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Showing posts from April, 2020

The Wisdom of Confucius

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Many in the West see Confucius as the founder of a religion. Confucius did not see himself that way. In Chapter VII, 1 of “The Sayings of Confucius” he said, “I transmit, but I do not create; I am sincerely fond of the ancient. I would compare myself to our Old P’eng who was fond of talking about the good old days.” Confucius can be faulted for idealizing China’s past. Archaeology demonstrates that centuries before his time Chinese governments gave human sacrifices on a large scale. Nevertheless, one can agree with what he said in Chapter II, 16 “It is indeed harmful to come under the sway of utterly new and strange doctrines.” Confucius can most accurately be seen as a moral and political philosopher, who also discussed theology. He often spoke of the rites, and wanted them to be carried out in the proper manner. Nevertheless, his emphasis was on religious practice, rather than religious doctrine. In Chapter VII, 21 it is written: The Master did not speak of anomalies

The Tao of the Gentle Soldier

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Sun Tzu’s “The Art of War,” may seem to be an incongruous Taoist classic. The greatest of the Taoist classics is “Tao Te Ching,” by Lao Tsu. In this Lao Tsu writes, ‘Whenever you advise a ruler in the way of Tao, council him not to use force to conquer the universe… “Weapons are instruments of fear; they are not a wise man’s tools. He uses them only when he has no choice. Peace and quiet are dear to his heart. And victory is no cause for rejoicing. If you rejoice in victory, then you delight in killing.” http://www.amazon.com/Tao-Te-Ching-Lao-Tsu/dp/039471833X Nevertheless, Sun Tzu does not exalt in war. He regards it as occasionally a regrettable necessity. One should only fight when one has to, and when victory can be reasonably assured. He does not explain how one should respond to a powerful aggressor. He would probably recommend a negotiated surrender. The Mongolians devastated those who resisted them. They were merciful to those who surrendered without fighting. Sun Tzu writes

Exploiting the White Liberal Guilt Complex

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Posted by John Engelman Raceology, April 2020 Edited by Independent Thinker Robin Diangelo, White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard For White People To Talk About Racism , Beacon Press, Boston, 2918, 168 pp., $16.00 (paperback) In White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard For White People To Talk About Racism , Robin Diangelo claims that we whites do not want to talk about our racism because we do not want to admit that we are racists.           Robin Diangelo expects whites to be forever saying the secular equivalent of “Forgive me Father for I have sinned.” The civil rights legislation that we passed and the anti-poverty programs designed specifically to help blacks that we finance with our tax money were not nearly enough to absolve us of our guilt. The fact that blacks still tend to be less prosperous than we are is proof of our sinful nature. Black problems are my fault, my own fault, my own most grievous fault. Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.         Robin Diang

College Majors: Which Majors are Actually Worth It?

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Hello all, this may not be a good time to post this considering the pandemic going on, but I meant to put this up a while ago, and never have. This will be the start of the work section I promised to make here.  I'll make a few articles on these topics and link them on a tab on the blog.  For now this article will be that tab link as it is the first and only. Also, I posted a similar article on the BRI channel when it still existed. A central question of growing up is what will you do for a career? What will be the right path to take? Obviously this boils down to a certain extent on you personally and your interests but more often than not it also has to do even more with demand, and the supply of people with the qualifications, along with the pay range you can expect. Higher education is often seen as a path to a better career in the future, but all roads you take there are not equal and in some cases may not be worth it.  Some college majors tend to pay off, others not so m

Documentary - Al Jazeera Investigations - Stealing Paradise - (The Maldives: A Mafia State)

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Hello all, I wanted to post here a documentary about the Maldives and its political leadership and government. The results of this investigation are somewhat shocking as they say in a part of it, there are some things that are like straight out of a James Bond 007 movie.  The government leadership is filled with people of the mafia, and completely corrupt officials, using their power to steal public funds from the country, eliminate enemies and use the police force to terrorize and kill them. Up until I seen this documentary I never realized just how much of a mafia state (literally) the Maldives was, if I remember correctly the vice-president even bragged about leading the mafia. It seems that with a totally corrupt government leadership and police force there is no justice there. A major source of funds for them is to sell island territories of the Maldives to outside investors to build resorts, and then privately pocket, i.e. steal the money. I recommend watching this.

Jewish Promotion of Muslim Immigration

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HIAS: Welcome the stranger, Protect the refugee As we reflect on the Passover story of the Jewish people’s flight from Egypt this holiday, we must keep in mind the refugees and asylum seekers fleeing danger and violence around the world today. Right now, refugees are particularly vulnerable to the coronavirus pandemic, as many are trapped in overflowing camps without access to clean water or health care. And with countries shuttering non-essential businesses and even locking down borders, many refugees and asylum seekers are unable to access the critical aid they need. The health and safety of displaced families around the world right now depends on HIAS and our ability to help them. That’s why we’ve set a goal to raise $100,000 during Passover in support of our life-saving programs helping refugees. Our work during this time of acute crisis is vital, and your contribution is truly what fuels it: If you're able to help, we're asking you to make a Passover gift today

Gorillas and Negroes

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Posted by John Engelman, Raceology, April 2020. Google ‘fixed’ its racist algorithm by removing gorillas from its image-labeling tech 51 Nearly three years after the company was called out, it hasn’t gone beyond a quick workaround By  James Vincent     Jan 12, 2018, 10:35am EST Back in 2015, software engineer Jacky Alciné  pointed out  that the image recognition algorithms in Google Photos were classifying his black friends as “gorillas.” Google said it was “appalled” at the mistake, apologized to Alciné, and promised to fix the problem. But, as a  new report from  Wired  shows, nearly three years on and Google hasn’t really fixed anything. The company has simply blocked its image recognition algorithms from identifying gorillas altogether — preferring, presumably, to limit the service rather than risk another miscategorization. Wired  says it performed a number of tests on Google Photos’ algorithm, uploading tens of thousands of pictures of various primate

A Brief Overview of Some of the Greatest Inventions and Innovations from Japan

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*UNFINISHED ARTICLE* Hello all, this really is a very large undertaking and requires quite a bit of research and reading, writing, editing, etc.  All I try to do here is summarize some of the great modern innovations, and technologies that have come from Japan.  I will edit, rewrite, and add more material when I have time. I just try to offer here some of the more impressive things with a bit of history, there aren't too many online resources that do that. So here is the start of my attempt.  It's better to publish it now, and polish it later, otherwise it'll take months to see the light of day. Lots of stuff from Wikipedia, but I'll make it better with time. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- It is a common, and pervasive misconception that the Northeast Asians had never invented anything, or just improved upon "White" inventions, this view is due mostly to ingrai