Things I've Said

Thoughts I've had from time to time

The Irony of Narrow Mindedness

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I read an interesting exchange between two people, in which one of the writers stated “I’m sorry you have such a narrow perspective on this subject”.
 
That got me wondering “Is he sad that her perspective is ‘narrow’, or is he sad that her perspective is different from his?”
 
It occurs to me that people with broad perspectives don’t often accuse others of having a narrow perspective. People with a broad perspective can embrace or at least understand a wide range of different and conflicting ideas. Therefore, they can see how the narrow-thinking person’s ideas fit into the realm of possibilities.
 
It is the narrow minded person who says “your idea is different from mine, you should broaden your range of thinking to include what I believe”.
 
Those who cannot broaden their own thinking are most likely to think others have narrow minds.

Make $25 for Writing About Where You Would Live

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Want to make $25?
Write an essay on the following topic:
What is the best place in the world to live, and why?
 
What country, what city or local? Birdsville, Australia? London, England? New York City? New Orleans? Boulder, Colorado? Singapore? Johannesburg, South Africa? Uruguay? Chile? Liberland? A sheep station in New Zealand? A farm in Wisconsin? Where would you live, and what would be the compelling reasons to live there?
 
Climate? Politics? Lifestyle? Culture? Economy? Family? Geography? Educational opportunities? Job opportunities?
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You should choose from a place that you have lived or at least visited – not just a place you imagine would be fun. But, if you’ve ever done so, you could write about a life without roots, too – living on the road, free and clean.
 
Write an essay answering this question. I’ll choose my favorite and award the author with a $25 Amazon Gift Certificate.
 
In order to qualify, at least 10 people must submit an essay.

You can post your essay as a response to this post, post it elsewhere and link to it, or get it to me any other way you can think of.

Share this all you want – the contest is open to anyone.

Submissions due by 11:00pm CDT on Tuesday, 15 March 2016.

What Does Stephen Hawking Know, Anyhow?

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I saw this:
Stephen Hawking Says We Should Really Be Scared Of Capitalism, Not Robots


Hawking’s comments were limited to:

If machines produce everything we need, the outcome will depend on how things are distributed. Everyone can enjoy a life of luxurious leisure if the machine-produced wealth is shared, or most people can end up miserably poor if the machine-owners successfully lobby against wealth redistribution. So far, the trend seems to be toward the second option, with technology driving ever-increasing inequality.

Hawking’s comments are pretty hard to dispute.  It seems implicit in the phrase “how things are distributed” that there must be some “distributer of things”, but he doesn’t state it outright, so we’ll leave that alone.  However, the editorial writer (Alexander C Kaufman) does take a lot of liberties with Hawking’s comments, starting off with the title of the article.  So I am addressing the author of the editorial more than Hawking himself, when I say:
 
“Nonsense!”
 
The lopsided distribution of dollars and property is the wrong way to measure economic divergence. The wealthy in the world have vastly more dollars than the poor. But the poor in capitalist countries are vastly better off than the poor in less capitalist countries. Capitalism (even the distinctly non-free over-regulated crony-capitalist market under which most capitalist countries exist) has pulled the masses out of the miserable poverty suffered by their ancestors and their communist or dictator-ruled contemporaries. Meanwhile the wealthy have simply remained exquisitely comfortable everywhere.
 
As China has embraced capitalism, more of the poor in China are comfortable, while the wealthy in China simply remain pampered. And so it is everywhere that capitalism is allowed to flourish.
 
“Wealth inequality” is a non-issue. “Income inequality” is a non-issue. And capitalism is the worst economic system except for all the others.