Call It As I see It... Palin Won!

[Gringinho]

Quote from wjk:

Who determines what indoctrination is? And what if those who make that call are indoctrinated? It would seem to me that anyone who comes away with an opinion similar to that of the educator could be considered indoctrinated in that educator's views.
...

Actually, there is an objective and neutral way to view indoctrination - and it has to do with how much awareness is evolved around the "education", if there are any balanced critical awareness aspects.

You may think that "nothing" can be understood from "subjective views" - well, newsflash - not everything evolves around a reductionist inference from one point to another - there is not a "logical chain of events" to why people hold beliefs.

What you are repeating is just the age-old view that there is absolute truths... of course there are none, but while you think of this as subjectivity - not everything is unrelated relativism - because we can all understand systems and learn about them - including the belief systems of others. Thus we can also see flaws, bias and so on in the belief systems without judging the correctness of those beliefs.

 

[wjk]

Quote from Gringinho:

Actually, there is an objective and neutral way to view indoctrination - and it has to do with how much awareness is evolved around the "education", if there are any balanced critical awareness aspects.

You may think that "nothing" can be understood from "subjective views" - well, newsflash - not everything evolves around a reductionist inference from one point to another - there is not a "logical chain of events" to why people hold beliefs.

What you are repeating is just the age-old view that there is absolute truths... of course there are none, but while you think of this as subjectivity - not everything is unrelated relativism - because we can all understand systems and learn about them - including the belief systems of others. Thus we can also see flaws, bias and so on in the belief systems without judging the correctness of those beliefs.

I would believe that to mean, simply put, to maintain an open mind regardless of ones own views.

 

[Gringinho]

Quote from wjk:

I would believe that to mean, simply put, to maintain an open mind regardless of ones own views.

Yes - partly...
Indoctrination means that you are mostly void of critical self-reflection or not even aware of anything negative about what you are doing. Extremists and fundamentalists are the most indoctrinated you will find -- sometimes Orthodox Jews, other times Islamic fanatics or Christian fundamentalists... or their derivatives - where monotheism has been projected further into an ideology like neo-conservatism or objectivism. Objectivism is naturalist, but they hold the same "universally absolute truth" through their epistemological axiom... i.e they are isomorphic to the monotheistic epistemological essence.

 

[Pa(b)st Prime]

Quote from Gringinho:

People who invest heavily in their brains through indoctrinated education do not exactly sway easily in their beliefs - however wrong they might be proven to be.

Bingo.

 

[Lucrum]

Quote from BlindLemonBoosh:

John McCain graduated 894th out of his class of 899 at the Naval Academy in 1958.

Then went on to fly A-4E's off the decks of aircraft carriers and into combat. Not to mention a six year stay at the Hanoi Hilton.

Somehow I don't think girlie man Hussein Obama would last a minute, in either situation.

 

[Vista]

Quote from Wallet:


The left would love nothing more to show they are increasing welfare and entitlements at the expense of the working population, to ensure the votes at the polls of those who receive their handouts.

Again, when society learns they can vote them selves a payraise from the national treasury, democracy fails and socialism abounds.

This is exactly why the founding fathers did not design our goverment to be a Democracy and the reason it is a Constitutional Republic. Remember the old story of the two wolves and a sheep in a room, deciding what to eat for dinner?

 

[Pa(b)st Prime]

Quote from BlindLemonBoosh:

John McCain graduated 894th out of his class of 899 at the Naval Academy in 1958.

Biden graduated 76th out of 85 in his law school class. (and has lied about it). Intuitively I see no evidence of Biden being "stupid".

As a member of the military McCain's I.Q. test results are in his official service record. He scored 129 and 133. Not blistering but I'd guess 130 is 95 percentile. (Pabst is a 141)

I'd imagine family connections enabled Bush to attend Yale. Just like preferred admittance got Obama into Columbia. Graduating with a Harvard MBA is an entirely different animal though. The course work itself is prohibitively difficult. BTW: Have any of you seen Obama's transcript from Occidental? No you haven't. It's never been released and by Obama's own admission his grades in L.A. were pathetic.

In short none of these people are dumb. I spent a decade in Chicago politics-I've spoken one on one to Obama a half dozen times-in my experience even the stupidest appearing black female Chicago Alderman possesses above normal intelligence.

I see NOTHING about successful policy implementation that's connected to education levels. Zilch. Nada. I can't emphasize that point enough. Just like I would have no confidence that an MBA would out perform/earn a Greek immigrant in building a restaurant empire.

Does intelligence matter? Of course. Ignorance is rarely bliss. By the same token being smart does one little good if they're prone to rash emotional judgments. Or lazy. Or personally undisciplined. A couple of folks have said to me that Obama's cigarette smoking turns them off! I've said this about trading: Out of the "best" 10 or so traders I knew at the CBOT-I'm talking about guys taking 20k to 5mil-at least half are broke and now driving limousines. They (and me) didn't pay enough homage to randomness and position sizing. All decision making has similar components. It can be the big armed QB who "tests" secondaries too often by trying to thread coverage or it can be a Wall Street investment bank with nothing but high I.Q., business school grads who think they can load up. The more gifted we are the most prone we are to pressing our bets.

EOD: Common sense and good ole' random luck are the most frequent arbiters of positive results.

 

[Gringinho]

Quote from Lucrum:

Then went on to fly A-4E's off the decks of aircraft carriers and into combat. Not to mention a six year stay at the Hanoi Hilton.
Somehow I don't think girlie man Hussein Obama would last a minute, in either situation.

On that I would agree 100%.
But lets hope the US president wont have to stay anywhere under torture and interrogation...

It shouldn't be too difficult agreeing on that either. Not succumbing under torture and physical duress is not exactly in their current job description. McCain would no doubt be lights out permanently if an attack dog humped his leg right now.

 

[Gringinho]

Quote from Pa(b)st Prime:

...
I see NOTHING about successful policy implementation that's connected to education levels. Zilch. Nada. I can't emphasize that point enough.
...
Does intelligence matter? Of course. Ignorance is rarely bliss. By the same token being smart does one little good if they're prone to rash emotional judgments. Or lazy. Or personally undisciplined.

The more gifted we are the most prone we are to pressing our bets.

EOD: Common sense and good ole' random luck are the most frequent arbiters of positive results.

It's NOT the "common sense" really...
It's an ability to "reason" and use the wisdom combined with some intelligence - not just what is obvious, but what is perceptive and grips the complete understanding - such as the ability of "lateral thinking" and problem solving by correct application of knowledge.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lateral_thinking
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fluid_and_crystallized_intelligence

 

[ZZZzzzzzzz]

From the New Republic:

Palin on Freedom of the Press

Is this some kind of threat against freedom of the press, or just a completely incoherent ramble? I honestly don't know. Either she's sinister or just way too dumb to be president:

"As we send our young men and women overseas in a war zone to fight for democracy and freedoms, including freedom of the press, we've really got to have a mutually beneficial relationship here with those fighting the freedom of the press, and then the press, though not taking advantage and exploiting a situation, perhaps they would want to capture and abuse the privilege. We just want truth, we want fairness, we want balance."

--Jonathan Chait


http://blogs.tnr.com/tnr/blogs/the_plank/archive/2008/10/03/palin-on-freedom-of-the-press.aspx