Ad hominem, ad vericundum, poisoning the well, straw man, etc. All of these claims can only be true when they are observably verified by the audience. Fallacies are not Latin phrases to be used like some charm or spell to attack one’s opposition.  Arguments have gotten pretty complicated these days, and if you follow the FF forums you are witness to the pretty interesting evolution that is going on.

One side will claim ad hominem, straw man, ad vericundum, appeal to ridicule etc… even if the earlier claim was substantiated by an observable FACT (typically a QUOTE) that supports a negative description (the negative description is called out with a fallacy). Here we see people learning the Latin names of these fallacies, fail to understand that when FACTS support a “negative” portrayal of their argument or their behavior it is not a fallacy. Now instead of analyzing where the observation of the fact can be wrong or maybe pointing out where another fact would soundly put the matter to rest, another fallacy is brought up. It’s become enough to just know the Latin, and the facts become second place.

The problem begins to escalate when you are the audience and the two or multiple sides claiming fallacies and someone’s lack of self control creates very long winded arguments making the discussion a big confusing mess.

Now here is a simple solution: slow down and work with the clearest, easiest to follow or simplest fact that needs addressing. Although one or a few sides might slow down, it just takes one side to ruin it. One side might not consider the cognitive biases that make any fact appear different with multiple perspectives. That side with the least cognitive empathy will be the most inclined to rattle on and sweep away that slowly building clear and coherent framework the other parties may be trying to create. One off comment, a lack of argument discipline, and the house of cards will fall. 

As for the audience, to anyone who is skeptical, longer and confusing arguments can be the most suspicious, especially since all B$, fast-talk or cons work by confusing the listener. The only side worth following boils down to who seems the most transparent and coherent. Following doesn’t mean being on that side, but what happens is by contrast the more confusing argument basically becomes gibberish and no one will support something they can’t thoroughly understand or follow.

It seems discussions have to be a bit simpler, more for the benefit of an audience who can best allow for some objective observations than for the most enthusiastic debater.

Robert Axelrod‘s Work (The iterated prisoners dilemma):

• Be nice – this means don’t be the first to take advantage of someone’s vulnerability or an opportunity that changes the status quo to the detriment of everyone else (assuming everyone else has roughly the same status as you).
• When you draw a line, enforce it. Be ready to put your money where your mouth is. This includes punishing those who fail to be Nice not just to you but to others.
• You must be Just/fair. In this instance it means being forgiving. When you have punished and the price for the betrayal or transaction has been paid, be able to move on and rebuild relationships.
• Some measure of openness. Be sure people know how and why certain actions will influence your own actions. This does not only refer to punishment, but also to negotiations and cooperation.

Working closely with my father, I wondered why he is such a trusting person. Given his experiences in business and how many have taken advantage of him, I find it strange that he is not in grievous debt – or very cynical. Getting into Game Theory opened up the perspective allowing me to analyze the advantages of his behavioral pattern (strategy).

In the bullet points above, the attributes provided by Robert Axlerod are general guidelines to be Fair and to be Nice.

Chapter 4: Cost of Social Norms from Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely adds another dimension to Strategic Niceness.

Being nice is an Investment in Good “Faith” that you will be treated the same way. It is a strategy that cannot be easily quantified or broken down to rates of returns. Behavior is very much circumstance driven because environment and history of temperament are factors that are hard to account for in such assessment.

We begin being nice by being courteous and amiable, ignoring small transgressions (giving the benefit of the doubt until being able to draw a reasonable conclusion). A lot of being Nice is being receptive and being patient with the information you have gleaned when there is enough to act on either building a relationship or establishing that person is not trust worthy and merit avoidance – or giving punishment for abuses of good will.

Being receptive doesn’t mean being anyone’s fool. It doesn’t mean habitually leaving oneself vulnerable to abuse, nor does it mean letting people walk all over you. Part of being nice is being honest enough to communicate how much you are willing contribute, with the skepticism that the other party should meet you halfway. Drawing a line and communicating certain expectations doesn’t stop one from being nice. In fact, it becomes a selfish breach of social norm to prevent the other from taking reasonable measures for themselves against deception.

Now acting nice because you want to be treated well in exchange may seem draconian to some. It only seems that way with the pervasive conditioning of Entitled Selfishness. Some people expect people to be Nice or Good for its own sake. It is these people who find themselves entitled to be treated fairly and well, and who are more likely to violate the social norms that govern common courtesy and more serious matters like costly exchanges.

In the studies cited in Dan Ariely’s work regarding the chapter on Honesty and Character, preventing the temptation to be abused or deceived is an important aspect of honest relations, even when these safeguards are not tested.

In the end being a Nice Person has a time and place. Often, those of us who are habitually this way forget that there are times and places that call for us to be something else: firm, confident, certain, suspicious, careful, etc. This flexibility does not stop us from still considering ourselves “Good People”.

Trolls are nothing new in the life of a freethinker, particularly those who like to spread lies and claim ad hominem when you point out evidence of irrational and deceptive actions. It can be a very stressfull life when you consider that all these people who like to spread information and make personal attacks never get tired when they are in the Internet voicing their strong opinions (without having to ever bring up evidence or without the intent to listen to the other side’s diplomatically framed argument).

Internet trolls are very easy to come by. The best solution is actually asking the persons to put their money where their mouth is and bring them to a public discussion. When they begin to sound crazy, it’s not just you who notices. This applies to the religious ones, even those with the Religiously Granted (but Unearned) Credibility of a Priest, to a “middle-aged” netizen, or any one who resorts to cheap tactics, like drowning out the other side’s argument with rants and being unable to communicate their ideas efficiently enough to let you have a word in.

When this happens, bring a camera and threaten to post in Youtube or host in a torrent. Point out deflections, fallacies, captured lies, and cognitive biases in their arguments when there is a whole lot of public around to see them at their worst (and they’ll know it is their worst because they know better than to let themselves get public).

Learning to fight, argue, and discern the lies and deceptions is an important part of life. We will encounter these problems in business and in our personal lives. Someone will always be trying to take advantage of you with an argument designed to deceive you,  both face to face and on the Internet. We are free to ignore them or to answer them at our leisure time, but when reality catches up we should get used to the idea that we will have to publicly argue with them. Imagine how such people have taken advantage of you or your loved ones and being powerless to stop them.

As a freethinker you shouldn’t worry, since there is an answer. Counter-deception skills are a Science and available to the freethinker because it takes the same kind of skills to find such knowledge. The sciences hated by many trolls are (Behavioral) Economics, Game-theory, and Cognitive Science, mostly because these are related to the sciences that disprove or don’t support their claims.

It’s not as if you’re alone trying to learn the skills to find more honest answers from people or facts. There is a whole lot of people who are tired of bullshit and would like to hear less of it. They have the advantage of being able to cooperate, practice these skills together, and develop new techniques.  I’ll leave the possible consequences of a group more skilled in catching bullshit and developing a strategy to throw it back to the trolls’ face with greater force to the imagination.

If I were forced to work with a bully or a slacker as a peer/coworker, how could I make them do their share of the work? First of all, it is quite obvious I cannot just tell these people to do their job; I would have to make them. Realistically, the world doesn’t work on good intentions alone; self interest is a part of it. In order to make the bully or the slacker do his/her job, I need some form of leverage over them. This leverage can be in the form of authority, telling my boss the problem in order to rescue myself from being taken advantage of and in order to prevent a precedent for future abuse. Another form of leverage is manipulating them by playing on their character weaknesses, something left to more canny individuals. Another still is by stamping my handiwork with my indelible signature to create evidence of their omission.

Leverage is neither evil nor good. People might get the bad idea that leverage is evil, since it is power to compel someone against their will. However, it is merely a tool. Like any other tool – hammer, knife, accounting software, the Internet, money, etc. – it is the ethical consequences of the action that clears up this ambiguity.

There are three groups that provide leverage to the people:

Competition and Market Forces – Free-market forces give the people, who are consumers, leverage by choosing one supplier or service over the other. Without the power of choice, how are people able to punish inefficiency, or framed in another way, reward innovation and hard work?

Courts of Law, Law Enforcers, and Legal Experts – If someone violates a serious binding agreement, the ability to take them to court is a form of leverage. The law is a tool, a way to keep people from breaking promises others depend on for their welfare, stability and happiness.  Without such leverage, there is very little to prevent abuse and the public from being taken advantage of.

Free Speech, Free and Impartial Media, and… Free Thought – Public expression is a way to communicate to others serious or vital concerns with regards to their conduct. Free speech allows people to attack and defend their credibility, and gives the truth opportunity to prevail. Part of free speech is the ability of individuals to apply the more impartial tools of logic and reason to come to their own conclusions, which we know as Freethought.

I might address that these forms of leverage may not be perfect tools, but without them we certainly diminish our power to affect change and improve our situation.

Looking at the three groups: Free trade, Law and Order, and Free speech, how much leverage does the Filipino have? Among them, what is the easiest to achieve given our own individual abilities, and that can be achieved by our collective groups? Which group precedes the others or by what degree?

Understanding leverage helps me determine what is the most cost-efficient application of effort towards change. I hope this helps you too.

How can you make people enjoy learning when Intellectual Elitists like to point out what others don’t know and rub their noses in it?

I define intellectual elitism by judging people by what they know instead, particularly against the standards of personal biases. I find it deeply rooted in an overwhelming desire for validation and praise, even at the expense of others. I see it as a problem because, such a predisposition leads to dismissing ideas as they are being formed and communicated. That snap judgment, based on incomplete information and with such absolute certainty, is inconsistent with aspects balanced and impartial intellectual pursuit. A key symptom and clue of an intellectual elitist is that, they have early on stopped listening and they never criticize their own understanding.

Spotting such people is not that difficult, face to face I find them when it is difficult for me to express my ideas and how they interrupt me in the middle of explanation with an oversimplified assumption of what I was leading to. This is not to be confused with people who try to help others with the best words to contain their ideas. In a conversation, the other speaker chooses not to relate ideas in a middle ground by listening and empathizing in order to use the optimal verbal method for the other person. Not all key names and individuals count as name dropping, it becomes clearly so when they rattle off a long list of names for the sake of supporting their ideas instead of expressing the underlying logic of their argument in a moderate length.

Although I disdain them, I should empathize with them. It takes one to know one, and I am guilty of Intellectual Elitism at times. Such desire to dictate and lecture is a vanity developed when I worked hard to acquire knowledge and I am accustomed to the positive reinforcement of authority and the praise of others. This desire becomes stronger especially when it is not to my strengths and the effort was a challenge.

How I can change to be less of a hog for attention, is about looking at myself with an outside perspective and using the same critical manner I would use to tear down an opponent’s argument at my own pettiness. It’s kind of hard to do, and having good friends who tear you a “new one” and teach you not to take yourself too seriously helps immensely. Self deprecation or Humility has a practical use in learning, it allows me to criticize myself and remember I still have so much more to learn. Such a virtue should be carried over to how I treat others and their views… I try and do it often enough but I’m human after all.

Of course, having such empathy and disgust to Intellectual Elitists in myself does carry over when I see it in others. If I’m disgusted enough at something, sometimes I can’t help but draw attention to it and make an example. Unfortunately this is not the best way, criticism without trust or credibility is just outright verbal attacks. I may not know some people, but I pretty sure they don’t know me either. When broad judgments are made by them regarding what I know, instead of what was said, especially when I barely had anything to say, the proper response is verbal retaliation. Same thing goes with how I should address others, I should avoid making sweeping statements when I really don’t know the person if I don’t want it to be interpreted as an attack.

The old rule parents would teach, “when you have nothing worth saying, don’t say anything” applies more specifically when dealing with such people. Sure they ate up my time, but there is no point in trying to win the value of that sunk cost. Leaving for greener pastures is the best possible course of action, although there is no rule of thumb on how rudely or politely I’ll leave. After all, I wouldn’t know much benefit of the doubt I would have wasted dealing with such people and how I will ever feel at the point of being fed up.

The proper atmosphere, to my point of view, is one that makes everyone feel okay to ask questions that they would otherwise feel stupid to ask. Such nice people to talk and exchange ideas with tend to present themselves with some humor and would at default assume the best of people. They also pay attention and ask good questions about the ideas discussed, stopping to test each other’s understanding, like someone who makes sure he is walking at the same comfortable pace and the other person. They often ask what you mean by your terms, they are not quick to let their own assumptions about the other’s use of language.

In such an atmosphere and around such people, learning becomes easier. Such a circumstance allows me to see the different strengths and potential of others, and thus learn to value and respect them more.

I got into Role-playing Games when I was around 11. We were middle class but on the stingy side. Our parents were starting up their business and we had to cut a lot of corners when it came to toys. So we played imaginary games. My brothers and I learned about DnD from the cartoon, comic book ads, and fantasy fiction in movies and anime in the 80s. We bought a very discounted but original DnD computer game at around 1990, but it was so old it was broken. My brothers and I only had the manuals and we liked the ideas so much we used it as the baseline for our imaginary games.

We studied in Alabang while living in San Juan. Our parents, struggling with their business, made us stay with them in the office. After class it was about another 3-4 hours before we got home. That was when we would play RPGs a lot. We didn’t have dice and we didn’t know what it was called. It was a year later that I found out that it was called RPGs and what DnD was all about from my classmates who spent summers in the US.

Role-playing was cheap, forced us to read a lot, and all other tools was left to our creativity and imagination. It was a game I played with my brothers and brought us very close.

It eventually became the focus of my career choice, taking up Multi-Media Arts specializing in Game Design and writing a 19C Philippine Historical Role-playing Game for my thesis.

Fast-forward to today. Role-playing has become a powerful business critical thinking technique. As game theory unraveled the complex interactions among individuals and organizations with mathematics, it highlighted the ability of empathy to intuitively make sense of these complex interactions. It has become a structured exercise for developing one’s empathy, honing it to better take in the character of another person and to generate ideas with the shift in perspective.

Sample Role-plays from Harvard Business School Press

Teaching business, management and strategy through role-playing a Scientific Journal

Teaching Empathy through Role-playing Exercise from the American Humanist Association.

TED Games Saving the World

Using Role-playing to Teach Empathy

As a game theory enthusiast, I sometimes get questions about what would be the most effective strategy in improving our situation in the Philippines. When people ask me this, there is a notion of a utopia that distracts from the reality and makes my answer difficult to take. Addressing such expectations, I’m aware people need an idea of what to strive for or what clues to look out for, to know that all their efforts and suffering are not in vain.

If you’ve heard of what is happening in Thailand, they are clear examples of what it looks like moving towards better horizons.  Having more people involved in addressing the shortcomings of government and participating in making things fairer is a very good sign.  It’s not a pretty sight to see so many people angry, disgruntled and making sacrifices just to be heard. Change for the Philippines invovled people organizing and holding the country “hostage” because this is the only leverage ordinary people have.

In game theory you cannot expect anyone, no matter how much they claim to be on your side, to REALY promise change unless you have leverage over the other party. Having all the guns (all the leverage), means having never to listen or make good on the promise.

Thomas Schelling, an economist, professor of foreign affairs  and author of the Strategy of Conflict helped explain the necessity of making parties accountable in the deals they make. In the same principle that if I want people to believe what I am saying, I will give them the same information to see it for themselves. If I wanted my promises to be credible, there should be a form of leverage the other party can enforce on me should I break it.

We don’t have leverage, unless we have numbers and cohesion. In Thailand, they can paralyze the economy or take away the legitimacy of leader in retaliation.

Do we have that same kind of leverage?

The irony is knowing how some people who like to bash on Thailand for their morals don’t realize they are leaving us in the dust. Another irony is that those who are comfortable have the least to gain and have the least to lose. Those who have the most to gain are those who have the most to lose. Protests, rallies, and boycotts cost days of pay for the people who need the jobs more.

Check www.gapminder.org and compare the Philippines and Thailand.

A behavior one can observe is how the Anti-RHB groups have actually attempted to dehumanize their opponents. One can easily see it in the headlines as Bishops accuse Pro-RH people of immorality in public online discussions. The readiness of the Anti-RHB to never understand a side that understands them all too well is apparent. It flies in the face of common sense when the Anti-RHB assume that these former Catholics or Christians or Pro-RH Christians do not understand their faith. Opposition having come from their own ranks, it never occurs to them that they already know or that they did not understand the teachings enough. This arrogant and distorted view has led to many clashes and polarized the discussion.

It does not help that the Anti-RHB people do not even provide adequate scientific backing to their arguments. Practically all of these arguments, and I’m not generalizing, are very poorly constructed. Most of the time there are no links or sources cited. Most of the arguments are anecdotal and follow poor logic, falling into logical fallacies like argumentum vericundum, negative premise, fallacy of illicit process, and a lot of self-reliant fallacies. One of the “strongest” evidences posted fail miserably in the fact checking. As an example, look at the  medical primer for the RHB by Dr. Angelita Miguel-Aguirre.

Fallacy of illicit process: Julian Simmons and Professor Gary Becke talk about overpopulation with respect to WORLD capacity, not the nation’s economic capacity. Their books and abstractions can be found in this link . It would be only fair for their views to be clarified if they really pertain to allowing families to grow sustainably in an emerging and poor market like the Philippines, especially since the Nobel prize they were awarded dealt with an entirely separate issue from Reproductive Health.

Quote-mining and fallacy of illicit process: regarding Edward C. Green’s research on the condom use in Uganda.

Obsolete and Debunked Studies: Barbara Seaman: the Pill and I 40 Years on the Relationship and the latest technology regarding contraceptive pills.

Because they have wasted people’s time with really poor and invalid evidence and continue to provoke and harass the Pro-RHB people, the credibility of such people have come to a point that they are no longer seen as worthy of proper attention or respect. Wasting people’s time, provoking them,  continuously giving the same poorly constructed arguments, and ignoring well constructed counter-arguments are actions that can only be interpreted negatively.

What is compounding the damage is the language that assumes that their opponents don’t understand anything Christian, theological, moral or ethical, that these people who are of their same faith know nothing about these things and that only they are the sole source of authority to be worth listening to.

As their actions have crossed the line to many of the Pro-RHB people and pointed out with the negative language that best describes those that act in that method, a vicious cycle is created. Their ability to selectively choose information, also known as confirmation bias, makes them think their provocation is justified and they continue to pursue a strategy of repetition. The very repetition is already a symptom of severe mental tunnel vision, being unable to act dynamically to the individual circumstances of a given situation. Cut off from rationality, they will continue to repeat this strategy until they grow tired of having severely damaged all credibility of their cause for lack of a more diplomatic solution.

This constant battle can exact a huge toll. I sometimes wonder where all these arguments came from and why I couldn’t have just avoided them.

There is a huge difference between a fundamentalist and a free thinker in this battle for ideas: the fundamentalists are trying control everyone else, the freethinkers want to be involved with the processes of making a world where they can be happier.

My claim that fundamentalists are trying to control stems from the pattern closer inspection of their behavior reveals. The pattern that emerges is mostly concerned about imposing their will on what is “theirs”. There is a gross amount of egocentric rationalization and not any allocentrism in the pattern of behavior. Strangely this control quickly extends to thoughts, words, and Ideas. It even gets more apparent when anecdotes of the extreme just confirm the overwhelming opinion.

The anecdote of the woman who complained to a school that the dictionary contained an offensive definition, the constant attacks on secularism, and the moral superiority are all patterns of control. One particular degree of control that gets really irrational is the easily offended sensibilities, when they consider themselves immune to criticism.

As much as they are free to criticize people who deviate from their arbitrary sensibilities, they don’t seem to realize this goes both ways. They don’t see that relative to other people, they are different and subject to the same criticism.

It’s funny to see someone who criticizes other people’s beliefs take offense when they are criticized. There is that very subjective and arbitrary moral point of view in action. It’s quite interesting to see someone who assumes that people who agree with him/her have a perfectly homogeneous point of view.

The delusional, those who think they are above criticism, don’t appreciate the world of the freethinker. A world where if everyone is free to criticize each other, one better have some good answers to why they do what they do. There are no cop outs and no argumentum vericundum.  The world of the Freethinker is hard; even if he/she can fire a better argument back, there is just few of him/her surrounded by multiple opposition and barriers. Even if their arguments are better crafted and honed after long experiences in the “battlefield”, they can be rendered instantly useless by those who have compartmentalized or isolated reason into one small aspect of their mind.

Living in blissful irrationality is really a choice not everyone is willing to give up. In a pragmatic view: if it’s easier, why not do it? Unfortunately, it is the irrational adherence and diligence to reason and some degree of altruism that cause free thinkers to be masochists or have a strong resistance to hyperbolic discounting.

It is easy to give up, and that option is always open; it would be so much easier than hitting one’s head against a brick wall of crazies. Unfortunately, irrationality only brings freethinkers further into the battle through escalation of commitment, which both sides suffer.

So what is a freethinker ought to do? On this, I go to Sun Tzu:

“A general does what he needs to do, regardless of what it may appear”.

It’s hard not to let the same irrationality controlling the crazies get the better of oneself. It is best to break off, even if it would make one appear weak. Then proceed to save strength, rally mental forces and proceed with a different plan of attack.

The Freethinker is powerless or less helpful when burned out. It would be ideal that he/she chooses the battles better, take into account war weariness and start having and developing an exit strategy.

Looking at constructive methodology from Qualia Soup: starting off constructive statements has a built-in exit strategy. The second the other side stops being reasonable, it’s a quick, clean and easy termination. It follows the same principle of preparation through conditioning and a well-thought approach.  Since it does take some time to dig up the empirical data, there is an implied proposition of the amount of work needed to come up with an objective conclusion: allowing people to make the practical decision if they have time to really undertake that data gathering needed.

Imagine only having to deal with constructive statements. Instead of a wide angle search, you can begin with a more narrow and easily defined search parameter. There is no “opinion” – just facts and data. It’s like looking over a math formula to check if it was done right. Wouldn’t that be so much easier than escalating into argument where emotions begin to color the exchange of information?

Rest for the Weary, comes from working smarter.

It is interesting how education and science allow one to look at the world and honestly admit that it is far more complex than one can ever hope to comprehend. Still, even with the discipline of empiricism, human nature, fear and impatience cause us to simplify things to a point of useless opinions instead of something constructive and usable.

Blaming is one of those things that can oversimplify a situation that is certainly complex. Not all “blaming” is an oversimplification; some are a result of study targeting one particular factor as the most reasonable primary cause. Although, it may depend on the perspective and temperament of the people involved when it is a factual statement of cause or a nonconstructive accusation of blame.

We all are capable of understanding the principle of cause and effect. Applying it to basic worldly situations, we can look at an action or a situation and “look back” to what caused it. When we look back, what mostly determines the precision of reasoning is how much we are trained in logic, our education regarding factors that affect the situation, and how keenly we can observe details.

If looking back to what caused several consecutive events doesn’t sound complicated to you then let us proceed to analyzing what are the skills needed to empirically analyze motives and factors:

Knowledge of Human Nature: This is the knowledge that allows us to understand a situation through the human factors. We learn Psychology or empathy as a necessary skill in dealing with people even if we are not familiar with the precise academic nomenclature.

Often we hold our observation, experience and what we currently know at a higher regard than the scientific knowledge that is not reinforced by experience. Despite the experience everyone may have with absentmindedness, their emotions getting the better of them, and lapses of better judgment, sometimes it is easy to throw away the precision of structured thought for the reckless generalizations to satisfy a fear, impatience or other emotional pressures.

There is a level of certainty that allows us to infer human motives with empirical methods. If human nature was that much of a mystery then it would not be possible to send criminals to jail. We wouldn’t have the whole host of crime TV shows that were inspired by these methods and professionals. It is not a very precise process but most people can live with that level of certainty. If we didn’t know a bit about what people can be thinking, we wouldn’t have any reason to base our emotions of trust, respect, fear, love, or hate.

A whole mess of factors. Sociology, Anthropology, Game Theory and Economics, among others, are the sciences that seek to understand the behavior of a group of people. If you didn’t find analyzing one person hard enough, try analyzing a group of individuals and all the subtle factors that influence them.

Common sense can only take one so far; without the basic principles of any scientific discipline related to the matter, one would be secretly thinking they’re a super genius if they think they can work it all out without thought structuring tools.

One of the aspects that make this complicated is that every empirical conclusion is based on observation, psychology, statistics and probability; factor-able forces and historical data must be considered: “within reasonable certainty” (which semantic grymlyns would try to confuse victims with existential contrivances to the meaning).

After enumerating the factors involved in having a better appreciation of the complexity of a situation, would it be responsible to give in to baser human nature and hastily generalize things?

The knowledge to understand and correct situations exists; it’s used everyday to shape our world. We find it in policy making, in our economy, in business, in marketing strategies,  in law-enforcement, in diplomacy and politics, in our most basic interactions, in infrastructure development and engineering etc…

Why generalize? Why not make constructive statements that can be answered by tools made even more accessible by the internet, cooperation, and advanced inventory management in our book stores?

Why result to (hastily generalized) blaming and blanket statements of accusation, when the tools for making a reasonable and constructive claim are available?

RSVP

Time:

• December 19
• 1pm to sawa (sawa is probably 2am)

Location: Makati City

• Unit 16A Tower 1,
• Salcedo Park Condominium,
• 121 HV De La Costa Street, Salcedo Village, Makati City
• Google Map Coordinates: 14.561729, 121.024359 (Map below)
  

Food: Pot Luck (details in the forum)

Expected Turnout: 30ish

Crash Option: available (but limited to mats, and couches)

Host: Justin Aquino (Inquiries; post on the forum)

Activities:

• Meet Up
• Have Fun
• Celebrate Life

Activities:

• Wii Games
• IQ and Trivia Games
• Improvisational Games

View Larger Map

If there is going to be any greasing, it is the wheels of justice .

The answer of Gibo in the Dec 2 debate left many wondering if he was skirting the question. His answer is actually draws from conclusions based an understanding of political science.

The police and the army suffer a negative reputation because of their association with corruption. Finding that the solution comes from our armed countrymen is an aberrant idea given the general Philippine mindset.

There is a system of political patronage that is going on with the army and police that is pretty easy to follow. The powerful politicians, warlords, and generals have the loyalties of the army and police through the control of resources that should be going to them and their families. This denies them the means to have a quality of life appropriate to their work, needs and risks.

One breaks the patronage system by making the army and police independent of their political patrons and dependent on a new status quo. They are also victims of circumstance. One doesn’t have to be destitute to be a victim, just have too much to lose.

The difference the police and army make is that they have means to enforce many of the laws already in place that can prevent and correct corruption. The police and the army are the key to better social equity. The assumption that they are beyond salvation is a gross and unfair generalization. If the army and the police were equipped and well compensated then it is to their self interest to perpetuate this such a system.

Where will someone get the money to raise, equip and improve the quality of life of our armed forces?
Get from the most abused sources of funds (e.i. Education, Pork Barrel, Public Works). Imagine the billions lost, going instead in to housing, benefits, equipment, and compensation to police and the army.

It is harder to try to cheat someone who has a gun. Its harder when the guy with a gun also has a lab, armed buddies with him, and likes his job.

The domino effect is that they will protect the journalists, civilian watchdogs, the judges, and persecutors who will bring justice. They remove the fear of reprisal and allow for swifter implementation of laws and action.

In Problem Solving, I use rationality to work with empirical data to come up with workable solutions. I then test these hypotheses and use the results to make a better solution depending on the time constraints and objectives. I am all about practical solutions, and it really gets to me when someone starts using Philosophy to suppress and manipulate valid evidence to their arbitrary purposes.

If you watched the presidential debate on December 2, you will notice some key problem-solving abilities lacking in many of the candidates. Particularly, observing most of presidentiables deny the existence of evidence of concepts that have long been proven, like Overpopulation, and how most of them cannot even think rationally. It is very evident when most of them would operate on removing a symptom, instead of using political science to find its root cause and affect a practical solution.

One may laugh at the fact that many of these politicians are not critical thinkers, but what is a worse realization is wondering how fewer are problem solvers. Some philosophers may flaunt their critical thinking, but many self proclaimed “critical thinkers” simply foster inaction.

These “critical thinkers” often engage in debates as a way to make them think they are actually contributing when in reality they are doing the opposite. They are “teaching the Controversy” and mixing rotten with the good data. They also make the problem seem more insurmountable, fostering the impression that no worthwhile solution is small enough to be practical, but big enough to change the status quo. So they are stuck on their armchairs lecturing and trying to flaunt their intellectual superiority. Who wants to listen to that crap? What they are doing is how non-theists view prayer.

The two points, Contemplative Inaction and Irrationality, are manifestations of self interest through denial. One definite juncture I have observed is that their choice of “action” is a result of the cost they are not willing to pay. So instead of paying, they deny the train of thought and action that lead towards its rational conclusion.

Denial is something we all do, because we need a certain tolerance to truth that will upset our internal balance. There is actually a time variable involved when introducing information to an established equilibrium. The problem with denial is when it overcomes our necessity to adapt and evolve in light of reason. This is true in my observed conclusions about these denialists.

I hope that when people read this, the can observe their own choices and see if they are caught up in their own denial that is preventing them from evolving. Another hope is that people will want to get the momentum of action, testing out their ideas and not being discouraged by failure.