"Our job is not to make up anybody’s mind, but to open minds, and to make the agony of decision-making so intense you can escape only by thinking."
- Fred W. Friendly (1915-1998)

"Ye shall know the truth, and the truth will make you mad."
- Aldous Huxley

"If you have ever injected truth into politics, then you have no politics."
- Will Rogers

Saturday, May 26, 2012

Mental Exercise....#1 of a series

If you are the kind of thinker that I hope reads this blog you will enjoy this kind of thing -- you are hopefully someone who enjoys getting as tired from a mental workout as much as a physical one...this page is definitely for you; it is about the relative scale of "things" in the universe. 

Very slowly move the slider back and forth watch how quickly everything related to our insignificant Solar System flashes by (human-scale objects are just a quick blip, and are very easy to miss).  When you get to a point just before the far right side of the scale...stop and think about what it says:

"The universe is 14,000,000,000 years old.  If something were more than 14,000,000,000 light years away from us, it would take more than 14,000,000,000 years to reach us, which is more time than the universe has existed." 

Brain hurt yet?  Doesn't it feel GOOD?

Book Review - River Town (China)

I read a lot, and am especially facinated with China. I have been to Taiwan, but never China proper but would like to visit someday. I am currently reading the third and final book in Peter Hessler's series on China.   It is a great series that will give you a much better and more complete view of this huge, strange country and more importantly, its people.  Here is my review on Goodreads of the first book in the series.

River Town: Two Years on the YangtzeRiver Town: Two Years on the Yangtze by Peter Hessler
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Peter Hessler writes with just the right mixture of objective description and sensitivity to the people and culture around him as he spends two years in the small (by China standards) city of Fuling as a Peace Corps teacher of English. The emphasis of the book is less on the exotic travel aspects, and more on the struggles of adapting to an environment that is completely alien, and in which you are the intruder. His experiences are at once real and surreal, facing choices that we seldom encounter in everyday life or even think about. In one memorable passage he talks about the choice of whether to patronize a ten-year old shoeshine girl who is an elementary school dropout to help her family out, or to recoil in natural revulsion at perpetuating such a cruel and empty existence. In the end, Hessler admits that this was like a lot of daily Chinese life choices, and that he never figured out exactly the right thing to do.

Written in the years before the Three Gorges dam was complete, the surprising stoicism or bland acceptance of the people whose towns and cities were going to be changed forever (sometimes completely obliterated) is surprising at first, but as the book goes on, you realize this is a key part of survival in China, accepting the inevitable or unchangeable and learning to make the most of whatever freedoms and choice a faraway and insensitive government leaves.

I have had the good fortune to do some international travel, although always for "business purposes" which means that you get the pleasure of dipping into a fascinating country/culture for a few days at worst or a few weeks at best, sandwiched in around "business meetings" which unfortunately have a bland, drab gray sameness about them no matter where they occur. But Hessler gets to go much deeper, and he communicates very well the entire experience. He is obviously intelligent, well-educated, and thoughtful, and his writing style is very readable yet it doesn't get in the way of stopping and thinking along the way. There is wry humor as well, as he points out some of the more absurd points of Chinese life, and some of the more obnoxious aspects begin to grow wearisome as his time in Fuling draws to a close.

I eagerly look forward to reading the rest of Hessler's work.

Monday, May 14, 2012

Science!

There was an exhibit at DisneyWorld in Florida when I went there with my family several years ago -- I remember the echoing refrain (I think it was the AT&T pavilion)  "...the answer is Science....".   I have always believed that -- there is some seriously cool and amazing stuff going on in all branches of science, despite the unforgivable political hacks like the Senator from the midwest who stood up a few years ago and waved a list of 400 "experts" in front of a Senate committee who supposedly debunked entirely the whole idea of "climate change" or "global warming" as the headline writers like to call it.  Only problem was, this list was composed largely of people with "doctorates" in English and Business and a fair sprinkling of TV weather "personalities" -- hardly a sterling example of a qualified, scholarly group suitable to comment on the complex subject.  The former unfortunately made good cable news headlines, the latter (and much more truthful) story not so much.

I think science and scientists need to explain themselves and their methods better when confronted with such utter knuckle-dragging nonsense.   The 'scientific method' (if anyone still bothers to study it) is among the most noble and useful creations of humans.  It involves tossing out ideas (hypotheses and experimental results) to a peer forum for honest review and appropriate intelligent debate which usually results in a much better, more complete and trustworthy conclusion at the end of the process than any other human-designed process you could name....certainly more so than say....oh, a Congressional "debate" of any kind....or the output of any Congressional committee you would care to name...

Just some food for thought:  Less water than we think?
                                              Who needs a wonder drug?
                                              Is it there, or is it not?

Isn't that a lot more memorable than say, all the seasons of "Housewives of Timbuktu" or the latest screeching rant by a cable news "consultant" rolled together???

Yes, I'm also a Party Pooper

Yes, I absolutely detest parties...political parties that is, of any stripe, color or fancy name.  But, I am in very good company (the first four presidents of the US to drop a few names)...and none other in particular than George Washington...but more on that later.

To understand how I got to this conclusion on parties, you have to understand my view of humanity.  I believe that humans do have completely unique abilities and capabilities.  Among these are the ability to form individual views and conclusions based on questioning and exploring the world around us...where they came from, which of the several thousand identified or sanctified dieties gave them to us is of absolutley no interest to me.  I believe humans were meant to rise above that sort of thing, and be always forward-looking, always trying to understand given their talents and abilities, and within their limitations. 

We are also given the unique ability to reason with each other, and compromise, and reach an agreement -- the best of these, as embodied by the Greek Senate, the Magna Carta, and other examples past.  Witness our own US Declaration of Independence, Constitution, and other thoughts as written by the founders of the USA; along with those like Lincoln who held it together when smaller minds would tear it apart are the finest examples.  They demonstrate a unique ability on our part to place the good of the many above the good of the few when it counts.  Even our close relatives in the simian world don't get too far into a disagreement before they end up bashing each other in the head to "settle" it.

I think the mark of true 'intelligence' is to fully realize that no one person or set of dogmatic statements can possibly be true or even useful for all possible situations.  Life is too rich and wonderful and full of surprises...and you deliberately shut yourself off from the world if you choose to take a head-in-the-twelfth-century-sand approach of following stone tablets, or scrolls, or whatever without thinking.

Now, back to the political party thing...I think the first silent admission that anyone joining a political party absolutely has to make is that:

"I confess I am too (stupid, unintelligent, uneducated, lazy) to make up my own mind on any topic of significance. I am much more comfortable with a set of rigid rules and positions made by others to which I can blindly subscribe without thinking....(and what color flag I am supposed to be waving by the way)?".

Many people aligning with one political party or another are just looking for an easy way out --- democracy and in fact being a thinking human being are supposed to be hard work, and take some investment of time and study.  Cable TV news these days of any stripe other than the BBC or PBS is worthless tripe, and you sure won't find enlightenment among the airheads of Survivor, American Idol, DWTS, America has Talent, etc..BTW - do you realize we are beaming this crap off into space in all directions as the indicator to others that this is the height of our civilization????.

Most of the Founding Fathers detested the idea of political parties or at the least had serious misgivings about them.  George Washington nailed it rather eloquently in his Farewell Address:

"They [political parties] serve to organize faction, to give it an artificial and extraordinary force; to put, in the place of the delegated will of the nation, the will of a party, often a small but artful and enterprising minority of the community; and, according to the alternate triumphs of different parties, to make the public administration the mirror of the ill-concerted and incongruous projects of faction, rather than the organ of consistent and wholesome plans digested by common counsels, and modified by mutual interests.

However combinations or associations of the above description may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely, in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people, and to usurp for themselves the reins of government; destroying afterwards the very engines, which have lifted them to unjust dominion."

That language is probably a bit beyond the Twitter, Facebook, Fox News, and text crowd, but what he said, roughly translated to the vernacular is:

Political parties organize special interest factions and pretend it is the will of the people when in fact it is nothing more than the careful campaign of a small minority pushing forward their ill-advised and divisive ideas, rather than the plans raised together by people working in concert for the common good.

However popular these factions may be to a  minority, they will in time become self-sustaining entities which ambitious men will use to subvert the power of the people, and gain for themselves the power of government, destroying afterward the very processes and institutions that allowed them to rise to their dominance.

And that, dear reader, as expressed by George Washington more eloquently than I ever could...is why political parties are at the root of everything that is wrong in Washington DC.





 



    

Sunday, May 13, 2012

The Friendly Mantra

Something I don't think we do enough of anymore is good old fashioned THINKING (hence the blog name).   Just read any newspaper headline (if you can find one that is both correctly spelled and gramatically correct), watch any TV news or any account of a political debate and try to find any semblance of logic or thought.   Thinking for yourself and making up your own mind on something is liberating - and quite addictive in a positive way.  Following the crowd never seemed like a good idea to me, and thinking also gives you a whole new source of humour and outright laughter...again just look at any politician or political party.

I have long treasured a quote that is attributed to Fred Friendly of CBS News - he reputedly said at the beginning of many of his seminars:

"...their purpose was to make the agony of decision-making so intense that you can escape only by thinking."

One could do a lot worse than to live by those words...I wish more people in power inside and outside of government would do so.

Update: And now it is at the top of the blog...now that I have verified its wording and origin.

Saturday, May 12, 2012

The Name

One thing I forgot to explain in the prior post was the name of the blog - "Thinkers Agora".   Agora is a Greek term for "gathering place".  I have been fortunate enough in my travels to have seen the ancient Agora in Athens, and I remember being impressed by the number of great thinker's feet that must have trod that soil.

That is my hope for this blog -- to attract people who think, rather than react or brainlessly follow trends set by others.

Welcome (and who the heck is this guy???)

Well Hello!

If you have stumbled on this fledgling blog, you obviously have way too much time on your hands, or a insane curiosity about the dark corners of the Internet.

I will be introducing myself in several upcoming posts here, but for now just know that I am a late-entrant blogger, primarily because I could not settle on a particular topic or area to blog about.  While casting about for signs of intelligent life on the Internet (an increasingly despairing undertaking I am afraid) I came across this old post  which got me to thinking...

I am uncomfortable with the term 'polymath' because as it is currently defined (including in that <sarcasm>unassailable fountain of all knowledge, Wikipedia</sarcasm>) it says that a polymath is an "expert" in many fields.  I have long admired the Leonardo da Vincis of the world, and only recently realized that I have spent most of my adult life trying to be like them.

However, I am definitely a Polymath "trainee"....I am interested in an insanely wide variety of topics, from science to law, but can only claim "expert" status in a small number of those.   I hope to engage like-minded people on this blog, so that I can learn more about the areas I am interested in but do not understand as well as others. 

Therefore you will be seeing posts on a variety of topics -- from science (just because it is so d*mn cool and interesting) to politics (just because it is so d*mn uncool and nauseating).  Posts will appear in somewhat random order -- whatever interests me gets posted, whatever does not (and/or appears on cable news) will not appear.

I expect (and want) to express some strong opinions here on a variety of topics  -- opinions that I know do not mesh well with at least some, but that is partly the point - truly intelligent discussion has largely disappeared from the American landscape these days.   The only requirements to particpate here are intelligence, a strong sense of logic, and and an ability to realize and a willingness to admit when you might be all or partly wrong....and to listen to your fellow earth-citizens when they have good ideas.