Looking Toward The Next High

[TheNomad]

I am still waiting on someone to adequately respond to my adept definition of "fact" as demonstratively proven by scientific method by an expert.

Maybe I lost some people.

I had said we are ALL playing God when we choose to ignore science to determine fact. Anyone who chooses to ally themselves with a "truth" when they themselves have not performed ANY science to come to that conclusion is a liar. What else can they be? They have no basis on which to make their claim. And we now have scores of "experts" who are "testifying" not as Scientists or Experts but as talking heads choosing to sell a spin.

What has become of all of us when this happens?

When people choose to say something with absolutely no demonstrable basis in reality? This was about Fact Checking. The very idea of "checking facts" has become almost a pariah. "Fact Checking" is now equivalent to Witch Hunting. The very idea that to ask a question is wrong or immoral. And then, when we are finally allowed to ASK, we have 5 people saying one thing and 5 people saying the opposite ------ both with their VERSION of interpretation of the information.

I keep pointing to the idea of SUBJECTIVITY v OBJECTIVITY. We can no longer be all of us be SUBJECTIVE (spewing our own views/beliefs with no basis) and we must begin leaning toward OBJECTIVITY. Experts in a court of law are commanded BY LAW to present "evidence" based not on their personal beliefs but what they can prove OBJECTIVELY without personal feelings.

America right now is being consumed by subjectivity. No one wants to find anything out, really. Or few do. It is easier to keep saying Oswald hit the president with 3 bullets because to say otherwise might force you to ask more questions and you just don't feel like it. Lazy. Unacceptable. It's tearing all of us apart as individuals and a collective nation.

Perhaps this is the nutshell of the Prophet drama; the curse of Perpetual, Unending Subjectivity to the grave!

So say we all?

[pbrower2a]

(07-18-2018, 08:27 AM)theTheNomad Wrote: I am still waiting on someone to adequately respond to my adept definition of "fact" as demonstratively proven by scientific method by an expert.

Maybe I lost some people.

The experts don't agree. Marxist and libertarian scholars will never agree on how to interpret political 'reality'. Moral and esthetic values, let alone the sex drive, are not rational in nature. I do not have a rational proof that murder is an unconscionable deed, but I can clearly state that gross uncertainty of life for reasons other than human agency (such as organic disease) debases life by making it grossly insecure. Such is horrible to me, but that is a subjective judgment.

It is possible to apply science and mathematics to political phenomena and economics, but that does not make those studies science.

Quote:I had said we are ALL playing God when we choose to ignore science to determine fact.  Anyone who chooses to ally themselves with a "truth" when they themselves have not performed ANY science to come to that conclusion is a liar.  What else can they be?  They have no basis on which to make their claim.  And we now have scores of "experts" who are "testifying" not as Scientists or Experts but as talking heads choosing to sell a spin.

Perhaps an overstatement, as our efforts to make our 'science' fit a superstition or folly cripples us intellectually (Hollow Earth, young-earth creationism) or debases us morally (pseudo-scientific racism). Ideally those in power and influence are in tough with scientific reality and don't simply express their values or sell out for personal gain.  Authority as power is incompatible with authority as truth. When authority becomes little more than ability to exploit human vulnerability, as in a Gulag or under an Inquisitor, life becomes horror.

Sure, I enjoy an occasional horror movie as entertainment, but I certainly don't want to endure the horror first hand. For real horror there is the monstrous captivity that such people as Phillip Garrido or Gary Heidnick could impose upon helpless victims -- or that one endured under what Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, Satan Hussein, or the Assad or Kim dynasties could impose. Or Apartheid or Jim Crow if one wasn't white. In my book the best horror movie ever is Cabaret because it leaves one with knowledge that the worst is yet to come: Dracula and Frankenstein are unreal enough to allow us some distance from the hazard, and they can end with the death of the horrible entity.

Quote:When people choose to say something with absolutely no demonstrable basis in reality?  This was about Fact Checking.  The very idea of "checking facts" has become almost a pariah.  "Fact Checking" is now equivalent to Witch Hunting.  The very idea that to ask a question is wrong or immoral.  And then, when we are finally allowed to ASK, we have 5 people saying one thing and 5 people saying the opposite ------ both with their VERSION of interpretation of the information.

Fact checking -- insisting upon two different sources, with one journalist checking up on the other so that what the first journalist says is verified. That is how good journalistic entities keep out hoaxes and fabrications. The only instances in which fact checking is unnecessary is with official sources who announce births, deaths, marriages, criminal convictions and sentencing, and judgments in criminal cases -- or with agencies, private (like the Dow-Jones Index) or private (like the US Census Bureau) that disseminate official statistics. 

Quote:I keep pointing to the idea of SUBJECTIVITY v OBJECTIVITY.  We can no longer be all of us be SUBJECTIVE (spewing our own views/beliefs with no basis) and we must begin leaning toward OBJECTIVITY.  Experts in a court of law are commanded BY LAW to present "evidence" based not on their personal beliefs but what they can prove OBJECTIVELY without personal feelings.

Subjectivity -- I think the music of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart largely and the sculptures of Michelangelo Buonarotti wonderful. I think it horribly wrong to murder, rape, kidnap, steal, and torture. I prefer the normal weather of San Diego, California to the harsh conditions at the summit of Mount Washington in New Hampshire.

Objectivity -- the laws of science, mathematics, and the logical dialectic. Historical reality as shown in human deeds.  
 

Quote:America right now is being consumed by subjectivity.  No one wants to find anything out, really.  Or few do.  It is easier to keep saying Oswald hit the president with 3 bullets because to say otherwise might force you to ask more questions and you just don't feel like it.  Lazy.  Unacceptable.  It's tearing all of us apart as individuals and a collective nation.

The personality of Lee Harvey Oswald is well-enough known, as are his personal movements on or about November 22, 1963. He had no well-defined loyalty. He was a mixed-up punk. He could as easily have killed Kennedy as a KGB operative or as someone who suddenly became a fascist (there were "Wanted for treason" posters with the image of JFK on them in Dallas at the time, and Oswald might have seen those). Oswald killed the police officer J D Tippitt when the cop was getting too close to recognizing who Oswald was and what he was suspected of. People like Oswald are highly suggestible, cranky, and potentially violent.

It may be ironic, but the assassination attempt would likely have failed had it not been for the rigid back brace that Kennedy was wearing. Kennedy tried to duck but could not; without the back brace he would have ducked and been missed. Snipers usually aim for the chest cavity, and not the head.

Quote:Perhaps this is the nutshell of the Prophet drama; the curse of Perpetual, Unending Subjectivity to the grave!

So say we all?

Objectivity alone at best makes us thinking machines, sophisticated computers. Subjectivity makes us human, for all the faults that that entails.

[TheNomad]

Quote:Objectivity alone at best makes us thinking machines, sophisticated computers. Subjectivity makes us human, for all the faults that that entails.

Subjectivity is what makes us selfish; evil and criminals, ultimately.  For it is with subjectivity that we attempt to install in our own "kingdoms" in our desire to appease our own natures.  Which is fine.  But objectivity is what allows us to live together on this small planet where compromise must prevail lest we continue to slay one another throughout the ages to get what we want as individuals.

The time for kings and regimes can no longer function.  Individual wills must be put down or at least lessened and controlled by the power we all have AS humans to make competent decisions.  To portray subjectivity as the better of the two is only repeating the destructive pattern I have spoken about here.  And is possibly still the curse of the Prophet.

When engaging in communal affairs (which is the World itself) as portrayed in courts of law and matters involving competing wills of 2 or more humans, the governors of those affairs are expected and commanded to be IMPARTIAL which is OBJECTIVE and WITHOUT PERSONAL OPINION INVOLVED.  

You have not ever, probably, truly questioned anything about Lee Oswald and I would guess only sought out material to strengthen your already held opinion of that situation (which is a truly ruthless example of extreme subjectivity).  Meaning, nothing could change your mind anyway.  You never believed otherwise and never will.  A pungent example of Curse Of The Prophet playing out for us all in Real Time.

Have you ever explored ANY material concerning anyone who personally knew Lee?  Or has your "research" of Mr. Oswald been simply a "clinical" examination of far-removed sources and information such as Whens and Wheres?  And if you believe there is such a thing as Disinformation and whole edifices created for that very purpose, how can you know what you've learned about him is accurate since you, yourself, were not there nor involved with that of which you speak?  Lastly, was there ever a time in your research of this subject where you thought there might be something more going on and Lee Oswald was not "The Angry Lone Nut"?  Even a moment of doubt?

THANKS FOR YOUR TIME

[pbrower2a]

(07-18-2018, 01:28 PM)TheNomad Wrote:

Quote:Objectivity alone at best makes us thinking machines, sophisticated computers. Subjectivity makes us human, for all the faults that that entails.

Subjectivity is what makes us selfish; evil and criminals, ultimately.  For it is with subjectivity that we attempt to install in our own "kingdoms" in our desire to appease our own natures.  Which is fine.  But objectivity is what allows us to live together on this small planet where compromise must prevail lest we continue to slay one another throughout the ages to get what we want as individuals.

Selfishness and criminality suggest emotional immaturity -- infantile 'morality' in which people insist on getting whatever they want irrespective of social norms and the interests of humanity as a whole. There are theories of moral development, one of them (Lawrence Kohlberg) illustrated below:



With #1, one acts with accordance with what one can or can't get away with. That is the level of a criminal or a terrorist. At Level #1, a deed is criminal not because of social disapproval but instead because one can hide the offense (one can destroy the corpus delicti without leaving evidence, pin the crime on someone else, deceive law enforcement or the courts, alter records to hide the embezzlement or other theft, flee law enforcement indefinitely, bribe the appropriate officials, or one has absolute power). That is the morality of terrorists, swindlers, and gangsters. Thus Ted Bundy, John Gotti, Bernie Madoff, Osama bin Laden, Frank and Jesse James, or Saddam Hussein. Eventually one slips up. finds that law enforcement is getting more sophisticated, or loses immunity as one is overthrown.

With #2 we have the greedy b@stards motivated solely by money or its simulacra (power, fame, sex, luxury) -- the slick salesman hustling people into sucker deals. Think of how Enron operated, or recall characters from The Wolf of Wall Street.

With #3 we have people who act out of concern for their popularity or the approval of others (conventionality). If the overall society has appropriate rules for this and is able to monitor them well, this is appropriate and adequate. But these are also the kiss-ups and apple-polishers. Such people are all for human rights and civil liberties if the Establishment endorses them, but if the Establishment endorses cruelty to pariahs, it does as the Establishment expects. These are the people who only need an All-Powerful Leader to direct them to rob, beat, or murder people to whom they defer in good times. This is stereotypical behavior of teenagers who outgrow such as they mature. Or do they?

With #4 we have rigid obedience to law and order without the ability to judge the morality of the law. Here might be the person who denounces a starving person stealing a loaf of bread with the knowledge that someone convicted of such a theft can be executed, enslaved, beaten, or sentenced to a long prison term. People will do unpopular and self-sacrificing things because such is demanded by law, so this is an improvement over #3. Even if one knows that there is no enforcement of the expiration of parking meters , one feeds the parking meters.

With #5 we have people capable of judging legal standards and regulations for their appropriateness. This is a reasonable minimum for elected officials in a democratic society, for attorneys, teachers, physicians, engineers, pharmacists, scientists, clergy, and business executives... People like Joseph McCarthy, Bull Connor, Joe Arpaio, and Donald Trump fall short of this category.

With #6 we have people in or approaching sainthood -- the heroic people who struggle against injustice at great risk or loss to themselves. -- in the name of Humanity.

Quote:The time for kings and regimes can no longer function.  Individual wills must be put down or at least lessened and controlled by the power we all have AS humans to make competent decisions.  To portray subjectivity as the better of the two is only repeating the destructive pattern I have spoken about here.  And is possibly still the curse of the Prophet.

Say this when we have the most dictatorial or despotic President in American history. Or is America the oddity?

Quote:When engaging in communal affairs (which is the World itself) as portrayed in courts of law and matters involving competing wills of 2 or more humans, the governors of those affairs are expected and commanded to be IMPARTIAL which is OBJECTIVE and WITHOUT PERSONAL OPINION INVOLVED.  

Which explains why law has objective standards of precedent and formality, rules of evidence,  and of course rigid insistence on impartiality. Which explains the literality of legal statutes, as with persons convicted of dealing methamphetamine were acquitted after the statute was shown to outlaw "ethamphetamine" as a misprint. Aside from the power of some public officials to grant pardons and reprieves under certain conditions, even so severe a treatment as the death penalty may apply after all allotted appeals are exhausted. On occasion, innocent people may be wrongly convicted and hanged -- but that is far less likely than the sure, swift, and often wrongful judgment of a lynching.

Quote:You have not ever, probably, truly questioned anything about Lee Oswald and I would guess only sought out material to strengthen your already held opinion of that situation (which is a truly ruthless example of extreme subjectivity).  Meaning, nothing could change your mind anyway.  You never believed otherwise and never will.  A pungent example of Curse Of The Prophet playing out for us all in Real Time.

The consensus is that Lee Harvey Oswald did it. There have been colorful tales suggesting that others may have egged him on or given him guidance. It is hard to understand how someone could be so full of hatred and act with such cunning as Oswald did to take a sniper shot at a popular President from the sixth floor of what was then the Texas School Book Depository. If you want to connect him to the KGB, the CIA, the Illuminati, some anti-Kennedy plutocrat, or the Lizard people, then go ahead and believe what you want. The evidence for such connections does not exist. Big conspiracies tend to fall apart as law enforcement starts asking pointed questions.

Exculpating Lee Harvey Oswald at this point suggests an unreliable conspiracy theory. Connecting him to some conspiracy bigger than himself is without significant foundation. But here is an unstable person with great anger, someone unable to develop loyalties, and prone to violent outbursts. Do we know the whole story? Of course not, and we never will.

Now if you want to know whether there is any great mystery involving an assassination of similar time in which I suspect something more than a lone wolf -- try Dr. Martin Luther King. It is well known that any idiot can get commit murder, but getting away with it for any time suggests unusual skill by someone. I still wonder how James Earl Ray got out of the United States even if he was a dim bulb. How dim a bulb? He went to England, probably the worst place to be if one is wanted by American law enforcement. He would have drawn attention by almost anyone who knew about the crime. Maybe someone slipped him out somehow away from the watchful eyes at any international airport. But this is conjecture on my part, and I admit it.

Quote:Have you ever explored ANY material concerning anyone who personally knew Lee?  Or has your "research" of Mr. Oswald been simply a "clinical" examination of far-removed sources and information such as Whens and Wheres?  And if you believe there is such a thing as Disinformation and whole edifices created for that very purpose, how can you know what you've learned about him is accurate since you, yourself, were not there nor involved with that of which you speak?  Lastly, was there ever a time in your research of this subject where you thought there might be something more going on and Lee Oswald was not "The Angry Lone Nut"?  Even a moment of doubt?

THANKS FOR YOUR TIME

I'd like to refer you to the NOVA program that makes clear that JFK was shot from above, and not from some "grassy knoll". The Associated Press made clear that Oswald left his spot in the Texas School Book Depository in a rush, even leaving behind some pieces of fried chicken. Oswald had bought a rifle similar to the one that fired the shots. Innocent people who witness a horrific crime (imagine that I had been on the fifth floor just below Oswald, watching the motorcade in some free time that I managed to create for myself, and saw people pointing in my general direction... I would stick around to make sure that the Dallas police didn't see me fleeing. 

NOVA does a very good job on anything scientific, and reconstructing the Kennedy assassination involves a scientific reconstruction. I began as something of a skeptic, but I changed my mind. Although the AP wires occasionally make mistakes, there is no more reliable source than it as news. Practically every credible newspaper, magazine, or television news organization uses it as a source. AP gets news at its rawest and gets it so swiftly that the reporter cannot easily add or detract from a story. I consider AP wires (and in 1963, UPI wires as well) definitive when available.

[TheNomad]

Quote:The consensus is that Lee Harvey Oswald did it.

No one decided that. A commission called Warren decided that and then a trusting public accepted it. Yet, even only a DECADE later, a panel more broad and outside of a white man's boys' club comprised of individuals who were probably involved to a point in the assassination (and benefited from it later) questioned them - the House Panel On Assassinations (a panel created specifically to investigate the Kennedy murder) and THEY decided "there was most likely a plot involving more than one person" but could not explicitly prove the machination in the entirety.

So, you are choosing more Curse of the Prophet with your subjectivity to choose to believe something that makes your universe easier to live in. You have done no honest investigation of really anything and I suspect this is the way you live your life in totality (as most Prophets do).

WITH RESPECT.

[Eric the Green]

(07-19-2018, 05:01 AM)TheNomad Wrote:

Quote:The consensus is that Lee Harvey Oswald did it.

No one decided that.  A commission called Warren decided that and then a trusting public accepted it.  Yet, even only a DECADE later, a panel more broad and outside of a white man's boys' club comprised of individuals who were probably involved to a point in the assassination (and benefited from it later) questioned them - the House Panel On Assassinations (a panel created specifically to investigate the Kennedy murder) and THEY decided "there was most likely a plot involving more than one person" but could not explicitly prove the machination in the entirety.

So, you are choosing more Curse of the Prophet with your subjectivity to choose to believe something that makes your universe easier to live in.  You have done no honest investigation of really anything and I suspect this is the way you live your life in totality (as most Prophets do).

WITH RESPECT.

Really? It's not very respectful to draw such conclusions from the fact that Mr. Brower understands the consensus on the subject of the JFK assassination. Much more is known now since the congressional investigation you mention. And the evidence was always open and shut against Oswald; now it's even more so. You say you respect objective facts. This is what the facts show about Oswald, as opposed to what beliefs say, or what some woman who claims to have known him says about him.

And what about what else he wrote in that post? It did not seem unworthy of comment, or a basis for concluding mr. brower is "dishonest."

Subjectivity is our life; our being and consciousness. Objectivity is impossible, but it's a worthy goal to strive for to understand the non-self without prejudice. However, there is no objectivity without subjectivity AND vice versa. Strict dualism is false; all is connected and inter-related with all.

[TheNomad]

(07-20-2018, 03:52 AM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(07-19-2018, 05:01 AM)TheNomad Wrote:

Quote:The consensus is that Lee Harvey Oswald did it.

No one decided that.  A commission called Warren decided that and then a trusting public accepted it.  Yet, even only a DECADE later, a panel more broad and outside of a white man's boys' club comprised of individuals who were probably involved to a point in the assassination (and benefited from it later) questioned them - the House Panel On Assassinations (a panel created specifically to investigate the Kennedy murder) and THEY decided "there was most likely a plot involving more than one person" but could not explicitly prove the machination in the entirety.

So, you are choosing more Curse of the Prophet with your subjectivity to choose to believe something that makes your universe easier to live in.  You have done no honest investigation of really anything and I suspect this is the way you live your life in totality (as most Prophets do).

WITH RESPECT.

Really? It's not very respectful to draw such conclusions from the fact that Mr. Brower understands the consensus on the subject of the JFK assassination. Much more is known now since the congressional investigation you mention. And the evidence was always open and shut against Oswald; now it's even more so. You say you respect objective facts. This is what the facts show about Oswald, as opposed to what beliefs say, or what some woman who claims to have known him says about him.

And what about what else he wrote in that post? It did not seem unworthy of comment, or a basis for concluding mr. brower is "dishonest."

Subjectivity is our life; our being and consciousness. Objectivity is impossible, but it's a worthy goal to strive for to understand the non-self without prejudice. However, there is no objectivity without subjectivity AND vice versa. Strict dualism is false; all is connected and inter-related with all.

Please excuse my tenacity misconstrued as personal hostility. 

I think there is misunderstanding this conversation arc was never about a guy being shot from a knoll or storm drain half a century ago.  Though, that subject is - to me - of great importance itself.  I had used the concept of a large public event which shaped many Americans over time (the event itself and the aftermath) - I had used that as a qualifier against which to elaborate on the beliefs of some concerning a controversial thing and the idea of possible "groupthink" and immovability in doctrine/dogma.  That's all.  An event we can all (I guess) relate to and have a shared understanding, then examining how we view it, the MANY varying views toward what it was, etc... I believe such qualifiers reveal that extra layer of a person's scope and how they process information and how they are approaching multi-faceted concepts. I would tie that in with the article I read recently (wish I had the link?) that posed If Fox News Existed During Watergate Nixon May Have Walked.  That idea is kind of a big one.  When we look at the idea of misinformation, filtered information, the rise of almost unmitigated LIES that attempt to serve an agenda under the guise of being helpful to us in the search for INFORMATION... in that light, I don't know how anyone can say "we understand NOW what the main purpose of MSNBC and FOX are"............. but yet to sat "well that didn't exist in the 1960s......... I think it existed even more back then.  So, my goodness, the TAINT upon the kennedy thing is like a dog bringing the beach into the house and taking a dump on the couch   but that's just me.  This was never about Oswald, in this conversation I used him/the event as a tangential plane on which to examine something totally outside of him/the event.

Everyone here is really verbose (well, some) and I guess people have to choose what they will respond to.  What you and maybe others perceived as an attack was me trying to get on track with the real issue which was never oswald/the event but rather how the generational archetypes represented HERE view/react/believe about that commonly shared event.  I'm not crazy   I swear nor a troll.  

So, as much as I would like to talk about the grassy knoll and the picture of bush senior in dealy plaza, that's not what we are all here for.  I've been obsessed with 11.22 since even the 1980s and I have consumed countless books, documentaries, lectures, rudimentary maps (lmao netflix Dark, Claudia's bunker!!) but that is a side issue.

We all have limited time, and we most seem to babble (which is great).  Not enough time on earth to go line by line. BTW I wrote a whole other paragraph to respond about the "NOVA program" and how I know all of these docs and books and people by heart, but that is totally off topic, the assassination does not belong here except in the sense of generational cycles since that is what this forum is.