Compromise.

Compromise. Compromise. Once two people have to agree on something, it will typically not what either want, but what they can both tolerate. Struggle to get something we can live with and leave it there.

It is you a gardener or a farmer? A bit of bad grammar just for emphasis. What is the difference? As near as I can figure the answer lies in the equipment, and or is most of the work hand or machine. It does not matter, with the climate changes we are seeing, it will be difficult.  

When we get beyond a tribe, then tremendous compromise must will be necessary to build a nation. A nation needs a project to get behind, what that project is does not matter. War, a railroad, a pipeline, a highway, a light rail passenger system, anything. then we can forget or put on abeyance other issues and get on with something we can get agreement on. That is the problem of tribalism in politics, once you get electing by appealing to all these diverse groups, there is not enough support to get anything done, unless the individual has the power to make the changes.

Political mandate should be based on what is good for the country long term, not just as a reaction to the short term, what can get me elected.   

Religion is not a "human right"

The right to religion is not a human right, because it operates at the society/cultural level, not at the individual human level. We humans can believe whatever lunacy we wish, but I prefers to believe that there is evidence for, and no evidence against, that can possible be true, not some supernatural stuff.

The right to believe "what ever" may be some kind of right, but it is not a human right that is inalienable, as it is choice of the believer. It is indoctrinated, not a birth animal characteristic. It cannot be controlled by others and you can believe "what ever", but that is a society/culture issue.

A society can demand that anyone believe something, and any government can specify if its citizens should believe something or not, but believe is impossible to police or enforce. This is a problem with the Muslims as their penalty for apostasy is death by stoning. Enforcing a belief system does not work in transient population, however we can see that any freak system, where everyone believes the same, could be harmonious. An example would be communism, but the population needs to come to believe it is the best way. There is no human reason for altruism at a society level, and that alone is likely the reason Communism fails naturally.

Compassion for other human is likely a virtue, but not once the giver fails to support there immediate family to the same level as the recipients. We saw this with the christian churches in the west. The farm families were living in primitive conditions supporting ministers living in modern conditions. That created resentments toward religions. That is the basic problem with modern governments, they pay too well, and corruption  is too common. Oh well, there is no better way of government.

Without truth what do we have? Well, we have corruption and deceit. We have instituted sponsored corruption, the worst kind, where corruption is considered a virtue, as money is considered a virtue. It is not a good thing.

Truth, information, knowledge with evidence should be a human right, or a societal right. 

What is the alternative? Truth all the time, but silence is also permitted. 


     

Niggers and Crackers

https://the-orbit.net/progpub/2018/05/24/reclaiming-slurs/

So the UDHR needs an update.

Article 1.2  All humans should be entitled to the truth, facts, evidence, knowledge, which over time and examination becomes wisdom.

Expressing just an article without the implication being expressed is sort of lost on the public. The above item is in conflict with Article 2 and 26.3. Article 2 protects religion, which does not allow truth to prevail. Religion survival is dependent on keeping the youth in the dark, which condemns your children to everlasting ignorance. Article 26.3 allows the parents to teach whatever and to withhold truth from the young. We all know how difficult to unlearn wrong information from the mind. If there is any doubt, consider the difficulty of change of life style actions.

Truth is the essential of human rights. Without truth all else is not as useful. Equality infers that we must allow others to respect their opinions, but what about those opinions which are not founded on truth. Does it come down to the loudest voice, or the truth. Truth requires evidence for, no evidence against, and a strong probability of truth. Evidence must be admissible in court, so the religious books are out.

Any statement can be true, false, somewhere in between, or just irrelevant... a concept with no real meaning. We can also assent, reject, or hold in abeyance any proposition or concept. In the process of developing documents such as UDHR, it is common to just leave out any contentious issues, and be happy with what we can get agreement on. I say it is time to include truth, facts, evidence, knowledge into to the UDHR.  

Universal Declaration of Human Rights v2.0

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights has been around for seventy years more of less: is it time for a revision?

It is what it is. It has shortcomings. First the free loaders and abusers. Each right produces obligations which are severely being ignored. Then there are items which were assumed, but it is apparent that these need to be stated, and the logic laid out.

A current world view needs to be understood. First, there is no duty toward others, only a weak should help iff (if and mean temperature if) there is no risk to one's self, and the cost is reasonable. We live in a world that has more people and activity that the atmosphere recovery system can support. Evidence the Co2 level, ocean acidification, inability to fix calcium at those lower ph levels, man produced carbon dioxide off gassing, combined with mean temperature rise. We need a human compatible environment to flourish in.   

The truth, and access to true knowledge, and the right of the young to be liberated from stone age religions, myths, lies, combined with parental dominated education, or more correctly the lack or education, religious indoctrination being considered as education, condemns the children to everlasting ignorance. Truth, evidence based knowledge, definition of human duties and obligations are all needed, but they cannot overstate the biological imperatives. We need not be concerned about humans beyond our circle of concern.

Canada cannot save everybody. We, too, are overpopulated, and we require heat if we are to survive winters in Canada. Those who cannot produce should seek alternate safe space elsewhere. If none is available, the world is overpopulated. Oh well.

Colonization must be stopped, as must cultural and social domination. The career choices, often cultural/social limited, are entitled to the economics and the life quality those choices generate. Those who chose to live stone age or hunter gather or religious are entitled to do so, but science truths must be available to lift those out of the despair they so often find themselves in. There is no duty to help those who do not want to make the necessary changes to succeed in modern times.  

Our human environment is becoming more hostile to human life.  We need to reduce population, and hence limit to family size is warranted world wide. We have no duty to accept invaders, nor individuals "emigrating". We are in over population situation, and it is up to each group to control their population. One issue per person is enough. 

More study and flushing/fleshing out of these ideas will be required.

Respect

What does it mean to respect another person? Well that is a big question which the internet is not providing an answer. Respect of others is what we think of others, or what we show to others of what we think of them.

So how does one respect a nut bar? Well, it is a nut bar, and we need to realize that it is a nut bar, even if it thinks it is chocolate. We need to allow that nut bar to think it is the best, correct, true and wonderful. We need to allow the nut bar to tell others how wonderful and chocolatey it is, even when that is false and dangerous to those who are allergic to nuts, even if they do not know they are. What does respect mean to those who preach concepts that are wrong? Allowing them to go on unchallenged in ignorance?

So the internet is a great place to learn how to behave respectfully to those who we do not necessarily or even remotely agree with. That is not an authentic person, but rather a people pleasing, hollow person, who is more concerned with appearances than reality. Making a person think that you "respect" him, while thinking he is an idiot bigot or other low life, is not being an authentic person.

Respecting and valuing truth, knowledge, information, correctness is difficult, now mix in an person who's world view depends on the mystics or religion, and ask me to respect him/her and what am I supposed to do? It is even worse if that person is trying to spread their wrong worldview. So what is this respect that the public speaks of? More political correctness bullshit.

So it does not matter what we say, there will always be opposition. Regardless, we need to be free to say it, to preserve free speech. We need to ignore the opposition, and take the risk from speaking the truth.     

Ethical Culture

Albert Einstein was a supporter of Ethical Culture. On the seventy-fifth anniversary of the New York Society for Ethical Culture he noted that the idea of Ethical Culture embodied his personal conception of what is most valuable and enduring in religious idealism. Humanity requires such a belief to survive, Einstein argued. He observed, "Without 'ethical culture' there is no salvation for humanity."

Note how the quote has been hijacked, ethical culture became Ethical Culture. 

There is a whole group of ethical movements, with different foundations, just a religions. Figuring out what the foundations of each movement is time consuming, and many never bother to clearly state their metaphysics, epistemology, foundation principals. They talk about the issues but not back to the foundations they are using, so the argument starts in the middle with them. Rand objectivity and Robert MacQuarrie existentialism are "complete philosophies" but one really needs to hunt to piece together their metaphysics and epistemology, those are the basics beliefs and the whys of belief. Oh well. Rand's politics and economics are not usable today, but worked in a one on one lifestyle.

Ethics is one area where religion tried but with the failure of religions to address reality in an educated culture, the ethics rules are being lost. The logic of ethics must be relearned/ learned, and promoted to each new generation. The foundations, the underlying principals, are just not listed anywhere. Without the foundations, some of the statements become shaky, and if there is a marginal case, where does one turn? That is a big problem, for in this life of rapid change, much is marginal.

Education of the next generation is the most important function we old people should promote, that is education in everything but religion and faith based bullshit. Learning religion and faith based stuff keeps people in the dark of reality, and must be unlearned before real progress can be made. That is not to say that there are not some benefits of religion; sense of community, comfort in time of adversity, and perhaps compassion but some religions promote ignorance and control of others, slavery, subjugation, which is not right. When there are two rules that are transgressed, which has higher priority?

It is my contention that the rights of the individual supersede the desires of the culture in logical ethics. We are individuals, and as such, cannot allow the desires of the group to impose restrictions on the private lives of the individual. Consider the abortion case. The state has no right to force there laws on the individual then. Abortion should be between the female and her doctor, and the doctor must be free to treat her however they see fit. I do not need to think abortion is right, but individual are free to do as they please.

Enough.