Musings of a member

 

Because of the outstanding science reporting of Thoral Ibn Said, we now know that Professor Ivan Kurtz of Moscow University, a respected mibo-ethnologist, recently presented a novel hypothesis regarding the future of our species. His published paper entitled "The General De-Evolvement of Homo Sapiens" will be presented to the National Academy of Science in Washington, D.C. The late Stephen J. Gould, the well-known evolutionary biologist, said in his book A Full House that we humans are here by the "luck of the draw." For Gould, it has nothing to do with any grand design or evolutionary mechanism. Evolution has been full of "fits and starts," frequently leading to evolutionary dead ends. Gould believed it was pure arrogance on our part to think that evolution has traveled in a steady, predictable direction toward human life. And, if it could be done all over again, it's unlikely the universe would come up with anything remotely resembling us. In Professor Kurtz' view, Homo sapiens may in fact be reaching some sort of evolutionary "brick wall." His paper also suggests that the speed at which we humans could be arriving at this dead end might be increasing by a factor of two every 24 months! While it would be impossible here to cover all of Kurtz' paradigm, a brief review of his two principle concepts are worth mentioning. The first he calls the survival-fear constraint. Kurtz believes all living organisms, including something as supposedly "simple" as bacteria, create a kind of knowledge log, which acts as an internal gyroscope, keeping the organism's survival instincts focused. Professor Kurtz has developed a numbering system from one to ten. Number one represents a species that possesses total fear of almost everything. Number 10 represents a species that lacks essentially all fear. It can be assumed in Kurtz' model that no species is a perfect 1 or 10, as that would make its survival virtually impossible. Predators in general cluster closer to 10 because they are hunters and, if not completely carnivorous, will eat meat from time to time. For example, Kurtz assigns the number 8.6 to a lion and an 8.0 to a cheetah. The cheetah gets a lower number than a lion because of a weaker jaw and a "kill" rate of only one in five attempts, a lower percentage than a lion. An elephant, on the other hand, is assigned a number 6 because it is not carnivorous and has a highly developed sense of group responsibility to its own immediate herd and its species. In general, species that fall in the middle of the scale are more willing to integrate into their environment. In Kurtz' classification scheme, only humans go above 8.9. As well, unlike any other species, they fall into a range of between 9.0 and 9.5. Without going into lengthy detail, the broad factors the professor uses for assigning numbers for humans include (1) population expansion and habitat destruction (2) environmental degradation attributable to humans (3) species cooperation and (4) human belief systems. Professor Kurtz has concluded that Homo sapiens have a low fear threshold because of a poorly developed internal gyroscope. According to Kurtz, because of the primitive alarm mechanism of humans, our survival as a species is uncertain. Of particular interest is the possibility we may be actually reverting or "retreating" back to a state we had passed through at least 40,000 years ago. If this hypothesis proves to be true, it would make our species truly unique. But an even more astonishing possibility may be presenting itself at the same time, according to the professor. The reason Kurtz has used a range of numbers for humans is because he is strongly suggesting the possibility—admittedly tenuous right now—that we could be at the beginning stages of creating a new species, one that is related to us. In a worldwide population of of more than 7.2 billion people, the professor estimates, using his classification model, that possibly from one to two million individuals are consistently exhibiting a more highly developed internal gyroscope, thus the reason for a number in the range of 9.0. The second principle is called the revelatory-egoism constraint. Simply stated, the essence of human character is a profound belief in magic, which can be interpreted as a deep-seated need for spirits and gods. It is virtually impossible for our species to see things as they are and not as they believe. But, what Professor Kurtz is suggesting, is that a new species could be in the incipient stages of branching off from Homo sapiens; this new species is more willing to accept things as they actually are! The revelatory-egoism constraint says that humans have a near pathological confusion between self and other. In other species this separation occurs at least by the time of puberty. At birth all species make no real distinction between self and other—or between wanting and getting—but they eventually outgrow this egocentric confusion. Not so for humankind. Kurtz maintains that while "words" certainly influence behavior or can direct people to particular courses of action, words themselves possess no power whatsoever. Rational or objective thinking can only take place when humans are able to grasp the subjective nature of thinking. Thought has no "actual" power. You may hear voices emanating from the ether late at night, but whether or not those voices exist in the external world is another matter. (As an aside, Kurtz claims that the United States— among all developed nations—is currently showing the steepest negative rise in the revelatory-egoism constraint paradigm.) Allison Harper's book Public Buffoonery, Welfare Capitalism, and the Political Process in America offers both an amusing and a serious commentary on the changing American politician and revelatory decision-making. It is worth reading, especially in light of Professor Kurtz' contentions. Finally, in an interview in Rypin, Poland two months ago, an American reporter with the Fox News Network, asked Professor Kurtz what one piece of advice he'd give to humankind. The quiet, soft-spoken professor hesitated for just a moment and then said to the attractive, young blonde reporter, "Look closely for a pink elephant at dawn." Before the confused reporter could ask for clarification, Professor Kurtz hobbled up the steps of the zeppelin EMU and disappeared inside

Weed Conspiracy

 Looking at weeds in history, considering truth, and dying gracefully.

LEARNING TO SEE IS HARD,4 

Weed Conspiracy

 Weed Conspiracy, a newsletter, launching on Sunday October 10. It's about weeds in history, considering some truth and dying gracefully. Take a look. Take a chance. Visit: weedtruth.substack.com

How long have weeds been around? A very, very long time. When Socrates drank the hemlock (a poisonous plant) humans had already been arguing about weeds for thousands of years.

The argument deserves to continue. The alternative is ... well, not so good.

Do not go gentle into that good night

Rage, rage aginst the dying light

(Dylan Thomas, poem first published in 1951) 

 There are no ongoing posts at this time.

The Stockings Were Hung By the Chimney With Care, in the Hope ... That Democracy Would Not Get There

“Capitalism is a lot more important than democracy.”

-Stephen Moore, co-founder of the Club for Growth and former Trump campaign advisor-

The Heritage Foundation and the Fraser Institute, both conservative research organizations, have ranked Hong Kong number one as the “freest economy” in the world. Apparently the millions of protesting residents of Hong Kong didn't get the message.

The ideal and fanciful world of so many of these conservative organizations often seems like a tour through Alice in Wonderland but the influence they exert across the globe cannot be ignored. See Democracydoesn't matter to the defenders of 'economic freedom.'

The start of the impeachment hearings in the House Judiciary Committee last week offered us a glimpse of how American capitalism and democracy interact in the United States. Four constitutional scholars spoke to the committee about the Constitution and what it means to all of us.

A Democratic member of the committee asked one panelist what would be the result if, based on the current evidence, the House did not impeach the president. The response was precise: “We would no longer have a democracy.” The Republicans on the committee claimed there was nothing to investigate. John Adams, our second president, once said that, “There is never a democracy that did not commit suicide.”

Yes, words do matter. Two, “Originalism” and “Textualism,” familiar to constitutional scholars, were words that came up several times in the hearing when discussing the meaning of the text and its interpretation. In brief, Originalism and Textualism narrow the interpretation of the Constitution and claims that it means no more or less “than what it meant to those who originally wrote and ratified it,” – the Founding Fathers. For some scholars it becomes less of a living document and more like a sacred totem to be decoded. (see “The Scalia Problem” below).

While unknown to most Americans, the consequences of narrow judicial interpretation could profoundly affect the average person in so many negative ways, including in areas like discrimination, voting rights, health care, corporate personhood and environmental regulations. The twenty-first century, sadly for many, has arrived.

At least once, the innocuous sounding term “unitary executive theory” was brought up. The unitary executive theory offers an expansive belief in the power of the president to control the entire executive branch of government and surely would be supported by most autocrats on the planet.

William Barr, Trump's current Attorney General, appears to strongly subscribe to this view. There is a clear and compelling reason why Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell wants to confirm staunchly conservative judges, with lifetime appointments, as fast as possible. To strengthen democracy is not the reason.

Of course we've never had a literal democracy in this country but part of the American narrative--and myth--says that we do have a democratic republic with representative government and three separate but equal branches with distinct duties and responsibilities. The ultimate power is vested in “we the people.”This was the genius of the American experiment in self-government when our Constitution was ratified on June 21, 1788.

Democracy was not on the top of the “to-do” list for our Founding Fathers in the 18^th century. James Madison, the author of the first draft of the U.S. Constitution and fourth president of the United States said that, “Democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property...”

A recent poll by the Pew Research Center, Republicans Now Are More Open to the Idea of Expanding Presidential Power, indicates that while most Americans would be uncomfortable giving more power to our presidents, conservative Republicans -- by more than 50 percent – believe we could more effectively deal with “problems” if the president had more power. This number has doubled since March 2018.

In another poll, Trumpgreater than Lincoln?, ordinary Republicans said Trump was a better president by 53 to 47 percent. One respondent said, “Lincoln only freed the slaves.”

Whether or not we commit national suicide remains to be seen. But we are tempting fate, with a significant portion of Americans more inclined toward authoritarianism and less inclined toward democratic institutions.

In the early 1930s the German industrialists and the military considered Herr Hitler a useful idiot that could be controlled -- but the German lumpenproletariat considered Herr Hitler their savior.

Additional Reading:

TheScalia Problem: It Wasn't Originalism or Textualism—It was Trumpism

StephenMoore's ranking of states' economies has been wrong for 12 straightyears

How Many People Does it Take to Turn on the Lights

“Getting its history wrong is part of being a nation.”

(Ernest Renan, 19^th century French philosopher)

“Above that 3.5% threshold, there hadn't been any failed movements...”

(Erica Chenoweth, political scientist)

Only 20 years ago something like 70 percent of protests pushing for major political change were successful. This trend, however, reversed in the mid-2000s and success rates have now dropped to around 30 percent, this according to The Interpreter, published in the NYT, October 25, 2019.

Global mass protests have been growing year after year since World War II but have now reached an unheard-of level? Many people are aware of the unrest roiling countries across our planet, including here in the U.S., but possibly a lot less are aware that protests are now more likely to fail.

The “why” is of course extremely important. Here in America, as well as globally, failure to understand protest objectives and strategies will certainly lead to frustration, unsatisfactory results and increasing cynicism. Too much is at stake for those of us seeking systemic changes. It is important to remember that the anger and the resistance is not going to stop, regardless of what governments might do to control the desire for change, equality and economic justice.

Some of the answers, in part, may come from the work of Erica Chenoweth, a political scientist at Harvard who studies civil resistance across the globe and has written numerous articles on the subject. She published a book several years ago entitled, Why Civil Resistance Works: The Strategic Logic of Nonviolent Conflict. The Extinction Rebellion movement has credited Chenoweth's ideas for their success.

It is a complicated subject but Chenoweth offers four broad reasons why protests have stalled at the present time. First, more countries are favoring authoritarianism over democracy. Second, social media makes protests easier to start but also makes them more likely to fail as well. Third, social polarization has risen dramatically. Four, authoritarians are getting better at manipulating their citizens.

Nationalism has risen across the globe brought about by economic uncertainty, immigration and fear of losing one's social and cultural place in society. Climate change could exacerbate all of the above. Global corruption has entrenched defective political systems and working “within” the system is perceived to be less likely to bring about positive democratic changes for increasing numbers of people.

Chenoweth points out that dictators in general in recent years have emerged gradually rather than by overnight coups. It becomes a slow, steady drip toward repression. Orban's Hungary may be a good example of this as well as Turkey. Poland appears to be following the pattern, wrapping itself in “national identity” and Catholic conservatism. What happens right here in the U.S. remains to be seen.

Omnipresent social media may be the most interesting factor of all. We all know that large groups can be mobilized rapidly with cell phones and Facebook accounts. But putting large numbers on the street quickly with no underlying structure or deep commitment to a particular cause ultimately leads to very little.

For anyone that remembers the civil rights movement of the 60s or for that matter the anti-war protests, the women's movement or the environmental movement knows that organizing and planning was essential along with building support at the grass roots.

Chenoweth believes social media “really advantages” repression. Governments across the globe have certainly learned how to co-opt media and push their own messages as well as rally sympathizers without, and this is important, sending in the tanks and the usual heavy handedness.

Erica Chenoweth states that nonviolent campaigns are successful 53% of the time compared to 26% for violent protests. Within this framework she refers to the “3.5 Rule,” a tipping point.

What this means is that success is very likely when 3.5% of the entire population is actually participating. In the U.S. this would amount to some 11 million citizens, in a country of more than 320 million people.

Hong Kong, an autonomous region of China, at the present time offers an interesting perspective on protests. The participants remain disciplined and focused on their goals. It started out as a protest by students and academics confronting a law that would allow China to arrest Hong Kong residents and bring them back to the mainland. It began with a particular interest group or class of people but has now spread across all sectors of society as more residents can envision their own self-interest.

Some 2 million residents of Hong Kong, out of a population of more than 7 million people, are protesting and marching daily, with very little violence committed by the participants. This is more than 3.5 percent of the population. Another million non-participating residents are probably sympathetic to the overall goals of the campaign.

Successful protest campaigns require much more than a crowd gathering and waving placards periodically. It means that, while quantity is important, the quality of the commitment and the discipline of the participants is far more significant in sustaining a long term movement. We Americans, among others, ought not to be under any illusion that oppression—gradual or otherwise—that we see across the globe won't happen in the U.S.

A Druid Nation

The well-known reality that generations of Americans have been taught in school is that 102 deeply religious Protestant men, women and children from England landed at what is now Plymouth, Massachusetts on December 21, 1620. They were later to be referred to collectively as Pilgrims.

But instead of these Pilgrims, imagine the same number of Buddhist monks had arrived. Or perhaps a boatload of Druids came ashore on that cold, miserable day in December. Envision the last remaining members of that mysterious “pagan” priesthood, first mentioned in Julius Caesar's diaries in 55 B.C, standing on the beaches of North America.

Would the original inhabitants of North America, the Indians, have been treated better? Would there have been slavery? Would we have learned that we're merely one part of the natural world around us?Yeah, what if?

As we Americans tear ourselves apart in 2019, it becomes ever more plausible that seeing eye to eye or at least “getting along” with each other could become simply impossible. Yeah, but what if?

The arrival of Europeans or for that matter our imaginary Buddhist monks, probably meant the civilizations of North and South America were doomed from the start, almost from the moment the Spanish conquistadors clanked ashore in their suits of armor in the fifteenth century, more than 100 years before our pious Protestants arrived in North America.

It was, however, not because of European technology---or Christianity, that caused the massive destruction to the civilization of the first inhabitants of North and South America. The unstoppable enemy was disease, unwittingly (at least initially) brought by Europeans, of which the the indigenous population had no immunity.

Because of individuals like Jared Diamond (Guns, Germs and Steel), Charles Mann (1491), Nathaniel Philbrick (Mayflower) and many others, we know, among other things, that geography matters, a lot. Unlike the early inhabitants in the Western Hemisphere, Europeans had domesticated animals such as oxen, cows and pigs that did not exist in North and South America.

Europeans contracted diseases that jumped from animals to humans and over time they built up a degree of resistance to them. Columbus, Cortez and other Europeans traveled with the ultimate weapon—not gunpowder—but hideous viruses like smallpox, typhus, influenza, diphtheria and measles. It turned out to be an unimaginable “ethnic cleansing” of entire societies. It may have been the greatest pandemic in human history.

While population numbers of North and South America, just before the arrival of the Spanish in the late 15^th century have been estimated from a low of 8 million to a high of more than a 100 million people, this has been a subject of controversy and debate for some time. But there appears to be little doubt that millions could have been killed by Europeans through disease, slavery, wars and environmental destruction.

It's most likely that no society that existed in North and South America in 1490 imagined their world would come crashing down upon them. After all, they knew from their creation stories that generations of their ancestors had strolled along the same paths they now walked.

This has been the story of human history, one group of people supplanting another group or being absorbed into the new tribe.

Yet, there is something different possibly happening today. What if there are no humans from somewhere else to replace anyone. What if there are no more human sounds, here in the United States or anywhere else. Yeah, but what if?