# Food for Thought



## midcan5

Often when I return from the wearying world of daily chores, to seek solace in the profundity that posters share, my mind goes haywire and only strong drugs would make it all better. Maybe it is too much to expect sanity when sanity is so darn confusing. That must be the appeal of science fiction and magic. As a different approach, I picked one quote from several OPs, I'll leave it to the reader to find the article of interest. Guess the topic too. Education and a bit of thought. Enjoy.

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/author/jason-stanley/


"...In France, which has a right to be considered one of the modern birthplaces of the liberal democratic revolution, satire has long had a special role. Satire is the ultimate method by which reason can address power. With the use of satire, even those without control of resources can, with merely the use of a pen, bring figures of authority down to earth."


"...Madison rejected appointing unelected experts to solve the problems raised by factions, and offered, as the best solution to the thorny difficulty of competing interests, the idea of representative government as a way of “controlling its effects.” Madison’s solution to the problem of factionalism is a government of representatives, who are accountable to the people via the mechanism of elections."


"...The fairness of a system of justice is measured by the degree to which its laws are fairly and consistently applied across all citizens. In a fair system, a group is singled out for punishment only insofar as its propensity for unjustified violations of the laws demands."


"We believe that in the enterprise of uncovering truth, the paths of the scientist and the humanist must often intersect. Rather than argue in generalities, we will develop a specific example, though we assume that there are many others like it."

"...Plato argues that we cannot hope the multitude to achieve expertise in the craft of governing. They are too easily misled by sophists. It followed, for Plato, that democracy must be rejected as a just system of governance."


"...The expectation is that any statement made either by a politician or by a media outlet is a false ideological distortion. As a result, no one blames politicians for making false statements or statements that obviously contradict that politician’s beliefs. I believe that the unfolding presidential campaign provides a compelling demonstration of my previous claims."

"Our society is divided into castes based upon a supposed division between theoretical knowledge and practical skill. The college professor holds forth on television, as the plumber fumes about detached ivory tower intellectuals."


"...the claim I am making — that Fox News intentionally uses the slogan “fair and balanced” to undermine trust in news outlets generally — is false: The reality is just that Fox News has successfully tricked a group of gullible viewers into believing something false."


"We might wish politicians and pundits from opposing parties to engage in reasoned debate about the truth, but as we know, this is not the reality of our political discourse."  

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/author/jason-stanley/

"What convinces masses are not facts, and not even invented facts, but only the consistency of the system which they are presumably part. Repetition, somewhat overrated in importance because of the common belief in the masses' inferior capacity to grasp and remember, is important because it convinces them of consistency in time."  Hannah Arendt


By the author,  'How Propaganda Works',  Jason Stanley.


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## midcan5

I wonder if anyone took the challenge or does everyone already know all they need to know. Or think so. lol

How does one know what one knows. Some time ago I had a discussion with a philosopher on folk psychology, now referred to as mind reading, I proposed that there were certain choices friends would make because I knew them well. The philosopher countered that was not possible as knowledge of that sort is a kind of guessing. My example then was voting and I gave my reasons. The counter addressed the reasons and thought of exceptions. Since then I have confirmed my guesses (?). More FFT.

Thinking About Mindreading Mirroring and Embedded Cognition et al 3 AM Magazine

"I do not myself believe that many people do things because they think they are the right thing to do . . . . I do not think that knowledge of what is morally right is motivational in any serious sense for anyone except a handful of saints."  Richard Posner

.


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## waltky

Too much wasted food makes for the world's hungry...

*Up to Half of World's Food Goes to Waste*
_ September 17, 2015 - The statistic has been repeated so often, it might have lost its potency: up to half of the food the world produces is thrown out, rather than eaten._


> But wasteful consumers in wealthy nations are not the only culprits. Poor countries, too, are tossing out perfectly good food, sometimes at the same scale, according to Elliot Woolley, lecturer in sustainable manufacturing at Loughborough University in Britain.  What’s notable, though, is that developed and developing countries have different causes and solutions for their waste, whether it’s food or any other items that could wind up in landfills.
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> A CropMobster gleaning, collecting leftover crops from farmers' fields to avoid food waste.
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> In poor places like Chad, Woolley said, food is usually lost while still in the field or during storage and transportation, thanks to business inefficiencies. Once the produce is sold, families tend to eat everything they buy. That’s in contrast to British, American, and other consumers, who discard as much as half of their food purchases.  “I think this is a disgrace,” Woolley said Wednesday at the 13th annual Global Conference on Sustainable Manufacturing, this year hosted by the Vietnamese-German University.
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> Similarly, rich and poor nations have different ways of preventing waste -- in other words, recycling. Australia and Britain, for instance, recycle 30-40 percent of their garbage, compared with just 10-20 percent in Vietnam and Malaysia, said Brendan Moloney, a doctoral candidate in engineering at Australian National University.  And yet in the latter countries recyclers make far more money, Moloney said in a presentation at the conference, because infrastructure costs are lower, as are wages among the informal sector of trash pickers. Plus, some recyclables like glass and metals can fetch international prices, no matter the geography where they’re retrieved.  “You end up with a much more profitable industry in emerging markets,” Moloney said.
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> Smartphones and full pantries
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> Such variation among countries calls for tailor-made solutions. Woolley’s answer to food waste? There’s an app for that. He built the “Pantry App” to help users track their groceries, which he said cut food waste by 34 percent.  The results were based on a very limited experiment, monitoring food over the course of one week. The app would inform people of how many groceries they bought, when they expired, and how to combine remaining ingredients through recipe tips.
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> MORE


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## Damaged Eagle

*****CHUCKLE*****


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## Mr. H.

_"...The fairness of a system of justice is measured by the degree to which its laws are fairly and consistently applied across all citizens. In a fair system, a group is singled out for punishment only insofar as its propensity for unjustified violations of the laws demands."_

African Americans and Muslim Americans come to mind...


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## Votto

Mr. H. said:


> _"...The fairness of a system of justice is measured by the degree to which its laws are fairly and consistently applied across all citizens. In a fair system, a group is singled out for punishment only insofar as its propensity for unjustified violations of the laws demands."_
> 
> African Americans and Muslim Americans come to mind...


 
Politics is anything but fair.  After all, if they treated everyone the same, who would support them?

Politics is completly dependent upon allowing one group to get an advantage over another.  Politics only survives via inequality.


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## Igrok_

too large article to read


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## midcan5

While I have a book entry thought I'd add this book here. Not an easy read if you think humans are thoughtful rational primates. 

'Humanity: A Moral History of the Twentieth Century'   by Jonathan Glover

Humanity: A Moral History of the Twentieth Century by Jonathan Glover

This too:  'Psychology: A Concise Introduction & Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers'  Richard A. Griggs,  Robert M. Sapolsky
Psycholgy: A Concise Introduction & Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers by Richard A. Griggs


"We first kill people with our minds, before we kill them with weapons. Whatever the conflict, the enemy is always the destroyer. We're on God's side; they're barbaric. We're good, they're evil. War gives us a feeling of moral clarity that we lack at other times." Sam Keen


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