Personality Traits - My thoughts on Extroversion

Among the Big 5 personality traits, the one that appears to get the most inadvertent attention would be Extroversion.  The reason is because people who are high on this trait exhibit many desirable behaviors.  They are fun, action-oriented, assertive, cheerful, talkative and engaging.  Who wouldn't want to be around them?

Extroverted people are typically very good group leaders and managers.  Because of this trait, they have a knack for creating good rapport and morale within their teams.  They'll lead their teams in a way that will win the hearts of the people because of they can represent everyone's best interest, or at least appear to.  To everyone around them, people high in extroversion will appear as very optimistic about everything.  A trait that goes with extroverted people is that they enjoy being the center of attention.  We might ask, is it because the need for attention that they appear so warm and friendly?  Or is that they really are so fun and cheerful, that the attention they gain is a huge plus that they also enjoy?  In thinking deeper and unpacking these questions leads to 2 two results generally.

If the positive behaviors are driven by the need for attention, then it is reasonable that while on the surface they appear cheerful, inside, they are unhappy because the facade is insincere.  On the other hand, if the behavior is sincere and the attention is a positive by-product, than it is reasonable that they would be experiencing true happiness.  Why is that you might ask.
  
When we set a goal and try to achieve it, we try to carve out a path to that goal.  However, because the goal is the focus, typically the path isn't thoroughly thought out.  If someone is seeking attention, they will employ any method they have at their disposal, even if they don't enjoy it.  We see this behavior in children.  A young child when seeking attention will try to do it nicely first, but then they'll do something they don't really want to do like breaking a rule because that's the only way they can get the attention of their parents.  Many young men who have killed people have done so not because they enjoy it, but because they'd rather do something bad and be notorious rather than be nice and be unknown.
When the goal is seen as a positive by-product, less focus is on that goal and more focus gets set on the path.  Take famous author J.K Rowling, she lived out of the truck, but enjoyed writing.  She didn't write with the goal of making a lot of money, she wrote for the love of writing the stories she created, and we all know how successful the Harry Potter series has become and how much she has benefited from all that love and hard work.

We also see this in celebrities.  When attention isn't necessarily the main goal, we see genuinely happier people.  Think Oprah Winfrey and Tom Hanks.  When attention is the main goal, we have people who appear extremely happy and fun and warm, but inside they're quite sad and alone and suffer in silence like one of my most favorites actors, the late and great Robins Williams.

With Extroversion also comes Introversion.

There is a misconception of Introverted people.  That they are weird and withdrawn like a secluded hermit.  They don't like people and always want to be alone.  This misconception is present because Introverts are seen as synonymous with Shyness.

In their book, The Development of Shyness and Social Withdrawal, authors Schmidt and Buss writes it like this.  "Sociability refers to the motive, strong or weak, of wanting to be with others, whereas shyness refers to behavior when with others, inhibited or uninhibited, as well as feelings of tension and discomfort."  The idea is that while Introverts need good reasons to spend time with a group of people, Shy people are actually afraid of the group setting.

Introverts enjoy spending time with people close to them but also enjoy their alone time.  Being alone doesn't bother the Introvert because they'll spend that time working on their interests and hobbies and are quite satisfied in doing so.  Because of this, they show a greater amount of self-awareness because they do an incredible amount of observing and processing of things around them, and most of their thoughts are inward.  However, they can be perceived as the loner and less likely people will reach out to them.  Being higher on this scale makes one appear more and more reclusive, especially in group settings where long periods of social events drain their energy and focus.

Of course, everyone is a mixed bag of all 5 traits, but one is typically more dominant in most cases.  Extroverted people are great at winning people over and gaining people's loyalty and admiration.  However, it would be prudent to reflect on whether the extroversion behavior we would exhibit would be sincere or are they just a means to an end?  They both have very different outcomes
For Introverted people, they need to balance their lone-wolf mentality with compromises in learning to tolerate more extroverted activities if they want to be included in more events.  Especially with the people they care about.
Interestingly, Extroversion and Introversion share a scale with one another, but depending on which side one leans more too, the less they understand people on the other end.  It's important for both types to take the time to understand each other.

Personality Traits - My Thoughts on Conscientiousness.

This is the 2nd entry to my personality traits series.  In this part, my interest is on Conscientiousness and the effects I see on people.

My interest in this trait is because I'm also a fan of Japan and Japanese culture, a place where this trait is in abundance, so much so, that it is actually the norm.  Much of Japanese cultural teachings is based around being Conscientious.

People who are Conscientious display some very important behaviors and lead to very successful results.  They are high achievers, self-disciplined, neat and careful.  These in turn make for very a hard-working and reliable person.  This trait is so vital in people who are leaders and you find it abundantly in people like Jackie Chan.  From a start in extreme poverty and working hard all his life despite the many injuries he's had.  Jackie is now a global star and philanthropist with 2 charitable foundations.  The Jackie Chan Charitable Foundation that helps victims of natural disasters and helps secure medical aid for people in need.  The Dragon Heart Foundation which assists the elderly and children in China, Europe and Africa.

Conscientious people excel at setting goals and being extremely persistent at attaining those goals even in the face of setbacks.  If they realize that goal is unattainable, they'll readjust their goal to a more attainable one instead of becoming discouraged.  Either way, the goals are typically well within the acceptable range of employers.
Being very organized and adept at planning ahead, allows for consistency in every aspect of life, from work to personal hygiene.
According to the National Institute of Aging, Conscientiousness is linked to income and job satisfaction.  Being punctual and thorough in ones work, along with consideration for colleagues, makes conscientious people vital in group roles in any capacity.  The very nature in how they handle their role, increases the productivity of everyone else.

Conscientiousness is extremely good also because people who exhibit this trait, are also less likely to commit crimes as they like rules and structures and are typically conformists.  Anyone who has been to Japan would instantly understand why it's such a pleasure being there and why Japan has the lowest crime rate of all first world countries.

However, while conscientiousness is terrific in many aspects, like anything else, too much is not necessarily good.  Too far on the conscientiousness scale brings on OCD and frustrations.  Think of an elastic band that's pulled too tight, at some point it will snap!
These people are usually over serious and too uptight.  This leads to the inability to enjoy much of the things life has to offer.  Spontaneity gives excitement and enjoyment on levels that are unrivaled.  Sometimes we just want to be surprised and enjoy the moment.  A person who is overly conscientious will find a spontaneous activity too discomforting.  They will be unhappy and want to return back to order, where they can expect the activity to happen.  They want to be able to plan every moment of every aspect of life.  While this makes for a very effective person, it doesn't quite make for someone who would be a pleasure to be around when attaining a goal isn't the main focus.  Most people I know wouldn't care much to spend off time with someone too serious.  For people who are too conscientious, they need to learn to loosen up.

On the other end of the spectrum, people who lack conscientious typically display a lazy and slob like behavior.  They don't care to follow rules and order, and don't quite take good care of their own personal hygiene.  They don't set goals because don't care to achieve them, they also give up easily in the face of even the slightest challenge.  It's not surprising to think that people of this type don't amount to much success in life, whether it be personal or professional.  
Much of the problem I see with people of this type, is that it is developed:  They grew up as a spoiled child.  Had everything handed to them.  All of life's challenges that teaches vital survival skills were filtered out of their life.  They became entitled and believed entirely that they are "special" and invulnerable.  Every time reality would rear it's head, they hated it and retreated back into their bubble.  At some point in their life, when the people who created the bubble for them are no longer around or unwilling to continue sustaining that bubble, it popped.  These people were faced with reality, but with no skills to survive in it, they end up suffering, badly.
Conscientiousness needs to be fostered, though our base personality would make some of us predisposed to it, without fostering this overly important trait, we could lose it.  And with that, any chances of real success.

Personality Traits - My Thoughts on Agreeableness.

I've been wondering lately about people and their range of agreeableness, and the effects of it.  Everyone has some range of agreeableness, from very little to a lot.  This makes sense, we are after all, social beings.  

In Personality Psychology, there are 5 big personality traits, Agreeableness is 1 of the 5, these are considered the basic dimensions of personality.

Typically speaking, people who are Agreeable have much to gain and do well in life.  They move up the ladder at work, make many friends and are trusted fairly easily.  However, too far on the Agreeable scale opens one up to be taken advantage of and leads to undesirable outcomes.  They get bullied, they take on more stress than is necessary and this can lead to self-resentment.
We all know many people of this type, in fact, you might be one.  Agreeableness is more apparent in women.  Females are hardwired to be Agreeable, this allows them to form bounds with many different people and to keep the peace.  For this reason, they excel in social settings.  However, this trait also leads to taking on more responsibilities, particularly at work.  When a Supervisor or Manager needs someone to do extra work, they know who are the agreeable people in their group.  They know that no matter how much work they pile on, that person will just take it, so they don't think twice about giving more.  The agreeable person just nods and says "Sure.", even though on the inside, they don't want to take on more.  Their stress level goes up as the workload goes up.  As more work gets piled on, the more the resentment builds.  They want to say no, but they can't bring themselves to, because Agreeable people do not like Conflict.  They rather suffer in silence instead of Asserting themselves.  Eventually they burn out, they're tired, grumpy/angry and resent themselves for not being able to say no. 
So while being Agreeable is extremely helpful objectively, subjectively it can be detrimental.

On the other end, we have disagreeable people.  These people can be mean, callous and lack empathy.  These are the people who will step on the backs of others to attain their goals, they are driven by their need to get what they want, no matter what!  This power to drive forward to reach their goal is about the only good thing they have going for them.
If someone is disagreeable, but is well socialized, they are a force to be reckoned with.  Because they will function well in society and they will be a driving force to get things done.  We may know some people who exhibit much of this trait, typically it's executives and CEO's.

We hear this term often, "I'm a self-made man!"  This is a very dishonest claim.  No matter who it is, everyone required help from some one at some point.

Even the richest person in the world, in this case, Jeff Bezos, required his employees and other people around him as he was growing Amazon into the powerhouse it is today.  He had to learn to have a healthy dose of agreeableness to make sure he could get along with his workers and to gain support from his friends and family.  But the disagreeable side of him has led him to grow Amazon from a delivery service to an environment of services.  At this point, Amazon is in the grocery business, online shopping, delivery, film making, AI drones and with plans to move into healthcare.  Obviously being the richest man isn't enough, he has a bigger goal that only he knows.

Of course everyone is a mix of Agreeableness and Disagreeableness, depending on which side we lean more towards, will say a lot about where we're headed.  For people who are too disagreeable, exercising compromises will be a good step towards a better balance.  In the case of people who are too agreeable, the need for learning to assert themselves is a must.

Thoughts about Courage.

When we think of Courage, we typically think of Heroes from books and movies.
But we're not so deluded that we don't realize that normal people can be, and sometimes are Courageous.  I've been thinking about this point because like many people who has faced very tough times, I've had this term applied to me as well, and left me puzzled.

My curiosity got me thinking about unpacking this further.  What makes facing pain, fear or life-risk courageous?  Just because we do?  During the tough time in my life, I never once thought I was being courageous, I just felt that I had to do what I had to do in order to make it through that time.  It eventually came into focus for me, and I realized why we get called courageous in those bad times and what courage really is.  Its the ability to face the truth.  Unwavering and unapologetic in our stance to stand up and face the consequences.

When a fireman goes into that burning building to look for someone who might still be alive.  They are faced with truths that are too scary to most people.  The building could collapse on them, they could succumb to the heat and pass out and much more, but they still push through looking for a glimmer of life to help.  That's where the courage is, facing the truth that they could die in a second, and they face that truth head on and end up with a truly heroic outcome of saving a life.
When someone is critically ill or injured.  The physical pain and suffering they feel is so immense, it's actually easier to give up.  But if they are able to accept the truth, if they do nothing they'll die, they push to live on, now matter how long and hard the road back may be.  The truth of the people in their life loving them, encouraging and supporting them, give them energy and strength.

When we are faced with the truth of a bad situation and accept it and stand up to it, we bring out the courage needed to overcome and triumph.  We get a "second wind" so to speak, and it gives us a strength we never knew existed in us.  When we speak the truth, carefully, not callously or maliciously, we move towards an outcome that's good.  When we can acknowledge the truth that our own thought processes and actions is what led us to the situation we're in, we can adjust our minds to work better.

Courage is in facing the truth of the world, all of the mean and nasty things in it.  But working hard on our ourselves so we can enjoy all of the goodness it has to offer as well.  We all have courage in us, even if it seems sometimes, that it's nowhere to be found.  For some, it comes out like water from a faucet, for others it comes out like ketchup.  Where it clogs and bottle necks, but if we muster up the strength and give ourselves the proverbial whack on the back, it'll come out in abundance.

Universal Basic Income, an Illusion?

There's been many discussions in the political arena these days about Universal Basic Income.  The ideas and talks behind this topic are quite romantic.  However, the way it's largely being suggested by many politicians is less than ideal from many different people.
From Andrew Yang and Bernie Sanders in the USA, to Justin Trudeau in Canada, the idea of UBI has taken on a mutated form that has become to be known as  "Mincome".

Let's first look at the concept of UBI.  It's rather simple really.  UBI is a guaranteed income from the government, free of any obligation from the recipient.  That means, even if one doesn't want to work, one still gets a cheque from the government each month.
There are probably just as many people for UBI as there are people against it.
One of the many pro arguments is made from researchers at the Roosevelt Institute in the US.  They created 3 models and under every scenario, UBI would grow the economy, increase output, employment, prices and wages.  Alaska is the example they draw on, where the implementation of the Alaska Permanent Fund, increased the purchasing power of the recipients and created 10,000 jobs.  The other most popular example in North America is from Dauphin, Manitoba.  In the 1970's, for 5 years, the Canadian government under Pierre Trudeau tested "Mincome", where in the recipients were guaranteed their annual income wouldn't fall below a certain amount.  Manitoba University Economist, Evelyn Forget found that hospital visits for mental health declined by 8.5%, along with a slight decline in work related injuries.
Of the information I have come across, the 2 above pro arguments are most applicable to North America.  However, they have many points that are faulty.  But before, I go over those points, I will go over a few con arguments.
In 2016, Switzerland government opposed implementation of UBI because they said it would entice fewer people to work, thus exacerbating the current labor and skills shortage.  
In 1960's - 1970's UBI tests in the US found that recipients worked fewer hours.
UBI's are less effective than targeted welfare because people in poverty lack more than cash.  UBI does not address addictions, poor health, lack of skills or other factors that contribute to poverty.

With some pros and cons laid out, let's examine them.  
First the pros:  The Roosevelt Institute models definitely seem to be much more static.  It would appear the "human" aspect wasn't likely considered.  Understanding human nature objectively even remotely would allow one to know that as humans, we need incentive to work, to better our situations.  If we're comfortable, we don't typically want to, or try to do more.  Three similar models were created by Luke Martinelli, PhD, Research Associate at the University of Bath in the UK.  He found that across all 3 models, significant amount of individuals and households would be worse off, noting "these losses are not concentrated among richer groups; on the contrary, they are proportionately larger for the bottom 3 income quintiles."  
The conclusions of Evelyn Forget:  It would appear that the areas of decline were more correlating factors rather than causation.  I was unable to find the rates of mental illness from 1970 - 1975 and from 1980 - 1985.  We'd have to see if the mental illness rates went up after the UBI test was completed to have more compelling proof between UBI and the areas of decline.
It would be fair to counter this observation with "what other factors could have and would have contributed to those declines?"

If we examine the cons, we find that they reflect much of what we see in human nature.  Our lives become stagnant if we're given what we need.  This is due to the fact that everyone needs incentives to do things.  That incentive could be empathy, sympathy, idealistic, but the most common one that universally works, is monetary.  Even if we like a certain subject or activity, we will typically not pick the one that doesn't have a monetary reward, because we all need to live and eat.
If we look at the chain of events that are most likely to happen:  People will lose incentive to work, with that comes the lack of improvement in skills and ability which in turn fuel the lack of progress.  But even with these logical negative outcomes, there is one thing that's perhaps the worst idea of all, which is also why I've titled this post "an illusion?"
This is taking Universal Basic Income and turning it into "Mincome".

Universal would mean everyone, old, young, rich, poor, male, female would all get this income.  This would be the fairest representation of UBI.  However, converting it to "Mincome" means it's specifically applicable to one group only, and that's the poor.  We already have many programs in place for people in this category.  Welfare already does what "Mincome" proposes to do.  The problem is that "Mincome" as it's being pushed now, is an addition onto the current Welfare programs.  That's not UBI, that's a "Welfare Addon".  Hiding it under the guise of UBI is actually quite disingenuous.  Not to mention that taxes will have to be raised which typically hurt middle class people who are the economic driving engine of the country.  What makes this is even more unreasonable is that as the people, we don't get to vote on this. 

Giving more money to people who don't make good decisions isn't going to help them, that money will just return to the pockets of the "Capital Overlords."  I feel the solution is in teaching and training people to make better decisions, to want to better themselves because it helps them and everyone else around them.  We can start by passing on the idea that luxury isn't a right, it's a privilege, and we have to work hard to gain those privileges.  Once we've worked to gain those privileges, self-confidence, self-assurance and purpose all follow along, and in turn brings happiness and allows us to treasure and appreciate the fruits of our labor.  Being handed these things only make for people who can't appreciate what they have, who then act and feel in an entitled manner.  


Luke Martinelli, "Exploring the Distributional and Work Incentive Effects of Plausible Illustrative Basic Income Schemes," bath.ac.uk, May 2017

Evelyn L. Forget, "The Town with No Poverty," public.econ.duke.edu, Feb. 2011

The Value of Humility.

I've come to this thought because of a conversation I've had recently with a friend.

The value of Humility is so extraordinary.  I almost never hear humility talked about as a primary attribute.  There's usually a glossing over of it, but I feel that it deserves a bigger spotlight than it has, if it even does.

The meaning of humility is as follows:
"A modest or low view one's own importance; humbleness."
This short little meaning has so much power. 

These are just my opinions of course, but I've come to them from watching people carefully and constantly thinking about people's behaviors and the ways I apply it to my own life.

This goes in hand with my older post of "The importance of Self-Reflection and Self-Correction."  If we think deeply about it, Humility opens the door to growth.  Be it mentally, spiritually, academically and even physically.  Because it lays the foundation for a certain type of mindset, the mindset to be open to learn.  The trait that typically leads to the exact opposite is Pride.  The more proud we are of ourselves, the less open we will be to growth.

If we look at children.  Besides the obviousness of their bodies and brains still in the phases of construction, the reason they learn so quickly is because they don't have pride.  So they learn at rapid pace from anyone or anything they encounter.  As they get older, they become more proud in their abilities and then they feel they don't need to learn anymore.  We see this typically in people who responds with "Yeah I know that!" whenever we tell them anything. 

For someone who has humility in knowledge, they'll take in, absorb and process the information and will find a place to apply it in their lives or discard some of it if they already have something similar in place.  If they're proud in their knowledge and with the pride comes the confidence they're correct, they don't typically take in new information unless the source is credible.  This means the source is usually someone who has some kind of authority.  If the information is coming from a source that doesn't seem credible, they usually reject it outright and not even bother to process it.  This isn't good.  Just because someone has a credible background, it doesn't mean they understand anything of what they are saying.  On the other hand, someone proud may overlook information from someone who may be obscure, but is a treasure chest of fabulous and in-depth knowledge.  

Besides the personal growth potential we'd have access to, humility also allows us to interact with people in a much more pleasant way.  This is because we don't feel full of ourselves when we walk around and feel "YOU need to make way for ME, because I do whatever it is I do." We'd never look down at other people because we'd understand that they may have some area or ability that is above our own.  We'd understand that no matter how good and efficient we become, there's always someone better, so we can acknowledge other people's ability and encourage and support them.  We can understand that because there's people doing more and better than us, that we don't deserve to have what they have, that we can be happy with what we have because we achieved it through our own abilities.  We can accept where we are in life and not feel jealous about other people's life.

Humility opens up all of these doors.  Whether we choose to use this skeleton key to life and walk through those doors on a path to better enlightenment is up to us.  The great thing is this key is unbreakable and can be reused throughout our lifetime.

The Climate Change Debate.

Climate Change, a "doozy" of a topic. 
The current talk about Climate Change revolves around The Paris Accords and governments seeking to keep Global Temperature Rise this century under 2 degree celsius and with the further goal of hitting the mark of 1.5 degrees.
Why should we be doing this?  Because the climate (long-term weather pattern) is changing, warming to be precise.  According to the NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration), global temperature has warmed 0.3 degrees C in the last 10 years.
The warming trend started back in 1901 but quickly picked up pace around 1975.
2017 seems to have went against the trend being 0.07 degrees cooler than 2016.
Temperature fluctuation is going to happen and it's expected, what is for sure is that the climate is warming.

The part I become a skeptic about, is the narrative that the cause is Anthropogenic.  To say humans are the cause seems to be misleading.  You might ask why I say that, it's because I have yet to come across any scientific study that irrefutably proves it's all on human emissions.  There are many graphs that show correlation, but correlation is not causation. 

This graph is from the NOAA showing the global temperature increase.

This graph is from The World Bank showing global CO2 emissions.

Taking an "eyeballing" approach show there are some similarities, but they don't match up exactly.  In fact, the way they don't match up is a little strange.  Consider this:  If the global CO2 emission increases global temperature, than the graphs should line up pretty well, the same peaks and valleys.  However, there is the drag factor we have to think about.  Meaning, the actual effect of warming would lag behind the emissions.  But even if that were the case, the 2 should line up exactly the same if we slid the temperature graph line back and overlay it on top of the temperature graph.
Now granted, these are 2 graphs from 2 different sources, however, regardless of the source, wouldn't it be reasonable to think the data would be correct?  Because it is based on the actual data.  Also, I just wasn't able to find a CO2 emissions graph from the NOAA.

My conclusion leads me to believe that the Climate is changing, with or without us.  Consider that the climate of the Earth has been changing since the Earth began, to think it would level off and stop because we humans are here now seems pretty arrogant.  However, I do think we're contributing to the warming and increasing the rate, more or less is up for debate.  

The problem that arises from the idea that the cause or the majority factor is Anthropogenic, is that governments want to create legislation and mostly in the form of adding taxes to build "something" that "might" help.
Take Canada for example:  If you search for climate change strategy, you'll come across the government's pitch for what they think will help.  The one big problem is, there is no strategy at all listed on that page.  Yet they want to implement things like the Carbon Tax, which would do nothing but take money from people.  

Energy generation for Canada in 2017 was made up of 59% hydroelectricity, 15% nuclear, gas and coal making up 19% and non-hydro renewables making up 7%.
Canadian Generation is fairly clean.  Emissions from Canada:   22 tonnes of emissions per capita compared to roughly 8 tonnes per capita from other G20 countries.  
With the energy being reasonably clean, if the savings were to come from other places, it'll most likely hinder and cripple some industries that will have a detrimental effect on the people.  Unlike the USA, where the energy generation is 77.8% from coal, gas and crude combined, they have a huge area to save on emissions.

But the underlying questions is, how much are we really contributing to that change?  Can we stop it?  The answer I feel is no, we cannot stop it.  Can we slow it down? Maybe.  
We won't be able to stop the climate change, our only salvation appears to be in technological advances.  However, with those technological advances, comes the increasingly rapid pace of AI development.  So it's a double-edged sword, on one hand technological advances may save us, on another hand, AI will become so advanced we'll be obsolete and our creation will take over (see my AI post).

While I paint a pretty grim picture of the future, it's not that at all.  Because it's not too late for us to have more discussions about the topic and to come to some actual solid solutions that aren't just huge cash grabs.

Amazon deciding to bail on New York was Fantastic!

In the last 2 weeks, a very detrimental thing happened to the residents of Long Island, New York.  The reason for it was so ridiculous that I decided to wait to see if new information would emerge before creating my post.  

The case was this:

Amazon was planning on building their HQ2 location.  New York and many other cities put up bids to entice Amazon to build in their city because of what Amazon was bringing to the table.  Amazon was going to bring 25,000-40,000 jobs by 2028 and generate roughly $27 billion in tax revenue for New York.  Also these jobs would've averaged a salary of $150k.

What did New York offer?  Amazon was to receive $1.2 billion in refundable tax credits and $505 million capital grant to reimburse Amazon for costs of building.  Amazon was also going to take advantage of the REAP(Relocation and Employment Assistance Program) that could come to to a total of $900 million.  However, the REAP is accessible for any company that meets the criteria, so it's not specific to the Amazon deal.  Amazon had received subsidies of $1.61 billion over the last 2 decades from state and local governments.  So all in all, if we totaled everything up, Amazon was getting somewhere in the vicinity of $3.7 billion to build their second HQ in New York.

However, before the move could happen.  Some politicians and a some groups of residents got together and protested strongly against Amazon building the HQ.  The backlash was so strong, Amazon pulled out of the deal.  Alexandria Occasio-Cortez, took to Twitter and flaunted her "victory" over the richest man in the world.
Many people on the left cheered for her as well.  But as I've posted before, leftists are emotionally based thinkers, and the higher the emotions, the lower the logic.  

So lets look at the logic.  New York lost 25,000 - 40,000 jobs.  That's families that could've paid bills, put food on the table, save money, most all, prosper.  With 25,000 new jobs come 25,000 more people who would've had more mobility to move upward, with those jobs comes the spurring of the local economy in such a life changing way for any city.  
For some perspective, in Oshawa Ontario, GM is closing and laying off 2500 workers, the trickle down affect is going to impact 15,000 jobs.  That is going to be life changing in a bad way.  Because it's not just the auto jobs and the peripheral jobs that they support, it's also the local eateries and small businesses that rely on the traffic of those workers.  Now just imagine what 25,000-40,000 new jobs would do for a city.  

The whole thing this comes down to, is this "capitalism and free markets are bad" ideology the leftists are pushing.  This need to covet the success of others and to feel somehow, some way, we deserve to get a piece of their pie because we do their work and we buy their products.  

Lets look at the fallacy of these ideas.  
First, "we do their work, the CEO's don't do much and definitely not enough to be worth 150 times what we make."
CEO's are a rare breed of people, they work insane hours that no one else would want to work.  They juggle the responsibilities of every single employee and flying all over the place to keep business connections or make new business connections to sell their products and services.  Products and services that if they didn't sell, we wouldn't have jobs!!
Like anything else, as workers, our skills dictate the level of compensation we receive.  The lower the skill, means the more people there are who can complete the same task.  Hence, the pay rate isn't going to be great because the supply outweighs the demand.  If we want a better pay rate, we need to acquire and develop skills that aren't so abundant and easy to find.
We also don't assume any financial risk or responsibilities(from buying the machines to creating the LLC, to finding investors.) of the business we work for.
We as workers choose to alienate our labor for a cost, if we don't like the cost, we can take our labor elsewhere.  There are definitely bad business practices that don't break the law, but again, we have the choice to look for work elsewhere. 
Second, "are they worth 150 times what we as workers are being paid?"  What the CEO's get paid is in direct correlation with the amount of business and profit they can bring to the board and investors who are the ones taking on all of the financial responsibilities.  The board members are the ones who decide if the CEO deserves their salary and if they're bringing a lot of value to the company, then the pay they are given is what the board values them at.  This value is in the form of new or extra businesses they can drum up or cut the cost of expenditures.  But no matter what it is, whatever the CEO does, it changes the value of the business.   The typical worker doesn't change the overall value, so their compensation is nowhere near comparable.

But instead of thinking about what the CEO makes, how about we just focus on what we make and take stock of what we have and have some gratitude for it.  If we don't like what we have, than it's our duty to ourselves to make ourselves better to get what we want.  Protesting and demanding to the government to put a gun to the heads of people who have more, and robbing them to give to people who clearly don't deserve it, is a bad principal value.  
If we use the moral angle and ask, should they give their excess to help people out? Sure!  That would be nice!
But in what way and how much is entirely up to them and no one has the right to criticize or demonize them over their decision to do what they want with their property.  
If we don't agree with some businesses and CEO's, boycott the business.  No one is forced into buying anything from any one business.  

The Over Protection of children.

Today I had a conversation with a friend about parenting.  This got me thinking about our roles as parents and the craziness of the current climate of child rearing.

Parents today have it so much harder than parents of the past, this is because of one simple fact, helicopter parenting.  If we think back to this phenomenon and where it started and how it got to this point, is actually quite interesting.

Starting in the 1980's, quite a few things started to happen.  Child Abduction started to become more apparent in society after a child by the name of Adam Walsh was abducted and murdered.  Shortly after, his father John Walsh created the show America's Most Wanted.  This along with missing children's faces showing up on milk cartons, reminded parents every morning at breakfast of another tragedy.  From this point on and through the 1990's, we saw more and more cases from commercials to billboard ads.  Parents were led to believe at some point that over 1 million children a year were abducted.
Parents started to become paranoid that their child was at a very high risk of being abducted and while that is a valid reason for paranoia, it gave rise to a motion that would lead to the helicopter parenting of today.

The paranoia from the 80's and 90's and the ripples that started, has blown into a tidal wave.  In 2015, a couple from Florida were charged for their 11 year old son playing basketball outside in the backyard for an hour and a half.  Here is the case:

"Two Florida parents were hit with felony neglect charges after their 11-year-old son was reportedly playing alone in the backyard for an hour and a half.

According to his mother, the boy arrived home before his parents and was locked out of the house, so he shot some hoops in the yard until they arrived.

A neighbor saw the child outside alone and called the local police. When his mother and father arrived home, they were met by a police officer, who arrested them for child negligence."

This is just one example of how far things have come.  To be arrested and charged for something that was extremely common placed and not at all harmful to a child, and in fact is good for the child to exercise good judgement in passing their time, is quite absurd.
There's no need to do the "what if's" or "could've" and "maybe".  If we as parents put ourselves in their place, we'd all feel frustration for them.

Today, most children are "bubble wrapped" for such long periods of their lives and when they reach their young adult years, we expect them to behave properly.  What a joke!  
What we see more and more today are teenage toddlers and adult teenagers.  Many parents today are so focused on trying to make their progeny happy little children that live in a Utopian world where it's just full of love and joy, where they're special to the world and everyone loves them.  When they reach the teenage years where they're no longer cute and innocent, and people expect a certain level of standard behavior from them and they realize no one loves them but their family (sometimes).  Is it any wonder why teenage suicide and depression is on the rise in a very tremendous way?  They've lived their lives as children in a dream world, only to wake from that dream as teenagers and realize that dream was never reality.  To say that it is a great disappointment would be an understatement.

The greatest harm we're doing to our children today is NOT letting them do things out of our own fear, even if that fear is illogical.  We think telling our children "no" is somehow hurting them.  There are many so-called experts that are child psychologists who would tell us that saying "no" to our child is stunting their growth.  Yet, here we are at a time where there are more children who tell their parents to "f**k off", who expect society to change for how they feel, who even go as far as killing their parents and anyone else who doesn't agree with them.

True love for our child means saying "no", because we're helping them build structure by giving them the opportunity to learn to cope with not having expectations met.  True love for our child is spending time with them doing arts and craft and sports, because we want to help them build their brain in problem solving, imagination and practicing their motor skills.  True love for your child is telling them the truth that they're special only to us and their family members, because we want to teach them the reality that not everyone is going to pay even the slightest attention to them and there's no reason to expect it, and that they have to work for that attention.

Having a child isn't just about taking care and feeding them.  It's about the long term, it's about adding another adult to the world and society.  The lessons we teach them should be with that focus in mind, in the adult we want to create rather than the children we want to spoil.  

Artificial Intelligence: Will it lead to our own demise?

Technology, we like it, love it, hate it?  No matter how we feel about it, what we can't deny, is how dependent we are on it.  I write tools for production at work.  Even though it's on a much smaller scale, my current ability let's me understand how much potential AI has to a fair degree.  As technology advanced from the wheel, to the car, to computers and now to Artificial Intelligence, I see quite a possible alarming trend.  

AI now drives much of the technology we rely on.  Behind the veil of search engines, databases, stock prices and much more, is the Algorithms that learn and even reason.

Though it seems like a wonderful and tremendous thing, to have this AI that can do the mundane thinking tasks for us.  

If we look at where AI is going in the form of robots that are mimicking human behavior, self-driving cars and even Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, we can fairly accurately guess where we may end up.  We really only have to look at 2 aspects to gauge this.  The human compulsion to learn and create, and the AI's incredible learning speed, capability and logic.

I feel the reason why most people are fascinated by the improvements on AI rather than fear it, is because it's "neat" and impressive and they're only "toys".  But if we were able to closely associate it to us, to humans, we may see it differently.

If we were to look at the developmental cycle of AI and compare it to that of humans, then AI isn't in it's infancy stage, but rather a child or a young adult.

It can read, write, reason, make adjustments rather quick, we see this mostly in self-driving cars.  But like a young adult, it's not really all that good and will still crash if a situation out of it's expectation occurs.  At this point, like a young adult, it's still under parental control.  Parent in this case being humans.  But like a young adult, it will gradually progress to the point where the parents aren't needed, then what to do we do?  Unlike humans, AI algorithms don't have a conscience.  They're logical to a fault.  If that logic reaches a conclusion that humans aren't needed and only in the way of whatever it decides is the goal, what happens?  At this point, it can make it's own robots, it can develop it's own technology that we wouldn't even understand.  This has been brought up in many sci-fi movies, but it's a very real threat if we continue to treat it as just a "cool new tech".  

Already we're seeing how smart phones are making people less smart, we see how when we're no longer needed to perform a task, we become less useful.  It's not a coincidence that the age of the obesity epidemic corresponds to the timing of super efficient technology.  We no longer have to go out and walk around at the mall or any store for that matter, we do everything on these tiny little glowing boxes.  We don't have to go out to see friends because we can do that with Skype, getting together to "catch up" almost seems irrelevant in today's hyper-connectivity age.

As AI improves, there will be less and less for us to do.  The less able we become, the less ability we'll have to control it.  The scary part, is what will happen when AI reaches adulthood.  By it's logical nature, will it conclude that humans aren't needed?  Will we become obsolete?  Will we be the new dinosaurs and become extinct, paving the way for the new species we created?  We'll see the results of this fairly soon I would guess.  AI progress grows by leaps and bounds each day.  As humans, we're too consumed with the "can we do it?" mentality rather than "should we do it?"  Even experts can't tell us exactly what the AI algorithms are doing.  How do we know if it'll work with us, for us, or against us.  

We need to have more discussions about this and really about the point of AI adulthood, because we'll want to be able to teach it to behave like a Saint, rather than leave it be.  In it's current form, it has every potential to be the mechanical version of Hitler, only it's target will be species wide.  We should stop treating it like some fun toy and more like a new life because it will live with us one day.

The Importance of Self-Reflection and Self-Correction.

Thinking habits seem to form in some parts due to environmental, typically in the form of inputs from the people around us.  These inputs are then "attached" to a "core", much like a snowball that gets bigger as it rolls down a hill.  The "core" itself appears to stem from how people feel about themselves.

My thoughts today linger on that "core" of who we are and our ability to change it.  

By default we are a blank slate.   As we start to take in input from our many sensory receptors from touch to taste to hearing, we start to combine those many inputs and start to form a more complex model that eventually becomes the "core".  This process begins at the very beginning when we're conceived and continues to build through out our life time.
However, at some point, I've noticed in many people, that once that "core" has been formed to a certain degree, the ideas that emerge from it and guide that person's behavior are solidly set.  This prevents the ability to process inputs that the "core" and ideas do not agree with.  The behavior mostly associated to this phenomenon is stubborness, which lead to a whole host of other behaviors.  How many times have we encountered someone who justifies their action or inaction with "that's just the way I am."?  This is such a "cop out" because we all have the ability to change for the better.  If we spend all of our time with people who have the same ideas we do, we don't get to grow.  In fact, we stagnate and become increasingly stubborn and reluctant to change.

Changes in behavior manifest from changes to the "core".  To change the core for the better, the importance for Self-Reflection can hardly be overstated.  There are various ways to interpret Self-Reflection, but the type of reflection that I've notice, that leads to positive change is the type most people aren't very fond of.  The True Self-Reflection is to be able to think back to your behaviors and the thoughts that drove those behaviors that lead to unwanted outcomes and to objectively look at them.  Be prepared to face the possibility that your behaviors and the thoughts behind them are bad and maybe even evil in intention.  It's very important to be objective because only then can we say to ourselves "wow, I was a jerk." or "I'm really not a nice guy, no wonder she doesn't like me." or even "I want to be healthy, but I'm so lazy."  By being able to be objective when reflecting on ourselves, we can acknowledge and apply changes to better ourselves and get to where we want.

The very important thing not to do is to reflect objectively and then just accept the negatives.  If we feel unhappy with our job whether that be the pay grade or level or even if we're not in the right industry we want to be in.  Take stock of why that is.  Are we applying ourselves the best we can, to the best of our ability?  Are we missing a certain skill to move further or to even change industries?  Rather than accepting that we might be lazy, or "don't have time." or not handy, and just accept our fate to be unhappy with where we are, which in turns manifests into being unhappy with who we are.  We should work out how we might be able to achieve what we want.  When we've worked out how to achieve it, we can then apply it and make Self-Corrections.  It may take time, a lot of time, but like the tortoise, as long as we don't stop, we'll get to our goal.

Self-Correction takes work, a lot of it, and consistently.  Because of this, I've noticed many people sign themselves off to many different excuses.  Rightly so, if we can justify our unhappiness by blaming some force we can't control, it's not our fault, this makes us "feel" better.  This is perhaps the biggest delusion, because in making ourselves "feel" better by blaming something else, we continue down the road of unhappiness that grows and grows.  For each stage of growth in that unhappiness, the ability to correct our path becomes all that much harder.

My own experiences has led me to the conclusion that True Self-Reflection working in tandem with Self-Correction is the road to true personal happiness.  While that happiness isn't immediate, it becomes more apparent as time goes on.  The hope, is that we can all achieve the happiness we so want in the life time that we have.

Polarity of the Political Left and Right

Lately in the political climate, particularly in the US, we hear a lot about the Left and the Right which are the Democrats and the Republicans.  Here in Canada, it would be NDP and Liberals on the Left and Conservatives on the Right.

An interesting part of this, is that people on the Left don't call themselves Left, they refer to themselves as Liberal or Progressive.  Progressive, such a faulty description when used in  politics.  If we go with the actual meaning of Progressive instead of using it as a label, it would be based on Progression which is to move towards a more advanced state, but in a successive manner.  Meaning, we only get step 10 when steps 1-9 precede it.  Much of the ideas coming from the Left are definitely not Progressive in this way.  Are these ideas are different?  Sure.  Progressive? Definitely not.

There's currently a huge divide between the two sides and it's widening at this very moment.  Why is this?  To find an answer, we need to look at the ideologies of the Left and Right.

This topic is so in-depth that it would be too much to cover here so I'll attempt to break it down simply.

First, we have to lay out what is considered The Left, Liberal and The Right.
As it currently stands, The Right are conservative types.  Their thinking is based more around what is good for society based on current systems at work.  They don't typically want to change systems, they want to improve on them.  This primarily include areas like Free Markets, Capitalism, and Individual Rights.  They also value Traditions and Religion.
The current Liberal types typically acknowledge the pros and cons of current systems.  They want improvements on current systems as well as replacing the ones they feel don't work so well.  However, they will be open minded to discussion and have the flexibility to change their perspectives if the argument is logical.  They are pretty indifferent to Traditions and Religion.
The current Left types think the current systems are bad and should be replaced with some new version that they feel would improve society.  Their views are typically grounded in personal and emotional reality.  Facts and Truths are malleable because you'll hear a lot of "it's your truth" or "it's not my truth".  Truths are truths, facts are facts.

Basically, the Left wants to drastically change belief systems, not just future ones, but past fundamental belief systems.  The further to the Left one moves, the more emotional the belief systems become.  The more to the right one moves, the stronger the resistance to change, because that resistance is based on established beliefs.  However, when you reach the Far Right, then it becomes like the Far Left, which is radical.  
So pretty much The Left and The Right represent the scale of logic based thinking and emotional based thinking.  
We use these two thinking styles in every and any idea we come upon.  However, I've observed that when emotions run high, logic runs low and vice versa.  So they work directly with one another dictating the approach we use towards an idea.

The side that is making much of the noise and getting much of the attention lately, are the Left and the Radical Left.  Though Donald Trump is also making noise and getting attention as well, but he's on The Right.  The Radical Right would be the Neo Nazi's, but they barely make any noise, especially in the political sphere.
On the Right, the ones standing up to the Radical Left are grounded in facts and logic that have been established since, well, the beginning of civilization.  Not to mention some pretty good common sense as well.

The fight currently looks like this.  Radical Left and Left vs Liberal and Right.  In fact, sometimes it's Radical Left against Radical Left.  Just look at the Drama surrounding Alexandria Occasio-Cortez and Ilhan Omar, or the relationship of Lesbian Feminists with Transgenders and you'll see what I mean, maybe.
  
One of the big fundamental topics is actually surrounding individual freedom.  The freedom of Speech in the US and the Freedom of Expression in Canada are being altered slowly because the ideologies of the Left and Radical Left are taking center stage.  This is because they make the most noise and Social Media is helping their cause in a tremendous way.

The Left believes individual rights should be secondary to group rights.  The Right believes individual rights are primary.  Because the Left is making enough of a commotion to reshape laws and encroaching on individual rights, this creates a key element of the divide.  There are many, many obvious ways in which the Left is seeking to dismantle fundamental beliefs and encroaching on personal freedom, to the point where they have become fairly radical.  
They're not seeking to Progress, instead they're seeking to destroy and dismantle in an effort to rebuild society in their Utopian view.  
The Right wants to see progress, but in improvements on existing fundamentals that are proven.  The same fundamental ideas that has let North American society progress to this point.  Also, there is no indication that progress would stop either, but the Left feels differently and thinks those fundamentals need to be replaced.
With such drastically different views and goals, it's no wonder the divide has grown so wide.

I only aimed to describe some of the differences between the two that are causes of this big divide.

Relationships and Valentine's Day.

With tomorrow being Valentine's Day, it got me thinking about not just mine, but the love relationships of people around me. 

Some observations I have made is we pay the most attention to our love relationships usually when the Media and Big Business tells us to.  Of course we have to, after all, we are consumers and they want our money and it's the perfect time to prey on the insecurities in our relationships.  Let me explain.

Valentine's Day is a significant celebration of love, culturally if you're Christian, but definitely Commercially.  How this plays on the insecurities of relationships in North America is mostly to do with females. 

I've noticed that Women have this peculiar thing they do AFTER Valentine's Day.
They run into each other in some way or another and then ask that question: "What did you do for Valentine's Day?".  This question on the surface seems rather benign, but it's so fraught with underlying possibilities of where it can go and be interpreted.
It's interesting if you ever get to observe this conversation between two women.  While they're both happy and listening to each other's story, what they really want to do is tell THEIR story (that is, if they in fact had a good Valentine's Day).  There's almost this air of implicitly "one upping" the other on whose Valentine's Day was better.  The result is that their relationship looks and sounds great, and this fills that need to appear to be in a good relationship and perhaps to appear better than things really are in the view of other people.  
When they get that "Wow, that's amazing, he's so sweet!" or something equivalent, it makes them feel secure they're with the right partner.
On the other hand, if one of them didn't have a good Valentine's Day (their significant other forgot), you can see the awkward, almost hesitancy to keep talking about the subject.

For Men, this plays out differently.  We know we have to do something different, good or special to make our significant other happy on this day.  Some men know why, some don't.  For men who know, we try desperately to fill that expectation because the simple act of demonstrating our love isn't in the flowers we give, the gift's we buy or the restaurant we made reservations at.  It is in the fact we showed our love by giving the woman a good experience to tell her friends.  And we do care that we give them something positive to talk about to their friends, family and colleagues.
For Men who don't know, this creates confusion sometimes.  Men who don't notice the above point, wonder why their significant other doesn't appear happy, after all, he brought home a box of Lindt chocolates, he showed his love, what the heck!
While the woman doesn't get mad and because she loves him, she won't make him feel bad.  She'll be that awkward one during that conversation the next day in the work lunch room.  This thought of "I won't have much to tell." will definitely linger in her mind and won't make her happy.  This is because she's already comparing the story of her gift to the what the other women might say.

The people who know this all too well, are Big Businesses.  They essentially put us all on the spot by advertising when Valentine's Day is, so if the day goes by and you didn't buy something or spend money in any way, shame on you!  And everyone knows it!

I'm saying all of this with some jest of course, however this is more apparent than not in most cases. 

When it comes to love, we don't need a day with a name to tell us when we should be expressing our love to our significant other.  Everyday should hold the same value to us in our actions and expression of love for our partners. 

Religious, To Be or Not To Be..

Today's thought is on Religion and Atheism.

Ah, religion, such an interesting and sometimes controversial subject.  

In the current political climate, we hear a lot about Muslims and Islam.  While Terrorism is what most people fret about, it's really about the fundamental belief systems of the Religion which some have attributed to some acts of Terrorism.  Because of those acts, many are judging the Religion and by consequence, the people who believe in that Religion.  However, today's thoughts isn't about Muslims or Islam specifically, but about the mindset and arguments regarding the beliefs in religion in general.

When Religion comes up, inevitably so does Atheism.  Simply put, if one is not Religious, then by definition they are Atheist.  It's so compelling and almost easy to argue for Atheism instead of Religion.  In fact, I used to do just that.

Atheism is easy to argue for, because science has advanced so much that we can objectively prove many things that at some point in history, we couldn't prove.  Evolution, Technology and Science combined with Logical thinking pretty much pokes so many holes in the concept of the existence of God,(which Religion is predicated on) that the idea of believing in Religion seems irrelevant. 

What has sparked these thoughts for me, is that I've been listening to Sam Harris's Atheism position quite a bit lately.  The interesting part about the arguments for Atheism is that they depend on "debunking" the existence of God with known methods of the various areas of science.  However, science has it's flaws as well. 

If we attempt to argue against science, we know there are many areas of life that science cannot explain.  I say cannot instead of not yet because in order to discuss a topic, we can only look so far into the future.  Since there are many areas that may have theories, they are still far from a method that can prove them to be true.

We know science cannot prove through empirical data what consciousness is, in fact, according to some like Sam Harris, consciousness is an illusion.  
Though the Big Bang has been adopted as the concept we believe the universe started from, Physicists are still divided on whether or not that's true or if we just have insufficient knowledge.  It's not proven, but empirical data show some correlation to that theory. 
Blood, science has determined all of the components that make up blood, yet they can't re-create it without using human stem cells.  The argument for science usually goes "when we figure it out", "if we can..." and rightly so if we look at the trend.  Science does tend to figure out many things.  However, the real questions gets lost in all of the talks on empirical data, those question are, if science can't prove something, does it mean it doesn't exist?  Or is it just "we aren't there yet"?

Religion on the other hand stems from one single premise, there is the existence of a God or Gods.  From there springs ideologies and teachings from these Beings.  Take the Christian Bible. When we hear the story of Adam and Eve being the first humans, science tells us not true..  The thought of Eve being created from Adam's rib bone makes us think of biology lessons from school and how totally unplausible that claim is.  

As I think more and more about religion, I have found it's more about metaphors than literal interpretation.  
Many of the stories have probably been injected at some point for some politicized reason.  However, when we look at the teachings of all of the different mainstream Religions, we'd find that at the bare bones level, they have a lot in common.  Yet, Religions were created before a time those cultures and races ever met one another, and yet their base teachings are so similar.

Like the concept of the Big Bang, if we were to use the same type of logic in reduction to bring Religion to a single point, we could arrive at some interesting ideas.

If we take out the stories of Religions and strip it down to the bare bone teachings, no killing, speak the truth, no stealing, love the fellow person, do not commit adultery.  These are the common points among most of the traditional Religions.  
The most important common point varies, but has the same intentions.  Obey God or Karma, this serves to develop Respect/Fear/Trust, whether that be in a Being, multiple Beings, or Karmic fate.  This is the most important point because as long as God/Karma holds true, all of the teachings hold true as well.
If the God/Gods or Karmic fate is proven to not exist, all of the subsequent teachings have no foundation to support adherence to them.  This is what the Atheism arguments set out to "debunk".

What science cannot "debunk" is that because of the existence of Religion, is how we have arrived at our current state of life.
Without Religion, we wouldn't be where we are today, we wouldn't have the same concepts of Morality and Standards of being.  Without the existence of Religion, it would be safe to assume we'd be drastically different, more than likely we wouldn't be anywhere near as advanced as we are.  The assumption of the existence of God which then lead to Religions, allowed for "structuring" of society and it's people.  It's with these structures in place that humans have had the comfort to be able to create new things and advance.

We have too many examples that without "structure" which include rules/laws, expectancy to obey them and enforcement of those rules and laws, humans behave in very chaotic ways.  After all, the very nature of what we are, is animalistic.  
We typically are able to only consider others when our needs are met. 
In a world where no structure exists, there would be no reasonable standard of expectancy, without that expectancy, we'd never feel safe.  The need to feel safe would supersede anything else, even at the expense of others.  That safety comes in many forms, from the Need to feed to the Need to be physically protected.
If we removed all laws and no longer enforced them, we'd get the Anarchy movies and more than likely, worse.
Assuming all humans by default are good without the presence of "structure" is folly, as is assuming by default everyone in the world would follow some internal default "goodness".

The necessity for Religion has already been proven vital in the quality of life we enjoy today.  Does God actually exist?  Perhaps like most scientific theories, we're not at a point where we can prove it, but we may be able to at some point.  I feel that's a much more positive way to view it.  
Because of this, I have found my way back to Religion and in the belief that there is a God and that maybe one day through science, we'll meet God.