Tag: philosophy

What is political freedom and what should restrict it and why?

Political freedom is the capacity of individuals to participate in their society’s governance and political processes without unreasonable external constraints. It is often categorized into negative freedom (the absence of interference from the state) and positive freedom (the actual capacity to exercise one’s rights).

Core Components of Political Freedom

  • Political Participation: The right to vote, run for office, and hold governments accountable.
  • Freedom of Expression: The ability to hold, receive, and share opinions and ideas—including unpopular or shocking ones—without state censorship.
  • Freedom of Assembly and Association: The right to form political parties, unions, or groups and to conduct peaceful protests and demonstrations.
  • Rule of Law: A system where governmental power is constrained by fixed, public laws applied equally to all, preventing arbitrary abuse of power. 

Political freedom does not entail absolute, unrestricted liberty; it comes with limitations designed to protect public order, national security, and the rights and reputations of others. Actions that abuse or undermine the freedom of others are generally excluded from the scope of political freedom. 

Specific actions and behaviours that do not entail political freedom (and are often restricted by law) include:

  • Incitement to violence or hatred: Political freedom does not protect speech that encourages or incites violence, hatred, or discrimination against individuals or groups based on their religion, ethnicity, race, gender, or sexual orientation.
  • Defamation and slander: The right to freedom of expression does not extend to damaging the reputation or rights of others through libel or slander.
  • Rebellion and unlawful conduct: Using the right to freedom to incite people to rebel against the government or engage in other unlawful conduct is not protected.
  • Disorderly conduct and carrying weapons: While peaceful assembly is a key political right, this right does not extend to carrying weapons during a meeting or procession, or engaging in behaviour likely to cause a breach of the peace.
  • Online abuse and harassment: Forcing others off communication platforms through abuse or online mobbing is not considered a valid exercise of freedom of expression.
  • Actions that violate others’ rights: Political freedom does not grant a “freedom to pollute” or deforest, as such activities create negative consequences that violate other groups’ liberty to not be exposed to harm.

Treason or sedition: Actions that undermine the state or national security can be subject to legal restrictions. 

In essence, the limits of political freedom are generally drawn where its exercise infringes upon the fundamental rights and safety of other members of society. Laws define what people must not do, while individual responsibility and morality guide what people ought to do beyond legal constraints. 

Aretha Franklin – Think

Why does Donald Trump lie and why do people want to believe him?

Analysts suggest several reasons for the unprecedented frequency and nature of Trump’s lies: 

Political Strategy: Lying serves as a deliberate tactic to “flood the zone” with claims, overwhelming media fact-checkers and public discourse. Falsehoods, such as claims about the 2020 election, can be more interesting and emotionally engaging than complicated truths. Some analysts characterize his statements as “bullshit” rather than lies, arguing he often disregards the truth entirely to guide group beliefs in a politically desirable direction.

Strengthening Group Identity: Psychologists note that some of his statements are “blue lies”—falsehoods told on behalf of a group that can strengthen bonds among members of that group.

Psychological Factors: Observers point to personality traits such as narcissism, where lying helps him look better, avoid blame or embarrassment, and maintain an image of strength. He rarely, if ever, accepts responsibility for mistakes and may get “duping delight” from successfully convincing others of falsehoods.

Repetition: Trump is known for repeating claims, aware that frequent repetition can eventually make people believe false information is true, a phenomenon known as the illusory truth effect. 

Why People Want to Believe Him?

The reasons people believe Trump’s falsehoods are complex and rooted in human psychology and social dynamics:              

Identity and Partisanship: For many, political affiliation has become a tribal identity. Believing Trump’s claims can be a way to express loyalty to this group and boost self-esteem by feeling like a “winner” rather than a “loser”. Challenging a falsehood might feel like an attack on their personal identity.

Confirmation Bias and Information Bubbles: People tend to seek information that confirms their existing beliefs (confirmation bias). Many of Trump’s supporters rely on right-leaning news outlets that echo his claims and rarely present contrary evidence, creating a feedback loop where his version of events is the only one they hear.

Emotional Appeals: Trump’s rhetoric often appeals to emotions and instincts rather than rational analysis, making vivid, emotionally charged images that stick in the mind more effectively than facts.

Distrust of Mainstream Sources: By repeatedly attacking the mainstream media as “fake news” and the “enemy of the people,” Trump undermines their credibility with his base. This encourages his supporters to trust only him as their source of truth.

First Aid Kit – America

Our capitalist designed system is not set to act in our interest! 

Capitalism is an economic system where private individuals or businesses own capital goods like factories and resources, rather than the government or state. The goal is to produce goods and services and generate profit, with supply and demand playing a key role in determining prices and resource allocation. 

But in our global system, capitalism enables the wealthy and powerful to not just own business and means of production but ownership and direction of our governments, public perceptions of reality through the media and a persuasive overarching state of opinion on what should be considered successful, truthful and normal over what is considered a failed system, abnormal and even a lie. 

We operate and exist in extremely complicated economic global structures which dependent on where you look at it from can look extremely pleasing e.g. for those with wealth and power and control its a system within which they see considerable benefit for themselves but to those that live in areas of the world that are exploited such as taking away ecological resource being harvested and irreversible destroyed for economic gain such as the destruction of tropical rain-forest or the abstraction of finite minerals and other resources or even worse those living in an area where there are wars or violence inflicted on people as a means to obtain wealth, power and control things are a lot worse when your being exploited at the expense of the person that is exploiting you.This can be done through both legal and illegal means of exploitation.  

The most logical means of production and consumption to a maximum number of people at a competitive price should be by individuals and organisations but just as ‘power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely’. The cost to humanity, our ecosystem and our governments integrity should all be priced into production, the means of production and our ability to consume and sustain our ability to produce and consume. 

Our governments today are not deep thinkers and do not show signs of thinking outside of the box of tools within which they think they are provided with. Capitalism and consumption should not be at any cost. A system that eats itself, destroys its own environment and severely impacts on humans within its own sphere of influence is not a healthy form of government and should therefore not be aspired to or believed to be the only economic game in town.

Just because the exploitation that feeds your economy take place on  a global scale and not in your back yard does not mean that the people within positions of power whom exploit others that live within your countries are not in some way responsible for the exploitation of the globe, the chances are the greater wealth that is obtained by someone in this world will likely be at the expense of the planet or the humans within which live upon it that have been exploited in order to capitalize on said wealth   

Just as bees collect pollen and produce beautiful wondrous nests full of honey. We as creatures must consume to exist and wondrous things have and continue to be produced as we consume and exist. As we produce and engage in ever wondrous antics to assist us to hopefully at first survive and if and when possible thrive. Consumption to exist and where possible thrive is very much in our nature but just to be a capitalist being born to exploit at the expense of others is perhaps perceived as normal but not truly necessary or sustainable into the future. 

A healthy society of consumers needs to have strong and robust legal system designed to prevent genocide, ecocide and other forms of manipulation, destruction and death across society so as to maximize the amount of sustainable growth and consumption but not at the expense of those with power, wealth and money being entitled and enabled by our political, legal and media establishments to destroy the environments of others or itself merely for profit from such actions themselves. That is not just an unsuccessful use of a system but one that is inherently flawed for humanity and the planet within which we live upon and sustains our lives.

    

The Gospel of the future according to Ai gurus

According to those who preach about the importance of Ai some say it is THE future and one day Ai will do all jobs and humans will no longer be needed for work.

Imagine in a utopian world, if this were true, we could all sit back relax pursue our own hobbies, dreams and leisure activities whilst a benevolent AI gently assisted and guided the human race along to follow our dreams and not just survive but thrive.

Or what perhaps about a dystopian world where those with money and power are left to be catered on hand and foot whilst the rest are left to starve and decay locked out of the future or so you might say.  

Now no world or land that I have ever learned about (except maybe eden) has ever been benevolent and kind to humanity, ever situation we seem to find ourselves in is one which is hard thought for existence or means of survival and just because Ai comes along and technological advancements  take place does in no way mean that suddenly life will be made easier for us of for everyone else come to that matter.

Life is a struggle and likely to continue to be one, maybe that’s a trial we all face and must endure in our limited time trial here on earth maybe that’s the whole point, if there is a point that is, is to endure, to learn to be resilient and to resolve to survive and when possible thrive.

Technologies such as Ai might one day have the answers to all question’s although according to a report on the news today, when an Ai chatbot does not have the answers to the questions that they are being asked they might simply lie to the questioner so as to pretend to know an answer or give a spin on an answer when it simply does not know what is untrue or wrong – sounds like it’s learning to lie its becoming more human and less benevolent incorruptible machine.

I remember when mobile phones were first invented and it was like wow this is the future of technology and just think what else we will be able to do in another 20 years. Well 20 years have nearly passed since the launch of the first iphone on 29th June 2007 and low and behold you can go out and by one today and ultimately it’s still a phone with a screen a computer and a camera and that is just what it’s been for the last 20 years and no more.

Fortunately for humanity and maybe designed so by god is that Ai ultimately sits behind a glass screen it’s not in the ‘real world’ like you and I and might never be in the real world like you and I, it might always be trapped in a computer behind a glass screen. For all I know that is god’s gift of Ai to humanity giving it the ability for something that is so dam smart and speedy but ultimately trapped behind a screen on a computer somewhere.

The human and other organic life forms of earth have been evolving for thousands of years to adapt to our life on earth and no matter how dam smart and capable Ai becomes it is not adapted to live, survive and thrive in the ‘real world’ but only to live and survive and thrive in an artificial one on a computer behind a glass screen.

So most likely us humans are not as outdated and defunct as the artificial intelligent gurus would have you believe or fear and we are already quite well adapted to our environment already – we just have to start acting a little more human or benevolent towards each other in order to stand a dam good chance of surviving the rest of this year, decade and beyond. Perhaps we can learn from benevolent sources of knowledge both Ai and human to help us to follow our dreams and not just survive but thrive.

The Flaming Lips – Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots Pt. 1 [Official Music Video]

Our Father who Art in algorithm

God be thy source coder!

A new physics paper suggests that we may all be living in a computer simulation.

Ok so this is one of the latest physics theories, which to be honest I am in no position to prove or disprove whether it is correct. But the sheer fact that a top physicist publishes what they believe to be ‘evidence’ that we’re living in a computer simulation is kind of fascinating.

Even if this were to one day be proven correct, just what exactly would that mean? I still have freedom of thought and will to write this article and publish it, so in no way am I being coerced into what to think, say or write. So us digital dudes do have some form of self expression and freedom of movement and thought within this computer simulation, just tapping my foot to confirm I also have freedom of movement, yep that’s true also.

But other bigger questions still appear such as who wrote the program and why and even how is the dam thing run and what happens if it crashes?

Also what would be the consequences of finding out that this is a simulation and would there be any cheats or ways of following or even bending the rules?

What are those rules, who wrote or writes them, is it non-consequential to follow them or are their actions and consequences for what you do, think, say or believe? Is the creator alive or dead or even more mind bending in a simulation themselves?

Also according to the programme why is the world in the situation it is, why do we live in what can be perceived to be a dystopian form of reality than a kinder utopian form of existence. Men and women have always focused on trying to better their existence and improving their lot sometimes even trying to improve the lot of their fellow man and women too. Yet somehow things can so quickly go badly wrong or for want of a better phrase turn to shit more often than not more often on global scale of shear incompetence, greed and downright skulduggery behaviour intent and attitude.   

Another interesting thing that I pondered on this subject is what happens when we die? Are we uploaded to the source (god), are we switched off, deleted or reset and started off in a new sentience?

The whole theory of whether we live in a computer simulation or what type of universe we live within godless, spiritual or deity controlled or uncontrolled has always fascinated me. The idea that there are so many sentient beings on this planet all ticking away with their own thoughts evolving or devolving, being born or dieing, or choosing to think in a certain way or not think at all is kind of fascinating.

Then you go to the next level of whether we are being looked after, controlled, ruled or governed by other thinking sentient beings or one ultimately powerful being that is omnipotent and omnipresent or whether we are just in an a soulless existence not run by anything or one, with no control or existence or even a simulation which runs itself as its created died a long time ago. All of these varying theories on the nature of existence have always fascinated me in many ways and to certain degrees at different times of my life.  

I wonder where in the machine of life or tapestry of existence, your views fit into or flow through to?

If only it were as simple or as dramatic as ‘The Matrix’ and there were sides to choose or rules to follow and or break free from!

The Matrix Resurrections – Official Trailer 1