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Is Happiness Wrong?

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Blaise Pascal was not only a scientist and mathematician but philosopher. He is known for his book entitled Pensees in which he stated;

‘All human problems stem from the inability to sit in a room alone.’

With the benefit of hindsight since the 1600’s when this was written, I would suggest an amendment to;

‘Some human problems stem from the inability to sit in a room alone.’

It remains certain though, that inaction of body and mind is a problem for a lot of people in the West. There remains in Western thought an imperative to voyage and discover new things, places, people. The myth of seeding the planets and stars with human beings is a modern manifestation of this, but at a contemporary everyday level, it manifests as exploring social media compulsively.

Inactivity is seen as something to be avoided and children are instructed to keep themselves busy. There is a notional link here between being engaged in something and being happy. If happiness could be measured on a scale of one to ten, then we might expect to be somewhere around five most of the time. At times of misfortune this would go down to one or zero and at times of fortune nine or ten. Being ‘unhappy’ would then become an impossible state of mind, as there was only a surfeit or depletion of happiness. As emotional beings connected to the world through our senses we could become addicted to happiness through sensual pleasure. However the power or thought has given mankind the ability to disconnect into the abstract worlds of mathematics, language, pattern and imagination. Here also we find happiness. The absence of these activities does not reduce a state of contentment if we abandon contentment as our goal.

A later philosopher to Pascal was Jeremy Bentham from the 18th and 19th Centuries. His famous ‘hand me down’ thought to humanity was his ‘fundamental axiom’ for a fulfilled life;

‘It is the greatest happiness of the greatest number that is the measure of right and wrong.’

The ‘pursuit of happiness’ found it’s way into the the American Constitution in 1776 as a noble aim for our endeavours. As a piece of legalised diplomacy though, it let’s the snake into the garden, as happiness means different things to different people.

Persons engaged in any or all of the ‘deadly sins’ of the Old Testament for instance (if slavery is ‘theft of freedom’) might also be condoned under this right of the constitution. It had to be so, for many Americans from the south were not totally convinced slavery was a bad thing.

When Nazi Germany mobilised it’s military might – with it’s people in general support, they appear in the contemporary movies as being at least eight or nine on the happiness scale. Yet with hindsight we can see that the second world war was wrong and should never have happened, any more than should the first. We have to conclude that we have here an example that one can be very wrong and very happy.

Returning to Pascal’s point about being able to ‘live with oneself’; it is sobering to ponder if the Nazi’s would have been better to have learnt to do this. Instead of finding ‘wrong’ in their society and supposed causes of ‘wrong’ their first endeavours would have been better directed within. Outward exploration of one’s ideals and opinions inevitably mean trampling over someone else’s, in this case Belgium and Poland and most of Europe. This is a manifestation of the inability to sit quietly. Faults that we find intolerable in others are usually those holding most power over our selves. This truth is known from ancient times and is recorded as ‘known thyself’.

When a child is bored, it is because the child has an idea that a change of mental or physical environment is necessary. For whatever reason, this function is not available to the child inwardly.

My English teacher ‘Windy Gale’ was fond of aphorisms and he posted examples around the classroom. One was;

‘There are no dull subjects, only dull minds.’ He was no doubt tired or reading dull essays from dull minds.

While quiet can at first be regarded as in some way lacking, once accepted it can become a ploughed field upon which crops grow and from these comes nourishment.

There was a television series on the world religions several decades ago, presented and written by the theatre producer, Ronald Eyre who died in 1992. In his conclusion he said poignantly that if he were able to bring all the world’s religious leaders into one room, he would expect there would be a pervasive silence. He meant that far from being arguments about dogma and doctrine, origin and authenticity; because these beings had advanced sufficiently into themselves they would not be ‘throwing stones’ at others.

In the twentieth century, the connection between any human being on the planet with another through social media, has expanded this capacity to do ‘wrong’ in the pursuit of ‘happiness’. The forces of ‘radicalisation’ for instance are able to engage the minds of ‘bored’ souls anywhere on the planet. They will break their roots and leave their families to cross borders into broken states to support an aim they perceive as needing salvation from unhappiness. I am of course thinking of the so called ‘Islamic State’ as an example. At this time it’s influence is almost broken but like all political philosophies and doctrines it will always remain as the written word and thought.

Those emerging from the war will have learnt much about being alone and being near one and zero on the happiness scale. They may find that on return to their host countries after trial, they will be placed in a room alone. The question they must face is, can they live with themselves and in doing so become happy? Perhaps then, they will find the happiness they did not find through doing wrong.

The Universe and The Universe and The Universes

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Understanding the Universe has proved difficult for scientists. They have an idea that it started at a single point and expanded, but cannot explain what was there before. This is because their thinking is limited by their logic.

‘If a thing exists then there must have been a time it did not exist.’

This is logical but not true, because logic is limited and changed by the presence of an observer. Quantum physics proves this with such realities as an atom existing in two places at once.

What is the sound of one hand clapping?

To describe the universe we need better words, ideas, concepts than we use to describe a four dimensional world.

Mathematicians describes up to eleven dimensions. Universes that exist apart and in the same space / time, something that is ‘not logical Captain’.

To view other dimensions it is necessary to move the position of the observer. We know this because we understand the difference between two and three and four dimensions. Two dimensions is a world on a single plane. It becomes three when we see the dinner plate as a circular object rather than a straight line. When the dinner plate is dropped and breaks into pieces, the plate has an existence in time – that is the space time we have grown to understand.

There are still people who believe in a flat earth. Even though sailors and pilots and astronauts tell of a spherical earth, the Flat Earth Society members prefer to interpret the facts in their own way.

Would it not be interesting to move to the next level of thought about the universe, just as the jump in thought between the Flat Earther’s and the rest of us? The universe is without a boundary according to our astronomical observations. In fact the galaxies are expanding ever outward at this moment in time. It is more likely, in my view, that there will never be a universal boundary discovered. This is because I believe the universe bends around and comes back on itself, as does a sphere. But in my model of the universe I see it as a Toroid shape, like a Polo mint – the ‘mint with a hole in it.’

Matter and energy appear from the Torus shaped centre of the hole as waves of galaxies, stars, gases and dust. It comes from the collapsed version of itself and is in the state of either expanding or contracting depending on in what stage of its life you view it. Time spins around the surface of the Torus as a snake around a tree coming eventually to its own tail, which it swallows. This is the serpent in the garden of Eden. Time introduces the dimension of ‘self awareness’ or ‘knowledge’ which the Creator thought man would be happier without.

There is not one Toroid though, neither is a there a place outside the Universe where the inhabitants of Heavenly Space live out separate lives. This model is Medieval in origin and was created to fit with the concept of Heaven and Hell as places of destination after death.

To my mind there is no heaven or hell other than that which is created by man, respectively through Divine inspiration or not. And before you ask, Divinity is everywhere, not just in Heaven.

There are an infinite number of Toroids. Each larger Toroid is a product of a smaller one, as we may all watch when we watch a programme producing fractal patterns.

Scale, like time, is after all relative to the observer, nothing else. It does not matter what size a Toroid is. There could be a million million in one finger nail, and a million million curving over the horizon. As observers limited to a human scale our logic and our instruments can only conceive and view up to a certain point. After that, our intuitions have to operate as they do in dreams, stories and our inspirational knowledge contained in native traditions and ancient myths.

Just because time appears to move in a straight line it does not mean it does. A car driven along the equator of the earth appears to move in a straight line when viewed from space. From another view it is describing the curvature of the earth and is travelling at over one thousand miles per hour through space as the earth spirals.

These relative ideas were described by Professor Albert Einstein in the twentieth century and it is telling that the ideas of Quantum Mechanics and Quantum Computing have not begun to be explored by the popular imagination. Many people still live in the tick tock universe conceived by Sir Isaac Newton.

Perhaps intuition and stories will burst our thoughts out of the chains of logic into new worlds. Worlds which expand and contract, which are made of energy and matter, which move through infinite spaces and return every split second to the place they started.

Perhaps.

A Questionnaire for Brexiteers

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Some Brexiteers have been offended by the suggestion that they were not in full possession of the facts when they voted. The President of the European Council, Donald Tusk recently said that he has been ‘wondering what a special place in hell looks like for those who proposed Brexit without a sketch of a plan’.

Below are twenty five questions which must be completed before 29th March 2019.

1. Explain using a diagram if necessary, what are the seven institutions of the European Union, their functions and their interrelationships.

1.a. Highlight in your answer those which contain directly elected representatives and which not with reasons.

2. Explain, in the context of the British Monarchy, the House of Lords, the Law Lords, the Church of England – why elected institutions are desirable.

3. The United Kingdom has become the fifth richest nation in the world, possibly partly due to it’s integration with Europe. Explain why it should not share it’s wealth with developing European countries. In other words, do you support the Sheriff of Nottingham or Robin Hood and why?

4. In no more than 20,000 words; what will be the principle effects on Europe from the UK leaving the EU? Give your answer in terms of; international security (such as the expansion of Russia into Europe), scientific and academic research projects, industrial production and world trade routes, inter European trade agreements, agriculture and fisheries, existing shared governmental and non governmental projects and charitable enterprises, education, health, sport, trade, tariffs, law enforcement, the custom union and the protection of borders from criminality, undocumented immigration, terrorism and espionage, cultural exchange and artistic excellence, tourism, environmental protection through existing laws and conservation projects and other aspects of European life that you understand may be affected by Brexit.

5. In no more that 20,000 words, describe the benefits to the United Kingdom in terms of the points in question 4 and which of the UK’s interests are shared with Europe’s.

6. Did you vote for your MEP?

7. The United Kingdom has voted for 95% of European Laws, vetoed 2% and voted against 3%. Which of these European Laws have contributed to the welfare of the UK citizens and which have harmed UK citizens – in your view?

8. The UK will not have access via forty trade agreements into the European market, after Brexit. Which countries within Europe will the UK continue to trade with and on what terms?

9. With which countries outside the EU will the UK seek to trade and on what terms? Prime MinisterTeresa May visited Africa in the summer of 2018 to promote trade with the UK, so include African scientific research, industrial innovation and products and design in your answer. You might also include China, India and Brazil in your answer, even though Teresa May did not visit those countries.

10. Describe, using the English language, why it is easier to trade with countries such as China (where there are eight different linguistic groups and hundreds of dialects) or India (where there are twenty two languages spoken) than in Europe where the most commonly spoken second language is, English.

11. What will be the effect of trade tariffs on UK exports and imports? Why is this beneficial for the average shopper in a UK high street?

12. The pound has weakened as a result of the Brexit referendum. This is good for exports and bad for imports and tourism. Does this beneficial the average person in the street or industry?

13. What effect on inflation will the weak pound have and describe using statistical projections, how this will affect young families with mortgages and their weekly shopping costs.

14. What will be the effect of World Trade Rules on inflation and describe using statistical projections such as graphs, how this will affect young families with mortgages and their weekly shopping costs.

15. Which Social Services in the United Kingdom will struggle with demand as a result of the ‘perfect storm’ they are currently experiencing following the 2008 recession (‘austerity’), Tory government policy to repay the national debt, immigration from Commonwealth Countries and around the world and Brexit?

16. Four out of five legal immigrants are welcomed from non-European countries into the United Kingdom. Describe how reducing migrants from Europe will impact on immigration into the UK.

16.a. Which European immigrants do you believe the United Kingdom does not need;

  • Health Workers
  • Care Assistants
  • Construction workers
  • Seasonal Agricultural workers
  • Tourism and Hospitality workers
  • Students

How would you fill these posts with United Kingdom citizens currently living on state benefits (as may have their parents and grand parents)? What is your strongest argument to persuade them to work similar hours to which Europeans work for less money than they currently get, particularly in Health and Hospitality?

All voters in the referendum to leave Europe, were aware of the terms of the Good Friday Agreement and in particular the requirement to keep the border open. In a sentence; what is your solution to keeping an open border between North and South Ireland. Include in your answer why only you have an idea that will be acceptable to all parties and why after an irreversible referendum is the best time to seek a solution and not before.

17. The referendum was determined to be decided on a majority view – however small – that is on a 50/50 basis. Describe which elected representative made this decision and how they did not believe a narrow majority would leave the UK and it’s Government ‘dangerously divided’ (in the words of Teresa May describing a second referendum.)

17.a. If the referendum had required a 60/40 majority or a 66/33 majority as is more common, would the the country have been easier to motivate and govern, which ever way the people voted?

18. How is the United Kingdom more secure from world threats by being outside Europe?

18.a How is Europe more secure from world threats without the United Kingdom?

18.b. Does the role of the United Kingdom in the two world wars suggest that it’s influence in guiding Europe through peace, is one of the most important legacies it can give it’s children?

18.c Should the weakening of the ‘special relationship’ between the UK and the United States of America suggest Europe is a more reliable world partner?

19. Describe how UK farmers will prosper without a subsidy – sometimes as much as fifty per cent of a farm’s income.

20. How will the UK fish stocks prosper without the present system of quotas and the new ‘throw away’ law? Describe the effect of these changes on the UK fishing fleet workers and how this will affect the price, availability and choice of fish in UK shops.

21. There are very successful shared academic research projects funded by Europe in which UK universities provide important leadership and support and gain benefit. Describe the effect of leaving the EU on these endeavours and how the UK will benefit from any changes after leaving the EU.

22. The vote to leave was described as a once in a lifetime opportunity. How will your children and grand children benefit in terms of family life, health, social benefits, work, pensions, travel, environmental improvement, national and international security and personal development?

23. Thomas Paine, George Washington, Sir James Goldsmith, Nigel Farage, David Cameron, all had a vision of independence for their countries. Compare and Contrast their ideas, motivation and methods and why the politics of multi-cultural cooperation and integration is inferior.

24. The United Kingdom Police do not need access to Europol or European Arrest Warrants to do their job. Comment on this statement in the light of post-Brexit policing.

25. When a multi level organisation is changed there are always unintended consequences. List three which you expect will be beneficial after Brexit and three that you think will not.

Word Pairs

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We think using words.

The choice and arrangement of words form our thoughts and ideas.

These are two well understood concepts that we learn in childhood become tools that we forget we use. Less well understood is that our words are constructed by thoughts and our thoughts and ideas are constructed by the arrangement of words.

When we study new languages it becomes clear that some cultures have words for an idea, feeling, nuance or even a noun that does not exist in our own. Such words tend to jump from the nest language into the world of other languages, such as email, weekend, zeitgeist, bon appetite.

My interest is going to focus in this essay, on how paired words influence our thoughts. I will use three well known paired words common in the United Kingdom.

The first is ‘drugs and alcohol’. Many public and voluntary organisations concerned with public health, law and social cohesion, mental health and education use this pairing of words. What is revealing is that alcohol is a drug. The question introduced by slicing alcohol away from the ‘drug’ label is, why? Alcohol is a known harmful drug. When Professor David Nutt published his research on the social harm of drugs in the medical publication The Lancet*, he classified alcohol as fifth down the list of the most harmful drugs to individuals and society. If it were to be classified under the 1971 Drugs Act it would have been given a Class A rating; that is the highest possible.

Instead, alcohol is legal in the United Kingdom and many Western style countries. There are certainly historical reasons for the tolerance of this drug as being easy to produce from almost any plant, and was consumed in times when clean drinking water was not available. Like so many discoveries, once found it is impossible to prohibit as the United States discovered in the early twentieth century.

In my view however, alcohol should not be seperated by the phrase ‘drugs and alcohol’, as if it were somehow a benign drug.

Less controversially is ‘Fire and Rescue’. In the United Kingdom, if you are involved in a collision on a road and need to be cut out of your car, this will be done by ‘Firemen’ and of course ‘Firewomen’. If I were hanging upside down by my seat belt with blood dripping from my forehead, I think this aberration of thought through incorrect use of a noun would be more disturbing to me than my prognosis of recovery. How can we send fire fighting specialists to collisions on the highways where there is no fire? At least half of all ‘call outs’ to the Fire Brigade in the United Kingdom are to these type of incidents. This was recognised at least in part by the innovation of adding the word ‘Rescue’ to the title of the Fire and Rescue Service. I would argue however that carrying victims from burning buildings is a ‘rescue’ by any definition. I have heard of fire service personnel donning their breathing apparatus designed for entering smoke filled buildings and walking into a lake to rescue persons in difficulties in the lake. Again, this is a rescue. To foreshorten the argument, all activities of the Fire and Rescue service are ‘rescues’ just like the Thunderbird puppets who operate International Rescue. Once the thought blockage is removed by removing the word ‘fire’ from their title, the Rescue Service will be trained and equipped to tackle any incident where humans are in immediate danger of injury or death.

Lastly, the third unnecessary pairing of words in a title I wish to highlight is ‘Accident and Emergency‘. These hospital departments are placed under increasing pressure in the United Kingdom, particularly at times of high demand such as the winter. So serious has this pressure become that patients lie on trolleys in hospital corridors with ambulance staff, waiting to be triaged and treated. If the staff in these departments were asked how these numbers could be reduced I expect many would say that non-urgent patients should not be attending their departments. They could go to their local doctor’s surgery or even a pharmacist for simple and fast treatment.

My point here is that the title Accident and Emergency is misleading to the public. Clearly the department is there only for emergency patients, not necessarily for those involved in accidents – what ever they might be. The cause of the need for emergency treatment is, I would argue, irrelevant. An emergency can be the result of something that was not an accident, like a heart or asthma attack or fit. The use of the word ‘accident’ is giving permission for patients to attend an emergency department when their injury is not life threatening. By redirecting these patients to other services and professionals and funding this extra demand on them, the Emergency Departments will run more efficiently with less unnecessary stress on staff and patients.

As thinkers, we tend to become lazy and adopt historical phrases as normal, long after the logic of their original inspiration.

Think then of all the other neural pathways we adopt through life and never challenge. Life started when we as humans became separate from animals as thinkers. We will progress the evolution of homo sapiens sapiens when our thoughts intiate pathways to new ways of thinking and being.

We might start by no longer tolerate hanging around in hospital corridors, expect to be saved by a rescuers and think ‘drug’ before we have ‘a drink’.

Mind Mapping

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Mind Mapping and Mind Napping

Perched on a library chair waiting to speak to the teacher at a parents evening, I looked up. There on the wall was an illustration of something I already used, but not given a name. It was a poster called ‘mind mapping’ and appeared as a collection of errant balloons attached to a central point by lines. Each balloon contained a sub-subject title related to the central concept which was written in bold capitols in the central balloon .

I was impressed that schools were teaching thinking. After all there is no qualification in thinking, no examination. It’s one of those things that is so ‘natural’ (like breathing) that it is often ignored. However, many past cultures, such as in the Middle East and Ancient Greece, have given great importance to the subject. Stories such as The Thousand and One Arabian Nights and The Iliad contain in hidden layers, instruction about the common failings and strengths of the emotional, instinctual, intellectual and intuitive drivers in the human psyche.

I use the word ‘drivers’ deliberately as they are very similar to the ‘drivers’ needed by computer programmes to enable programmes to link with individual computers. Without drivers the programmes – although present – do not work.

The most common thinking malfunction that I believe is prevalent in western societies is the dualism and syllogistic fallacies.

To examine dualism first; this is the division of an idea into two opposing parts – the ‘either / or ‘ question. This question structure is heard repeatedly in interviews on television and radio. To the credit of interviewees, they often reply – ‘it is both’ – thus up-ending the hidden intention on behalf of the questioner to illicit an answer that might be probed to destruction.

In Eastern philosophy dualistic thought is not prevalent. Things with a common thread are seen to co-exist and have a scalar quality; meaning they are similar and differ more in scale than quality. The Yin Yang symbol is a well known illustration of parts that describe a whole, without opposing each other.

A syllogism is like a crevasse in an ice field; everything looks easy to walk through, but is not. It consists of two preconceptions, which conflate into an untruth.

All journalists are wrong

There is a journalist interviewing me

Therefore this journalist is wrong.

There is a swallow

Swallows appear in the summer

Therefore it must be summer.

With such dangerous thinking patterns posing as logical, I believe that it is important that we think before we think.

This is because most of our reality consists of thoughts that we make real, through our thoughts. In life, we set up neural patterns which act as ‘safe routes’ across the ice fields. This is fine, but it also has the effect of restricting exploration.

londonundergroundmap

When I look at the map of the London Underground I see a perfect example of the ‘mind map’ of a human. There are places which are signified by a circle and the name of a station. Most importantly, these stations are linked in specific, but restricted, ways. When you examine the map there are more journeys you cannot make, than journeys you can.

This is exactly how the freedom of our thoughts becomes frozen and so makes the freedom, impossible.

Only at moments in our life that we later look back upon as highly significant, do we link up old stations in new ways. The creation of the new Thames Link railway illustrates this perfectly. Previously existing stations are joined in directions previously labelled as ‘too expensive’ or ‘too risky’ or ‘not necessary’.

As humans we become experts at finding reasons why new ideas should not be explored. With age we are prone to become content with what we see as ‘our lot’. Further explorations are not deemed necessary and we trot out the ‘proofs’ that we hold close to our hearts as ‘forever truths’.

In the real world there are no ‘forever truths’. Life is subject to constant change even if – like the slow moving glacier – it does not appear to be so.

Moments like going to the hairdresser or barber, are therefore stations in time for deep reflection.

Not the Six O’clock News

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In an age when news is available almost as soon as it happens, there  must be a rigorous approach to understanding the truth of what is being reported.

The most basic aspect of reported news is that it is second hand information. In other words it has been processed, even if it is just a photograph or a short video – the viewer and or image processor has ‘filtered’ the image through the view of the viewer. For instance, if you wish to present a politic march as peaceful, you take photographs of people marching peacefully. If you wish to present the march as antagonistic and violent, you feature the occasion where there was violence. Even if neither of these states occurred it is a simple matter to copy and paste alternative messages on banners or people holding machine guns instead of bags.

What might be good evidence of events is no longer believable and, at the very least, needs substantial corroboration from reliable sources.

We know that the code of ethical journalism requires more than one source of information and all sources must be assessed thoroughly. These sources have the right to remain anonymous if they have reason, as often they do.

I have noticed a trend in some newspapers to directly report ( that is qoute) what other newspapers have reported. I don’t know what agreements or arrangements go on between them but it shows an eagerness to share headline news at the expense of a scoop. Such stories are in effect ‘third hand’ as we know that selective quotations can be misleading and curve the truth.

With the coming of a plethora of choice of news channel on television and radio, the task of the viewer is different. I mentioned to a friend recently that I sometimes watch the Russia Today television channel. He was aghast at the idea anyone of sound mind would do this. I tried to argue that I like to see news stories reported from different points of view.

It is more common for people to have political views of a particular shade and then seek sources the substantiate their opinions. Personally, my feeling is that if views are so fixed then there really is little reason to follow events in the world since the coloured lens through which the are observed will not reveal what is really happening.

Crucial to any rational appreciation of events is to understand facts and statistics. I enjoy the phrase ‘my version of the facts‘ since this is an aberration often prevalent in debate. Many interviews on the radio involve the presenter or interviewer using carefully sourced facts and the respondent basing their counter argument on disputing those facts.

BBC Radio 4 has an radio programme called ‘More or Less’ in which statisticians examine in detail how facts are obtained and what conclusions can be drawn from them – if at all. Frequently they pull the rug from under politicians who have used figures to prove a preconception. The expression ‘lies, damn lies and statistics’ comes to mind because figures are too frequently used to prove a lie.

Prevalent in the United States of America today is the accusation that news is ‘fake’. This is a valid criticism at one end of the spectrum between ‘true’ and ‘false’. Since we were not there and even if we had been we may not have had ring side seat, all reported news includes bias as already described. The question is really, how much bias is included or how true is this? Being ‘fake’ is not a reason to dismiss a view because there is rarely smoke without fire.

For this reason I am eclectic in my sources of information so that I can form a judgement of the ‘mean’ or most likely closeness to truth on the balance of probabilities.

This perhaps is the difference between King Solomon and the rule of a dictator.

A wise ruler will listen to all sides and form an opinion or judgement based on what most likely happened. A dictator cares little for any version of events other than those which support his or her own agenda.

Looking around the global governments today, many are clearly occupied by dictators whether they agree to this appellation or not. Some, even in traditional democracies, are veering towards being those who speak only what they want to hear.

Not All Aliens are Bad

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Today is Australia Day, 26th January 2019 considered as a celebration of the arrival of a fleet of British ships in Sydney Harbour in 1770.

Unfortunately it is not a day all souls in Australia wish to celebrate by consuming a mountain of tinnies down at the beach. There is also a rally of Aboriginal people in Canberra today, who wish to point out that they were here first and have at least, equal rights to the country.

It’s a difficult one, because both sides have a point. History (in my personal definition) consists of one dam thing after another. This includes previously undisturbed or (from the other view) undiscovered tribes, races or lottery winners – who would have preferred being left alone.

Clearly ships without engines cannot travel backwards any more than history can be rewound, so for purely pragmatic reasons, those hiding have to factor in the certainty of being found – eventually.

The important point in my view, is that the rights of those being ‘discovered’ are respected – in modern times these would be classified and defined as ‘human rights’. So ignoring the benefit of hindsight in too large a dose, the rights of indigenous peoples in say, Australia were largely ignored, even if this was out of a sense of ‘doing the right thing’; such putting European style clothes on them.

In New Zealand, I believe the Maori s were given a better ‘deal’ under the Treaty of Waitonga than their counterparts in Australia. Having said that, the Maori s gave the previous inhabitants of New Zealand a very bad deal indeed – few survived – so history can teach us all.

My point of conjecture is that humans find it alarmingly hard to be ‘universal’ in their love and trust of one another. Even when Homo Sapiens Sapiens left Africa and / or the Euphrates basin and headed north, the Neanderthals already in Europe were not too happy to see them. (Recent DNA evidence though, suggests that some Neanderthals were very happy to see them.)

In modern man there remains, what I call, the ‘football shirt’ mentality. This would be more accurately termed ‘tribalism’ by an anthropologist but the behavioural mechanisms are the very similar. Let me explain the football analogy.

If you quizzed the eager fans queuing for an important league football match to ascertain their level of understanding of the rules of the game, I expect they would all score in the region of 90% and above. In other words – they are fully conversant with the rules. However, fast forward to a moment in the game where there is a dispute of what just happened, say – ‘was a player offside just before scoring?’ The supporters who benefit from the goal will all swear that the player was not offside. The rival supporters will all swear the opposite.

Although they know how the game works in their heads, their hearts will filter what they have just seen in favour of their beliefs and prejudices. In other words, a bias is in command. At worst this is manifest as violence and hatred, at best, a conviction that the referree has left his white stick in the dressing room. What has happened is that the stadium has become emotionally divided.

Most so called ‘racism’ has this origin and manifestation although the word has complex meanings in modern usage (so much so that the Norwegians refuse to use it in legal definitions and prefer alternatives). However ‘racism’ is a bias or prejudice against a perceived group so that, that group suffer a loss. In the case of the football match, they may lose the game. In the case of an undiscovered tribe in a rain forest or continent, the effect may be considerably more serious than loss of a game.

Some tribalism persists irrevocably in modern western societies and is encapsulated in ‘religion’.

I remember Rabbi Lionel Blue speaking on the radio and telling a story of a Jewish boy arriving at his new primary school in Northern Ireland. He is quizzed by a Catholic boy and Protestant boy about his religion. On hearing that he was a ‘Jew’ they both looked confused. After a pause the question was asked, ‘Are you a Protestant Jew or a Catholic Jew?’

With the perfect logic that is characteristic of the naïve and very young, we have an example of the irrationality of bias and prejudices of religious and cultural dogma. It may surface in a form of an unusual form of dress or a way of thought. In every instance it is worthy of deep mistrust.

At the end of the day (and at the end of the world) we will all be judged for our actions. Such things as the unconscious biases (that we all contain through parental and cultural conditioning) will reveal how prejudiced we have been to our fellow beings.

If you haven’t followed my train of thought, then watch the news when the Aliens arrive! As the jets and missiles are loosed at their space craft, consider for a moment what very highly advanced spiritual people, aliens probably are.

The Wall

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Humpty Trumpty

Imagined a wall

Humpty Trumpty

Had a great fall

You might be forgiven for not believing in election promises because this would not be the first election promise to be broken. After all, the Mexicans were meant to pay for it and they must have changed their minds…right?

Anyway, there are plenty of ways to climb down from a border wall promise. One might be that the country cannot afford it. A country that owed 9 trillion a decade ago and now owns 22 trillion dollars…perhaps it’s in the national interest not to go further into debt?

No, Mr T has decided on a wall and he is having one. He will have made a thorough investigation into the problem and how a wall is the perfect solution, right?

What’s the problem?

Well, we have these eight year old criminals coming over into the USA from Mexico and other south American countries and threatening the lives of honest living Americans. So, to save the Americans we must stop the criminal children and their criminal parents seeking political asylum. This problem is so real and bad, really really bad, that any amount of money must be spent and liberty can go to hell, because a state of National Emergency is likely to be called all because of these bad bad people over there. Not me! Not me doing this! I am forced to do it!

It’s a rather chaotic summary of the problem but it’s close.

The solution proposed has passed the SWOT test as follows;

Strengths

Walls are known to keep the people out that you don’t like. For instance prison walls, they keep people out – well in actually but that’s not our intention – let me check – oh OK perhaps that is the agenda they said not to mention. So walls keep people out who are planning to murder Americans because they are hungry and tired and in fear of their lives and need a job. Well a wall is more effective and reliable than the Border Force we have already have. They are hopeless aren’t they? Anyway a wall will make them not work so hard which must be an advantage, right? Perhaps I can sack them! Oh please let me sack them.

Weaknesses

We don’t like to admit this but perhaps a wall only needs to be breached in a small section and you might as well not have thousands of miles of wall at all. A small breach lets through a lot of people in a short amount of time, like a leak in a dam drains the lake real quick. So anyone with a steel penetrating weapon, like a shoulder carried anti tank weapon, can make a hole in any steel wall. Not that you will get hold of a military weapon in America that easily.

Then there are the two ends which go into the sea. Not sure how to stop people using boats to go around the ends of the wall? Sharks?

And however high it is, people will try to go over it. Yes, people can’t fly but they can if they use aircraft, or hang gliders, or drones or balloons or anything that is lighter than air actually. And since the wall is intended to last a long time, technology is going to make flight easier, year on year.

Or they can dig. The wall will go under the surface of the earth a distance and then stop. So you dig and go under the wall. Advantage of this is you can’t be seen. Dig at night. Cover the tunnel entrance. Confuse sensors with motorbikes. Steve Mc Queen. He took a motorbike over a wall didn’t he? Huh, Hollywood pranks, just fake.

And the wall will force more people to use the pinch points, that is legal border crossings. These will need all the facilities to deal with processing asylum seekers, staff, investigators, medics, offices, holding areas, accommodation, food, money, money and more money…not cheap.

Opportunities

When there is a wall, American citizens can sleep in their beds at night because although there are millions of illegal immigrants already in America, America will be much safer because those in can’t get out and those out can’t get in. Get it?

Threats

The only threat to this very very good solution is the Democrats who just don’t get it. They don’t believe it will be practical or good value for money and will stop it being built. But once they see how good even a short section of wall is at keeping people on the other side, they will be convinced it’s good value for money.

Or perhaps in the future people will stop wanting to come into the USA. Perhaps the movement of people will change direction and people will want to leave America for a stable regime in Mexico and beyond. They won’t like the wall and won’t vote Democrat again.

Then there are robots being developed now that will be able to over come the wall far more easily than humans, and help humans travel either way over under through or around the wall. Robots. Don’t you hate them.

After all this really hard thinking the Whitehouse team were asked embarrassing questions by journalists. Isn’t a wall a very old fashioned idea that has never worked historically? The Berlin wall for instance or Hadrian’s wall in Scotland?

Someone suggested to Mr T that border walls were a medieval idea. Mr T was very very clever indeed in his response. He said that wheels were invented in medieval times and they are still being used. Therefore things that worked long ago, will still work today. That’s his logic. I wonder if he has ever seen a picture of a chariot from 5000BCE? When ever the first wheel rolled down the hill, the point is that walls were never a good idea and wheels always were a good idea. The fact that both appeared in the past does not make anything from the past a good idea. That’s a syllogism. Could someone hand Mr T a dictionary?

Many Caesars were murdered because of their politics in Roman times, but that does not mean assassination of a president is a good idea today.

Even if a president acts conspiratorial and wields executive powers over the democratic checks and balances, he is still a very very reasonable guy with only the lives of little American babies at the foremost of this thoughts and the criminal gangs trying to kill them.

Yes, sir. We all believe you.

What and How

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Why are politicians good at speaking but less good at thinking?

At the moment in both USA and UK politics we have two leaders arguing the what rather than the how. In other words, they focus their arguments on what they are going to achieve rather than how they are going to achieve it. It’s so simple, it is not easy to suppose a reason. Perhaps it is that the how of things, the best course of action, is complex whereas the what, is simple. Perhaps it is cunning or at worst, deceipt.

For example, today the United Kingdom House of Commons will vote on how the conservative party are proposing to leave European Union. I say ‘the conservative party’ but even many conservatives do not agree with the terms of withdrawal being proposed. In complex situations where there is compromise and negotiations to overcome, there are often several directions to follow, all of which achieve a similar objective. In this case it is to withdrawal from the European Union. However the Prime Minister, who is renowned for being secretive and poor at communication, has only one ‘deal’. As a demonstration of her ‘iron will’, or stubbornness as others would see it, she is arguing that the only democratic course for those who believe in the British system of government, is to support her how. There is no plan B, or how B. By either lazy thinking on her part of a political modus operandi that forces others to support her for the wrong reason, plan B is to crash. Fear of a ‘hard Brexit’ is not the right reason to approve her proposed how to leave Europe. That is doubtful politics ethically, and likely to back fire. It is a good example of how some politicians prefer to argue about objectives, rather than examine in fine detail, how to get there.

Meanwhile on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, exactly the same process is being exploited by Mr. Trump to get his own way. His what is to keep ‘unwanted immigrants’ out of America. To justify the ‘unwanted’ part of this aim is to categorise them as ‘bad people’ and to associate them with drug dealing and criminality.

Having painted such a clear picture that even the most slow of Americans can cotton onto, he then moves onto the how – the solution. This is where clear and objective thinking starts. A high school student faced with the same problem would ask for the facts and figures, interview those from all sides affected by the problem, examine and assess acceptable solutions to similar situations in other countries, poll locally for the preferred solutions by different interest groups and then do the same process in political circles to gain support and justify costs with benefits.

I expect neither Mrs May nor Mr Trump have been through this or a similar process. Their civil servants may have done, since they are experienced in the process of governing, but the politicians? Mr Trump has boasted how he makes decisions using his ‘instinct’. I expect a gambler or failed businessman is familiar with this type of decision making. But the objective is not to make a decision, it is to enable the right decision to be made in the interests of the greatest number of tax paying patriots in the present and the future.

Mr T. believes that ‘good fences make good neighbours’ as Robert Frost put it. That familiar metaphor is not analogous to the problem of international migration. Your next door neighbour is not breaking down your garden fence in fear of his or her life and planning to stay in your prize flower bed for the unforeseeable future.

He believes that walls keep people and drugs out. The ‘devil’ as always is in the detail or the how of the solution of a wall. His security advisers say that the wall should be see-through so that people in proximity of the wall on the other side can be closely monitored. This is standard advice and, for instance, why bus stops favour glass screens in their construction. However, those wishing to prevent drugs being passed across the border using plastic pipes pushed through the gaps to slide through drugs; they will be pleased to have a wall made of vertical steel girders with gaps. Even high security prisons, have problems with drugs coming into gaols and breaching the wall is one method used.

When Mr Trumps opposition refuse to pay for a border wall on the grounds that is not the best solution, Mr T plays his trump card; the one we have all seen before.

‘Why do you not want American citizens to be safe?’

Magicians use this. It is called distraction and in political debate, it works as well. If one party is arguing about the detail of things, methods, factual arguments, informed advice and debate etc. etc. the other party just sits up and says something not about the how, but about the what.

‘Oh, so you are in favour of illegal immigrants murdering and stealing and bringing drugs into our country.’

‘Oh, so you are in favour of ignoring the will of the British people and the process of democracy and you want the country to crash and all the negative consequences?’

Listen carefully and watch their practised skills in deception.