Part one...
The major party political conventions are behind us and we are now in political high season. We are now being exposed to the opinions of multitudes of people that are trying to convince us to vote for their candidate or not vote for the other candidate. How does that fit into the subject of this rant? Well, there are loonies on both sides of the political fence and I am going to give you an insight into how a particularly scary one, um, group thinks.
The tree-hugging dirt-worshippers (THDW) are a group of complex thinkers. By in large, they may appear to be rational but I think that would be better to consider them to be logical. That may not appear, at first, to make sense but hear me out. A rational person is agreeable to reason but the THDW are more prone to be logical. Let me flesh that out by using an analogy.
It is rational to think that the tree I am cutting down may fall on me if I do not take precautions against cutting it the wrong way. If you think about it logically, the depth of consideration can - and in the THDW's mind, does - become overbearing with possibilities. If I think logically about cutting the tree, I may start thinking about all of the possible permutations of my actions. Instead of simply thinking about how I am going to cut the tree in such a manner so as to miss me and the neighbors, I will begin thinking about all of the actions that I am taking and the external forces acting on the tree both seen and unseen. The vast majority of folks that would try to think out all of the possibilities and how to react to them would probably just forget about cutting the tree and go watch the Cats play.
The THDW throw their hands up but in an entirely different manner.
Instead of thinking out all of the seemingly infinite possibilities, they will find some possibilities that they can make sense of and ignore the rest or -and this is part of where they start to move down the slippery slope- they begin to rely on like-minded folks to share the heavy mental lifting. As some who are adept in debating will tell you ( and I am NOT one ) when you destroy some one's argument they will often become emotional or angry. The THDW are no different except that their emotion are magnified... greatly. For me this is where it gets scary -because I know how they are-.
I read in a Scientific American Mind magazine where teenagers are logical often to their own detriment. I know that this sounds crazy considering their actions but I think it sheds light on my THDW argument. It seems that kids are taught, and correctly so, that there is right or wrong, left or right, up or down, light or dark and so on. This forms the basis for deductive reasoning. What the teens miss is the experiential portion of life to 'temper' their thinking into a form of logic called inductive reasoning. Most adults will tell you that there is right and wrong but there are also infinitely varying degrees of right and wrong. There is left and right but there are also infinitely varying degrees of left and right. That is one of the reasons that kids
will experiment with drugs or sex or who knows what. They know what feels good and they have been told what feels better, they have also been told the repercussions of their actions but they lack the experience to make a valid connection to the detrimental side of their actions. They know that they should not do something because they have been told that they may experience a downside but they have not experienced that yet but they do know -if only in part- the good side. As a teenager, I know the good and I have been told -but have not seen- the bad side, thus the decision is a no-brainer.
Make sense? OK, the THDW are similar to teenagers in that see the good or bad but they do not see the infinite degrees of good and bad. They have not had the correct experiences to allow them to form decisions by using inductive reasoning or they have chosen to ignore them.
In the mind of a THDW, the [INSERT ONE OR MORE HERE] - capitalist - military-industrial complex - republican - are out to get them or destroy the planet. They see this because they see the effects of the likes of Three Mile Island on the environment and they do not see or do not want to see the numerous variables that went into making the decisions that led to this calamity. Let us look at Three Mile Island, the THDW say that we should not have atomic energy
because of the possibility of accidents like the kind that happened here. What they REALLY want to say is that they don't want to have atomic energy because
The major party political conventions are behind us and we are now in political high season. We are now being exposed to the opinions of multitudes of people that are trying to convince us to vote for their candidate or not vote for the other candidate. How does that fit into the subject of this rant? Well, there are loonies on both sides of the political fence and I am going to give you an insight into how a particularly scary one, um, group thinks.
The tree-hugging dirt-worshippers (THDW) are a group of complex thinkers. By in large, they may appear to be rational but I think that would be better to consider them to be logical. That may not appear, at first, to make sense but hear me out. A rational person is agreeable to reason but the THDW are more prone to be logical. Let me flesh that out by using an analogy.
It is rational to think that the tree I am cutting down may fall on me if I do not take precautions against cutting it the wrong way. If you think about it logically, the depth of consideration can - and in the THDW's mind, does - become overbearing with possibilities. If I think logically about cutting the tree, I may start thinking about all of the possible permutations of my actions. Instead of simply thinking about how I am going to cut the tree in such a manner so as to miss me and the neighbors, I will begin thinking about all of the actions that I am taking and the external forces acting on the tree both seen and unseen. The vast majority of folks that would try to think out all of the possibilities and how to react to them would probably just forget about cutting the tree and go watch the Cats play.
The THDW throw their hands up but in an entirely different manner.
Instead of thinking out all of the seemingly infinite possibilities, they will find some possibilities that they can make sense of and ignore the rest or -and this is part of where they start to move down the slippery slope- they begin to rely on like-minded folks to share the heavy mental lifting. As some who are adept in debating will tell you ( and I am NOT one ) when you destroy some one's argument they will often become emotional or angry. The THDW are no different except that their emotion are magnified... greatly. For me this is where it gets scary -because I know how they are-.
I read in a Scientific American Mind magazine where teenagers are logical often to their own detriment. I know that this sounds crazy considering their actions but I think it sheds light on my THDW argument. It seems that kids are taught, and correctly so, that there is right or wrong, left or right, up or down, light or dark and so on. This forms the basis for deductive reasoning. What the teens miss is the experiential portion of life to 'temper' their thinking into a form of logic called inductive reasoning. Most adults will tell you that there is right and wrong but there are also infinitely varying degrees of right and wrong. There is left and right but there are also infinitely varying degrees of left and right. That is one of the reasons that kids
will experiment with drugs or sex or who knows what. They know what feels good and they have been told what feels better, they have also been told the repercussions of their actions but they lack the experience to make a valid connection to the detrimental side of their actions. They know that they should not do something because they have been told that they may experience a downside but they have not experienced that yet but they do know -if only in part- the good side. As a teenager, I know the good and I have been told -but have not seen- the bad side, thus the decision is a no-brainer.
Make sense? OK, the THDW are similar to teenagers in that see the good or bad but they do not see the infinite degrees of good and bad. They have not had the correct experiences to allow them to form decisions by using inductive reasoning or they have chosen to ignore them.
In the mind of a THDW, the [INSERT ONE OR MORE HERE] - capitalist - military-industrial complex - republican - are out to get them or destroy the planet. They see this because they see the effects of the likes of Three Mile Island on the environment and they do not see or do not want to see the numerous variables that went into making the decisions that led to this calamity. Let us look at Three Mile Island, the THDW say that we should not have atomic energy
because of the possibility of accidents like the kind that happened here. What they REALLY want to say is that they don't want to have atomic energy because
A) some evil capitalist will make money from it ( and the THDW won't ) or
B) the use of atomic energy will harm the earth.
B) the use of atomic energy will harm the earth.
They will imply that the 'evil capitalist' has made his money by raping and pillaging mother earth and that untold numbers of animals died in the process (they may mention that people died in the process but but they don't care about people, more on that in Part deaux.) They will use their deductive reasoning to make this argument and their argument will have gaping holes in evidence, but even though the gaping holes in evidence may make their argument void, they will argue and scream at the top of their lungs that so long as the evidence that they have can be used for the argument, they will not allow that the missing evidence can be used to counter
the argument.
It is frustrating for a sane person to watch them much less try to comprehend what is going on in their pointy little heads.
I will post more very soon. I want to get into the head of a really scary type of tree-hugging dirt-worshipper that holds little value for ( your ) human life.
the argument.
It is frustrating for a sane person to watch them much less try to comprehend what is going on in their pointy little heads.
I will post more very soon. I want to get into the head of a really scary type of tree-hugging dirt-worshipper that holds little value for ( your ) human life.
