Posts

Why has the US fallen?

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It's pretty clear at this point that the US is in decline and losing. But who is the US losing to? It's the classic question of why empires fall. In the case of the US, I know quite a few of the reasons. The US is suffering from a death by 1,000 cuts, from enemies both foreign and domestic. Obviously Soviet infiltration during the Cold War was highly damaging to the US. The Cold War officially started in 1947 under Truman as President, but really it had been going on for awhile. Hollywood famously had the blacklist in the 1940s where Marxists and communists weren't supposed to be involved in films. Yet, even during that time some of the most successful films were written by communists. During WW2 US propaganda promoted the Soviet Union communists as good for fighting the fascist and socialist Germans, and even before that the Marxists were able to start getting a strong foothold in the US. Marxism, communism, and socialism are different terms for the same basic philosophy t...

George Washington on the Downfall of the United States of America

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The US wouldn't exist without George Washington. One, the US probably would've lost the Revolutionary War against the British. Two, if George Washington hadn't been the man that he was, he would have ended up being king. At one point he had to give a speech to his own army at Newburgh to stop them from taking congress by force and installing him as king. Three, if he hadn't been willing to be the first President, which he didn't want to do, then there's a good possibility the states would have split apart at the beginning and had a series of ongoing wars. In Washington's farewell address he notes three things that could lead to the downfall of the US. Do you think these three things have or are happening? First, let's start with the foundation of society. Washington states: "Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism, ...

The Wolf and the Sheep V2

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One day a wolf was seen lurking near the sheep field. Two guard dogs caught up with the wolf and asked him, "What are you doing around here?" The wolf replied, "I'm on a walk. Can't I just go on a walk?" The guard dogs let the wolf go. The next day a lamb came running to the pen and told a sheep that a wolf had scared him near the woods. The sheep said to stay away from the woods. The next day a sheep saw the wolf walking through the field. He ran to the guard dogs and told them. They said, "Has he done anything wrong?" "No," admitted the sheep. The guard dogs did nothing. The next day a lamb was heard screaming. The guard dogs ran to him. The lamb was bleeding. "The wolf bit me!" he said. The guard dogs ran after the wolf. When they caught him they brought him back to the herd. A trial was held. The wolf said, "I'm sorry. It was just a mistake. I didn't mean to hurt anyone. I won't do it again." The sheep ...

Notes on Autobiographical Personality Analysis

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I've considered doing a PhD. They take years and are expensive. I have an interesting project idea though. Here I'll include what the proposal could look like, an email I wrote to a businessman about it, and an email I wrote to a professor about it. PhD Research Proposal Title: A Value-Based Framework for Analyzing Autobiographies: Mapping Meaning and Motivation in the Lives of Influential Individuals or Autobiographical Personality Analysis: An Axiological Framework for Analyzing Writing About the Self Abstract This research proposes a novel framework for the systematic analysis of autobiographies and memoirs through the lens of value theory, social psychology, and computational linguistics. Drawing on Viktor Frankl’s fourfold structure of creative, experiential, encounteral, and attitudinal values, this project aims to develop a scalable methodology for mapping the motivational structures of historical and contemporary figures. The study will integrate theories of meaning-mak...

John B. Calhoun on Population, Behavior, and the Future of Humanity

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Humanity is obsessed with the end of the world. Will the world end with a bang like a meteor, asteroid, volcano, or bombs? Will it end with robots and AI taking over? Will it end with a deadly and infectious bioweapon? All of these are possible, but I think it's just as likely it will end in a whimper. I gave ChatGPT 18 articles and books to read from John B. Calhoun on his studies on population. This is what the AI summarizes for the future of humanity: Overview This document synthesizes the key insights, experimental findings, and long-range predictions of ethologist John B. Calhoun across his published works from 1962 to 1993. It is designed to teach a reader unfamiliar with Calhoun's work how his theories of behavior under crowding relate to possible trajectories of human society—especially in regard to population dynamics, role differentiation, and extinction risk. 1. Core Experiments and Findings      Mouse Utopias and the "Behavioral Sink"      In hi...

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