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Monday, December 29, 2014

Waiting for "God"

Preserving this because the comments section on H+ seems to have vanished.

Waiting for "God"

A lady lives along a flooded river. She takes her chair up to the roof as the rains continue to fall and the river keeps rising.
A man in a jeep comes by and offers her a ride to safety. “God will save me” she replies. “I’m waiting for him.”
Two hours later, the water is up to her windows. A couple in a boat see her and offer her a ride to safety. “I’m waiting for god” she answers.
Four hours later, the water is up to her roof, the house is creaking, and a coast guard helicopter drops a basket to her. She waves them away. “I’m waiting for god!” she yells up to them until they finally shrug and flay away.
After her house collapses, she drowns, and gets to heaven, she looks at God and asks “I was waiting for you, why did you never come?”
God looks at her and says “I sent a jeep, a boat, and a helicopter, why didn’t you get on?”
Replace god with “Singularity” “Friendly AI” “Benevolent superhumans” etc, it makes no difference.
At the quantum level, everything happens. For every interaction, every choice is taken. A “supreme being” aware of everything everywhere (the definition of omniscient) would thus be aware that every event occurs, every action is taken, every path trodden in one or another infinite parallel quantum states.
Which makes any action on it’s part towards any particular speck of dust in the infinite multiverse a wasted effort.
“Waiting for god” means you’ve abandoned personal responsibility. You’ve decided to do nothing, instead of doing ANYTHING. You’ve decided “It’s someone else’s problem” and “someone else will solve it.” and that you will simply accept what someone else decides to do, because you can’t be bothered.
But too many people trying to equate transhumanism with religion ignore the central tenets of most western religions.
Contrary to popular belief, and despite Jesus himself commanding that we love one another, forgive one another, and above all DO NOT JUDGE, the core of western dogma is not about peace and love at all, but about unquestioning obedience to an external force (God) as represented by his hierarchy (the Church command structure) to whom you must be eternally subservient lest you be punished with “HELL!” and unquestioning acceptance of death, because if you DON’T DIE you can never get those rewards your masters have been promising you for your unquestioning servitude, (your mansions in heaven, etc.)
Can you name any other “government” in which “I’ll reward you after you’re dead” would act as an incentive for obedience?
By it’s very nature Transhumanism is the utter antithesis of the Western Religious ideology, because it is about making a difference HERE and NOW, not in “heaven” after you’re “dead”. We’re about making paradise on earth, giving humans the powers we have fantasized as reserved for “The Gods” and ending the injustices man inflicts on man. We’re about ACTING, not WAITING.
Are there similarities? That depends very much on whether you’ve actually read the bible and know what Christ actually says, as opposed to 90% of the “Christians” who’s knowledge of the bible consists of what little the pastor of their church has told them.
Love one another? Check, most transhumanists seek world wide peace and an end to bigotry of any sort.
Forgive one another? Check, most transhumanists believe in liberty to the point it hurts. Only actions that present a clear, direct, danger to non consenting individuals should be prevented. You want to risk your own life, feel free. Risk someone else’s and you’re going to have to be stopped. That extends to collective entities as well. Risk your own resources, have fun. Risk the entire collectives resources for personal benefits, and you should be expected to make reparations to anyone you harmed. And once you’ve paid your dues, it’s done.
ABOVE ALL DO NOT JUDGE! Check, transhumanists typically seek universal acceptance of all human behaviors, except those which cause harm to non-consenting individuals. You want to dress in latex and like whips and chains? So long as you are only indulging those with others who like the same things, more fun too you. Want to have wings and a tail? Have fun. Feel like turning yourself into a head in a jar ala Futurama, it’s gonna be awhile yet, but if it floats your boat, good for you. We accept the entire range of human desire, quirks, fantasies, and pie in the sky dreams, and we’ll do our best to ensure that EVERY SINGLE ONE CAN BE GRANTED, without judgment. Only those things which cause harm to other humans without their consent will be disallowed.
So yes, there is a case to be made that transhumanists follow the teachings of Christ. Probably even that we follow them far better than most Christians themselves do.
But we do so because WE HAVE CHOSEN TO. Not because we feel an external “deity” want’s us too.
It’s called Enlightened Self Interest. I help you achieve your dreams, you’ve got no reason to oppose me achieving mine.
And yeah, that’s in bible too. “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”
And it’s a good policy to follow whether there is actually a “Supreme Being” or not.

Tuesday, June 10, 2014

The Individual and the Collective Pt2

Last post we observed the dynamics of the collective in the terms of a small tribe, and indicated that at this size, things worked pretty well. That is not to say that error modes were not possible, but that when error modes arose, there were mechanisms in place to deal with those errors. Essentially, at this scale, the ability of individuals to veil their actions in a wall of secrecy did not exist. While it is certainly possible for the individual to lie, cheat, steal and deceive, such actions could only be carried out to a limited extent, and carried repercussions that were deleterious to that individuals long term well being.

For example, let's say a farmer lied about the size of his crops. In a small tribe, it would be pretty obvious that he had lied, because many witnesses would exist who could refute his claims. His attempts to deceive would be transparent, and the repercussions of his deception harmful mostly to himself.

And I can hear some of you out there saying so what? If he raised the crops by himself, he's entitled to do what he wishes with them.

The problem is that in this situation we are discussing the collective. And as an individual within that collective, drawing upon benefits from that collective, the individual has accepted responsibilities to that collective.  The collective's warriors have protected him, the collective's educators have educated him, the collectives other food providers have assisted him in various ways, such as helping him till his fields, provided seed from the community storehouse, etc. We are not discussing a farmer who gathered his seeds from the wild, cleared his land single handedly, and so on. We are discussing a farmer who's ability to grow crops and provide food has been augmented by his participation in a collective.  While his desire to "increase his benefit" to himself is understandable, it is an example of "short term thinking" that ignores the consequences of such actions on his long term interactions with the collective. Simply put, his attempts to deceive will lead to the collective seeing him as a parasite, and penalizing him via loss of benefits created by the collective. In the worst case, he might lose his right to even be a member in the collective.

Which, since I am using an example in which there is only the single collective, and nowhere else to go, means that rather than allow him to become a predator now that he has been expelled as a parasite,  his head goes on a pike to remind others of the consequences of harming the collective.
And yes, I am continually going to use that pike, because history has.

If it is not yet obvious, I am extremely strict in how I define "Self Sufficiency". To be perfectly blunt, unless you are in a situation such as I described of being the sole inhabitant of a deserted island, without tools, or even knowledge provided to you from a collective, you cannot make the claim to "derive no benefits" from the collective. The very fact that you are sitting there, able to read this post on your computer, is a result of the education you received as a member of a collective, and the provision of that computer as a result of collective action making the very existence of your computer possible. In fact, the very existence of language itself is only possible because the collective exists.

And also let me make it very plain that the collective and "government" are not the same thing. The government is the system used by the collective to self organize and self govern itself. The collective creates government as a necessary outcome of organization, but that government can be one of any number of types depending on the will of the collected individuals who comprise the collective. Any "authority" given to "the government" is thus directly derived from the individuals who have consented to be governed.

So, it should be plain at this point that under ideal conditions, the existence of the collective is a positive sum game, in which every individual chooses to participate in exchange for the benefits to be gained from participation, and in which every member, from the lowest "hired hand" to the chosen "head" understands that participation in the collective is a matter of individual alignments of self interest.

It should also be obvious that under ideal conditions, the collective has a system of checks and balances that prevents individuals from engaging in short term self beneficial behaviors that cause harm to the collective in the long term. Because such actions harm the long term health of the entire collective, and thus harm every individual within the collective, the collective will act in its own self interest and penalize the individual taking them.

And yet, one needs only to look at the world as is to realize that those checks and balances seem to be absent.

Well, let's go back to our farmer example.  Now, instead of a single farmer let's assume you have thousands, each of whom contributes different amounts to the collective. Next assume you have no way to match any individual to the amount they contribute, because all you know is the amount contributed, not who contributed it. Let's say the amounts are all tossed into a hat on slips of paper and you pull them out randomly. And let's say that you know that 10% of those figures are bald faced lies.

Now... tell me who has lied about their contribution?

So, why can't you?  Because you no longer have enough information. Because the numbers are no longer attached to individuals. In essence a veil of secrecy has been placed between you and the farmers. Because you can no longer "see" the farmers, they can now do anything they wish, and inevitably, some of them will chose to take the strategy of short term profit in which they receive all the benefits of being part of the collective, but do not contribute to the collective in an equivalent manner. They have lost their accountability.

And that is the error mode we encountered once we grew beyond the tribal stage. The checks and balances we had at the tribal stage no longer worked, because it became possible to keep SECRETS.  Once it became impossible for anyone to know what everyone else in the tribe was doing, because there were just too many people for that to be possible, short term strategy overwhelmed long term strategy.

So, why really, is that such a bad thing? I am quite sure some of you are thinking hiding from the government is a good thing, so rather than looking at this from the point of view of the chief, let's instead start lower down the chain.

So let's say you are a farmer. You have 10 people working on your farm. And let's say you decided for some reason to divide your farm into ten sections, and build a wall around each section so you have no idea what your workers are doing in their section. They of course tell you that they are doing the work you need done, but you have to take their word for it, since you put up those walls. Now let's say that at harvest time, when you are depending on them to deliver the crops you paid them to deliver, instead, two of them say that they had a "bad harvest".

What would you do? You paid them for a certain amount of crop. They claimed they did their jobs. They gave no prior notice of any problems, they just suddenly don't have the crop you paid them to produce.

Bet you are regretting those walls now, aren't you? After all, you have absolutely no way to know if they are telling the truth or lying to you. Nor could anyone else. What went on behind that "Wall" is completely "Secret." Maybe that individual simply took your "payment" and did nothing. Maybe they took the payment, and had a fantastic harvest, but plan to sell it the next town over instead of paying you what they owe. But no matter what the cause, you made a considerable investment for no return, right? And I am pretty sure, you want to hold them accountable too. But how can you, when they are behind that wall of secrets? Why, you'd have to tear down that wall...

And get a little transparency, yes?

But wait, let's complicate things even further, and become one of the hired workers. You've just worked really hard all year, and it's your effort alone that produced such a wonderful crop, right? After all, the seed, fertilizer, equipment, instructions on how to grow the crop... none of that means a damn thing, because it was your labor alone that produced the outcome. That crop is YOURS damn it, and you can do what you want with it, so why should you repay the farmer? Especially since he can't see you through that wall. And if he tries to come through that wall? Well, you have every right to kill him to keep from having to give him anything!

I do hope you are seeing the sarcasm here. After all, it SHOULD be obvious that that a deal was made, and payment is due.

But, this is the argument generally made to justify the "taxes are theft" meme. And like that argument, it ignores the initial investment made by the "collective" (represented by the farmer in this example) in order to justify short sighted self interest on the part of the hired hand. The Farmer provided the environment, the seeds, and everything to the hired hand, making it possible to even grow the crop in the first place. Without that initial investment, the hired hand could have scratched at the dirt all day with his fingers, and gotten the same result he delivered in the end. Nothing. This is a Non-Mutually Beneficial Transaction.

And that makes the hired hand... a parasite.

But let's turn this around again. Let's keep the same setup, the walled off farm, but this time, let's suppose that the Farmer has a walkway around the top of the wall, and the hired hands only agreed to work for the farmer because he says he can get them twice as much for that crop than they can themselves. The hired hands can't hide what they do from the farmer, so when the crop comes due, they hand it over, expecting to get a much higher personal benefit in exchange for their labor as part of the farmer's "collective" than they would as individuals. And let's say that instead of twice the profit, he sells it for five times as much, then turns around and tells the hired hand's he's so sorry, but he only got them the same amount they would have gotten alone, and pockets the rest? Sure, the hired hands did not get "harmed", but don't you think that they would have lynched the farmer if they had known he had lied to them about how much profit their labor had actually returned?  And yet, that wall of secrecy, in this case, prevented the farmer from being accountable to the hired hands. And we have here another Non-Mutually Beneficial Transaction.

Which makes the farmer... a parasite.

But.... I'll lay you odds, some of you out there are going, "but that just good business!"

And from the point of view of short term self interest, it is indeed "good business", because of the veil of secrecy. Because of that veil, the farmer avoided being accountable to the hired hands, and thus exploited them of the benefits that they COULD have earned from their labors.  Had that veil not existed, and the hands known precisely how much profit had been made from their labor, they would have likely insisted on making a much more equitable split in which everyone profited to a greater degree.

And that is WHY short term self interest became so overwhelmingly dominant once accountability was lost, and secrecy became possible.  Because it is ALWAYS in the "Farmers" best interest to prevent being held accountable to the hired hands, just as it is ALWAYS in the farmers best interest to ensure that the hired hands remain accountable to him. So long as the Farmer can keep secrets, but the hired hands can't, the farmer "wins". Just replace the word farmer with "elites" and hired hands with "masses" and I'm quite sure you'll understand what I am getting at.

This is known as "Asymmetry of information." And to be quite honest, we've become so accustomed to this asymmetry, that we've come to view it as a "necessary" and "good" thing. In many cases, we've even confused it with "privacy." The problem is that Privacy is a socially granted privilege, where secrecy is a forced deceptive action.

To clarify, imagine you are in a large barracks style dormitory. You have your bed, and that's it. Whether you like it or not, your every single action is visible to every single individual in that dorm... and yet, given a short period of time, I will lay you odds that every person in that dorm will begin automatically ignoring any activities by any other individuals except those they are interacting with at that moment. In fact, I'll even give you a simpler situation, a party. How many parties have you been at where you couldn't even describe what the people ten feet away across a room were doing because you "weren't paying attention?"

Privacy is a form of "Social invisibility" that every individual chooses to grant to other individuals. Even in situations of complete transparency, privacy is possible, because it is a privilege that has to be granted by individuals to other individuals.

But secrecy is not. There is no choice involved in secrecy, only deception. It's a wall of blindness intended to prevent knowledge of what occurs behind it. And when it's in place, and accountability is lost, inevitably, short term self interest begins to make all the decisions.

And ultimately, that is a bad thing.

To see why, let's keep looking at our farm, but now we are going to examine this farm under two conditions. With walls, and without walls.

In farm 1, with walls, our ten hired hands received a profit exactly equal to what they would have received working as individuals. Let's call this "break even". They all worked collectively, but none of them gained any advantage from doing so, because all of the advantage went to the farmer, i.e. their landlord. Even though they each produced more than they would have individually, only the landlord is better off. Now, while this worked the first time, let's take it several years down the road.

Now, because of the wall, the hands couldn't know precisely what the landlord was doing with the efforts of their labor, but you can be pretty sure they got hints. When the landlord starts wearing expensive clothes as he walks the walls and looks down on them, or when they see the top of his new mansion, or notice that he's putting on a lot of weight while they are barely getting enough to eat, well, it's going to become more and more obvious that someone is profiting, and it's not them.

And, since each and every one of them is a selfish animal only looking out for their own self interests, and only joined the collective because they desired to acquire benefits for themselves greater than they could acquire individually, they pretty soon realize that their self interest, and the farmers self interest are NOT ALIGNED. Eventually, after talking to one another and realizing they each have aligned self interests, and that they each have a single obstacle to realizing their personal self interest, well that is usually when a nice sharp pike comes out, an axe is taken to the wall, and the farmer get's divested of all the profit he's made at the hands expense, as well as getting a nice close shave in the bargain. Ah well, click, click, click, click, click.... Boom.

You see, farmer 1 forgot one very important fact about being part of the collective. It exists ONLY because it is mutually advantageous to every individual in the collective, and when it ceases to be an advantage for everyone, the collective tends to take steps to return it to a mutually advantageous situation by removing the elements that stopped it from being a mutually advantageous situation.

Now I won't lie and say that the Farmer doesn't have options for trying to prevent the hands from settling things with him, but that's not what this essay is about. Besides, I'm quite certain you already know all about suppression and oppression, and how it usually ends up creating exactly the kind of violent revolt it's supposedly suppressing.

So instead, we'll switch to Farm number 2. The one without walls, where the farmer and the farm hands have symmetrical information on each other.  In this situation, the farmer has also made the same "contract" with the hands, and when he goes off and actually makes five times the profit, he can't hide that from the hands.  So... he has to share that excess profit.  He still makes his share, plus his share of the excess, so he profits, but so do the hands.

Now, let's assume that the hands use that excess profit to create improvements to the land they have contracted to manage, so that next year, they have crops that are, say, 50% larger than the previous year. Now, you have the 10 hands, plus what is effectively 5 extra, without having to split the profits 15 ways.  So the Farmer now goes, and makes the same five times, etc, etc... At the end of that same several years, Farmer 2 not only has equaled the profits of Farmer 1... he gets to keep his head and his profits in the bargain!

Yes, this is simplified. I'm making a point here. In example 1, sure, the farmer made more per year, at least at first, but his short term strategy had the nasty long term effect of getting his head a nice spot decorating a pike.  Farmer 2 didn't make as much profit as Farmer 1 did at first, but because his hands also profited, they didn't keep making the exact same amount of crops each year, but increased them, every year, to the point that Farmer 2 ended up earning just as much, but because his self interest and the hired hands self interest remained aligned, he gets to KEEP MAKING that profit. So next year, while Farmer 1 is busy rotting, Farmer 2 is enjoying the benefits of a mutually beneficial transaction.

Click, click, click, clickclickclickclickclick.... hey, this gun doesn't have a bullet in it.

To decorate a pike, or not to decorate a pike, that is the fundamental difference between short term strategy and long term strategy. And why secrecy is really not a good thing to have around.  Transparency keeps you honest, and honesty keeps the collectives self interests more closely aligned.

Next time, I'll discuss why this is so difficult to manage in a massive collective, and how both transparency and accountability are likely to be restored.

Tuesday, May 27, 2014

The Individual and the Collective, Part One

Alright, this is in response to Sam's desire for a logical and rational debate, to quote: "From basis of ethics to specialization in politics/government is what I would love to get into. You make some statements I don't know how you support like ones implying the only reason we don't all have plenty now is because evil people are taking it away from us or keeping it from us. Or your statements against free markets. I would like to see your development of those positions from first principles."

So, let's start from "First principles."

Principle 1: Humanity is an animal. As an animal it is driven by primal instincts. These instincts can be viewed as 2 separate interacting drives. The first drive is to survive. The second drive is to reproduce. These two interacting drives underlay all human activity, and together can explain the majority of human activity.
Principle 2: Both survival and reproductive instincts are necessary, desirable, and vital to our continued existence, and evolution as a species. However, they are currently uncontrolled due to humanities denial of Principle 1, and because of this, have also lead to the majority of human conflict, suffering, and misery.

Principle 3: As man is a "thinking animal" able to analyze both itself and its actions, and react as a rational being with some degree of free will, it has the ability to harness it's instincts into primarily beneficial actions, and minimize harmful actions both on the individual and collective scales.

Those are the starting principles. Everything else is derived from this.

Survival is a basic drive for any animal. It directs us to daily seek out the resources needed to continue one’s existence. To survive, we need food, shelter from the elements, medical care, education, and security.

Let’s use a wolf pack as an example. It hunts for food, creates a den for shelter from the elements, follows certain hygienic practices to maintain its health, teaches it’s young, and surrounds itself with a group to increase the security of every individual.

It makes it very easy to see how a lack of any of these basic needs could jeopardize the wolf’s survival, no? If he can’t find food, he’ll starve to death. If he can’t find a den, he can’t shelter from the elements, meaning every storm could kill him, every blizzard freeze him to death. If he doesn’t take those basic hygiene steps (i.e. grooming, etc) his health will suffer, he could get sick, and die. If his parents hadn’t educated him, he wouldn’t have survived his first day in the wild and died. And if he’s all alone, he has no help to defend himself against fellow predators.

Examining the needs of animals provides us with a very clear understanding that any animal thus has five basic requirements that together constitutes “Survival”: Food to eat, Shelter to live in, Healthcare to prevent illness, education to cope with the environment, and security to be free from threats.  By forming packs, wolves thus self organize into a collective where every member can contribute and share responsibility for provision of these five NEEDS. This is known as division of labor. Each wolf divides the total labor of any one wolf in proportion with the number of wolves in the pack. If one brings down a large animal, they all share, reducing the burden of each wolf towards hunting. Some can stay and watch pups while others go hunt. Some can stand guard while others sleep. The healthy can share with the sick. Etc.

By forming an organization, wolves thus create a system which A: Controls the Collective actions, B: Controls the Shared resources of the Collective, and C: Allocates shared resources to benefit the Collective as efficiently as possible.

We can see the same self organization in a primitive tribe as well. The tribe works together to ensure the tribes survival, using division of labor to multiply the efficiency of each individual, and thus provide the five NEEDS to each individual at much reduced cost in individual effort. In a prosperous tribe, it might be possible to acquire all needs for a week with just a few hours of combined effort by all individuals.

This is what makes such organization a strong survival trait. Any animal which forms such an organization will have a much higher survival chance than those which do not form such organizations. Because such animals will have a greater likelihood of having all five of their basic NEEDS met, promoting species growth. Thus, we form groups not because it is 100% necessary we form them, but because groups improve our overall chances of survival enormously. Without groups, an individual can survive. They can provide the five basic NEEDS of food, shelter, healthcare, education and security for themselves.  However, the amount of effort necessary to do so is vastly higher than in a group in which resources and labor can be allocated efficiently. We know instinctively that co-operation, in general, provides more NEEDS for less effort.

In humans, we can increase this beyond just providing for basic NEEDS though, because we have created systems which can not only allocate resources efficiently but which can do so across time as well. A resource collected today can be stored for use at a later time, thus enabling human labor to produce far more than just the basic NEEDS. This excess becomes stored for later use, and as the “storehouse” grows, it enables the group to provide for more people, who contribute just that much more to the “storehouse” in an endless loop of improvement.

Now, as we gather into groups, we spontaneously organize hierarchical systems to control the allocation of group resources, labor, skills, etc. This organization is a "Government." How this system is organized is not important. The system itself  governs how communally shared resources are used, and because it "governs" the system, it is a "government" I am making this point to clarify that when I use the term government I am defining it as "any system of organization established by a community to establish order and allocate division of labor and shared communal resources." How it is organized, whether it has a monopoly on "force" etc. is not relevant to the definition of "Government."  It can be voluntary, it can be coerced, it can be democratic, it can be tyrannical, it is still "A GOVERNMENT." I cannot make this any simpler than this.

So, to restate. We as humans form collectives, which spontaneously generate hierarchical systems to allocate and organize the use of labor, resources, and all other shared items for the communal good. I will make no effort at this point to define "communal good". Whatever system is created, from the family unit to corporations to nations, regardless of size or complexity, the very fact that the system will exist makes it a "government". The only way a "governmentless" society can exist is if it consists of a single individual. Any form of collective, even one of two individuals, will create a system to allocate co-operative effort, and thus be a "government."

The reason I am going to such lengths to clarify this point is to illustrate that any argument for a "governmentless" system is engaging in semantic obfuscation, attempting to present a system of preferred government under the guise of it "not being a government" when it is still a system intended to allocate co-operative resources, while demonizing an undesirable system as "government."  The very existence of any system to govern must categorically be understood to be "A Government." Even animals exhibit the basic principles of self organization within a group, because this system of organization is a survival positive behavior. It is an emergent phenomena that is inherent in every form of life that exhibits collective survival strategies. Call it a flock, a herd, a village, a church,  a corporation or a nation, it is still a "Government." Even this forum has a "government" in the form of "moderators."

So, what exactly is the reason this system is so beneficial to survival? In order to illustrate, I would like to have you imagine you are suddenly deposited on a deserted island. On this island is every raw resource needed to recreate the exact same level of technological civilization that we live in right now, but you are completely alone.  Even if you are immortal, would you be able to completely recreate modern technology? Could you, alone, rewrite every classical book that has shaped society, recreate every invention, rebuild your own mini industrial revolution? Could you even manage to recreate the Iron Age?

Every item you likely use daily is a product of collective effort. The food you eat, the clothes you wear, the car you drive, even the computer you are reading this post on, was made by someone else in the vast interlocking series of collectives we call civilization. Through co-operative effort, humanity has done far more than simply "survive." Collective organization allows for a diversity of effort, diversity of effort insures that multiple pathways to any given problem are explored, and thus allows for the possibility of greatly magnified "benefits" provided to each individual that would otherwise be impossible for the individual to acquire on their own. This makes each individual in a collective a potential source of benefits to every other individual in the collective. It also means that every individual in the collective contributes to the well being of the collective, and that no member of the collective is without value to the collective. Any member of the collective allowed to fail deprives every other member of the collective of whatever contribution that individual could have made had the collective invested the proper resources needed to allow that individual to become a positive asset.

If all things were equal, it should be obvious that this survival strategy is a positive sum game when all "players" participate equally, and which provides a orders of magnitude reduction in any individuals "effort" necessary to provide for all NEEDS, thus enabling a surplus to accumulate able to provide for larger and larger collectives to come into being, as well as providing every individual with benefits above and beyond basic needs that the individual would never be able to provide for themselves, such as creative works, insights and various other intangibles produced by the synergistic interactions of the collective.

But... all things are not equal.

The reason all things are not equal is that second little instinct we humans have. The reproductive one. Unlike basic survival, reproductive strategies are competitive, not co-operative.

Now, in order to compete, reproduction does tend to collect us into groups as well, because the larger the group, the more chances of reproductive success there are. The difference is where mere survival encourages co-operation in order for all members to benefit equally, the competitiveness of reproductive strategies encourages the creation of status tiers, also known as pecking orders, the social ladder, social classes, etc. It called by many names but it comes down to the fact that we tend to arrange ourselves into a hierarchical systems due to reproductive instincts as well as survival instincts.

The problem is that the hierarchal systems of survival are an organizational and efficiency tool, intended to make co-operation easier, more effective, and more efficient, while the hierarchal systems of reproduction are designed to select "best genetic material" and they encourage competition. They don't care about making things easier, or to be blunt, survival, so long as they can reproduce prior to failing to survive. Survival is about the organism. Reproduction is about the gene. Your genes don't care if the organism itself dies so long as the genes have successfully reproduced. Anything goes so long as the goal of reproduction is met. Lying, cheating, stealing, killing, you name it, so long as it results in reproduction, it's a successful tactic. Understand that. Genes know no morality.

Neither does survival. co-operation is not based on morality, it's because it's an effective survival tool. It enables each contributing member to do less to get more, and as such it is entirely a selfish act. Both of these instincts make us create hierarchal systems, but their focus is different. Survival uses a long-term strategy, while reproduction uses a short-term strategy. Nothing I am about to discuss is based on morality. It is entirely based on how these two strategies interplay to create human society. The reason I stress this is to illustrate that morality is an artificial system imposed by a system of belief about how the world "Should Be," while what I am discussing deals with the world "As Is."

Now, back to status. As I discussed above, the reproductive instinct encourages competition, which leads to "ranking." This is not a "male" or a "female" specific trait, regardless of what you might believe. At the genetic level the human animal is not monogamous. The typical male strategy involves mating with as many females as possible, while the female strategy is not as simple. While it involves multiple mates as well, the strategy is to acquire the genetic material of a "superior specimen" while securing the services of a "less superior" specimen to assist with nurturing and child raising. Note, you can disagree all you wish, I am simply reporting on what the most basic level of programming is. We've created more complex behaviors on top of this, but this is still what is we evolved as. (Marriage, monogamy, and all the various rules regarding sexual interactions are essentially various strategies we have tried to reign in the "reproductive" instinct, and control some of it's more negative aspects. )

The result of this interplay is a complex game of "Status", determined by a wide array of "markers," such as physical prowess, appearance, and various other traits. However, as all humans are not equally "genetically blessed" numerous other "markers" exist as well, most markedly, the accumulation of material wealth. Why? Because as a general rule, humans seek to gain the most benefits for the least amount of effort.  As we form groups, the effort needed to survive drops. The greater the resources available to any given member of a group, the less effort must be expended to survive. A surplus of benefits basically means negative personal expenditure, you can pay "others" to gather the resources needed to survive.

So basically, when you add the reproductive "short term" strategy to the survival "long term" strategy, what you get is a system that begins to take the "commonly shared resources" created by the collective, and begins sharing them based not on the amount of contribution made by each individual, but on status. In other words, the long term strategy of equality becomes replaced by the short term strategy of "status" and introduces a weighting system into the resources collectively created. This weighting system effectively forms a pyramid in which the top status tier expects to work far less while gaining far greater rewards than the masses at the bottom of the pyramid does, with those rewards being justified as a tribute to the "superiority" of the top tier. This is because we are programmed to react to status this way, viewing those of higher status positively, while viewing lower status negatively.

Now, in a small tribe, this is not really all that bad a thing, because the community will prevent it from going to excess. As the entire tribe is aware of each individual's status, and aware of what all members contribute, status will still be fairly closely tied to the individual's contribution to the collective. The best hunter might get the best cuts of meat because of his skill, the Chief might have more resources than any individual, etc., but this will usually not be so excessive that any individual will be denied sufficient recompense for their contribution to meet their NEEDS. This is because SECRECY is not really possible in such a limited society. Any member of the tribe actively seeking to cause harm to the other members of the tribe for their own individual gain will quickly be dealt with. That hunter had better stay the best hunter if he wishes to keep his status, the chief who mistreats his tribe isn't going to stay chief long. The system is accountable, with the individuals accountable to the collective, as well as the collective answerable to the individuals. Or to clarify, the individuals who represent the collective are held accountable to the individuals of the collective they have been chosen to represent. The "collective" is just the system, a tool. It has no will or sentience, so cannot be "held to account" for the misdeeds performed by the individuals who abuse the power granted by the collective for individual gain.

And note, this is the generalized "ideal state" of the collective/individual relationship. The "government" of the "tribe" exists to provide a structure to manage and control the collective assets created by the collective. Individual status may vary, but since each member of the tribe contributes to the collective, each shares in the benefits of being a part of that collective. And individuals who refuse to participate in the collective will not long receive benefits from that collective. At this scale, it should be quite obvious how the entire social dynamic works. At a smaller scale, we call it a "family", at larger scales a "nation". The scale doesn't change the dynamic. Nor does separating the provision of NEEDS among multiple collectives. Every subcollective will still exist under the overarching collective, and will still control various subsets of the total "shared resources" of the entire collective, so all subdividing does is complicate the structure without changing the basic relationship of individual to collective. Even Corporations are collectives providing commonly shared resources for the collective, derived from resources collectively harvested. Thus by studying the dynamics at the scale of a simplified "tribe" it's easier to see exactly how the individual and the collective interact.

So, let's look at this further, shall we? If we assume the role of "the Chief", what are our duties? We have been entrusted with the management of the tribe, and a failure on our part to do so properly will obviously spell doom not only for the tribe, but ourselves as well.

Obviously, our first duty is to ensure the basic needs, no? We have to make sure our tribe has enough food. This will involve assigning hunters, farmers, gathers, herdsmen, etc. It would make very little sense to assign those whose skills don't match a particular job to do that job, correct?  But how do we find out who is suited to each task? Obviously, some research is in order. If no-one in our tribe has any knowledge of how to do any of these tasks, we must educate them. If we educate all of them in every task, at least to start, we should be able to assess who has an aptitude for each profession, and who actually likes to do any given specialization. We could certainly assign the jobs at random, which is the quick and easy solution, the "short term" solution, but then we will likely deal with people resenting the work they are doing, and likely sabotaging the job in ways, reducing the benefits created, and thus leading to fewer resources available to the tribe. So, it behooves us as Chief to find jobs for each of our individuals that best suit them, so that they will be happy at what they do, and thus, be at their most productive. As chief, we cannot settle for short term benefits which use our resources less efficiently, but need to use the longest term strategies which have guaranteed returns on investment. Why? Because it is in our own best interests to do so. The better choice will always be the one which is more certain to produce benefits to the entire collective, instead of one which maximizes returns to one group at the expense of the other groups, because failure to do so is almost certainly going to end with a piking by the groups harmed by such a strategy.

This same logic applies to Shelter, Healthcare, Security, and even the education process itself. These are all needs that must be met for every individual, in order to make the collective run smoothly and in order to maximize the resources generated so that all members of the tribe can prosper. It makes very little sense to force a subset of the tribe to work to exhaustion while allowing another subset to idle about doing nothing of worth to the collective, no? While you can run the tribe this way for a time, it should be obvious that the subset forced to work will resent the subset doing nothing, as well as you as Chief for allowing this to occur, no? In other words, while such a pattern of behavior might confer some short term benefits ( the group getting the free ride will certainly appreciate you ), it is a strategy that in the long term will do nothing but harm the wellbeing of not just the tribe, but yourself as well. You will likely find yourself removed as Chief if you mismanage your tribe this badly.

The same goes if you decide to deny a section of your tribe any benefits for being a part of your collective. The group that you decide is "undeserving" is not going to be happy at your decision, no? In fact, they might be SO unhappy, that they will rise up and mount your head on a pike to show you how unhappy they are. So, if you value your own head, it would probably be a better idea to ensure that all members of your tribe benefit at least to the extent of having their basic needs met.

You see, you, as chief have to understand one fact, every single member of your collective has one goal. Their own personal self interest. They are part of your collective because they are expecting to receive benefits from being in your collective. Specifically, they are expecting to have to work less to receive their basic NEEDS by working with your collective, and to actually achieve more benefits by doing so than they can receive by working alone.  Got that? Every individual is a selfish, short sighted, and unreasonable animal. They don't care about "the big picture", nor can they see it, because they are not in the privileged position that you have as chief. Additionally, you have to understand that every single individual who is NOT PART of the collective is a threat to the collective.  Any individual that you fail to include in your collective will have a vested interest in providing for their own needs with the minimal amount of effort, which makes the resources collected by your collective an obvious target. Since they have no stake in the well-being of your collective, any damage inflicted to your collective by their predation will not be their concern.

There is no morality to this. No "good" or "evil". It's all about self interest.  The LONG TERM self interest of the collective dictates that every member of the collective must both receive the complete meeting of their NEEDS, and that it must include everyone, because any individual who is denied a part in the collective is a Predator that threatens the safety of the collective. While some might argue that it is the individual's responsibility to provide for their own needs, this argument is invalidated by the very purpose of joining a collective, which is to reduce the individual effort needed to provide for individual  needs. Unless the individual is receiving their needs from the collective, there is NO BENEFIT TO THE INDIVIDUAL for being a member of that collective. In order to prevent an individual from losing their stake in the collective, and therefore becoming a threat to the collective, it is in the best interests of the collective to provide all of the basic NEEDS at a minimum, and to exceed this minimum if possible.

Simply put, I ignore arguments about "morality", "non-aggression principles" and any others that assume the human animal to be "nobler" than any other animal when put into a survive or die situation. Experience has proven that given the choice between death and doing whatever is necessary to survive, the higher impulses, such as "morality", give way to the animal instincts to survive at all costs. I'm a cynic. I have to view the human animal as an animal, and to believe that they will always put their own self interests ahead of the collective. Thus the ONLY way to ensure that the individual is not a threat to the collective is to ensure that the individual's self interest is aligned with the collective's interest.

It's at this point a lot of people will make the mistake of assuming that this means that the collective is entitled to trick, con, or force what it sees as "the common good" on individuals within the collective. But this is a false assumption based on the historical idiocy that has done this numerous times. The truth is that the "common good" is something that the individuals within the collective determine for themselves, and it is the role of the "chief" to enact their desires. The problem is that the "common good" is very dependent on the "status game".  You see, depending on "status", various groups of the collective will desire very different things. What might be "good" for one group may be absolute "evil" for another. And when you have "Chiefs" who view themselves as members of one "status tier" or another, you often find short term thinking making some very bad decisions that tend to end up with the other status tiers sharpening their pikes to mount the Chief's heads on.

From studying history, it's easy to say what is NOT the duty of a "government", because these actions are things that lead to very poor short term thinking and actions that ultimately result in heads on pikes. For one, it is not the government's job to promote one status tiers interests over another, but it is their job to promote all status tiers equally, and to curb actions by any given group that causes harm to any other group. It is not the government's job to promote and protect any given religion, but it is it's job to prevent any given religion from causing harm to any individual or group.  It is not the government's job to tell you what you as an individual can or cannot do in a general sense, but it is it's job to prevent you from actions that cause harm to any other non-consenting individual.

In other words, it is the job of government to be a true neutral arbiter, the ultimate referee who insures that all members of the collective both have their needs met, and cannot actively cause harm to any other individual in the collective. Any activity beyond this, and it risks turning large sections of the collective into either predators on the collective, or parasites on the collective.

And here is where you have to get down to defining terms. Predators are easy. These are individuals or other collectives who view the collective as "lunch". The defining characteristic is that the predator exists OUTSIDE the collective. They are dangerous precisely because they are not part of the collective.

Parasites are exactly the same thing, only they exist inside the collective. They still view the collective as lunch, and are every bit as harmful as predators, but they are harder to deal with. The biggest trouble is that of actually understanding which parasitical behaviors are the most harmful. The easy answer is obvious. They cause harm to the overall collective. But often times that harm is not noticed. The problem is that parasites are very good at hiding the harm that they cause in SECRECY, or excuse it as the privilege of status.

And as you recall, the very reason I am using small scale tribal structure to illustrate the functions of government is because secrecy cannot really exist in such a small structure. However, as we have expanded past the size of tribes, secrecy has become the primary defense of parasites. They are aware that if the other members of the collective become aware of their activities, then out of self preservation, the collective will enforce penalties on the parasite, up to and including death in an effort to prevent the parasite from causing further harm.

To be blunt, a parasite is actually far more harmful than a predator, because of the fact that they are inside the collective, and disguise themselves. They can come from every level of the social tiers, but the amount of damage they can cause to the collective goes up exponentially with status. A low status individual, regardless of how clever, is very limited in the damage they can cause to the collective as a whole. But High Status actors, because of the roles they play in the overall collective, have the ability to inflict massive harm on the entire collective as a parasite, and there is no argument that can be made to dispute this.

The reason for this is because we are programmed to defer to higher status and to expect deference from lower status. There is no rationality to this, it is hard coded. It is an instinctive response that requires rational objectivity to overcome. And this is something that a Chief, or any representative of a collective that intends to represent the whole collective MUST overcome, because failure to do so will always result in short term thinking. It cannot do otherwise, because Status is a short term strategy based in the reproductive instinct.

As an example, let me discuss a situation you might have at least a passing familiarity with, your car.  Your car is likely the single most valuable item you own, in the sense that without it, your day to day life is likely going to be much more difficult.  You can probably survive without it, but for most of us, it's a "necessity".

Now, we can of course make an investment in our car, perform regular maintenance, oil changes, tune ups, all the basic things which keep that car in excellent shape, and which ensures that the car is going to be as reliable as possible. This is the "Long Term" behavior. Those of us who take such care of our cars are expecting that such small expenditures will reduce or even prevent much more expensive expenditures , or even loss of our car, while simultaneously expecting such actions to provide benefits both now and in the future in the performance and reliability of the automobile.

Then there's the "Short Term" behavior. Hey, who needs oil changes, or tires? That's money to buy beer with! It's idling rough? I banged up the fender when I was drunk? I'd rather have a few more dollars to spend on cigarettes and fast food. What's that? My Ox is starving to death while my grain silo is overflowing??? Let me go kick it a few times and make it keep going till it dies!

Yes, that last little bit was a deliberate reference to a parable, intended to basically illustrate that the vital difference between long term thinking and short term thinking has always been the same, regardless of where we are in history.  Short term thinking is ALWAYS about the moment. It ignores all future consequences. Even when we are FULLY AWARE of the long term consequences, short term logic is always that now is all that matters. It is "Instant Gratification" thinking.  And as my little illustration showed, it usually leads to long term bad outcomes, no matter how "successful" it might be in the short term.  Like Russian roulette, you might win five times in a row, but that single loss will cost you more than those five wins gained you.

By the same token, as a chief, you can certainly use short term strategies that have large immediate benefits for a section of your tribe by taking those benefits away from other members of your tribe, but eventually it will catch up to you in the form of a nice sharp pike.  You can certainly treat parts of your tribe as worthless and disenfranchise them, suppress them, etc., but sooner or later, that pike will be waiting.

The simple fact that I am trying hard to make here is that any stance from you as the chosen representative of the collective other than perfect neutrality, and any actions you take other than those which benefit all members of the collective is a long term failure. Every individual is part of your collective ONLY because being a member is beneficial to THEM PERSONALLY. Remove that benefit from any portion of the collective and you turn that portion into dangers to not merely other individuals in the  collective, but to you personally as the representative of the collective.  Produce a large enough group of disenfranchised, and they are likely to remove not only you as head, but the group you showed favoritism to as well, then redistribute resources and reform a new collective system, while your head makes a nice trophy on a pike.

And this logic works on every scale. From a tribe to a corporation to a nation to a society and even to a planet spanning civilization.

So, to get down to brass tacks, at its most elementary it is the role of a collective to provide for the needs of the individuals who comprise that collective.  And ONLY their needs. The collective can ONLY be responsible for needs that are universal in scope, and it cannot show favoritism in provision of those needs. It cannot and should not be responsible for the "morals" and "beliefs" of the individual, but it MUST prevent any group from harming any other group in the collective in its role as neutral arbiter. This also applies to business. The subcollectives MUST have a master collective which acts as neutral arbiter, and which prevents any subcollective from harming the overall collective. Above all else, the chosen representative of the collective MUST BE ACCOUNTABLE TO EVERY INDIVIDUAL IN THE COLLECTIVE in order to ensure that it continues to use long term strategies for the good of the entire collective, and is incapable of enacting short term strategies which selectively benefit only members of a sub collective.

This should be quite clear here at the tribal level. The problem is that once you grow much beyond tribal size, we encountered a serious error mode.

What that error mode is, and how it affects everything, I will discuss in the next post.


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Between the Lines: Beyond the Principal's Office

In 2007, a 14-year-old student at Springfield’s Kennedy Middle School was arrested by city police. His transgression? Refusing to go with a teacher who told him to come to her office, and yelling at her, slamming a classroom door and bouncing a basketball in the school hallway. When a police officer assigned to the school arrived and asked the boy to go with the teacher, he again refused. So the boy was handcuffed, taken to the police department and charged with disturbing a lawful assembly.

That anecdote leads off “Arrested Futures,” a recent report by the ACLU of Massachusetts and Citizens for Juvenile Justice. The report, which looks at the number of school-based arrests in the three largest cities in Massachusetts, contends that having police officers assigned to public schools leads to kids’ being arrested for behavior that might be bad, but doesn’t rise to the level of criminal.

And that, the report says, can have dire, long-term consequences: students who are arrested at school are three times more likely to drop out than others. Dropouts are eight times more likely to end up in the criminal justice system than their peers—at the expense of taxpayers, who pay three times as much to feed and house prisoners than to educate public-school students.

While it’s appropriate for schools to call on police when a student’s behavior poses a real threat, the authors wrote, in many cases, the police were called in to enforce internal school behavior codes. “In such districts, officers are encouraged to arrest, in many cases using public order offenses as a justification, students who are unruly, disrespectful, use profanity, or show ‘attitude,'” the report says.

The student-arrest rate in Springfield was three times that in Boston, and five times that in Worcester, the report found. You might expect those figures to prompt city officials to take a serious look at the policy and practices of having police in the schools; to question when arrests are appropriate and when they’re not; to consider other discipline strategies that are effective but not unduly punitive.

But instead, says the Rev. Talbert Swan II, president of the city’s NAACP branch, officials seem more interested in sweeping the problem under the rug. “They’ve in essence made a decision that the report is flawed and it’s nothing that needs to be addressed,” he told the Advocate. “It’s concerning that that’s the initial and immediate response before ever really taking an opportunity to really digest the information in the report or to have any conversations about it with stakeholders.”

Alan Ingram, Springfield’s out-going superintendent of schools, responded to the report in an op-ed piece for the Republican, in which he questioned the validity of the findings and suggested the authors twisted data and selected the most dramatic anecdotes to suit their agenda. The 210 school arrests in the 2009-10 school year, Ingram wrote, represented a small portion of the 1,103 “Code of Conduct violations” in city schools, which included assaults, weapons and drug possessions and gang activity. “Arrest is resorted to as a final and last alternative,” Ingram wrote.

“We make no apology for placing the highest priority on the safety and security of our students every day,” he added. “Of course, we would prefer no school-based arrests but that is not our reality as an urban school district.” School Committee member Antonette Pepe also questioned the report, telling the Republican that the findings were “way off base.”

Swan described such responses as defensive and unhelpful. He’s calling on the School Department and School Committee to begin a public dialogue that looks at, among other issues, how teachers and police are trained to deal with student behavior; the biases teachers who are largely white women from outside the city might bring into classrooms filled overwhelmingly with poor children of color; and the factors that contribute to behavior problems. “Many youth with learning disabilities, histories of poverty, abuse or neglect, that would benefit from educational and counseling services are often isolated, punished and pushed out of schools because of the inability of school staff to identify or address the mitigating factors that cause disruptive behavior,” Swan wrote in a press release. “A policy of involving police in matters where ill-equipped staff fails to utilize tools to properly address situations only criminalizes minor infractions of school rules.”

Author: Maureen Turner

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The viewing of wildlife on and around Vancouver Island and the Gulf and Discovery Islands of BC offers something for all nature lovers. Whale watching requires little introduction, as British Columbia is well known as the place on earth to watch migrating and resident whales feeding, breaching or spy-hopping. The phenomenon of salmon spawning draws people from all over the world to the Pacific Northwest to watch schools of salmon return from the sea to lay their roe in their ancestral spawning grounds. Vancouver Island happens to be conveniently located on the Pacific Flyway for the millions of migrating birds that miraculously find their way north and south with the changing of the seasons. Vancouver Island supports black bears, cougars, wolves, elk, deer and many other mammal and bird species, both abundant and threatened in numbers.

Wildlife in British Columbia, Canada: Sea Otter
Sea Otters in a raft relax in a bed of kelp on the west coast of Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada.

Wildlife Viewing Tours and Operators on Vancouver Island and BC Islands

Wildlife Viewing Information for Vancouver Island

Marine Mammals

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Company linked to Malaysian LNG play in B.C. accused of building dams without permits

One of Progress Energy Resources Corp.s natural gas compressor stations off the Beryl Prairie Road north west of Hudsons Hope, built to support $2 billion per year worth of gas drilling in preparation for the possibility that Petronas-backed Pacific NorthWest LNG project proceeds. Photo by Derrick Penner, Vancouver Sun [PNG Merlin Archive] Photo by Derrick Penner Vancouver Sun / Vancouver Sun

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Progress Energy, owned by Malaysian state-controlled Petronas, has built a number of earth dams without regulatory approval in northeast B.C. to capture water for fracking operations, says a report by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.

Calgary-based Progress Energy, in a written statement, disputes the CCPA’s assessment of its dams. The company response is based on media questions as it had not seen the report released publicly Wednesday morning.

Water use has been a key environmental issue in northeast B.C., as a huge amount of water is needed in fracking, used to build pressure to crack rock deep below the surface and release trapped natural gas.

The natural gas from northeast B.C. would help feed Petronas’ proposed $12-billion Pacific Northwest LNG project near Prince Rupert — still waiting for a final investment decision by the company — to export liquefied natural gas to Asia.

The CCPA says it was told by the B.C. Environmental Assessment Office there is an investigation underway of two Progress Energy earth dams because they were higher than 15 metres, which should have triggered an environmental review for approval before construction.

The CCPA also says a dam was ordered emptied of water by the B.C. Oil and Gas Commission, and another 13 dams were built without approval from the commission and without water licences.

Progress Energy applied retroactively for 13 water licences on Dec. 23, 2016, according to provincial water licence reports says the CCPA, a left-leaning think-tank, whose work is sometimes backed by unions.

Progress Energy, in its written statement sent by email by the company’s communications director David Sterna, said those water licences were needed because B.C.’s water rules changed recently. The company did not answer whether they had approval to build the 13 dams.

Said report author Ben Parfitt, a resource policy analyst for the CCPA: “I think it is a very, very big issue. It’s clear that any dams can pose environmental, human health and safety risks.

“The fact that there are estimated to be dozens of these things on the landscape and that one company alone has at least 16 of them built, with one having to be decommissioned, and two exceeding the heights of five-storey apartment buildings, I think that raises significant questions about how well, or not, this industry is being regulated.”

Asked about the Environmental Assessment Office investigations of the two dams exceeding 15 metres height, the B.C. Ministry of Environment refused to comment.

Ministry spokesman David Karn said in an email that during an election the public service could only point to information that is already publicly available.

In its written statement, Progress Energy said it has applied for an exemption for a B.C. environmental assessment of the two dams.

In response to the CCPA, Sterna said the structures had been in service for several years “without any incident or failure.”

Progress Energy also told the CCPA it had emptied the water behind the dam cited by the B.C. Oil and Gas Commission and the facility was not in use at this time.

“Progress actively assesses and monitors the company’s entire water impoundment inventory.  This includes conducting engineering and geotechnical assessments and submission to relevant government and regulatory agencies, where required,” said Sterna in the company’s written statement.

The B.C. Oil and Gas Commission also declined to provide information because of the election other than that already published. The commission pointed to an enforcement summary report from 2016 where Progress Energy was ordered to remove excess water from a storage structure and fined $690 for use of water when not entitled. Added BCOGC spokesman Phil Rygg in an email: “The commission is not aware of any dams that require immediate corrective action in the field.”

A Dam Big Problem by The Vancouver Sun on Scribd

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Marion County, Iowa

Original Document

(aaa) Has Web Page

[aaa] Ref. Source

Eli Vanderford (3003)

Father: William Vanderford (2012)
Mother: Sarah (Sally) Comer

b. March 26, 1804 in Eagle Township, Hocking County (now Vinton County), Ohio [LDS]

d. April 27, 1870 in Union Township, Marion County, Iowa, buried between his two wives, Barbary and Hannah in Rees Cemetery. [Rees Cem]

m. Dec. 22, 1823 in Athens County, Ohio, Margaret Barbara "Barbary" Swaim [LDS]
b. May 20, 1806 in Ohio [census-Iowa&Rees Cem]
d. Sept. 26, 1852, aged 46 yrs., 4 mos., 6 days, in Union Township, Marion County, Iowa, buried in Rees Cemetery. [Rees Cem]

Issue: [LDS&census-Iowa]

Susannah (4001), b. Oct. 1, 1824, in Ohio

Sally, b. Nov. 10, 1826, in Ohio, dc. 1840 [Hunt Fam]

Caroline (4003), b. May 7, 1831, in Ohio

Sylvester (4004), b. July 21, 1833, in Ohio

Catherine "Cass" (4005), b. Feb. 28, 1835, in Ohio

Amanda (4006), b. Feb. 17, 1839 in Ohio

Mary, b. Jan. 7, 1843 in Ohio, d. Superior, Nebraska

m. H. "Hi" Balcom [Hunt Fam]
issue: [Hunt Fam]

m2. Oct. 19, 1857 in Marion County, Iowa, Hannah Barrett[Marriage,1980]
b. March 10, 1823, in Virginia [Hunt Fam]
d. Oct. 1917 at the home of son, Zera, Indianola, Warren County, Iowa, buried (between her two husbands, Eli and James) in Rees Cemetery. [Rees Cem&Hunt Fam]
m2. Jan. 15, 1874 in Marion County, Iowa, James W. Hodges [Marriage,1980]
b. Jan. 7, 1807, d. Apr. 5, 1896 [Rees Cem]

Issue: [census-Iowa]

Eli Benton (4008), b. Mar. 23, 1859, d. June 19, 1907 [Rees Cem]

Zara Comer (4009), Mar. 18, 1862, d. Oct. 12, 1952 [LDS&Hunt Fam]

Eli lived in Athens County, Ohio with his wife and 2 daughters. [census-Ohio]

Eli was a farmer and lived in Elk Township, Athens County (now Vinton County), Ohio with his wife, son and 5 daughters. [census-Ohio]

Eli lived in Clear Creek Township, Keokuk County, Iowa with his wife (Barbary), son (Sylvester) and 4 of his daughters (Caroline, Catherine, Amanda and Mary). He was a farmer. All of the children were attending school, but his wife, Barbary, couldn't read or write. (They had just arrived from Ohio, and left after a few months for Marion County.)

March 27, 1851:
Eli purchased 30 acres for $38 cash from the U.S. Government in Marion County, Iowa. The property was Lot 1 of Township 77, Range 20, Section 28. [US Purch.]

May 3, 1851:
Eli and his wife Barbary sold 80 acres of mixed woods and prairie to Simeon Reynolds for $100 and 30 acres to Alonzo Reynolds for $157. [MC deed C:234&238]

February 28, 1852:
Eli bought 14 acres from Jacob Haynes for $42. [MC deed D:631]

February 28, 1853:
Eli and 38 others presented a petition that a new township called Swan be formed from part of Perry. The petition was granted. [Union,1881]

October 18, 1854:
Eli bought 3 parcels containing 160 acres from George Prentice for $800. [MC deed F:68]

Eli was a farmer and lived in Swan Township, Marion County, Iowa with his second wife Hannah and their infant son Eli B. His real property was valued at $1500 and personal property at $200. His daughter Mary was living with her sister Caroline Hunt and attending school.

July 15, 1862:
Eli bought from his son for $200 the two parcels Sylvester bought in 1860. [MC deed L:794]

January 13, 1869:
Eli bought the south part of Lot 4, 18.52 acres, for $154.33 from Clement Reno. Eli then mortgaged this parcel for $150 to Belinda Curtis. [MC deed 2:587, mort S:231/2]

June 25, 1869:
Eli and his wife Hannah sold the 9 acre parcel he bought from his son Sylvester in 1862 to Sarah Parker for $350. [MC deed 3:474]

March 12, 1870:
Eli and his wife Hannah sold the undivided 1/2 of the south part of Lot 4 (18.52 acres) to William Hixon for $200. [MC deed 8:166]

April 25, 1870:
Eli and his wife Hannah sold 1 1/2 acres to John Butcher for $50. [MC deed 6:490]

Eli's widow Hannah lived in Swan Township, Marion County, Iowa with their two sons, Eli B. and Zera C. Eli was listed on the Mortality Census as having died of chronic rheumatism in April.

February 6, 1874:
Joseph Metcalf sold to satisfy the unpaid charges against Eli's estate the undivided 1/2 of the south 18.52 acres of Lot 4 for $125 to William Wilson and Robert Anderson. (This transaction is a little confusing because it appears to be the same parcel Eli and Hannah sold on March 12, 1870.) [MC deed 5:24]

Eli's two sons, Eli Benton and Zera Comer, and widow Hannah were living with Hannah's second husband James Hodges. They were living in Union Township, Marion County, Iowa. Hannah had a broken leg at the time of the census in August, 1880. [census-Iowa]

Hannah, a widow for the second time, was living in Pleasantville, Marion County, Iowa. [census-Iowa]

This document maintained by sherry@vanderfordfamily.com.
Material Copyright © 1998 {CDAccess.com, Inc.}


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Wednesday, June 18, 2008

sorry, been busy

firstly to amanda leo; miss you too! haha and we'll find you a new pool boy soon(and replacements for the other two) hint hint - we will get one you can go slipper shopping with! haha

ok couple of song lyrics for now(not originals, not yet haha, yes feel like writing again)

Livin on a Prayer(in dedication to YWM)

We've got to hold on to what we've got
'Cause it doesn't make a difference if we make it or not.
We've got each other and that's a lot for love -
We'll give it a shot.
We're half way there - Livin' on a prayer

Long story....

Sunday, June 8, 2008

ok time to pump some life back into this black, red and white page! havent blogged in over a month!(quickly dusts off cobwebs)

well for starters here are the pics and vids from josephine's bday.
your usual group shot(to prove that everyone was there at the same time)the birthday girl with her cake(just after the flames were put out) and the mastermind(thanking god the church didnt burn down) with 14 other random church people(i had time to count how many but not enough to ask for their names)

and here is the video we took in case the church did burn down, you know just as evidence that it was completely unintentional and a complete accident. plus we thought it would be cool to see the sparks over and over again(if your wondering where vic n leo went; they went up the hill to fetch a pail of water. no one came tumbling down or broke their crowns or came tumbling after. they didnt even get the water, not sure if they even made it up the hill. and if your wondering why this tag has turned into a rant; its casue the vid it taking longer that i thought it would to up load so im just typing so i dont fall asleep while waiting)


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SAG prexy Howard joins ‘J. Edgar’ cast

Pic also stars DiCaprio, Westwick

Screen Actors Guild president Ken Howard has joined the cast of Warner Bros.’ “J. Edgar,” opposite Leonardo DiCaprio, Ed Westwick, Damon Herriman, Armie Hammer and Josh Lucas.

Howard will portray Harlan F. Stone, who served as U.S. Attorney General in 1924-25 before being appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court, in the biopic about FBI director J. Edgar Hoover. Clint Eastwood is directing from a script by Dustin Lance Black (“Milk”).

Hoover was appointed director of the Bureau of Investigation in 1924 and was named head of the FBI when it was founded 11 years later.

Producers are Brian Grazer and Ron Howard through Imagine Entertainment along with Eastwood and producing Rob Lorenz through their Warner-based Malpaso banner.

Howard was last seen in HBO’s “Grey Gardens,” for which he won an Emmy.

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Vast Closets and Furniture Logo

Welcome to the Vast Furniture & Closets is your source for walk-in and reach-in closets, entertainment centers, cabinets, kitchen furniture and more. We offer some of the best deals in selection, quality and prices. Please call us today! We have a showroom located in Brooklyn. We sell in Tri-State area: Manhattan, Staten Island, New Jersey, Queens, Bronx and Brooklyn. Whether you are looking for a closet, a wardrobe cabinet, kitchen or bedroom furniture, our sales staff will be happy to make your purchasing experience as hassle-free as possible.

Pictures of Closets Design Your Own Closet


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Thursday, August 15, 2013

Instrumentals Vol. 5

Coming back with a kick, that's what this instrumental is all about. I tried to assemble an hour mix to freestyle, just like Vol 2, since many of you were eager to "spit" some more. Next up, I'll be bringing you a "thinking" mix, full with lay back intrumentals and smooth sounds.

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Sunday, August 24, 2008

Whole Wheat Hamburger Buns

I ran out of white flour while making buns and improvised to make this whole wheat version. They are very tasty! Pictured here are the mini buns I make for vegan slyders, but you get the idea.

- 3 cups whole wheat flour
- 3 tbsp vital wheat gluten
- 1 3/4 cup all purpose flour
- 1 cup water
- 1 cup soy milk
- 1 tbsp active dry yeast
- 1 tsp sea salt
- 2 tbsp olive oil

Use the method from this post.

Son #2 insisted I take a picture of his meal for the blog. He arranged his burger and veggies very nicely on the plate. Kind of look like PacMan.


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Europeans currencies are hard to exchange in Panama and Colombia. Only Colombian pesos and American dollars are easy to change one for the other. One US$1 is around COP$3.030 actually. Credit cards are not working everywhere or/and every time . There are some destinations which not get a cash dispenser ( Capurgana, Puerto Lindo, Portobelo, Isla Grande, Rosarios, San-Blas..), sometimes a money order on western Union can take hours to give you the money and internet connection is very slow that’s why we recommend you to have cash with you.

Before boarding, think about:

  • A high protection sunscreen
  • A tight-fitting T-shirt to snorkel
  • prepare a small bag with all you need during the trip
  • we ll put you r big case in an other storage without access
  • A lotion against mosquitos, for nights without wind and evenings ashore
  • A sweat or a light raincoat to navigate at night
  • A towel
  • we supply you with matlass sheets but not blanket
  • bring you r snack, chocolate, sodas, beers…

Inform us if:

  • You have a health problem
  • You can’t swim
  • You can’t eat certain foods

And don’t forget your bathing costume, your sunglasses, your smile and your flip-flops!


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Thursday, December 17, 2009

Whoa, Mule

Gov't Mule plays the Lyric for what will most likely be the first awesome Rock Show of the new decade on January 27. The last time I remember Mule playing around here, the band was in its nascent stages. Warren Haynes and Allen Woody were still playing in the Allman Brothers and the Mule was their side band. This was 1994. I remember the year because on the night Mule was playing, I was in Memphis watching the Rolling Stones play at the Liberty Bowl, back when they used to have concerts there and all the big stadium tours would come to Memphis. It was the Voodoo Lounge tour. Wikipedia tells me the date was September 27.

The Mule show was a late night show at The Turning Point on the Lafayette-Panola county line. Blues Traveler had played earlier that night at whatever the Library was called back then. Traveling back from Memphis, The Counselor and I spotted the commotion and the crowd on highway 6 and pulled in to see the best Rock Show we saw that night.

Afterwards, we stood in the muddy driveway that led up to the rambling plywood shack called The Turning Point and passed around a bottle of wine and listened to Warren Haynes tell us that he was thinking of making this band a full-time gig.

Here's a shaky video of the Mule doing "Broken Down On The Brazos" from their new album, By A Thread. The video is taken from the same vantage point I'll be watching them from next month:

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Friday, March 30, 2012

Oh No He Didn't

The girls have had this nasty little respiratory bug for the last few weeks. Dave came down with it a week ago, and it finally hit me this week just in time to head back to work.

As clinicians on the crisis team, we've noticed that the universe is really unsettled...all is not well with folks out there.  The pace of our work just doesn't slow down.  But, it never hurts to ask and so as I walked into work yesterday, I sent a message out, "Dear universe, please be calm today."

It listened to me as well as my children do and not only did I put up with cranky clients, an incompetent therapist trying to send an actively suicidal and psychotic client to residential treatment (good lord how does she keep her license?!), the carpet measuring guy copping an attitude with me when he showed up to measure the house and found me not home when I told him I would be at work, and the rescue organization throwing a hissy fit that I wasn't home and they needed Larry the foster dog NOW for a home visit they planned but didn't tell me about, but...

I almost got run over as I walked into work.

By a mercedes driving insurance executive -- aka satan.

That is the second time in two weeks that I have nearly been run over by a luxury car driving executive as they race out of their heated parking garage.

The damn pecker heads.

I'm fine being run over by someone driving a clunker...or who is high...or drunk...or some mom who is turned in her seat screaming at her children as she drives...because, hey, that happens.  Wrong place, wrong time.

But getting run over by some hoity-toity beemer driving executive who hasn't the maturity to drive under 60 miles an hour in a parking garage because he has a little penis and a big ego is not going to be cool with me.

And because I have taken the liberty of naming myself Karma's right hand woman I will rise from the dead and haunt him until the day he dies, at which point, if there is a gate into heaven, I will, in starfish fashion, stand in it blocking his entrance until God or whoever is the official guard of the gate wrestles me out of the entrance.  But since he is an insurance executive, I doubt (if there even is a heaven) that he will be welcome there.  And running over a tiny social worker with a case of the sniffles in a parking garage doesn't earn points for heaven, either.

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Tag: Bedford Springs wedding photographer

Pittsburgh Weddings Photography
Phipps Conservatory Wedding Photographer : Sarah + Nick
Sarah is an independent jewelry designer (see her work here) and Nick is a chef. They met in culinary school, fell in love, created a beautiful home together and were recently married in a fabulous garden. Here are just a few shot ...
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Thursday, July 20, 2006

I strongly promote use of one's financial resources and of one's time and talents to support those people and causes who and which need it. But I think too many of us often overlook unspectacular, almost anonymous ways that we can help. So many of us will support living-wage effots while we shop at WalMart (where, incidentally, I do not shop). It would be unremarkable to drive over to Target or -- better -- the local or neighborhood grocery and hardware store.

Here's another way to do some good -- and it doesn't cost extra: Go this site, The Breast Cancer Site, and click on the box that says "Fund Free Mammograms." By clicking on that, you contribute to providing free mammograms to women who otherwise couldn't afford them. You may return to the site once a day and do the same thing. (The commercial sponsors of the site kick in something for every "hit" the site receives. If you follow the sponsors' links and actually buy one of their products, as I understand it, a measure of the proceeds from the purchase also goes to the fund. But you don't have to buy anything for this site to provide something like a dime for each daily hit.)

After you have hit the "Fund" button, you're taken to an advertising page. Scroll down a bit and find the other sites of the same kind, promoting help for children's literacy, food for hungry people, animal rescue, rainforest protection, and children's health. Click those icons in turn to donate to other causes. (The left-wing, knee-jerker in me makes me hit them all, but you can pick and choose.)

I think it's an easy, valuable thing to do. And I encourage everyone to go to the sites every day. It's a small gesture, but I have read that the sites actually accomplish a lot of good. (Now someone can tell me that it's all a right-wing plot that does not good. But for now I'm on board.

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Best Price Motorized Blinds Fort Lauderdale Fl

Best Price Roller Blinds Hallandale Beach FLWhy should you consider motorized blinds?

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Tuesday, September 27, 2011

Slow burger

This Marin Sun Farms grass fed burger sits on top of a pile of wild arugula, and a thick slice of heirloom tomato. It is garnished with sautéed crimini mushrooms, sharp cheddar, grilled bacon, marinated red onions, and fried sage. I skipped the bun and fries - why bother? - and ate it with knife and fork. Tastes like meat.

For the burger:
1/2 lb ground grass fed beef
1/2 tsp Worcestershire sauce
Sea salt, fresh ground black pepper
Olive oil for the grill

Season beef with Worcestershire sauce, salt and pepper. Shape into a ball, then flatten on a cutting board to about 1 inch thick burger. Make a shallow depression in the center to allow for expansion while cooking. Preheat gas grill. Oil the grill, cook burger over direct heat, covered, 3-4 minutes per side. Add toppings and cheese for the last minute of cooking.

For marinated onion (makes about 1/2 cup, keep unused portion refrigerated for up to a week): Slice 1 small red onion into very thin rings. Rinse under cold running water, drain. Season with a pinch of sea salt. Toss with 1 Tbsp sherry vinegar and 2 Tbsp white wine vinegar. Let sit 30 minutes at room temperature.

For fried sage: Heat 3 Tbsp olive oil in a skillet over medium heat. Add 6-8 large sage leaves. Cook until crisp, 3-4 minutes, turning carefully with tongs. Dry on paper towels. Use to garnish grilled meats, soups and salads. Cool and reserve the aromatic oil for use in salads.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:San Rafael, CA

Friday, September 16, 2011

September fruit, cheese and wine pairing

Fruit: Black Mission figs
Cheese: Chevre rolled in fine herbs
Wine: Beringer Knights Valley Alluvium Blanc 2008

Summer, I'll miss you! Long sunny days. The pool. Grilling in the park. Sitting outside on a warm evening, with the stars above me and a glass of chilled Sauvignon Blanc in front of me. Heirloom tomatoes. Bell peppers. Spot prawns with mango salsa. Peaches, nectarines, pears, melons. I'll even miss the zucchinis, no matter how tired of them I feel now. But most of all I'll miss the figs.

You just cannot get figs out of season: they have to be picked very ripe, they don't keep, and they don't travel. The season is short, and it is now.

Like all fruits, the only food created by the nature that was designed to be eaten, figs are great when you just eat them out of the basket. However, they really shine paired with cheese and wine.

I have selected Beringer Alluvium Blanc for it's fruitiness and chewy texture, not unlike my figs. The wine is deep golden color, it smells of exotic flowers and sweet citrus, and the taste is lush and tropical. And it has a hint of fig! Composed mostly of Sauvignon Blanc and Semillion grapes and aged in oak, it has a creamy start and a long, spicy and herbal aftertaste.

A soft goat cheese is a natural partner for the figs. Usually, I don't like any flavorings on my cheese, but for this pairing I picked a Chevre rolled in fine herbs, to honor the herbal character of the Sauvignon Blanc in the wine. And the wine supports it perfectly!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:San Rafael, CA

Sunday, September 11, 2011

Market find: candy stripe figs

These pretty "candies" come from the farmers market and are actually a variety of figs, properly named Candy Stripe. Lighter in flavor than popular Black Mission figs and with a hint of citrus, they go well into sweet-savory dishes.

Quarter them for arugula salad with almonds, figs, and sherry vinaigrette; or cut a cross on top and insert a dab of goat cheese, season with a drop of honey and fresh ground black pepper; or wrap them in prosciutto slices; and enjoy the flavor of the early fall.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:San Rafael,United States


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