Reflections LVI - April Aspirations

 The enemies of Canada could not have envisioned a greater gift than the term of office of Justin Trudeau. In what seemed like an eternity of time he eviscerated what was left of Canadian Identity. The country at present doesn’t stand for much.

One should resist the temptation to platform bad ideas lest they take over. This is the story of the modern drift leftward of the Democrat Party in the US and its Liberal counterparts here in Canada.

No nation is great enough that it can’t be reduced to its knees by a series of bad administrations. This is modern Britain in a nutshell.

We are living in a time when both major political parties in the USA are being dined on by their extremes. If the center fails to hold the American decline will become much more than a myth.

Those counted as the sane may become the most threatened minority.

The artificial have been trying to sound intelligent for some time. Software has finally allowed them to succeed. 

In electing Zohran Mamdani as mayor, New York has shown that it can match and exceed London in every aspect, including the potential to self destruct.

The West is undergoing a great experiment , the subject of which is to test the robustness of our institutions against a powerful cocktail of incompetence and malevolence. As of this point in time the institutions are failing.

I never despair it is more fun after all in laughing oneself through the apocalypse.

Once you remove envy of the other your happiness factor has no place to go but upwards.

Regret nothing, for the arrow of time does not permit any do-overs in events past. It does however at times allow us to chart with leaned understanding of error,  a possible new future.

The tragedy of the great men is that the national essence that they build will eventually be whittled away by the mediocrities who are destined to succeed them.

Reflections LV - Sustainable Thoughts

If politicians in a democracy don’t see themselves as servants to the people as opposed to masters then its very notion is an illusion.

Cursed be the peacemakers if the peace is not rooted in reality.

It astounds me (or maybe it shouldn’t) as to how many Western Europeans are willing to lend a sympathetic ear to the Islamist take when its that very ideology that is involved in the destruction of its own civilization.

The disturbing curiosity of the Internet is that it consistently magnifies and multiplies stupidity.

The best way to destroy creativity is to document it and formulate under the banner of a process.

One of America’s 21st century challenges center on its ability to integrate its Hispanic population at a rate faster than its demographic growth. Western Europe has failed the task so far with its Muslim minority.

A nauseating quality of the Canadian political character is its obsession with coming across as the level headed good guy in international politics. This often subjugates its moral clarity to the temporary domain of feel good politics.

Reflections LIV- The Morning Smorgasbord

 It was not that Wellington was a greater general than Napoleon (he certainly wasn’t) but that he knew his limitations all the better. This guaranteed him more success than he might otherwise have received.

It is no accident that both the French and Russian Revolutions ate their children and brought into power authoritarian dictatorships. Chaotic upheaval is the fertile ground for a strongman to emerge. People are more comfortable with one source of violent control than many.

For the leadership a controlled populace is more preferable than an educated one. This mentality unfortunately dominates public education.

Deliberate political polarization is predicated on the strong assumption that most people abhor nuanced takes. It is this reality that has manufactured its growth.

I come by my cynicism naturally, as a workable coping mechanism to navigate the decay around me.

It could be argued that the impulse by those who should know better to turn the other cheek has been the greatest blessing to military aggressive regimes.

Sometimes our only hope is that various elected politician don’t live up to their promises.

While we are burdened to surrender part of our security to the government we should never surrender our sanity.

Reflections LIII - Pushing away Nihilism

 Without common values, a sense of right and wrong and a commitment to the truth a society will rot from the inside. No foreign invasion force can commit such damage on the people as it can do to itself.

I have no doubt that the stress I face in life at times would be lessened if I wasn’t so passionate about certain sports. Blessed are those that are oblivious to such a world.

With a falling industrial base and a lack of agricultural output, cities are reduced to service centers. This cannot be sustained for long as service in the time as such a narrow approach is self limiting, The end result is that the city will become the bedrock of the welfare system driving its inhabitants to embrace more collectivist economic ideologies that in turn will accelerate the downward spiral.

What is obvious since October 7th 2023 - Nothing brings the Far Right and Far Left together faster than a hatred of the Jews.

Falsehoods to power ought to be the real motto of radical extremist revolutionaries.

Air Resistance increases with speed so does system corruption especially as an Empire expands.

Napoleon’s Epic success in the Wars of the Second to Fifth coalitions literally doomed his hubris to the disastrous defeats he would suffer at Leipzig and Waterloo.

Navigatng the Chaos - Part 9 - When do People deny the Science?

 People deny science when they:

• Politicize the science

• Insist that the science in one area or another is settled (science is never settled)

• Argue that there is only one specific form of the scientific method

• Draw conclusions that extend beyond the specific area of investigation

• Prejudice Rationalism over Empiricism

• Insist that public opinion determines the result

• Deny whole bodies of research as the outcomes may be inconvenient to the status quo

• Fail to challenge the bias of authority (people in power)

• Fail to report on the limitations of a specific scientific model

• Use terms that have no meaning in a scientific sense

• Promote pseudo-scientific junk that has an emotional utility

• Selectively use statistics to distort the result

• Fail to insist that experiments ought to be replicated

• Fail to understand the limitations of science and employ its methodology in areas that extend beyond the material

• Insist that science 'proves' something when in reality, it provides more evidence in support of (or against) a certain model - science is inductive, not deductive.

Reflections LII - Dialing back Decadence

Western Europe is at a time in its history where it is paying Dangeld so that the barbarians from within delays its final meal.

An obvious failure that we made in the west was to assume that elitist intent was guided by integrity and a sound moral foundation. It never was.

Any fool can redistribute wealth but only talented people can create it. Socialism conflates this distinction.

A common feature of all radical collectivist ideologies is the negation of the individual human spirit. Human worth is recalibrated to fit the machine.

The more I study history the more I realize that this tremendous yet uncalled faith in big government drives us from one crisis to another.

No war is won with a proportionate response. The US repaid the Japanese almost a thousand times over for the deaths resulting from the attack on Pearl Harbor.

Hatred is one of the most powerful dynamics that define the human condition. People will literally destroy themselves and harm their own personal well being in order to satiate this demon. Islamism in particular is fueled by such caustic pathos.

The most dangerous common of human traits that one often encounters is the combination of self righteousness and stupidity. In the modern world this sits at the core of Wokeism.

Navigating the Chaos - Part 8 - Science and G-d

 It is amazing how many people on both sides of the political/worldview divide have the impression that if you believe in God, you cannot truly be a man of science. My students constantly bring this point up and are surprised when I tell them that the two are not mutually exclusive. While it is true that no likely definitive proof for God exists within the frame of logic that underpins science, this in no way invalidates God.

Let us not forget that science operates within limits - limits set by empirical evidence and the self-contained rationalism that allow us (as scientists) to infer from the evidence available. Like any system of knowledge, it also accepts certain constructs a priori, and as Kurt Gödel showed with his Incompleteness Theorem that even Mathematics (as a system of logic) could not be verifiable within itself. Nevertheless, science is the best system for elucidating the mysteries of the universe as it constantly requires more stringent levels of checking and retesting. Couple this with the strength of Karl Popper's falsification argument, and it is easy to see why science is successful as an epistemological tool.

I am most certainly not a biblical literalist in that I see what purports to be the bible as a mixture, albeit a valuable one, of oral history and ancient mythology. I have also dismissed the scientific validity of intelligent design. Darwin's descent with modification makes sense to me, but at the same time, I am skeptical of the random mutation arguments so favored by the various Neo-Darwinian schools. I am more inclined to see evolutionary changes being driven by systems of self-organization. A methodology that is likely to be explained by science, although not within the dominant paradigm from which it currently operates at present.

Physicist-theologian Ian Barbour writes extensively about the interaction of science and religion and posits a four-facet model dealing with the relationship between these two avenues of human thought to be very useful.

In summary, Barbour (a Templeton Award winner) sees the two mechanisms of science and religion through the eyes of four different models: 

Conflict: Where they butt heads viz. Scientific Materialism versus Biblical Literalism

Independence: Where they ignore one another - Separate Domains and Different Languages and Functions

Dialogue: Interaction in the area of Limit-Questions. Parallels and Common Methodologies

Integration: Incorporating the two dynamics together within the framework of Natural Theology, Theology of Nature, or Barbour's favorite Systematic Synthesis.

Barbour analyzes these models in the areas of Astronomy and Creation, Quantum Physics, Evolution, and Continuing Creation, Neuroscience and Human Nature, and finally, God and Nature.

From this work, I take much solace in an integrationist model that seeks to build connections instead of divide. For me, this makes the most sense, and it is from this platform that I see the world - open to reason but at the same time mindful of a greater presence that exists.