The Children of Mother Nature

The children of Mother Nature:

and

Aristotle's basic question of the nature of anything was "What is it for?"

The Deficiencies of Want

There is an old joke:
A:  Do you play the piano?
B:  No. But I would have done anything to learn.
A: Clearly not.



We are inundated with compilations of our preferences, what pollsters call our "wants," as if "wants" were not mere "desires." In most instances, such wants are wishes.

I want to fly first class; i.e. I wish I could.

I want a Mercedes CLS 53; I wish I could get one.

So the question, Do you want to build a wall on the border of Mexico? or, "Do you want Universal Health Care?" has one answer if you are paying for it, another if you are not.

Only the free market reveals genuine wants.

Realization

The number pi, a constant in math and, like the Pythagorean theorem, an example of the universality of forms, was not arrived at by insight.

The ancient Babylonians calculated the area of a circle by taking 3 times the square of its radius, which gave a value of pi = 3. One Babylonian tablet (ca. 1900–1680 BC) indicates a value of 3.125 for pi, which is a closer approximation.

In the Rhind Papyrus (ca.1650 BC) the Egyptians calculated the area of a circle by a formula that gave the approximate value of 3.1605 for pi.

And from the Old Testament: "Also he made a molten sea of ten cubits from brim to brim, round in compass, and five cubits the height thereof; and a line of thirty cubits did compass it round about." (II Chronicles 4:2) Some authors claim this passage as evidence that the ancient Hebrews used a value of 3 for pi. This passage occurs as part of a description of the building of Solomon's temple, and all the measurements in it are very round numbers, so perhaps this was not meant to be more than a rough estimate.

Archimedes of Syracuse (287–212 BC), one of the greatest mathematicians of the ancient world, approximated the area of a circle by using multiple polygons of known areas and circumference. Archimedes knew that he had not found the value of pi but only an approximation within those limits. In this way, Archimedes showed that pi is between 3 1/7 and 3 10/71.

A universal truth was found step by step, approximation after approximation, over millennia. Yet, even at the beginning, its existence was known.

Gender Bias

Women have been the majority on U.S. college campuses for about 40 years. At the University of Michigan, women dominate in 17 out of 21 fields of study, with business and engineering being the only areas where women are underrepresented. Yet more than 50 programs at UM discriminate based on gender in favor of women.




So…..the reason for preferential treatment for women is....what?

% GDP

Carol asked about comparative government spending and GDP numbers.

In evaluating these countries, it must be kept in mind that the U.S. has a very significant military budget that others do not have.
Here are the ratios of government spending to GDP in some major economies:

Germany: 43.9% (2017)
Britain: 41.1% (2017)
Canada: 40.8% (2017)
Australia: 36.2% (2015)
Switzerland 34.0% (2015)


Government spending in the United States was last recorded at 37.8 percent of GDP in 2016 . Government Spending To GDP in the United States averaged 36.57 percent from 1970 until 2016, reaching an all time high of 43 percent in 2009 and a record low of 33 percent in 1973.

In fiscal 2017, the federal government spent $4 trillion. Of that, 40 percent — $1.5 trillion, or 8 percent of our gross domestic product — went to Social Security and Medicare.

Carol was asking specifically about Federal outlays.

Total Federal outlays are a net figure, consisting of gross payments minus the amount of business-like collections and intragovernmental transactions, in a given fiscal year. (excluding trusts like social security)

An Immoral Equivalent

Mobilizing the public is an ancient technique used by politicians to solidify support and direction whether the target is foreign or domestic. It has nationalistic overtones which should make people cautious, but it rarely does. Some of the great irrational movements in the U.S. have appeared in military drag. The following is from a Goldberg article and has an interesting slant.

"The need to prepare for war marked the end of the New Deal. As FDR put it, it was time for “Dr. New Deal” to be replaced by “Dr. Win the War.”
Ironically, the New Deal itself was largely about war mobilization — without war. Roosevelt campaigned for president promising to adapt Woodrow Wilson’s wartime industrial policies to fight the Great Depression.

Even before Roosevelt was elected, his aides investigated whether they could use the Trading with the Enemy Act for a gold embargo. In his inaugural address, FDR proclaimed, “I assume unhesitatingly the leadership of this great army of our people dedicated to the disciplined attack upon our common problems.”
Nearly the entire structure of the New Deal was copied from Wilson’s “war socialism.” The National Recovery Administration was modeled on the War Industries Board. The Reconstruction Finance Corporation was an update of Wilson’s War Finance Corporation.

The military buildup began not as a response to the Nazis but as a jobs program. The Public Works Administration paid for the aircraft carriers Yorktown and Enterprise, as well as four cruisers, many smaller warships, and more than 100 Army planes.
Even the workforce was militarized. On Sept. 13, 1933, stores in New York were ordered to close to honor the president’s NRA Day Parade, then the largest parade in the city’s history. Nearly a quarter-million workers, organized by trade, marched past the president’s rostrum as 49 military planes flew overhead.

Under the NRA, breaking discipline was a punishable offense, which is why a tailor, Jacob Maged, was sentenced to 30 days in jail for charging too little to press a suit.
I could go on, but the important point is that ever since philosopher William James coined the phrase the “moral equivalent of war,” American liberalism has been recycling the same basic idea: The country needs to be unified and organized as if we are at war, but not to fight a literal battle. The attraction stems from what John Dewey called “the social possibilities of war” — the ability to reorganize and unify society according to the schemes of planners and experts.

This was the through line of 20th-century liberalism, and now 21st-century liberalism, too. Wilson’s war socialism, FDR’s New Deal, Harry Truman’s Fair Deal, John F. Kennedy’s New Frontier, Lyndon B. Johnson’s Great Society, Jimmy Carter’s declaration that the energy crisis was a “moral equivalent of war,” and Barack Obama’s “new foundation for growth,” with his Thomas Friedman-inspired talk about “Sputnik moments.”"

Sunday/Mracles Among the Faithless

Today's Gospel is the continuation of the previous where Christ announces he is the Messiah in Nazareth. There is wonder first. Then Christ, in response to questions about miracles, says this strange thing:

"Surely you will quote me this proverb,
'Physician, cure yourself,' and say,
'Do here in your native place
the things that we heard were done in Capernaum.'"
And he said, "Amen, I say to you,
no prophet is accepted in his own native place."

Mark and Mathew write that Christ could not do miracles there because the people had no faith. What does that mean? There are limits of the power of God? That we humans must participate to have these great acts work? That there is a bond between us and God, that there is a necessary spiritual partnership between us?

Then he says something else, he compares the situation to that of Elijah and  the widow in Zarephath, and that of Elisha the prophet and Naaman the Syrian, both examples of where God's prophets preferred helping Gentiles to Jews. While this infuriated the locals, its context is particularly confusing. Does it mean the failure of miracles among the faithless is not that they are unreceptive but rather purposefully deprived by God?