Author Archives: greg

How Hayek Lost His Debate on Cultural Evolution

Posted on November 20, 2019 by greg

Culture, cultural transmission, and cultural evolution arise from genetically evolved psychological adaptations for acquiring ideas, beliefs, values, practices, mental models, and strategies from other individuals by observation and inference. Cultural evolution, historically also known as sociocultural evolution, was originally developed … Continue reading →

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How Ecology and Skepticism Define Sustainable Development

Posted on November 10, 2019 by greg

Social ecologists hold that the problems of environmentalism are due to an authoritarian hierarchy that is also responsible for such ills as racism, sexism, and classism. They argue that problems such as global warming or species extinction are caused in … Continue reading →

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Understanding the History of Lies: Outside the Trump Bubble

Posted on November 1, 2019 by greg

Trump won the nomination as the candidate who lied the most, won the presidency as someone known to lie; has an unshakable base despite ongoing lies. Underlying social issues made this possible. His base is concerned about their place in … Continue reading →

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The Goal of the Progressive Revolution: To Transform Political and Social Structures

Posted on October 20, 2019 by greg

Following the French revolution, many writers in the 19th century noted that revolution was self-perpetuating. There is no way to stop it because liberty and equality can be endlessly claimed by group after group that feels deprived and degraded. And … Continue reading →

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The power of lies to undermine horizontal accountability

Posted on October 10, 2019 by greg

Scottish philosopher David Hume (1711-1776), the skeptic, rejected the scope and power of reason in decision-making that Newton’s work had released. Hume thought that our passions and our affections naturally lead us to perform certain actions with reason acting only … Continue reading →

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The Truth on Societal Progress: Addressing a Failing Economic Model

Posted on October 1, 2019 by greg

Herbert Spencer (1820-1903), an English philosopher and economist, believed that society was evolving towards increasing freedom of individuals and held that government intervention ought to be minimal in political and social life. Spencer’s survival of the fittest concept was believed … Continue reading →

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Seeking an Answer on How to Leave Behind the Decay of Neoliberalism

Posted on September 20, 2019 by greg

The policy-making elite have waved away the notion that they were acting ideologically, rather merely doing what works. But you can only get away with that claim if what you are doing is actually working. Since the crash, central bankers, … Continue reading →

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It is Necessary to Push Back on Partisans Who Insist on Binary Thinking

Posted on September 10, 2019 by greg

A general principle is that all cognitive and emotional awareness operates by a binary-processing system. This “base-two” compass is an integral part of the phenomenology of the mind. The mind has a normal, innate predilection for establishing pairs, emerging as … Continue reading →

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Postmodernism Explains Today’s Disarray of Political Manipulation and Deception

Posted on September 1, 2019 by greg

Postmodernism challenges all truths and concludes that there is no such thing. If you look closely at atoms and electrons, it is hard to find any mass at all. Similarly, the more closely you challenge scientific and other truths, the … Continue reading →

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Address Identity Politics not Morality to Fix Today’s Polarization

Posted on August 20, 2019 by greg

Nietzsche contends that power-relations are at the basis of all social institutions. Ideologies are the principal and most cost-effective means whereby the mass of humanity is, and always has been, manipulated and controlled by its leaders. Ideologies all utilize morality … Continue reading →

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