any other.

"I have learned that a man has a right to look down on another only when he has to help the other get to his feet."     .   .   .   .  Gabriel Garcia Marquez 

Equality among people has an element of mutual reciprocity—a concept at, perhaps beyond,  the edge of human comprehension.

Equality carries some meaning so abstract that words fail us.

Only in societies of one, can freedom rationally take precedence over equality.
However, if the implications of mutual reciprocity are too "abstract" to be seen, then freedom becomes supreme.

 
Information as an entertainment commodity:

Encourages self-deception.
Encourages trivia & discourages seeing the abstractions.
Encourages solipsism & egocentrism.

An invitation to dumbing down:
NEWS AS AN ENTERTAINMENT COMMODITY