PN:
Joe’s Comment – ‘Tis the season approaches. We don’t need more stinkin’ government. Charity starts at home. Home is where your heart is. Have a hearty Christmas season at home. Employ that thought all year!
Joe’s Soapbox
Recently, Joe had a discussion with a very engaging young bank manager. The net result of the visit was renewed faith in exchanging ideas, confirming truths, verifying and validating data, and speaking your mind pragmatically – without fear or favor – with younger generations.
Speaking to peers is another matter. Same language different meaning.
The discussion meandered all over the map. An example: changing the world for the benefit of all mankind is a heady challenge – what simple things would have the greatest impact? This sort of discussion solidifies the Jello of thoughts in Joe’s brain into a firm and logical magma.
Here are Joe’s top two world savers:
1. Emancipation of Women
2. Cheap Energy
Are these in the correct sequence? Or are they an inseparable pair? Does the cheap energy need to precede the emancipation? Can emancipation of women occur without cheap energy? Is this a “chicken and egg” argument (causal), or “oil and water” (correlational) argument?
Some wise philosophers have stated that liberty cannot be achieved without capitalism, but capitalism does not require liberty.
Joe thinks that emancipation of women in the Western cultures was greatly aided by coal. Coal was the energy harnessed to do work, freeing people, giving them more “leisure” time, time to think. Coal powered the engines of the Industrial Revolution, beginning the march from agrarian society to industrial. (This does not mean elimination of tribalism, for tribal associations exist throughout the Industrial West).
What then are the greatest impediments to progress? Joe knows of two biological realities which (although totally natural) cause incredible suffering and waste in human progress when left unfettered:
1. Testosterone (Male aggression)
2. Vanity (Female vanity)
Testosterone – No argument, the best and worst from manly man mankind is influenced by the big “T”. The juice that brings a World Series pennant to the Chicago Cubs (after a 108 year drought) is the same juice that powers madmen across the Middle East and around the world to do unthinkable horror to fellow human beings. Testosterone is the fuel of the male aggression engine. The testosterone link above suggests that “The major agents of neuroendocrine influence on aggression in brain process form a triad: testosterone activates subcortical tendencies towards aggression and cortisol and serotonin act antagonistically to testosterone“. Both sexes exhibit aggression. The male animal takes it to higher highs and unspeakably low lows. It is a function of the culture to direct this biological force.
“Vanity, thy name is woman” is erroneously attributed to Shakespeare (he used the word “frailty”). Nevertheless, there are homilies and expressions and stories that date from antiquity regarding vanity; especially the womanly woman vanity that the “fair sex” has embraced so fervently. Once again, it is a function of the culture to direct this biological force. Stefan Molyneux explored this subject during a podcast in terms of modern feminism. Here is an excerpt from that program that talks about the dangers (and glory) of the influence female vanity has on behaviour in our culture:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YdguxAWLkqs
Coal R Us
Joe and I are advocates for unfettered access to energy sources in hopes that the cost per unit will decrease (first law of supply and demand). We also believe that government in the West has taken a heavy-handed approach to coal generated energy. Technology exists to make a coal fired plant “greener” (clean coal) while not totally crippling the plant economically. Joe and I advocate for free market solutions to real problems. Government butt out. The following video “documentary” is very biased. We like the bias. Every time the damn government does “for the common good”, there is needless suffering. Check out the “dirty thirties” and the crappola foisted upon the American people. The “Federal Reserve” (not a government bureaucracy!) made terrible policy that killed banks and business, resulting in “Black Friday” and a 10 year depression. The promise of a “New Deal” by Franklin Delano Roosevelt secured his election, and the socialist “relief” programs his administration implemented prolonged economic recovery.
Joe and I are not bleeding hearts. Nor are we slave labor advocates. We are social realists. Personally, we’d rather sew Barbie dresses in some sweatshop than work in a coal mine. Our choice – it’s scary underground! Personal choice aside, to condemn an entire energy sector without solid rationale, only for political gain, is immoral.
Coal is used for making many things other than a fuel to fire electrical power plants. We say let the market determine coal’s future, not some bureaucrat with a hair across his ass about “green”. Fuck “green”. Green is incapable of supporting much more than a tribal hunter-gatherer society in a world of millions not billions. Give your head a shake! Then watch what well meaning government programs can do to a vibrant healthy economy. They should have called this “Coalateral Damage”:
Dilbert Speaks
Scott Adams is the author of Dilbert. His analysis of the Trump success is an interesting perspective based on Trump as the Persuader. A quote from the article:
“The biggest demographic group opposing Trump – including the ones on the street – are young people. Objectively speaking, young people are the dumbest people within every demographic group. I was dumber when I was younger. So were you. So is everyone else. Ask yourself if it is a coincidence that the dumbest people within every demographic group lean in the same direction.
The Master Persuader filter says that young people have not yet experienced multiple situations in which the media scares the public over nothing. To them, the fear of Trump is real because the Internet and the media says it is real. To people my age, we have seen one fake media scare after another. We don’t believe in fake scares the same way that that young people do because we’ve been through it so many times.”
Joe and I find wisdom in these words. Every decade in our life there has been at least one “sky is falling” moment or movement that ends up being groundless and mindless and worthless that only managed to frighten the children.
Froglegs U
A breath of Intellectual Froglegs from Joe Dan Gorman, from November 2nd, six days before the election. Joe Dan never waivered once in all the months of Trump Bashing™. Us dirt people could learn from this:
https://vimeo.com/189898327
POLITICS, POLITICIANS, WACKJOBBERY, HUMOROUS, STUPID
PHILOSOPHY, PHILOSOPHERS, SMART THOUGHTS
SUNDAY SERMON
Joe and I are fans of Stefan Molyneux. He is an independent thinker. His website, FreedomainRadio, is very busy with his style of philosophy – arguably the most popular podcast in the world on that subject.
The following video presentation is from his “The Truth About” series, this one focusing on the concept of male privilege.
Not specifically white male privilege but yes, us crackers are included!
Joe says it’s nice to be part of something you believe in……
The Truth About Male Privilege is (as usual) replete with data and graphs and facts that make the case for “male privilege” difficult to believe:
WEATHER (OR NOT)
Joe and I are beginning to feel a lot like Christmas….. Noah.
Another week of Stevie Ray Vaughan weather – put on yer gumboots.
Rain every day. Our yard is leaves and acorns covering wet clay. Big ruts in the heavily traveled areas (driveways), filled with that dangerous molecule known as hydrogen hydroxide.
Mercy!
Taking that frown and turning it upside down, our natural gas bill this month will be half of what it was last November. The furnace is not busy because the temperature outside is still well above zero.
Not much wind either.
Stranger (milder and wetter) than most Autumn weather we’ve experienced here in our 40+ years of Okanagan paradise.
Three cheers for Global Warming© Global Cooling™ Climate Change®.
Joe (damp) Mekanic
p.s. Ramirez is weather-proof:
