- Joined
- Sep 10, 2010
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Hello everyone,
My name is Tom Jumper. I live in San Diego CA with my wife of 10 years, two cats and one dog. My political ideology is of my own design and contains elements of both sides and others I've found here and there that provide more satisfactory answers than the right or left offer. I guess I would describe myself as a gun rights, gay rights, individual liberty, personal responsibility, basic, conditional universal health care with for-profit upgrades, anti-war, pro-troop, anti-religious, pro-spiritual practical Anarchist who disagrees with both the left and right about much they clamor about but usually votes Democratic because I don't work in any of the industries that align with the right and therefore find my best interests served (however poorly) by the party whose base contains huge groups of actual working people who vote as a group for their best interests and is financially backed by industries that rely on actual people's wages here in America for their profits and can't easily just sell their stuff to someone else or simply decide they don't feel like paying us the ridiculous wages we think we deserve when over a billion starving people will kill each other for $2 day. (And there's plenty of new affluent people in Asia who didn't have anything a generation ago, so we're not needed as customers either). Whew! Anyway, I've joined this forum today not to debate the ideological issues discussed here but hopefully to obtain the help of the members of this forum in testing a new theory I have that I hope at least some of you will find as intriguing as I have since it popped into my head a short time ago.
I got my first glimpses of the "emperor" during the Carter years while I was waiting for him to declassify the Gov't's UFO files and tell us about the aliens (I was 13 years old at the time, mind you,...jeez), and when I saw "him" the first time I piped right up, but got exactly no response from anyone. And when my next encounter with the "emperor" (even more disturbing than the first) again was met by complete refusal by everyone I looked to for clarity to even acknowledge the existence of what concerned me, I found myself set on the path that led me here today. I've spent most of the last 30-some years trying to figure out why it is that everyone seems to know he's naked, and no one talks about it because it would be unpleasant, but won't even consider the possibility that it might be a problem, even when they're at each others throats about who's responsible for all that pubic hair on the banquet table and where that horrid crotch smell is coming from.
Solely for purposes of context I feel I should mention that I was born with a genuine, one-in-several-million, supercharged freakbrain. In fact, for about two months after I not only aced but actually exceeded the IQ test all 2nd graders in CA were given at the time, people all over the world who care about that stuff were abuzz about the discovery of a one-in-a-billion, once in a lifetime prodigy. Alas, 'twasn't so. Long story short, I had been avidly collecting the type of "brain teasers" that make up a big part of the test, and actually had all but one of the questions written on a 3x5 card in a box at home. I had collected so many, in fact, that there were not enough of the conundrums used in these tests left that were novel to create a large enough sample to overcome the tools I had developed for solving them. But there were also parts of the test that were quantitative in nature, and I had pegged those too, when some of the tests were designed to produce one "spike" that would identify which area "genius" was manifesting in (math, language, music, etc.) and in the "spatial awareness" test I had exceeded the limits of the test itself. Amusingly, I also found something in one of their "What's Wrong With This Picture"s that was indeed wrong but not on the list of correct answers (must have been a weird day for the lady who gave me the test).
At any rate, I mention the above not to lay claim to any kind of superiority but because the confluence of fast hardware and a huge "workspace" resulted in an almost entirely "holographic" mental structure. So much so that things that are only taught linearly, or can only be learned linearly, are sometimes almost impossible for me to "grok", while I regularly assemble correct answers out of apparently disparate components, and can create, modify, manipulate and examine complex machines and ideas entirely in my head. What all this means as regards this forum is that, by it's very nature, my brain requires all new pieces of information to be consistent with all of the things relevant to it in the existing structure, and if something "doesn't fit", then both the new and the existing information are examined until it is determined which one is incorrect. Elements that fit but lack sufficient connections to be properly declared "valid" are evaluated and tagged as such, noting they are probationary and limiting conclusions drawn from them, proportionate to their level of verification. This activity is largely "automatic", and the process itself calls my attention to errors and inconsistencies. Constantly. So I cannot avoid seeing the flaws in arguments and positions, or the aspects of the issues being addressed that are not being included in the discussion. Big voids in the network, dangling connections, and alarms going off everywhere (mostly calm, contralto female alarms, but occasional full scale alerts). Since I can't ignore it, and I don't like seeing people hating each other because one party can't see the other's point of view, and what they both missed about the problem they are trying solve often prevents it from actually being solved by either side's solution at all, I wade in. And often end up being attacked by both parties. I often feel like I should be looking for a tea party (the kind with hats and dormice), but i keep trying to help everyone "work it out", 'cuz what else are you going to do?
But enough about me! Turning the whole problem over and over in my head, as I must until I make sense of it all, just recently revealed something very interesting. I believe I may have found a simple, non-judgmental, unbiased, non-partisan single element that is common to apparently every argument, on both sides, and every problem or issue they seek to address. One perspective that can be applied to anything by anyone that will yield insight at least, and possibly simple, mutually satisfactory solutions to problems that seem intractable because of the phenomenon I have observed itself.
I have a couple of essays in the works to present this theory and provide examples of the phenomenon I have observed, how it comes to exist, how it impacts our society, and how those impacts endure and continue to influence our society long after the events that generate each incidence have been forgotten. If nothing else it should provide much vigorous mental exercise and discussion of something everyone is referring to but no one is actually considering.
Watch this space! Much more to come.
My name is Tom Jumper. I live in San Diego CA with my wife of 10 years, two cats and one dog. My political ideology is of my own design and contains elements of both sides and others I've found here and there that provide more satisfactory answers than the right or left offer. I guess I would describe myself as a gun rights, gay rights, individual liberty, personal responsibility, basic, conditional universal health care with for-profit upgrades, anti-war, pro-troop, anti-religious, pro-spiritual practical Anarchist who disagrees with both the left and right about much they clamor about but usually votes Democratic because I don't work in any of the industries that align with the right and therefore find my best interests served (however poorly) by the party whose base contains huge groups of actual working people who vote as a group for their best interests and is financially backed by industries that rely on actual people's wages here in America for their profits and can't easily just sell their stuff to someone else or simply decide they don't feel like paying us the ridiculous wages we think we deserve when over a billion starving people will kill each other for $2 day. (And there's plenty of new affluent people in Asia who didn't have anything a generation ago, so we're not needed as customers either). Whew! Anyway, I've joined this forum today not to debate the ideological issues discussed here but hopefully to obtain the help of the members of this forum in testing a new theory I have that I hope at least some of you will find as intriguing as I have since it popped into my head a short time ago.
I got my first glimpses of the "emperor" during the Carter years while I was waiting for him to declassify the Gov't's UFO files and tell us about the aliens (I was 13 years old at the time, mind you,...jeez), and when I saw "him" the first time I piped right up, but got exactly no response from anyone. And when my next encounter with the "emperor" (even more disturbing than the first) again was met by complete refusal by everyone I looked to for clarity to even acknowledge the existence of what concerned me, I found myself set on the path that led me here today. I've spent most of the last 30-some years trying to figure out why it is that everyone seems to know he's naked, and no one talks about it because it would be unpleasant, but won't even consider the possibility that it might be a problem, even when they're at each others throats about who's responsible for all that pubic hair on the banquet table and where that horrid crotch smell is coming from.
Solely for purposes of context I feel I should mention that I was born with a genuine, one-in-several-million, supercharged freakbrain. In fact, for about two months after I not only aced but actually exceeded the IQ test all 2nd graders in CA were given at the time, people all over the world who care about that stuff were abuzz about the discovery of a one-in-a-billion, once in a lifetime prodigy. Alas, 'twasn't so. Long story short, I had been avidly collecting the type of "brain teasers" that make up a big part of the test, and actually had all but one of the questions written on a 3x5 card in a box at home. I had collected so many, in fact, that there were not enough of the conundrums used in these tests left that were novel to create a large enough sample to overcome the tools I had developed for solving them. But there were also parts of the test that were quantitative in nature, and I had pegged those too, when some of the tests were designed to produce one "spike" that would identify which area "genius" was manifesting in (math, language, music, etc.) and in the "spatial awareness" test I had exceeded the limits of the test itself. Amusingly, I also found something in one of their "What's Wrong With This Picture"s that was indeed wrong but not on the list of correct answers (must have been a weird day for the lady who gave me the test).
At any rate, I mention the above not to lay claim to any kind of superiority but because the confluence of fast hardware and a huge "workspace" resulted in an almost entirely "holographic" mental structure. So much so that things that are only taught linearly, or can only be learned linearly, are sometimes almost impossible for me to "grok", while I regularly assemble correct answers out of apparently disparate components, and can create, modify, manipulate and examine complex machines and ideas entirely in my head. What all this means as regards this forum is that, by it's very nature, my brain requires all new pieces of information to be consistent with all of the things relevant to it in the existing structure, and if something "doesn't fit", then both the new and the existing information are examined until it is determined which one is incorrect. Elements that fit but lack sufficient connections to be properly declared "valid" are evaluated and tagged as such, noting they are probationary and limiting conclusions drawn from them, proportionate to their level of verification. This activity is largely "automatic", and the process itself calls my attention to errors and inconsistencies. Constantly. So I cannot avoid seeing the flaws in arguments and positions, or the aspects of the issues being addressed that are not being included in the discussion. Big voids in the network, dangling connections, and alarms going off everywhere (mostly calm, contralto female alarms, but occasional full scale alerts). Since I can't ignore it, and I don't like seeing people hating each other because one party can't see the other's point of view, and what they both missed about the problem they are trying solve often prevents it from actually being solved by either side's solution at all, I wade in. And often end up being attacked by both parties. I often feel like I should be looking for a tea party (the kind with hats and dormice), but i keep trying to help everyone "work it out", 'cuz what else are you going to do?
But enough about me! Turning the whole problem over and over in my head, as I must until I make sense of it all, just recently revealed something very interesting. I believe I may have found a simple, non-judgmental, unbiased, non-partisan single element that is common to apparently every argument, on both sides, and every problem or issue they seek to address. One perspective that can be applied to anything by anyone that will yield insight at least, and possibly simple, mutually satisfactory solutions to problems that seem intractable because of the phenomenon I have observed itself.
I have a couple of essays in the works to present this theory and provide examples of the phenomenon I have observed, how it comes to exist, how it impacts our society, and how those impacts endure and continue to influence our society long after the events that generate each incidence have been forgotten. If nothing else it should provide much vigorous mental exercise and discussion of something everyone is referring to but no one is actually considering.
Watch this space! Much more to come.
