Actions Speak Louder than Words

[Gregory A]

Do regular committees accomplish anything much. Are committee people just not suited to activism. Philosophers are not all that active in the physical sense. Can they be motivated enough to do good for example. Or would they balk at that preferring to sit comfortably seated in front of their computers. It could be asking for action from them is comparable to going to a Chess match and trying to recruit fighters and fans for an MMA contest.

If we look we will see that every government in every democracy in the world is set to fail. Themselves in leadership as a result of the failure of those before them. The Democratic Election Process is fair. But is this its only virtue. The average intelligence of a majority should at best result in average government. The complexities of actually running a country successfully are such that that average then turns to bad. The chances of any individual who has nothing more than the solutions it takes to successfully run a nation and then winning its leadership should be 1/the eligible candidates (the majority of the adult population). That person's chances of success then halved by there being two primary candidates in a two-party system.

The whole point being is that effective leadership (with all respect to democracy itself, doing its best as it does by allowing alternating parties to give some sort of socio-economic balance) should then come from those that use logic on a daily basis rather that is than from some charismatic general, businessman or lawyer elected leader by the people.

[Pattern-chaser]

The average intelligence of a majority should at best result in average government.

I wonder if you are forgetting the 'wisdom of crowds'? It doesn't always work, of course, but it works quite often, and when it does, it impressively exceeds your "average" expectation.




Sometimes I wish the 'thinking' emoji - - looked a little less sarcastic, and just reflected 'thinking'.

[Gregory A]

The average intelligence of a majority should at best result in average government.

I wonder if you are forgetting the Wisdom-Crowds-James-Surowiecki/dp/0385721706 wisdom of crowds'? It doesn't always work, of course, but it works quite often, and when it does, it impressively exceeds your "average" expectation.

The early democrats had the wisdom to not allow true democracy opting for instead a 'democratic election process' thereby avoiding a direct mob rule situation. And government by elected elites has served reasonably well ever since then. But things have changed a lot in the last century. The wisdom of the patriarch has been replaced by the new-age's emotionalism. Soft living driving a 'red-shift' (social) process (society's shift to the left) something unrealistic in what is still an enduring harsh reality.

And you would be right about a majority coming to a better decision among themselves. But regardless we have a secret ballot, the secrecy factor in general eliminating a lot of what it would take to come to rational conclusions about who should lead. Donald, Borris and Joe, chosen by democracy as leaders says it all. No? It doesn't actually, far worse outcomes are on the horizon and we have little time to act.

America gave the world democracy, the light bulb, and many, many other things. We still have the lightbulb be it a modified version. We still have democracy. It is time for needed updates there too. There is probably only one year left to do something, an obligation the true thinkers of society do have.

Sometimes I wish the 'thinking' emoji - - looked a little less sarcastic, and just reflected 'thinking'.

[Pattern-chaser]

The early democrats had the wisdom to not allow true democracy opting for instead a 'democratic election process' thereby avoiding a direct mob rule situation.

The people, and their countries, adopted government by elected representatives. The main purpose of this is to free the entire population from having to participate directly in making government decisions. Our representatives do that; it's what we elect them to do. That way, the rest of us have the freedom to live productive and useful lives.

[Gregory A]

The early democrats had the wisdom to not allow true democracy opting for instead a 'democratic election process' thereby avoiding a direct mob rule situation.

The people, and their countries, adopted government by elected representatives. The main purpose of this is to free the entire population from having to participate directly in making government decisions. Our representatives do that; it's what we elect them to do. That way, the rest of us have the freedom to live productive and useful lives.

True democracy would be where the voters decide all issues. It would not need to be all eligible voters 10% randomly selected once a month voting on proposals put forward by fellow citizens, businesses, and other groups. This disastrous scenario made even more possible now with internet and personal computers. The present system allows us to vote for who we choose or run as candidates if we are not happy with the choices we have or have what we believe are better ideas ourselves. But what this does not allow are those who have the real solutions, filtering them out if anything by the need to win party preselection, win as a candidate in our electorate then winning party leadership or the vote of the majority of a public, divided along familial and socio-political outlooks as they are. A person or group with the solutions may not appeal to the public, regardless bypassing 'two party' is effectively impossible anyhow.

[Gregory A]

If actions speak louder than words then action is needed if the pen is to be mightier than the sword. The threat censorship poses to free speech requires immediate attention. The censorship of conservative views by private companies operating in public places while making advertising dollars should be challenged. The threat, to force them to close their doors to the public and operate in private allowing pragmatism to then override their shallow principles. A condition on operating enterprises in a public place is that the rights of the public should be respected. Censorship is not limited to social networking either, soft living cultures emotionalism allowing Left viewpoints to dominate in forums, search engines (Google dropped all reference to Jesus from its Christmas logo more than 10 years back, blatant politics when it celebrates obscure females for their obscure contributions, but not a man who has had few parallels in influence).


I'm aware I'm here pushing a political view, still philosophical, but not all too appropriate to do. It is a topic for discussion at the same time disguising a call for leadership, skills I do not possess, but very much needed in the fight to preserve humanity in its present male-female partnership.

The first few lines of the opening post question the effectiveness of committee types when it comes to making any real contribution to society. And sure it might be that is how it should be, philosophy has motivated plenty of activism we know, but otherwise is made up of passive people itself. And philosophical discussion should exist don't be wrong about that. And it might be that someone here someday becomes inspired enough to actually do something, contribute a bit more than sitting around "gabbing on about" life's meanings etc. That said the majority of political parties are nothing but indulgences too, knowing as they should there is no real chance of making a difference in a two-party system continuing with the machinations regardless.

Monty Python's Committee sketch satirizes the all talk no action aspect of intellectual types

[urlhttps://w ww.youtube. com/watch?v=55fqjw2J1vI][/url]

That said a committee can represent action if that is what follows from its resolutions. The internet can put incredible power into the hands of those who were once powerless. The cost of a campaign was once millions now just twenty can have a website running and accessible to everybody.

[Sy Borg]

I am reminded of action man, Mae Zedong. The nringer of China's Cultural Revolution. Mao did not bother with the advice of boring scientists and their black hat views. No, he rolled up his sleeves and made things happen, unencumbered by do-nothing committees. He heard that sparrows were taking a portion of farmers' crops.

So Mao the strongman sent out a classic strongman edict. He was not mucking around.

Mao Zedong undertook several massive campaigns in an attempt to modernize and improve life in China. The Four Pests Campaign was one of these drives, part of the Great Leap Forward between 1958 and 1962. Killing all the sparrows was part of this campaign.

People were mobilized to eradicate the birds. They used beating drums to scare the birds from landing, forcing them to fly until they died of exhaustion. People tore down sparrow nests and shot sparrows down from the sky. The result of the campaign was to push the birds close to extinction in China.

There is no information on how many sparrows there were in China in 1958. But if there was one for each person, there would have been more than 600 million. Hundreds of millions were killed. This lead to a problem the next year. It was noticed that insect infestation of crop fields had soared. Sparrows ate pests such as locusts, and after the campaign, the locusts lost their major predator. This meant that killing the sparrows was counter-productive. The sparrows, it seemed, didn’t only eat grain seeds. They also ate insects.

Locust populations boomed and they ate everything in their path. Grain production in most rural areas collapsed and a massive famine began. People ran out of things to eat and millions starved. The official number of fatalities from the Chinese government was 15 million. However, it’s estimated by some scholars that the fatalities were as high as 45 or even 78 million.

The Great Famine remains a taboo topic in China more than 50 years later. People started to eat other people, parents ate their kids. Kids ate their own parents. Thousands of people were murdered for food. In his book Tombstone, Chinese journalist Yang Jisheng estimated the deaths at over 36 million people. His book was quickly banned in China.

https://www.thevintagenews.com/2016/09/ ... ?firefox=1

[Sculptor1]

Do regular committees accomplish anything much. Are committee people just not suited to activism. Philosophers are not all that active in the physical sense. Can they be motivated enough to do good for example. Or would they balk at that preferring to sit comfortably seated in front of their computers. It could be asking for action from them is comparable to going to a Chess match and trying to recruit fighters and fans for an MMA contest.

If we look we will see that every government in every democracy in the world is set to fail. Themselves in leadership as a result of the failure of those before them. The Democratic Election Process is fair. But is this its only virtue. The average intelligence of a majority should at best result in average government. The complexities of actually running a country successfully are such that that average then turns to bad. The chances of any individual who has nothing more than the solutions it takes to successfully run a nation and then winning its leadership should be 1/the eligible candidates (the majority of the adult population). That person's chances of success then halved by there being two primary candidates in a two-party system.

The whole point being is that effective leadership (with all respect to democracy itself, doing its best as it does by allowing alternating parties to give some sort of socio-economic balance) should then come from those that use logic on a daily basis rather that is than from some charismatic general, businessman or lawyer elected leader by the people.

If you want to kill an idea send it to committee.
Want to kick it into the long grass, or dilute it to homeopathetic levels - Then bring on the committee.

But I suppose that does put the breaks on dictators.

[Gregory A]

I am reminded of action man, Mae Zedong. The nringer of China's Cultural Revolution. Mao did not bother with the advice of boring scientists and their black hat views. No, he rolled up his sleeves and made things happen, unencumbered by do-nothing committees. He heard that sparrows were taking a portion of farmers' crops.

So Mao the strongman sent out a classic strongman edict. He was not mucking around.

Mao Zedong undertook several massive campaigns in an attempt to modernize and improve life in China. The Four Pests Campaign was one of these drives, part of the Great Leap Forward between 1958 and 1962. Killing all the sparrows was part of this campaign.

People were mobilized to eradicate the birds. They used beating drums to scare the birds from landing, forcing them to fly until they died of exhaustion. People tore down sparrow nests and shot sparrows down from the sky. The result of the campaign was to push the birds close to extinction in China.

There is no information on how many sparrows there were in China in 1958. But if there was one for each person, there would have been more than 600 million. Hundreds of millions were killed. This lead to a problem the next year. It was noticed that insect infestation of crop fields had soared. Sparrows ate pests such as locusts, and after the campaign, the locusts lost their major predator. This meant that killing the sparrows was counter-productive. The sparrows, it seemed, didn’t only eat grain seeds. They also ate insects.

Locust populations boomed and they ate everything in their path. Grain production in most rural areas collapsed and a massive famine began. People ran out of things to eat and millions starved. The official number of fatalities from the Chinese government was 15 million. However, it’s estimated by some scholars that the fatalities were as high as 45 or even 78 million.

The Great Famine remains a taboo topic in China more than 50 years later. People started to eat other people, parents ate their kids. Kids ate their own parents. Thousands of people were murdered for food. In his book Tombstone, Chinese journalist Yang Jisheng estimated the deaths at over 36 million people. His book was quickly banned in China.

https://www.thevintagenews. com/2016/09/26/1958-mao-zedong-ordered-sparrows-killed-ate-much-grain-caused-one-worst-environmental-disasters-history/?firefox=1

I hope school-agers are shown this as an example of what can go wrong when messing with the natural environment. Drastic actions can lead to drastic outcomes that's for sure. It's the unelected part of government in a democracy that helps keep stability, advisors doing their bit too.

[Sy Borg]

I am reminded of action man, Mae Zedong. The nringer of China's Cultural Revolution. Mao did not bother with the advice of boring scientists and their black hat views. No, he rolled up his sleeves and made things happen, unencumbered by do-nothing committees. He heard that sparrows were taking a portion of farmers' crops.

So Mao the strongman sent out a classic strongman edict. He was not mucking around.

Mao Zedong undertook several massive campaigns in an attempt to modernize and improve life in China. The Four Pests Campaign was one of these drives, part of the Great Leap Forward between 1958 and 1962. Killing all the sparrows was part of this campaign.

People were mobilized to eradicate the birds. They used beating drums to scare the birds from landing, forcing them to fly until they died of exhaustion. People tore down sparrow nests and shot sparrows down from the sky. The result of the campaign was to push the birds close to extinction in China.

There is no information on how many sparrows there were in China in 1958. But if there was one for each person, there would have been more than 600 million. Hundreds of millions were killed. This lead to a problem the next year. It was noticed that insect infestation of crop fields had soared. Sparrows ate pests such as locusts, and after the campaign, the locusts lost their major predator. This meant that killing the sparrows was counter-productive. The sparrows, it seemed, didn’t only eat grain seeds. They also ate insects.

Locust populations boomed and they ate everything in their path. Grain production in most rural areas collapsed and a massive famine began. People ran out of things to eat and millions starved. The official number of fatalities from the Chinese government was 15 million. However, it’s estimated by some scholars that the fatalities were as high as 45 or even 78 million.

The Great Famine remains a taboo topic in China more than 50 years later. People started to eat other people, parents ate their kids. Kids ate their own parents. Thousands of people were murdered for food. In his book Tombstone, Chinese journalist Yang Jisheng estimated the deaths at over 36 million people. His book was quickly banned in China.

https://www.thevintagenews. com/2016/09/26/1958-mao-zedong-ordered-sparrows-killed-ate-much-grain-caused-one-worst-environmental-disasters-history/?firefox=1

I hope school-agers are shown this as an example of what can go wrong when messing with the natural environment. Drastic actions can lead to drastic outcomes that's for sure. It's the unelected part of government in a democracy that helps keep stability, advisors doing their bit too.

That is the concern. The one positive aspect of disasters like these is that they provide such a stark lesson. However, if the lesson is ignored by vainglorious leaders more intent on dominating the society they aim to lead than to understand it, such mistakes may be repeated.

We need to stop worshipping leaders as though they were more than human and leaders need to take advice, even when it's no convenient to their ideals.

If, in some bizarre alternate multiverse where I was competent enough to achieve national leadership, I can envisage times when I would be forced to pragmatically enact policies that took me away from my preferred policies. If the west is to thrive again, it needs pragmatic leadership (but not me haha) grounded in science, Realpolitik. A leadership that is not corrupt(!), agile and adaptive to the times to rather than aiming for strict ideals, religions or to appease one megalomaniac's opinions and pockets.

Yet megalomaniacs are popular today, despite the fact that they always do damage. I suspect this stems from some deep-seated instinctual understanding of entropy's role in reality. Humans not only have a drive to create, they have a drive to destroy. The shadow side. This is in line with reality's dance of creation, destruction and re-creation.

Without entropy, there is stagnation. That is where the world lies now, ever more stuck in a quagmire of stagnation as fiat currencies run their course, with systems designed for simpler times no longer fulfilling their functions as intended.

So it comes to this - the battle between agents of change and agents of stability. Each imagines they can win, but that is short-sighted. There is no winner, just a back and forth, with each side playing its role. Without change, stagnation brings slow decay and delays potential renewal. Too much change too quickly brings chaos and potentially causes pointless irreparable damage to useful systems.

One side tries to drive the changes, the other tries to slow them. The best possible outcome from a utilitarian POV is a "soft landing" - change made with minimum damage done.

[Pattern-chaser]

It's the unelected part of government in a democracy that helps keep stability, advisors doing their bit too.

The "unelected"? The parts of the government that the electorate cannot hold to account - they're the ones who maintain stability? Or is that a typo?

[Sculptor1]

It's the unelected part of government in a democracy that helps keep stability, advisors doing their bit too.

The "unelected"? The parts of the government that the electorate cannot hold to account - they're the ones who maintain stability? Or is that a typo?

Yes, but stability equals stagnation. Stability means the establishment maintaining control. Stability stands against change, representations, and progress. It is preserving the elites, the aristocracy, and inequality.

[Gregory A]

I am reminded of action man, Mae Zedong. The nringer of China's Cultural Revolution. Mao did not bother with the advice of boring scientists and their black hat views. No, he rolled up his sleeves and made things happen, unencumbered by do-nothing committees. He heard that sparrows were taking a portion of farmers' crops.

So Mao the strongman sent out a classic strongman edict. He was not mucking around.

Mao Zedong undertook several massive campaigns in an attempt to modernize and improve life in China. The Four Pests Campaign was one of these drives, part of the Great Leap Forward between 1958 and 1962. Killing all the sparrows was part of this campaign.

People were mobilized to eradicate the birds. They used beating drums to scare the birds from landing, forcing them to fly until they died of exhaustion. People tore down sparrow nests and shot sparrows down from the sky. The result of the campaign was to push the birds close to extinction in China.

There is no information on how many sparrows there were in China in 1958. But if there was one for each person, there would have been more than 600 million. Hundreds of millions were killed. This lead to a problem the next year. It was noticed that insect infestation of crop fields had soared. Sparrows ate pests such as locusts, and after the campaign, the locusts lost their major predator. This meant that killing the sparrows was counter-productive. The sparrows, it seemed, didn’t only eat grain seeds. They also ate insects.

Locust populations boomed and they ate everything in their path. Grain production in most rural areas collapsed and a massive famine began. People ran out of things to eat and millions starved. The official number of fatalities from the Chinese government was 15 million. However, it’s estimated by some scholars that the fatalities were as high as 45 or even 78 million.

The Great Famine remains a taboo topic in China more than 50 years later. People started to eat other people, parents ate their kids. Kids ate their own parents. Thousands of people were murdered for food. In his book Tombstone, Chinese journalist Yang Jisheng estimated the deaths at over 36 million people. His book was quickly banned in China.

https://www.thevintagenews. com/2016/09/26/1958-mao-zedong-ordered-sparrows-killed-ate-much-grain-caused-one-worst-environmental-disasters-history/?firefox=1

I hope school-agers are shown this as an example of what can go wrong when messing with the natural environment. Drastic actions can lead to drastic outcomes that's for sure. It's the unelected part of government in a democracy that helps keep stability, advisors doing their bit too.

That is the concern. The one positive aspect of disasters like these is that they provide such a stark lesson. However, if the lesson is ignored by vainglorious leaders more intent on dominating the society they aim to lead than to understand it, such mistakes may be repeated.

We need to stop worshipping leaders as though they were more than human and leaders need to take advice, even when it's not convenient to their ideals.

If, in some bizarre alternate multiverse where I was competent enough to achieve national leadership, I can envisage times when I would be forced to pragmatically enact policies that took me away from my preferred policies. If the west is to thrive again, it needs pragmatic leadership (but not me haha) grounded in science, Realpolitik. A leadership that is not corrupt(!), agile and adaptive to the times to rather than aiming for strict ideals, religions or to appease one megalomaniac's opinions and pockets.

Yet megalomaniacs are popular today, despite the fact that they always do damage. I suspect this stems from some deep-seated instinctual understanding of entropy's role in reality. Humans not only have a drive to create, they have a drive to destroy. The shadow side. This is in line with reality's dance of creation, destruction and re-creation.

Without entropy, there is stagnation. That is where the world lies now, ever more stuck in a quagmire of stagnation as fiat currencies run their course, with systems designed for simpler times no longer fulfilling their functions as intended.

So it comes to this - the battle between agents of change and agents of stability. Each imagines they can win, but that is short-sighted. There is no winner, just a back and forth, with each side playing its role. Without change, stagnation brings slow decay and delays potential renewal. Too much change too quickly brings chaos and potentially causes pointless irreparable damage to useful systems.

One side tries to drive the changes, the other tries to slow them. The best possible outcome from a utilitarian POV is a "soft landing" - change made with minimum damage done.

It is part of our human nature to want to worship leaders. And the best way to deal with that, the natural way, is to have monarchs or presidents, a-political persons out front, there as figureheads. Scotland for example could have princesses or princes, nominees for the positions of King or Queen still, but then respected in their own right regardless. The United Kingdom could that way have a Scottish King or Queen at some time in the future.

A political leader on the other hand need only understand the policy they present. They don't need to be its originator. The kind of person who is well spoken, well presented and presents policy well would be right. Having a stand alone political leader with all that power of the US President is risky maybe a bit outdated even.

And despite what we may think, mislead by advances in technology and the availability of cheap mass-produced goods as we are, society is in decay internally. Marriage in the USA lasting only eight years on average that trend set to spread and as an increasing divorce rate part of a register of decadence.

The political, social and physical structures that we build can halt the ongoing processes of entropy to an acceptable degree. But things don't look good admittedly when nuclear war could destroy so much of that we have already built, complete cities and whole societies at risk. A Nature wins God loses outcome if there was one.

Stability can be had with an effective 'Crown' there as a mediator allowing the rights, wishes, ideas even, of society and individuals to be represented in another way than present straightforward democracy allows.

[Gregory A]

Do regular committees accomplish anything much. Are committee people just not suited to activism. Philosophers are not all that active in the physical sense. Can they be motivated enough to do good for example. Or would they balk at that preferring to sit comfortably seated in front of their computers. It could be asking for action from them is comparable to going to a Chess match and trying to recruit fighters and fans for an MMA contest.

If we look we will see that every government in every democracy in the world is set to fail. Themselves in leadership as a result of the failure of those before them. The Democratic Election Process is fair. But is this its only virtue. The average intelligence of a majority should at best result in average government. The complexities of actually running a country successfully are such that that average then turns to bad. The chances of any individual who has nothing more than the solutions it takes to successfully run a nation and then winning its leadership should be 1/the eligible candidates (the majority of the adult population). That person's chances of success then halved by there being two primary candidates in a two-party system.

The whole point being is that effective leadership (with all respect to democracy itself, doing its best as it does by allowing alternating parties to give some sort of socio-economic balance) should then come from those that use logic on a daily basis rather that is than from some charismatic general, businessman or lawyer elected leader by the people.

If you want to kill an idea send it to committee.
Want to kick it into the long grass, or dilute it to homeopathetic levels - Then bring on the committee.

But I suppose that does put the breaks on dictators.

It is that much of a laugh. And committees are everywhere really. This forum is one to a degree even if no one ever agrees on much here. No resolutions passed. But still there is hope where there are thinking people gathered. These people better qualified than are politicians when dealing with complex issues I believe. It might even be how future government works allowing as it does input from anyone who has something reasonable to say.

[Gregory A]

It's the unelected part of government in a democracy that helps keep stability, advisors doing their bit too.

The "unelected"? The parts of the government that the electorate cannot hold to account - they're the ones who maintain stability? Or is that a typo?

The Treasury set interest rates in some countries independent of elected government (even though I'm not sure that is a good idea). And the public service set policy to a degree too. Departments probably do the same thing, besides they do the actual governing anyway, politicians making changes along the way.