Reincarnation

By Madeleine Kando

My grandson Marshall asked me if I believed in reincarnation. Maybe he worries that I will die soon and wouldn’t it be nice if I came back somehow to keep adding to the vast amount of presents he is getting for Christmas?

Reincarnation derives from a Latin term that literally means 'entering the flesh again'. Some people believe that reincarnation is a process with rules, like the rules of traffic. Leading an exemplary life will place you on a higher echelon of the reincarnation ladder than if you were a bank robber. That is why believing in the afterlife keeps you on the straight and narrow.

I told him that I did not believe in reincarnation. Having to come back to start the whole exhausting process of being born, growing up, and dying again does not appeal to me.

But if there is an afterlife, I think there are no rules of conduct. Just like in life itself, most of it would depend on random luck. This means you can lead as bad a life as you want, although ultimately it is the people whom you leave behind that will pay the price for your badness.

To lead an exemplary life, you must know the difference between right and wrong. But who says that, of the millions of species that are imbued with the force of life, you would come back as an entity that has a sense of morality?

If there is an afterlife and we somehow could have an influence on it, it is not so much the rungs of the social ladder that I am concerned about. Read more...

Sociology/Statistics 101

Tom Kando 

Here is the problem: most people don’t understand what sociology means, especially in our very individualistic country. Recently, Florida’s state university system removed Sociology from its general education requirement. That’s how far bigotry and animosity towards anything that even reeks of the “social” - as in “socialism” and “sociology” have gone. 

Sociology has a lot to do with statistics. The world would be a better place if more people took at least some introductory courses in Sociology. 

There is such a thing as the sociological imagination. The great sociologist C. Write Mills used the expression as the title of one of his seminal books (1959). 

The sociological imagination is a way of thinking which allows us to understand how our personal experiences relate to larger social issues. It's a framework that helps people see the connections between their personal lives and the broader social, historical, and political forces that shape society and our lives. 

Or more succinctly: Much of what Max Weber called your “Life Chances” is determined by the groups and categories to which you belong, to a much greater extent than your individual talent and effort. In many ways you are a statistic. 

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Numbers and Numerical Systems

Tom Kando 

I was recently watching the great old musical Brigadoon. The people of that mythical fantasy land come alive once every century. So I’m thinking: Why every century? Why not some other time unit? Why did most of the world agree to go decimal? 

There are still exceptions, notably this country’s mishmash of measuring systems: Unlike much of the world, Americans measure distance and height in inches, feet, yards and miles, not centimeters, meters and kilometers. Our weights are in ounces and pounds, not grams and kilos. Volume is expressed in gallons, not liters, temperature in Fahrenheits, not centigrades, etc. But even in the US, science and medicine do most things decimally. 

There is no question that decimal is a lot better than the hodgepodge of measurement systems we use. But even decimal is an arbitrary system, hardly reflecting the nature of the world. It is often said that the choice had something to do with our ten fingers. 

A while ago I wrote a post asking whether mathematics is a discovery or an invention. In other words, is it embedded in nature, or do we humans use it to interpret nature? (See my post of Feb. 22 2024): ”Is Math a Discovery or an Invention?” or: Was God a mathematician?” 

Today, I am thinking of something related: Alternative numerical systems. The big one that immediately comes to mind is the binary system, because computers use it and computers have taken over the world. If we went binary, years would be numbered differently. We learn in history that Charlemagne was crowned Emperor in the year 800.

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English is Weird!

By Madeleine Kando

The English language went through a fairly uneventful childhood. It was born a Celtic language, which is still spoken in Wales, Scotland and Ireland. But after the numerous invasions of the island, English could barely keep up with the deluge of foreign influences.

First came the Romans. They left scraps of Latin on the English plate, before they departed for good.

The Celtic language of the clan (clann) who lived in bogs (bogash), ate crumpets galore (ge leor) and smashed (mescaen) chairs (chaiere) to smithereens (smidrini) after they drank tons of whiskey, easily incorporated words like triumph, ovation, consul, dictator and circus.

But soon, the Anglo-Saxons came. Because the land of the Anglo Saxons often got flooded, they started to look for new places to farm and grow crops. Britain seemed like a nice dry place.

They brought their own language and the Celtic language started to cave in under the sheer abundance of new words. Celtic was pushed into the remote corners of this beautiful island and Old English took over. It was very different from modern English though. If you met the (anonymous) author of the poem ‘Beowulf’, you wouldn’t understand what he was reciting.

But that was not the end of it. After the Anglo-Saxons, came the Vikings and left more scraps behind. These Vikings were an angry and awesome band that often went berserk. They were chubby and knew how to crochet. But they were also ugly, ran amuck, drew skulls and knives, liked to die but loved cake! These words represent the character of a fighting, raiding culture.*

To top it all off, came the Norman invasion. They quickly overran England with their armies and their French language. English was force-fed French words, like stuffing a goose. Written English practically disappeared and spoken English was in danger of becoming extinct.

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Are Liberals Funnier than Conservatives?

By Madeleine Kando

'Perhaps I know best why it is man alone who laughs;

he alone suffers so deeply that he had to invent laughter."

  - Friedrich Nietzsche

Greek philosopher Democritus, known as the “laughing philosopher” had a tendency to laugh at the stupidity of his fellow citizens. He felt it was better to laugh at the world than become depressed by it.   

But laughter predates the Greeks. One of the best scenes in the movie ‘Quest for Fire’, is man’s discovery of laughter. When a primitive tribesman is hit on the head by a small falling stone, a woman from an advanced tribe starts to laugh. The less advanced tribesmen haven't heard such a noise before, but when one of the tribesmen deliberately drops a small stone on his friend’s head, everybody laughs. The woman taught the tribesmen how to laugh.

So if humor is universal, why doesn’t everybody have an equal sense of humor? Or is humor like beauty? Is it in the eyes of the beholder?

This is what author Dannagal Goldthwaite Young argues in her book ‘Irony and Outrage: The Polarized Landscape of Rage, Fear, and Laughter in the United States’. She explains why progressives watch late night comedy shows like Steven Colbert and John Stewart and why conservatives prefer Fox News’ prime-time political talk shows such as Sean Hannity and Bill O’Reilly.

According to Young, an individual’s affinity for a particular genre of humor is determined by a set of psychological traits. She defines these traits as:

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Higher Education Crisis?

TOM KANDO 

 We often hear that Higher Education is in crisis. Two things are happening: (A) Higher Education is suffering within from a growing number of problems, and (B) it is under attack from without. 

The complaints: 

 

● Higher education has become prohibitively expensive, especially at the high prestige, private institutions such as the Ivy League. This forces many students into huge indebtedness, from which they need years to extricate themselves. 

● Students are not taught job-relevant skills. Many of them, upon graduating and hitting the job market, have difficulty landing well-paying jobs. 

● Nor is employment in higher education as enviable as it was in the past: Pay and tenure (= job security) are under assault: By now, half of all faculty appointments are non-tenure track. These employees are largely required to have a PhD and their first-year annual salary ranges from $55K to $75K, depending on the state, the institution and the field. 

● As a result, college is no longer viewed as a universally desirable path to success. Particularly, “Joe college” is a vanishing breed. Men are especially giving up on college. 58% of all new college entrants are women, only 42% are men. 

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Are we Alone in the Universe?

By Madeleine Kando

Common sense tells us that the idea of being alone in the universe is infinitesimally small. There are thousands of solar systems in the Milky Way alone, and in the visible universe there are trillions of galaxies. And that is just the observable Universe. The real universe is quadrillions of times bigger, because it is constantly expanding. Therefore, it is statistically improbable that we are alone. A human’s chances of being born are one in 400 trillion, but if life on earth is the only form of life in the Universe, that chance becomes unbelievably small.

The size of the Universe is not the only variable that determines whether there is life out there. How many other planets could support life? If there is other life somewhere out there, is it intelligent? Is it near enough to us that we could ever make contact? In 1961 American astrophysicist Frank D. Drake devised a simple equation that could determine whether extraterrestrial intelligence is possible.

The equation is made up of seven variables, each of which represents an unknown quantity. When combined, they produce an estimate of the number of civilizations we might be able to make contact with in our galaxy. 

Here’s a breakdown of all the factors: In the Milky Way, stars form at a rate of R*. Some (fp) of those stars have planets, but a smaller percentage (ne) of those planets are capable of supporting life, and an even smaller percentage (f1) of those actually develop at least basic life. A fraction (fi) of those planets with any life may develop intelligent life. And of those intelligent life forms, an even smaller fraction (fc) will have the technology to communicate with us. The final factor in the Drake equation accounts for how long (L) these intelligent, technologically advanced civilizations will exist before they self-destruct or otherwise disappear. 

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Anonymity

By Madeleine Kando

Historically, there are many reasons to be ‘anonymous’. It guarantees free speech by protecting the individual from persecution. Many famous writers and thinkers wrote under a pseudonym. Voltaire’s real name was François-Marie Arouet. Additionally, less savory occupations required people to be anonymous: the executioner at the guillotine is hooded. The bank robber or thief covers his face with a black ski mask. Kuklux Klan members wear hoods to hide their identity.

But how do you interact with someone who does not have an identity? If a person rings your doorbell and starts a conversation, it is normal to expect some kind of response. But would you react differently if that person were wearing a ski mask?

In the online world, there are three ways to identify a user: 1)    by its identity, i.e. his name and possibly other identifying facts. 2)    By using a pseudonym: the user’s true identity is masked, but not impossible to trace. 3)    As anonymous. The user’s true identity is masked, such that any actions by that user cannot be traced to a person.

Posting under your own identity makes you accountable for what you write. Even writing under a pseudonym, without being held personally accountable, the writer has to maintain a consistent "identity". Anonymous however, falls beyond the term ‘accountability’, since there is no one to hold accountable.

Credibility: The more identity is revealed, the more credible the writing is. Kierkegaard had very little regard for anonymity: ‘An anonymous author by the help of the press (read: internet) can day by day find occasion to say whatever he pleases to say, and what perhaps he would be very far from having the courage to say as an individual; that every time he opens his mouth he at once is addressing thousands of thousands; that he can get ten thousand times ten thousand to repeat after him what he has said—and with all this nobody has any responsibility.’

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A Time Jump?

Tom Kando 

It’s been a stressful period. Most people would probably agree. My desire is that we can resume our lives and return to some degree of normalcy and harmony. Let us also continue to hope for the best, for America and for the world. 

For now, I present this brief anecdote, in an attempt to provide some levity and some entertainment. This experience did truly happen: 

I recently had an experience which curiously seemed to be a case of time travel..I dreamed something which happened later. This happened a few weeks ago: 

One morning, when I got up at my usual time, I could remember a few details of a dream I had just had that night: I had dreamed about Tom Jones, the famous Welsh sixties popular singer. I only remembered one thing about this dream: Tom Jones was singing his famous 1965 song “It’s not unusual” 

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Taxes Should be Raised

Tom Kando 

There is much to worry about. The wars in the Middle East and in Ukraine, hurricanes in Florida, etc. One thing I often worry about is America’s out-of-control federal deficit. 

On that issue, both of our parties and both of our presidential candidates are likely to continue to do the wrong thing. They are likely to continue to grow the deficit. 

A  Republican government would probably increase the federal deficit much more than a Democratic administration would. The past clearly shows this. The previous administration's  tax cuts (primarily for the super rich) added astronomical all-time records to the deficit. Generally, Republicans increase the national deficit more than Democrats. Republicans are driving the country toward bankruptcy more than Democrats, even though both parties contribute to this, and even though Democrats are supposed to be the ones who want to spend as much as possible on social programs.

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