Tag: life

Fact Based Living

On By southwerkIn Business Ethics, Capitalism, Government Failure

(Indeed it does! An Illustration from the book, “The Wonder Clock.”)

There was once an older woman who was asked to invest in a gold mine. She did so and lost all of that money. Her attorney asked her why she didn’t ask him about the deal before investing as he was on retainer and it cost nothing to ask his opinion. And she said, “I was afraid you’d tell me not to do it.”

Facts keep us from doing all kinds of things. For instance, countless young beautiful women want to be my friend on Facebook. The facts of online scamming and the reuse and actual theft of pictures would lead one to believe that there is usually a financial angle to these beautiful women. And all of life is like that. Many things that appear at first glance to be attractive and seductive are in the long term deeply painful.

We want to do stuff but facts prevent it because we would be injured. We also use them to make decisions and these decisions are often criticized as “cold-blooded.” Sometimes I suppose that is so. For instance I once had a girl friend who was pretty and smart and crazy. I ended the relationship in spite of the good looks and intelligence because crazy (and it wasn’t a little crazy) is bad. I am sure I was right but I do miss her from time to time.

Often we are given permission to act and think on our worst impulses. The Internet outrage machine is opposed to facts and human judgment and intelligence in general. What do I mean by the internet outrage machine? Well, many web sites like Facebook are designed around rage and anger as the most effective ways of getting clicks.

So, if you search for “Angry Karens,” you will get first a few and then a flood of angry Karen posts. They want you angry because anger is a strong emotion that enables you to act in foolish and counterproductive ways in voting and buying.

I want you know that Facebook or any other web site where people can post content could just as easily have been designed around love, strong relationships, artistic merit and peace keeping. But there was more money in rage and hatred. And if you were to suggest that the originators of these sites must have been very cold blooded. You are right. They still are.

Manipulating people with emotion and conspiracy theories is very profitable and even though profitable, very wrong. Nevertheless, based on emotion people buy the most awful useless things and are ripped off on a truly epic scale and it is happening right now, moment by moment.

Not only are we manipulated by the Internet and a variety of scammers and conspiracy theorists we have actual totalitarians who have an extreme contempt for facts. They live in a world of feelings that they believe supersede facts. Mussolini, Hitler, Stalin and Tojo all had a very high level of contempt for facts. They essentially lived like a good many American politicians in a world of myth and legend (not the good ones). The current hideous myths are the foolish ideas of a mythic American past particularly the glorification of the 1950’s. And so, when we do things like multi-culturalism which runs against the values of the “Jim Crow” era, they react with unreasoning hatred and rage.

I am a member of the reality based community. I admit right now that I do not understand why everyone doesn’t rely on facts to make decisions and live their lives. It seems to me obvious that this is the most likely path to lead to success.

Right now, our current national leadership appears to be on the verge of a nervous breakdown, bragging about imaginary accomplishments and threatening to arrest and destroy his domestic enemies. He lives in a world of lies and nonsense which he is forcing on the rest of us.

He might succeed. There are a great many people who see monetary benefits from this set of lies and fake mythology. But the facts, the ones they have not managed to obscure and distort, remain. And we who have lived and want to live in a reality based world are still here.

So, the struggle continues.

May truth and righteousness prevail.

James Alan Pilant

Work-Life Balance is a Real and Vital Concept

On By southwerkIn Business Ethics, Government Failure

(Presumably over the last dime of profit just like our tech bros.)

Billionaire bosses scoff at the concept of work life balance. Squeezing every conceivable sacrifice from the pitiful workers they exploit mercilessly is embedded in their DNA. The cruelty is the purpose. The cruelty is to instill fear and obedience in their worker drones.

You might say, “James, you don’t seem to like them very much?”

“No, I don’t.”

And I will tell you why. These individuals with their enormous wealth larger than most of the world’s nations’ annual budgets have it in their power to make their workplaces worker friendly, a paradise and continuing benefit to the nation. They could provide day care, scholarships, travel and most importantly, a guarantee of employment as a reward for loyalty. Instead they impose pain and hardship as a means of getting every last dime even thought they have billions upon billions of those “last dimes.”

When I was a young man I read a lot of history. I still do. There is the story of George Pullman. He created the Pullman Car. It is a train car that allows passengers to travel in comfort and sleep while traveling. He made many millions of dollars. Like today’s billionaire bosses, he wanted every last dime. So, he built a “model community” for his workers where they had to live and where every action and every expenditure could be controlled. A horrible cruel dictatorships that demanded moment by moment obedience punishable by immediate dismissal for any failure. He could have built a paradise just like our beyond all human understanding levels of greedy tech bros could but they won’t.

I think they relish the power. The idea of doing good of doing what is right is repugnant to their openly fascist belief systems. They take and they take and they take — and that is all the rationale they need. They want and have created a nationwide atmosphere of fear to keep wages and worker demands low. And in case, we forget for a moment their power they sail their yachts before us, fly their planes above us and buy our politicians cheap.

Am I wrong?? Show me the kindness of these men. Show me at any time where their workers were a priority. Show me.

We should expect more of the wealthy. We should expect more of Americans. We all have duties to each other as citizens and as members of human kind.

It is painful to write about business ethics when the prevailing mood in the business world is crass exploitation.

And I’ll tell you something else. Right now in the halls of power both in business and government, the idea of obeying the law is greeted with merriment and scorn.

But verily, verily I say unto you, they have their reward and it may well be coming sooner than they think.

James Alan Pilant

I’m Overwhelmed.

On By southwerkIn Government Failure

I haven’t written for several days and I try very hard to write every day. So, what gives?

I heard the President’s speech at the United Nations.

Let me explain.

From the time that I was in my early teens, I read speeches. I found this enormous book of famous speeches everything from Hitler to Churchill I practiced Patrick Henry, Robert Ingersoll and Woodrow Wilson among many others.

I grew up in rural Northeastern Oklahoma and I would go out in the woods and practice public speaking. The art of setting the mood and driving home your point, I studied with relish.

I’ve probably given several hundred speeches in my life and if you count lectures, several thousand.

So, what is it about our current regime’s leader that has me upset?

His speech was crazy, unhinged and total nonsense. I wracked all my knowledge, all my experience and every memory trying to think of anything like it I have ever heard and came up empty, that is, for the first day. The second day, it came to me – where I had heard that speaking style before. It was Uganda’s Idi Amin.

I went and pulled some of Amin’s speeches and there are some similarities although Amin appears to use much more complex sentences and is able to maintain a central theme for entire paragraphs. So, while they share a common theme of despising ethnic minorities and imagined enemies and a certain delight in cruelty, it is fairly obvious that as speech making go, Idi Amin is the superior speaker.

So, the worst speaker I can think of in the history of humankind is not as bad a our current leader. In my estimation no speaker have ever been this bad. I am sure he will be pleased to hear that he is best at something.

I am unhappy about this. I am depressed about the state of this nation that our leader sounds like an escaped mental patient with truly legendary delusions.

If this wasn’t upsetting enough, watching coverage of this speech on various news outlets ,I saw that they “sane washed” this monstrous presentation.

Let me repeat that. A madman uttered completely insulting and cruel nonsense to an international audience and much of American media attempted to explain what he meant as if he was expressing some kind of coherent thought.

So, I haven’t written for a few days.

I read the other day that we have some 400 days to save our democracy. It seems to me that I should write as often as possible during that period. I have a duty to my nation to not take these horrors in silence and I will not.

James Alan Pilant

A Borderline Tragedy

On By southwerkIn business ethics

I’m sure most of my kind readers are of the law abiding type. I would like you to imagine what it would feel like to be surrounded by heavily armed policemen who believe that you are a dangerous felon right in the middle of committing a crime. Watch the film below to get the details of what happened to Jamie Rodgers in that same situation. God forbid anything like this should ever happen to you!

Rodgers’ car was in the shop at the dealership. He was given a loaner car so he could drive to work. The dealership mislaid his paperwork and reported the car as stolen. The police stopped him on the highway, surrounded his car with heavily armed officers. He was finally released when the situation was clarified. It is only a matter of chance and luck that he wasn’t killed or seriously injured.

I’m flabbergasted at this error. Is it just routine to report cars as stolen? I did some internet searches looking for dealerships who had reported loaners as stolen but all I got were references to the current case. So, apparently this is far outside the norm.

In my opinion the dealership is liable for pain and suffering. It was a very serious error and they have to be responsible for what they did.

The more I thought about the case, the more I saw the similarities to “swatting.” A bad actor can use the police to harm enemies with this kind of report. Fortunately, there was none of that here. But the strategy of “lets you and him fight” has been a regular ploy throughout all recorded history. Of course, I’m just a cynic. Let’s hope that nothing like this every happens again.

https://hoodline.com/2024/04/orange-county-man-sues-huntington-beach-dealership-after-mistakenly-held-at-gunpoint-by-deputies-over-stolen-car-report

Rodgers, who was on his way to his job as an athletic trainer, told KTLA, “I’m thinking I’m going to get shot. I’m a Black man being pulled over in Orange County. … I’ve heard too many stories of this happening.” A fleet of sheriff’s patrol cars had tailed him, leading to suddenly being stopped and faced with about a dozen officers aiming their guns at him, as they had been mistakenly informed that Rodgers was armed and dangerous.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/man-sues-dealership-loaner-car-130202906.html

My privilege is showing. (via Vomits Her Mind)

On By southwerkIn business ethics

I like fighters. There are people out there who are just not going to take the status quo. This is one of them.

I have complete confidence that many of you will be in disagreement with some or all of her stances and beliefs. But pause for a moment and think what our society would be like without motion, without change, without difference, and most of all think what the world would be like if everyone agreed not to be different.

James Pilant

What I am about to write is important to me, and I think it's very important to my blog for me to take note of my biases, my privileges, my experiences. I live with scientists, and have been posing the question to them recently: does your personal experience, your bias, your privileges, your experience, do these things factor into how you interpret or accept new data?" This is important to the field of science. And, turning it inwards, I note: th … Read More

via Vomits Her Mind

Elemental (via Achilles & Aristotle)

On By southwerkIn business ethics

There is some really pretty writing here. Listen to this –

Describing the difference between following rules and developing virtue he draws on football. Learning the rules of football won’t make you a good player, practice alone makes perfect. Similarly our ‘friends’, in the Aristotelian sense, are our purpose, practice and team-mates.

Isn’t that wonderful. Please read the rest, it’s brief. Enjoy the thought = Rules are guidelines for practice in virtue as in sports.

James Pilant

Elemental The late Herbert McCabe wrote with almost scientific beauty on Aristotle and Aquinas. There is a tightness and precision which bespeaks a lifetime’s reflection and contemplation. The international physics community has just acknowledged two new superheavy elements – 114 and 116 – which can only be made by man. In his book ‘On Aquinas’, McCabe has fused together all the elements in philosophical symmetry from the two historic heavyweights: Aristot … Read More

via Achilles & Aristotle

The Biggest Offshoring Myth (via John Akerson’s Thoughts)

On By southwerkIn business ethics2 Comments

I believe the key paragraph here is this one (from the article).

I think Offshoring fails because offshored processes, deliverables and costs are almost never measured objectively. I think Offshoring fails because offshoring projects define success as “the expansion of offshoring” rather than as the “delivery of improved services, products, projects, or results for the same or less cost.” I think offshoring fails because the jobs lost to offshoring result in incredible losses for our country, our future, our tax base, and for things that are much harder to quantify.

I couldn’t have said it better.                                     James Pilant

The Biggest Offshoring Myth Eweek has an interesting article – “Outsourcing Myths have no Grounds, Says Deloitte CIO” Deloitte’s CIO does his best to debunk various offshoring myths.  The first myth that he debunks is that “Offshoring… has not been successful.”  his response is: “That’s absolutely not true,” Quinlan said. “We’re seeing significant upticking in global offshoring activity.” With the maturation of the offshoring market, there has been an accompanying decreas … Read More

via John Akerson’s Thoughts

Cross Stitches (via Achilles & Aristotle)

On By southwerkIn business ethics1 Comment

Here we are talking about Montaigne again! (I discussed another Montaigne blog post a week or so ago.) There is always an undercurrent of classicism in the United States. I have been a fan of Mortimer J. Adler and the Great Books project since I was 14 and read his masterpiece, How to Read a Book. Years later when the book was put in the discards, I bought it for a few cents and it is still a part of my library.

I like and appreciate this kind of talk, this kind of reading. Once these deep waters are explored, a person’s thoughts are never quite the same. I remember Adler talked about this and he said that after you have read great books you never need to fear boredom when you are alone. I think that’s true.

This fellow writes intelligent essays. I’m sure you’ll enjoy it as much as I do.

James Pilant

Cross Stitches I’ve subscribed to Montaigne’s Essais on dailylit.com which breaks him up into comparatively bitesized chunks. Still the discovery that there are 426 daily episodes to look forward to sometimes feels a long haul. I’m up to episode 62. Some days I skim him, some days I ignore him completely. But sometimes he discusses something with himself, in his meandering way, which speaks to my own day. Whenever I’m close to cancelling my daily dose of Montai … Read More

via Achilles & Aristotle

A Quarter of a Century Since Chernobyl (via The Truth Journal)

On By southwerkIn business ethics

Twenty-five years. Twenty five years to absorb the lessons of the last nuclear disaster and it just didn’t work out. The ad nauseum repeating of the mantra, “It’s different here.” Whether they meant more modern equipment, better management, more incentives, better regulation, it turned out to be nonsense.

Going back to Chernobyl after all these years is not a comforting journey. It is a trip into a ghostly irradiated land measuring 10,800 square miles, a facet of the aftermath of a nuclear disaster carefully unmentioned by the proponents of nuclear power. That’s about a third the size of Panama or five times the size of Rhode Island. Does that make you comfortable?

How much agricultural land can we afford to lose permanently? We need a thorough intelligent discussion of nuclear power in the United States, not back rooms and lobbyists, a public discussion.

This is a good article and has an attached video.

James Pilant

A Quarter of a Century Since Chernobyl A quarter of a century has passed since the worst nuclear accident in history. On April 26, 1986, the Nuclear power plant at Chernobyl, Ukraine, in the then USSR, exploded leaking nuclear radiation about a hundred times the Nuclear explosion at Hiroshima. I cannot think of anything more but to say that the day reminds us why we should be so proud of Nuclear technology. After all, it allows us to make great changes to the way things work naturally … Read More

via The Truth Journal