Spammers on animal rights issue

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Animal rights advocates are big on moralising. They can be as self-righteous as religious zealots. Well, many of them are religious zealots, so that should come as no surprise, as they come from the same fundamental roots - subjectivism. Nothing wrong with moralising so long as you preserve a high level of integrity. Frankly ideas for these people are less important than the 'raw emotion' if you read their books. A lot of facts; little in the way of deductive arguments. A gross appeal to emotion.

I am very interested in the issue of animal rights. After reading this article in the NY Times, I went to their Facebook page to read the comments. I scanned through the 379 comments already posted, and I was amazed to see how many of them were from the same person or groups of people, i.e. There were blocks or sequences of the same people. This suggests to me that there is a coordinated effort by an organisation or individual to spam the media on such issues. I don't know the organisation behind it, or whether it is one person with multiple Facebook accounts.

You can look yourself though because the Facebook page is here, as I traced a few spammers:

1. Scott Harmon

2. Craig Borges - this guy is an animal liberationist - you can see his profile here.

3. Rosa Cororan - this woman seems to be an organiser associated with PETA since she directs people to contact the PETA page on NY Times Facebook page. Her identity is concealed. Of course PETA loves these types of articles for its fund raising. You have an animal testing issue; you have a lot of commentary feedback with 'raw emotion', then you set people up for donations with a link to the PETA website. Cynical marketing? Well, don't they profess to be moral crusaders.

All these people spammed the NY Times Facebook page for this article with the same material. They may be independently acting in their beliefs of animal rights, or they may be part of these organisations. It matters little to me, as I only want to highlight the moral legitimacy of their crusade. This is not new of course. We had animal liberationalists in the bad old days of the 1970s and 1980s burning down scientific or animal testing labs. They offer no moral justification for such actions. They will do anything to draw attention to their cause. Imposing on others property or political rights is nothing to their agenda. I have never seen such an organisation establish a code of conduct like commercial organisations do, much less live within the law. That is not to say that all corporations act legally. It is also not to say that devotees cannot run their own agenda with little regard for the law. Destruction of property, risk to human lives before animals. Some of them actually know something about philosophy, and would not resort to these measures. I would suggest to you that these philosophical devotees are equally flawed, however that is beyond the scope of this post. It is easy to rationalise their values given their fundamental values.

I respect people's rights to impose upon their them, but I don't respect hypocrites who often call others hypocrites, then impose their views upon others through spam, misrepresent their influence, given that they apparently believe in democracy (unlike me). I don't spam because I have too much respect for facts to impose my views on others. They have no such qualms. Animal liberationists are beating this issue up.

I could go on looking for more spamming identities. I searched three other names and coincidentally they came up three times a piece when I did a search. The reality is that these people are probably not even real. They are probably conjured up by some organisation. I have reported some of them, and I leave it up to Facebook to control. The reality is that there are too many of them, and Facebook is not going to control the problem. You don't make money editting content. You can have systems to find spammers, but then the spammers just adopt a work-around.

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Author

Andrew Sheldon

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Applied Critical Thinking | www.SheldonThinks.com

Wrongful incarceration in the USA - how many more?

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Incarceration is a senseless act. The only justification for incarcerating people is to protect members of the community. The role of prison is to rehabilitate people. If people are irredeemable, it is because:

1. Our understanding of psychology has not progressed to a state where people are healthy. This is not surprising given that psychology is only 100 years old, people still accept a lot of the crap Freud wrote, and people still believe in ghosts and gods.

2. Society did not act soon enough. The reality is that the system only starts taking an interest in people when they do something wrong. i.e. Until you break the law, the system ignores you, and after you breach the law, it dispenses with you. It is a sad society because there is utterly no objectivity involved. The laws are arbitrary, justice is under-resourced, and society so compartmentalised that it services only the majority which sustains and legitimatises its existence.

I want to draw your attention to this woman - Pamela Smart. She was convicted in the 1980s for the killing of her estranged husband. The situation is that she was at a low point, she was paradoxically mentoring kids through a self-esteem program. She befriends a 16yo boy, who given we have established that he had low self-esteem, was also a vulnerable member of society. The prosecution did a 'plea bargain' with the three boys involved, her boyfriend, another boy who supplied the gun, and they got off on a light '2nd degree' sentence by fingering her with a 'conspiracy to kill'. This is silly. They are out of prison, and she did not even push the trigger. There is no evidence to suggest she even knew about the murder. These boys today, 20 years later, have no reason to come clean, since their lighter sentence depends on now being honest. Listening to the 'taped conversations' there is critical evidence....there is only the flawed thinking in the jury. This is why juries ought not to be sentencing people. Critical thinking is a skill scarcely found in society, and yet ordinary members of society are able to convict - to sentence a person to life in prison - and we deny then another trial because the resources are not available. It costs $100,000 a year to keep a person in prison. This person has spent 20 years in jail for a short period of vulnerability. Visit the Pamela Smart website.

The timing of this trial was a period in which juries were not sequestered from public attention. The media at the time were all over this story. She was spurned by the media who referred to her as 'a black widow'. One can imagine all the self-righteous Christians spurning her from the stairs of the court house. Child molestation is not murder. Twenty years for the boys that really did it strikes me as too long as well; but what might they have learned from the system; that its practical to deceive the court, that lying is practical. So we have unjustly convicted a person, whilst rewarding three others for lying throughout their 20 years in prison. Who do you think has the greater probability of convicting - the three liars or the wrongfully convicted woman who has obtained a Masters degree, and remains a productive member of society 'in prison'. You might well argue that she is afforded a productive life in prison...why shouldn't she stay there. That is not your decision to make. Just as voting in a democracy for these unaccountable politicians to impose their silly, arbitrary laws upon others is not your right. That is tyranny. Democracy is legitimatised tyranny. The majority is usually wrong because they are the sheep that will follow the loudest whistle.

Irrespective of the fact that she was found guilt, she has since become a mentor for all those incarcerated in her prison facility. She has achieved two Masters degrees whilst in prison. She has the support of Dr Eleanor Pam as well as Oprah.

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Author

Andrew Sheldon

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Applied Critical Thinking | www.SheldonThinks.com

Student detained for loathsome Facebook posts

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In the United States, a student has been apprehended for posting vague messages of loathing society....the police responded. It does strike one as political correctness.

Preventing him going to that school is a decision the student ought to make - not the principal. He has not done anything wrong. He vented anger at the world. Who wouldn't when the world we live in is pretty poor. He deserves a Nobel Peace prize for identifying the hypocrisy or inherent contradictions in contemporary 'social values' at such a young age. If only every student could get such counselling....better still...if people actually realised 'the system' is stuffed. So what exactly is wrong with the system. Well here are some pointers:

1. Might makes right. Since the 1860s (Britain) perceptions have been more important than facts, i.e. Numbers more important than reasons or science. The implication is that sensible common law has become displaced by statutory law, which is inconsistent, so we need amendments to patch up contradictions, which creates loopholes, so you get this endless complexification of the law, which does not work because even the expert lawyers, accountants and so forth don't understand it, so you have to test the law in the courts, or get a ruling from the tax office. In conclusion, its arbitrary law, little better from when Hitler ruled Europe. That's right, the House of Lords & Commons were right to reject universal suffrage (democracy), but sadly they could conceive only of a false alternative (fascism/communist). Education was destroying people's minds back then as well. We needed a meritocracy, with reasons driving policies, not numbers. Reasons which are critiqued, rendered coherent by the smartest in society, not numbers which are extorted by vested interest groups or populists. Yes, we need a respect for objectivity. Even science today has turned into a popularity contest at the behest of governments. i.e. Climate change, monetary economics. The US started with sensible values....but democracy white-anted it. Democracy has also inhibited the development of the humanities....philosophy and psychology particularly.

2. Lack of accountability. The current system does not hold anyone accountable....most particularly politicians. The reason is that a 'two-party' democracy may as well be a single party autocracy. That is feeble competition when you know you are going to be elected by default in a bad system, able to be corrupt or get your chance at power. How hard do you think it would be for a politician to receive kickbacks into a Swiss bank account. Most of them are wealthy lawyers already. Ask yourself why Wikileaks founder Julian Assange is so loathed. Because bank workers will have a means to disclose the private bank details of corrupt politicians, as well as innocent taxpayers who ought not be forced to pay tax....why? That is my next point.

3. Coercion. People accept the myth that they have rights. You don't. They have a delusion of rights. Your political rights mean nothing in a modern specialised society where your material rights are everything. Without economic rights you are a slave to an unaccountable, wasteful, scornful (Wikileaks) or indifferent state. They will even use your tax contributions to keep you in your place, as an 'economic slave' serving their expedient and ill-conceived. Ill-conceived because they are not accountable for their policies. You triennial vote means nothing to you, and communicates little to them. They are middlemen, they are not statesmen with ideas. They know as much about public policy as your stockbroker knows about good investments. They are salemen making a buck living off your buck. You need statesmen the likes of Thomas Jefferson, but with even more integrity after 250 years of progress. Your system does not create them. This system loathes 'big picture', conceptualisers....it loves money, and spurns all ideas which does not create it TODAY!

We could go more fundamental than that, but that is the practical manifestation of your ideals! Think again.

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Author

Andrew Sheldon

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Applied Critical Thinking | www.SheldonThinks.com

Abolishing the Fed is not the first step, its the last

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Notwithstanding the intelligence and truth of what these guys say, they seem inclined to blow smoke up people. The notion that the voter is intelligent is more intelligent than Ben Bernacke strikes me as a poor explanation. The reality is that the current need to recapitalise economies is because:

1. The mistakes made years ago which voters and other vested interests did not object to

2. The ease with which governments can print money and create debt

3. The banks are just another vested interest group

The problem is that voters do not use their minds...they didn't a decade ago; they didn't two decades ago. If they did know, they would not vote for the type of monetary policy pursued by both sides of politics in the USA by the Democrats and Republican Party. The notion that we are going to be saved by a single member of the Republican Party - Ron Paul - strikes me as lunacy. This happened because voters are short-range thinkers. It happened because our political system rewards poor decision-making. Even the nature of the stimulus has been poorly invested. At times of low demand, it should have been invested in infrastructure like high-speed railways or energy efficiency measures. Not encouraging more consumption. The reality however is that the worst mistakes were made a decade ago when most people did not care that there was a problem. I know Jim Rogers has been ranting for at least 5 years (probably longer); I have been ranting for 10 years, and neither of us were alone. Its been in the works for a decade; but the voter listens to the uncritical mainstream media which has no interest in truth where it concerns government.

The solution is a meritocracy; thereafter to end the role of the Federal Reserve and to restore a tangible concept of monetary value - that is gold.

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Author
Andrew Sheldon
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Applied Critical Thinking | www.SheldonThinks.com

Natural selection in the modern world

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This is a great video skit. Not entirely accurate because it would convey to you that the idiots will inherit the Earth by virtue of the faster procreation. The reality is that its not a physical dilemma as much as a psychological one. i.e. Mr Mediocrity is not an idiot, so much as not focused, or evasive to the long-term conceptual demands of life. Instead he is satisfied with repressing unsavoury thoughts and engaging in materialism. So whilst Mr Mediocity might have a low sperm count, the problem is really that he is not open to conceptual reasoning. i.e. Moral scepticism.

Natural selection ceased to be true for modern man because it was based on natural systems, as opposed to mental systems. i.e. One cannot ignore the fact that we no longer live like a cave man fighting the physical elements, whether weather or beasts of prey. We are now fighting each other, intellectually in a variety of ways. There is nevertheless elements of natural selection in sports, but that is not the main show. The biggest obstacle is dubious social standards which corrupt the proper functioning of society. Blame democracy which reverberates back to the cave men values, so they control our people of merit. The reality is that meritocracy is the only value system compatible with human nature.

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Author

Andrew Sheldon

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Applied Critical Thinking | www.SheldonThinks.com

Police road vigilance kills NZ teenager

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This is an interesting story from the NZ Herald. A 17yo teenager, Fenn McCoach, want killed driving to school on NZ roads – distracted as he collided with a truck. The question is – what caused the distraction. There is no question in my mind that the driver was distracted by a police patrol car. This is the 'psychological war' upon speeding drivers. Not just speeding drivers, but drivers who drive near the speed limit and react instinctively when they are over or close to it. The police presence on the road is regarded as the reason why people don’t speed. I have a different perspective…that the punitive policy of fining speedsters causes anyone who drives close to the speed limit, who has ever received a speeding fine, to jump or ‘react’ when they see a road (police) patrol car, and then to become paranoid about whether they got caught or not. This results in them incessantly looking in their rear-view mirror to see if the police are following. In the meantime there car is careering over the double-lines into oncoming traffic.

The problem is two-fold:

1. Police rely on fear (of fines) – which is not a desirable response in a speeding car

2. Drivers are vague about the technology which police use, and they have imperfect knowledge about whether they have been fined.

So how ought police to respond to speeding. Well, they ought to trust in the judgement of the driver, and to adopt an education program which actually empowers people. Our entire education system is fear-punitive based, and this causes people to be defiant in their personal lives. It’s a sad reality than ‘boring responsible parents’ have simply lost the courage and conviction to fight against these silly punitive laws, which is destined to destroy their effectiveness as thinkers (in their broader social activities), as parents, and as moral agents in the community. The punitive, fear policies of our schools, parents and government are keeping us in a mini-Dark Ages. We want our kids to behave, but our societal strategy for achieving this end is counter-productive.

The risks do not end with the vigilance of police; it continues long after. I recall getting a speeding fine on a country drive. I was driving in freeway conditions, and I was driving up a 20deg inclination, 15kmph over the limit. I received a fine. It did not occur to me the reasons at the time. I was a little intimidated by the police officer because he is an authority figure. The cost of court is excessive, and no one expects justice from our system. We have all seen evidence of its failures. Justice dies when 'justice is not seen to have been done'.

For the next 500km of driving I was distracted by persistent anxiety about the unfairness of the system. That response lives with me today because I still think its wrong, and yet I am powerless to do anything about it. For that 500kms I was at risk of an accident because of an supposedly 'police' intervention which was intended to protect me. I am confident that I am going to die 5 years earlier not because of speed because I am a thinking person, with good judgement. I think I am going to die of heart failure or cancer because of the incessant anxieties that arbitrary statutory (legislative) law is placing me under. NZ is moving in the same direction as Australia. The expansion of statutory law is turning NZ into a police state. This means more discretionary power to police because arbitrary law only creates loopholes. That means greater misuse and distrust of the law. I think you can draw a parallel between refereeing a football game and government. When you have a referee intervening in the game, as a player, you just lose respect for the referee and interest in the game. The legislature in Western democracies is bringing about not only the death of teenagers, but the destruction of people's minds. The legislature is the 'fundamental problem'; as it is the basis of our centralised decision-making. All systems and even values tend to be shaped by it. Sadly this is the case because government destroys critical thinking skills through its control of public education. Religious institutional control of private education mean you have a very unsavoury choice for educating your kids.

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Author

Andrew Sheldon

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Applied Critical Thinking | www.SheldonThinks.com

Police culture in NZ under attack

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Isn't telephone technology wonderful. We all have this wonderful instrument to preserve accountability - the I-witness account derived from cellphone video footage. The NZ Herald has received footage of a police officer breaching the nation's laws which prohibit use of a cellphone whilst driving. Apparently, the police officers are partially exempt if the call is 'work related'. I guess we will never know because the officer will probably not be investigated, yet the answer is probably in the story. Apparently the officer was very 'animated', suggesting it was a personal call.

This is not a rare incident, and a senior NZ police officer acknowledges that, which highlights the point that there are 'honest minds' in the police force. But just to convey how common this is, I want to cite evidence that this is a global phenomenon.

1. Australia: I grew up in Australia, and on a ski holiday with university friends, another brought some of his childhood mates who were cadets in the police force. They were drinking whiskey from the bottle whilst doing 120kmph (speed limit 100kmph) on 2nd grade backroads. i.e. One driver with the approval of two others. There is clearly a culture of disrespect for the law which permeates down to cadet school, and this 'culture of loyalty' trumps facts, truth and justice for a great many police officers.

2. Philippines: A very senior Philippines National Police (PNP) officer is caught not driving with a seat belt. He is able to get off with a warning driving in the Subic Bay area, which is actually an independent police authority. He is nevertheless able to escape accountability. The Subic Bay officer would not be so obstinate if he was a PNP officer. The culture of loyalty grows in the line of duty, but most particularly it is cultivated in training schools, whether its the police academy in Baguio City for officers, or elsewhere. Practically all the Generals in the PNP come from the same school, and more scary the same year, with eash year being politically aligned to a particular president.

Yep, integrity is a rare phenomenon today from members of institutions which one would have expected to be defenders of those concepts of freedom, integrity, honesty and rationality. The problem of course is that there are no consequences and inadequate training in ethics for these 'law enforcers' as cadets.

We might wonder whether the criminals are right to defy them when they are not always exponents of truth, justice and rationality.

In defense of NZ police, I actually find them to be more positive and engaging members in their communities. They are significantly better than the officers in Australia in terms of them reasonableness, and they are far more engaged than police in the Philippines. Mind you, police in the Philippines don't even have vehicles and judges are often corrupt, so I guess they might have good reason to hold the 'system' in disdain.

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Author

Andrew Sheldon

Resource Rent Tax

Applied Critical Thinking | www.SheldonThinks.com