Israel and Ukraine are the currently promoted RealityTV series in the centuries old educational campaign about what happens to people consumed by ethno-nationalism. The series are not yet concluded so I wont speculate about the ending, but I am sure the producers of the show have a spectacular finale prepared for us and are no doubt already working on the next series: auditions are open now, globally. Weapons, funding and promotion will be offered on the basis of artistic merit.

Israel and Hamas agree to pause the daily mass murder of children to force all the remaining 640,000 Palestinian children to ingest a mystery substance, in a rare show of mutual trust, solidarity and common purpose.

Multiculturalism is a state in which every culture is literally oppressed, systemically discriminated against, because cultures are logically incompatible, their myths and dogmas are mutually exclusive, idiosyncratic, and all manifestations of their logical incompatibility feel like racism. The sense of discrimination is nevertheless a consequence of the dogmatic, oppressive nature of culture per se, which is not a position that can be reconciled through reason because it is not based on reason but on social coercion, indoctrination and radical exclusion of incompatibilities that cannot be suppressed. The more a particular culture engages in consistent reasoning the less ‘cultural’ it is and the more just a reasonable and logically sound thing to do, without the need for any overarching cultural identity or authority to collectively justify it.

Once a particular demographic is persuaded to transgress the moral law (under the guise of the good) they have two choices. The energetically easier, common choice is to become more radical and extreme in transgressing the moral law (still under the guise of the good), and thus accelerate the process of self-destruction and personal dis-integration. The more psychologically difficult choice is to accept that a moral transgression was committed, that one chose poorly, and no longer identify with any demographic, thus becoming an autonomous moral agent.

If differences in IQ determined the disparities in wealth and political representation of different ethnicities, then we should see people with the highest IQ being the richest and most powerful, and the IQ of individuals being strongly correlated with wealth and political power across all demographics. This is not the case. The pursuit of wealth and political power is a vulgar, hollow, pathological obsession, that does require some intelligence but is also unfulfilling in proportion to intelligence, which demands deeper meaning.

Trying to explain consciousness in terms of physical reality is putting the cart before the horse (begging the question). Consciousness is self-evident, it is the primary ‘reality’ of there being anything at all; the real mystery is the existence of the physical world, which can be explained only in terms of consciousness.

The concept of linear time is logically inconsistent. Reality as it once was has changed its meaning and is now not true even as the past; a new past replaced the old past that cannot be remembered or conceived of again, and yet it has made an unconscious mark on the structure of the world that now exists.

We can conceive of the past only from our present perspective, in terms of concepts and language that we possess now, but the nominally ‘same’ past was conceived of differently by the people of the past, it had different sense. If the objective reality is just a special category of meaning, ‘the world as we know it’, and that meaning changes for consciousness in our dimension of time, then reality itself changes over time in addition to the deterministic changes from cause to effect. The ‘world as we know it’ that was once experienced is different from ‘the world as we know it’ that we now conceive of as the past that was once experienced. The only link between the two is the continuity of consciousness. Here is the long version: https://philpapers.org/rec/KOWTT

What is the essential difference between women and men?

An example of how moral realism could work. An intelligent, talented person posts on social media a beautiful, emotionally touching artwork that addresses some global issue. That person then receives a mention and praise from a famous movie start, a celebrity with millions of followers, and derives immense satisfaction and validation from this praise and social promotion. Thereafter, the smart person becomes more interested in discussing the scientific merits and studies that identify the said global issue, promotes himself as an activist, but in his research he is driven by a strong unconscious bias for taking seriously only those papers that confirm the opinion that caused his social validation, irrespective of the quality of research. In essence, the person got paid in emotional and popularity credits to lie, but because they submitted to this level of dis-integration of self (unconscious bias) they are not aware that they are lying or doing anything wrong. They are trapped in a deterministic process, stuck in a lie, and their behaviour is unconsciously driven by that lie. Moreover, being unconscious of the bias they express every day, they are open to new biases creeping in via the same process. Friends at work all agree on some biases and give social validation to others when the bias is reciprocally expressed, etc.

My new book, which includes a definitive exposition of the theory of reflexive consciousness, is now available on Amazon: “Moral Ontology: a thesis on the interdependence of sense, integrity and agency”.
For Australia see here: https://www.amazon.com.au/dp/1763717216 
For those in the US: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1763717216
Also available in the UK and the EU.

Q: What is the purpose of vaccination against measles?
A: To prevent measles. Studies show that vaccines prevent measles.
Q: What is the purpose of preventing measles?
A: Ha! So that people don’t die from preventable illness!
Q: So the purpose of vaccination against measles is to make people live longer than they would without the vaccine, right?
A: Yes, of course!
Q: Can you show me the randomised studies which show that people who are vaccinated against measles live longer than those who are not vaccinated against measles?
A: —
Q: Yes, I know.

I can’t stress enough how important is the book “Experiences in groups” (1961) by Wilfred R. Bion. This is probably my Nr ONE ‘must read’ for anyone who cares about understanding themselves and the human condition. It is not to be idolised, it is not a “bible”, it is not perfect, but must be carefully reflected upon. https://library.agnescameron.info/psychiatry/Experiences%20in%20Groups,%20W.R.%20Bion%20(1961).pdf

My favourite episode of the Twilight Zone, a brilliant metaphor for the moral hazard of ‘defending your country’. Synopsis: A nation is experiencing existential pressure. Another, more powerful nation (or perhaps the Devil himself) presents them with a gift, which grants the power to defeat the existential pressure on the condition that they would be willing to simultaneously murder some innocent civilians, women and children. The choice is symbolically represented as a red button, under a locked dome of the “button unit”, like a “nuclear option”. The troubled nation decides to press the button, momentarily defeating the existential threat and also killing innocent civilians, only to find out that they have unwittingly chosen the same fate for themselves. youtube.com/watch?v=or-HTv-2Ccg

Why do ‘they’ call it “critical thinking”, and proceed to present some “method” developed by “critical thinking specialists”? Why not call it logical thinking? Is there a difference between logical thinking and critical thinking? If so, then is critical thinking nonsensical or is sense uncritical? In lieu of an argument that unifies the two forms of thinking, it is necessary to conclude that “critical thinking” is a scam, fake news, disinformation, something other than Sense, therefore non-sense.

It seems, on the basis of this account (criticalthinking.org/pages/critical-thi…), that the initial focus of “critical thinking” in education is to distinguish between different elements of an argument: premise, evidence, subjective preference, conclusion etc. This nevertheless already involves controversial definitions, such as “reasons” seem to be assigned some special significance that can be distinguished from subjective preferences, without explaining why subjective preferences ought not be regarded on par with reasons. Where do reasons come from, if not from subjective preferences, remains unclear. The criteria and standards of evaluation are also not objective, but are rather imposed by the text itself. The student must determine what criteria are expected and what standard to be applied to accomplish “correct” evaluation. This is normative relativism: you shall think how we say you ought to think, not try to make sense according to the laws of sense, because this would empower you to dispute the logical validity of our criteria and standards (including those of the legal/authority system). You shall not believe in the existence of universal laws of logic, or some universal standard of sense, or we will fail you. Here is the clincher: “Communication, in short, is always a transaction between at least two logics. In reading, as I have said, there is the logic of the thinking of the author and the logic of the thinking of the reader. The critical reader reconstructs (and so translates) the logic of the writer into the logic of the reader's thinking and experience.” The silence on the question of the standard, unifying logic according to which the two could understand one another is no doubt intentional, as it would make the contradiction explicit. In short, critical thinking (on this account) is provable nonsense, full of unsupported and false assertions that the student is required to uncritically accept. This is more sinister than I thought, real brainwashing. It now makes more sense why the education system refuses to teach the fundamental laws of logic.

Intentional actions are morally right or wrong irrespective of the causes or circumstances that persuaded us to do them. This is why history does not matter to moral discernment.

“Critical thinking” educates the cannon-fodder how to write useful reports and follow machinery instructions, without endowing the thinking skills that could challenge the logic of systemic authority.