Lawrence R. Spencer's Blog, page 444
July 29, 2016
CERES “LIGHTS” CRATER IN COLOR
The most recent composite image released by NASA’s is a color-coded topographic map of Occator crater on Ceres. The photo is extremely low-resolution, of course, so no details of the “city” or “base” can be clearly seen. However, the image does provide a sense of depth and proportion of the “lights” compared to the size and topography of the crater. The blue is the lowest elevation, and brown is the highest. The crater is approximately 56 miles (90 kilometers wide). Proportionately, the “lights” could extend roughly 20 miles (32 kilometers) in length.
Originally posted 2015-09-30 12:38:58. Republished by Blog Post Promoter
SOLAR PERSPECTIVE
How significant is Earth and our solar system compared to the stars? Maybe space traveling civilizations overlook Earth because it’s too small to notice.
Originally posted 2015-09-27 22:10:42. Republished by Blog Post Promoter
July 28, 2016
Top Ten Psych Experiments
The Robbers Cave Experiment is a classic social psychology experiment conducted with two groups of 11-year old boys at a state park in Oklahoma, and demonstrates just how easily an exclusive group identity is adopted and how quickly the group can degenerate into prejudice and antagonism toward outsiders.
Researcher Muzafer Sherif actually conducted a series of 3 experiments. In the first, the groups banded together to gang up on a common enemy. In the second, the groups banded together to gang up on the researchers! By the third and final experiment, the researchers managed to turn the groups on each other.
2. The Stanford Prison Experiment: Power Corrupts
This infamous experiment to plumb the depths of evil in human hearts ended up affecting its lead researcher as much as its subjects. Psychologist Philip Zimbardo divided his participants into two groups labeled “prisoners” and “guards.” It was conducted in a mock-up prison in a Stanford University basement. The prisoners were subjected to arrest, strip search, de-lousing, head shaving and other abuses. The guards were given clubs.
The prisoners rebelled on the second day, and the reaction of the guards was swift and brutal. Before long, the prisoners were behaving meekly and with blind obedience, while the guards fully embraced their roles by taunting and abusing their charges. This one might be scientific confirmation of the idea that humans harbor evil tendencies. The planned 14-day experiment was halted after only 6 days due to increasing levels of abuse.
3. Obedience to Authority: Human Capacity for Cruelty
In 1963 psychologist Stanley Milgram set out to test people’s propensity to obey authority when ordered to hurt another person. The world was still wondering what happened in Germany during WW-2 that caused so much horror. Milgram’s subjects were told they were to be the ‘teachers’ of a ‘learner’ (who was secretly in on the experiment). They were to deliver electric shocks to the ‘learner’ if he or she got an answer wrong. Worse, they were told to increase the shock if the ‘learner’ continued to get the answers wrong.
Despite the screams and moans of pain from the unseen ‘learner’, the subjects continued to deliver ever more severe shocks if ordered to do so by the experimenter in the lab coat. They continued even when told they had rendered the ‘learner’ unconscious! The conclusion? Looks like we humans are quite easily able to set aside moral and ethical considerations when ordered by authority to violate them.
4. Conformity: Not Believing Your Lying Eyes
From social identity theory psychologists got a handle on group dynamics and prejudices, how natural it is for groups to elicit conformity among their members. In 1951 Solomon Asch set out to identify just how much individual judgment is affected by the group.
In a test environment in which undergrads were asked to render a judgment after other subjects gave deliberately wrong answers, 50% of people gave the same wrong answer when their turn came. Only 25% of test subjects refused to be swayed by the false judgment of the others, while 5% always went with the crowd. The finding was that a third of people will ignore what they know to be true and go with a falsehood if they’re in a group that insists on the falsehood being true. What else will people do under influence of the group?
5. Lying to Ourselves: Cognitive Dissonance
One might begin to suspect that people must be pretty good at either ignoring their own feelings, beliefs and desires, or flat out lying to themselves (and getting away with it). In a classic 1959 experiment psychologists designed an experiment with level upon level of deceit to see just how much a person will ignore their own experience, even to the point of helping to convince someone else of something they know is not true.
The human capacity for sustaining cognitive dissonance has since been confirmed in many other well-designed experiments. This capacity is linked closely with our desire to join and fit in with a group, adjusting our own values and beliefs about things to align with those of others. Perhaps, knowing about these propensities, we can learn to avoid believing our own lies too much.
6. Memory Manipulation: Do You Really Know What You Saw?
In 1974 researchers designed an experiment to test the reliability of memory, and whether it could be manipulated after the fact. 45 people watched a film of a car accident. Nine of those people were then asked to estimate how fast the cars were going when they “hit.” Four other groups were asked an almost identical question, but the word “hit” was replaced with the words “smashed,” “collided,” “bumped” and “contacted.”
Those whose questions included the word “smashed” estimated the cars were going 10 mph faster than those whose word was “contacted.” A week later participants were asked about broken glass (indicative of more serious accident), and those whose trigger words were more forceful said they remembered broken glass even though the film had depicted none. Looks like something so subtle as a single descriptive word can manipulate memories of an event!
7. Magic Memory Number: 7
Psychologist George Miller wrote in 1956 that he was”persecuted” by the number 7, which kept intruding on his mind while contemplating data or reading journals. Sometimes it was slightly higher, sometimes slightly lower, but always it hovered around 7. Miller theorized that this ‘magic’ number represents the number of items we are able to hold in our short term memory at any given time. Plus or minus 2.
More recent studies have demonstrated that people are able to ‘group’ items in short term memory – thereby being able to hold more individual items – yet even there the total if groupings are considered units, the number comes out to 7. Plus or minus 2. Maybe this is why human cultural belief systems historically considered the number 7 to be especially important to the gods!
8. Anatomy of Mass Panic: War of the Worlds
Orson Wells broadcast an adaptation of H.G. Wells’ War of the Worlds on radio in 1938, causing panic in nearly 3 million of the 6 million people who listened to the broadcast. Princeton psychologists later interviewed 135 New Jersey residents about their reactions to the broadcast.
A surprising number of frightened people never bothered to check out the validity of the broadcast, and some highly educated individuals believed it was true just because it was on the radio and thus “authoritative.” We like to think we’re more sophisticated today and wouldn’t fall for such an obvious dramatization, but don’t be too sure, Media manipulation of our emotions and desires is a regular art form these days. Just ask Madison Avenue!
9. The Bargaining Table: Threats Don’t Work
Luckily, the behavior of individuals is both less deceptive and less violent than the behavioral ‘norms’ of groups. In the area of diplomacy among individuals and groups, people attempt to get concessions they want or need from others. Usually without having to give up too much in exchange. Researchers Morgan Deutsch and Robert Krauss tested two factors involved in the crafting of agreements between humans in 1962: communication and threats.
This complicated economic experiment found that cooperative relationships between the bargainers are more beneficial to both parties than threats, either unilateral or bilateral. Not exactly a rousing endorsement of capitalistic winner-take-all competition, but in view of the current economic situation perhaps the results of this experiment should be kept in mind as we craft a recovery!
10. Risky Behavior: Prospect Theory
Speaking of the economy, researchers Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky studied decision-making in risky situations and developed a theory about it that garnered a Nobel Prize and has been used to develop predictive economic models and influence marketing campaigns.
Turns out that it’s all about framing. People behaved differently depending on how the situation was presented. If considered in terms of losses, people were more likely to take risks. They were less likely to take a risk of the situation was presented in terms of what they stood to gain. This seems strangely opposite of what we’d tend to guess, so it’s something to bear in mind next time you’re trying to bluff at the poker table.
Originally posted 2010-12-29 09:45:15. Republished by Blog Post Promoter
GIRL WITH A PEARL
It is lovely to see that a Vermeer painting has been returning to Holland after being “on tour”. Personally, I am greatly saddened that Vermeer, his wife Catharina, and their children did not enjoy the immense financial rewards that art promoters have received during recent decades from his paintings, during his own lifetime! Within the context of the Eternal Now, financial rewards is irrelevant. However, acknowledgment, in the form of recognition of technical brilliance and praise of aesthetic artistry, are always welcome to any Immortal Being. (Read the article about the Vermeer painting, “Girl withe a pearl earring” being returned to Holland after two years): http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/news/vermeers-girl-with-a-pearl-earring-to-return-home-to-the-netherlands-after-two-years-on-the-road-as-mauritshuis-royal-picture-gallery-reopens-9158240.html
Read MY THOUGHTS about Hollywood film, excerpted from my book VERMEER: PORTRAITS OF A LIFETIME:
“
Re
casting The Girl, Spray-Painting The Pearl
I
will not soon forget seeing the horrendous Hollywood movie titled, “The Girl With A Pearl Earring” in 2004. It is a fictional depiction of a fictionalized relationship between Vermeer and an imagined “…young peasant maid working in the house of painter Johannes Vermeer becomes his talented assistant and the model for one of his most famous works.” It was nominated for 3 Oscars by the Academy of Motion Picture “arts” and “sciences”.
This tragically tacky spin on the life of Vermeer is classic Hollywood magic: take the true life story of a teen-age daughter of one of the finest painters in history, re-cast her as whore, and her father as an brutish ogre, spray-paint her naturally luminescent pearl earring with glitter glue and, presto! Nominate it for an Oscar!
Absurdly cliché characterizations contrived by the brain-dead writers invent a debased relationship between a fictional “peasant maid” and Vermeer that are typical of the money-motivated Hollywood swill fed to and gobbled up by an uneducated public. The socially redeeming value of this food for swine (to be polite) is a pile of steaming shit! Sexual intrigue may sell movie tickets, but pigs are stupid, and shit stinks.
The writers, producers and actors associated with this morose movie would have been more kind to Vermeer, his family and his artistic legacy if they had spent the budget for the film to visit the museums of the world, in which his priceless works hang, and spray them with graphic graffiti.
The film was written and directed without regard for historic fact or common sense. The preposterous personae of Vermeer was portrayed by the British actor, Colin Firth, with the charisma of a cardboard cereal box. Scarlett Johansson, who plays the role of the gawkish “girl”, is garish at best.
The premise of the ludicrous book and movie script, entirely ignores and abuses the obvious, and thoroughly researched historical information about Vermeer and his life. A few of the grossest omissions are:
1) All of the women in the Vermeer paintings, with one or two minor exceptions, are his wife, and daughters. To postulate that he hired a “peasant maid”, or that he had a painting assistant, much less that he had a sexual relationship with such an imaginary person, are sick, fictional contrivances.
2) That the Vermeers could afford to pay a servant, who could spare the time away from vitally needed chores, to become an artists assistant, is blatantly stupid. Household helpers were not something they could afford, except early in their marriage, at best. Some of the thoroughly researched facts about Vermeer were that he and his wife produced 15 children in 22 years! They lived in the small village of Delft, with his wife’s very Catholic mother, in her small house, to help reduce expenses. He died from overwhelming depression due to his inability to support his wife and 11 surviving children, who were left in extreme poverty at his premature death at the age of 43.
In a plea to her creditors after her husband’s death Catharina stated, in the public record, the final footnotes to Vermeer’s brief life:
“during the ruinous war he not only was unable to sell any of his art but also, to his great detriment, was left sitting with the paintings of other masters that he was dealing in.”
Catharina summarized the circumstances of his death: “as a result and owing to the great burden of his children, having no means of his own, he had lapsed into such decay and decadence, which he had so taken to heart that, as if he had fallen into a frenzy, in a day or day and a half had gone from being healthy to being dead.”
Obviously, the man she describes is the antithesis of the man portrayed in the movie.
3) That a woman would be allowed to become an artists apprentice or assistant, is an absurd fantasy. It was forbidden by the Guild of St. Luke which maintained strict, Puritanical oversight of the activities of every member.
4) It is a documented fact that Maria Thins employed a live-in servant woman in her home in the later years of her life. (Born ca. 1593 – died, December 27, 1680) Maria was 82 years old when Vermeer died in 1675 at the age of 43. Her servant’s name was Tanneke Everpoel. Maria bequeathed a small sum of money (20 guilders) to Tanneke upon her death. It is very likely that Tanneke is the servant shown in Vermeer’s painting, ” The Love Letter”.
5) The girl in the legendary painting (as well as in several other of his paintings) is his second daughter, Elizabeth! Vermeer never hired models — he painted only family and friends. It doesn’t take a cosmetic surgeon to compare the features of the women in the majority of his paintings to observe that the same women are being painted in their own home, again and again in different poses, settings, lighting and clothing. Most of his paintings feature his wife, Catharina, who was not only his constant accomplice in creating a family, she was his foremost ally in his life as an artist!
The paintings named (by others), “girl with a pearl earring”, as well as “the girl with a red hat”, and “the girl with a flute”, and others, are all of his second daughter, Elizabeth, who was a teenager when they were painted. He used her as the model for a series of very small “tronie” or facial portraits, which were popular at the time.
These miniature “head shots” were especially well suited to the use of the camera obscura to create what we know now to have a photographic quality, rendering the light and perspective differently than the unaided lens of the human eye perceives it.
The women in his family, during his lifetime, enjoyed dressing in the finest clothes and jewelry available to them, as well as exotic costumes, imitating the apparel of mysterious lands. Many of the accessories included in these paintings were borrowed. Trading vessels often brought fascinated news and relics to Delft from around the world. He and his family rarely ventured more than a short walk or boat ride from home.
That Vermeer would have an elicit affair with a maid in his own home is an insult to common sense and decency. Anyone who looks at paintings of his wife and nine daughters can plainly see his obvious love and devotion — if not obsession — for the women in the small house they shared. Vermeer’s family permeated every aspect of his life, and dominated his home.
His days were consumed with his work with the Guild of St. Luke, the militia of Delft, and interaction with other painters for whom, like his father before him, he sold their paintings to earn money to feed and clothe his 15 children. As his family grew, Vermeer barely had time work on his own paintings!
That there was ever any enmity or discord between Johannes and Catharina during their lives is a fantasy contrived by the Hollywood money machine that perverts reality to appeal to the lowest common denominator of prurient interest suitable only for soap operas, pornography, and girl-gossip magazines.
The self-proclaimed “artists” of Hollywood, driven by money mongers, like any mindless mercenary who act the part they’re paid for, notoriously devoid of ethics or integrity, are akin to any common soldier who massacres innocent civilians, and justifies their crimes in the name of war.
Vermeer, in this movie, and in his own lifetime, was a victim of brainless brutality. The stupid soldiers of Louis XIV of France who invaded Holland, together with the bloody British aristocracy combined to murder peasants, and plunder goods to enrich and glorify themselves. The net result for Vermeer was attested, after his death, by his wife, Catharina Bolnes, “during the ruinous war he not only was unable to sell any of his art but also, to his great detriment, was left sitting with the paintings of other masters that he was dealing in.” And further, “as a result and owing to the great burden of his children, having no means of his own, he had lapsed into such decay and decadence, which he had so taken to heart that, as if he had fallen into a frenzy, in a day or day and a half had gone from being healthy to being dead.”
Let us hope, sincerely, that those unfortunates who saw this “ruinous movie” can assess for themselves the denigrating massacre of an artist by Hollywood, compared with his own biographical portraits of a lifetime and the family he adored, magnificently embodied in his paintings, to judge for themselves the aesthetic intention and ethical integrity of the man, Vermeer.
— Lawrence R. Spencer
Originally posted 2014-03-08 17:05:08. Republished by Blog Post Promoter
July 27, 2016
33 RPM ART
AN ARTFUL USE FOR YOUR OLD VINYL RECORDS…all you need is a 33 RPM vinyl record, a carving tool and a burning tool!
Originally posted 2012-02-24 12:41:27. Republished by Blog Post Promoter
July 26, 2016
HACKSCHOOLING
When 13 year-old Logan LaPlante grows up, he wants to be happy and healthy. He discusses how hacking his education is helping him achieve this goal.
Originally posted 2013-03-06 22:22:55. Republished by Blog Post Promoter
The People of Iceland Fight The Private Banks and Win!
Why Iceland Should Be in the News, But Is Not
By Deena Stryker
An Italian radio program’s story about Iceland’s on-going revolution is a stunning example of how little our media tells us about the rest of the world. Americans may remember that at the start of the 2008 financial crisis, Iceland literally went bankrupt. The reasons were mentioned only in passing, and since then, this little-known member of the European Union fell back into oblivion.
As one European country after another fails or risks failing, imperiling the Euro, with repercussions for the entire world, the last thing the powers that be want is for Iceland to become an example. Here’s why:
Five years of a pure neo-liberal regime had made Iceland, (population 320 thousand, no army), one of the richest countries in the world. In 2003 all the country’s banks were privatized, and in an effort to attract foreign investors, they offered on-line banking whose minimal costs allowed them to offer relatively high rates of return. The accounts, called IceSave, attracted many English and Dutch small investors. But as investments grew, so did the banks’ foreign debt. In 2003 Iceland’s debt was equal to 200 times its GNP, but in 2007, it was 900 percent. The 2008 world financial crisis was the coup de grace. The three main Icelandic banks, Landbanki, Kapthing and Glitnir, went belly up and were nationalized, while the Kroner lost 85% of its value with respect to the Euro. At the end of the year Iceland declared bankruptcy.
Contrary to what could be expected, the crisis resulted in Icelanders recovering their sovereign rights, through a process of direct participatory democracy that eventually led to a new Constitution. But only after much pain.
Geir Haarde, the Prime Minister of a Social Democratic coalition government, negotiated a two million one hundred thousand dollar loan, to which the Nordic countries added another two and a half million. But the foreign financial community pressured Iceland to impose drastic measures. The FMI and the European Union wanted to take over its debt, claiming this was the only way for the country to pay back Holland and Great Britain, who had promised to reimburse their citizens.
Protests and riots continued, eventually forcing the government to resign. Elections were brought forward to April 2009, resulting in a left-wing coalition which condemned the neoliberal economic system, but immediately gave in to its demands that Iceland pay off a total of three and a half million Euros. This required each Icelandic citizen to pay 100 Euros a month (or about $130) for fifteen years, at 5.5% interest, to pay off a debt incurred by private parties vis a vis other private parties. It was the straw that broke the reindeer’s back.
What happened next was extraordinary. The belief that citizens had to pay for the mistakes of a financial monopoly, that an entire nation must be taxed to pay off private debts was shattered, transforming the relationship between citizens and their political institutions and eventually driving Iceland’s leaders to the side of their constituents. The Head of State, Olafur Ragnar Grimsson, refused to ratify the law that would have made Iceland’s citizens responsible for its bankers’ debts, and accepted calls for a referendum.
Of course the international community only increased the pressure on Iceland. Great Britain and Holland threatened dire reprisals that would isolate the country. As Icelanders went to vote, foreign bankers threatened to block any aid from the IMF. The British government threatened to freeze Icelander savings and checking accounts. As Grimsson said: “We were told that if we refused the international community’s conditions, we would become the Cuba of the North. But if we had accepted, we would have become the Haiti of the North.” (How many times have I written that when Cubans see the dire state of their neighbor, Haiti, they count themselves lucky.)
In the March 2010 referendum, 93% voted against repayment of the debt. The IMF immediately froze its loan. But the revolution (though not televised in the United States), would not be intimidated. With the support of a furious citizenry, the government launched civil and penal investigations into those responsible for the financial crisis. Interpol put out an international arrest warrant for the ex-president of Kaupthing, Sigurdur Einarsson, as the other bankers implicated in the crash fled the country.
But Icelanders didn’t stop there: they decided to draft a new constitution that would free the country from the exaggerated power of international finance and virtual money. (The one in use had been written when Iceland gained its independence from Denmark, in 1918, the only difference with the Danish constitution being that the word ‘president’ replaced the word ‘king’.)
To write the new constitution, the people of Iceland elected twenty-five citizens from among 522 adults not belonging to any political party but recommended by at least thirty citizens. This document was not the work of a handful of politicians, but was written on the internet. The constituent’s meetings are streamed on-line, and citizens can send their comments and suggestions, witnessing the document as it takes shape. The constitution that eventually emerges from this participatory democratic process will be submitted to parliament for approval after the next elections.
Some readers will remember that Iceland’s ninth century agrarian collapse was featured in Jared Diamond’s book by the same name. Today, that country is recovering from its financial collapse in ways just the opposite of those generally considered unavoidable, as confirmed yesterday by the new head of the IMF, Christine Lagarde to Fareed Zakaria. The people of Greece have been told that the privatization of their public sector is the only solution. And those of Italy, Spain and Portugal are facing the same threat.
They should look to Iceland. Refusing to bow to foreign interests, that small country stated loud and clear that the people are sovereign.
That’s why it is not in the news anymore.
SACSIS.org.za » News » The World » Why Iceland Should Be in the News, But Is Not.
Originally posted 2011-10-25 17:55:05. Republished by Blog Post Promoter
July 25, 2016
MENTAL INSTITUTION OF THE UNIVERSE
__________________________________________________________________________
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe ( 28 August 1749 – 22 March 1832) was a German writer, artist, and politician. His body of work includes epic and lyric poetry written in a variety of metres and styles, prose and verse dramas, memoirs, an autobiography, literary and aesthetic criticism, treatises on botany, anatomy, and colour, and four novels. In addition, numerous literary and scientific fragments, and over 10,000 letters written by him are extant, as are nearly 3,000 drawings.
A literary celebrity by the age of 25, Goethe was ennobled by the Duke of Saxe-Weimar, Carl August in 1782 after first taking up residence there in November of 1775 following the success of his first novel, The Sorrows of Young Werther. During his first ten years in Weimar, Goethe served as a member of the Duke’s privy council, sat on the war and highway commissions, oversaw the reopening of silver mines in nearby Ilmenau, and implemented a series of administrative reforms at the University of Jena. He also contributed to the planning of Weimar’s botanical park and the rebuilding of its Ducal Palace, which in 1998 were together designated an UNESCO World Heritage Site.[2]
After returning from a tour of Italy in 1788, Goethe published his first major work of a scientific nature, the Metamorphosis of Plants. In 1791 he was charged with managing the theatre at Weimar, and in 1794 he began a friendship with the dramatist, historian, and philosopher Friedrich Schiller, whose plays he premiered until Schiller’s death in 1805. During this period Goethe published his second novel, Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship, the verse epic Hermann and Dorothea, and, in 1808, the first part of his most celebrated drama, Faust. His conversations and various common undertakings throughout the 1790’s with Schiller, Johann Gottlieb Fichte, Johann Gottfried Herder, Alexander von Humboldt, Wilhelm von Humboldt, and August and Friedrich Schlegel have, in later years, been collectively termed Weimar Classicism.
Arthur Schopenhauer cited Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship as one of the four greatest novels ever written and Ralph Waldo Emerson selected Goethe, along with Plato, Napoleon, and William Shakespeare, as one of six “representative men” in his work of the same name. Goethe’s comments and observations form the basis of several biographical works, most notably Johann Peter Eckermann’s Conversations with Goethe. There are frequent references to Goethe’s various sayings and maxims throughout the course of Friedrich Nietzsche’s work and there are numerous allusions to Goethe in the novels of Hermann Hesse and Thomas Mann. Goethe’s poems were set to music throughout the nineteenth century by a number of composers, including Ludwig van Beethoven, Franz Schubert, Robert Schumann, Johannes Brahms, Hugo Wolf, and Gustav Mahler. (Wikipedia.org)
Originally posted 2012-07-12 14:39:14. Republished by Blog Post Promoter
EGALITARIAN DREAMS
Recently I received the following E-mail message from my friend Eduardo in Thailand who read the book Alien Interview, and sometimes shares his thoughts related to the ideas in the book. Here is the message he sent and my response:
“Hi Lawrence. I’ve been imagining the potential of DNA studies in social theory. It is the sort of research that may or may not have been done without publishing results. It deals with the meaningful comparison of DNA samples from both a subject claiming to be someone’s reincarnation with that of the dead body. After some experiments, Scientifics, are sure to come up with a pattern of identification. A good number of studies will be needed to confirm the hypothesis. Then it could become a subject of speculation by politicians and social change geeks.
Perhaps one of the first and easiest policies could be making possible for every citizen buying some land for personal use -without property taxes, for fairness- and offering its return after death using the DNA data. It’s just a dream but -in my opinion- consequences could be far reaching.
– The citizen will be the basis of government power in itself, the sole beneficiary of government decisions, and the final responsible of upholding national integrity. Biological constitution while subject to degeneration and death, does not need to be the target of exploitation by perverted policies as in the human past. Every citizen has the right to participate in society. Individuals in need will be the target of social reinsertion programs and dedicated installations during hardship. Animals, like humans, are sentient beings, the excuse of human superiority to make them suffer will not be tolerated. Biased social theories based on disguised vexation followed by adulation to claim control over a community are not the only alternative for government.
– The government will be the body dedicated to the management of individuals, resources, the healthy relationship between both, and ensuring their sustainability and safety. – All the land and resources within national borders will be the sole property of the government. Resources of concern are those regarded as finite by the government, hence its administration is regulated to compensate for its loss accordingly. Resulting scientific-technological improvements from government research will be available without further fees, licenses or patent rights to every citizen.
– Services required by property owners’ may be offered by the government for a fee. Property owners are under no obligation to contract these services as long as their replacement meets the standard for natural resources use.
– Wealth will be the reward of an individual or group of individuals diligence to provide a product or service in exchange for currency. The government, through its banking services, will be the sole manager of national currency. The government, through its employment office will be the sole manager of the labor force. The government, through its social security service will be the sole manager of individual needs. The government will manage national research and development programs. National employee wages in both public and private enterprises will be tiered to factors of preparation and experience level of the employee. The government source of revenue is derived from taxation on commercial enterprises.
Obviously, the big problems are collective amnesia between lives, lack of time for individual development, the need for a personal exclusive space, and intolerant short-sighted governments. This is just my point of view on something better. How does it sound to you? ”
Cheers, Eduardo
___________________
“Hi Eduardo, How do it sound? As I am sure you are aware, the ideas expressed in this article are an “Egalitarian Dream”. That is, such a government and state of existence can exist only where the population is selfless, and the leaders and administrators of government are sane and benevolent. On Earth, as described by Airl in Alien Interview, the population are prison inmates. The self-appointed and anointed “leaders” of what is called “civilization” on Earth are repetitively (due to reincarnation and amnesia) the criminal psychopaths — parasitic thieves, mass-murderers, and predators in pursuit of nothing more than a single lifetime of personal power, control and immediate gratification. Simply stated, Earth is a prison planet. Like any prison its only purpose is to dispose of, or control, unwanted individuals deemed to be “undesirable” or “unmanageable” beings. The egalitarian, selfless qualities of benevolence do not exist in “government” of Earth, any more than the “government” of any prison.
However, there are a multitude of social, selfless citizens of Earth. Each of these have amnesia, and do not know they are INSIDE a prison. Yet there remains a “feeling” deep within each immoral being that a society of beings can exist without brutality and inequality. Egalitarian civilizations may have been possible in a dimly perceived, but unknown place in a forgotten past.
Perhaps, on Earth, a monastery, or isolated commune of selective individuals an ideal Egalitarian civilization could be realized beyond the reach and retribution of the “prison guards”. There have certainly been many attempts. It has been written that any group of people is only as sane, and able coexist equitably, as the individuals members. Therefore, each individual being must be, or become, capable of egalitarian co-existence within themselves. Alone we may tolerate, or even admire, our own behavior. But can such equanimity be extended to include one other person? Three, twenty or ten million? Every “civilization” is composed of individual beings. An benevolent, egalitarian civilization must have members who are each willing and able to co-exist as such. Personally, I am not sure that such behavior exists in the essential nature of any immortal spiritual being in this universe. But, one can dream of such beings — or be one.” — LRS
Originally posted 2015-10-21 14:01:53. Republished by Blog Post Promoter
