mbalrog6

I think it is a complex topic. I have to say though that I agree with the information found in BioHistory by Jim Penman. Stefan had a good interview with him on one of his shows and that is in fact where I determined I would read the book. His take on the subject is quite comprehensive and in line with the K & R theory that Stefan prescribes to along with epigenetics theories. The culture that will prevail has a lot to do with the level of intelligence in the society along with the prosperity that the current society has achieved along with weather it has ever been a defeated society. In his book it is not so much that religion dictates the culture but more that the religions foster certain behaviors that influence how the people as an aggregate orientate towards the K and R spectrum in the book he has a few more parameters C, V, and S. The religions that favor the K tend to elevate our societies, and the religions that favor the R tend to plunge our societies. The fact that prosperity always leads to a fall in the cycle of empires, means that the west would have to dip. He does state though that the general trend in history has been a steady incline in intelligence and prosperity. I do not think any one of those options you presented will be a clear cut winner. They will all have their day in the sun and it will cycle back through. Then over time some will either meta-morph into something new, or will fade to obscurity as something new takes it place, while we continue our climb up the ladder of progress. This should not detract from the fact that we will go through peeks and valleys, and right now we are heading to a valley in the west.

I was watching a very interesting charismatic character on YouTube, the channel is Improvement Pill. He has a recommended reading list. I picked up 2 books on the his list. I will say that I think you could really benefit from the book I am reading right now from that list. The book is called "How to make friends and Influence People" by Dale Carnegie. It was written in 1938 and still relevant to this day. It has some very good incites on what you would have to do to try and meet the people you are seeking. It was 3 dollars on amazon for the Kindle, worth every penny. Just remember you are on a site with people that think like you. You are not alone. Do not let the world get you down. I read a quote in that book from William James and I will paraphrase it here, "Emotions and Actions are strongly entangled, and you have no direct control over your emotions, you just feel those. However, you have control over your actions. If you act distressed or you act melancholy then you will evoke those emotions." So I say just act like you are okay and you will evoke that feeling in yourself. You will feel okay. Good Luck!

I have read "Biohistory: Decline and fall of the west" by Jim Penman, and I have to say that there is a statement made in their that true in the case of america. That is that the government tends to be a reflection of the culture of the people in that area. That is why a republic democracy can not exist in a middle eastern country today. I feel the same may be true of america. The american people are not ready to have a Libertarian government. That is evident by the way that Trump is being treated. We (Libertarians) are the anomaly, the minority of the people, so we may all understand what needs to happen but we need more in our ranks. If you want to move towards a Libertarian government then you will need to take the steps to move the culture in that direction. I think Trump is a good step in that direction. However, until the culture changes it will not happen. I have to say we (Americans as I was born in California) are one of the closest current cultures to a full blown Libertarian culture, so hopefully one day we will achieve it. The ground is covered by an army one inch at a time until the miles have been marched. Trump is one of those inches.

I have been having a thought rattle around my brain the last couple of weeks because of the people I work with. I work with a lot of people that have such a pessimistic view on everything, which is the opposite of me. I am pretty much the guy that everyone says is too happy all the time. I walk around with a smile and tell 'em do not worry the glass is half full. They will always fire back no it is not it is half empty. So I was watching something on YouTube, caught down the rabbit hole and half-way through the mushroom marked eat me... The video I was watching mentioned something about statistics how they can be used to make any point. That math can be used to lie to you, what they used to illustrate this point with was the glass is half full / half empty remark. They said that at any given moment you can look at the glass and if you measure it, it has 50% of its volume filled with water. At that moment it is nothing more then a statistic of 1/2, .5, 1:2. Anyone from either view point can look at it and impose their view on that glass of water, it does not change that it is true that it is filled to 50 percent of its volume. I got to thinking. It is out of context. What is important about half full and half empty is where it will be in 1 second from this moment. The half empty and the half full statement is more like a directional quality. It is calculus not algebra. It has a change over time a delta. It is this that makes it important. That in the next moment it is either going to be approaching a full glass or be approaching an empty glass. There is always this context that surrounds us and that context is time. When we chose to remove that context then we are not representing it accurately when we are using a statistic to predict the future. The future is time. To me this means that every person I see that makes that argument that the glass is half empty is making a very profound statement about themselves. It states that in the next moment the world, themselves, and everyone around them is going to worse. Worse how? Just worse in someway as we are all headed for an emptiness. It will only be worse by every passing second. To them tomorrow will never be a better day. They have given up. Then I was reading today "How to make friends and Influence People" by Dale Carnegie a book written in like 1936. He mentioned that William James said that action and emotion are somehow tied together. That since you have control of your actions you can influence your emotion just by your action. So if you want to be miserable just act like someone who is miserable and you will honestly start to feel that way. So these people who are claiming the glass is half empty, are walking the walk of a miserable soul. By taking that action William James is saying they will genuinely start to be miserable. A true self fulfilling prophesy. To wish oneself to be miserable, wow! I hope someday I can just get them to pretend that the glass is half full, maybe they just might have a good day!

Here is a decent documentary that I did come across:

Welcome to the site! You know I learned a lesson a long time ago. I am spiritual but not religious. I have a very hard time when people try to force their beliefs down my throat. What you are doing to them is the same thing they are doing to you. You are forcing your beliefs down their throats. I recommend that you follow your own path and engage the people that want to be engaged. I use to find ways to provoke religious people, so that I could point out the flaws in their logic. I found that I won a lot of these encounters. However it never made me feel good. I think that it is far more powerful to be respectful. Their way is their way, let them have it. You can prove them wrong by living the better life. Remember if you feel your prepared, then you will be less stressed and see the world as it is. A place you can control, you have the food, the skills necessary to grow food, etc... As the world falls apart you will stand as a shining beacon. They will want what you have, then you share your secret. You share the success. Being prepared is not going to make it easier for you to go through the rough times it is only going to allow you to take advantage of the hard times. You will be in a positions to negotiate to get what you want. You will be able to form a business to help those around you and get them on their feet while you make a profit. It is a win for everyone. Even during the great depression the prepared prospered. It was around these very successful people that the county was able to heal. The good companies the good men ie... you, are steel that will be forged from the fires of adversity. The rest of the shoddy stock will crumble and only the strongest will remain strong. However that bad stock will be there to be reforged, and now you will be the one to help reforge it. So lead by example, walk the walk. Talk when they ask or get in your face, and let those other wait till they are ready. You will never control how others think, so be comfortable with how you are and how you think. If you still so badly want to convince other people then I would look into street epistemology as it is a way of conversing without triggering defensive behavior when forcing others to place their beliefs on the firing block. It is kind of a Socratic approach to educating others.

How funny you stated that intuition is a big part of engineering. Your are in good company, Nicola Tesla said as much as well. He was inspired as all great inventors are I imagine. I have to say I understand just from an art perspective. There are times where I have painted or drawn something with no real intention, I just felt like I needed to get something out. I usually did not even spend that much time on those pieces. However, in hindsight I realized that it was these pieces that I always got the most positive responses from by other people. It was more like I was a conduit to a force of creativity. This is juxtaposed by the pieces where I had a definite and deliberate intention and spent lots of time on, these pieces while liked never got the same response. As an introspection I feel that a person just need not think to hard. You get in your own way when you do. Get lost in the work is another way to say it. That goes with anything you create.

What I am saying is that automation can not occur so quickly that it would destroy humans. Innovation is inevitable and will happen regardless of whether or not we want it to. Throughout history it has proven to be a good thing. It is true that some people will lose jobs as it occurs that always happens as people resist change. Humans adapt to new situations, it is one of our strongest abilities. There is a cost to automation, they have to build the machines, put them in place. Then they have to have customers willing to use their shops after the automation. Then they have to people with money to use their shops. During all this people will adapt. Why would government subsidize businesses who are automating? They do not they subsidize business that are failing. I am stating that as people lose money and stop using the businesses that have automated these businesses will turn to the government to be saved. Then regulations will be made to help them instead of allowing them to fail. I am not saying that is a 100 percent going to happen in fact, I am an Adam Smith fan and would love to see a 100 percent free market capitalist system. However, that is not the world we live in, and based on previous history, government typically do these kind of things. Who knows what new interests would appear. It just would. People need to be occupied by something. Most people can not sit in total isolation and doing nothing all day. They will find ways to keep busy, and some people will see that and want to be a part of it. Sooner or later they will see the opportunity to help those people become a part of that and a new business is formed. This again has to happen because like I stated in the other post people are the point. We have businesses to serve humans, as long as there are humans there will be a need. Since there is a demand, someone will supply.

The video mentioned by Kikker "Humans Need Not Apply", I think misses some points of interest and make some assumption that are not plainly stated. It assumes that nothing changes other than the automation. It does not take into account who is being serviced. It's analogy with the horse is just plain wrong in that respect. The horses were not the target of the products that the automation was for, where as humans are. Horse population went up because we used it as a form of automation at those times. Then the Horse population went down because we use other forms of Automation now, and horses were not needed. The horses were nothing other than tools. The humans as workers, can not be considered tools, as they are also the target demographic. If we do not have money then we do not buy anything. If we do not buy anything then why automate? As supply goes up, which is what automation should do, impact supply in a positive way. Then the demand would have to rise to keep it all working the same as it is now. However if it causes wage earners to go down and there is less money then demand will drop, in that no one will be able to afford it. This means as supply goes up and demand decreases the costs will have to plummet. As the gap widens the cost goes to zero. That or the Government will step in and take the taxes and subsidize the business that are automating, thus artificially keeping the cost up with no demand. This will cause the people that are being taxed to shoulder those costs. This is where the imbalance actually lies. The tax payers will dwindle under that system until finally the only people that can be taxed are the ones employing the automation who are not able to make any money because at this point they would have no one left to sell to. (If we do not revolt first) This will balance itself out if we do not intervene with stupid policies and this is because humans are the point. Automation no matter what type has the soul purpose of serving humans, not horses or any other animal. How good would life be if we could all wake up and machines handed us the our choice of food, and transportation to any place for no cost. A whole new type of economy would spring up as all our survival needs are met humans can focus on other areas of interest.

I think the categorization you are using has the problem built into it. It is not that Man A uses Woman A. It is that Man B or Woman B thinks and expresses the opinion that Man A is using Woman A. Society's strongest tool to force respectful and meaningful interactions between each other is ostracism. Man A did nothing wrong if Woman A is willing to accept Man A. The intention behind Man A could be an issue. If Man A hid or misrepresented intentionally his desire to be with Woman A then Man A would share culpability. However, Man A could just be doing what he thinks is right, it is how we heal anyways. The real problem is how others view it. If their perception causes undo stress on Man A or Woman A by assaulting their reputation in the society. Just like today a Man can have his life almost ended by an allegation of rape even if rape was not committed. We project this idea of tools and obstacles onto others actions. Most of the time because we have the fortune of seeing it in hindsight, not as it happens. Much easier to see that he only used Woman A as a tool once he has healed and realized he no longer wants or needs Woman A, even if that was not his original intention. Woman A could have ended it too, maybe she was also hurting and need Man A to get to Man B. All in all nothing would come of that interaction if some else had not applied a representational hit to their persona within the society. Intention and Reputation seem to me to be the culprits.

From what I know about brains. There are never more neural connections in human brain then at an age of around 2 or 3. The brain maps itself through synaptic strengthening and atrophy. In fact it continually changes through-out ones life. However, since at birth we have had very few interactions and all our neurons have just been formed they have not had time to atrophy. This means that while it is not the most knowledge filled as the brain has very few patterns formed it is by all mean physiologically at its height in raw potential. The point at which we aim for calling mature is a moving target. It is based on how much knowledge is necessary to function adequately in the society that is the current environment balanced with how quickly the rest of the persons body develops to handle the situations that free choice can thrust upon it. This would mean that at different times in history, maturity would be gauged differently. I however doubt it ever had anything to do with the physiological development of the brain which I think actually happens by age 6 or 7. It would be more precise to say has the brain had enough experiences and time to form the mappings necessary to cope with the current society's pressures, and has their physical body been given enough time to have potentially grown able to enforce those choices the brain has made. The unfortunate problem is that not everyone is exposed to the same stimulus as every one else. Therefore there is not a way to ensure that everyone will have been exposed to a sufficient amount of situations to ensure maturity at a given age. The physical body part is easier to measure at least. This I think leads to generalities as averages of experiences have to be aggregated among a society to form a potential age of mental maturity. Then that has to be weighed against the society those individuals are living in. (example: In a society were people die by age 18, then maturity will be reached earlier as the pressure is much greater in that society to have a low age of maturity)

Maybe an Inspiration behind those comic stories. I have red and watched some stuff about how these things could be related. There was an idea that the science behind Super Conductivity (I think Bohr's law) states that if super conductivity exists so would super fluidity. This would be a fluid that has no viscosity, therefore no resistance and could obtain limitless angular velocity, forming a vortex. Vortex's being one of Viktor's primary fields of study. Now if this Super-Fluid was to be magnetic then it could produce a magnetic vortex which was theorized to have gravitational effects. These gravitational effects could be used to create faster then light travel, in a space that would have no inertial effects. This above is all heresy. Most would consider it conspiracy theory or fringe science. However, the new science that says warp drives are possible are explained in much the same way Viktor explains Vortex or implosive movement, so who knows. The only thing I can say that is for certain is that Viktor had some amazing ideas on how nature really works and he proved it with his engineering while having amazing moral standards.

China is an example of country that has overbearing burdens such as regulation, licencing, and other Socialistic/Communistic/Marxist ideas. If it was liberated from those burdens then I am sure it would explode in prosperity. There has been automation happening for centuries in human history. The question is, were we better off back in B.C. or better off now after centuries of automation. I would say history comes out on the side of automation. Attributing automation with humanities down fall by obsoleting humans would be conflating a bunch of variables that have nothing to do with automation into automation. When does making something more efficient and easier, really a bad thing? It is the other things around that thing, that have to be examined and take the blame. In this case it is the systems of economic's currently employed and the governing bodies exerting influence over that system.

Your story just gets better and better. I like you the more I find out about you. I have also done some fine art. I have sold several pieces in my past, including one piece in a gallery although that was when I was in 7th grade. Was a rough lesson. Sold a Tempra Painting of a Still Life on cardboard for $35.00. At that age I thought wow $35.00 for some paint on cardboard decent amount of money. The gallery's cut was 50 percent which I did not know until I open my envelope of money and it only had $17.50. My art teacher told me it was a lesson on what real life would be like. Ouch! I love art and engineering. I think engineering is not an essential part of art. However, I do love the artist that used mathematics in their painting. People like Escher and Da' Vinci both have amazing work. Knowing ratios is awesome for realism. However, that would not explain people like Van Gogh or Salvador Dali.They painted raw emotions on their canvas's. The world needs both types. I think that computers can express peoples idea's as well as any canvas and paint. It can do it in many ways not just graphically. I see science like that too. They are all tied together by philosophy. All the truly great people in history I see as true renaissance men. Nothing really great can be accomplished if all you do is devote yourself to one limited field of study. The ability to see how something seemingly unrelated can be tied in very nuanced ways to other things allows for those truly innovative ideas and constructs. It just happens that some engineers are like that renaissance men, people like Da' Vinci, while other engineers could never come up with their own miraculous machines but are quite capable of expressing other peoples ideas into reality as that is what an engineer does. Again the world needs both types. As Stefan would say we should live in a world of K's but we will always need our R's. We just dont want the R's to out number us K's or rule us K's.

I think Milton Friedman has it right on this issue. He states that Capital Resources which is what automation would help produce is not the real source of wealth. It is human capital that is the real source of wealth. If there is no one that has money to buy things then what good is it to produce a lot of things. Automation would just require a change in the way current business is handled. The people are the one with needs not the machines. Money is nothing more then a way to measure and facilitate the transfer of goods and services between the people. You can not remove the people form the equation. If you are saying that the jobs will be too complex for uneducated or under-educated people then I think that too would not happen. Someone would find a way to turn that untapped reservoir of resources (the people) to become rich and start a whole new market. That is as long as they were not jailed by a government paid by competing corporations to outlaw them for discrimination, unjust work ethics, or any other number of licencing or regulatory B.S. Funny thing about humans is that most of us have a very hard time looking another human in the eye and letting them die. We will help if we are allowed to. I could not quote the studies but I have heard others quote the studies. That charity was far more prevalent and far more effective prior to the founding of the Welfare state. That is when people got to keep more of their earnings and did not have other people telling them how much and what they could give and expect, then they gave a lot more. The Automation is not going to ruin peoples lives. It is the policies and rigid thinking of the people in charge that stop the creative people from utilizing the automation in a meaningful and helpful way that will ruin lives. Its not the tool but the intention behind the use of the tool that kills. Also I really like the response given by Rocksteady.