We live in a civilisation haunted by doubt and by hyperskepticism. One, where skepticism is deemed a virtue, inviting hyper forms in as champions of intellect. The result has gradually led to selective hyperskepticism that often uncritically takes the word of champions or publicists for Big-S Science, while doubting well founded but unfashionable analyses or even self-evident truths. H’mm, just in case someone is unclear about or doubts that Self-Evident Truths exist, here is one . . . with an extra one for good measure: (Of course, I also have argued that there are self-evident truths regarding duty; particularly, inescapable first duties of reason that actually govern responsible reason, argument and discussion, starting with duties to truth, right reason, warrant Read More ›

Yes, Marxist ideology pivots on the idea of mounting crises of Capitalism opening the door to socialist transformation. (Where, yes, pandemics obviously count as do incidents of police brutality or anything else that can be used to hang the failure of Capitalism and/or Christendom crisis template on.) Back in the ’30’s, Stalin thought THE Crisis had arrived, but Kondratiev — his star economist — instead produced an honest analysis that discovered generation-length long-wave cycles; oops. Stalin had him shot. Kondratiev, of course, was right. Yes, he produced a breakthrough analysis and paid for being right with his life, at the hands of the notorious Marxist Dictator, Stalin. Simplifying: The typical 8 – 11 year business cycle we worry about is Read More ›

(Since the original thread is way down the list and there has been no response in that thread, I’m making a new post for him to respond in. KF, if you don’t have time to properly engage this discussion, please just say so instead of cutting and pasting the same things as if they are responsive to actual MRT theory but are only responsive to your straw man version of it.) KF, you’re using straw man, category error, irrational appeal to consequences and circular reasoning in your argument against MRT. I’ll show you where and how. STRAW MAN:KF said: WJM, nope. On the contrary, any frame of thought that leads to the conclusion that the broad common sense view on Read More ›

Scott Adams, American cartoonist and commenter on events with a particular view to persuasion and narrative dominance seems to agree. Transcript of key comments: I think I’ve been telling you for some time the obvious way that these protests/riots/looting episodes were going to go. There was only one way that these would go under the assumption that the police would not get more aggressive and that the local government would not let the federal government come in and take care of the violent stuff. There was going to be no adult supervision and that was intentional. The local leadership decided to not have any adult leadership during the protests/riots/looting. So it was obvious that the locals would end up arming Read More ›