...who is society?

 "...who is society? There is no such thing! There are individual men and women and there are families and no government can do anything except through people and people look to themselves first… There is no such thing as society. There is living tapestry of men and women and people and the beauty of that tapestry and the quality of our lives will depend upon how much each of us is prepared to take responsibility for ourselves and each of us prepared to turn round and help by our own efforts those who are unfortunate..."

Margaret Thatcher

More on society ...

If you wonder what to have for dinner, or just wonder check - https://amazon.com/Mish-Mash-Elli

 Compared to the past now is the best time to live! Following is a quote from Nick Kristof: ‘If you’re depressed by the state of the world, let me toss out an idea: In the long arc of human history, 2019 has been the best year ever.’As evidence, he cited record low levels of child deaths (whereas in 1950, 27 per cent of kids died by the age of 15, now that percentage is just 4 per cent) and record highs for adult literacy (90 per cent of adults are now literate). Every single …

See more

FACTSANDTHEORIESSITE.WORDPRESS.COM

Facts, Theories and Opinons

Posted on September 26, 2021 Can I Talk to the Manager!!! Are Elites Dumb? If that is the case then are political failures (assuming a failure is something the people do not want or approve) the result of the corrupt elites’ stupidity or that was their plan and the fact that we, the people don’t...

What’s it all about?

 

Pinky: Gee, Brain. What are we going to do tonight?

Brain: The same thing we do every night, Pinky. Try to take over the world.

This is a work in progress. Intended to serve as a scaffolding for thought and research. I am worried that we (humanity) have made such big strides ahead in technology but so little in our understanding about the big issues in life as Why, What and How?

Here we go!

The question is:

Why humanity doesn’t live in peace and prosperity?

Why humanity doesn’t live in everlasting peace and prosperity if we have already mastered the technological means and have access to the resources for that?

 

Possible answers:

 

Is it a greedy clique of corrupt politicians and business people who conspire against us to protect their undeserved profits because they know of no other way to safeguard their privileges other than instigating division, conflict, war and chaos?

If that is true – how powerful are they?

How can we stop them from doing that and prevent anyone from doing that in the future?

 

Or are our institutions the culprit?

Is it their failure to allocate resources and distribute profits fairly while safeguarding against those who plan to disturb the peace to gain unfair advantage?

Why is humanity stumbling from war to war for no particular reason using ever more sophisticated instruments to kill and maim fellow human beings?

 

Why?

 

Why does our justice system seem eager to punish severely petty crimes but keen to ignore major ones?

 

Those are obvious questions that anyone can relate to. What bothers me that there doesn’t seem to be a consensus on how are we going to go about resolving those issues before humanity self-destructs? I know: Democracy, Free Markets, Rule of Law! Truth is – regardless of the validity of those they don’t seem to work.

Why?

 

Where is the theoretical, philosophical, ethical, legal knowledge that we need to develop to overcome these obstacles and what are those obstacles?

One possible answer could be – our institutions do not have the built-in accountability devices to guard against them being highjacked by corrupt people who misuse them for undeserved gains.

 

For me a first step would be better understanding of what’s happening because personally it has been more and more clouded with the years.

 

First, I thought communism was good and capitalism bad.

Then, capitalism is good and communism bad.

 Democracy and market forces should take care of that….

 

 

And that seemed to be so true because then we won the Cold war – Soviet style communism crumbled under its own stupidity eager crowds dismantled the Berlin war and turned the pieces of the hated barrier into souvenirs – under the sounds of Pink Floyd singing “break down the wall…” Then the US bombed the Serbs!

Then NATO didn’t disband and kept going for no obvious reason. Then the Chinese communist system managed to bring their country out of poverty to the leading position in the world economy.

Then America is in multi trillion-dollar debt…

I still believe that it’s not by the benevolence of baker and shoemaker that we enjoy prosperity and that we have those inalienable rights.

What I don’t know is – what went wrong?

 

I know Marx does – he was confident that it was the ownership of the means of production that was the problem but while that does seem to be true with China’s success and the recent economic crisis triggered by US financial institutions it doesn’t seem to explain everything. Communism did fail in Russia and Eastern Europe.

Therefore, I am starting this blog hoping in a series of essays to manage to get maybe if not straightforward answers – to at least build a scaffolding that will help me scramble up to the shoulders of those giants and be able to see further (or perhaps to the tops of their heads?).

 

What’s in it for you?

Not much.

I am doing this mostly for myself. Why making it public?

If my thoughts help you in your own quest for knowledge – please, tell me – your encouragement may add a plank or pillar to my scaffold as I may help you build yours.

In general, I believe that understanding the fascinating and disappointing reality we live in will help enjoy it more and for longer.

 Last, but not least, is space travel.

What does space travel have to do with all this – you may ask…

It’s obvious – space travel is the latest and most exciting adventure of humanity. If anything is going to pull us out of the swamp of hate and division that we are drowning in is the unifying vision of a common quest. It may also provide purpose and employment for all those talented inventors, engineers and technicians who are now preoccupied with creating fancy tools for destruction. So my aim is to travel to space and in between now and then work to promote space travel for civilian purposes as a a worthy endeavor that will save humanity and civilization and may prove a useful substitute for the dangerous and wasteful arms race

 amazon.com/Mish-Mash-Elli

So that’s my plan to take over the world. I know it may sound kind of naïve or even dodgy but that’s all I can think of for now and… you never know.

 

Somewhere.. Across the Ocean. Australia - What Now?

 

If you wonder what to have for dinner check - https://amazon.com/Mish-Mash-Elli

It seems the US is purposely working to isolate Australia from all its possible trade partners to keep it in American orbit. First starting an unnecessary war of words with China. Next angering France just before a free trade agreement with the EU is to be finalized.

Let’s find out – if Germany supports the delay of the free trade agreement – then perhaps that’s what the Americans want – if not then I am wrong and it’s just France whingeing about the lost billions.

America is trying to weaken the EU by encouraging the small EU members to disobey the powerful German and French masters in Brussels, but do not have the money to that Brussels can afford to spend. On the other hand, Germany seems increasingly less keen to finance Eastern ‘dissidents’ like Poland and Hungary.

Now Australia participates into two military arrangements against it's main business partner - China. Both are with America - one with Britain, the other one with Japan and India. How that will affect all of us remains a mystery.

Hello world! Are you there?

 There is no reality as such because:

1. It is constantly changing

2. We are among the actors who consciously (or subconsciously) contribute to that change

3. We act on the basis of our desires and our perceptions of the state of affairs

4. Our perception, our understanding is based on reality and our biases

5. Our biases, opinions, and desires are constantly changing too.

If you wonder what to have for dinner check - https://amazon.com/Mish-Mash-Elli

Without vision people perish

Western Europe's success in progress and innovation coincided with the rise of the reformation. The ideas that forged the modern world as we know it today may have to be rethought. Reformation wasn't about abandoning faith. It was about strengthening and purifying it.

I believe that's what makes us stronger, better and happier.

Ideas about what we personally and as a society want define the path that we are going to take and the end result is often grander than we envisaged.

You may say God answers to our most cherished desires and fulfills them generously and sometimes with unexpected lavishness. That happens of course after we have dedicated our minds, souls, bodies and resources to that purpose.

Human progress depends on shared knowledge!

 Human society is an issue of the mind. Social co-operation must first be conceived, then willed, then realized in action. It is ideas that make history, not the “material productive forces”, those nebulous and mystical schemata of the materialist conception of history. If we could overcome the idea of Socialism, if humanity could be brought to recognize the social necessity of private ownership of the means of production, then Socialism would have to leave the stage. That is the only thing that counts.

Mises

Logically the society that has the most profound and diverse knowledge will prosper and the one that is ruled by a closed clique of oligarchs is bound to stagnate and implode.

If you wonder what to have for dinner check - https://amazon.com/Mish-Mash-Elli

Desires and Beliefs on the Path to the Truth!

Desires are like beacons on our path in life marking the direction towards our purpose. As any force of nature, they can be perilous and destructive or propel us towards our purpose in life if managed by a skillful captain. We are free to choose to guide the ship of our life towards exotic places or left without direction towards the only place our life will naturally go: the bottom, no matter how much we wallow in self-pity.

To find out where we are and where we want to go we try to base our decisions on fact and proven theory. But life is much more complicated and on top of that personal so its often hard to find useful advice and guidance. What are we and where do we want to go? Everyone certainly has some idea about that. So do your friends and wider circle of relatives, workmates etc. Their view may be close to yours or widely different. And somewhere there is the real you independent of opinion but certainly moving or being moved in one or other direction for good or bad.
Among all that we have our beliefs: the things we hold to be true without decisive proof because we didn’t have the time or the opportunity to check their validity. We still act upon them because we need to act and make choice big and small in every moment of our lives. So these beliefs influence reality and so in fact create into reality. Again, we may be successful but that would be entirely due to chance. Only by sharing our beliefs, assumptions, hypothesis with other reasonable people and accepting any constructive criticism can we see clearer in the fog of complexity created by contemporary society. Our desires, passions, values, goals being the compass the best map will be the one created by thinking and experience, and open to corrections by fellow travelers.
And not only for advice, often if not always we need outright help from others to achieve our goals.

But how do we enlist that help?

There are two obvious ways: 

Cooperation or Coercion. Coercion might come first to mind and seems like a quick and easy way to achieve your goals but it’s self-defeating in the end. Cooperation builds on common reasoning and pooling of resource to reach goals both personal and common trough understanding, compassion and common sense.

Prepare a simple delicious and healthy meal... For ideas - https://amazon.com/Mish-Mash-Ellie-Great-ebook/dp/B094D1LHPQ