Friday, 27 February, 2009

Sarah:

Regarding the awards...On Thursday night...
Congrats to the NewsNight team...

~Dennis Junior~

Sarah:

Story: Pensions

Regarding ever seeing the money again from Sir Fred Goodwin, It's doubtful that the money will ever be repay to the taxpayers.....

~Dennis Junior~

And, congratulations is in order after Newsnight triumphed

I'm sure they, um... are (DJ1, you are not yet moderated as , so apologies should I follow on your coat-tails.)

I am sure capturing a new and younger audience is just what's required.

And next year...?

Best 'Interpreting of Events'

Craftiest Edit To Suit Agendas

Most Cooperative Assistance to the Emergence of Truths?

Most Ratings-driving Rabid Extremes Twofer at the Expense of Rational Debate

Highest Cranked Eyebrow and Sneer Whilst Interrupting

Me, I just like my news as objective facts, and opinion well balanced, and will vote for those any day.

Can you ask or reveal how much of Sir Fred's pension pot he brought with him to RBS from previous companies?

Although he may deserve little as a reward, that part should not be part of this scandal.

Also, can we try for a new phrase in the English Language?

Doing a "Sir Fred" should be applied to anyone who "takes the money and runs" don't you think?

So gordon the wise/whizz/wheese lacking in cheese wants 2 Claw back the Bankers pension. What chance do I have of clawing back the Trillions the non cheesee brown one has flushed/wasted doon the bog.

O non cheezee een ye will git nair mair babees fae me, deep pooches short earms.
stick that in yer pipes an stick em up yer ....

Sir Fred talks about his "employers" contractual obligations. My question, when this news first broke, was did they not sack him? I think that even more now.

Has Sir Fred not heard such words as integrity, honour, fair play, facing up to one's responsibilities, apologising when things go wrong and accepting the consequesces for ones action. So much for old fashioned values eh, Sir Fred.

Oh and when you send back the money please relinquish your knighthood too!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YUhb0XII93I&feature=channel_page

Take Post 7
Sound as A Pound (excellent(me a quid))

pensions is diverting the story away from who allowed the financial regulation that poured petrol on the fire of greed - tony blair and g brown?

listened to Obama speech- what a refreshing change from the constipated mumblings of the last 10 years in the usa and the last 2 in the uk?

Who knighted Fred? Who were ascloseasthis to the fine burgesses of the banking sector and the Scottish banking sector in particular? And who tried to make it easy for Fred to go, rather than sack him?

Gordi and Alistair have a lot to answer for here.

Fred's pension clearly was a sweetener for his departure without squeeling; he may hand some back, he may not. Andrew Neil's advice, "keep the money and leave the country" may be Fred's only real recourse for his own safety.

But the real question is; how do people like Fred get to be in charge?
Remember "The Devil Wears Prada"? How did Miranda get to be the boss? it seems that the bigger the nutter, the bigger the job opportunities.

I'd like to see Newsnight do a mini series on just where these "leaders"come from and how they get to wield power which is clearly a deadly missile in their hands.

post 10 I'll buy that

I just recognised the opening chords of The Cure's single "Killing an Arab" on the opening sequence of your report on Obama announcing withdrawal from Iraq.

I'm not sure that's going to do much for UK/Islamic relations; although I guess if I hadn't pointed it out, maybe no-one would notice.

The single was based on the classic novel by Albert Camus, L'Etranger, in which the central incident of "killing an arab" is a kind of willed accident that takes Mersault, the murderer, on a journey from emotionally numb arrogance to something approaching a redemption, as he waits the death sentence in his cell.

So maybe not so inappropriate after all, U.S.

post dozen
not heard that one will have 2 find it.
We all await the sleep in 1 way or another, not 2 put someone else 2 sleep be4 their time is in, is a good thing or is my kords twisted

WAS THAT IRONY? (#9)

I just watched Obama acknowledging the 'sacrifice Iraqis had made for their country' (by being blown apart or buried under rubble for a slow death).
This is, of course, a mealy-mouthed, political euphemism for: "The number of Iraqis we killed in unilateral regime change, because Bush and Blair had 'Terror' under their beds. So much for Honest Barack. This is EXACTLY how Blair started out.

They say if it looks too good to be true . . .

I thought Mark Urbans piece was balanced, given he is probably working with partial information.

But is it not the case that Obamas position is quite complex - to say the least.

When the US leaves Iraq could stay in the US "orbit".

Or it could move the way of Iran and all of the US military training will have helped Iran.

If they don't provide enough training and Iraq collapses Obama gets it in the neck.

If Shia Iraqis pass on training tips to Iran and Iran launches against Israel (unlikely in my world as a nuclear bomb would harm Jerusalem) then the US would have provided
their enemy with vital info. Come on down Osama bin Laden!

So personally I think Obama did make a prudent judgment that covers his bets.

The US generals are often underestimated as thinkers and so I hope Pretaeus is underestimated (I know he is in Afghanistan but assume its his plan).

RAGE AGAINST THE LIVING OF THE KNIGHT! (#10)

Hola Kashi! Men in a corporate environment fall into two categories: the ones who get on with the job and the ones who strive for (and gain) promotion. I saw this clearly in my working life. It follows that the ones who rise, are the least experienced! Add the recent spotlighting of the Corporate Psychopath, and you may well have an answer to your question.

Yet again, it is down to lack of wisdom. Until we rear kids to adult competence such that animal hierarchies are eschewed for cerebral ones, our pretence of civilisation will just continue as a sham and a shambles.

I do not agree with bonus's and pensions which are out of proportion in relation to most of the rest of our population.

However, if the government have agreed to terms with Sir Fred's exit and pension, and are now going back on a committment - then they cannot be trusted. If the terms are incorrect then they should have been negotiated differently. If they DID agree them and are now going to imply that they did not by applying pressure on this man then it strikes me as dishonest - which scares me greatly.

Is Frank Dobson serious - the government should take the law into it's own hands and freeeze the assetts, ignoring due process - what's next - the elected representatives ignoring a key aspect of democracy and deciding to interpret the law as they go along - for their own political gain.

I think that Fred Goodwin should consider reviewing the amount of his pension (and reducing it), but if it is a matter of law then the courts should decide NOT FRANK DOBSON!

Post 16 (in) AYE dont think they/hymn heard your last...... EYE DID sparking as usuall Barrie

Post 1seventeeeeeen your handle suggest/digests 2 me that the old school is old/mould. As a meer 50tae2 ear auld ish Iam a school Loon and will ALLways wilB

YourSELF?

#16; I think I get it, barriesingleton; my problem is HOW do they get promoted? Are the promoters all psychos?

I read an article once that said the selection processes were at fault; the exercises used to identify "leadership" actually identified egocentric psychoses!

Time for new tests! Goodeeeee!!

16 / 20

Imagine this scencario - in an open plan office, a junior member of staff is seen talking to a senior executive who has walked into the department. They stand close to each other, the senior executive is smiling.

Has the junior member of staff caught the interest of a senior exec as a pontential high flyer, in which case should the other junior staff observing the scenario start getting into the good books of the favoured junior if he might be their next supervisor?

Or, has the junior member of staff created an illusion by accidentally but gently bumping into the senior exec and then apologising to him in such a way as to bring a smile to the execs face, for whatever reason, possibly even embarrassment?

That was the real-life example given in a programme a few years back about how psycopathic tendencies, which include high levels of charisma and low levels of guilt, operate in the work place.

Although I don't agree with Barrie that there is some natural state of being that humans can return to like lions to a pride or wolves to a pack, we do nevertheless rely on some base reactions. The confidence that we place in other people is derived from behavioural cues which can be faked.

I have never understood why people feel that it is necessary or sensible to say things like 'it'll be fine, you'll be fine' when they really have no way of knowing if that is true or not. But that is what most people want.

I don't agree with JJ that people cannot be educated - I agree there are limits but everyone can learn to use their own abilities and to make decisions to the best of those abilities. Unfortunately we are not brought up to make our own decisions but rather to fit into a hierarchy which requires most people to be non-thinkers. So where the education system lacks is in its ability to instill confidence, to be discerning, rather than facts. IMO

...or you could just read Dickens! Although in Dickens' stories, the good tends to prevail and one also suspects that the good is connected with a notion of superior genes trapped in compromising circumstances that righfully need to be rescued from the squalor of the streets. But nobody deserves to live in squalor whatever their genes. One good thing to come out of the banking crisis is that it has temporarily shut the sustainability lobby up. I hope we do not return to a consideration of sustaining the environment in the absence of any discourse about how we first stop 2/3 of the world starving. Maybe now the bourgoisie have had a taste of what it might be like to live day after day without a safety net they might begin to realise how hard it is to make shrewd judgements and longterm decisions when worrying about sustaining oneself and family from day to day.

doctormisswest (#21) "I don't agree with JJ that people cannot be educated.."

It isn't so much that people can't be educated, it's the more subtle one that behaviour is not created de novo but that rates of behaviour are selected and shaped. That is, if the behaviours aren't there in the behavioural repertore (which is largely genetic) initially, you can't educate it. We are searchlights, not buckets to use a Popperian image. Glossing over this crucial empirical point (see The Experimental Analysis of Behaviour ('the evil revisionists in psychology') is where so much goes so radically wrong - i.e. where good-dooers say that they can improve ability, help the disadvantaged etc. We have no evidence for any of that in the popular sense, yet billions is spent on the pretense that we can (although Obama now says he is going to cut back on programs which don't work note).

Do you see the point being made here? It is a subtle one (but it is profoundly radical), because that, I suggest, is why charismatic psychopaths/narcissists become some prominent despite their low base rate of a couple percent combined. They are not fettred by truth, and people in our free-market economies especially are conditioned to believe in their rights, in dreams and in themselves, not in duty to others. Reality is just too dull/boring. [Unsuitable/Broken URL removed by Moderator] we are led to believe.

Please take very seriously the point that Axis II, Cluster B disorders (which include psychopathy - but see Hare on this) are 'highly resistant change'. In fact, in the case of APD it is regarded, professionally, as untreatable (and even professionals are easily seduced/taken in by these people). The problem is that in the work-place, like everywhere else, those with Personality Disorders are 'larger than life', often charismatic, and as they are incorrigible, but often bright, they 'get on' precisely because they actually have something missing.....empathy/conscience/concern for others.

Some make out that this is very 'sexy' :-(

TOPSY TURVY SOCIAL DESIRABILITY

doctormisswest (#22) Look at the population growth in Nigeria, Pakistan and East Pakistan (Bangladesh) compared to the UK. They have each over tripled to nearly 150m whilst we, if one takes out immigrats and their birth rates, all but gone into negative growth?

Think about it carefully.

What is this obsession with stopping under-developed, low mean IQ countries from 'starving', when in fact they're reproducing way beyond their carrying capacity, whilst here we're heading towards extinction?

It's all self-promoting social-desirability. If you really care, care about your own. That's all that these other countries care about.

FOR THE AVOIDANCE OF DOUBT

At post 21, doctormisswest characterises my position as being: "that there is some natural state of being that humans can return to like lions to a pride or wolves to a pack" I am noted for obscurity, so feel moved to adjust that view somewhat.

I use a simple hypothesis that we are humanised animals (The Ape Confused by Language). We have the cerebral potential to be very clever and very wise, but at puberty, we become very animal; maturation is arrested, and clever is much more fun than wise. The technical term for this is 'a mess'.

'Return' (doctormisswest) might be imposed on us by a major - probably cosmic - catastrophe, taking us back to small groups living 'primitive' (sustainable) lives. By my assessment, the alternative is to become predominantly mature, as cerebral humans. We might then control the ape (and the ape loins) constrain cleverness (politics, advertising et al) and succeed in an age of global harmony; harmony with self, other and planet.

However, I approach all this as I approach The Times Crossword: success is almost certainly beyond the wit of (this) man; and, in cosmic terms, it doesn't matter anyway!

PROCREATION PARADOX

Animals, on reaching puberty, find the drive to multiply is innate and enormous.

Following on from my #25, the aspect of 'civilisation' we pay least attention to, is human coupling. I suggest that if babies became fashion accessories (promoted by Saachi & Saachi) Britain's population would go 'foom'. Currently, as JJ regularly points out, the fashion is 'Ms Mammon' (how's that for a line of power suits?) and appropriate sterility.

We have had pay policies and transport policies, but never a procreation policy. This is probably because (as with assisted dying and euthanasia) we are too wrapped up in the Christian undertones of 'life' being magical, to address it sensibly.

When some mad Prime Minister drafts us all into his army, to be slaughtered on a whim, we get a death policy in short order, but that same PM would not dream of licensing conception. We are simply incompetent.

NO TEST PLEASE - WE'RE PSYCHOPATHS.(#20)

"#16; I think I get it, barriesingleton; my problem is HOW do they get promoted? Are the promoters all psychos?"

Just a feeling Kashi: I think it makes perfect animal sense. It might be that what we call a psychopath is simply functioning closer to the animal?

From a purely subjective point of view: the desperate, promotion-fixated wannabes that i observed, usually radiated weakness; safe for the alpha male to have near them. I have read that the typical Mafia boss drew such to him, yet despised them. I suppose fawning might also play a part.

WHEN NON DISCRIMINATION IS CONVENIENT

barrie (#27) It really doesn't help that so many allegedly normal people treat those who care about others' welfare as weak. But that's our culture. I've touched on this in #23, which I suspect is with BlogDog because of a couple of (innocent) links to Youtube/Wikipedia? Our culture is currently predatory and and all too fond of peddling an equalitarian myth which paradoxially is part of that predation. Just as it's easier to bomb any enemy from 40,000 feet, it's easier to exploit people when one does so under the guise of it being consumer choice and that caveat emptor is fair play.

'In a speech to Labour activists in Bristol, the prime minister said banks had lost sight of basic moral values.'

So thats why Brown had so many banking advisers and promoted light touch regulation?

Absolutely shameless.

#22 doctormisswest

Don't get sucked into Jaded_jeans statistics.

This is somebody who will cheerfully put out "meaningful" statistics about 1930's Jewish survival rates in relation to the Holocaust. The race "realists" have an "open mind" but think that there are is " a mass of evidence" for the Holocaust not having happened.

Everything is partial and prejudiced and references to the scientific community are rare. They are "all Jews" - yet the race "realists" still claim scientific reason even though the fig leaf slipped off a long time ago.

barriesingleton is somebody who did a "bit of R&D" and therefore feels that he is well placed, being so exceptionally clever, to say that the thousands of scientists with a cumulative total of thousands of years of pertinent research into climate change could be wrong.

Its good to see genuine posters on here so don't let the race "race "realists" grind you down.

#28 jadedjean

"... equalitarian myth ...."

You are a race "realist" whose politics could be said to encapsulate planned economies Hitler style. You clearly believe yourself to be in an intellectual vanguard of change.

You clearly struggle with the concept of "normal" and its not hard to see why.

Yet you are strangely sensitive to referring to people as ignorant pig-dogs who would "paint Hitler as darkly as possible for party political reasons"?

Surely after all the things that you say about the 99.9% of the UK population who are democrats you don't see yourself as on a charm offensive/blitzkrieg?

You aren't a Nazi or the BNP so you have no political considerations. The BNP aren't going to do more than win a few council seats temporarily here and there anyway.

Why not be yourself.

thegangofone (#30,#31) "This is somebody who will cheerfully put out "meaningful" statistics about 1930's Jewish survival rates in relation to the Holocaust."

The figures I have linked to are from the Jewish Virtual Library and (for the NYC posts) other reputable sources such as the USA Census Bureau. Other links on individual differences clearly speak for themselves.

You may not like these statistics or the deductive inferences, but that does not justify you persistently posting untruths or your personal slurs.

Thanks Barrie, I do find your posts quite poetic/obscure. I was a little provacative in trying to tease out some hard data about your theory/standpoint. It is usually easier to get a 'No' out of someone than to get a 'Yes'.

I assume you've been walking the dog - you were missed, anyway.

To say that we are apes confused by language IMO misses the opportunity to see language as the next locus for evolution - memetic evolution but see also the previous link to Andrew Lehman's theory of the transition from song to spoken word about 40K BP, which I think you might quite like. An elite has formed that uses language in a far more complex way than those of us who evolution has left behind. We may not like this idea but evolution is not within our control - that's not to say that breeding can't be for all those budding eugenicists out there but we cannot predict where evolution goes.

To say that we are humanised animals sounds to me the same as saying we are human because we are human.

I can't even begin to understand how you could see psycopathy as being closer to animals. In what way are animals psycopathic? I suggest instead that humans have a highly complex truth/non-truth mechanism (but only as a continuous development from the emergent use of pretence in primates and mimicry in lower animals) because both have been required in the past for quite legitimate survival reasons.

I don't agree that cosmic-catastrophe will inevitably lead to sustainability. Mad Max's world was not particularly sustainable but quite believable as a post-catastrophe society - highly violent. Low technology is part of an environmental sustainability package by definition but does not, I suggest, of itself create harmony. One could just as easily steal a generator as steal a pc. In fact, shortage of resources does if anything increase negative competitive strategies. The shock of the banking swindle is the fact that people have felt the need to be so selfishly accumulative amidst plentiful resources - who really needs their own jet plane/ gold leaf taps?

'Cerebral humans' - well we disagree there. As I said to JJ, compare the entries for intellect/intelligence in Wiki with that of Dexterity. High IQ does not supply all the intelligence required for sustainability. One of the major set-backs for the environmental movement has been to retain the movement within the bourgeoisie instead of sharing it with manual sectors of society that could make a valid contribution due to high levels of hand-eye coordination and intuitive (animal if you like) understanding of materials and forces.

Urges from the loins are not less human or more animal. That's what we are - sexual beings. But unlike animals we don't have a template pride or pack to say 'there, look that's how we should be behaving'. Some people feel that religious texts or history provide us with a template, I personally don't (but that's not to say we can't consider and/or retain previous forms) because I believe that evolution is an ongoing process - you can't put your foot in the same river twice.

If you think it doesn't matter, doesn't that make you a nihilist? And isn't nihilism equally self-defeating as feeling powerless in the face of dysgenic trends?

Previous procreation policy - Marie Stopes, welfare/social services, religion, public mores?

Christian undertones? good and bad I'd say but I'd also agree that life is magical in the sense that we don't yet fully understand it. Imagine the body. There is nothing 'solid' in the body it is simply a mass of chemicals suspended in fluids. The chemicals are sometimes bound closely, sometimes wandering around bumping into each other and, when they do, things happen. But the chemicals don't know why they do what they do, they do it mainly just because they 'fit' each other. Life is a great big coincidence, much like 'rapport' producing great ideas that individual members of the rapport hadn't come up with on their own. A chromosome is 2 metres long in its unstained state and we have 46 in every cell of our body (gametes not withstanding), is that not 'magical'?

JJ #71 Tues 24/02

I often think that we are arguing the same thing. I am not disagreeing with your theory of IQ or your theory of education. What I question is the conclusions that you draw from putting the two theories together.

I didn't understand your second paragraph. Surely drugs affect the body biochemically and to different degrees. Behaviour can change biochemical pathways - CBT. Addicts are victims of their inherited biochemistry and the pathways created/destroyed through development.

thegangofone (#31) "Yet you are strangely sensitive to referring to people as ignorant pig-dogs who would "paint Hitler as darkly as possible for party political reasons"?"

Have you seriously considered the thesis that the reason why you and others say such things is simply to vilify political systems which you personally don't subscribe to? The more dramatic/extreme the horror stories/propaganda, the more others will be swayed against such political systems.

Just consider:- what if the behaviour which Germans elected Hitler to deal with were destroying their country? Surely the people who were instrumental in sustaining the socio-economic system which was subverting German statism in the 1920s and early 1930s would resist any efforts to stop that would they not? What better way than making out that the regime was run by devils incarnate or 'ignorant pig-dogs'?

I suggest you look up 'collective guilt'.

doctormisswest (#33) As the conclusions are deductive inferences - what is there to disagree with?

Think of drug addicts as self-medicators.

Most psychotherapy (including CBT) does not work. People have to find expression for their behaviours, in some cases, we have to contain them (i.e. their behaviours) in order to protect others.

Evolution is a biological/genetic/physical process - the notion of a meme is a (dubious in my view) popular metaphor. There is verbal behaviour - not much else.

Try not to go beyond the information given - that's what scientific discipline demands - not being creative. Bruner misled. Find out how.

gangofone - Theoretically-speaking, I think I probably agree with JJ more than with you but I prefer talking to you because you are nice to me! I agree with you though on the most important point - if we don't believe that we make western democracy work then we might as well all take a trip to a Swiss clinic!

This H stuff is new to me. From what I can glean, there may be an overestimate of a couple of million but I don't see that as making a qualitative difference to what we currently believe about the evils of totalitariansim, or psycopathy for that matter.

It is also true as JJ points out (I think, lambast me if I'm wrong, JJ!) that we have not given fair consideration to 22 million Soviet deaths. [I thoroughly recommend a film called Come and See or Come, See. No idea where you can get it.] WWII was a bad joke really. Hitler took Poland, so Britain declared war but then couldn't win unaided so the US stepped in and saved Britain by giving Poland to Stalin. The Poles were treacherously used by all parties. I don't degrudge them acces to our economy.

Environmentalism - I'm not an environmentalist. I believe in fixing culture before environment and I think the environmentalists have been taken for a ride by the capitalists in the 2000s just as the multiculturalists were in the 1990s. I do however believe in sustainable living and wish very much that I lived in a house dug into the hillside! I also belive in conservation and will probably adopt a polar bear because I can't bear to see them die out. Some species can die out without much affecting ecosystems - there's always a surplus in nature. So in environmentalism, as in everything, I shun the absolutist position. Cheers.

#21; "I don't agree with JJ that people cannot be educated...." and "So where the education system lacks is in its ability to instill confidence, to be discerning, rather than facts."

#22; "Try Dickens".

I think you're on to something here; in the 70's I taught in Germany and I have clients/friends there whose children attend school currently.

I have to say that not much has changed there since my time; and the Germans are really thankful for that. I was stunned in my time at the amount of "Noten"(marks) given in real time by the teachers; feedback was immediate and encouraged dialogue about how to improve; childrens' confidence was really a joy to behold and there was none of this huge gap betwween primary and secondary as we have here.

Now in Germany, "Noten" are additionally given by students to teachers in real time, allowing teachers in their turn to develop and grow.
Again the confidence and maturity of these students is heartening, yet in this country someone of equal age would likely be seen as at least 3 years behind in development in comparison.

And these German children are not at Eton or Harrow equivalents; as Alastair Campbell would put it, they attend "bog standard" Gymnasien, or secondary schools.

In addition, there has to be some connection with how we train teachers, indeed with the motivation behind entering a teaching career. Has vocation been replaced by secure employment, final salary pension scheme and a cushy life - if it wasn't for the pupils?

Another topic for the Newsnight team to grab a hold of?

Dickens; did you read the leader in the Independent about "being clever"?; he (Howard Jacobson) quotes "Hard Times" in relation to knowing facts; i.e."Define a horse". The good answer starting with "Quadruped;" yet the rich experiences of knowing all about the horse, its behaviour, characteristics, what it's like to be near is "inarticulate" and dismissed out of hand in favour of Gradgrind's "facts".

Maybe we're too in thrall to facts/factoids.

#24 "If you really care, care about your own."

Reminds me of the scene on the Big Prater Wheel in "The Third Man"; Harry points down to the people below and asks Holly, "Would you really care if one of those ants down there stopped moving? If I gave you £20,000 for every ant that you stopped moving, how long would it take you to calculate how many you needed to stop moving to..."

J'ACCUSE; JadedJean is Jove.

Well that's where we disagree, JJ. Your arguments are along the lines of 'we don't know that the world is round so therefore we should not consider the possibility even if someone has suggested it might be plausible'.

We don't know what we don't know.

Prodigies and some artists/composers say when interviewed that they don't know where their ideas come from but they do know that they have to go with them, 'like catching a moment in time and if you catch that moment, then all else follows'.

In Xanadu... creativity and mind-altering substances!

The documentaries on Hitler's rise to power that I have seen portray a widespread concern in the government about Hitler's oddness, and a surprising sequence of events beyond the control of those who shared these concerns. Far from being a popular choice Hitler's rise was against the odds. But once brain-washing starts it is a self-perpetuating process. Everyone likes to feel positive and everyone likes to be told that they can and should feel positive. The corporate fiasco is in no small part due to the import from the US of person-centred psychology into the business world - No problem, is that for yourself? Because obviously we can't actually do anything because this is Customer Services and there is no manager present!! How are you today, madam? Can I be overpersonal whilst I take your money?

The posts 2 day are cooking/boiling/fermenting/ etc and my head has just Exploded......... again. where's humpty or the Kings Men/Horses when you need them.. No politicians judges bankers barrastares required

doctormisswest (#36) "lambast me if I'm wrong, JJ!"

I'm trying to be constructively critical, not hurtful. At the end of the war, borders changed. At the end of the war, Germany was to be turned into a market garden by the Morgenthau Plan. At the end of the war, Germans were to be fed on near starvation rations. At the end of the war, many people continued dying in liberated camps beause of diseases like typhus. The Germans lost the war. They were bombed into submission. At the main war crimes trial, the case against the accused was not going well. Tha's when the allied psychological warfare propaganda film was shown. This was footage of bodies and emaciated people in the Western camps (the USSR exhibits were so obviously fabricated that they were not used, but are still documented - that is where much of the soap and human skin nonsense came from). The allies bombed German supply lines!

My point is that it was well documented post war allied policy to denazify Germany and to do so ruthlessly via a policy of 'Collective Guilt'. Thre is no doubnt that hundreds of thousands of Jewih pople were deported to the East. There is no doubt that most if the Jews in Europe were in what is now called Eastern Europe and West Russia - but there are still questions to be answered about what happened to large numbers of Displaced Persons who ended up in territory which was in the USSR in 1945. There is also no doubt that much that was shown after the war was propaganda. Political propaganda which put a spin on the facts, essentially to make both German National Socialism look bad, along with any other form of statism.

On another point, we do know that we can not raise intelligence through education, and we do know that therapeutic/rehabilitative programmes do not work. We know this from applied research and we know this from professional experience. The people who don't know this and who believe otherwise are non-professionals who believe lies from those who have a vested financial interest in pulling the wool over funders' eyes. I have linke dto the evdience often enough, it's why, via the the recent Act, Probation lost its programmes input into Offender Management. It's why psychotherapists are shortly to be better regulated (i.e driven out of business with any luck), and it's probably why Obama is going to cut back on education initiatives which do not work.

I'm clearly telling you something you don't know. It is radical. You are not the only one who will fin it hard to accept. But please note, I do know what I am talking about on this matter, and I've provided links to the empirical evidence for those who want to check it out. We are currently living within lots of lies (based on false assumptions). No trip to Switzerland is necessary, just a return to austere reality conditioned by evidence rather than spin. When people don't understand something, it's like blind people not seeing something. Pointing things out does not work because they can't see anythng. See scotoma.

"but there are still questions to be answered about what happened to large numbers of Displaced Persons who ended up in territory which was in the USSR in 1945."

what are the theories?

education favours intellect. intellect is not intelligence.

"we do know that therapeutic/rehabilitative programmes (have not) work(ed)"...."The people who don't know this and who believe otherwise are non-professionals"

yes, yes and thrice yes!!!! professionalism is a CULTURE that not all people in this country live in/under! Professionals FAIL to achieve their goals because they are by definition the wrong people to design and implement programmes affecting non-professional culture. Vis. an entire department of professionals failed to notice that a baby was being tortured to death under their noses! - due to too much a priori / cerebral / intellectual THINKING/PLANNING/ORGANISING/MONITORING/RECORD-KEEPING and not enough sensory / intuitive / creative OBSERVATION/FEELING/EMOTION!!

Eureka!!!!!!!!!!!!! We agree :) :) :) :) :)

THE ONLY DOG I WALK IS ME.

Is it not VERY apparent that, as Newsnight goes inexorably down the (neon) tubes, this blog is lifting away from the mundane - hopefully without going where the sun don't shine?

It is such a shame that the gap between NN and NN-blog, can only widen; and unless we can embellish these postings with gimmickry of colour sound and movement, the (by now) jaded sensors of 'The NN Crowd' will just not register points raised or made. Blogdog excepted, of course. He (or in today's world -she) will still partake of the odd juicy morsel of our offering. (In tests: 9 out of 10 Blogdog's preferred JJ flavour.)

So - pooch permitting - we effectively are on our own.

Doctormisswest, my thanks in return for such a full critique. I'll transfer it to Word and get to grips. I think it might be that we are on different wavelengths; that is NOT code for I'm right! (:o)

JJ: point taken. Not sure I should have used 'weak'. But I won't choose a substitute, it will just end in tears! (:o)

Kashibeyaz: Better school is better than worse school; but it is still school. Forget horse - define school? (:o)

I'll be back.

doctormisswest (#41)

DPs behind USSR borders? Who knows, the Soviets never made a fuss about the Holocaust after the IMT. On the contrary, see Mahmoud Abbas' PhD thesis undertaken in Moscow and consider the stats that there were 15.3 million in the world in 1933 (9.5 million in Europe, the rest in the USA) and 14 million today, and that they have below replacement level TFR like the rest of Europeans (except for the Orthodox). What is absent is rational explanations, and that's a matter of some concern to rational people. We train peole to ask questions based on measures. Sadly, we are now making a mess of higher education. In the 1960s we had 30,000 graduates a year. In 1994, 150,000, a 5 fold increase. In 2009 it's 300,000, which is half the cohort. That signifies a major dumbing down or flooding of higher education. Large numbers of those people should not be there. The main change from the 60s is the number of females and I've said why that is a bad thing.

The 'Baby P' issue is a nonsense. On the one hand there are hordes of people calling Social Services 'nazis' for intruding and on the other we have (often the same sorts of people) lying, cheating and stealing so that those who might help have no opportunity to do so. My sympathy is with Special Services.

My substantive point was that therapy or rehabilitation does not work because people are made the way that their genes make them. Put them under conditions which they can not cope with and they buckle.

This is a very painful (and often long-drawn out) lesson which many in the helping professions learn at some point or another. To some it comes as a devastating shock as they go into these professions as alchemists.

Overbloated Pensions:

As far as clawing back overbloated pensions are concerned, it would a simple matter to tax all pensionable income above say £100,000 per year at 98%. This would have the desired affect of getting all the money back from all the gready bankers etc., or perhaps they, the overbloated pensioners and would be pensioners, to apply pressure to these people, and inject a sense of realism back into the market place.

db4200 (#44) It might even encourage some of these 'charismatic' people to leave the country.

JJ, what is missing is a rational explanation as to why Abbas, you or anyone else is so bothered about this - what material difference can it make to future?

I've long thought that many intellectual-professionals are arrogant and delusional. I didn't realise it is because they are frustrated alchemists.

doctormisswest (46) "JJ, what is missing is a rational explanation as to why Abbas, you or anyone else is so bothered about this - what material difference can it make to future?"

It isn't missing, you've just failed to pick up on it.

The USSR supported the Arab states just as Russia (and probbaly the SCO in general) supports Iran etc today. The USSR was statist, it ran a Planned, Command Economy (as does China, essentially, today). These systems put people, and duty, first, believe it or not.

The idea that Planned Economies oppress their people, stick tens of millions into GULAG etc, violate Human Rights etc, is all part of the Liberal Democratic Orwellian propaganda machine to keep free-market capitalism running (see Hayek's 'The Road To Serfdom'). The idea that Hitler's Third Reich persecuted/wiped out an innocent minority group which did nobody any harm helps keep that nasty regulating sort of politics at bay in the free-world.

The fact that many of them were not innocents but were International Bolsheviks and free-market anarchists is best not mentioned as that would be 'discriminatory' and 'offensive' - even if true - see Solzehenitzen's last book, yet to be translated, oddly).

Stalin was a National Socialist.

We are all or should Alchemists. For thousands oy years wizards witches and the like have been trying to make gold out of something else. They have been looking in the Wrong place.
Every day when I GO/do my AblueTions I allways have a butchers at the stream. 99% of the time it is GOLD, The Real Important Gold. Variants of colour ie Red is a clear warning signal, feelings of broken glass is another. There are many more

So 99+ per cent of my time I am Tickety BOO
How about You ? Auntie Beeb 2 ?

Barrie - can't dogs howl in harmony?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y6k4ZYjW-cA

A PROPER RESPONSE (#33)

EVOLUTION: I feel adaption can go up as well as down. Man’s big head is self-evidently problematic. I surmise that we might well have selected for big brain but NOT for big head and, by extension, not for big cerebral performance. It happens that I am well acquainted with cerebral palsy and global catastrophism. I also LOVE a theory. Suppose the Earth, cataclysmically, lost much of its oxygen. I suggest few births would reach term and there would be a lot of brain damage. If larger brain mediates more chance of wiring round the damage, there will be larger brains selected for at a genetic level.

ANIMALS +: consider 24 hours of your life, everything enacted AND ITS MOTIVATION. Is not most of it animal? Now consider angst - cerebral? That’s how it seems to me. The paradox is (and this is another area of personal enquiry) language, skilfully applied, can be VERY healing. It's all very odd - I shall get god in a minute. As for psycopathy as animal - I threw that in - dog eat dog in the psychological sense?

SUSTAINABLE MAD MAX: Isn't MM a transition phase on the way from over-complexity to extinction? (I have scant knowledge of the gentleman.) Would not a few crofters be a likely neucleus or regeneration?


THE OLD HAND-EYE PLOY: One of my soubriquets is Smartart (half smart half artisan). AH! I see where I misled you. I did not mean maturity is PREDICATED on the cerebral! I was trying to define the continuation of the world as it is (complex) where intellectual/academic is prized.

LOIN KING: I put loins firmly in the animal sphere. If we had never added the extra brain, the loins would still work

ONGOING EVOLUTION: Surely we could be just a twig on The Tree- one about to die back? The main stem can be anywhere back there; to be defined by circumstance! Without all this cerebral clutter - if you were a migrating Wilderbeast - you would be SURE it was 'the same river'.

NIHILISM? What should I care about: - me, my blood line, the human gene pool, primates, vertibrates, etc etc? There are so many things we are powerless in the face of. I have resolved to poke a few things and see what happens - and then die. (:o)


2 METRE CHROMASOME: I reckon the magic lies in the Universe and everything else is 'sub-set magic'. I am very fond of the Periodic Table.

Who said this then?

"The people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy.

All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, then denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and of exposing the country to danger; it works the same in any country."

Blair, Blunkett, Reid?
Brown, Straw, Smith??

Hermann Goering, in fact, at his trial in Nurnberg.

Thanks to Rory Bremner and his article in today's Independent.

Vince Cable for Chancellor, Rory for Home Secretary and ? for PM; could it possibly be Lord Snooty of the Eton Rifles?

CABLE STITCH (#51)

Be careful what you wish for K. Have you done your homework on lovely 'Vince' aka John? He had five goes at getting elected and has tried various parties. He has never so much as blown on the pillars of that iniquitous Westminster temple; a good man would pull it down.

Who said this then: "It's the quiet ones you have to watch" - every mother that ever lived.

I have had my eye on J Vincent Cable (and on J Gordon Brown) for some time. Matthew Parris spoke my misgivings, more or less word for word.

Off now to see if the Rory article is online.

Last Post shed 51
Chance llor = Dig up an Old Fashioned Scottish Bank Man Ager
Home Sec/P.M.= W Churchill

The people ?can? ALLways? be? brought? 2? the? bidding? of? the? leeders?

eh? IN my case A Very very very very very BIG FAT NO.

Dont urinate down my back and tell me its raining/babys bath water/the kettle has fryed/boiled
unless you have been deed 4 sum time urine/the golden stuff is warm and it can sting.
rain water does not times 2

I have on occasion played follow the Leader.
The leaders in Q had a map and compass and knew how 2 use them and new where he/us /was/were/hasbeen going.

Do YE fanciee it He asked
Lead on said eye/we
and offski we weed

Utrique Paratus
Rat on Us if u likey/.....

HUMAN RIGHTS? (#51)

I think you might have a copyright problem with the Goering bloodline Kashi! The way things are going you have surely infringed his human rights. Then there is plagiarism . . . You are going to need a good lawyer, or at least an oxymoron.

Post TEN
Surely (n dinna ca me shirley) A HITile not miss ile. If the missile misses but goes off it can still do the job with ease of what it inTENDed 2 do

Barrie I take a Fence 2 your last.
A Good Man wood BURN it down, think of the warmth it would give 2 those in need of it
old watts his face the guy
but that was 4 RE legion. The wrong troos the wrong rea son = tree son

Barrie - read your reply, understood about 70-80% but appreciate 100%. Surely putting loins in the animal category is a cunning way of abdicating responsibility for them? And, before you go selecting for bigger heads, spare a thought for those who introduce them into the world :) :)

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doctormisswest (#21) "I don't agree with JJ that people cannot be educated.."

It isn't so much that people can't be educated, it's the more subtle one that behaviour is not created de novo but that rates of behaviour are selected and shaped. That is, if the behaviours aren't there in the behavioural repertore (which is largely genetic) initially, you can't educate it. We are searchlights, not buckets to use a Popperian image. Glossing over this crucial empirical point (see The Experimental Analysis of Behaviour ('the evil revisionists in psychology') is where so much goes so radically wrong - i.e. where good-dooers say that they can improve ability, help the disadvantaged etc. We have no evidence for any of that in the popular sense, yet billions is spent on the pretense that we can (although Obama now says he is going to cut back on programs which don't work note).

Do you see the point being made here? It is a subtle one (but it is profoundly radical), because that, I suggest, is why charismatic psychopaths/narcissists become some prominent despite their low base rate of a couple percent combined. They are not fettred by truth, and people in our free-market economies especially are conditioned to believe in their rights, in dreams and in themselves, not in duty to others. Reality is just too dull/boring, we are led to believe.

Please take very seriously the point that Axis II, Cluster B disorders (which include psychopathy - but see Hare on this) are 'highly resistant change'. In fact, in the case of APD it is regarded, professionally, as untreatable (and even professionals are easily seduced/taken in by these people). The problem is that in the work-place, like everywhere else, those with Personality Disorders are 'larger than life', often charismatic, and as they are incorrigible, but often bright, they 'get on' precisely because they actually have something missing.....empathy/conscience/concern for others.

Some make out that this is very 'sexy' :-(

REALLY?! I GAVE UP AT 60% (#57)

My post 50 was very messy. (Worse than usual.) When I re-read it, it confused me!

I am still working on the loin theory. I reckon lust is animal but seduction is often cerebral. 'Conquest' (Casanove) is more a cerebral concept but must call on the animal for 'validation'. In a straight fight - loins win every time, once a 'certain point' is reached.

I have met too many big-heads to ever want to select for more; god though I am. But (to repeat) if only the very largest brains could survive my hypothetical cataclysm, they would, perforce, have been born painfully EVEN THEN (up one end of a JJ bell curve). I would not wish it on anyone. Of course, few mothers in the West die due to big heads currently, but come Armageddon, and no Caesarians . . .

This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

Barrie - I take your point but I'm also thinking of the extraordinarily complex mating rituals in many/most species and also the dialectic or conflict or dissonance that predators have in resisting the temptation to eat their seducer. If you believe that human development moves through many evolutionary forms - and I'm not quite sure that you and JJ do, there was a link to an article on Darwin that made me think one or other of you is not a Darwinist but as always correct me if I've misunderstood your positions - and if you also believe as I do that psychology and culture have also evolved along side forma and function - then it seems reasonable to suppose that we just have a very, very complex stock of potential behavioural pathways to draw on so that it is possible for 'healthy' pathways to be 'switched off' through errors of development. Stalking is a good example. On the one hand perseverance and focus are prerequisites for many jobs, on the other hand we don't tend to apply those behaviours to mating.

Are we Bonobos or their aggressive cousins? I'd say we are potentially everything that has gone before and the magic of being human is that by definition we have to manage our own behaviours to a greater extent than other species. For example, I'm fairly certain that there is at least a weak correlation between propensity to pair bonding and size of male genitalia - if you don't need to display yourself to win a mate then a huge appendage is a surplus requirement it would seem. And vice versa, there may be some truth to the idea that those with a huge appendage would probably like to display more often than they get the opportunity to.

Heads - it is a cruel irony of bipedalism that, not only do knees wear out but also, if you want to keep your organs in then you may have problems getting something out. But there are ways and means. We have normalised the image of a woman in childbirth screwing up her face and screaming. We like that image, we comfortable with it, we laugh along with it. What the woman is actually doing is constricting muscles - below as well as in her face. It is a myth that we 'give' birth. If you keep your face relaxed then the baby shoots out - it is the baby's biological need to come out that we should focus on rather than our own importance. Good managers know when to delegate.

JJ - again, I agree with most of what you say, I just reach different conclusions about what policies we should develop. And that is the problem for centrally planned economies. In your CPE, you would have to 'remove' me to preserve your policies.

What I enjoy is that after years of ricocheting between the natural and social sciences, I have found someone who can argue from a position of understanding (as opposed to co-opting concepts) both political theory and behavioural science - a rare breed to be sure!

Did it occur to you that we may be programmed to take different positions? For a long time I've thought that the 80:20 rule that is loosely applied to population/wealth may be a natural ratio. Supposing 20% of the population are programmed to agitate - it would make sense to me. Most people I'm convinced prefer to conform to whatever system they find themselves in. But if everyone did, that would not be so good for the gene pool. Likewise, there may be 20% who are destined to be woolly liberals. Baa. But as you so rightly point out, liberals who don't understand genetics waste a lot of time trying to turn cats into mice and vice versa.

Most of what I advocate is really just tinkering around the edges of what you are saying. It is even possible to theorise from the behaviour of monkeys that a sense of the aesthetic is evolutionary. So I do agree how trapped we are by our jeans.

Where we differ is in your staunch belief that professionals have the answers. I think professionals lack certain positive traits and because they don't recognise those traits as self/valid, those very useful traits are squeezed out of the decision-making processes so we don't always come up with the best solutions. What I am suggesting instead is that we work towards 'individual potential' and harness any trait that has a use. Currently we create a rod for our own back because the traits that we shun turn round and attack us.

What you say about NPD I read as agreeing with what I've been saying about ideology. It is our ideology that has allowed charisma to seduce us, whilst ignoring the lack of conscience that accompanies it in some individuals.

Where we disagree, is whether or not it is possible to run a society by a strict set of rules. I don't think it works. I think we are by nature very varied and only some form of democracy can lead to permanent peace.

But...

... you will say that in western democracy the population are puppets of capitalists and propagandists. Maybe so, but, within certain limits of income disparity - a line we have recenlty crossed - most westerners quite like it that way. Because the trade-off is freedom of ideas. In other words, I don't resent people having money as long as I can pootle along watching movies that stimulate me (oops, sounds like porn - I don't mean that!) without worrying that I should be doing something or other that the state thinks I should be doing instead.

Ah, you may say the state needs to intervene in parenting. I say no, the state needs to intervene in violence and the community needs to uphold duty of care, but not ritual.

This is in stark contrast to the theocracies of the middle-east. So, I have reached the conclusion that we have to agree to disagree and that global peace will only prevail if the whole of Israel is disbanded and Israelis compensated and relocated in the West. I don't think it's fair, because Jerusalem is important to all of us, but I think it is necessary. I also don't think it's going to happen. I think as one of your links suggested there will be a terrible war with millions of deaths and mutations for generations to come. [And somewhere there will appear a community of disparate and misshapen survivors who worship Barrie :) (get the Mad Max II film, Barrie, and you'll see what I mean). And somewhere else will be communities of relatively well-preserved environmentalists who were able to deploy cunning ecological, technological and commincation, survival strategies - and the charismatic psycopaths who were able to talk their way into the bunkers! :¬]

Is that acceptable? I intend no offence or incitation.

Barrie (#60) "My post 50 was very messy. (Worse than usual.) When I re-read it, it confused me!"

It's all that intensional opacity!

(I do surreptitious exorcisms you know).

I have just listened to the Andrew Marr show 'interviewing' Harriet Harman, when the topic of Mr. Goodwin (this Lord lark is rather devalued IMHO) came up.

Did I just hear a Government Minister, say, in effect: 'it may be legal but we think the court of public opinion takes precedence'.

If so, that is indeed an 'interesting' precedent.

Mr. Marr seemed none to concerned.

So I guess I need not be either.

It has many potential applications elsewhere that I can think of.

doctormisswest (#64) "If you believe that human development moves through many evolutionary forms - and I'm not quite sure that you and JJ do, there was a link to an article on Darwin that made me think one or other of you is not a Darwinist but as always correct me if I've misunderstood your positions"

The idea that ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny is not strictly true. The idea that some groups mature earlier than others (Blacks then Caucasians then East Asians, and girls before boys) is interesting in the context of neoteny given that ordinal relation to final group mean IQs, i.e. there are advantages to being late-developers and not maturing early. There is a move afoot to change our KS3 SATS so that pupils can take them when they are ready.

Darwin (and genetics) is at the core of all of biology. Behavioural Science (link 1) is a biological science.

Clearly at least some of your thinking is very wrong. Note that most of what I say is evidence and policy driven.

Good Mornin All (well tit was when I got up)

Did I get your Gigantick pair o NickERS in A TWIST last nite Auntee beeb
I do hope so

In the moaning I shall b 4ever sober

You on the other hand ant beeb will still be warts an all very ugly ish : )

Yet again, you see disagreement where there is none. I have posted before links to Lehman's theory of neoteny and autism but you refuse to consider any science that you do not bring to the table. You like to play games and to discredit arguments on the back of semantics.

This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

doctormisswest (#70) "Yet again, you see disagreement where there is none.

Hardly. You asserted something (or at least, questioned something i.e. "as always correct me if I've misunderstood your positions"), so I did, i.e. I corrected you.

Try taking an allocentric (ideally, an extensional) rather than egocentric perspective.

See if you can find the text of "On Having A Poem" on the web. Barrie (or someone who knows him may even be able to provide you with the audio). You might also like to read the American Psychologist exchange between Skinner and Herrnstein in the 1970s, and perhaps this.

Most people are still taught to talk a load of nonsense most of the time, especially about these matters (see over at the Stephanie Flanders blog). Skinner, Herrnstein and Quine were a few who did not.

I'd like to see Newsnight help arrest our dysgenic trend and its consequences. Would you?

Bloodee Nora Auntea beeb

Censore fish n chips or was that off the old block/shoodher
OR INdeed have you a B in yer Bunnet
I have 2

dAllan169 (#74) In your own best interest, stop posting psychotic word-salad.

JJ 7 5 Point near taken.
Are you spying on me
In MY best interests, What pray tell me are my best interest/s? I am die ing 2 find out
I am sorry I dont have a clue
do you

dAllan169 (#76) "What pray tell me are my best interest/s?"

Not being censored by BlogDog.

all the Sevens fair comment, But BlogDog still does get the Cut of my Jib, My thrusting is getting Thru. How do I know this
Chyrstal Balls.

You have lit the Blue/maroon touch paper dont retire 2 a safe place yet. (depending of course if gordon has left you/us with one. a pension ssch mum's the word, dont you know there are 2 war's on)Standby/sitbi/laybuy or dont buy
I will come back to all this caper later when I have some time.
Kind Regards JJ

Hell o is there any bodies oot there in the Dark
Detective PArseSon/ViCAR Sgt/ ClueLess PerSonAGE Madam or chief InsectorAte rePORTing 4 duty free

dont all shout/shoot at once/keep yer powWOWdher dryish.

"EVERY DAY THE CLEVER BLOGGER FINDS THEY KNOW MORE AND THE WISE BLOGGER IS A LITTLE LESS CERTAIN."

But the annoying thing is that, though something similar is unreliably reported as having been said by a very old Chinese, his veracity, we have no way of measuring. Might the exact opposite be true?

Then there is William of Ockham, who in all probability never owned a razor. Did he ever PROVE his hypothesis?

Might it be that encoded in the collected works of dAlan169 is the meaning of '42'?
How can we tell? Absence of proof . . .
Unknown unknowns . . .

As you can see, I am being blatantly 'less certain'. Clearly I want to be the wise one here. But I can be out classed by greater outpouring of alternative uncertainty. No - that can't be right. Gosh - what fun! Let's have an 'Uncertainty Fest'!

Of course, I might ACTUALLY be wise - I'm really not sure - nor could I prove it, if I were.

PS I have read all posts, and taken due note of those directed to me. All grist to the mill - thanks.

NN should have you lot on the Review for some surreal ????s?? (with out
the theological context) from the top end not bottom.

oh so the mods don't allow Ancient Greek to be posted. Well in English its "Kenosis" and not ????s??

barrie (#80) There certainly seems to be more market-demand for entertainers than realists....

A QUARK ON THE WILD SIDE (#83)

Our 'heaviest' scientists (bosons?) have named their quarks: up, down, strange, charm, top and bottom, even though there is no up or down, top or bottom, definable. As for strangeness and charm . . .!

Is this bad science, or scientific thinking tacitly admitting to 'something more'?
As Patrick Moore used to say with such aplomb: "We just don't know."

SONIC HEDGEHOG

barrie (#84) "Is this bad science, or scientific thinking tacitly admitting to 'something more'?"

It's because what really matters are the the values of variables (and their relations), not what we call them.

Is Patrick Moore a scientist or an entertainer? He certainly has some interesting personal views.

PS. Doctormisswest may benefit from a copy of the audio 'On Having A Poem' if you can manage it.

MATING RITUAL (#64)

I am a long way from up-to-speed on this stuff, but get the impression that, in nature, males respond to signals from females?

In 'humans', cerebrally disturbed men are known to use sexual coupling as an act of violence (hijacking the animal).

Equally 'perverse' is the painting of female lips, mimicking aroused tumescence and general erotic display, without cerebral understanding of its effect on the male.

This all looks to me (as covered at length) like a blind alley in the evolutionary process. Physically we are tinkering with every aspect of a (dynamic) balance achieved over millions of years. Psychologically, we are doin' our own 'eds in.

You know how to whistle don't you?

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SUSAN GREENFIELD SAYS I SHOULD GET OUT MORE! (#85) (Or does one's name, subliminally, bias one?)

Great post - as usual - JJ. I wish I had enough of the right IQ stuff to grapple with it properly!

Dropping all opacity and obliquity: I think 'On Having a Poem' says a great deal about Skinner as TOO CLEVER BY HALF and trapped in a 'Tin on Tail' (TOT) immature life, trying to shake it off. (James C Dobson is another such.)

I can no longer find my way to either audio or transcript of 'Having a Poem' on the web. But were I to direct anyone to it, I would feel moved typify it as revealing of Skinner's NEED to live a life of PROVING that the world functions in a way that he can countenance, without unbearable angst. Not sure that makes me a true and faithful servant! But I would not obstruct in any way. (:o)

barrie (#88) "I can no longer find my way to either audio or transcript of 'Having a Poem' on the web. But were I to direct anyone to it, I would feel moved typify it as revealing of Skinner's NEED to live a life of PROVING that the world functions in a way that he can countenance, without unbearable angst"

Aha - this shows me that you do not know that he was a strict Machian empiricist - i.e that he just described what physically happens (based on lab research and field engineering). It always surprises to me to see people questioning things which demonstrably happen.

I'm sure NewsFazer could send you a copy.

I suspect 'evil-doers' somehow got it removed from the web. They're prone to do that sort of thing, are the evil-doers.

Eevil-doers can sometimes be very beguiling

#68 JadedJean

As ever you know that the huge majority of scientists know that genetic variation is greater within a race than between races.

There is no scientific rationale for race "realism" and you can reference a few papers here and there but that is not what science is about is it? You aren't going to produce a paper for the scientific community that proves the errors of their ways are you?

The reason you tend not to identify yourself as somebody who likes the idea of eugenics, planned economies Hitler style, race "realism" etc is that this is all about propaganda and not facts. Hence the Punch and Judy characters above,

But 99.9% of the voters reject your views and they will continue to do so.

The BNP who hold similar views to you can only have their party conference in a field as nobody likes them.

The Holocaust did happen and readers who are not beguiled by your views might think about writing to their MP's with a view to having Holocaust denial made a criminal offence.

#86 barriesingelton to Jaded_jean

"Psychologically, we are doin' our own 'eds in."

If only ... if only ...

thegangofone (#90) You are far too eager to believe, and to fill in gaps rather than ask critical questions. I suggest you watch Schindler's List and note where you are led to fill in the gaps by the director. You should at least consider this in conjunction with the Morgenthau (with Dexter-White) Plan (and Tehran/Yalta), and what is said here.

Try to look at history dispassionately. Try to see politics and self-interest for what it is.

Why do people keep trying to talk up the economy when we are still falling? Its counterproductive. When there are reasons to be cheerful nobody will believe them.

I have heard several commentators say that the worst is over.

Yet Mandelson threw a fit when Starbucks suggested the UK economy was not tickety-boo.

Now 'John Mar, co-head of sales trading at Daiwa Securities SMBC Co. said: "You're seeing the US is sinking lower and lower, and we're still desperately searching for a bottom." '

HSBC wants an issue for £12.5 billion (will they get it?) right after the short sellers on Barclays said they thought banking stocks undervalued.

Meanwhile Gordon Brown blames the bankers (yet did all he could via the BoE and FSA to facilitate their quite legal "greed") and will now try to introduce regulation and get credit for what should have been there.

There should have been forensic examination of what went wrong, accountability, and then measures to control risk analysis, instruments and regulation - both nationally and internationally. We need to know this can't happen again and Browns protestations that the crisis could not be foreseen demonstrates his utter incompetence.

Zip is going to happen until something that approaches that happens. If it was the G23 I think we would have heard rumbles by now.