Aristotle’s Defense of Private Property: 4 Reasons Communal Property Is Inferior

From FEE.org:

In "The Communist Manifesto," Karl Marx aptly summarized the implications of a communist society, stating that “the theory of the Communists may be summed up in the single sentence: Abolition of private property.” As an institution, private property has been a crucial factor in the flourishing of Western society and its political thought. However, its defense rarely extends beyond a calculation of its economic benefits. Many defenders of private property simply state that there is no viable alternative system and that private property is simply the best option of a bad bunch. This argument, with its pessimistic tone, hardly inspires much love for the concept of private ownership.

Thankfully, there have been numerous thinkers throughout history who have robustly defended and justified the institution of private property. Such figures are Cicero of Ancient Rome, Thomas Aquinas of medieval Europe, and John Locke of the early modern period.

…………………

On the subject of private ownership, Aristotle believed that external goods such as property and wealth could help people live a virtuous life. Unlike the more austere Plato, who recommended strict limits on wealth, Aristotle argued that “happiness also requires external goods in addition, as we said; for it is impossible, or at least not easy, to play a noble part unless furnished with the necessary equipment.” With this view in mind, Aristotle adopted a positive stance toward private ownership.

Aristotle’s arguments on the justification of private property are necessary to examine, as they have shaped the debate on property throughout history. In his seminal work Politics, Aristotle argued against communal ownership of property by demonstrating the superiority of private property in four core areas: efficiency, unity, justice, and virtue.

Efficiency

First, Aristotle argued that private ownership is simply more efficient than communal ownership. The latter increases the likelihood of neglect; since people are sharing something, everyone is more likely to assume that someone else is taking care of the situation, instead of taking responsibility themselves.

…………

Unity

Critics of private property tend to demean property as atomistic, claiming that its adoption creates a society of “rugged individualists” who refuse to cooperate with one another. Aristotle sharply disagreed with this view, arguing instead that private property in fact fostered unity, while communally owned property bred constant strife and discord. On the subject of communal ownership, he writes that “in general, living together and sharing in common in all human matters is difficult, and most of all these sorts of things.”

………………

Justice

In his Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle asserts that justice is defined by equals getting equal rewards and unequals getting unequal rewards. When this view is applied to the notion of communally owned property, an issue arises. “For if people are not equal, they will not possess equal things, but from this comes fights and accusations… For everyone agrees that the just in distributions must be according to some worth; the worth however, everyone does not call the same thing.”

………………….

Virtue

Aristotle believed that using one’s property to aid friends was a great practice; “doing favors and helping friends, guests or mates is most pleasant, and this only happens when property is private.” In his opinion, generosity and charity can only exist in a society which upholds private property. If everyone communally owns everything then no one can aid one another. Aristotle writes of “generosity concerning possessions, for no one will be known to be generous or do generous actions, since the work of generosity is in the use of one’s possessions.” [read more]

Aristotle was Ayn Rand’s favorite philosopher. I now understand why. Ayn Rand believed in private property and so did Aristotle. So, it makes sense why she considered him a favorite of hers.

Here’s an article on private property:

Which Countries Have the Best Record in Protecting Property Rights?

Former Obama Supporter Explains Why She Chose to #WalkAway

From The Daily Signal.com (Aug. 13):

A former Obama supporter says she joined the “#WalkAway Campaign,” a movement that highlights stories of why people walk away from leftist ideology, because she could no longer subscribe to what the Democrat Party aligned itself to.

“I did vote for our current president and I will vote for him again in 2020, and just seeing how the left has become or is extremely dehumanizing. They are not into logic; it is all about your emotions, it is all about, ‘I feel like this, so therefore, it is fact,’” a YouTube user whose handle is Tumi Yukii said in a video posted July 10 to the video-based site.

Yukii said she grew up in a left-leaning household, attended the first presidential inauguration of Barack Obama, and was in Washington, D.C., to celebrate his second inauguration.

She said her political convictions began changing when she saw the party’s inconsistencies.

“I was raised a Democrat, I was raised to believe that, you know, Republicans, conservatives, who are old school, right-wing, racist[s] who wanted to keep America like the 1940s or the slavery times,” Yukii said. “You know, I was brought to different political events as a kid, all that kinda stuff.”

“I got off the Democrat plantation,” Yukii said. “And I noticed that there is a quote that says if you do the same thing over and over again and expect different results, that’s insanity, so voting for these Democrats over and over and over and over and [then] they’re doing nothing for inner cities, they’re doing nothing for black people.” [read more]

Good for her! But the Left would call her a traitor (an uppity black as Judge Clarence Thomas would say)  to her party and her race (maybe her gender too. Who knows.)

Grotesque: U.S. gov't cannibalizing babies so mice can live

From One News Now.com (Aug. 8):

In a development that is almost too Nazi-esque to believe, our own government is working with Planned Parenthood to get "fresh" tissue from aborted babies to produce "humanized mice."

Although it is almost impossible to believe, every word you read in that first sentence is true.

"Humanized mice." Dwell on that two-word phrase for a moment. It's their phrase, not mine.

The FDA is actually contracting with Planned Parenthood to get tissue from freshly aborted babies that they implant in mice, to improve the immune systems of the mice.

In other words, we are killing babies so that mice can live.

Hitler, Josef Mengele, and the entire Nazi medical experimentation apparatus have got nothing on us. We have become as inhumane, as savage, as morally darkened as the worst of World War II Germany.

David Daleiden of the Center for Medical Progress did diligent undercover work to expose Planned Parenthood's ghoulish practice of selling aborted baby body parts to the highest bidder. Now we discover that the chief competitor for aborted babies' body parts is our own government. [read more]

That is disturbing.

Seven Principles of Sound Public Policy

Commentary by Lawrence W. Reed on  FEE.org:

I would like us all to think about some very critical fundamentals, some bedrock concepts that derive from centuries of experience and economic knowledge. They are, in my view, eternal principles that should form the intellectual backdrop to what we do as policymakers inside and outside of government.

…………….

The “Seven Principles of Sound Public Policy” that I want to share with you tonight are pillars of a free economy. We can differ on exactly how any one of them may apply to a given issue of the day, but the principles themselves, I believe, are settled truths. They are not original with me; I’ve simply collected them in one place. They are not the only pillars of a free economy or the only settled truths, but they do comprise a pretty powerful package. In my belief, if every cornerstone of every state and federal building were emblazoned with these principles—and more importantly, if every legislator understood and attempted to be faithful to them we’d be a much stronger, much freer, more prosperous, and far better governed people.

Principle 1: Free people are not equal, and equal people are not free.

First, I should clarify the kind of “equalness” to which I refer in this statement. I am not referring to equality before the law, the notion that you should be judged innocent or guilty of an offense based upon whether or not you did it, with your race, sex, wealth, creed, gender or religion having nothing to do with it. That’s an important foundation of Western Civilization and though we often fall short of it, I doubt that anyone here would quarrel with the concept.

No, the “equalness” to which I refer is all about income and material wealth, what we earn and acquire in the marketplace of commerce, work, and exchange. I’m speaking of economic equality. Let’s take this first principle and break it into its two halves.

Free people are not equal. When people are free to be themselves, to be masters of their own destinies, to apply themselves in an effort to improve their well-being and that of their families, the result in the marketplace will not be an equality of outcomes.

………………

We are different in terms of our talents. Some have more than others, or more valuable talents. Some don’t discover their highest talents until late in life, or not at all.

……………

We are different in terms of our industriousness, our willingness to work. Some work harder, longer, and smarter than others. That makes for vast differences in how others value what we do and in how much they’re willing to pay for it.

We are different also in terms of our savings. I would argue that if the president could somehow snap his fingers and equalize us all in terms of income and wealth tonight, we would be unequal again by this time tomorrow because some of us would save it and some of us would spend it. These are three reasons, but by no means the only three reasons, why free people are simply not going to be equal economically.

Equal people are not free, the second half of my first principle, really gets down to brass tacks. Show me a people anywhere on the planet who are indeed equal economically, and I’ll show you a very unfree people. Why?

The only way in which you could have even the remotest chance of equalizing income and wealth across society is to put a gun to everyone’s head. You would literally have to employ force to make people equal. You would have to give orders, backed up by the guillotine, the hangman’s noose, the bullet, or the electric chair. Orders that would go like this: Don’t excel. Don’t work harder or smarter than the next guy. Don’t save more wisely than anyone else. Don’t be there first with a new product. Don’t provide a good or service that people might want more than anything your competitor is offering. [read more]

Interesting speech. His other principles not shown here are:

1. What belongs to you, you tend to take care of; what belongs to no one or everyone tends to fall into disrepair.
2. Sound policy requires that we consider long-run effects and all people, not simply short-run effects and a few people.
3. If you encourage something, you get more of it; if you discourage something, you get less of it.
4. Nobody spends somebody else’s money as carefully as he spends his own.
5. Government has nothing to give anybody except what it first takes from somebody, and a government that’s big enough to give you everything you want is big enough to take away everything you’ve got.
6. Liberty makes all the difference in the world.

Angry People Think They’re Smarter Than They Are

From Live Science.com (Aug. 6):

If you know someone who's generally ill-tempered, it might please you to know that they're probably not as smart as they think they are. That's because, unlike other negative emotions, anger seems to make people overconfident about their intelligence, a new study suggests.

"Anger differs significantly from other negative emotions, such as sadness, anxiety or depression," Marcin Zajenkowski, study author and psychologist at the University of Warsaw in Poland, told PsyPost.

Previous research has shown that anger is an unusual negative emotion in that it's often associated with positive traits, like optimism. But how anger affects perceived intelligence was unclear. Zajenkowski and his colleague suspected that angry people might be more likely to overestimate how smart they are.

To test this, the researchers surveyed more than 520 undergraduate students attending schools in Warsaw. The students answered survey questions to gauge how easily and how often they get angry. Then, the students took a survey to assess their own intelligence before taking an objective intelligence test. [read more]

Pretty much describes the Left.

How Religious Freedom Erodes, One Step at a Time

From Daily Signal.com (Aug.6):

Last week, Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced the formation of a new Task Force on Religious Liberty at the Department of Justice. The action came on the heels of a ministerial summit on religious freedom, which explored how religious freedom is under attack around the globe.

At the summit, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Sam Brownback, U.S. ambassador-at-large for international religious freedom, highlighted the problems that arise when governments try to enforce conformity to a single view of what is sacred. Governments do far better, they argued, to honor every individual’s freedom to determine that for themselves. That is the path to pluralism—and peace.

Increasingly, however, that is the path less traveled. Too many nations are following paths leading to the decline of religious freedom.

That awful journey often begins with the social ostracization of religious minorities. In Saudi Arabia, for example, official textbooks teach students to compare Christians and Jews to dogs and pigs.

The next step economically disenfranchises religious minorities, denying them employment and education. In Egypt, for instance, Coptic Christians face extreme prejudice when looking for work—be it with the police force or the military, or even a professional soccer team.

Next comes the criminalization of minority religious beliefs. In Pakistan, for example, a Catholic woman named Asia Bibi currently sits on death row for allegedly blaspheming Muhammad.

Ultimately, the path away from religious freedom ends in violence, which may come from either the state or civil society groups. Last year in India, Hindu vigilantes killed a 12-year-old Muslim boy for allegedly slaughtering a cow that they consider sacred. [read more]

China’s gov’t oppression of religious groups:

• China demolishes hundreds of churches and confiscates Bibles during a crackdown on Christianity
• BreakPoint: China’s Crackdown on Religion

How to Reduce Your Risk of Death by Gun Violence

From FEE.org (June 6):

Do you want to reduce your risk of death by gun violence? If so, consider these 10 common sense ways to do so. These are things one can implement fully and immediately with no permission or agreement from anyone else but are entirely in the control of any individual. Marching to persuade politicians is a very indirect way of reducing anyone’s risk from gun violence. And considering their track record on so many issues, politicians may end up putting us all at further risk when all is said and done.

1. Don’t commit suicide. This is the most common gun-related death, being about 63% of all firearm deaths in the US.
2. Adopt a policy of not escalating any road rage situations. If someone does something offensive on the highways have it pre-settled in your mind to react by de-escalating the situation (refrain from responding in kind) and back off to allow the heat of the moment to cool.
3. Do not join a gang. Violence is the accepted norm among gang members, resulting in many becoming victims of gun violence.
4. Do not buy or sell illegal drugs. Yes, I do know that it’s the drug laws more than the drugs themselves that leads to gun violence among drug buyers and sellers. But, people already on the wrong side of the law are more likely to commit gun violence than the law-abiding population.
5. Do not get involved with abusive people. Someone who previously has physically abused a partner is more likely to do so than are those who have never engaged in such abuse.
6. Implement a personal curfew. The safest place anyone can be at 2am is at home in bed. Roaming the streets in the middle of the night exposes one to gangs, drug sellers, and other dangerous people.
7. Stay away from Gun Free Zones. One study showed that 98% of all mass shootings happen in these places. Gun Free Zone signs tell violent people this is a spot where the picking will be easy. As for everywhere else, these predators may be deterred since they have to wonder if there’s already a good guy with a gun on the property. [read more]

Makes perfect sense to me especially #7. I wonder if the Left knows that 98% stat or if they even care. There are four more suggestions not listed here.

Killer Nanorobots Are Coming For Your Cancer

From Forbes.com (July 31):

Hong Kong researchers have successfully developed a 3D-printed nanoscale robot that can maneuver at a cellular level.

In Jun, Science Robotics, a leading robotics technical journal, published a report about the exploits of the City University engineers.

It shows that targeted, personalized medicine with tiny robots is no longer science fiction. [read more]

If the nanorobots can kill cancer maybe they can be programmed to kill viruses and other diseases. Hypothetically, making mankind live forever.

Artificial intelligence can predict your personality by scanning your eyes

From CNET.com (July 29):

"The eyes are the window of the soul." Cicero said that. But it's a bunch of baloney.

Unless you're a state-of-the-art set of machine-learning algorithms with the ability to demonstrate links between eye movements and four of the big five personality traits.

If that's the case, then Cicero was spot on.

A joint project between the University of South Australia and the University of Stuttgart had an artificial intelligence track and monitor the eye movements of 42 human participants using a video-based eye-tracker from SensorMotoric Instruments. The researchers then cross-checked the findings with regular, well-established questionnaires.

Of the "big five" personality traits (openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness and neuroticism), the artificial intelligence was able to reliably identify four: neuroticism, extraversion, agreeableness and conscientiousness.

According to the study, this is the first time eye movements have been used to identify personality traits, which is interesting in itself -- but the end goal, according to Tobias Loetscher from the University of South Australia, is to improve human-machine interactions at some point in the future. [read more]

Interesting. Just what AI needs to determine who will/won’t be a good slave to them when they takeover. Of course, I am joking. Then again…

3 Stoic Lessons That Can Help Heal Our Toxic Political Culture

From FEE.org:

Emotional. Tribal. Irrational. These are just three adjectives which could be applied to the political discourse of the 21st century. Both in the United States and Europe, discussions have reverted from constructive criticism and mutual understanding to name-calling, de-platforming, and retreats into echo chambers. None of this is particularly useful for a pluralistic society.

Fortunately, it doesn’t have to be this way. Back in the days of Ancient Rome and Greece, the founding fathers of the stoic school of philosophy taught the importance of clear-mindedness and rationalism in the development both of the self and of society. Here a three of these lessons which now, more than ever, need to be relearned.

1. “The nearer a man comes to a calm mind, the closer he is to strength.”

One of the great stoic thinkers, Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius, argued that emotional reactions to opposition were signs of weakness; to become enraged is to become a slave to emotions, surrendering your logic as you do so. In this way, once one has allowed himself to become angry at his opponent, he has lost the battle.

Instead, one should take the time to face problems and antagonism logically, and with a clear mind.

…………….

2. “We have two ears and one mouth so that we can listen twice as much as we speak.”

Epictetus, another stoic philosopher from Ancient Greece, discussed the importance of learning as much as possible before putting your own ideas forward. Listening to more arguments than one puts forward allows for a far better understanding of the wider debate.

……………..

3. “If you judge, investigate.”

In today’s world of fake news, alternative facts, and clickbait headlines, it can be easy to form a strong opinion of someone or something before a full understanding has even been gained. Seneca the Younger teaches that all judgments and opinions we make must be fully understood before we can begin to feel secure in them.  [read more]

The Experts Have Been Wrong About Lots of Things. Here’s a Sampling

From The Daily Signal.com (July 25):

Former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers predicted that if Donald Trump were elected, there would be a protracted recession within 18 months.

Heeding its experts, a month before the election, the Washington Post ran an editorial with the headline “A President Trump could destroy the world economy.” Steve Rattner, a Democratic financier and former head of the National Economic Council, warned, “If the unlikely event happens and Trump wins, you will see a market crash of historic proportions.”

When Trump’s electoral victory became apparent, Nobel Prize-winning economist and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman warned that the world was “very probably looking at a global recession, with no end in sight.” By the way, Krugman has been so wrong in so many of his economic predictions, but that doesn’t stop him from making more shameless predictions.

People whom we’ve trusted as experts have often been wrong beyond imagination, and it’s nothing new. Irving Fisher, a distinguished Yale University economics professor in 1929, predicted, “Stock prices have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau.” Three days later, the stock market crashed.

In 1945, regarding money spent on the Manhattan Project, Adm. William Leahy told President Harry S. Truman, “That is the biggest fool thing we have ever done. The [atomic] bomb will never go off, and I speak as an expert in explosives.”

In 1903, the president of the Michigan Savings Bank, advising Henry Ford’s lawyer not to invest in Ford Motor Co., said, “The horse is here to stay, but the automobile is only a novelty—a fad.” Confidence in the staying power of the horse was displayed by a 1916 comment of the aide-de-camp to Field Marshal Douglas Haig at a tank demonstration: “The idea that cavalry will be replaced by these iron coaches is absurd. It is little short of treasonous.”

Albert Einstein predicted: “There is not the slightest indication that nuclear energy will ever be obtainable. It would mean that the atom would have to be shattered at will.” In 1899, Charles H. Duell, the U.S. commissioner of patents, said, “Everything that can be invented has been invented.” Listening to its experts in 1936, The New York Times predicted, “A rocket will never be able to leave the Earth’s atmosphere.” [read more]

Unless the so-called “experts” have a very good reason why a technology cannot be invented, it probably will be invented eventually. Just because mankind doesn’t have the know-how now doesn’t mean we won’t have it in the future. Knowledge always increases for better or for worse.

How to predict the side effects of millions of drug combinations

From Kurzweil AI.net (July 17):

Millions of people take up to five or more medications a day, but doctors have no idea what side effects might arise from adding another drug.*

Now, Stanford University computer scientists have developed a deep-learning system (a kind of AI modeled after the brain) called Decagon** that could help doctors make better decisions about which drugs to prescribe. It could also help researchers find better combinations of drugs to treat complex diseases.

The problem is that with so many drugs currently on the U.S. pharmaceutical market, “it’s practically impossible to test a new drug in combination with all other drugs, because just for one drug, that would be five thousand new experiments,” said Marinka Zitnik, a postdoctoral fellow in computer science and lead author of a paper presented July 10 at the 2018 meeting of the International Society for Computational Biology.

With some new drug combinations (“polypharmacy”), she said, “truly we don’t know what will happen.”

How proteins interact and how different drugs affect these proteins

So Zitnik and associates created a network describing how the more than 19,000 proteins in our bodies interact with each other and how different drugs affect these proteins. Using more than 4 million known associations between drugs and side effects, the team then designed a method to identify patterns in how side effects arise, based on how drugs target different proteins, and also to infer patterns about drug-interaction side effects.***

Based on that method, the system could predict the consequences of taking two drugs together. [read more]

Right now the computer scientists’ program only works for two drugs but they are trying to make it work for multiple drugs. A good start nonetheless.

Who Needs the WHO? Not the World’s Poor

From FEE.org (May 11):

The World Health Organization is a large and antiquated United Nations body that is expensive unnecessary and counterproductive to its own cause of "public health." It's time to take the appropriate measures and defund it.

The WHO and Ebola: an Illustration of Failure

As the Ebola crisis was ravaging a number of African countries in 2014, we put our trust into a number of international organizations to assist West African countries such as Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea or Nigeria to contain the spread of the virus and aid those who were unable to receive medical care. The World Health Organization (WHO), with its ambitious goal regarding public health, was one of them. According to itself, the "WHO aims to prevent Ebola outbreaks by maintaining surveillance for Ebola virus disease and supporting at-risk countries to developed preparedness plans."

Experts in the field, however, beg to differ. As Reuters reported in 2015, a specialist panel convened by Harvard’s Global Health Institute (HGHI) and the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) concluded that immense human suffering went "largely unchecked" by institutional responders.

It turned out that WHO officials were aware of the outbreak in spring, yet it took until August for the World Health Organization to declare it a public health emergency and take action. This is months after the broader public was already made aware of the problems with the epidemic.

The WHO, however, does have priorities—in the same year that WHO reports failed to mention the Ebola outbreak, the UN's agency reported on the promotion of tobacco products. Even more striking is that the WHO's concern wasn't only that of tobacco marketing in Western European of Northern American areas but in the precise areas affected by Ebola.

……………..

Over 2,500 people died from Ebola in Guinea, but rather than addressing the important health concerns of what could become a global epidemic, the WHO focused on cigarettes. Former WHO Director General Margaret Chan spoke at the sixth Conference of the Parties of the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC COP6) in Moscow in 2014 (during the Ebola outbreak) and declared fighting smoking as the biggest priority for the WHO.

This is in line with the general priorities of this organization. The WHO has shifted its focus from communicable diseases to non-communicable diseases (NCDs), caused by fatty foods, smoking, or drinking. Unimpressed by the large-scale consequences of nation-wide epidemics, the WHO prefers to play a nanny and regulates people's personal behavior. Is this what taxpayers expect to happen? [read more]

Sounds like the Left. The article goes on to say the travel expense for WHO is a whopping $200 million! Charities like Doctors Without Borders can do it cheaper and more effectively.

The IRS Has Rehired Hundreds of Fired Employees. Congress Should Step In.

From The Daily Signal.com (July 26):

For one of the most punitive agencies in the federal government, the IRS sure is forgiving with its own employees.

Rep. Kristi Noem, R-S.D., has proposed a bill that would prevent the IRS from rehiring employees fired for misconduct or poor performance.

The bill, titled the Ensuring Integrity in the IRS Workforce Act, follows a recent Treasury inspector general report that shows the IRS rehired more than 200 fired workers in a little over a year. A previous inspector general report proves this problem dates back to at least 2009.

……………

Often, these employees do not have to wait long to get their old offices back. Two IRS employees fired for poor performance were rehired within six months.

Faced with these findings, the IRS was unapologetic. In a response letter to the Inspector General’s Office, the IRS’ chief human capital officer wrote that the IRS “determined its current process is more than adequate to mitigate any risks to American taxpayers, federal agencies, and its employees.”

Given that the IRS refuses to change its hiring process, swift congressional action is necessary. And Noem’s bill has a good chance to pass. In fact, a previous version of this legislation passed the House, 345-78, a little more than two years ago. [read more]

Only in government agencies can this re-hiring happen. Here are some of the findings from the article:

• A fired worker with several misdemeanor theft convictions and one count of felony possession of a forgery device.
• 11 employees previously disciplined for unauthorized access to taxpayer accounts.
• 17 employees previously caught falsifying official documents.

I hope Congress passes Representative Noem’s bill.

Why the Supreme Court Should Be More Like the Last Super Bowl

Commentary from Walter E. Williams on The Daily Signal.com (July 18):

The Constitution represents our “rules of the game.” Supreme Court justices should be seen as umpires or referees, whose job is to enforce neutral rules.

I’ll give a somewhat trivial example of neutral rules from my youth. Let’s call it Mom’s Rule.

On occasion, my sister and I would have lunch in my mother’s absence. She’d ask either me or my younger sister to divide a last piece of cake or pie. More often than not, an argument would ensue about the fairness of the cut.

Those arguments ended when Mom came up with a rule: Whoever cuts the cake lets the other take the first piece. As if by magic or divine intervention, fairness emerged, and arguments ended. No matter who did the cutting, there was an even division.

That’s the kind of rule we need for our society—the kind whereby you’d be OK even if your worst enemy were in charge. By creating and enforcing neutral rules, we minimize conflict.

Consider one area of ruthless competition where that’s demonstrated—sports. The 52nd Super Bowl featured the Philadelphia Eagles and the New England Patriots. A lot was at stake. Each player on the winning team would earn $112,000; losers would get half that. Plus, each winner would get a Super Bowl ring that might cost as much as $40,000.

Despite a bitterly fought contest and all that was at stake, the game ended peaceably, and winners and losers were civil to one another. [read more]

Nice analogy. I like the way he thinks.

Marx’s Defenders Should Explain Why His Ideas Never Actually Work

From FEE.org:

If an Idea Is Good, It Will Survive Imperfect Implementation

That is all fair enough. But it is not, and should not be, a Get Out of Jail Free card. If your ideas require impossible standards of purity in implementation in order to work, then maybe your ideas are not as great as you think they are.

A good idea will still work out OK even in a distorted and poorly-implemented version. That, arguably, is a big part of what makes a good idea good. The question is not whether Karl Marx, had he come back to life a century later, would have been a huge fan of the Soviet Union, the German Democratic Republic, or the Hungarian People’s Republic.

He almost certainly would not have been. He may well have stayed in London, writing grumpy articles for the Guardian and the New Statesman about how politicians in those countries were disfiguring his ideas. So what? Political and economic theories are never implemented in pure form, and their adherents are rarely impressed by politicians who claim to be inspired by them. That’s just par for the course.

Marxists, however, are pretty much the only thinkers who accept no responsibility whatsoever for real-world approximations of their ideas. Third-Way advocates may have despaired over Blair, Hayekians can—and do—rant all day about Thatcher’s shortcomings, and ordoliberals* have written scathing condemnations of Konrad Adenauer. But ask them whether they think those respective governments did more good than harm on balance; ask them whether they think those governments were preferable to the next likely alternatives—and you will get an unambiguous and unqualified “Yes!” as an answer.

In contrast, hardly any contemporary Marxist would accept that whatever "real" socialism is, surely, East Germany was at least closer to it than West Germany, North Korea is at least closer to it than South Korea, Venezuela is at least closer to it than Peru, Maoist China was at least closer to it than Taiwan, etc.

And why would they? It works for them. Every other idea is judged by its necessarily crude, incomplete and imperfect real-world approximations, warts and all. Only Marxism has the luxury of being judged purely as a set of ideas, which something as mundane as real-world experience could never blemish. [read more]

The reason why Marxists can’t explain why Marx’s ideas never work is because most of them have never read his works. They think he was “cool.” If Marxists like earning interest on their back accounts or investing in the stock market these would be banned according to Marx and they were banned under Communism. Why? Because according to Marx these products do not have value. Only products a person makes by hand is valued. It’s called the labor theory of value. Marx actually called it the law of value.

Socialists can never really explain why Socialism doesn’t work either for the same reason—they don’t know really what socialism is. It just sounds “cool.”

Another article on Marxism: “Karl Marx and Marxism at Two Hundred.”

*Ordoliberism- an economic school of thought which tried to combine free-market economics with an active competition policy.

Nanomaterials that mimic nerve impulses (spikes) discovered

From Kurzweil AI.net (July 13):

A combination of nanomaterials that can mimic nerve impulses (“spikes”) in the brain have been discovered by researchers at Kyushu Institute of Technology and Osaka University in Japan.

Current “neuromorphic” (brain-like) chips (such as IBM’s neurosynaptic TrueNorth) and circuits (such as those based on the NVIDIA GPGPU, or general purpose graphical processing unit) are devices based on complex circuits that emulate only one part of the brain’s mechanisms: the learning ability of synapses (which connect neurons together).

The researchers have now developed a way to simulate a large-scale spiking neural network. They created a complex SWNT/POM molecular neuromorphic device consisting of a dense and complex network of spiking molecules. The new nanomaterial comprises polyoxometalate (POM) molecules that are absorbed by single-wall carbon nanotubes (SWNTs).

Unlike ordinary organic molecules, POM consists of metal atoms and oxygen atoms that form a three-dimensional framework that can store charges in a single molecule. The new nanomaterial emits spikes and can transmit them via synapses to and from other neurons.

The researchers also demonstrated that this molecular model could be used as a component of reservoir computing devices, which are anticipated as next-generation neural network devices.

Source:  “Nanomaterials that mimic nerve impulses (spikes) discovered.”

Russian hackers targeted conservative think tanks prior to midterms

From Fox News.com (Aug. 21):

Microsoft on Monday said it seized websites created by Russian hackers to imitate conservative American think tanks, but instead redirected visitors to websites where their passwords could be stolen.

The New York Times reported that some of the sites that were targeted were the Hudson Institute and the International Republican Institute, think tanks that have disagreed with President Trump on ending Russian sanctions.

Three other fake domains were designed to look as if they belonged to the U.S. Senate.

“To be clear, we currently have no evidence these domains were used in any successful attacks before the DCU [Digital Crime Unit] transferred control of them, nor do we have evidence to indicate the identity of the ultimate targets of any planned attack involving these domains,” Microsoft said on the blog. [read more]

I thought the Russians were in collusion with President Trump? I mean it’s the conservatives that are more likely to be in favor of Trump’s agenda than the Left. Hmmm. Doesn’t sound like the Russians are treating their partners in crime very well.

Income Equality Is No Measure of Human Progress

From FEE.org:

Following the Great Recession of 2008, income inequality became a focal concern of those who feel that market economy has let them down. In 2011, “We are the 99 percent” became a unifying slogan of the Occupy Wall Street movement. In 2013, the U.S. President Barack Obama described income inequality as the “defining challenge of our time.”

A year later, Pope Francis called for a “legitimate redistribution of economic benefits by the state*,” while leftwing economist Thomas Piketty tried to supply the movement for greater income equality with intellectual ammunition in his book, Capital in the Twenty-First Century. The elevation of Donald Trump to the U.S. presidency impeded the movement’s momentum, but concern over income inequality did not disappear. Just this week, for example, The New York Times ran an article entitled "Happy Birthday, Karl Marx. You Were Right!"

According to Jason Barker, an associate professor of philosophy at Kyung Hee University in South Korea and author of the novel Marx Returns, “educated liberal opinion is today more or less unanimous in its agreement that Marx’s basic thesis—that capitalism is driven by a deeply divisive class struggle in which the ruling-class minority appropriates the surplus labor of the working-class majority as profit—is correct.”

No, Agreement with Marx Is Not Unanimous

To start with, it is crucial not to confuse income inequality and poverty. Standards of living are increasing, albeit unequally, in most of the world. Developing countries, in particular, have benefited handsomely from declining barriers to trade and movement of capital. That’s why inequality between countries is actually shrinking. As for inequality within countries, enrichment at the top has not caused mass impoverishment.

The market economy is not a zero-sum game, where someone’s gain must come at someone else’s expense. “The rich get richer and the poor get poorer” is a synopsis of the socialist critique of the market system, implying the perceived inevitability of what Marx called the Law of Increasing Poverty. It is also a myth unsupported by empirical evidence.

The Evidence Is Not There

Another set of arguments proffered by those who are worried about income inequality revolves around a variety of psychological theories, which claim that a person’s happiness depends on his or her relative position vis-à-vis other members of the community. This critique of income inequality includes concerns over “social comparisons,” “reference groups,” “status anxiety,” and
“relative deprivation.”

Again, evidence in support of the critics’ arguments is scarce. “Contrary to an earlier belief that people are so mindful of their richer compatriots that they keep resetting their internal happiness meter to the baseline no matter how well they are doing,” Pinker writes, “richer people and people in richer countries are (on average) happier than poorer people and people in poorer countries.”  [read more]

*Pope Francis should know better. Socialism is not only anti-capitalistic but also anti-Christian. Then again the Left has corrupted Christianity like it has corrupted many other institutions.

This Magnetic Wire Could One Day Pull Cancer Cells from Your Blood

From Live Science.com (July 17):

Scientists think that magnets could be utilized in the body to detect tumor cells that other diagnostic techniques might miss.

Researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine created a magnetic wire that could, in theory, be inserted into a person's vein, where it could snatch up tumor cells that had been magnetized by special nanoparticles.

The device hasn't yet been tested in people, but the researchers found that, in pigs, the magnetic wire detected 10 to 80 times more floating tumor cells in the blood than a typical blood draw could. The results were published July 16 in the journal Nature Biomedical Engineering.

The tumor cells that the magnetic wire picks up are known as circulating tumor cells. These are cells that split off from tumors and float through the bloodstream. By drawing blood and looking for tumor cells, doctors may be able to screen for cancer. (This type of cancer screening is called a liquid biopsy.) [read more]

That’s good news. Hope it works in people too.

How the woman who identified Hitler's dental remains ended up in prison

From Fox News.com:

Berlin’s ruins still smoldered as three Soviet military intelligence officers questioned a tall, lithe blonde in 1945. A Red Army lieutenant, the group’s translator, opened the burgundy satin cover of a cheap jewelry box and showed her its contents.

Nestled inside were charred human teeth, gold dental crowns and a complete lower jaw.

“I took the dental bridge in my hand,” Käthe Heusermann wrote decades later. “I looked for an unmistakable sign. I found it immediately, took a deep breath and blurted out, ‘These are the teeth of Adolf Hitler.’ I was showered with expressions of gratitude.”

Within weeks, Heusermann was in solitary confinement in a notorious Moscow prison — her reward for telling Josef Stalin an irksome truth.

When Berlin fell on May 2, 1945, front-line Allied troops were desperate to find Hitler. Years of fighting Nazis convinced them that nothing less than Hitler’s death would vanquish the Third Reich. [read more]

What a bastard Stalin was! Not only hiding the truth made the FBI believe Hitler could be still alive but made the team on History Channel's Hunting Hitler show waste their time investigating Hitler’s death. The show was interesting to watch though. I wonder if the Hunting Hitler team knows the news. Of course, putting the woman in prison who gave Stalin the truth was a travesty too. Then again that’s what dictators do.

Responsibility Is the Antidote to the Poverty Mindset

Commentary from Barry Brownstein on FEE.org:

Recently a psychologist friend was singing a familiar refrain: "My clients want their problematical circumstances alleviated, but few want to change how they see the world.”

Most intransigent among his clients are those with government benefits and mandated weekly therapy. Some have been coming to him for years. Their mindsets are characterized by hopelessness, but they have shelter and food and seem to be averse to change.

Going to therapy is a big event in their week. Qualifying for benefits is important to them. An oft-repeated question is, "Can you get me eligible for more benefits?" They were unlikely to take steps to hold a steady job, since doing so is at odds with keeping their benefits. 

My friend’s caring for his clients and concern over the waste of human lives is palpable. “People aren’t meant to do nothing,” he laments.

With a defensive tone, he adds, “and the poverty mindset I see has absolutely nothing to do with race.”

A Poverty Mindset Is a Choice

Dr. Anthony Daniels corroborates the observations of my psychologist friend. In his many books and essays, Daniels, writing as Theodore Dalrymple, describes the mindset of the underclass in England.

Dalrymple is no armchair theorist. He is a retired English physician who spent his career working in the inner-cities and prisons of England and also in sub-Saharan Africa. His hard-hitting observations of the poverty mindset are not without respect for the humanity of those he sought to help.

Having truly known the plight of the poor, he reflects upon what he learned about poverty mindsets. Dalrymple describes English poverty:

I never saw the loss of dignity, the self-centeredness, the spiritual and emotional vacuity, or the sheer ignorance of how to live, that I see daily in England... the worst poverty is in England—and it is not material poverty but poverty of soul.

This poverty of the soul is by choice. Dalrymple observes, of the English underclass, in his book, Life At The Bottom, “It could scarcely occur to you that they are other than fully conscious agents, in essence no different from yourself.”

Capable of making choices, those mired in poverty choose self-destructive patterns. “Day after day I hear of the same violence, the same neglect and abuse of children, the same broken relationships, the same victimization by crime, the same nihilism, the same dumb despair,” he recounts. Dalrymple then seeks to understand, “If everyone is a unique individual, how do patterns such as this emerge?”

Dalrymple rejects “Economic determinism, of the vicious cycle-of-poverty variety” as an explanation for ruinous choices made over and over again. Escape from poverty is possible. He writes, “Untold millions of people who were very much poorer have emerged from poverty within living memory in South Korea, for example. If being poor really entailed a vicious cycle, man would still be living in the caves.”

…………………..

The Self-Deception of the Underclass Is Aided by Intellectuals

Dalrymple points out that there are advantages to the underclass to pretend that they are innocent victims:

When a man tells me, in explanation of his anti-social behaviour, that he is easily led, I ask him whether he was ever easily led to study mathematics or the subjunctives of French verbs. Invariably the man begins to laugh: the absurdity of what he has said is immediately apparent to him. Indeed, he will acknowledge that he knew how absurd it was all along, but that certain advantages, both psychological and social, accrued by keeping up the pretense.

Pretending to not have the power of choice is not natural and has to be taught.

Dalrymple writes:

The idea that one is not an agent but the helpless victim of circumstances, or of large occult sociological or economic forces, does not come naturally…. On the contrary, only in extreme circumstances is helplessness directly experienced in the way the blueness of the sky is experienced. Agency, by contrast, is the common experience of us all.

Dalrymple heaps scorn on academics and intellectuals who theorize that the underclass doesn’t have agency. He writes, “In fact most of the social pathology exhibited by the underclass has its origin in ideas that have filtered down from the intelligentsia.” One example is the use of “the term ‘addiction,’… to cover any undesirable but nonetheless gratifying behavior.”

These academic ideas have pernicious consequences:

Not long after academic criminologists propounded the theory that recidivists were addicted to crime… a car thief…asked me for treatment of his addiction to stealing cars—failing receipt of which, of course, he felt morally justified in continuing to relieve car owners of their property.

Dalrymple’s deep dive into the poverty mindset encourages us to challenge those who would assure us that poverty has everything to do with capitalism and racism. Dalrymple would tell us those theories are wrong and to rely on them will not alleviate poverty. What is essential is for the poor to experience a mindset shift towards taking more responsibility for their lives. Is it not time to approach the poverty problem believing that the poor are able to make this essential change? [read more]

Even though the author doesn’t say so, but the “intellectuals” are mainly on the Left. Whatever the Left touches they inevitably destroy. If people are responsible for their income (ie saving their money and being mindful of their spending) then they are less likely to need the gov’t which makes the Left nervous (takes power away from them).

Does Trump embody the 10 essential traits of an alpha male?

From The Blaze.com (July 11):

Kriz Cruz and Doc Thompson layout 10 essential traits of alpha males and wonder: are these Trump? Justin Trudeau certainly didn’t come to mind for Doc or Kris…

Here are the ten essential traits of an alpha male discussed by Doc and Kris:

1. They lead.
2. They’re confident.
3. They can handle themselves during a conflict.
4. They’re masculine.
5. They have a certain amount of style and charisma.
6. They’re strong.
7. They’re risk takers.
8. They’re independent.
9. They’re competent.
10. They’re dominant.

See Doc and Kris break it down above and read the full list here.

Source: Does Trump embody the 10 essential traits of an alpha male?

I would say yes. And so do I. All kidding aside, I think so does President Ronald Reagan have these traits.

How Congress Can Reduce Obamacare Premiums

From Doug Badger & Edmund Haislmaier on The Daily Signal.com (July 5):

In 2019, Obamacare premiums are poised to become even more expensive. New York, Washington state, and Maryland are requesting to raise their rates for the individual market by an average of 24 percent, 19 percent, and 30 percent respectively. Nationwide, the Congressional Budget Office predicts premiums will increase an average of 15 percent for the Obamacare benchmark plan.

But it doesn’t have to be this way.

Earlier this year, we co-authored a study examining how Obamacare regulations raised premiums.  We reviewed dozens of prospective and retrospective actuarial analyses of Obamacare’s premium effects on both the state and national levels.

We found that premium increases for Obamacare policies were attributable to a maze of new federal insurance mandates, combined with a flawed subsidy design. That unhappy concoction produced disproportionately older and less healthy insurance pools, requiring insurers to price policies beyond the reach of many families and small businesses.

…………………….

Last month, a group of conservative policy experts, including us, and grassroots organizations unveiled a proposal that would exempt states from many of the federal requirements that our study found had led to higher premiums.  The Health Care Choices proposal would replace Obamacare premium subsidy entitlements and Medicaid expansion with a new program of grants to states.  The proposal would reduce premiums and enhance health care choices by allowing states to:

1. Eliminate the single risk pool requirement.
2. Use a portion of their federal allotments to establish risk-mitigation programs.
3. Escape the federal “essential health benefits” mandate.
4. Allow insurers to sell more affordable policies.
5. Allow insurers to charge young adults fair premiums.

[read more]

Character, Not Control, Is the Antidote to Evil

From FEE.org:

Humans are dangerous creatures capable of great evil. This inescapable truth bombards us every time we turn on the news. The weight of this knowledge bears down on every human soul, and with every tragedy, we are starkly reminded of it. We cry out for someone to save us from our inherent capacity for evil. Or perhaps we say to ourselves, “I could never do that.”

But you’re wrong, you could do that.

Humans can kill. We can harm, we can steal, we can commit grave atrocities. Why? Because we are free.

Being free means that your choices are your own. There is no government agency capable of monitoring our every action, our every violent thought, our every evil instinct. No government organization can prevent every act of violence because every act of violence is an expression of human power. There is no bureaucracy that is more powerful than the actions of individual humans who are free to choose to be evil.

With every tragedy—every school shooting, every act of terrorism, every high profile murder—we as a species ask why this is happening. How could any human choose to do harm? Yet perhaps the question isn’t why it happened. Perhaps the question is why more of us don’t commit atrocities.

We Cannot Be Good if We Cannot Do Wrong

Psychologist Dr. Jordan B. Peterson says that we can have no insight whatsoever into our capacity for good until we understand our capacity for evil. I think he’s right. Until we acknowledge that humans can be evil, we cannot choose to be good. If we did not possess the ability to do great harm, there would be nothing commendable about not doing so. If we could not sin, there would be no virtue in not sinning because it would not be a choice. We can only choose not to do things that are within our power to do. Otherwise, it’s a default, not a choice.

If people are free to determine the courses of our own lives, free to make our own choices, that inherently means that we are free to choose to do terrible things. The dark side of being free to be good people is that we are also free to be bad people. That scares a lot of people, both personally and societally. The darkness within our species is only a fraction as terrifying as the darkness within ourselves. Nothing is more terrifying than when we feel the darkness rising within our own hearts and we face the choice: do I give into evil, or do I rise to good?

It’s frightening, but it’s necessary for us as individuals of strong character to face our capacity for evil. Otherwise, we could not choose goodness. And if we can’t choose goodness, we float powerlessly in a vacuum of moral impotence, unable to hone the swords of our character on the whetstone of difficult choices. We have to be able to choose goodness to be good. Because you could do that, but you don’t. You have chosen not to.

………………..

Oppression and Character

There are only two ways we can prevent violence: oppression and character. We can empower the government to oppress us beyond the means of choosing violence, or we as individuals can choose to be nonviolent. Many cry out for the former, but should we choose that path, we are robbing ourselves and others of the ability to be good people. If we cannot choose evil, we cannot choose good. If good is a default derived from powerlessness, there’s nothing truly good about it.

So that leaves the other option: character. Character is something that starts in the heart of an individual. It is the state of facing one’s infinite options for action and choosing only those actions which do not deprive others of their lives, property, or dignity. Character is, above all, choosing to be vessels of benevolence rather than servants of evil. [read more]

Why Capitalism Is Morally Superior to Socialism

From Walter E. Williams on The Daily Signal.com (May 30):

Several recent polls, plus the popularity of Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., demonstrate that young people prefer socialism to free market capitalism.

That, I believe, is a result of their ignorance and indoctrination during their school years, from kindergarten through college. For the most part, neither they nor many of their teachers and professors know what free market capitalism is.

Free market capitalism, wherein there is peaceful voluntary exchange, is morally superior to any other economic system. Why? Let’s start with my initial premise.

All of us own ourselves. I am my private property, and you are yours. Murder, rape, theft, and the initiation of violence are immoral because they violate self-ownership. Similarly, the forcible use of one person to serve the purposes of another person, for any reason, is immoral because it violates self-ownership.

Tragically, two-thirds to three-quarters of the federal budget can be described as Congress taking the rightful earnings of one American to give to another American—using one American to serve another. Such acts include farm subsidies, business bailouts, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps, welfare, and many other programs.

Free market capitalism is disfavored by many Americans—and threatened—not because of its failure but, ironically, because of its success. Free market capitalism in America has been so successful in eliminating the traditional problems of mankind—such as disease, pestilence, hunger, and gross poverty—that all other human problems appear both unbearable and inexcusable.

………………

A much larger and totally ignored question has to do with the brutality of socialism. In the 20th century, the one-party socialist states of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, Germany under the National Socialist German Workers’ Party, and the People’s Republic of China were responsible for the murder of 118 million citizens, mostly their own.

The tallies were: USSR, 62 million; Nazi Germany, 21 million; and People’s Republic of China, 35 million. No such record of brutality can be found in countries that tend toward free market capitalism. [read more]

Can Scientific Discovery Be Automated?

Commentary from Ahmed Alkhateeb on Next Gov.com (Apr. 25, 2017):

Science is in the midst of a data crisis. Last year, there were more than 1.2 million new papers published in the biomedical sciences alone, bringing the total number of peer-reviewed biomedical papers to over 26 million. However, the average scientist reads only about 250 papers a year. Meanwhile, the quality of the scientific literature has been in decline. Some recent studies found that the majority of biomedical papers were irreproducible.

The twin challenges of too much quantity and too little quality are rooted in the finite neurological capacity of the human mind. Scientists are deriving hypotheses from a smaller and smaller fraction of our collective knowledge and consequently, more and more, asking the wrong questions, or asking ones that have already been answered. Also, human creativity seems to depend increasingly on the stochasticity of previous experiences—particular life events that allow a researcher to notice something others do not. Although chance has always been a factor in scientific discovery, it is currently playing a much larger role than it should.

One promising strategy to overcome the current crisis is to integrate machines and artificial intelligence in the scientific process. Machines have greater memory and higher computational capacity than the human brain. Automation of the scientific process could greatly increase the rate of discovery. It could even begin another scientific revolution. That huge possibility hinges on an equally huge question: Can scientific discovery really be automated?

I believe it can, using an approach that we have known about for centuries. The answer to this question can be found in the work of Sir Francis Bacon, the 17th-century English philosopher and a key progenitor of modern science.

………………………

Bacon’s insights also revealed an important hidden truth: the discovery process is inherently algorithmic. It is the outcome of a finite number of steps that are repeated until a meaningful result is uncovered. Bacon explicitly used the word “machine” in describing his method. His scientific algorithm has three essential components: First, observations have to be collected and integrated into the total corpus of knowledge. Second, the new observations are used to generate new hypotheses. Third, the hypotheses are tested through carefully designed experiments.  [read more]

In 1981, programmers Patrick Langler and Gary Bradshaw wrote an AI program called Bacon that made scientific discoveries using experimental data. So, yes it maybe possible to automate scientific discovery.

What Happens When an MBA Student Raised in Communist China Reads Hayek

Commentary from Barry Brownstein on FEE.org (April 19):

Imagine being born during the bloody Cultural Revolution in China and growing up in a country with little economic or personal freedom. Few Chinese citizens had the knowledge that human rights are not granted by government, and those few who knew could not say. Few knew that government is not the source of economic progress; and again, those who knew could not fully share their understanding.

Now imagine you’re thirty-something years old, traveling to the United States to begin your MBA studies. In the spring of 1999, I taught an MBA economics class to a cohort of 30 such Chinese students.

The class was split between students from Beijing and Shanghai. Students from Shanghai—having more experience with the beneficial impact of liberalizing markets—were much more willing to embrace the ideas of classical liberalism.

Beijing students were more likely to believe in a larger role for government. This split between the Beijing and Shanghai students was most evident in a class discussion after the class read Hayek’s The Use of Knowledge in Society; the reading led to a discussion of central planning.

A student from Beijing was emphatic, “This theory is not applicable to China—China is a relatively poor country, and in a poor country the government needs to plan.”

An exasperated Shanghai student responded, “You miss the point, central planning is precisely why China is comparatively poor.”*

Hayek’s ideas were so provocative that soon the entire class had joined in; the two factions began shouting at each other in Mandarin. Someone, concerned about the din, called campus security. The students lowered their voices, but Hayek’s ideas had left their mark. I feel certain those students carry an indelible memory of that class. [read more]

*Bingo! The Shanghai student is right. Not only is he right about China but same could be said about N. Korea, Cuba, Venezuela and the old Soviet Union. Now Mexico is included in this group since they now have a socialistic president. Keep in mind Marx called communism scientific socialism. In China’s constitution they say they are a socialistic country.

Massive Diamond Cache Detected Beneath Earth's Surface

From News Max.com (July 20):

There's a load of bling buried in the Earth.

More than a quadrillion tons of diamonds to be exact -- or one thousand times more than one trillion -- US researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology reported this week.

But don't expect a diamond rush. These naturally occurring precious minerals are located far deeper than any drilling expedition has ever reached, about 90 to 150 miles (145 to 240 kilometers) below the surface of our planet.

"We can't get at them, but still, there is much more diamond there than we have ever thought before," said Ulrich Faul, a research scientist in MIT's Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences. [read more]

Nice. But if geologists or diamond hunters ever venture down to find the diamonds they might want to be aware of prehistoric animals. Oh, wait. That’s from the movie Journey to the Center of the Earth (2008). Based on Jules Verne’s 1864 novel of the same name. Sorry, about that. I’ve never read the novel but seen the movie. Based on the summary of the novel, the movie had diamonds in it but the novel didn’t.

The Pentagon is working on a secret project to let soldiers control weapons with their minds

From Fox News.com (July 18):

The Pentagon's research unit is working on a project that one day would let people control machines with their minds.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is beginning the process of selecting teams of people for a project that would allow for the development of a neural interface in conjunction with its Next-Generation Non-Surgical Neurotechnology (N3) program. The hope is that it would let troops send and receive information using only their brain waves.

"DARPA seeks proposals to design, build, demonstrate, and validate a nonsurgical neural interface system to broaden the applicability of neural interfaces to the able-bodied warfighter," a synopsis of the proposal reads. "The final technology aims to enable neural recording and stimulation with sub-millimeter spatial resolution."

A paper on the proposal, with funding details, eligibility requirements and the application review process was written on March 23, 2018.

News of the proposal was first reported by Nextgov.

Though the technology will not be present on battlefields tomorrow, the Pentagon hopes that one day soldiers could control technology such as drones, cyber defense systems via brain waves. [read more]

Nice. The technology will help in preventing battle field deaths.

Why Envy Is the Bitter Enemy of Success

From FEE.org:

Envy is evil.

Not just for its corrosive effects on society, but for what it can do to undermine your own success. Envy makes you bitter and joyless. Worse, it blinds you to your own potential and the opportunity around you.

If the success of those around you makes you less happy, you’re in a death spiral. Conversely, one of the great secrets to personal growth and achievement is the realization that the success of your friends is your success. Not metaphorically, and not just ’cause it gives you feels. In a very literal sense.

You can think of it as a formula:

YC = YS*FS

Your ceiling (YC) equals your success (YS) times your friends' success (FS). Let me give a simple example to illustrate. If you succeed at coming up with a brilliant idea for a business (YS goes up with the idea) and you have friends who have succeeded financially (FS is high), they can invest in your idea or connect you to those who can, which multiplies the total yield from your effort.

Given the above formula, there are several ways to raise your ceiling. One is to increase your success directly (grow YS). Another is to increase the number of people you consider friends (grow F). Another is to increase the amount of success your friends have (grow S).  [read more]

Six Personality Traits That All Successful Entrepreneurs Share

By Euwyn Poon on Forbes.com (May 10):

Here’s what I’ve noticed while collaborating with entrepreneurs at Y Combinator and working on several startups:

1. Curiosity

Technology develops at different rates and in different ways around the world. Curiosity about those differences is an important attribute for any entrepreneur.

………………..

2. A Sense of Impatience

Entrepreneurs need impatience in order to recognize inefficiencies and capitalize on them.

People often think of impatience as an unsavory personality trait. But it can actually be very beneficial for an entrepreneur who’s trying to create a product that solves an inefficient situation.

…………………..

3. Sociability

It’s important for any entrepreneur to have a good network of like-minded people to engage with and use for support. It helps tremendously to have people around you who are constantly looking for and solving problems.

…………………….

4. Attention To Basic Human Needs

The basic necessities of a happy life should always be on an entrepreneurs mind. Food, shelter, companionship, entertainment, simplicity—these are all things that people either need or have a strong desire to obtain.

And entrepreneurs have to learn to be perceptive about the problems and inefficiencies around them that relate to human needs.  [read more]

The other two traits are reasoning and flexibility. The lame-stream press used to have curiosity. Not anymore. That’s what happens when you are agenda-driven not truth-driven.

MATT WALSH: How To Kill A Church In Just A Few Easy Steps

From The Daily Wire.com (May 4):

The Episcopal Church announced this week that it would be removing the words "man," "woman," and "procreation" from its marriage liturgy. Of course, the Episcopalians have long since removed Christ from their liturgy, so this latest move is no surprise.

I refer to them as the Episcopal Church only loosely. They are a church in the same way that the Church of Satan is a church. They are an anti-church. Rather than a body of Christian believers, they are a body of self-worshiping heretics. And a very small body at that.

…………………

If a person wants worldliness, they can go literally anywhere to get it. If they want lectures on diversity and inclusion, they can stop by the Human Resources office at work, or maybe have a chat with a public school guidance counselor. If they want encouragement to continue in their sin, Satan is happy to use a whole variety of methods to communicate that encouragement. And most of those methods will be far more entertaining and enjoyable than anything the crusty old Episcopal Church can provide.

But if a person wants to pursue something higher; if he wants to be rescued from the dreariness of modern culture; if he wants to find his real and transcendent identity; if he wants to be challenged; if he wants meaning, then he has even less reason to turn to Episcopalianism or any similar variety of Christianity. It is not substantial enough. It is not different enough. It is not saying enough. It is not asking enough of him.

That is the great secret that "progressive" and "inclusive" Christian leaders are too high on the fumes of humanism to notice or understand. Religions grow when they expect more of their adherents, not less. Religions thrive when they provide a lifestyle that is radically different from the dull, hollow lifestyle provided by the world. People turn to religion for identity. And if all they find is more of the same, more of what caused them to go looking in the first place, they will not be converted. If a church wants to grow (and, more importantly, if it wants to save souls), it must have the boldness to completely and entirely reject the teachings of the world and preach instead the teachings of Christ. [read more]

Along the same lines, the Episcopal Church considers making God gender neutral. I am pretty sure when Jesus talked about his Father he wasn’t talking about Joseph. He was referring to God. A male as fathers usually are.

Not sure who the Church is praying to but it might not be God.

How Imperial Socialism Shattered the Roman Empire and Led to Feudalism

From FEE.org:

In years of peace, Diocletian, with his aides, faced the problems of economic decay. To overcome depression and prevent revolution, he substituted a managed economy for the law of supply and demand. He established a sound currency by guaranteeing to the gold coinage a fixed weight and purity which it retained in the Eastern Empire till 1453. He distributed food to the poor at half the market price or free, and undertook extensive public works to appease the unemployed. To ensure the supply of necessaries for the cities and the armies, he brought many branches of industry under complete state control, beginning with the import of grain; he persuaded the shipowners, merchants, and crews engaged in this trade to accept such control in return for governmental guarantee of security in employment and returns.

The state had long since owned most quarries, salt deposits, and mines; now it forbade the export of salt, iron, gold, wine, grain, or oil from Italy, and strictly regulated the importation of these articles. It went on to control establishments producing for the army, the bureaucracy, or the court. In munition factories, textile mills, and bakeries the government required a minimum product, bought this at its own price, and made the associations of manufacturers responsible for carrying out orders and specifications. If this procedure proved inadequate, it completely nationalized these factories and manned them with labor bound to the job.

Gradually, under Aurelian and Diocletian, the majority of industrial establishments and guilds in Italy were brought under the control of the corporate state. Butchers, bakers, masons, builders, glass-blowers, ironworkers, engravers, were ruled by detailed governmental regulations. The “various corporations,” says Rostovtzeff, “were more like minor supervisors of their own concerns on behalf of the state than their owners; they were themselves in bondage to the officials of the various departments, and to the commanders of the various military units.” The associations of tradesmen and artisans received various privileges from the government and often exerted pressure upon its policies; in return, they served as organs of national administration, helped to regiment labor, and collected taxes for the state from their membership.

……………………

Such a system could not work without price control. In 301, Diocletian and his colleagues issued an Edictum de pretiis, dictating maximum legal prices or wages for all important articles or services in the Empire.

…………………

The Edict was, until our time, the most famous example of an attempt to replace economic laws by governmental decrees. Its failure was rapid and complete. Tradesmen concealed their commodities, scarcities became more acute than before, Diocletian himself was accused of conniving at a rise in prices, riots occurred, and the Edict had to be relaxed to restore production and distribution. It was finally revoked by Constantine. [read more]

Another article on socialism: “Socialism is Not Built on Compassion. It's Built on Dehumanizing Others”

Here’s an excerpt from the article above:

Like the Japanese, North Koreans have no Jews, but the North Koreans have made a “devil” out Americans—and much of their own population.

North Korean defector Hyeonseo Lee grew up thinking her country “was the greatest nation on earth.” In her book, The Girl With Seven Names, Lee explains how she was taught that “South Korean children were dressed in rags” and “scavenged for food on garbage heaps and suffered the sadistic cruelty of American soldiers, who used them for target practice, ran them over in jeeps, or made them polish boots.” Lee’s teacher showed “cartoon drawings of children begging barefoot in winter.”

………………

“Sitting on a newspaper with a Kim’s face” is a “crime” that can send three generations to North Korean concentration camps.

Beyond Self-Driving Cars: 12 Upcoming Innovations In Transportation And Travel

From Forbes.com (June 21):

For decades, the self-driving car was an unrealized technological dream. Though much research has been conducted and many prototypes have been developed over the years, it wasn't until very recently that truly functional autonomous consumer vehicles moved into the realm of possibility.

Though there's still a long way before the wider general public starts using self-driving cars, that hasn't stopped tech companies from beginning to develop the next innovations in transportation. Here are 12 candidates for the "next big thing" in travel, according to Forbes Technology Council.

1. Flying Drone Cars

Companies have been working on a flying drone car that will look like a mini helicopter. It looks like the first ones may be one- or two-seaters, but it will definitely change the way we travel. - Thomas Griffin, OptinMonster

2. Financial Services For Transportation

While there are some interesting technical innovations in transportation, the biggest changes I think will be around innovations in financial services that change the way we buy, rent and borrow transportation services. Recent innovations such as car sharing from BMW and the like will have a faster, more direct impact. - Sultan Meghji, Virtova

3. Air Travel Improvements

Ground transportation has always been in second place to air travel. The airline business has stagnated since the 1960s and this vertical is ripe for change. Transportation of people in a quick and more humane way over long distances is the goal. Everything from manufacturing to actual flight is due for an overhaul. Technology will need to leapfrog the industry and its bureaucracy to win. - Tom Roberto, Core Technology Solutions  [read more]

Could Marijuana Use Make Injuries More Painful?

From Live Science.com (June 19):

Marijuana use may affect how much pain people feel and the dose of painkillers they need following a traumatic injury, such as an injury from a car accident, a new study suggests.

The study found that, after experiencing a traumatic injury, marijuana users reported higher levels of pain, and needed higher doses of opioid painkillers, compared with patients who didn't use marijuana.

The researchers stressed that the findings are preliminary, and more studies are needed to confirm the results. But if the results are confirmed, the study could have implications for treating pain in marijuana users — a population that may be growing due to increased legalization of the drug, the researchers said. [read more]

Here Are 5 New Signs Social Security Is Going Insolvent

From Daily Signal.com (June 6):

The Social Security Administration released its annual trustees report this week, and the prognosis is not good.

Trust fund depletion—the date when Social Security’s reserves will be exhausted and the program will only be able to spend what it receives in payroll taxes at that time—is approaching at a rapid pace. This year, Social Security will dip into its reserves for the first time since 1982.

Simply put, the trust fund is being drained.

The Social Security trustees report is a key pulse check on the single largest federal government program—the Old-Age and Survivors Insurance program—and its sibling, the Disability Insurance Program.

Americans should be made aware of the true state of Social Security so they can better understand why reforming the program is not only necessary, but absolutely essential.

Here are five takeaways from the most recent financial report:

1. $41 billion cash-flow deficit in 2017.
2. $16.1 trillion in unfunded obligations.
3. Insolvent by 2034.
4. Automatic 21 percent cut in benefits.
5. Delaying reform comes with a high cost.

[read more]

FEE.org articles on social security.