Intelligence and the capability to lead; fooled and the foolers. Split from Tyranny of the Majority

[tar]

Essay,

 

 

From Wiki's article on oligarchy:

 

"These people could be distinguished by royalty, wealth, family ties, education, corporate, religious or military control"

 

Admittedly being wealthy does not mean you are capable and trustworthy. However, the list of oligarchical types, point to where power is held by the few, not the many. This can be royalty (the Kennedy family, the Bush Family) or rich families as in Jerry Jones of the Dallas Cowboys and the Steinbrenner family of the Yankees. Corporate leaders like the Rockafellers, and Bill Gates wield tremendous power and control, way beyond the power of one vote per individual. The church in every community, whether it be the Catholic Church, or the local Synogogue, or the Baptist Church, or the Presbyterian church or the Mosque or the "new age meeting place", or the cult headquarters, is usually run by "a few" individuals, and these individuals, set the moral standards, and the group "direction", giving these "few" a much greater command and control capability, than the mere power of a vote, or the mere power of opinion expressed at the local Pub, or on a talkboard by an average individual. And military control, the power of being able to overpower and physically capture or kill the enemy is certainly a "trumping" card, that outweighs intentions, whether good or bad.

 

These things, royalty, wealth, family ties, education, corporate, religious or military control, are real, evident constiuents of human societal existence. The power thusly accrued is real power, that belongs to the people who have accrued it. If you piss off your boss, you get fired. Then you don't eat. Then you die. It does not matter if you were "right", you are still dead.

 

Socrates was "right", however his society put him to death. This eventuality proved his postion to be ultimately wrong. You can not, or should not, cut off your nose, to spite your face.

 

In reference to my thesis in this thread, that it is the 10% who control society, I would like to relate a quick realistic situation. Couple years ago I was out of work and studied for and took the GMAT to get into a local university. I scored high enough to gain admission to this particular university, but to get into the elite MBA programs at the elite business schools, I would have had to score considerably higher. They take only the best of the best. Further study would improve my score, but others evidently have capabilities where they already can achieve the required scores. These people are tomorrow's business leaders. They will not be hired and entrusted with the operation of a business, unless they are capable and trustworthy. Whether they are helped in their employment, by knowing the right people or not is still first initiated by their scoring high on the GMAT and successfully completing the course work required for their graduation. If their family had books in the house when they were growing up, and encouraged them to study and work in high school and college, and provided them with financial assistance to accomplish that, then that is what happened. It does not cause them to be less capable and trustworthy, to have family help, it causes them to be more so.

 

Currently, I find myself out of work again, and while looking for positions I see that many years of experience are required to get the interesting and well paid jobs in the software testing area. Programming skills that I do not currently possess are required for the automated testing areas, and project management credential are required for team leader positions. There are certifications offered by ISTQB (International Software Testing Qualification Board) that have different levels. The fundamental level I could achieve by studying and taking an exam. The next level requires many thousands of credits, each credit standing for one hour of work or study in appropriated related areas. I can not achieve such without 5 or 6 years of actually practicing the skills.

That is, I can not lead in the field, without being capable.

 

Society is thusly structured. Master and apprentice. Teacher and student. And the best of the best lead the rest.

 

 

When speaking of oligarchy, it is important, I think to not throw the baby out with the bathwater. There are capable and trustworthy people who are on the right side, even if they are richer, or better connected, or more capable, or in a higher position, or have a private pew at church, or have more guns than you. Come to think of it, along with the idea of the pen is mightier than the sword, there is also a certain oligarchy created in the press and hollywood and Madison Avenue. Where a certain few tell us how to be the best people we can be. A certain few that tell us how look and behave, and how to be "good people".

 

Role models? To serve the few, perhaps. To serve a working society, and the majority, perhaps, as well.

 

Regards, TAR

Regards, TAR

[MigL]

Wow Tar.

You do tend to go off on tangents...

[tar]

I have completely left out a segment of society here, that I should not have. Healthcare and disease control. Does anyone want a surgeon cutting into their brain, or messing with their heart, who has not paid their dues, and who did not start out smarter and with more dexterity and with better judgement than the average Joe?

MigL,

 

But it is not tangential. It has to do directly with who is in control of our society.

 

 

Regards, TAR

Edited March 9, 2015 by tar

[overtone]

I don't have your outlook.

I don't have any such outlook as this alien crap you got from hate radio either.

 

Once again: quit telling me stuff about myself you don't know. You are going to be wrong - pretty much every single time, about everything. This is because you don't know what you are talking about, in this matter. You are unfamiliar. And since the entire topic is completely irrelevant to any thread on this forum, you don't lose anything by dropping it, and never referring to anything about me other than what I post ever again.

 

That will save you from, say, this:

 

So, in reference to this thread, who is the elite, me or you?

Who is the majority? Me or you?

If you were responding to my posting, you would not be asking me questions that make no sense given my posting - such as the posts where I have stated and repeated that there is no such elite, there is no such majority, and there is no such contrast between an "elite" and a "majority". Now you may think I am wrong about that, but regardless you would realize that such questions as you ask there have no answers, being essentially meaningless./

 

Here's one response to such aberrant "questions": I generally agree with William Buckley that I would rather be governed by the first 400 or so names in the New York City phone book than by the faculty of Harvard University. (Buckley went to Yale, but the point stands).

 

 

 

 

Society is thusly structured. Master and apprentice. Teacher and student. And the best of the best lead the rest.

Nobody in the Republican Party currently holding national office would qualify as a master, teacher, or best of the best, in any good or admirable sense. Yet they lead the country, govern the nation. Edited March 10, 2015 by overtone

[tar]

Overtone,

 

My point was only that you cannot tell a person's religion nor their political leanings, by looking at them, and that our society is controlled by both republicans and democrats, scientists and religious folks.

 

If you took either all the democrats or all the republicans out of the mix, the place would cease to operate. If you took all the religious folk or all the scientists out of the mix, the place would cease to operate.

 

If you took either everybody above 130 on the IQ scale or everybody under 130 out of the mix, the place would cease to operate.

 

You are right, I don't know you, except from your posts. Your posts however show "hate" for republicans. You have nothing good to say about Republicans, and this is in direct violation of the evidence, that near half the population of the country, is Republican. Some of your workmates and bosses and customers and people you pass on the street and stand next to on the elevator are Republican. You wouldn't know, by looking at them, who you are supposed to hate and who you are supposed to love.

 

Regards, TAR

Overtone,

 

There are three democrats, two republicans and one who does not vote much but is registered independent, in my profile picture.

 

Regards, TAR

There are also 6 people that where taken to church when they were young, two and a half that believe in god and two and a half that don't, and at least peices that add up to 1 or 2 that I don't really know what they believe in terms of God.

[Ten oz]

You are right, I don't know you, except from your posts. Your posts however show "hate" for republicans. You have nothing good to say about Republicans, and this is in direct violation of the evidence, that near half the population of the country, is Republican. Some of your workmates and bosses and customers and people you pass on the street and stand next to on the elevator are Republican. You wouldn't know, by looking at them, who you are supposed to hate and who you are supposed to love.

 

Regards, TAR

 

I have friends and relatives that use tobacco. That doesn't mean I can't have negative feelings about tobacco. Lots of people I care about make bad choices. Sometimes I make bad choices. Doesn't mean bad choices deserve respect. The perponderance of people who practice climate change denial doesn't add any legitimacy to the practice. Huge numbers of people believe in any number of silly things from ghosts to Bigfoot. Their numbers provide them no cover, no creditablity.

[overtone]

Your posts however show "hate" for republicans.

No, they don't. They hardly address people as individuals at all. At worst they show accurate evaluation leading to derisive contempt and blame for the public political character and contribution of national and State level Republican politicians, their major financial backers, and their core media support at the national level. That amounts to a few thousand people in a country of 300 million, and I am quite sure many of them love their children and dogs and give generously to charity in their personal lives etc.

 

I support returning them to the private life in which they are good people, and removing them from public influence and office in which they are not good - not good at all.

 

They have a fascist political agenda, with all the trimmings of Big Lie media corruption, threat-based power dealings, and unprincipled loyalty-based governance for brotherhood gain. That is bad, not good. In my opinion.

 

I don't hate them for being "Republican" any more than I hate them for being theists, or suburbanites, which also characterizes them in general. I do seriously despise them for setting up horrible torture interrogation centers around the planet with my country's flag flying over them, and lying my country into another horrible and needless war (the worst yet), and so forth, and I want those responsible identified and disparaged and in cases jailed for that - something wrong there, with my opinion on that matter?

 

What am I supposed to think - that it's OK, their hearts were in the right place, when they ginned up the Iraq War and set up Abu Ghraib in the middle of it?

 

It's the other way around: I hate the Republican Party for being their vehicle to political power and amplifier of their political behavior and enabler of their horrible political agenda. The Party has been eaten from within and corroded from without by fascist ideology, and has become an affliction of the United States as a country. It should be junked and parted out, and a decent, genuinely conservative Party built from the scrap. In my opinion. Which is based pn reasoning from the evidence - actual physical evidence, actual reasoning.

 

 

 

You have nothing good to say about Republicans, - -

You are mistaking the political faction of the country whose political influence I denigrate for "Republicans". That is a recent and coincidental fact, a temporary Partisan allegiance of no great significance to me. It's a fact that the American fascists have taken over the Republican Party as their vehicle for gaining national and State power, but that could change, and fairly quickly if history is any guide. My opposition to them and their agenda will follow them into whatever political organizations they join and corrupt.

 

 

 

 

and this is in direct violation of the evidence, that near half the population of the country, is Republican

That is not true, about half the country, and if it were there would be no "violation" of any "evidence".

 

 

 

 

If you took either all the democrats or all the republicans out of the mix, the place would cease to operate.

If every bona fide partisan Republican in Congress and on the Supreme Court and in the Executive administration had an attack of conscience and resigned tomorrow, the operations of the US Federal Government would improve dramatically within a month or less. They currently play no beneficial role whatsoever. They have done little but damage for more than two decades now.

 

 

 

 

Some of your workmates and bosses and customers and people you pass on the street and stand next to on the elevator are Republican. You wouldn't know, by looking at them, who you are supposed to hate and who you are supposed to love.

Again, over and over and over: My advice is to give up on the personal stuff. You are pulling it out of your ass. You do not know what you are talking about. Quit talking about it. You are and will be wrong, every time, and not even know when or where or why.

Edited March 10, 2015 by overtone

[tar]

Overtone,

 

 

"No, they don't. They hardly address people as individuals at all. At worst they show accurate evaluation leading to derisive contempt and blame for the public political character and contribution of national and State level Republican politicians, their major financial backers, and their core media support at the national level. That amounts to a few thousand people in a country of 300 million, and I am quite sure many of them love their children and dogs and give generously to charity in their personal lives etc."

 

But I am not a Republican party politician. On what basis do you form your derisive contempt for "people like me"?

 

Regards, TAR

[overtone]

 

 

But I am not a Republican party politician. On what basis do you form your derisive contempt for "people like me"?

Obviously not because I have "hate for Republicans" then, right?

 

So what's confusing about whatever post it was in which you learned about my "derisive contempt for people like you"? Happy to explain it, if you can point me in the right direction.

[tar]

Overtone,

 

I forget, probably was in the Isis tipping point thread. You brought the tussle over here, even though it was not related directly to the OP, nor to my thesis that the people in the top 10 percent of the population, in terms of wealth and power and intelligence and ownership and talent, and strength, and good looks and charisma and any other measure of human capability, are the ones that controll society, and do so exactly because they are the best and the smartest and the most capable.

 

That living in suburbia is related to the discussion is granted, but Abu Ghraib was brought up by you, without supporting statements as to how it relates to the Tyranny of the Majority.

 

 

Regards, TAR

Ten Oz,

 

I quit smoking in April of 2014 after 47 years of smoking. Smoking makes you feel good. The nicotine causes endorphines to be released in your brain. Smoking also causes lung cancer and heart disease. My wife smokes, and my sister smokes. They both know very well its no good for you. The stupidity at Abu Ghraib with the cell phone pictures was hurtful to me and every member of the armed forces and every American. I am disgraced by it, I abhor it, but I did not do it.

 

Regards, TAR

[overtone]

 

 

nor to my thesis that the people in the top 10 percent of the population, in terms of wealth and power and intelligence and ownership and talent, and strength, and good looks and charisma and any other measure of human capability, are the ones that controll society, and do so exactly because they are the best and the smartest and the most capable.

That living in suburbia is related to the discussion is granted, but Abu Ghraib was brought up by you, without supporting statements as to how it relates to the Tyranny of the Majority.

The people who controlled America when we invaded Afghanistan and Iraq and set up the torture prison network world worldwide that included Abu Ghraib were not the best, smartest, and most capable people in America. Agreed?

Likewise with the people in charge when we blockaded Cuba permanently, supported thug rulers and death squads in Brazil, Argentina, Honduras, Bolivia, Ecuador, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Chile, Haiti, Mexico, the Philippines, Peru, Panama, Uruguay, Paraguay, Dominican Republic, and Venezuela, and established Jim Crow racial policy enforced by murderous vigilante bands of white men across the entire southeastern quadrant of the United States for a hundred years. Those things were not done by a country controlled by the smartest and best people around. Fair enough?

[tar]

Overtone,

 

Perhaps not. I am not quite sure of the dynamics of every age of our country. There were times when being a favorite of the English throne might get you huge swaths of land, as in William Penn.

 

I do not think we are without vestiges of power and wealth from centuries ago. The rule of the Church of England, the Vatican, the ideals of Martin Luther and such still echo in the halls.

 

You mention a lot of countries there, that we may have aided. Cuban revolution with Che Gueverra was sort of our fight, and then not our fight. Communism in our country was villafied for a while, and then there was the Bay of Pigs with Soviet Missles about to be stationed nearby and children, me included drilling by hiding under desks from atomic weapons. And the drugs in central america bring up other questions of who is in control. The Mafia used to be strong, the KKK used to be strong. But we are not exactly the country we were yesterday, and we are a little different than 8 years ago. Our country has been ruled by the Obama Administration for the last 6 years, and still we are both hated and loved by the countries and the peoples that we stand against and assist. Life keeps happening, history keeps occurring and somebody has been, still is, and will be in control. The history can not be ignored. If you talk about a huge capital project, there has to be some capital to commit to it. Which means there has to be somebody who is putting their money on the line. Which means there has to be somebody who HAS money to put on the line. Which means somebody did something to accumulate some wealth, somebody is in possesion of the means of production, somebody is regulating the situation, somebody is in control, and it has something to do, very reasonably, with who was in control yesterday.

 

This was my point to you in the ISIS thread, and I am suggesting it again here, that "our" country is made up of everybody in it. All the good stuff comes from the people in power and all the bad stuff comes from the people in power, and WE have been the people in power for the last 240 years, since the Declaration of Independence. Sometimes that is the majority, sometimes it is special interests, sometimes it is the oligarchy and sometimes it is hollywood, sometimes it is Twitter, and sometimes it is the House and sometimes it is the Senate, and sometimes its the Supreme court and sometimes its the President...but all the time it is us, our history, our ideals, our principles, our laws, our hopes, our way of life, that makes us the country that we are. And our guides, our leaders, from the people who wrote the Constitution, to the Professors on the streets of Berkely, to the people that manned the Manhattan project, to Bill Gates, to Martin Luther King, were the brightest and the best of us.

 

Regards, TAR

Overtone,

 

I was thinking last week about secret societies. The "initiated" then control the group, who gets in, who gets helped, who gets the job, who loses the political battle. The same "power" that helps elect the mayor, runs the food drive for the homeless.

 

Most secret societies, as in the kinds of groups our founding father's were part of, were put together and run for the good of society.

 

I am thinking that this benefical use of power is actually important to my thesis. Given the fact that it may well be the 10 percent that rule, it is important that the 10 percent be principled and kept in line by their peers.

 

Regards, TAR

Even the Mafia has a code of ethics. I would imagine even the Crypts and the Bloods, have honor and rules and are "run" by the brightest and the best amoung them.

Heard a piece on the news this morning about a black fraternity chanting racist lines and nobody in the group standing up to stop it. A former student at the same university and member of the same fraternity spoke of his disgrace, seeing his "brothers" act like that.

 

There is something important in there. Not to be ruled by the majority, but to stand for what is right. Be responsible for all the good stuff, and take responsibilty for stopping the bad stuff.

 

What is that they say? Evil only exists, when good men do nothing.

 

And IF it is the 10 percent that are the most capable and trustworthy, then it is very important that members of the 10 percent do the right thing, work for the good of the team and not calculate their own advantage.

 

I got that idea about working for the good of the team and not calculating your own advantage from the Pingry Honor Code. A document put together by religious white men.

The brightest and the best the school had to offer at the time.

Actually, I just read the current Pingry honor code, and its sort of a mamby pamby watered down childish version of the initial one I went by. But then again, I went to the school 45 years ago. At that time the code was solid and deep. I think I posted it here in a thread a few years back.

 

Here is the Code I go by.

 

Honor Code

Pingry believes that students should understand and live by standards of honorable behavior, which are essentially a matter of attitude and spirit rather than a system of rules and regulations. Decent, self-respecting behavior must be based on personal integrity and genuine concern for others and on the ethical principles which are the basis of civilized society.

The members of the Pingry community should conduct themselves in a trustworthy manner that will further the best interests of the school, their class, and any teams or clubs to which they belong. They should act as responsible members of the community, working for the common good rather than solely for personal advantage. They should honor the rights of others, conducting themselves at all times in a moral and decent manner while at Pingry and throughout their lives as citizens of and contributors to the larger community of the world.

Authored by Pingry students, 1926
Adopted by Pingry faculty, 1949
Revised, 1988

The Pingry site actually shows the plaque I read in school which has terms like "gentlemanly behavior" that were taken out in '88 since the school is now coed.

Edited March 12, 2015 by tar

[tar]

iNow,

 

Perhaps I should listen to everybody, about my remarks being off topic and not germane to the discussion, but I am thinking that they are not only related but central.

 

Tyranny exists when things are going in directions that you don't like, and have no power to stop.

 

I live in New Jersey, and often call it a "nanny" state. Many laws are in place to keep people from getting hurt that also take away individual responsibility. Like no jumping off cliffs into deep pools made by waterfalls.

 

When it comes to control of ones life, the more that is done for you by the system, the less you have personal control.

My thinking is that personal judgement is crucial, not only for the intrinsic value that personal control affords an individual but the additive effect of scores, and thousands and millions, exercising it.

 

There is a reverse tyranny that exists, when the judgement of the system is more highly valued than the judgement of the individual, but it is crucial as well that one trust the judgement of the people in control of the system so one can follow the rules that everybody has signed up, to follow.

 

There are a great deal of wills in this world. 8 billion or so, at the moment. And a great deal of teams and companies and states and societies, secret and public, that have been formed to get things done, to create institutions and maintain them, to make our lives better. Much is controlled by old money and power. Much is controlled by the wheight of the institution itself and its principles and rules...there is a current drift in the business world to follow world class, "best practices" in hiring, project management, big data and customer metrics, inventory control, change management and so forth. The "system" put together by the brightest and the best, the standards boards and cooperative partnerships between competitors, and the boards and leaderships of companies and consultants, takes a certain amount of responsibilty and control, away from the human that should be making the judgment call.

 

Tyranny of the majority, at the expense of individual freedom and control and at the expense of personal responsibility.

 

It is here, that I am investigating the role of the 10 percent. The brightest and the best that consult with the leaders and set the course. Their role is significant.

 

Regards, TAR

Edited March 12, 2015 by tar