Re: Jews not chosen people - Einstein letter



Rita wrote:
On Sat, 24 May 2008 10:33:11 -0700 (PDT), al Guacamole <aet@xxxxxxxx>
wrote:

On May 23, 12:36 pm, Islander <nos...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
alGuacamolewrote:

Islander wrote:
alGuacamolewrote:
On May 20, 6:28 am, Islander <nos...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Rumpelstiltskin wrote:
On Mon, 19 May 2008 18:42:23 -0700, Islander <nos...@xxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
Rumpelstiltskin wrote:
On Mon, 19 May 2008 16:39:56 -0700, Islander <nos...@xxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
Rumpelstiltskin wrote:
On Mon, 19 May 2008 10:57:43 -0700, Islander <nos...@xxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
Rita wrote:
On Mon, 19 May 2008 09:02:33 -0700, Islander <nos...@xxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
Rita wrote:
On Mon, 19 May 2008 08:57:24 -0400, Oldi...@xxxxxxxxx (Olly Mensch)
wrote:
Islander - - re: your response to Glenn in his exploration into religion
- some people seem to be "pre-wired" to be religious,etc.,etc. May I
be simplistic, for a moment, for the sake of brevity and clarity. Seems
to me, nothing is really predetermined - but is, rather, determined, (in
the case of religion) by man's needs - which are built in, simply bec.
he/she is human Those are individual factors, and cannot be reduced
down to an one formula, I don't believe.
You speak of our brains being pre-wired - perhaps - with the need for
religion. Perhaps one ought to substitute psyche for brains - and
consider that even that is not pre-wired, only on a minimal basis, and
then formulated by our needs,experiences, some genetic predisposition,
and multiple factors which seem to lead one person to religion, while
the other has no such need.
I do feel that explorations into the why's and wherefore's of such a
need, are not only futile, but also cnnot be squeezed into any one
formula.
Olly
I tend to agree with you on this, Olly. I am not a fan of biological
deterministic arguments. I tend to look for explanations in the
realms of culture and the will to power. By the latter I mean that
religion is many things but one of them is a way some can seek to
control others through promoting certain belief systems.
On the micro level of the individual religion seems to provide both
comfort and explanations of why we are here and what our role should
be. On the macro level the power religion does hold over many can
be used and manipulated. It can be used for good purposes and for
bad purposes. But not much question in my mind that those who
control the content of the various religious doctrines in their
multiple varieties do have considerable power at their disposal.
others through certain belief systems.
I'm surprised that you have been skeptical of memetics. What you have
just described as religious doctrines and belief systems are highly
developed and very powerful memes. As it relates to the discussion
here, memes are an abstraction that allows us to examine how religious
doctrines and other belief systems propagate. This is separate, but not
incompatible with, any genetic predisposition toward religion that
belief systems might exploit.
Does the meme theory answer the question "what purpose do they
serve?" If they do serve to enhance the power of certain
individuals within a society or of certain groups as well, then
seems to me that goes a long way to explain why they propagate
as they do, in their endless variations in differing cultures.
If you go back to pre-industrial or the so-called primitive
societies there were religions and those who controlled the
sacred knowledge were powerful within the tribe or group.
Any theory that fails to consider this aspect I think is
missing something.
But I admit to not perhaps understanding the theory of memes
as well as I should.
Yes, memes are similar to genes in principle because there must be a
reason for them to survive. The one significant difference between the
two is that genes have no sense of the future. They survive strictly
through natural selection. Memes, on the other hand, because they are a
creation of human thought, may have strategic goals.
Another very significant difference is that memes can arise,
change, and propagate at superluminal speed compared to
genes, because genes require a hardware change but
memes only require a software installation.
Back around 1850, the head of the patent office resigned
because he felt everything significant had already been
invented. Nowadays society has subsumed a different
meme (or meme-complex), that there's no limit to what we
can do. (Unfortunately that seems to have brought with it
the idea that the planet can continue to support anything
we want to do - we need a meme-shift to correct that false
feeling.) The shift from thinking that everything had been
invented to thinking that there was no telling what wonders
will come happened quickly, only a century, compared to
the millions of years it takes to change genes. Memes can
even move much faster than that. Look at the Beats of the
1950's and the Hippies of the 1960's and the Me
generation of the 1970's. (After that, I got old and lost
track.)
Not exactly right. We have seen very rapid gene evolution in
microscopic organisms such as viruses.
True.
Likewise, anyone who has
attempted to bring about a social change would realize that it sometimes
takes a lot longer than reason would indicate.
Yes, although memes can evolve quickly in humans, that
doesn't mean they have to. Also, they have a "life" of their
own, that echoes real life, and by similar mechanisms. For
example, successful religions frequently contain a component
to murder people of other religions, which is "Survival of the
Fittest", even in memes.
But, you do point to an important difference. As humans, we can work to
change the time that it takes for a meme-shift. Left to itself, one can
only imagine how long it would have taken for civil rights. Perhaps if
we worked a bit harder at it, we might achieve the full spectrum of
civil rights.
I think we're working as hard as we can. I've mentioned
before that a friend once said "Change is generational". He
said that offhand, but I feel it deserves to be engraved on an
obelisk in front of the US capitol building or someplace like
that. Memes get frozen in minds that have hardened, so
those minds have to die out before the minds containing
new memes have a chance to thrive.
"I am always interested in the opinions of the young
about art. The opinions of the old about art are of
course of no consequence whatsoever."
-- Oscar Wilde
Perhaps, but there is an expression that I ran across when I worked for
the government. It was "being slow rolled" meaning that there was
intentional effort to delay a decision in the knowledge that if it were
delayed long enough it might go away.
Yes, there's lots of that going on. One way to sink things is to
put them into committee. I loathed meetings when I was working,
because they just consumed time that would have been better
spent elsewhere listening to and hassling with people just trying
to capture turf.
I can't find it on the web just now, but George Washington said
something like "I have observed that something that can be done
by one man in a given time, will be done half as well by two men
in twice the time, and hardly at all by a committee in any amount
of time." (He may have been thinking of Hamilton whom he
referred to as "my boy" and who got things done. Hamilton had
won the admiration of Washington at only age 22 and become
Washington's aide, though Hamilton did not at first like
Washington. I have a biography of Hamilton on order: it's quite
a tome - 800 pages - even longer than the Adams biography.
God only knows how long it will take me to finish it.
Your feelings about meetings and committees are repeated often, and are
true of some organizations. However, nothing of substance would be
accomplished without meetings and committees. Everyone has opinions
about the best course of action to take and some mechanism has to exist
to move an organization forward. No one, not even a philosopher king,
knows all the answers.

I have had the very good luck to have worked with some of the most
talented people in my field. I have also had the very good fortune to
have participated in groups that achieved synergy -- the sum was vastly
more than the sum of the parts.

It is unfortunate that too many managers run their organizations either
with an iron hand or too submissively. Neither works very well in my
experience. As a manager, I strove for consensus. I didn't always get
it, but as long as the group was motivated by a well defined common
objectives over individual egos we did well.
I agree. It is necessary to fully study a plan before it is
implemented. It's so much less expensive to find a part of the plan
that has a lot of negative consequences in the early stages. I suspect
that the small changes in planning with your groups made a big
difference.
I would have to say that in my case, the group developed the plan after
we understood and agreed upon a common objective. It is the
responsibility of management to set the goal and a good leader will rely
on his people to work to achieve that goal.

I think this is why I like most about Obama and have little patience
with people who want to know the details of his plans. He is a leader,
not a omniscient dictator.

Yes. If the group can work together, then a lot can be accomplished. I
miss that work too. Am thinking of doing some in the summer, since
there is no substitute teaching jobs in the summer. But regarding
Obama, I would expect that his lack of experience means that he will
be on a steep learning curve when and if he does get to be president.
At this time he hasn't really got any plans. It's different with the
other presidential candidates. That's why he did so poorly in debates
with Clinton.

I don't buy this "lack of experience" spin. It is believable because he
is young and that attack seems to stick. But, this young man has had an
incredible life experience. He has done exactly what we wish all our
young men (and women) would do, pulled himself up by his bootstraps, got
an education and carved out the toughest and most challenging jobs. He
has emerged from this with leadership qualities that I respect. That
is, by far, a better recommendation than for his opponent who grew up in
a wealthy home, blew his free college education, was handed a "public
relations" job by his father-in-law, but decided that politics was
easier. Personally, I like Obama's kind of experience much better!

It sticks because it is valid. Not that there's anything wrong with
that. I agree with you that he has a lot of potential. But I don't
agree that he had to fight for opportunity and pull "bootstraps". He
is gifted in many ways and opportunity came his way. IIRC he was on
scholarship at an elite private school in Hawaii. I recall a news
article and recall him saying something about his 5th grade teacher in
that school. In terms of opportunity, the Clintons have had to fight
for what they could get-- especially Bill who many compare to black
folk in terms of his personal background. The advantage that Bill had
over blacks is that he is white, and the advantage that Obama has over
blacks is that he has had a lot of opportunities in very liberal
settings throughout his life-- and that has made learning to be black
easier. Obama has never had to fight as hard as the Clintons.

The record is otherwise.

Hillary graduated from the elite Wellseley College and then from
Yale. In what way did she have to fight for a top quality
education? Her family was comfortably off, her father a successful
businessman. Of her college expenses she has written:

Back when I went to college, my father told me, "Here's the deal. Got
enough money for your tuition and board, but anything beyond that,
like buying books, you pay for yourself."

Wellseley College awarded her a scholarship to attend Yale Law
School. She supplemented that with a student loan with what she
has written was at a very low interest rate.

Obama also took out student loans to attend college.

You make it sound as if both the Clintons rose from dire poverty.

With the aid of scholarships, Bill attended the Edmund A. Walsh School
of Foreign Service at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C.,
receiving a Bachelor of Science in Foreign Service (B.S.F.S.) degree
in 1968.

He then won a Rhodes Scholarship to attend Oxford University in the
UK.

And finally he earned a law degree at Yale.

Obviously all three of the above, Obama, Hillary and Bill are very
bright and hard working individuals who made the most of opportunities
in their lives. For the Clintons those opportunities included some
very nice aid from scholarships.

So where do you get off arguing Obama was more privileged than
they were? Do your homework before sounding off, Alvin.

You distort the record Rita. Obviously, they all had scholarships and
other opportunities, and they are all gifted. Instead of focusing on
the differences, you prefer to ignore them. Let's get back to what we
really want to discuss about Obama and the Clintons, and that is the
differences. Just what will you acknowledge are the differences?
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Jews not chosen people - Einstein letter
    ... the case of religion) by man's needs - which are built in, ... developed and very powerful memes. ... Obama, I would expect that his lack of experience means that he will ... but Obama and Bill Clinton lost ...
    (soc.retirement)
  • Re: Jews not chosen people - Einstein letter
    ... the case of religion) by man's needs - which are built in, ... developed and very powerful memes. ... I think this is why I like most about Obama and have little patience ... both Barack Obama and Bill Clinton were gifted in many ways and both received scholarships. ...
    (soc.retirement)
  • Re: Jews not chosen people - Einstein letter
    ... the case of religion) by man's needs - which are built in, ... developed and very powerful memes. ... I think this is why I like most about Obama and have little patience ... with Clinton. ...
    (soc.retirement)
  • Re: Jews not chosen people - Einstein letter
    ... the case of religion) by man's needs - which are built in, ... developed and very powerful memes. ... two is that genes have no sense of the future. ... It's so much less expensive to find a part of the plan ...
    (soc.retirement)
  • Re: Jews not chosen people - Einstein letter
    ... the case of religion) by man's needs - which are built in, ... developed and very powerful memes. ... two is that genes have no sense of the future. ... It's so much less expensive to find a part of the plan ...
    (soc.retirement)