Karl

Soros is many things. Firstly a lefty liberal intent on regulating everything which will all be managed by an elite-which just happens to include George himself. Secondly a hypocrite of the first magnitude, an anti-capitalist that made his money through capitalism, then a regulator that doesn't want to be regulated. George is anti-freedom for everyone but George. I doubt Judaism, religion or God have any significance for Soros unless they get in his way.

It is generally thought that functional literacy is decreasing. Anecdotally this is true of employers who find candidates do not have a high level of basic literacy. We are not so much seeing a skills gap, but an educational gap.

As an addendum, this US report is worth a look. http://nces.ed.gov/pubs93/93275.pdf

Did you think literacy would just fall off after 1860 ? That is not what I'm saying. We also must judge functional literacy over absolute illiteracy. Today, in the UK, despite the massive financial burden of education, the numbers suggest a functional illiteracy rate of 16%. Note that the graph shows until 1900 when private schools remained plentiful. I would prefer we didn't go down this route, because I haven't the time to dig out the data and research. The 16% figure can be found easily enough. It's also something else. It is not reading that we should judge, but critical reading and I see no signs that this is improving.

Actually it isn't true that people were not educated in 1860, far from it. It was the fear by the state that the newly educated people would be a threat to the established elite. They began to find ways to implement state schools in areas where there were supposedly 'gaps'. The schools were not attended and considered to be inferior to private schooling. In order to make the schools popular they made them free, which naturally attracted more people. Just as today 'free stuff' is the pull.

We could begin around 1860 in the West. There has been a gradual dumbing down of the population starting around that time. Objectivism holds that this dumbing down was through the adoption of Kantian philosophy, first through Prussia, then spreading out to the rest of the West. Some of the clearest examples were in the 60s hippy culture where turn on, tune in, drop out was the mantra and drugs the lubricant.

There is a trend though.

Anger is caused by fear and fear is caused by the loss of some value. The problem is sorting irrational from rational anger. Maintaining irrational anger is not a good idea. It is unhealthy, impractical and can lead to greater complications that create even more anger.

Its a generalisation.

It's also a result of women choosing to have children during their careers. Unlike men, they interrupt their employment which reduces chances of promotion and will often set them back at more junior levels due to the rapidity of change within their industries. They play catch up in experience and skill, which necessitates playing catch up in wages. Yet, young women now earn proportionately more than young men and the number of top earning women CEOs as grown enormously. There is no problem except education of the millennials that have been convinced by their snowflake upbringing to believe cultural historical ties has reduced their opportunities. It's the same blame culture that has permeated later generations leading to irresponsible action and irrational thought.

In China we visited a famous tea place in Shanghai set in a park. We took part in the tea ceremony and bought a beautiful tea pot and several teas-including one which is a flower. I do know one thing, it definitely cleans out the kidneys.

OK, but the danger in questioning everything is that you lose datum. It means a letting go of a grip on reality and drifting on whim. It's possible to create a virtual story which needs no confirmation other than the VR world of the Internet. It creates a paranoia, but just step outside your door and see there is nothing but what was there yesterday-this is the real. Do you question that ?

I suggest nothing is what you observe it to be. You are being pulled about by your internet preference masters like a bull with a ring through its nose. Just like Joe, you have become a victim of your own bias which is turning you into a unguided missile. You aren't the only one who is subject to this manipulation, but your kind of anger has turned it into a crusade devoid of factual evidence. Your evidence is the product of skilful e.manipulation by party/parties unknown, for agendas equally unknowable. It is constant threat/war created in your mind to keep you in a state of heightened fear, sensitisation and confusion. The door becomes prison bars, the window a mirror through which you are viewed and examined, the floor is in constant motion like a high speed lift. You are reduced to fighting your own shadow in a virtual world from which escape has become impossible because it is the only place which offers freedom. Get a grip. What is real ? How do I know it ? What should I do ? If your entire world is now in the manipulated virtual and you have given up on the external reality to provide a reference, then you are being dragged deeper. This is how deep hypnosis is carried out. Mirror the experience, then begin to offer the alternative, first pace, then lead. This is the thing Trump has learned, as has Soros. This is the new politic.

You need to stop this crap. Sarkozy is a lefty authoritarian, France is a lefty country. This continual conflation is not an argument. What's more this is a thread about Hillary and Trump so why are you posting this here ?

Part of converting raw nature into products which serve man. Define pollution. From the moment man discovered fire there was smoke. Are you a promethean ?

It's all Brian's fault for making me look up natural philosopher and then happening on this website, which I saw some time ago and thought it was interesting but had the feel of a bunch of science fiction crack pots. Not that I'm qualified to decide if their theories have any basis in truth, but anyway it's an interesting discussion on the merits or otherwise. I'm drawn to that whole 'hammer of the Gods' bolts of lighting, cosmic cataclysm stuff. http://www.holoscience.com/wp/science-needs-natural-philosophers/

Dream on: Britain was deforested rapidly once Bronze Age axes became available. Fires were used extensively and often got out of hand, destroying hundreds of acres and the animals that inhabited those woodlands. Scientists have concluded that it was man that hunted the Mammoth to extinction and it was the American Indians that began the destruction of the Bison. Ancient man had midden heaps which would pollute water courses and kill off the life in the waterways for many miles. Man has always polluted, because man must utilise raw nature and convert it into products.

No, that's referred to as the initiation of force. Judging someone's behaviour as irrational isn't the initiation of force. We are all selfish whether we accept it or not, we are either rationally or irrationally selfish.

Just wait until Trump news starts up.

Hmmmm. Are you part of the Silicon Valley tech scene Lerner ? Do you take 'persuasives' or just hanging out ?

Except that there IS an orange. We can see and feel the orange and our knowledge is sufficient to know that it contains certain chemicals which interact with our tongues in a particular way.

I'm not going to take this discussion further simply because you ARE talking about your faith. That many thousands of people said it, or that 'greater"' minds expounded it, is just an appeal to reverence. You offer not one iota of proof, because you cannot do so. I get that this is what you believe, which is fine, but without proof it is nothing but faith as important as that is to you. From the perspective of faith, reason is redundant, even though the only way to prop up faith is to use reason.

I'm not convinced she knows anything of importance. Most of the time she seems no more informed than the rest of us except where it's about her own little corner. She seems more 'dress and design' than the main machinery. She is told to say things, which is why she never really gets upset with being questioned. It's only when it gets personal that the anger appears. Anyone watch the full Trump speech at the meal. It was all personal. Trump hit every ball in Clintons corner of the world-election rigging, pay to play, Wall Street speech money, health. Her demeanour really did start to change as his blows went home, Clinton was clearly not comfortable and was struggling to manage her trademark 'laugh it off' toothy grin.

Great blog video by Lionel. He nails it. Exactly what I think. Win or lose it doesn't matter.

If you read back, you will see I noted that. Hillary is an employee, policy is decided by committee. This is why the foreign policy is so messy. None of the committee can decide the exact course of action, so they just cobble it all together like the house that Jack built. There isn't an idea coming from one persons direction, it's just a lot of disconnected idea thrown in a stew, a Frankenstein policy in which only so much of it functions. You know how, you decide to book a holiday, or do some activity involving friends. If you don't keep a bit of a watch on it, if you just go along piecemeal, instead of going to Ibiza for some Sun, sand and relaxation, you end up in Islington because it also has an 'I' in the name and there are bars there. It's raining all the time and it turns out that you end up dashing around trying to get a cab, you didn't find a beach, but there's a park with a sandpit which reeks of tramps unrine. It nothing like like you had originally planned, it's a disaster, so you go home and decide to book another holiday.