Post by pepperpot on Jul 23, 2023 12:03:09 GMT
Well, heatwaves raging around the world, so it must be time for my annual rant. The UK is currently spared the problems of our EU, US and Asian counterparts due to the postition of a meandering jet stream, which is another symptom of the same problem. As the temperature differential between the pole and equator reduces, there’s less to keep it confined to it’s usual range. The more it meanders, the more stretched out and weaker it is and therefore less likely to push things along, resulting in heat domes, increased risk of wild fires and suffering.
That’s a condensed amalgamation of the story available from various sources (such as here, here and others). The crux of the results presented were a drop in mortality from over 18% to under 2% in the months following the start of chlorine hand washing.
I tried to cover too much last year, trying to get everything across all in one go ended up being unfocused and confusing, so I’ll take it one step at a time, starting at the same place but expanding and honing in. First though, a little story around the use of the word nonsense, as I’m sure there’ll be a point you’ll feel it’s allure.
In 1847, Ignaz Semmelweis a Hungarian obstetrician working in Vienna, noted that more women died of puerperal fever (now known to be a strep infection) 4-6 days after giving birth in the maternity ward serviced by doctors, compared to a second maternity ward serviced by midwives. These women were then autopsied by the doctors teaching students and no-one wore gloves. They would sometimes then go straight to the delivery room to assist other births without washing their hands. Then a fellow physician and good friend of Semmelweis accidentally cut his finger while performing one of these autopsies and displayed similar symptoms prior to his demise 6 days later. Semmelweis concluded that the disease could be transferred from a cadaver to the future victims. He urged people to simply wash their hands with lightly chlorinated water.
Although there was support for his theory from some of his contemporaries who adopted the new practice, the health authorities in Vienna favoured the long established notions that ‘bad air’ was the problem, more ventilation was the solution and that dirty hands were an indicator of diligent hard work. Vienna rejected his ideas. After two years of being at odds with the authorities, the Viennese medical establishment imposed humiliating restrictions on his continued tenure, so he left. Still trying to get his views aired in Vienna for the sake of ‘maternal mortality’, he became increasingly angry and frustrated at the lack of action on what he thought was an obvious solution to clear findings, which began to have a detrimental affect on his mental health. He ended his days in an insane asylum, in a darkly poetic and ironic way, from an infected wound. Only to be vindicated by Germ Theory that emerged during the 1860’s from Louis Pasteur and peers.
Although there was support for his theory from some of his contemporaries who adopted the new practice, the health authorities in Vienna favoured the long established notions that ‘bad air’ was the problem, more ventilation was the solution and that dirty hands were an indicator of diligent hard work. Vienna rejected his ideas. After two years of being at odds with the authorities, the Viennese medical establishment imposed humiliating restrictions on his continued tenure, so he left. Still trying to get his views aired in Vienna for the sake of ‘maternal mortality’, he became increasingly angry and frustrated at the lack of action on what he thought was an obvious solution to clear findings, which began to have a detrimental affect on his mental health. He ended his days in an insane asylum, in a darkly poetic and ironic way, from an infected wound. Only to be vindicated by Germ Theory that emerged during the 1860’s from Louis Pasteur and peers.
That’s a condensed amalgamation of the story available from various sources (such as here, here and others). The crux of the results presented were a drop in mortality from over 18% to under 2% in the months following the start of chlorine hand washing.
Why were the people who’s job was facilitating care in their region, not able to acknowledge, or understand, what they were being told? His suggestion was adopted back in Budapest, whilst in Austria ‘bad air’ continued as the general knowledge / acceptable opinion and in turn, as the basis for not changing hospital policy. In Budapest, they were washing their hands, but in Vienna the negative view of his ideas spread and were even denounced in academic journals.
Quote from the Britannica link above: “Vienna remained hostile toward him, and the editor of the Wiener Medizinische Wochenschrift wrote that it was time to stop the nonsense about the chlorine hand wash.”
The hunch, the idea, the trial using scientific method to record the results, the conclusions, along with the presenter presenting the theory, were all the same in both cities, however the reaction was quite different. There was a hurdle in the way of this radical new view being adopted universally based on facts and evidence alone. The well documented political turmoil in 1840’s Europe, that in fact lead to the Austrian empire splitting into Austria and Hungary, obviously had proponents on both sides of the argument. Semmelweis was politically aligned with Budapest, being the region of his birth. Anyone not politically on side or ‘in group’ can be viewed with suspicion. Imagine a Russian doctor telling National Health England about something as radical as the need to wash hands and you get the idea. It’s easy to imagine the health authorities first priority would be to check for Novichok in the bottle marked Chlorine.
If we’re not free, or capable, to analytically assess any idea, hunch or evidence without these, or other such hurdles, we’re doing a disservice to what scientific method can reveal. Positive progress and lives can be lost unnecessarily as a result.
If we’re not free, or capable, to analytically assess any idea, hunch or evidence without these, or other such hurdles, we’re doing a disservice to what scientific method can reveal. Positive progress and lives can be lost unnecessarily as a result.
So what are the hurdles in the way of ‘just stop burning stuff’? There are many… and when conscious thought is buried in the operational logistics of a market economy, they can seem entirely legitimate. Economic hurdles and political hurdles both go to serve the same function. Obfuscation when trying to interpret, or comprehend, presented data. The huge amount of scientific work, that includes the IPCC report, resulted in some quite clear information... Climate change > it’s real, it’s us, it’s bad, it’s fixable. The suggested reduction of worldwide emissions from 2022 to 2030 is a rate of 7% per annum. That is compound with no ‘hiccups’ or back steps. It’s also not to keep below 1.5℃ warming, but below the disastrous 2℃ or above. Current policy is on course to exceed 2.7℃ and that’s if we manage to stick to it. To put the IPCC suggestion into context, the reduction from 2019 to the lockdown filled 2020 is estimated at 6%. We recovered from that particular hiccup though. The scientific suggestion of ‘it’s fixable’ is a very simple and clinical statement, but so is the statement that all smokers can quit smoking tomorrow, it tells you nothing about it’s likelihood. So, are we fixing it, or are we opening new coal mines in Cumbria?
Might the facts that new jobs will be created, and as most of the production is projected as being for export, an increase in positive trade balance between UK and ROW, which will go in a small way to improving our economic standing, have had any sway on the not so sensible decision to add to the supply of more stuff to burn?
Anyway, on with the task at hand. If we don’t look to fix the fundamentals, the problems arising from them will always appear. We’re playing whack-a-mole by treating the symptoms not the causes. So... Don’t blame the player, blame the game. A quick re-cap and an expansion.
Take a baby Adolf Hitler and place him into a Tibetan monastery for childhood development. Would he have still turned out to be an angry anti-Semitic Nazi… seems highly doubtful to me, his personality would likely have a lot more ‘Tibetan monk’ about it. So don’t blame Hitler per say, blame the societal conditions that allows Hitler’s to flourish. The Hitler we recognise isn’t solely to blame, he learned to be the way he was from the sum total of his experiences garnered from the society he was exposed to. No French baby was ever born understanding the French language, no Jewish baby was ever born with any concept of religion, no Londoner was ever born with a cockney accent. Everything is learned. We all learn to be the way we are and think the way we do. We’re all shaped by our individual set of societal experiences. Society is made up of all our contributions to it. We all shape each other to one degree or another, albeit through many degrees of separation.
Take a baby Adolf Hitler and place him into a Tibetan monastery for childhood development. Would he have still turned out to be an angry anti-Semitic Nazi… seems highly doubtful to me, his personality would likely have a lot more ‘Tibetan monk’ about it. So don’t blame Hitler per say, blame the societal conditions that allows Hitler’s to flourish. The Hitler we recognise isn’t solely to blame, he learned to be the way he was from the sum total of his experiences garnered from the society he was exposed to. No French baby was ever born understanding the French language, no Jewish baby was ever born with any concept of religion, no Londoner was ever born with a cockney accent. Everything is learned. We all learn to be the way we are and think the way we do. We’re all shaped by our individual set of societal experiences. Society is made up of all our contributions to it. We all shape each other to one degree or another, albeit through many degrees of separation.
The best logical description I’ve seen, from an academic background, on the nature vs nurture argument is along the lines of;
1) Cognitive thoughts and actions are a response to accumulated societal experiences. Non-cognitive, or ‘reactive’ thoughts and actions are a biological response to anything that constitutes ‘environmental’ input, primarily through one of the 5 senses, but also to things such as fear from being threatened, triggering fight or flight.
Another interesting train of thought, from a scientific background, is more cautious;
2) The question of nature vs nurture doesn’t have a binary answer, it’s how they interact with each other. The same way as the area of a rectangle can’t be calculated from either the length or the width. You can’t understand the whole without input from both vectors.
1) Cognitive thoughts and actions are a response to accumulated societal experiences. Non-cognitive, or ‘reactive’ thoughts and actions are a biological response to anything that constitutes ‘environmental’ input, primarily through one of the 5 senses, but also to things such as fear from being threatened, triggering fight or flight.
Another interesting train of thought, from a scientific background, is more cautious;
2) The question of nature vs nurture doesn’t have a binary answer, it’s how they interact with each other. The same way as the area of a rectangle can’t be calculated from either the length or the width. You can’t understand the whole without input from both vectors.
Whatever is closest to reality, societal conditions always play a part, as it’s highly implausible that someone as angry as Hitler could ever emerge from a calm, peaceful and contemplative environment. Also, if the society around someone ‘born evil’ was calm and peaceful, that person wouldn’t have the opportunity to rise to the level that Hitler got to. So, unless you think it’s possible for Hitler-like personalities to flourish in monastic environments, don’t blame the player, blame the game seems to be a perfectly valid logical concept. It’s firstly based on ‘nurture’ constantly having an influence, or laying down new information, on the biological mechanics of ‘nature’. Secondly, on certain personality ‘phenotypes’ either being encouraged/respected and therefore flourish, or discouraged/disrespected and therefore suppressed, by the rest of the society around them.
So that’s a fuller explanation of the concept. In the spirit of scientific methodology, everything is always open to being corrected, updated or superseded/disregarded. So is there anything incomprehensible, that doesn’t make sense, or is something missing? In order to disregard the idea as incorrect the counter argument would need to hold more water than the concept. So what does the argument of blame the player, don’t blame the game, look like?
That’s one for you to ponder and if you come up with an argument that’s more convincing for why we should in fact blame the player 100% I’d be interested in hearing it.
One of the fundamental problems is, we do blame the player.
That’s one for you to ponder and if you come up with an argument that’s more convincing for why we should in fact blame the player 100% I’d be interested in hearing it.
One of the fundamental problems is, we do blame the player.
When a crime is committed it seems entirely right to try and protect everyone from the likelihood that the offender could commit further crimes against others. But if we don’t blame the player, is the murderer, the drug trafficker… or for that matter, the lawyer that stood as their defence... to blame for their actions, if said actions are a response to their particular set of experiences in/of society? Don’t blame the player would now seem to be absolving the wrong doing of an individual. But if blame shouldn’t be attributed to the person committing the crime and/or atrocity, how do we enact rule of law?
The rule of law is an integral part of our way of life, ignoring it would have drastic consequences and don’t blame the player seems a solid piece of logic. It seems we either go with one, or the other, you can’t uphold them both because they’re contradictory. In order to continue keeping the lid on anarchy, as it were, we’re forced into upholding the rule of law and suppressing, or ignoring, the logic of don’t blame the player.
The rule of law is an integral part of our way of life, ignoring it would have drastic consequences and don’t blame the player seems a solid piece of logic. It seems we either go with one, or the other, you can’t uphold them both because they’re contradictory. In order to continue keeping the lid on anarchy, as it were, we’re forced into upholding the rule of law and suppressing, or ignoring, the logic of don’t blame the player.
Any pre-meditated crime/atrocity would seem to be almost entirely cognitive, therefore societal influences would have a greater weight in shaping the ‘criminal’. So is it not the societal conditions we create from our collective actions that should hold the larger portion of responsibility. Cause and effect. It could be considered that blaming the individual for their crime is treating the symptom, not the cause. Logic would suggest that the cause is the derived learning from the sum total of experiences when interacting with, and being influenced by, others and the various rules/systems we have.
The rule of law places sole blame on the action of the offender and the offender pays the price. Don’t blame the player places the majority of blame on the societal conditions that shape the offenders and their actions, aka on us all, or at least the netting off of all our collective contributions. The former is convenient from a logistical perspective, as who would judge society. A supernatural entity in the sky, perhaps. Just because it might be difficult, doesn’t reduce it’s importance. The current system doesn’t appear to be a logical basis for a truly just society, as blame is being apportioned solely at the surface and non at the root. The result of a culture that upholds the rule of law is that it’s blaming the individual and absolving the fact that everyone contributes to the societal conditions that shape that individual.
The rule of law places sole blame on the action of the offender and the offender pays the price. Don’t blame the player places the majority of blame on the societal conditions that shape the offenders and their actions, aka on us all, or at least the netting off of all our collective contributions. The former is convenient from a logistical perspective, as who would judge society. A supernatural entity in the sky, perhaps. Just because it might be difficult, doesn’t reduce it’s importance. The current system doesn’t appear to be a logical basis for a truly just society, as blame is being apportioned solely at the surface and non at the root. The result of a culture that upholds the rule of law is that it’s blaming the individual and absolving the fact that everyone contributes to the societal conditions that shape that individual.
Maintaining order through the implementation of law, is one of our fundamental principles. It’s intent is that we can strive to live in a just and peaceful society, but we’ll continue to have to deal as best we can with the fallout from misappropriation, until we tackle the root cause of the problem. The first step to dealing with a problem, is recognising that it exists in the first place.
It doesn’t matter what tweaks are made to a system, if it’s fundamentally flawed, it’ll keep producing problems.
It doesn’t matter what tweaks are made to a system, if it’s fundamentally flawed, it’ll keep producing problems.
in me says...
