A few tidbits I've been mulling over lately...
It seems that we are willing to accept ideologies based on hypotheses rather than what's demonstrable. This is part of an overall point of view that allows assertions to prove themselves through "common sense" or a distorted set of personal experiences warped by time and biases. We are falsely conflating an assertion with its potential proof.
There are people who are okay with the assertions made by a person as proof of that assertion. It's the appeal to authority argument that logicians deny as being valid. But for those who use it, they also tend to attack the person who brings up something that challenges that original person's assertion. With the frame of mind that what comes out of a person's pen or mouth is proof enough of what's being declared, then the challenger is the point of attack, not the actual ideas. If we could only make ourselves pay attention to ideas rather than the people who share them, we would so much better off and nothing would be personal. This would put humanity's advancement in overdrive.
We seem to find all kinds of ways to avoid taking responsibility for ourselves. They include the "free market" (the Invisible Hand), the Garden of Eden (no knowledge), shootings (we have to have guns, so killings are something we have to accept), "blind" justice, we must obey the Constitution (or any set of rules someone wrote down once), tradition ("we've always done it this way), it's God's will.
One of the things that keeps popping up in my head is the similarity between the privateers of the pirate era and today's one-percenters. Both use the authority of the government to take whatever they can from anyone they can.
It seems that we are willing to accept ideologies based on hypotheses rather than what's demonstrable. This is part of an overall point of view that allows assertions to prove themselves through "common sense" or a distorted set of personal experiences warped by time and biases. We are falsely conflating an assertion with its potential proof.
There are people who are okay with the assertions made by a person as proof of that assertion. It's the appeal to authority argument that logicians deny as being valid. But for those who use it, they also tend to attack the person who brings up something that challenges that original person's assertion. With the frame of mind that what comes out of a person's pen or mouth is proof enough of what's being declared, then the challenger is the point of attack, not the actual ideas. If we could only make ourselves pay attention to ideas rather than the people who share them, we would so much better off and nothing would be personal. This would put humanity's advancement in overdrive.
We seem to find all kinds of ways to avoid taking responsibility for ourselves. They include the "free market" (the Invisible Hand), the Garden of Eden (no knowledge), shootings (we have to have guns, so killings are something we have to accept), "blind" justice, we must obey the Constitution (or any set of rules someone wrote down once), tradition ("we've always done it this way), it's God's will.
One of the things that keeps popping up in my head is the similarity between the privateers of the pirate era and today's one-percenters. Both use the authority of the government to take whatever they can from anyone they can.
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