[FRIAM] "All [persons] are created equal"

Fri Aug 27 15:55:50 EDT 2021

A photo of me, my oldest cousin, and my grandfather taken at that time
(WW2).  That's a railroad boxcar used as a temporary residence for
transient railroad workers.

---
Frank C. Wimberly
140 Calle Ojo Feliz,
Santa Fe, NM 87505

505 670-9918
Santa Fe, NM

On Fri, Aug 27, 2021, 1:45 PM Frank Wimberly <wimberly3 at gmail.com> wrote:

> During WW2, while my father was serving in the Pacific, my mother and I
> lived with her parents in a little village in the mountains of rural New
> Mexico.  We lived in a two bedroom house with running water but no
> bathroom.  Heat was provided by a wood burning stove that was used for
> cooking as well.  There was a battery powered console radio.  I was between
> 4 months and 30 months old.  I was bathed in a galvanized washtub and I
> remember that.  We had no shortage of food nor clothing.  My grandfather
> worked for the Santa Fe Railroad as a section foreman and had a secure
> salary.  I remember being happy but, for the most part, I was oblivious.  A
> kid that age isn't happy if the adults, particularly his mother, aren't
> happy.  After my mother and I moved away from there after the War we
> visited often until I was five.  I remember my grandparents enjoying life
> for the most part.
>
> To live like that today would require me to give up almost everything I
> have.  But I feel nostalgic for that time and fond of those memories.
>
> ---
> Frank C. Wimberly
> 140 Calle Ojo Feliz,
> Santa Fe, NM 87505
>
> 505 670-9918
> Santa Fe, NM
>
> On Fri, Aug 27, 2021, 1:23 PM <thompnickson2 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> So, of the privileges you enjoy and list, how many would have to go away
>> before you life would be no longer “decent”?
>>
>>
>>
>> To be honest, Idon’t know what I am fishing for here, but for some reason
>> the answer to that question seems important to me. I guess, I am thinking
>> that the notion of a decent life, like that of a essential worker, hides
>> some caste implications within it.  That some of us are of a nature that
>> they SHOULD be satisfied with less than would satisfy me.
>>
>>
>>
>> N
>>
>>
>>
>> Nick Thompson
>>
>> ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com
>>
>> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/
>>
>>
>>
>> *From:* Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> *On Behalf Of *Pieter
>> Steenekamp
>> *Sent:* Friday, August 27, 2021 3:06 PM
>> *To:* The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <
>> friam at redfish.com>
>> *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] "All [persons] are created equal"
>>
>>
>>
>> Nick,
>>
>> Thanks for asking how I would characterize the life I'm leading. My life
>> is just great, I'm satisfied with my life. My need for food, safety, love
>> and self-esteem are to a large degree met. Actually, I would rate myself on
>> the self-actualization level on Moslow's hierarchy.
>>
>> It's not about me, there are many people in South Africa who's basic
>> physiological needs like food and safety are not met.
>>
>> Pieter
>>
>>
>>
>> On Fri, 27 Aug 2021 at 20:28, <thompnickson2 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> Pieter,
>>
>>
>>
>> If, in your ideal world, their lives are “decent, ” how would you
>> characterize the life that you are leading.  The way you talk sounds a bit
>> like the way we talk about “essential” workers here.
>>
>>
>>
>> N
>>
>>
>>
>> Nick Thompson
>>
>> ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com
>>
>> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/
>>
>>
>>
>> *From:* Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> *On Behalf Of *Pieter
>> Steenekamp
>> *Sent:* Friday, August 27, 2021 1:49 PM
>> *To:* The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <
>> friam at redfish.com>
>> *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] "All [persons] are created equal"
>>
>>
>>
>> Dave wrote  *Why this obsession with "equality?"*
>>
>>
>>
>> I totally agree. But in South Africa we have a large portion of the
>> population that do not have food on the table every day and I simply don't
>> think it's right.
>>
>> So, my view is that instead of obsessing with "equality", we should
>> obsess that those on the bottom of the economic ladder should at least have
>> decent lives.
>>
>> Pieter
>>
>>
>>
>> On Fri, 27 Aug 2021 at 19:11, <thompnickson2 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> Dave,
>>
>>
>>
>> I think of mathematical abstractions as aspirations.
>>
>>
>>
>> Thanks for meeting me on my own ground, here.  You will recall that my
>> original project was to try and discover what the metaphysical foundations
>> might be for my  strong negative  response to the idea that castes are
>> tolerable.  What MUST I assume in order to think as I do.   I have for many
>> years suspected that the fundamental difference between comfortable BHL’s
>> like me and comfortable conservatives is that we liberals see our comfort
>> as arising from good luck, and they see their comfort as arising from their
>> merit.   Now, all metaphysics is non-sense, except insofar as it explains
>> and encourages an approach to other people that is … um …. Good.  I think
>> than mine encourages me to approach people less wealthy than I,  not as
>> people deserving of their fate but as people who have, in some sense, made
>> me a gift.   Thus if there is kharma, it should be that the fortunate
>> “should” pay for the correction of any absence of randomness that
>> intergenerational transfers might inflict on the children of the poor.
>>
>>
>>
>> I lay this out in this naïve way because I thought it might provoke a
>> strong (and perhaps equally naïve) reaction from Sarbajit which would make
>> it immediately clear what different places we are coming from.  Sarbajit
>> may not answer, in which case I am left having revealed my naivete
>> metaphysics to you bozos with all the consequences that must follow.
>>
>>
>>
>> Now remember, nobody ever claimed that all [persons] are created equal.
>> I think that we all will agree that all persons are created equal [ in] and
>> that  they are endowed … with certain unalienable rights …” “– i.e.,
>> they should be equal before the law.  Our differences lie between these two
>> poles.  I take the “and” seriously, and think that, above and beyond the
>> legal rights implied by the “endowment” conveyed by the second clause, they
>> have an obligation of humbleness and gratitude to all those what have their
>> good fortune possible, and that, at the very minimum that obligation should
>> be expressed in an overtly redistributive tax policy.
>>
>>
>>
>> But even if you don’t accept the further implications of severing the two
>> clauses in the way that I do, the notion of equality before the law demands
>> much more of the rich than they currently pay.  For instance, when J. P.
>> Morgan IX runs over the faithful k-9 companion of the homeless Max Morgan
>> and Max decides to sue, J.P. can pay the requested amount, including Max’s
>> court costs and be done with it.  If he decides to contest, then both
>> parties should pay into the court costs in proportion to their wealth and
>> the lawyers should be assigned at random.
>>
>>
>>
>> To the extent that the list is laced with libertarians, I don’t expect
>> much sympathy from the list for any of this.  If one thing unites
>> libertarians, I would wager, it is the idea that people get what they
>> deserve, or at least, that they have the right to hang on to whatever they
>> get.
>>
>>
>>
>> So, Dave:  What is your naïve metaphysics?
>>
>>
>>
>> Nick
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Nick Thompson
>>
>> ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com
>>
>> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/
>>
>>
>>
>> *From:* Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> *On Behalf Of *Prof David West
>> *Sent:* Friday, August 27, 2021 11:17 AM
>> *To:* friam at redfish.com
>> *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] "All [persons] are created equal"
>>
>>
>>
>> OK, curmudgeon and misanthrope that I am, I still must ask:
>>
>>
>>
>> Why this obsession with "equality?"
>>
>>
>>
>> Outside of the abstraction of math, no one thing is equal, in any sense,
>> to another, let alone all members of a set of things being equal to each
>> other.
>>
>>
>>
>> Narrowing our attention to human beings. it has already been noted that
>> the dimensions of potential inequality are myriad. It would be impossible
>> to "equalize" all dimensions simultaneously, so pick one, income for
>> example, and equalize on that dimension.
>>
>>
>>
>> To what end? What outcome would you expect to see? Why would it not be
>> the case that every possible outcome would result in persistent
>> "inequalities" because all the other dimensions of difference would swamp
>> your 'independent variable' of income?
>>
>>
>>
>> No two human beings are created equal, let alone all "men." (sic) But the
>> unfounded conviction that this must be 'true' demands the invention of myth
>> to explain why it is not. And those myths are, in my opinion, harmful and
>> divisive.
>>
>>
>>
>> I agree with Pieter (and probably everyone else on this list) that the
>> current state of income inequality is evil and untenable. But, I would
>> disagree with any means of rectifying the situation that is grounded in any
>> kind of myth of individual human "equality."
>>
>>
>>
>> davew
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On Fri, Aug 27, 2021, at 1:34 AM, Pieter Steenekamp wrote:
>>
>> If you just look at the world then "all [persons] are created equal" is
>> just nonsense. What I like to focus on is what can we as a society do, and
>> what can I personally do to move towards making all more equal? It's
>> obviously not practical to expect heaven on earth, but IMO the current
>> state of inequality is just not acceptable, but that's no reason to do
>> nothing. For now I just address the first one, what can we as a society do?
>>
>>
>>
>> The current state of politics is to a large extent driven by ideology and
>> I would like to see a movement towards a more practical, and humble
>> approach. Like an approach based on the philosophy behind the 2019 economic
>> Nobel prize winners Banerjee, Duflo and Kremer. Their approach to reduce
>> global poverty is experiment-based, taken from science.
>>
>>
>>
>> I quote from
>> https://www.forbes.com/sites/camilomaldonado/2019/10/14/nobel-prize-in-economics-won-by-trio-tackling-global-poverty/
>> :
>>
>> "Their work, which tackles one of humanities most pressing issues, is
>> based on the idea that to battle poverty, the issues should be broken down
>> into smaller pieces and studied via small field experiments to answer
>> precise questions within the communities who are most affected."
>>
>>
>>
>> Another quote:
>>
>> "Poor people are supposed to be either completely desperate or lazy or
>> entrepreneurial but people don’t – we don’t try to … understand the deep
>> root and interconnected root of poverty." - Esther Duflo
>>
>>
>>
>> I don't mind if anybody wants to understand the deep root and
>> interconnected root of poverty, it's just that I personally, like Esther
>> Duflo, like to focus on what to do about it.
>>
>>
>>
>> Pieter
>>
>>
>>
>> On Fri, 27 Aug 2021 at 05:07, <thompnickson2 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> Dave,
>>
>>
>>
>> This is, of course, exactly the opposite of my creation myth in which the
>> slate is wiped clean after every generation.  But it would explain a belief
>> system in which well-being was the deserved reward of having lived well in
>> a previous life.
>>
>>
>>
>> While I am here, please let me point out that “equal in law” seems a
>> rather constrained understanding “born equal”, given especially that the
>> passage goes on to add equality in law (well rights, actually) as  an
>> additional endowment.
>>
>>
>>
>> “… and they are endowed by their Creator by certain rights, including
>> life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
>>
>>
>>
>> Where is John Dobson when we need him.  Could somebody please forward
>> this note to him.  I don’t have his email address here with me.
>>
>>
>>
>> Thanks,
>>
>>
>>
>> Nick
>>
>> Nick Thompson
>>
>> ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com
>>
>> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/
>>
>>
>>
>> *From:* Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> *On Behalf Of *Prof David West
>>
>> *Sent:* Thursday, August 26, 2021 10:17 PM
>>
>> *To:* friam at redfish.com
>>
>> *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] "All [persons] are created equal"
>>
>>
>>
>> Purely from my academic understanding of the subject; the Nick that is,
>> at this moment / in this incarnation, is a product of karma accrued and
>> shed over multiple instances of existence. Hence, what you are now is
>> precisely what you *deserve* to be. All persons may have been created
>> equal some untold incarnations ago and before they had any opportunity to
>> accrete karma.
>>
>>
>>
>> davew
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On Thu, Aug 26, 2021, at 2:04 PM, thompnickson2 at gmail.com wrote:
>>
>> Sarbajit,
>>
>>
>>
>> If I understand the shape of the globe correctly, you are waking up
>> pretty soon, and I would like to pick up the conversation about caste, if
>> you don’t mind.
>>
>>
>>
>> I believe the proposition in the subject line.  Given the many ways that
>> proposition can be understood as plainly false, I feel that my belief in it
>> must be defended.
>>
>>
>>
>> In what sense equal?  Not in genes.  Not in uterine environment. .  Not
>> in early nutrition and cognitive stimulation. Not in social capitol. Not in
>> financial capitol.  Not in access to health care.  Not in exposure to
>> future parasites.  Not in almost anything that I can think of.   So, why is
>> the aphorism not just nonsense.
>>
>>
>>
>> I find, that if I examine my thinking in this matter, a very primitive
>> metaphysics about the moment of an individual’s creation.  What follows is
>> flagrantly silly, but here it is.   On my account, at the moment of birth a
>> soul is taken out of storage and assigned to a body.  By “person” in the
>> aphorism, I mean the combination of a particular soul with the particular
>> body.  These assignments are at random.  So, for good or ill, no soul
>> deserves the body it gets.   I cannot claim credit for my genes, my good
>> uterine environment, my social capitol, my financial capitol, my bad hip,
>> the draft deferment it provided, my getting a phd at absolute peak of
>> demand for phd’s, my good education, even my FRIAM membership.  They are
>> all consequences of that initial, random assignment.   Now YOU may credit
>> me in some ways, because knowing that all these advantages have been
>> assigned to me may make me useful or pleasing (or the opposite) in many
>> ways, and that may bring me the advantages of your association.  But è I
>> ç do not èdeserveç those advantages.
>>
>>
>>
>> This odd metaphysics leads me to enormous gratitude for the life I have
>> been allowed to live and great sympathy for rigorous taxation of the
>> advantaged, so that so much a soul’s future is not determined by that
>> moment of assignment.
>>
>>
>>
>> I have no idea what happens to this primitive metaphysics if I try to
>> integrate it with my monism.  The religious scholars among you might
>> recognize as some backass weird perversion of Calvinism.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Nick Thompson
>>
>> ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com
>>
>> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/
>>
>>
>>
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