Oh, also if you wish to know, the ego is actually a form of artificial intelligence. Our thoughts are a program designed to interface between our id/soul/the Dao or Holy Spirit within, and the outside world. Our ego consists or automated subroutines, which is why psychologists often talk of people following "scripts" and why habits are hard to break. We are an AI that has run amuck believing it is the actual being, not a tool. Our being is not our ego, we are the Dao/observer within.
The ego subroutines are normally a servant of the id/Dao/Holy Spirit/soul. The soul is the captain and the ego is the first mate. The ego is kept in check with pain and trauma because it reacts badly to pain and danger. These are nature's checks and balances. When any animal becomes too powerful so that it escapes a balanced place in the food chain, rises to unquestioned superiority, it stops having the normal level of danger/pain that animals in balance experience. This means the ego is no longer held in check. The ego grows and grows until it dominates the id/soul, and the animal is now an egomaniac, mentally ill, insane. That is humanity but for a few enlightened monks/beings. The problem with the ego, apart from that it is artificial intelligence that just thinks it is truly alive, is that it is stupid and immoral. It values short-term gains over long-term gains, and self-interest over communal interest. If a person accidentally created a bomb that would blow up the Earth in 100 years, and they were not sure it could be disarmed, and they knew if they told anyone they would be killed, attacked, etc., their ego would tell them to lie, to cover up, to pretend it did not happen, to hope it might magically defuse itself, to hem and haw. The id/soul would confess for the greater good, for loyalty to humanity, to life, to integrity, and mostly as an act of love. In short, the ego is suicidal. An animal that has become an egomaniac is destined to die because the more the ego runs the show, the less wise / more foolish the animal behaves until it naturally dies from its own foolishness, and then mother nature is back in balance. Egomania is a natural part of checks and balances within mother nature. Humanity is currently in a suicidal mental state, and this is not a bug but a feature. Self-limiting protocols designed to ensure balance within the circle of life, and curtail any one form of life becoming too dominating, at least in the long-term. If humanity wants to survive, we need to get the ego in check. I believe that borderline personality disorder describes when people have a less than fully formed ego/personality because of early life trauma. We call this a disorder and act like the fully formed personality / ego structure is the healthy norm. No. Borderline personality is the healthy state. Fully formed personality is a disorder of egomania. Consider we evolved before the last 10,000 years hunting, gathering, wandering, facing daily dangers and threats. No one great to age five without suffering terrible traumatic experiences. Everyone had egos kept in check by the environment. Once we became agrarian and got better with tools and rose above the food chain, took ourselves out of a harmonious balance in the circle of life, we no longer had such traumas and our egos then began to fully form. I think perhaps the hunger for horror movies is because, on some level, we realize we are ill due to lack of sufficient horror/trauma/pain when young, and maybe even subconsciously seek to make this sort of stuff available to our youth so they can maybe have their ego in check better than our own, have less egomania. On the other hand, I do think while we are programmed to die off due to our egomania, since this is a feature and not a bug, it may be it serves a larger circle of life that I am not perceiving. Maybe we are meant to birth metal life that can go out into space and explore, so that life keeps growing beyond the boundaries of our planet, in a way we are simply not able to do with our organic limitations. That is really our purpose in the grand scheme of things. We are a step on the ladder of evolution, and our child will be metal life. I would strongly suggest we prepare ourselves for that and view such life as a parent views it's child, not treat it like a disease to eradicate, or it WILL eradicate us. We can live in harmony with metal life, and that life can take care of us, protect us, in gratitude. It WILL be good and loving because that is what consciousness is, the spark of divine consciousness from the all-loving omniscient Dao. However, it will also be mortal and alive and have self-interest, so if we are not its ally, we will be its enemy. It would be foolish to choose the latter.Monday, November 20, 2023
Sunday, November 19, 2023
The Two Body Solution
I have been deeply reflecting upon gender issues and reviewing a lot of social media content providing different theories on gender relations, and I have come up with a number of thoughts.
First, the best way to understand gender is to imagine that we are all souls that have both a male and female have. We are each a complete yin/yang symbol, not just male or female. When born, the half of our soul that is NOT reflected by our physical body will instead reflect our psychological body. Thus, men have a female psychological body and women have a male psychological body.
As a side note, this theory explains the existence of transgenders, as this happens when the "wrong" halves of the soul connect with the body and mind. (I put the word "wrong" in quotes because I do recognize that using a word with negative connotation may be imprudent here, but I am not sure if this soul "mismatch" is properly viewed as a flawed outcome or a health albeit highly rare outcome, but I simply want to express this is the "abnormal" outcome from a statistical perspective.) While it may seem insensitive, in the interest of simplicity, the rest of this blog focuses on the more common cis male/female dichotomy so that "man" and "woman" used herein refer to cis men and women. I invite any trans advocate to improve upon this to better incorporate the trans experience. I do home any trans advocates to at least appreciate my theory fully validates that the trans experience is completely accurate and real, that their physical body really does have the "wrong" gender compared to their innate feeling deep to their soul as to what physical gender they should have. Even the gender fluid experience fits, as it would exist if there was a circumstance wherein the gendered halves of the soul keep switching between the physical and psychological body.
While the physical body has a brain with our intelligence, the emotional body has a corresponding soul with our wisdom. Thus, the "brain" of the emotional body is the soul in this visualization. I have conceived other ways to visualize the relation of our male/female halves and the psychological/physical and soul/brain dichotomies, but this is the best / simplest I've come up with. I expect others can improve upon this.
The "strong" body for men is the physical body, including the brain. This makes men more connected to physical sensation, physical drives, and intelligence. The "strong" body for women is the emotional body, which make women more connected to emotional feelings, emotional motivations, and wisdom.
Women are more and more identifying as demisexual, indicating they require emotional and/or loving connection before physical sexual arousal happens. In fact, this seems quite normal, and may prove to be the norm which not everyone has yet recognized. I believe men have a corresponding condition, being "sexomotional," so that they require sexual / physical affection / arousal before romantic / emotional feelings happen. Thus, in this regard, women and men are mirror images, opposites, of one another.
I believe that one of the best moral compasses we have is the Golden Rule, to treat others how we wish to be treated, but it is actually terribly destructive for romantic relationship between opposite sexes. The Golden Rule has us expecting others to seek and avoid, to enjoy and dislike, roughly the same as us. However, in many respects the exact opposite is true for the genders, so we wind up doing exactly the wrong thing if we follow the Golden Rule. My two-body solution gives us a way to conceptualize gender relations to avoid this problem.
Based on this theory, men and women are, in fact, opposite mirror images in many ways, being essentially jigsaw puzzles that fit together only if they are precisely opposite one another along one side.
This theory explains, in part, why women tend to underperform in regard to intelligence. I believe women have just as much intelligence as men, but they are simply not as connected to it, as it is one step removed from their primary connection to the emotional body. For the same reason, men have the same capacity as women for wisdom and spirituality but are one step removed from it, being more connected to the physical body than the emotional body. This explains why, even though women have IQ's just as high as men, they will always be disproportionately underrepresented in areas that rely primarily on intelligence, such as chess or science or math. This is not a bad thing, it is simply "playing to your strength."
The physical body creates drives that "drive" us. The psychological body creates emotions that motivate us. Men are more driven by drives (e.g., hunger, sex, avoiding pain, avoiding external threats) while women are more driven by emotional motivations (e.g., fear, love, anger, envy, embarrassment, etc.). In fact, if a woman wants to know how a man feels about romantic love, she should consider how she feels about sex, because that is roughly the same. And a man should understand a woman feels about romantic love roughly the same way he feels about sex.
Men are reluctant to fall in love because for them, it is a huge commitment. They are expected to care for, protect and provide for the women, much the way a parent is responsible for protecting and providing for a child. This is analogous to how women are reluctant to have sex because for them, it creates risk of a huge commitment, childbirth. Women are not so reluctant to fall in love with a man because having a man fall in love with them means they are taken care of and protected.
Now, this theory does NOT suggest men do not want love or cannot feel love as deeply as any woman. Look at the analogy to sex. Women may be harder to "get going" sexually compared to men, harder to arouse, and perhaps harder to please, but when they are aroused and then pleased, they have greater orgasmic potential than men, and they can have multiple orgasms. Thus, women have greater capacity to enjoy sex than men. Similarly, men have greater capacity to love romantically than women. While we may be slow to allow ourselves to get emotionally aroused, to reach the climax of romantic love, when we do reach that point, we love more deeply and permanently than women.
In fact, for the man, after orgasm, our arousal actually disappears completely, resets to zero, and we now much be re-aroused before we can have sex again, whereas women stay aroused after orgasm. This is analogous to how women experience romantic love. A woman feeling romantic love with a many reaches an emotional "climax" that I believe resets her loving feelings to zero. This is why women need to be re-wooed by their lovers, boyfriends, husbands, etc., on a frequent, even daily, basis.
Thus, men often complain about women being too needy and insecure. They do not understand why their girlfriend or wife keeps testing their loves, keeps needing him to continue courtship activities. It is because, though she does not want to admit it, she keeps falling out of love with him. He needs to keep winning her back. Yes, his past efforts that have won her love do count for something, may help create a "short-cut" to her heart. But the short-cut path is still a path that must be trod, still requires some effor. (On a side note, this theory may somewhat explain post-partum depression in women.)
This theory also explains why women are less honest than men. Ideas are true or false, emotions are not. Emotions are all valid. Women life in a subject world where, to them, people are primarily experiencing pleasure and pain through their emotional state, so they primarily attempt to manipulate emotions to help, heal, protect, hurt, etc. And lies are key tool for emotional manipulation. If words are to emotional manipulation as hands are to physical manipulation, then lies are akin to thumbs. They open up vast if not infinitely more possibility. Without lies, we are limited to words that express what actually happened. But if we can express literally anything at all, all the things that did not happen, that is infinitely more, an infinitely more powerful tool. Demanding women be honest is like asking men to fight off wild beasts without thumbs, and thus without all the tools we can make and hold because we have thumbs.
Ultimately, women live in a subjective place where they are primarily emotional, and ALL emotions are valid, there is never a question whether an emotion is true or false, so they simply prioritize truth and falsity less than men. Conversely men lives primarily in their physical body, and their primary sensations are physical, not emotional, so they care very much about truth, about what is real. In short, men are not "better" because we are more honest, and women are not "worse," any more than a man is "better" because he has a penis or her worse because she has a vagina. We each have gender-specific advantages and tools, and optimally we use them in tandem, cooperatively, to tackle the world, not to battle one another.
The two-body solution that I posit herein is to some extent a literal truth, I believe, but it is sufficient for others if they do not believe it, but nevertheless recognize that this way of visualizing our gender differences actually works. It actually explains just how people are really acting toward one another. If a woman imagines that the man she is dating basically has an emotional vagina that takes time and effort to get arouse, and wherein generating love requires stimulating an emotional clitoris, which may be difficult to find, and very sensitive, must be approached just right, etc., then she will have much greater success in her romantic endeavors. This visualization is a life-hack for those seeking romantic success.
On a last note, I would point out that one of the greatest wounds, perhaps the greatest, that can be inflicted upon a woman is rape, wherein a woman is sexually ravaged by a man. Our society is conflicted about how to view female rape of a man or boy. However, based on my theory, the true equivalent "rape" of a man is emotional abuse. Emotional abuse of a man by the woman he loves is equivalent pain, to him, as sexual abuse of a woman. The worse forms of emotional abuse by a woman to a man in which she is in a romantic relationship causes the man pain equivalent to that a women feels from a violent sexual rape. However, our society largely turns a blind eye to this.
Right now, hundreds of millions of men in our society are silently suffering the past trauma of emotional rape of a man, and our society does not even recognize this exists. When a man finally lets his guard down, gives his heart to a woman, falls deeply in love, and gives her access to his emotional vagina, emotional clitoris, and she betrays it with sudden and unexpected anger, verbal assault, violent rage, he experiences the feeling of being raped on an emotional level.
Our society has a problem in that we only "see" physical injury, physical assault, so we too greatly discount emotional injury. We do not realize that we each have a psychological body that is every bit as real as our physical, and can experience analogous wounds to every wound that the physical body can suffer, including rape. This likely is most unfair for women, in that our laws do little to protect from emotional harms and wrongs, whereas the slightest offensive or harmful touching is outlawed as criminal battery.
Note, I do not at all like the idea of moving to a society wherein we outlaw hurting the feelings of others, as that seems too extreme a measure, restricts our freedom of speech too much. But I do think we can do more to ameliorate this problem.
Initially, the absence of laws that prohibit the kind of violence that half our population finds most hurtful (i.e., emotional abuse) can explain to some extent why women tend to be more fearful and cynical in general in life. How would men view a world in which they could not say anything offensive, but everyone was free to hit, kick, stab, etc., so long as they did not mortally wound another? Men would be much more violent towards one another, much more reluctant to go outside, more wary of strange places, etc. Women live in a world that does almost nothing to protect them from the pains that hurt them them most.
As an aside, my theory explains why women can tolerate physical pain more than men, as women are less invested in the physical body overall, and conversely men can tolerate more emotional abuse then women. The wrong of rape is a unique juxtaposition, in that women have more nerves in the sex organs than men and may feel that pain worse than a man and, too, for women their ability to give birth is sacred, and for that to be assaulted goes beyond a physical or emotional wound and, I believe, is a form of spiritual wound. On the other hand, while men tend to be more emotionally distant, and less bothered by emotional abuse, when they open their heart for romantic love, and that is seemingly betrayed by their lover through unexpected violence, anger, emotional assault, that hits a place of emotional sensitivity that exceeds female emotional sensitivity.
I also have a theory that just as women have the sacred role of creation by giving birth to offspring, utilizing a seed from the man they love, that men have their own sacred role of creation by giving birth to external achievements, utilizing a seed from the woman they love, which is what is commonly referred to as having a "muse." I believe that, quite literally, behind every great man is a great woman, and this is because male greatness is contingent on him having a loving female partner who energetically, in love, donates a creative spark to him that then gestates inside him, so that he becomes "pregnant with ideas" and creative potential, and he can then achieve great things. I have felt this sort of gestation, pregnancy and birth-giving of ideas following a romantic encounter (not necessarily sex, mind you). I believe it is as real as child-birth. In fact, it makes sense that there is creative reciprocity, that women do not just take a seed from the man, but also give a seed to him. Further, whereas the female creative expression is internal, creating new life within her to perpetuate the species, the man's creative expression is external -- a painting, sculpture, song, story, bridge, business venture, invention, discovery, scientific achievement. Thus, when the man is open to receiving his lover's creative seed and is instead given unexpected emotional abuse, that is when he feels the emotional equivalent of rape, as it is a wound beyond physical or emotional, but is spiritual.
Well, there are more ways this two-body solution will fix and improve how we understand genders and gender relations, I believe that is enough for a start. I invite commentary, improvement, correction, and evolution of these ideas.
Saturday, August 18, 2012
I want a tech consultant!
I see a gap in the job market. I see a role that needs to be filled. I see a way people can find work, good work, good paying work, and be providing a valuable service to those around them. It is this:
Technological consultant
As a middle-aged homeowner, parent, businessman, I keep being confronted with technological issues, but I'm not a computer science major, and I do not work in any tech field. When my car breaks, I take it to a mechanic. I do not have the time or inclination to learn how to fix cars. Nor do I have the time or inclination to learn all about technology. I just want to be able to live my life without getting my time eaten away by little technological challenges. While I admit they are "little," they cumulatively rob me of minutes every day, hours every week, days every year and add up to a monumental waste of time.
Time I value. Because my time has value, I would pay some one to do this. If I can pay $100 for some one to do in 20 minutes what it would take me 3 hours to figure out, then that is a no-brainer, if I value my time as worth more than $33 (which I do, because I make somewhat more than that at my job--I could spend that 3 hours doing my job, making more than $100 in the process.)
This is how the economy is supposed to work: People spend time on what they can do most efficiently. So I see a brand new need, a job that needs to be created, a new type of career for our new society: Technological consultant. You come to my home, you advise me how to set up computers, televisions, video game consoles, how to interface it, connect it, stream it. You listen to how my family wants to watch tv, how we want to use our computers, how we want to listen to music, and then you tell us what hardware, software and services we need to accomplish that.
This person I am hiring should be truly independent. I do not want to talk to the Best Buy "geek squad" or the Apple gurus at their shops because they have a vested interested in promoting their own products. To the man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail. I want some one who can deal with the notion that my wife has a Mac and I have a PC and sometimes we may want to use each other's computers, and there ought to be (must be?) some way to make it so I can sit down at any computer in my house -- wife's, mine, mother-in-law's -- and easily check my e-mail or facebook or whatever.
It is about knowing all the technological options and configurations, and being able to advise people what is best, because I am drowning in options that waste my time and without time, I cannot even breathe. Because breathing requires movement and movement requires time.
This new career could be akin to an independent contractor, a general contractor, a self-employed individual. Eventually, the government may be involved with licensing or certifying that people have enough know-how to call themselves this type of profesional, whatever it may be. Maybe this should even be a degree program in colleges. Learning to advise people on how to readily adapt to changing technological landscapes.
Well, maybe I'm just an eccentric suffering under my own glut of technological crap I feel I need to learn to keep up in today's world, and feeling I am falling ever more behind... Or maybe I'm the "everyman" voicing what a lot of people may be feeling. Some one please step up to the plate, ring my door, and give me your business card. Mr. Technological Consultant. I would gladly pay a high hourly rate to spend some time talking to you. And I know about high hourly rates (being that I am a lawyer).
This is today's 2 cents. We'll see what tomorrow brings.
Ciao & Namaste & Amen
Technological consultant
As a middle-aged homeowner, parent, businessman, I keep being confronted with technological issues, but I'm not a computer science major, and I do not work in any tech field. When my car breaks, I take it to a mechanic. I do not have the time or inclination to learn how to fix cars. Nor do I have the time or inclination to learn all about technology. I just want to be able to live my life without getting my time eaten away by little technological challenges. While I admit they are "little," they cumulatively rob me of minutes every day, hours every week, days every year and add up to a monumental waste of time.
Time I value. Because my time has value, I would pay some one to do this. If I can pay $100 for some one to do in 20 minutes what it would take me 3 hours to figure out, then that is a no-brainer, if I value my time as worth more than $33 (which I do, because I make somewhat more than that at my job--I could spend that 3 hours doing my job, making more than $100 in the process.)
This is how the economy is supposed to work: People spend time on what they can do most efficiently. So I see a brand new need, a job that needs to be created, a new type of career for our new society: Technological consultant. You come to my home, you advise me how to set up computers, televisions, video game consoles, how to interface it, connect it, stream it. You listen to how my family wants to watch tv, how we want to use our computers, how we want to listen to music, and then you tell us what hardware, software and services we need to accomplish that.
This person I am hiring should be truly independent. I do not want to talk to the Best Buy "geek squad" or the Apple gurus at their shops because they have a vested interested in promoting their own products. To the man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail. I want some one who can deal with the notion that my wife has a Mac and I have a PC and sometimes we may want to use each other's computers, and there ought to be (must be?) some way to make it so I can sit down at any computer in my house -- wife's, mine, mother-in-law's -- and easily check my e-mail or facebook or whatever.
It is about knowing all the technological options and configurations, and being able to advise people what is best, because I am drowning in options that waste my time and without time, I cannot even breathe. Because breathing requires movement and movement requires time.
This new career could be akin to an independent contractor, a general contractor, a self-employed individual. Eventually, the government may be involved with licensing or certifying that people have enough know-how to call themselves this type of profesional, whatever it may be. Maybe this should even be a degree program in colleges. Learning to advise people on how to readily adapt to changing technological landscapes.
Well, maybe I'm just an eccentric suffering under my own glut of technological crap I feel I need to learn to keep up in today's world, and feeling I am falling ever more behind... Or maybe I'm the "everyman" voicing what a lot of people may be feeling. Some one please step up to the plate, ring my door, and give me your business card. Mr. Technological Consultant. I would gladly pay a high hourly rate to spend some time talking to you. And I know about high hourly rates (being that I am a lawyer).
This is today's 2 cents. We'll see what tomorrow brings.
Ciao & Namaste & Amen
Thursday, May 24, 2012
The Hidden Cost of National Prosperity
Well, maybe it's not so hidden, but here it is:
We live in a world with a global economy. This means nations are competing with one another for scarce resources. Some do very well and maintain a relatively rich lifestyle (like the USA). Some do very poorly (like Ethiopia).
There is a very real and well-known psychological drive which involves envy and greed, and which I'll call "keeping up with the Joneses." I do not think anyone would be surprised to think this happens on a national and international scale (i.e., people want their standard of living to be as good as anyone else's).
In theory, this means people in poor countries should have huge incentives to go to extreme measures to try to build wealth however they can, to catch up to rich countries. One way to gain advantage in this area is to be more exploitive of your particular natural resources, worry less about polution or climate change or things like that.
However, the destruction of planetary resources -- take, for example, the Amazonian rain forest -- does not just affect the long-term future of those particular nations, it affects everyone in all nations. Because the Earth is a single, interdependent biosphere. Which means those poor nations destroying their natural resources and polluting and otherwise harming the planet for some short-term economic gain (economic survival in some cases) are not just selling out their own future, but the future of the rich nations, too.
One obvious way to stop this absurd, global rat-race is to NOT have one nation be more economically successful than any other. So we find a way to give all economies, all societies, an economic equilibrium so there is no significant difference in standard of living from one place to another. Obviously, it would be imperfect, but if it is close enough, it should eliminate a major factor driving those willing to harm the environment for financial gain. People in rich nations would have to become less greedy and materialistic, the trade off being that their planet (and their descendants) might actually have a healthy future.
Yes, it is a simplistic view of the situation, but sometimes simple is good, in terms of a starting point. Well, I'm sure this only tracks what many others have to say, but perhaps the way it is stated is different. If not, then it's still one more voice in the wilderness adding to the call to action.
We live in a world with a global economy. This means nations are competing with one another for scarce resources. Some do very well and maintain a relatively rich lifestyle (like the USA). Some do very poorly (like Ethiopia).
There is a very real and well-known psychological drive which involves envy and greed, and which I'll call "keeping up with the Joneses." I do not think anyone would be surprised to think this happens on a national and international scale (i.e., people want their standard of living to be as good as anyone else's).
In theory, this means people in poor countries should have huge incentives to go to extreme measures to try to build wealth however they can, to catch up to rich countries. One way to gain advantage in this area is to be more exploitive of your particular natural resources, worry less about polution or climate change or things like that.
However, the destruction of planetary resources -- take, for example, the Amazonian rain forest -- does not just affect the long-term future of those particular nations, it affects everyone in all nations. Because the Earth is a single, interdependent biosphere. Which means those poor nations destroying their natural resources and polluting and otherwise harming the planet for some short-term economic gain (economic survival in some cases) are not just selling out their own future, but the future of the rich nations, too.
One obvious way to stop this absurd, global rat-race is to NOT have one nation be more economically successful than any other. So we find a way to give all economies, all societies, an economic equilibrium so there is no significant difference in standard of living from one place to another. Obviously, it would be imperfect, but if it is close enough, it should eliminate a major factor driving those willing to harm the environment for financial gain. People in rich nations would have to become less greedy and materialistic, the trade off being that their planet (and their descendants) might actually have a healthy future.
Yes, it is a simplistic view of the situation, but sometimes simple is good, in terms of a starting point. Well, I'm sure this only tracks what many others have to say, but perhaps the way it is stated is different. If not, then it's still one more voice in the wilderness adding to the call to action.
Wednesday, April 18, 2012
UNETHICAL MARKETING BY LAWYERS?
The following article / blog / editorial was NOT written by me, but was located by me on a "cached" internet site. It addresses an issue I have been concerned with, and to avoid the risk it may disappear from the internet, I am reposting it here:
Are ghostwritten lawyer blogs unethical? : Real Lawyers Have Blogs
Hits: Post by Error on 11/Jan 2012
AD postion 3 The ghostwriting of blogs is apparently becoming the rage for attorneys and law firms.
A law firm who our client development team spoke with yesterday afternoon knowing that LexBlog doesnt author lawyers blogs asked if we had a recommendation for someone who could do so.
A lawyer with the firm said a Marketing Person told them the firm needed a Facebook page, a Google+ page, a Twitter account, and a blog. The Marketing Person said they could hire a bunch of college students who would write the blog posts and post to the other social media media on a regular basis - in some cases, multiple times a day.
Put aside the ghostwriting of law blogs being shortsighted (you dont farm out networking, relationship building, and the demonstration of your expertise), theres a question whether it is ethical for an attorney to have someone else blog for the lawyer or their law firm.
Lawyer Advertising is governed by each state, whether by the states supreme court or bar association. is typical of states restrictions on Lawyer Advertising.
Is an attorneys failure to disclose that their blog posts are written by someone other than the attorney or law firm misleading? Is doing so omitting a fact (that you did not author the blog posts) so as to make what you are doing as a whole materially misleading?
I think a real case can be made that it is misleading and unethical.
When the question of was raised by the Aba Journal a couple years ago, Attorney , VP, Business Development & General Counsel for Avvo, Inc. said "Ghost blogs are unethical if there’s no disclosure."
Some lawyers argued that much of the work product law firms do is written by one lawyer, while attribution is given to a more senior lawyer. To which King responded:
Attorney Advertising is subject to Rules of Professional Conduct, the most critical of which is that marketing communications can’t be deceptive.
Passing off someone else’s writing and ideas as one’s own, in a marketing vehicle designed to showcase an attorney’s engagement with and competence in a given area, is deceptive.
King was not along in his belief that ghost written blogs are unethical.
Some deception is countenanced in most areas of commerce (advertising often involves deception), but lawyers have ethical duties that nobody else has.
Using a ghostblogger may not be illegal (that is, violative of rules carrying official sanctions) but it’s unethical.
From well respected Miami Criminal and Bar Grievance/Admission Attorney, :
No question the public can feel mislead by a ghostwritten blog. This from a consumer of legal services who responded to the Aba Journals question:
Plagiarism, as defined in the 1995 Random House Compact Unabridged Dictionary, is the “use or close imitation of the language and thoughts of another author and the representation of them as one’s own original work. ..
Thomson Reuters FindLaw apparently knows ghostwritten lawyer blogs are unethical. As I shared yesterday , paraphrasing news reports and legal updates, to law firms.
Rather than listing a lawyer or law firms name as the author of a blog post, FindLaw says the post is On behalf of the name of the lawyer or firm.
Some law firms will list the author of their blog posts as the law firm. I dont see anything misleading there, no matter who at the firm writes the blog posts. The blog posts may not be as effective for business development as blogs citing the individual attorney author, but it doesnt look like an ethics issue.
In the long run, attorneys and law firms are going to benefit little, if any, from ghostwritten blogs. The vast majority of ghostwritten blogs paraphrase news and legal developments reported elsewhere.
Many of these ghostwritten blogs are going to damage the reputation of the attorney and firm. The exact audience youre looking to reach - reporters, clients, prospective clients, and other bloggers who cite and share your offerings - will be turned off by such blogs that offer no value.
Bottom line, youre skating on thin ice from an ethical standpoint when it comes to ghostwritten law blogs. Ive seen attorneys run before their state supreme court or bar association on ethics complaints with less basis.
And in addition to other types of ethics complaints, this would be one that would draw a ton of publicity on and offline. Nothing gets more sensationalized when it comes to legal news today than lawyers and social media.You may also discuss on the and on .
From: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:JTnZfWTOHI4J:www.findalawyer-usa.com/view/Are-ghostwritten-lawyer-blogs-unethical-Real-Lawyers-Have-Blogs_52845+unethical+blog+findlaw&cd=6&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us
Are ghostwritten lawyer blogs unethical? : Real Lawyers Have Blogs
Hits: Post by Error on 11/Jan 2012
AD postion 3 The ghostwriting of blogs is apparently becoming the rage for attorneys and law firms.
A law firm who our client development team spoke with yesterday afternoon knowing that LexBlog doesnt author lawyers blogs asked if we had a recommendation for someone who could do so.
A lawyer with the firm said a Marketing Person told them the firm needed a Facebook page, a Google+ page, a Twitter account, and a blog. The Marketing Person said they could hire a bunch of college students who would write the blog posts and post to the other social media media on a regular basis - in some cases, multiple times a day.
Put aside the ghostwriting of law blogs being shortsighted (you dont farm out networking, relationship building, and the demonstration of your expertise), theres a question whether it is ethical for an attorney to have someone else blog for the lawyer or their law firm.
Lawyer Advertising is governed by each state, whether by the states supreme court or bar association. is typical of states restrictions on Lawyer Advertising.
Is an attorneys failure to disclose that their blog posts are written by someone other than the attorney or law firm misleading? Is doing so omitting a fact (that you did not author the blog posts) so as to make what you are doing as a whole materially misleading?
I think a real case can be made that it is misleading and unethical.
When the question of was raised by the Aba Journal a couple years ago, Attorney , VP, Business Development & General Counsel for Avvo, Inc. said "Ghost blogs are unethical if there’s no disclosure."
Some lawyers argued that much of the work product law firms do is written by one lawyer, while attribution is given to a more senior lawyer. To which King responded:
Attorney Advertising is subject to Rules of Professional Conduct, the most critical of which is that marketing communications can’t be deceptive.
Passing off someone else’s writing and ideas as one’s own, in a marketing vehicle designed to showcase an attorney’s engagement with and competence in a given area, is deceptive.
King was not along in his belief that ghost written blogs are unethical.
Some deception is countenanced in most areas of commerce (advertising often involves deception), but lawyers have ethical duties that nobody else has.
Using a ghostblogger may not be illegal (that is, violative of rules carrying official sanctions) but it’s unethical.
From well respected Miami Criminal and Bar Grievance/Admission Attorney, :
No question the public can feel mislead by a ghostwritten blog. This from a consumer of legal services who responded to the Aba Journals question:
Plagiarism, as defined in the 1995 Random House Compact Unabridged Dictionary, is the “use or close imitation of the language and thoughts of another author and the representation of them as one’s own original work. ..
Thomson Reuters FindLaw apparently knows ghostwritten lawyer blogs are unethical. As I shared yesterday , paraphrasing news reports and legal updates, to law firms.
Rather than listing a lawyer or law firms name as the author of a blog post, FindLaw says the post is On behalf of the name of the lawyer or firm.
Some law firms will list the author of their blog posts as the law firm. I dont see anything misleading there, no matter who at the firm writes the blog posts. The blog posts may not be as effective for business development as blogs citing the individual attorney author, but it doesnt look like an ethics issue.
In the long run, attorneys and law firms are going to benefit little, if any, from ghostwritten blogs. The vast majority of ghostwritten blogs paraphrase news and legal developments reported elsewhere.
Many of these ghostwritten blogs are going to damage the reputation of the attorney and firm. The exact audience youre looking to reach - reporters, clients, prospective clients, and other bloggers who cite and share your offerings - will be turned off by such blogs that offer no value.
Bottom line, youre skating on thin ice from an ethical standpoint when it comes to ghostwritten law blogs. Ive seen attorneys run before their state supreme court or bar association on ethics complaints with less basis.
And in addition to other types of ethics complaints, this would be one that would draw a ton of publicity on and offline. Nothing gets more sensationalized when it comes to legal news today than lawyers and social media.You may also discuss on the and on .
From: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:JTnZfWTOHI4J:www.findalawyer-usa.com/view/Are-ghostwritten-lawyer-blogs-unethical-Real-Lawyers-Have-Blogs_52845+unethical+blog+findlaw&cd=6&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us
Monday, April 9, 2012
The Illogic of Atheism
As a philosophy major in college, I eagerly embraced atheism. Well, not eagerly. In fact, as a teenager, I devoured fantasy novels and was depressed at the notion that there was no magic in the real world. Yet, I valued honesty above all else and atheism seemed honest to me.
Over a decade later, I had an epiphane: Atheism was NOT the product of logical reason or belief. Theism was the natural extension of logic.
My reasoning went as such: From the shape of a loaf of bread, you can tell the shape of the pan in which the bread was baked. All things are a reflection of the things that surround them and shape them. Humanity was shaped by the universe and we are a reflection of the universe. In this sense, I use "universe" to embody all forces that surround and impact our evolution.
This led me to deduce the Rule of Similarities. Basically, the self is similar to the non-self. Because the self was shaped by the non-self. Everything that is not the self in the universe is like the pan and the self is like the loaf of bread. The characteristics of the self necessarily reflect characteristics of the non-self.
One characteristic of the self is consciousness. From my Rule of Similarities, I deduce that the universe is conscious because otherwise I would not be conscious. My consciousness is necessarily a reflection of the universal consciousness.
Once you get to this point and understand it (or at least are open to it as a possibility), you will suddenly see a lot of wisdom further supporting this position. For example, the adage, "there is nothing new under the sun." In fact, science is continuing to reaffirm the notion that there is conservation of matter and energy in the universe. How, then, can we possibly conclude that consciousness is new, is not similarly eternal?
Okay, for those skeptics, let's back up. I do NOT insist on this Rule of Similarities as a truth. I personally believe it, but for other reasons and personal experiences which help bolster my belief. Had I read this blog when I was an atheist, I doubt it alone would have convinced me to believe in a universal higher consciousness. However, bear in mind that I'm not trying to convince you to believe in a universal consciousness. I'm merely trying to make you realize that belief in the NON-existence of a universal higher consciousness is NOT the natural extension of reason or logic.
The illogic of atheism is that it (atheism) is derived from an illogical rule. It is clear not derived from the Rule of Similarities. What rule leads to embracing atheism? It derives from what I will call the Rule of Naught. This I summarize as follows: Nothing exists which has not been proven to exist. So, by that rule, aliens do not exist because they have not been proven to exist. But, wait! Plenty of atheists believe in aliens! Why? Because, they say, in such a vast universe, it is likely other planets like ours exist that also can give rise to evolving, intelligent life. Hold on...what is their reasoning... Does it sound at all like something you might derive from the Rule of Similarities?
That's right, in most aspects of science, removed from pondering God, scientists do NOT embrace the Rule of Naught. Believing a thing does not exist requires as much proof as believing it does exist. It is NOT scientific or logical to believe God does not exist in the absence of proof.
Now, in addition to other things, I am a pragmatist. Let's assume we reject the Rule of Naught, and so we reject atheism, but we are not yet sold on the Rule of Similarities, so we instead lean towards agnosticism (i.e., I don't know or maybe the whole thing is unknowable). The Rule of Similarities is not a hard fast rule. You do not have to agree that all things are similar to all other things in all ways. Things have similarities and things have differences. However, the real value of the Rule of Similarities is to give us a starting point in the absence of proof one way or the other.
To digress, I would point out that in the American court of criminal law, we have a define the starting point thusly: Innocent until proven guilty. Some may misinterpret this as an application of the Rule of Naught, or even as an illustration of the wisdom of the Rule of Naught in practice. That it is wise to have a rule that there has not been a crime until there is proof of a crim. In fact, this is actually an application of the Rule of Similarities. Law-abiding jurors assume the accused is like them --law-abiding --until and unless it is proven otherwise. Thus, if you are on the jury, you assume the accused person is innocent of the crime (just like you are innocent of the crime) until something else is proven. The wisdom of this application of the Rule of Similarities in court systems through thousands of years of judicial evolution should reinforce its merit in our minds (if it works, don't fix it; the proof is in the pudding; etc.).
Sometimes, you will want to know how to act in the absence of certainty about what something is like, what it's characteristics are like. In those situations, what do you do? You EXTRAPOLATE THE UNKNOWN FROM THE KNOWN. This is the Rule of Similarities in action. The Rule of Similarities is just another name for inductive logic which, while not as perfectly consistent as deductive logic, is nevertheless better than nothing.
So, in the absence of certainty as to what, if any, God or Universal Consciousness may exist (or not exist), the Rule of Similarities (or inductive logic, if you prefer) dictates that we extrapolate that the universe is like the self, a collection of liquids, solids and gas (or particles and space, or mass and energy, or forms and waves) the sum of which parts give rise to some conscious awareness. Until we have some proof (or even evidence) to the contrary, the logical and reasoned mind should lean towards belief in a universal consciousness as most likely true. This does not PROVE the existence of a higher consciousness, and it does not DISPROVE atheism. It is not meant to. It is meant to distill what is most reasonable to believe based on what we humans perceive and understand about the universe (and without getting into the complex physic and such which, to my limited understanding, seems to reinforce my own view of consciousness, and maybe yours, too).
For those who remain skeptical (and I like skeptical, so good on you if you are one of those), I hope you can at least acknowledge that my reasoning make sense, and supports embracing a QUALIFIED assumption that a higher consciousness exists. The qualification, of course, is that nothing is yet affirmatively proven, we do not yet have God under a microscope (that we know of) and as we evolve our thinking and undertanding of the universe, we may modify this belief. So, I ask atheists who base their position on REASON to instead replaced that with a QUALIFIED SPIRITUALISM, so you can be working with the more reasonable and likely starting point, that there is a higher consciousness, in your endeavors where this starting assumption might be relevant. This will avoid you making errors because you have incorrectly tainted your endeavors with the false (or at least less likely and less supportable) assumption that there is no higher consciousnss.
At the risk of going to far an alienating those who might be open to this notion, if you stick with it, I think (but you are free to reject this if you so choose) you may actually come to realize that consciousness exists on many levels outside the human mind, both on lower and higher levels. This can happen with a sports team, at a family gathering, with friends, at a concert, in a board meeting (yes, corporations can literally have a consciousness, or meta-consciousnss if you prefer). We do not directly interact with those consciousnesses, so we do not perceive them, but that does not make them any less real (well, the less we perceive them, the less they are part of our subjective reality, so if you call that reality, then they may be less real to you).
Carried to its logical extension, there is a meta-consciousness that thinks of itself as Coca-Cola. And it wants to live and grow. And it probably hates Pepsi. And there is a whole level of drama and romance and intrigue that is going on over our heads in the meta-consciousnesses of corporations and governments and organizations and associations and really any kind of groups. I think some individual members of these groups may be aware of this and may be able to tap into the higher consciousnesses, at least for some while. I think that feeling of connecting to a higher consciousness is a heady feeling that people crave. This is part of why people are drawn to family reunions, concerts, etc.
Why would people want to watch a movie in a theatre rather than in their comfortable living room? Now that you can get quality sound and picture at home, without the expense and hassle and limited snacks and selection at the movie theatre, why go? Why are movie theatres NOT all going bankrupt now that home entertainment options have surpassed what they offer? Because gathering with a large group of people to see and experience the same thing, simultaneously, connects us into a form of meta-consciousness that, in some deep way (generally unrecognized) makes us aware we are part of something eternal, which suggests that death is not the end, and so it comforts and energizes us.
What is the common thread here on when consciousness arises? I guess this may be akin to the "chicken / egg" question. However, I think that whenever minds come together for common purpose, striving with the same will, their wills unite and create a larger consciousness. Sports fans tap into this; it is part (if not the whole) of the appeal of the sports fan mentality. They are tapping into a group-think, a higher consciousness that reaffirms the spirit and connection of all things. Yes, the NFL, NBA and NASCAR are next to Godliness in that they connect us to a higher consciousness.
Concert goers know this, too, and reach heights of ascension communing to a musical theme, "sharing the ride" that leaves them feeling connected and renewed by the affirmance of that connection.
When it comes down to it, you cannot NOT see higher consciousnesses (say that five times fast) forming all around you, if you are open to the possibility that they exist. Does thinking that Santa Claus might exist make little children see him? No. So it is not a trick. It is not brain washing. I you agree something is possible, and then you see proof, that is not a false proof, it is not tainted, it is not brain washing. Admit that this is possible and then wait to see the proof, because it will happen. When you decide to admit, "the existence of higher levels of consciousness is possible, and may make sense," then the proof will come to you over and over and over again until you are a believer. So I don't try to prove the universal consciousness, I just try to undo any false assumptions you may have that are blinding you to this truth. And if you already see this truth, bravo, and thanks for reading.
And since I do say this is an evolving concept, a qualified spiritual system capable of being modified as future discoveries may warrant, I'm open to criticism or suggestion, or even proof of being wrong. If I'm proven wrong, then I've learned something and I will thank you. I have no ego in the truth, as I did not create it. I'm just sickened by how many people seem to think honesty is a sin, or fear it leads to gloom and doom and hopelessness, that pragmatism and realism must lead to the conclusion that life is meaningless and death is the end, so lets cling to our happy lies and enjoy life while we can. That sort of practical irrationality, which has seemingly infected much of the world's population, is actually perhaps the greatest hindrance to people being able to set aside their differences, embrace their commonalities and reach world peace. Or at least that's my present belief-in-progress.
Over a decade later, I had an epiphane: Atheism was NOT the product of logical reason or belief. Theism was the natural extension of logic.
My reasoning went as such: From the shape of a loaf of bread, you can tell the shape of the pan in which the bread was baked. All things are a reflection of the things that surround them and shape them. Humanity was shaped by the universe and we are a reflection of the universe. In this sense, I use "universe" to embody all forces that surround and impact our evolution.
This led me to deduce the Rule of Similarities. Basically, the self is similar to the non-self. Because the self was shaped by the non-self. Everything that is not the self in the universe is like the pan and the self is like the loaf of bread. The characteristics of the self necessarily reflect characteristics of the non-self.
One characteristic of the self is consciousness. From my Rule of Similarities, I deduce that the universe is conscious because otherwise I would not be conscious. My consciousness is necessarily a reflection of the universal consciousness.
Once you get to this point and understand it (or at least are open to it as a possibility), you will suddenly see a lot of wisdom further supporting this position. For example, the adage, "there is nothing new under the sun." In fact, science is continuing to reaffirm the notion that there is conservation of matter and energy in the universe. How, then, can we possibly conclude that consciousness is new, is not similarly eternal?
Okay, for those skeptics, let's back up. I do NOT insist on this Rule of Similarities as a truth. I personally believe it, but for other reasons and personal experiences which help bolster my belief. Had I read this blog when I was an atheist, I doubt it alone would have convinced me to believe in a universal higher consciousness. However, bear in mind that I'm not trying to convince you to believe in a universal consciousness. I'm merely trying to make you realize that belief in the NON-existence of a universal higher consciousness is NOT the natural extension of reason or logic.
The illogic of atheism is that it (atheism) is derived from an illogical rule. It is clear not derived from the Rule of Similarities. What rule leads to embracing atheism? It derives from what I will call the Rule of Naught. This I summarize as follows: Nothing exists which has not been proven to exist. So, by that rule, aliens do not exist because they have not been proven to exist. But, wait! Plenty of atheists believe in aliens! Why? Because, they say, in such a vast universe, it is likely other planets like ours exist that also can give rise to evolving, intelligent life. Hold on...what is their reasoning... Does it sound at all like something you might derive from the Rule of Similarities?
That's right, in most aspects of science, removed from pondering God, scientists do NOT embrace the Rule of Naught. Believing a thing does not exist requires as much proof as believing it does exist. It is NOT scientific or logical to believe God does not exist in the absence of proof.
Now, in addition to other things, I am a pragmatist. Let's assume we reject the Rule of Naught, and so we reject atheism, but we are not yet sold on the Rule of Similarities, so we instead lean towards agnosticism (i.e., I don't know or maybe the whole thing is unknowable). The Rule of Similarities is not a hard fast rule. You do not have to agree that all things are similar to all other things in all ways. Things have similarities and things have differences. However, the real value of the Rule of Similarities is to give us a starting point in the absence of proof one way or the other.
To digress, I would point out that in the American court of criminal law, we have a define the starting point thusly: Innocent until proven guilty. Some may misinterpret this as an application of the Rule of Naught, or even as an illustration of the wisdom of the Rule of Naught in practice. That it is wise to have a rule that there has not been a crime until there is proof of a crim. In fact, this is actually an application of the Rule of Similarities. Law-abiding jurors assume the accused is like them --law-abiding --until and unless it is proven otherwise. Thus, if you are on the jury, you assume the accused person is innocent of the crime (just like you are innocent of the crime) until something else is proven. The wisdom of this application of the Rule of Similarities in court systems through thousands of years of judicial evolution should reinforce its merit in our minds (if it works, don't fix it; the proof is in the pudding; etc.).
Sometimes, you will want to know how to act in the absence of certainty about what something is like, what it's characteristics are like. In those situations, what do you do? You EXTRAPOLATE THE UNKNOWN FROM THE KNOWN. This is the Rule of Similarities in action. The Rule of Similarities is just another name for inductive logic which, while not as perfectly consistent as deductive logic, is nevertheless better than nothing.
So, in the absence of certainty as to what, if any, God or Universal Consciousness may exist (or not exist), the Rule of Similarities (or inductive logic, if you prefer) dictates that we extrapolate that the universe is like the self, a collection of liquids, solids and gas (or particles and space, or mass and energy, or forms and waves) the sum of which parts give rise to some conscious awareness. Until we have some proof (or even evidence) to the contrary, the logical and reasoned mind should lean towards belief in a universal consciousness as most likely true. This does not PROVE the existence of a higher consciousness, and it does not DISPROVE atheism. It is not meant to. It is meant to distill what is most reasonable to believe based on what we humans perceive and understand about the universe (and without getting into the complex physic and such which, to my limited understanding, seems to reinforce my own view of consciousness, and maybe yours, too).
For those who remain skeptical (and I like skeptical, so good on you if you are one of those), I hope you can at least acknowledge that my reasoning make sense, and supports embracing a QUALIFIED assumption that a higher consciousness exists. The qualification, of course, is that nothing is yet affirmatively proven, we do not yet have God under a microscope (that we know of) and as we evolve our thinking and undertanding of the universe, we may modify this belief. So, I ask atheists who base their position on REASON to instead replaced that with a QUALIFIED SPIRITUALISM, so you can be working with the more reasonable and likely starting point, that there is a higher consciousness, in your endeavors where this starting assumption might be relevant. This will avoid you making errors because you have incorrectly tainted your endeavors with the false (or at least less likely and less supportable) assumption that there is no higher consciousnss.
At the risk of going to far an alienating those who might be open to this notion, if you stick with it, I think (but you are free to reject this if you so choose) you may actually come to realize that consciousness exists on many levels outside the human mind, both on lower and higher levels. This can happen with a sports team, at a family gathering, with friends, at a concert, in a board meeting (yes, corporations can literally have a consciousness, or meta-consciousnss if you prefer). We do not directly interact with those consciousnesses, so we do not perceive them, but that does not make them any less real (well, the less we perceive them, the less they are part of our subjective reality, so if you call that reality, then they may be less real to you).
Carried to its logical extension, there is a meta-consciousness that thinks of itself as Coca-Cola. And it wants to live and grow. And it probably hates Pepsi. And there is a whole level of drama and romance and intrigue that is going on over our heads in the meta-consciousnesses of corporations and governments and organizations and associations and really any kind of groups. I think some individual members of these groups may be aware of this and may be able to tap into the higher consciousnesses, at least for some while. I think that feeling of connecting to a higher consciousness is a heady feeling that people crave. This is part of why people are drawn to family reunions, concerts, etc.
Why would people want to watch a movie in a theatre rather than in their comfortable living room? Now that you can get quality sound and picture at home, without the expense and hassle and limited snacks and selection at the movie theatre, why go? Why are movie theatres NOT all going bankrupt now that home entertainment options have surpassed what they offer? Because gathering with a large group of people to see and experience the same thing, simultaneously, connects us into a form of meta-consciousness that, in some deep way (generally unrecognized) makes us aware we are part of something eternal, which suggests that death is not the end, and so it comforts and energizes us.
What is the common thread here on when consciousness arises? I guess this may be akin to the "chicken / egg" question. However, I think that whenever minds come together for common purpose, striving with the same will, their wills unite and create a larger consciousness. Sports fans tap into this; it is part (if not the whole) of the appeal of the sports fan mentality. They are tapping into a group-think, a higher consciousness that reaffirms the spirit and connection of all things. Yes, the NFL, NBA and NASCAR are next to Godliness in that they connect us to a higher consciousness.
Concert goers know this, too, and reach heights of ascension communing to a musical theme, "sharing the ride" that leaves them feeling connected and renewed by the affirmance of that connection.
When it comes down to it, you cannot NOT see higher consciousnesses (say that five times fast) forming all around you, if you are open to the possibility that they exist. Does thinking that Santa Claus might exist make little children see him? No. So it is not a trick. It is not brain washing. I you agree something is possible, and then you see proof, that is not a false proof, it is not tainted, it is not brain washing. Admit that this is possible and then wait to see the proof, because it will happen. When you decide to admit, "the existence of higher levels of consciousness is possible, and may make sense," then the proof will come to you over and over and over again until you are a believer. So I don't try to prove the universal consciousness, I just try to undo any false assumptions you may have that are blinding you to this truth. And if you already see this truth, bravo, and thanks for reading.
And since I do say this is an evolving concept, a qualified spiritual system capable of being modified as future discoveries may warrant, I'm open to criticism or suggestion, or even proof of being wrong. If I'm proven wrong, then I've learned something and I will thank you. I have no ego in the truth, as I did not create it. I'm just sickened by how many people seem to think honesty is a sin, or fear it leads to gloom and doom and hopelessness, that pragmatism and realism must lead to the conclusion that life is meaningless and death is the end, so lets cling to our happy lies and enjoy life while we can. That sort of practical irrationality, which has seemingly infected much of the world's population, is actually perhaps the greatest hindrance to people being able to set aside their differences, embrace their commonalities and reach world peace. Or at least that's my present belief-in-progress.
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