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Posted on August 12th, 2008 by Mayur.
Categories: History & Politics.
This response from Mayur deserved posting all on its own:
“Perhaps certain men are simply pre-disposed to putting their hand in the cookie jar more than others. Perhaps its simple brain chemistry and evolution to blame.
Newsweek’s recent article on: “His Cheating Brain” offers a slightly different perspective. More specifically: monoamine oxidase A and testosterone may be the true culprits…. I summarize:
1. Many fallen politicians fit a personality type known as a “sensation seeker,” defined in the early 1970s. Sensation seekers crave novel and intense experiences more than other people do, and, as part of that, they tend to have many sexual partners. “They get a bigger kick out of things,” says Marvin Zuckerman, a pioneering psychologist and author of the 2006 book “Sensation Seeking and Risky Behavior.” There’s chemical evidence: sensation seekers have lower levels of monoamine oxidase A, which regulates the brain’s levels of dopamine, the “pleasure” neurotransmitter.
The problem is that they never seem to get enough excitement. “Their experiences have to be either very new or very intense, or both, or else they get very restless,” says Zuckerman. “When things get monotonous, they have to do something else to increase their arousal.” That’s the flipside of finding pleasure more pleasurable: for sensation seekers, boredom is also more boring.
2. Alpha males are high on testosterone, the hormone that underlies almost all the typical traits of the politico-sexual animal: high levels of testosterone make for a high sex drive, a love of risks, aggressiveness and competitiveness. “These people have a strong need to win at games, which is obviously important in power politics,” says Zuckerman.
Although it is still inexcusable behaviour, perhaps this perspective offers our politico-sexual animals a little bit of sympathy?”
Posted on August 8th, 2008 by Phil.
Categories: Philosophy & Spirituality, History & Politics.
What is it about people wanting what they know damn well they can’t have? Yes, this post was inspired by our friend Johnny Edwards getting called out for his extra-marital antics, but that’s just the tip of the tentacle. Having an affair is just about par for the course if you’re a politician, but considering the consequences of getting caught - and they almost always do - it staggers the imagination that so many still can’t keep their hands out of the cookie jar.
Something about human nature leads many people to covet that which they do not have, whether they really want it or not. It’s hard to come across someone that is truly happy with exactly what they have, and doesn’t want anything more. Bijan hit the nail on the head with his posting on happiness. We have access to more technology, more luxury, more of everything material thing than ever before in history - yet people still want more than they ever have before, and are less happy than they used to be. We focus to much on the negative, and need to embrace the positive.
What does it take to be happy? It is about having less and wanting less? Should we all become monks? Probably not. At the end of the day, I don’t know the answer, so the search continues…. For now I’ll just try to be mindful of the difference between needs and desires, be thankful for what I have, and maintain a balanced perspective. I’ll let you know how it goes 
Posted on August 1st, 2008 by Bijan.
Categories: Media & Entertainment, Philosophy & Spirituality, History & Politics, Arts & Literature.
What is with the world these days? It is no question that death and violence will always sell like sex. We have an masochistic craving for morbidity and, whether we pretend to ignore it or not, we always take a peek. But what is most shocking, perhaps, is that we are constantly fed such slop not so much from entertainment media, but our own news outlets. Instead of really focusing on the issues that are affecting the state of our nation and world as a whole, we are continuously driving ourselves into a world of depression.
I like The Christian Science Monitor because it displays extremely relevant news. Don’t be frightened by its name - the website strictly states that it is not religious. From their website:
Everything in the Monitor is international and US news and features, except for one religious article that has appeared each day in The Home Forum section since 1908, at the request of the paper’s founder, Mary Baker Eddy.
It is important that we all keep a positive outlook on ourselves and our lives at all times. There are so many scenarios in which the famous FDR “only thing to fear is fear itself” quote is relevant. We will not be able to find our way out of a war, economic crisis and environmental disaster if we simply keep thinking about how sad we are and what a ‘terrible’ world we live in. Failures must be educational and successes must be celebrated.
Posted on July 28th, 2008 by Phil.
Categories: History & Politics, Business & Finance.
This morning the White House finally disclosed figures on what is a predicted record deficit of $490 billion for the 2009 budget year. Well actually, they didn’t officially disclose anything. The information was leaked by senior officials, anonymously.
The federal deficit is the difference between what the government spends and what it takes in from taxes and other revenue sources. The deficit would amount to roughly 3.5 percent of the nation’s $14 trillion economy. The government must borrow money to make up the difference. Just what we need, more debt!
President Bush inherited a budget surplus of $128 billion when he took office in 2001 but has since posted a budget deficit every year. The Bush administration has spent heavily on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and faces a large budget shortfall in tax revenue because of Bush’s tax cuts and a souring economy. What great leadership. I personally think he should have been impeached ages ago and should currently be serving prison time for fraud, corruption, gross negligence, and crimes against humanity, but that’s just my opinion.
A Democratic point man on the budget, Sen. Kent Conrad of North Dakota, blasted the administration for its “reckless fiscal policies,” blaming the president’s tax cuts for driving the government into deficit and saying Bush “will be remembered as the most fiscally irresponsible president in our nation’s history.”
Conrad, who chairs the Senate’s budget committee, accused the president of “squandering” the deficit he inherited from President Bill Clinton and said the increased debt the government has taken on to cover the deficit has undermined the value of the dollar and hurt the overall economy. “If they gave out Olympic medals for fiscal irresponsibility, President Bush would take the gold, silver and bronze,” Conrad said. “With his eight years in office, he will have had the five highest deficits ever recorded. And the highest of those deficits is now projected to come in 2009, as he leaves office.”
White House officials countered by saying that the budgetary problems stem from inadequate defense, intelligence and homeland security resources that were handed down from Clinton. Of course, that makes total sense. We didn’t have nearly enough aircraft carriers, so no wonder the economy went to shit. More military spending must be a cure-all for everything. It certainly worked for the Soviet Union during the cold war. Wait…
Posted on July 23rd, 2008 by Phil.
Categories: Philosophy & Spirituality, History & Politics, Business & Finance.
Inspired by a dinner conversation I had this week, I’ve decided to provide all of you with some not very often discussed facts about the nature of religion in the good old US of A. This information is well researched, very disturbing, and merits a moment of consideration.
Let us begin with a simple recap of how religion came to the country… by boat, running for its life and seeking refuge. The US was forged by people fleeing persecution in their home countries, most often because their sects were considered too fringe to be accepted by the mainstream faiths. Considering the general religious attitude in 18th Century Europe, being too “out there” for the mainstream is a scary thought. English, Scottish, Irish and Welsh Puritans, Baptists, Quakers, and Presbyterians packed up and headed west. Jews, Huguenots, Calvinists, Mennonites, Anabaptists, Dunkers, Salzburgers, and the Amish grabbed their goods and hit the road. A kaleidoscope of sects, nearly all of which were considered too extreme in their view to be accepted at home fled the scene and crossed the Atlantic.
As a result, though the predominant belief structure was and still is still rooted in Christianity, the US has never had one unified national faith. Because of this, a great degree of freedom was allowed to nearly all faiths, and it became a giant round-robin battle to see which ones would predominate and which would wither. The result has been a myriad of faiths, each deeply rooted in their own belief structure, and each very tightly knit and constantly looking to expand their numbers and increase their power.
The examples are too many to summarize, so I offer one here. The Mormons. All hail Salt Lake City! This faith was founded by Joseph Smith, who claimed that the angel Moroni had come to him in a vision, and told him that America was the new chosen land, and the Mormons the new chosen people. Smith claimed that the angel had told him that the New Jerusalem would be in the US, and that it would specifically be in the area near Independence, Missouri. So they set up shop and settled in. Shortly thereafter, Smith was imprisoned and ultimately killed in jail, thwarting his true goal - to run for President of the United States. Needless to say, the remaining believers had to leave their “new Jerusalem”; and led by their new messiah, Brigham Young, they headed west. Young eventually claimed that he too had been visited by an angel, had a vision, and that in fact the new Jerusalem was not in Missouri but rather in Utah. Salt Lake City became their new home. His reasoning was that the geography of the three key feature of the area, the Great Salt Lake, the River Jordan, and Utah Lake, resembled an upside down map of the biblical land of Gaililee, with its River Jordan, and the Dead Sea. I guess that was good enough for the people at the time. The Mormons are now the leading power in Utah and a significant force in about five surrounding states. They still believe that when the world ends, those in their numbers will be the only ones saved by God and taken to heaven. They keep the names of all of the true believers on scrolls, hidden in the Utah mountain surrounding Salt Lake. They also ask all members of the faith to pay to the church 10% of their annual income.
The story of the Mormons is pretty common and fairly middle of the road one compared to many faiths. A good number are founded on belief systems much less plausible, by even more suspect leaders, and are rather transparent in their goals for power and money. Fundamentalist religion is big business. Always has been, and sadly, probably always will be. People living in big cities don’t see and don’t hear about the massive revival meetings going on in the “red states”, where tens of thousands congregate to shake, quake, speak in tongues, and give money to the faith. Remember the scene in Borat where he attends one of these tent sessions. That was small potatoes compared to the real big ones. Books on “End Times”, or Armageddon are selling like hot cakes, pulling in countless millions for their promoters. Not hard to believe when 60% of Christians in the US believe that the Book of Revelations will play out sometime soon, and 45% truly believe that the world will end in an Armageddon battle between Jesus Christ and the Antichrist. We’ve all seen televangelists, but do you realize how much cash they make? Even disgraced evangelical leaders like Ted Haggard, who admitted to gay sex with a male prostitute he was buying crystal meth from, are still walking away with mountains of cash.
This is not the few and far between – this is the mainstream in much of America. It is also not a declining trend, it is on the rise.
A few facts for you - all directly from polls taken by Newsweek, Gallup, Time, CNN, and Fox News.
Percentage of Americans who believe:
In the devil: 75%
In hell: 77%
In God’s creation of the earth in six days: 61%
That the bible literally accurate: 55%
That the story of Noah’s Ark is literally accurate: 60%
I don’t know about you, but that scares the shit out of me. It’s 2008, and a solid portion of the nation is strongly backing Armageddon prophecy and literal biblical interpretation. People who believe that America is God’s chosen country, and that we are his chosen people. People that elected George W. Bush into power. Our buddy “W” may be a former alcoholic, cocaine abuser, and life-long underachiever, but he’s also a born-again fundamentalist Christian. Apparently God showed him the wickedness of his ways, and its all good now. Well at least he hasn’t been the leader of an administration rooted in a radical religion, wrapping a vehemently militant, sexist and homophobic vision in patriotic and religious rhetoric. Wait a second…
Don’t be afraid to talk about these things with people. The fact that people are afraid to openly discuss issues of religion in modern society is a detriment to us all. If we are to avoid falling into a deep dark hole of bigotry and fear, we need to voice our opinions.
We also need to do our research. I’ve done mine. If you think I’m wrong, let’s talk about it.
Posted on June 24th, 2008 by Myk.
Categories: Media & Entertainment, Travel & Leisure, History & Politics, Business & Finance.
I’ve been remiss in writing on VM lately…but fear not friends….we continue to look for random, intellectually stimulating, and fascinating pieces of information to share. Check out THIS link! It’s a section of www.newseum.org ’s site, which is a museum in DC that follows the history and development of journalism. The link takes you to today’s Front Page of 575 newspapers. Think about that…these guys compile the up-to-the-day info on what media outlets around the world are writing about.
For all those who lament the US media’s spin and banal topics, you can check out what the topics du jour are in Le Monde or the Moscow Times. The site also provides analysis of what newspapers are writing about on a given day (what’s interesting in many ways is what they are NOT writing about)…
So read all about it folks!
Posted on June 9th, 2008 by Phil.
Categories: Philosophy & Spirituality, History & Politics, Definitions.
No one ever learns as much from their successes as from their failures. It is failure, not success, that makes us who we are. Failure builds character, failure fosters appreciation and respect, failure is the pathway to greatness.
Most billionaires have at one point gone bankrupt, most great athletes have lost more often than they have won, most businesses major businesses have struggled before they have prospered, most artists have been shunned before being sought after. Failure is a teacher.
Some of failures previous students:
• Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard’s early failed products included a lettuce-picking machine and an electric weight-loss machine
• Michael Jordan was cut from his high school basketball team
• Ray Krok failed as a real estate salesperson before discovering the McDonald’s idea.
• Walt Disney was fired by the editor of a newspaper because he had “no good ideas”
• When Thomas Edison was a boy, his teacher told him he was too stupid to learn anything
• R.H. Macy failed 7 times before his store in New York caught on
• Albert Einstein was four-years-old before he spoke and was advised many times to drop out of high school and university
• Steven Spielberg dropped out of high school in his sophomore year and when he was persuaded to come back, he was placed in a learning disabled class. He lasted one month.
• Henry Ford’s first two automobile businesses failed
• F. W. Woolworth got a job in a dry good store when he was 21, but his employer would not let him wait on customers because he “didn’t have enough business sense.”
• Winston Churchill had a reputation as a dunce, failed the entrance examination at prep school, failed the entrance test to Sandhurst Military College twice.
• Charles Darwin was voted the “dullest boy of the year”, and his poor performance in school forced him to give up plans of a medical career.
• Lord Keynes failed so many times in his economics class that the Principal had to send for his parents.
The list could go on indefinitely. The one common thing that makes these failures famous, however, is that the people involved dusted themselves off, learned from their mistakes, and found their success. Failure can be a brutal friend, but it must be embraced and valued. It is the flip side of the coin, and one cannot exist without the other.
I can tell you without hesitation that I would not be who I am today without the massive failures that I have encountered. I am thankful for all of them. To quote the late, great Dicky Fox – “To be honest, in life I have failed as much as I have succeeded. But I love my life, I love my wife, and I wish you my kind of success.”
Posted on May 30th, 2008 by Bijan.
Categories: Philosophy & Spirituality, History & Politics, Science & Technology.
One Man, One Earth?
Needless to say, man is no longer confined to the planet Earth. Just last Sunday , the US completed its 6th successful landing on the surface of Mars. So the “one Earth” part is now obsolete.
But what about the “one Man” part? Just today, CNN released photos taken by The National Indian Foundation, part of the Brazilian government, of a tribe in the Amazon that is one of many small civilizations classified as “uncontacted tribes.” Such tribes have had very little or no contact with the outside world, which is immediately evident in the mere 6 photos that were released. The tribesmen are painted head to toe – some in an orange paste and a few completely black. It’s not surprising that the images conjure up thoughts of pre-human Neanderthals, covered in fur and more reminiscent of a “Planet of the Apes” character than a human being. Perhaps the most moving part of the photos is the fact that the tribesmen are aiming their weapons (most likely bows and arrows) at the low-flying aircraft and are shying back in utter confusion and fear. Its remarkable that while on one side of the planet, we sit casually at computers sporting some of the world’s most sophisticated technology, with cellular phones in our pockets running on microchips the size of a fingernail, while there are civilizations that are still living in virtually the same ways that pre-human beings did. Yet we are all still “one Man.” Or are we…?
By all means, it is fascinating to zoom out and trace back the ancestry of Homo Sapiens, watching the evolution of monkey to man. Under five broad classifications beginning with Early Australopithecus, Mid Australopithecus, and ending in Early, Mid and Late Homo, there are seventeen distinct, identifiable genus’ of so called “early human.” But a few scientists are getting bored with that. They want to go forward in time, and see where man is yet to go.
A six-page article by msnbc titled Human Evolution at the Crossroads questions whether or not evolutionary theory includes the possibility of such “spin-off” human species to develop in the future. The natural argument against this theory is the fact that, as illustrated by Darwin’s Finches , evolution dictates that change is the result of divergence of traits – a reaction to variety. In today’s day and age, we’re seeing more and more convergence of human characteristics as the daily life of an average human being becomes more and more homogenized. But Evolution never ends. From images of humans with mildly different genetic capabilities or traits to the idea of completely alien beings capable of wandering freely through space, the possibilities are endless. Sure, it may sound like a bad Spielberg flick, but who knows? These guys think they have an idea…
Scientists, evolutionary biologists and anthropologists alike have formulated a few predictions about the future of the human race. In particular, there are 5 distinct categories that they have created:
Unihuman (~ 1m yrs) – The Unihuman is the result of the eventual “assimilation of the world,” resulting from the breakdown of racial divides and prejudices, and the creation of a single, homogenous race.
Survivalistian (~1.9m yrs) - Survivalistian is the result of a global catastrophe. Be it nuclear war or an asteroid colliding with the earth, the uniform Unihuman race will be once again dispersed and forced to adapt to their new, hostile environment.
Numan (~2.6m yrs) – Spawned from small, germ-like genetic modifications, the Numans are a small “mini-species” with advanced capabilities and features. Numan hybrids and natural humans differ in genetic alteration beliefs and most likely encounter more conflict than harmony.
Cyborg (~3m yrs) – As the name suggests, the cyborgs are born from the eventual acceptance of physical robotic enhancements. Though not physically inheretable themselves, the robotic enhancements reduce the body’s natural immune system leading to ever more dependency on robotics and even the spawn of AI (artificial intelligence) races that compete with their human creators.
Astrian (~4.1m yrs) – This is the Alien. A result of millions of years of genetic and robotic enhancements, the Astrian can literally pause its vital systems and endure millennia-long journeys to other galaxies, only to re-awaken once they arrive.
Click here for an interactive chart of our past and our future.
Again, a Spielberg flick. But hey, who’s to say we can’t imagine? The ancestors of humans such as Homo Heidelberger who lived only 400,000 years in the past could never even fathom what the future of their race would eventually be (although they could fathom that a rock at the end of a stick could make a pretty effective hammer; lucky for us.) Either way, I think it is important for us to note that not only is the universe very, very, very young, but we are merely a glimmer in the vast scope of time. Man is just the beginning of what is to come and as soon as we begin to forget this, we’re only preparing ourselves for a more intense rude awakening.
Posted on May 13th, 2008 by Phil.
Categories: History & Politics, Business & Finance.
According to the Kuwaiti Finance Minister, Gulf states are considering dropping their pegs to the dollar after the U.S. currency’s decline stoked inflation across the region. What that means in short is that the dollar will be less relevant in the world, and less transactions will be done in dollars. Ultimately, oil and gas transactions that total trillions of dollars per year, could no longer be handled in dollars.
Inflation is running close to 10 percent in Saudi Arabia and the U.A.E., while Qatar’s consumer prices rose 14 percent in the fourth quarter. The Kuwaiti dinar has appreciated 7.9 percent against the dollar since the nation in May became the only Gulf Arab state to drop its peg to the U.S. currency. Worked for them, so others are seriously considering the move.
More so, all of the GCC states, apart from Oman, are planning to form a single Gulf currency by 2010. The group’s central bank governors will meet in June in an attempt to get the project back on schedule. My guess is that all of this will take some time to really fall into place, but sooner than later, the dollar will be out and the Gulf will have an EU style currency of its own. One of many signs that the US is becoming less important in the world, and other regions are growing in power, autonomy and relevance.
Posted on April 21st, 2008 by Phil.
Categories: History & Politics, Philanthropy & Environment.
I am never happier than when I am in the water. Surfing in the ocean, swimming in a pool, soaking in a bathtub. I keep a cooler of cold water near by bed so I have a constant supply, day and night. I live in an area where it rains about 60 inches each year, and I can be at the beach in less than ten minutes. In my life, water is abundant.
It is not the same for everyone. For many, getting water is a constant struggle. Water to drink… water to clean… water to keep plants alive… water to grow food… It is a matter of life and death.
I’m sure any of you reading this are aware of this fact. But here are some in some interesting facts to color in your knowledge of what issues our world faces in regards to good old H20:
Editor’s Note (Myk): if you didn’t believe Phil that water is important to him, check out our rotating quote today at www.vitruvianventures.com. This is what I believe is called synchrodestiny :).
