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.

Micro-Aggressions, the oddness of it.

The thoughts of today surround this odd thing called Micro-Aggression.

It was coined in 1970 by a Harvard U professor and psychiatrist.  This term can be applied to many areas, but it mostly comes to the surface in the context of conversation between parties and usually result in some one being upset.

Basically, how it works is speech, whether intentional or unintentional that communicates hostile, derogatory or negative prejudicial slights and insults toward any group.(wikipedia)
In essence, this means that anything one might say to another can be taken in those negative ways by the other despite the context or intention of the person speaking.  
The issue lies in the response of the person feeling negative.

From my observations, when some one feels "aggressed", the typical response comes in the form of defensive behavior.  This defensive behavior culminates in several forms.  Most common is speech.  An example being, Joe asks "Where are you from?"  Stan feels aggressed because he feels Joe is implying he doesn't belong there.  This puts Stan in defense mode and respond with "Why?! You don't think I belong here?!?", this is the defensive behavior.  
If Stan felt that the aggression was more than that and had low levels of self-control, this could culminate in a physical response such as a shove to a punch to whatever else he feels is a necessary response.
The obvious problem in this type of encounter (which actually isn't uncommon) is that Joe never intended anything negative from a very simple inquiry.  However, Stan felt aggressed and hence, lashed out at Joe.  The thing that exacerbates any potential problem is that the more Stan feels aggressed, the more justified he feels in  however he chooses to respond.

This is such an odd phenomenon, that we have reached such a sensitive level in our increasingly politically correct culture.  The fascinating part, is that why people would feel "aggressed" over very simple speech.  
I've often pondered over this and have come to noticed that I can trace this to another interesting phenomenon which is the need to assume.  I've noticed as a society, we've come to try to anticipate and assume the intentions of the person we're speaking with rather than paying attention to the literal words that are being spoken.
Granted, words combined with tone and body language allows for a certain level of interpretation outside of the meaning of the actual words, however, "Some times a cake, is just a cake".
Even the best technology we have can't mind read, let alone we as individual people.  Stan trying to read Joe's mind or expecting for Joe to read his mind only serves to cause frustrations on both sides with a very unproductive outcome.
As a society, we'd most likely be better served if we listened and controlled the need to assume(mind read) and to ask questions if the intention doesn't seem clear.  Micro-Aggressions seem to be an extreme version of the need to assume and the inability to filter feelings from the words being spoken.

This vulnerability to be Micro-Aggressed appears to also be most apparent in the people I've observed to have other issues.  Being insecure, easily depressed, stubborn, etc.  I find this particularly true in people who have self-confidence issues which happen to be mostly younger people, teenagers through mid 20's.  Although I'm seeing it in people also in the middle ages, though not as often and not as extreme on the sensitivity scale.

The solutions my thoughts have lead me too, are to have more conversations about uncomfortable subjects whatever they may be for the individual.  For someone who realizes they fit these descriptions and knowingly engages in discussions from the least uncomfortable and gradually moving towards very uncomfortable.  This will allow for the person to work on themselves and keep track of their feelings and progress in their tolerance and the ability to filter the feelings from the words.

First Thoughts on the ability to Critically Think.

This is my first blog post ever.

I've always had a fascination with human behavior and thought patterns, particularly in the area of society and the effect on it.
Though I'm not a scholarly individual, I've been noticing that my perceptions and predictions tend to play out more often than not.  These results appear to come from applying critical thinking.

The ability to critically think and analyze situations, seems to come not just by academia, but from life experiences.  That makes sense when we consider that what we learn from academia really is just a culmination of recorded experiences.  So it would seem we can learn to critically think from our own experiences or academia or a combination of both.  

This seems rather rudimentary and it is.  However, my perceptions of people seem to be that they are able to only critically think to a point, beyond that point, something in them prevents them from being able to continue this process properly and I often wonder why this is.

I'll use this following story as example.

I had a talk with a friend about Bitcoins back in summer of 2017.  In Dec 2017, BTC hit a record of $19,783.06 US.  I had been following the surrounding news and I told people around me that the value was going to drop under $5000 within a year, by Dec 2018, BTC had dropped to $3,689.56  No one believed me, particularly this friend.  Now I'm not saying I'm some kind of finance genius, as a matter of fact, I'm not.  I was following the surrounding news and just made predictions based on critically thinking about that information.

What I saw was the Price of BTC going up, but the actual Value was not.  The Value being the possible Usage which is next to nothing in most people's daily lives or even in a crunch.  Though my thought process was much deeper than my example here, my predication was that the Price would continue to drop until it meets the actual Value.

This friend I spoke too was able to follow the information I provided along with my thought process to how I reached my conclusion.  However, when it got to the conclusion, he disagreed because he believed it would only continue to rise in Price.

This puzzled me.  Unless he had additional information I didn't, I couldn't understand how he wouldn't come to the same conclusion.  So I asked him if he had other information to which he replied "no".  Thinking he might've not been able to follow the process, I repeated it and he acknowledged everything step by step until the conclusion where he disagreed again.  Again he said he felt the Price would go up.  That's when I clued in on it, it was his feeling.  Despite how much factual information was at hand, and despite that he agreed and followed each step of the thinking process, he disagreed because of his feeling.

This is one example, but I see many others in almost everyone I know and speak too on a daily basis.  The ability to Critically Think, ends when the Feelings reach a certain level.  For some people, that level is attained much sooner than others.

crit·i·cal think·ing

Dictionary result for critical thinking

noun

noun: critical thinking

1. the objective analysis and evaluation of an issue in order to form a judgment