Tag: philosophy

The Seduction of Power (via Only Ed)

On By southwerkIn business ethics

Battle. That’s a very strange word to use in the context of media in conflict but I don’t doubt its importance or relevance.

I believe the battle for the print, broadcast and cable media has been lost. The kind of news that was in the paper and on the television 35 years ago is gone. We now live in an age of “distraction” news, content free news and outright deception. It is a great pity.

A free people cannot defend itself without information, facts and leadership, we have none of that. We have celebrity scandals, fake facts that our sniveling media decline to describe as a lies and a jello spined leadership so beholden to financial interests they contest among themselves for who is the most slavish in their devotion. They throw their offering on the altars of these demigods like the food offerings thrown before the wooden carvings of Odin in Pre Medieval Scandinavia.

Read on and discover nations and cultures where the media is still up for grabs.

James Pilant

  The Seduction of Power   Posted 24 June 2011, by Raúl Pierri, Inter Press  Service (IPS), ips.org MONTEVIDEO, Jun 24, 2011 (IPS) – The governments and big private media groups in Latin America are waging a war to win over public opinion, the ultimate arbiter of legitimacy, and the only solution would appear to be to strike up an alliance. "Battle" was the most oft-repeated term in the seminar on "Communication, pluralism and the role … Read More

via Only Ed

What’s Hot on the Web! (as far as I’m concerned)

On By southwerkIn business ethics

Debt talks collapse, Republicans walk out over taxes

From CRISISJONES (who I hope considers me a friend)

 

NEXT – From American politics to the sublime world of philosophy – JP

Proving an Argument Is Logically Valid

From the web site Ethical Realism. This post is by James Grey.

 

Dark Side of Chinese Capitalism

Reverse Mergers, Improper Accounting, a Lack of Transparency and Poor Governance Threaten the Recent Success of Capitalism Chinese Style

From my associate, The Ethics Sage.  (You should subscribe!!)

 

Radioactive Dust From Japan Hit North America Days After Disaster … But Governments “Lied” About Meltdowns and Radiation

 I started warning the day after the Japanese earthquake that radiation from Fukushima could reach North America. See this, this and this.

Mainichi Daily reports today:

Radioactive materials spewed out from the crippled Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant reached North America soon after the meltdown and were carried all the way to Europe, according to a simulation by university researchers.

The computer simulation by researchers at Kyushu University and the University of Tokyo, among other institutions, calculated dispersal of radioactive dust from the Fukushima plant beginning at 9 p.m. on March 14, when radiation levels around the plant spiked.

The team found that radioactive dust was likely caught by the jet stream and carried across the Pacific Ocean, its concentration dropping as it spread. According to the computer model, radioactive materials at a concentration just one-one hundred millionth of that found around the Fukushima plant hit the west coast of North America three days later, and reached the skies over much of Europe about a week later.

According to the research team, updrafts in a low-pressure system passing over the disaster-stricken Tohoku region on March 14-15 carried some of the radioactive dust that had collected about 1.5 kilometers above the plant to an altitude of about 5 kilometers. The jet stream then caught the dust and diffused it over the Pacific Ocean and beyond.
In the article above I am including the first part of a quite long and well written article. As I have written many times the crisis at the Fukushima plants does not stop no matter how little coverage it gets in the media of the United States.  James Pilant

This next article is from a writer who I very much admire. He writes from the web site: Rogue Columnist, A Pen Warmed Up In Hell. I like it. Please read it. James Pilant (P.S. If you are wondering why this is indented like the article above. It just is. WordPress offers me no button to fix it but it will let me indent it some more!)

Rules of engagement

Last night, I finished the late Alan Bullock’s magnificent book, Hitler and Stalin: Parallel Lives. It’s a reminder that no matter how much one has studied a topic, he or she can have vast new landscapes opened by the best historians as tour-guides. The book was completed just as the Soviet empire that Stalin built was falling apart, and the moment was marked by the greatest hope. Yet Bullock also reminded us of the bloody paths that contingency can create, particularly when broad social, economic and cultural forces and destabilization (“history from below”) are harnessed by evil genius (“history from above”). The book ends with a deeply moving coda of promise. But that comes after a thousand pages examining the two greatest mass murderers in history; worse, men who could move nations to do their killing.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Human Rights and the Endowment Effect (via P.a.p.-Blog | Human Rights Etc.)

On By southwerkIn business ethics

This article refers and provides a link to the endowment effect. I had never heard of this economic theory. But now having read about it, I find it both fascinating and convincing. I appreciate the author bringing this idea to my attention.

I did not stop at reading this particular post, I explored the site reading a good number of posts. I very much enjoyed what I saw. I think you would profit by a similarly detailed look.

James Pilant

Human Rights and the Endowment Effect (source) Why do we say that people fighting for their rights are in fact fighting for the recognition of their rights? That people have rights even when the law doesn’t recognize these rights? That, in other words, people have moral rights that precede their legal rights? And that these moral rights can be used to evaluate and, if necessary, create their legal rights? At first sight, such statements imply the dubious ontological claim that moral … Read More

via P.a.p.-Blog | Human Rights Etc.

Friday Links (via A Thinking Reed)

On By southwerkIn business ethics

I love those blog entries that list little teasers connected to links. It’s a sort of internet buffet, a little of this and a little of that. This one has some fun teasers and interesting ideas.

James Pilant

–A challenge to libertarians on the coecivene power of private entities. –A.O. Scott on superhero movies as a Ponzi scheme. –Richard Beck of Experimental Theology on why he blogs. –A political typology quiz from the Pew Research Center. (I scored as a “solid libera.l” Although I’d take issue with the way some of the choices were presented.) –An end to “bad guys.” –Def Leppard’s Hysteria and the changing meaning of having a “number 1” album. … Read More

via A Thinking Reed

on walking the walk. (via bee thousand)

On By southwerkIn business ethics2 Comments

How much to give? And who to give it to?

The eternal questions of those fortunate to have enough resources to give.

Here is a good discussion of a person trying to make the right charitable choices.

(In the United States, not getting your money diverted to private pockets when giving is very difficult. Scam artists masquerade under the sweetest and most persuasive names. They love names like veteran, children, etc. Be very careful who you give your money to and remember, the most important factor is what proportion of the charity’s contributions actually go to the charitable purpose. If you can’t find that out after a few minute web search, you are better off buying lottery tickets. In both cases your money is lost, but with the lottery, you know up front that your money is gone for no purpose.)

James Pilant

Special thanks to bee thousand.

So far, my dissertation research has consisted mostly in talking the talk but not yet walking the walk. But I’ve mulled over this for sort of a long time now and think I’ve finally come close to a decision regarding my participation in Peter Singer’s The Life You Can Save plan (which is tied to his work on charity, which is sort of a central focus of my dissertation research). The algorithm which Singer recommends is donating 1% of your annual in … Read More

via bee thousand

The Malcontent (via A Lonely Philosopher)

On By southwerkIn business ethics1 Comment

This is angry. This is a non-conformist, a deviant, doesn’t play well with others, etc. etc.

Fantastic, I loved every syllable. In a world where the obscenity of “emotional intelligence” is taken seriously, it’s wonderful to hear some intelligent resistance!

To the gallant author, “Write your book. I’ll buy a copy, maybe three or four and you are a philosopher in my book, any day.”

Keep up the struggle, You are not alone.

James Pilant

The Malcontent ‘If you would be free, then, do not wish to have, or avoid, things that other people control, because then you must serve as their slave.’ (Epictetus) An employer once told me that I don’t ‘sell myself’ enough, to which I replied that I don’t sell myself at all. Of practical necessity my labour is available for hire for around forty hours a week: the best hours of my life, the hours that run on to my grave. But I am most definitely not for sale. … Read More

via A Lonely Philosopher

“For the love of money.” (via acwords)

On By southwerkIn business ethics

Great quote!

"For the love of money." I started reading Tim Kellers Counterfeit Gods this week, and came across this intriguing little gem of a quote. Definitely thought it was worth sharing, especially when you find out who said it: What induces one man to use false weights, another to set his house on fire after having insured it for more than its value, while three-fourths of our upper classes indulge in legalized fraud. . . what gives rise to all this? It is not real want–for t … Read More

via acwords

Consequences of Forgetting Natural Law (via Ex Libris)

On By southwerkIn business ethics

I have mixed emotions about natural law. I try to be careful to explain the positives and negatives when I teach. I do think there is a lot to say in its favor and this article does so.

This is good writing. I really enjoyed the quote from the Dred Scott decision.

I believe that philosophy has a place in the mind of every educated human being. I am constantly surprised by the intensity and fervor on the online philisophical discussions. Sites dealing with religious philosophy are particularly combative with the atheistic sites not far behind. However, for the more academic, there a dozens of sites where the philosophies of Aristotle and Plato are discussed moving right up to modern (and often little known) philosophers.

I’ve give this one a read.

James Pilant

Consequences of Forgetting Natural Law In the 20th century natural law became an embarrassment to many Reformed Christians (i.e. those in confessional Reformed churches). It isnt difficult to understand how that could happen. The antithesis between unbelievers and the redeemed, and the priority of special revelation would seem to leave little room for the “medieval” idea of natural law. But there have been voices within the Reformed community arguing that there is a rightful place fo … Read More

via Ex Libris

A note on the future value of Human productivity and worth (via Egostratum)

On By southwerkIn business ethics

What does the future hold?

This is a speculative article that tries to come with some answers as to what is important in the development of humanity.

I like speculation and I like thinking. Good article.

James Pilant

I wrote this response to an article over at IEET.org concerning the future of human productivity and of growing redundancy and unemployment.   You can read the thought provoking article at IEET.org here > Ethical Problems From Technology Efficiency   When I was in my teens many, many years ago I contemplated a future where all productivity and human social needs were met by super technology, and contemplated what humans would actually do wit … Read More

via Egostratum

Should Photographing Chickens Be a Felony? (via A Philosopher’s Blog)

On By southwerkIn business ethics

You have got to read this!

Apparently chicken farming will soon cease to exist if people photograph the conditions on the farms. That sound more to me like a reason to think something must be very, very wrong. If the big guns are out to stop the photographic truth of chicken farming, what are we not seeing that they are afraid of?

I don’t like this.

I want to express great appreciation to “A Philosopher’s Blog” for calling my attention to this!

James Pilant

Should Photographing Chickens Be a Felony? I stumbled across SB 1246 by chance rather than design, but I did find it a rather interesting bit of legislation. Trespassing onto a farm will result in a felony charge. Taking pictures at a farm without permission will also result in a felony charge. Lest you think I am making this up, I have pasted in the full text: Florida Senate – 2011 SB 1246    By Senato … Read More

via A Philosopher’s Blog