THE EARTHIAN, Number Thirty-Three, September 27, 2022, Effective Learning Publications https://blog.effectivelearning.net/ , 32 East Main Street, Statesboro, Georgia, USA, specializing in Adult education.
THE EARTHIAN is a digest of articles written by free-thinking truth-seeking critical-thinking creative-thinking truth-accepting hard-hitting courageous writers published in linked Internet journals containing facts, perspectives, theories, models, memes, analyses, and recommendations concerned about psychological, moral, ethical, philosophical, social, economic, political, military, religious, and ecological states of affairs affecting the existential well-being of all species of fauna and flora aboard Spaceship Earth.
“ASK LESS WHAT YOUR NATION CAN DO FOR YOU—ASK MORE WHAT YOU CAN DO FOR SPACESHIP EARTHâ€
Individuals Are Not to Praise or Blame for How Earthian Economic, Social, and Political States of Affairs Evolve
OR SO IT SEEMS TO ME RIGHT NOW
By RICHARD JOHN STAPLETON
Should Spaceship Earth, Inc. democracy chapters be established around Earth, the chapters could develop consensual answers regarding existential matters from the bottom up that would filter up to randomly-selected humans who would count the consensual answers to make necessary changes. Consensual tactics, strategies, and policies would then be developed around Earth for dealing with the whole computerized Spaceship Earth management system, that could be operated and controlled using artificial intelligence programming in magnum computer systems. Randomly-selected groups of Earthian humans of high intelligence with impeccable moral and ethical character and credentials would control codes for changing the Earthian Magnum Computer System programming to implement the bottom-up recommendations of millions of members in discussions in democracy chapters around Spaceship Earth. Each member of elite groups in charge of the codes for the magnum computer system would serve limited terms. These members would not vote or decide what to do. They would see to it that the computer system implemented the consensual answers of millions of Earthian humans from all walks of life, as determined by honest, free, fair, and frank democratic Game-free discussions in democracy chapters all around Spaceship Earth, as explained and shown in As the Rooster Crows Earthian OKness Increases. The overall objective would be to manage the system in such a way as to maximize the lifetime satisfactions of all Earthian humans, as well as all other species of life aboard Spaceship Earth.
Moral and ethical requirements and constraints could be programmed in the Magnum management system that temporary elite Earthian human overseers at the top would be required to obey. If changes should be made in the codes programmed in the overall system they would be sent back to the Earthian democracy chapters for discussion before changes would be made in the overall system based on a tabulation and analysis of consensual recommendations from the democracy chapters.
This magnum computerized management system would require a strict system of security controls like the current codes of nations possessing nuclear weapons, hopefully providing security several magnitudes more secure than current nuclear codes, to make sure a madman could not get in control of any aspect of the Magnum Spaceship Earth Management System.
A management system such as this would significantly improve previous systems used around Spaceship Earth that have historically empowered fickle, egotistical, greedy, power mad, insane, grandiose, poorly educated, not-very-bright individual Earthian humans to make existential decisions affecting the OKness of thousands, millions, and billions of humans around Earth, an incredibly dumb thing to do, that has been done over and over again for millennia, resulting in incredible losses and suffering at various moments of history and banal living for most Earthian humans during normal times, caused by the unfair and indiscriminate inexorable tunneling out of Bad, OK, or Good Luck for hundreds, thousands, millions, or billons of Earthian humans around Spaceship Earth at all times since time immemorial, after evolving from bosons and quarks at the time of the Big Bang.
A tough lesson for Earthian humans to accept propositioned in Effective Learning Publications books is that everything that happens in human states of affairs is either predetermined or accidental and therefore individuals are not to blame or praise for what happens in human states of affairs. This is easier to swallow after accepting that believing and acting otherwise will support and perpetuate the I’m OK—You’re Not OK life position that has bedeviled, sabotaged, and undermined Earthian humans since time immemorial, making losers out of most of them.
About the only way anyone can be seriously affected by others is through democratic face to face discussions, through serious, rigorous honest dialectical, dialogical, analogical arguing based on facts and reasoning of all kinds, honestly dealing with Earthian human existential states of affairs.
What is considered natural, unnatural; normal, abnormal; right, wrong; ethical, unethical; righteous, sinful; worthy, unworthy; or sane or insane by a particular Earthian human is caused by information lodged in her/his brain caused to be lodged there by the concatenation of infinite cause-effect chains causing her/him to exist and slowly inch through the Earthian worm hole of existence inexorably tunneled out for her or him by her/his specific unbroken infinitely-regressing cause-effect chains inexorably-progressing throughout his/her infinitesimally short cosmic life, regardless of how Bad, OK, or Good that luck or fate might be as judged by any Earthian human; and all Earthian humans must keep on inching forward in their worm holes as best they can dealing with inevitable problems and opportunities caused to exist at that stage in their unique tunnels, while they are knocked around like balls in a pin-ball machine, as events inevitably and/or accidentally happen in their so-called real worlds, and in their subconscious and conscious minds, however Bad, OK, or Good their inherited Luck might have absolutely been, which cannot be proved, however easy it might be to relatively estimate.
It follows that changing the scripts of Earthian humans for the better requires changing the course of unique tunnels of existence in which individual humans accidentally and inevitably live, a tall order indeed. Some biological constructivists would consider this notion a pipedream, while considering the whole process a meaningless drift in the infinity of time and space.
Constructivism is considered relevant in all four Effective Learning Report books recommended below, having been discussed explicitly in Business Voyages and listed as a source in the bibliographies of three books.
For more information on the use of Transactional Analysis https://www.itaaworld.org/ to create better discussion groups and democratic processes read Born to Learn: A Transactional Analysis of Human Learning https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=born+to+learn++richard+john+stapleton#imgrc=6JdwDPzcAQ1kSM%253A
For more information on how to co-construct better organizations and economic systems using transactional analysis read Business Voyages: Mental Maps, Scripts, Schemata, and Tools for Discovering and Co-Constructing Your Own Business Worlds https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=business+voyages+richard+john+stapleton
Read free “The Evolution of Spaceship Earth, Inc,†https://blog.effectivelearning.net/the-evolution-of-spaceship-earth-inc/ for some management science ideas on how Earthian humans might eventually co-construct an economic system that is viable and satisfying for everyone aboard Spaceship Earth, making it possible for all Earthian humans to develop an I’m OK—You’re OK life position.
Read As the Rooster Crows Earthian OKness Increases. https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=as+the+rooster+crows+earthian+okness+increases#imgrc=ZY7nv3jiN9jMCM%253A
This recently-published novel features a new kind of seminar invented and coordinated by Rout Logger that might reduce the probability of Earthian human extinction that requires participants in a seminar to speak out and up when randomly selected by a Truther rooster positioned in the center of a randomly-selected group of forty humans sitting in a circle. The Truther rooster resembles a spinning weather vane. The rooster is programmed to bob its head up and down and raucously crow after being twirled by a randomly-selected seminar participant, as it spins round and round winding down, letting group members know it’s time to wake up and get to work, before it’s too late. When the Truther rooster stops spinning whoever is at the end of a line of imaginary fire extending from the rooster’s head to her or him sitting in the circle is automatically selected as the Leader of the Moment for the group, proving pure democracy can happen. The Leader of the Moment must then lead the group into a democratic discussion of what s/he considers the most serious existential problem around Spaceship Earth. Forty participants from all walks of life were paid $5000 monthly for participating in weekend seminars conducted in central city hotels in various cities randomly selected around the US. If randomly selected as the Leader of the Moment the participant had to define what s/he thought was the most important problem facing Spaceship Earth, present alternatives, and make a recommendation for change.. What s/he said would then be discussed by members of the group on a free-flow first come-first serve basis. It was against the law of the seminar to interrupt speakers or raise hands to get permission to speak. Discussions lasted until they ran out of steam with most issues covered.
According to Effective Learning Publications books, achieving Earthian human sustainability entails such things as Earthian humans peacefully reducing through natural attrition (natural deaths exceeding births) the human population aboard Spaceship Earth, never doing work that machines can do better, and delegating the day-to-day management of systems for scheduling, producing, and distributing the necessities of life to artificial intelligence programs and supercomputers, assuming sufficient quantities of non-human clean energy can be discovered and developed using mind grants.
This is possible managing Spaceship Earth using the general algorithmic matrix algebra form
Max CjXj, s.t. AijXj ≤, =, or ≥ Bi
explained in “The Evolution of Spaceship Earth, Inc.†at https://blog.effectivelearning.net/the-evolution-of-spaceship-earth-inc/ .
It seems to me a mathematical formulation exists that one day may develop for Earthian humans power in economics loosely analogous to the power of E=mc2 in physics. This formulation is Max or Min CjXj, subject to, AijXj ≤, =, or ≥ Bi, which is a general form of the linear programming model, which has been around for many years in management science, operations research, and linear algebra courses.
It seems to me Max CjXj, s.t. AijXj ≤, =, or ≥ Bi symbolizes knowledge that gives the Earthian human species about as much potential power to perpetuate itself as Albert Einstein’s formula E=mc2 symbolizes knowledge that gives the Earthian human species the power to exterminate itself.
Riding aboard an airliner about to land at night traveling at four hundred miles an hour at thirty-five thousand feet with clouds, rain, wind, and lightning below, what would you rather have figuring out the path, speed, and angle of descent of the aircraft for touch-down, the plane’s auto-pilot, radar, and computer system or the pilot and co-pilot, seeing nothing out their windows below but clouds and lightning?
The main reason why delegating the scheduling, production, and distribution of the necessities of life to AI programs and magnum computers would be a good idea is that magnum computers and algorithmic AI programs do not get greedy and power hungry or play psychological Games. Thus far in Earthian human history most leaders and rulers atop large organizations such as nations have become corrupt one way or another playing psychological Games, acting out selfish greedy ego trips, hogging all the power, money, strokes, stimulation, and recognition they could get their hands on for themselves and their cronies, leaving the hindmost to their underlings. Whatever their limitations and possible threats, algorithmic computer programs and super computers are not egotistical, greedy, and power-hungry.
Thanks to Buckminster Fuller for providing the above airplane-landing metaphor in his book Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth, first published in 1969, and for planting seeds for other ideas in the essay “The Evolution of Spaceship Earth, Inc.,†published in the Effective Learning Report, such as computers being the best hope for mankind and humans not doing work machines can do better, being paid to think instead with what Fuller called mind grants. Fuller said unemployment all around Spaceship Earth could be eliminated overnight with mind grants. Buckminster Fuller was the inventor of the appellations Earthian and Spaceship Earth.
Most Earthian humans like to win BALANCE SHEET psychological Games, showing they have a higher net worth than others, to feel superior and lord it over others, regardless if Spaceship Earth is going to hell in a hand basket around them because of global warming and climate change (GWCC) and militarization and nuclear weapons proliferation (MNWP), regardless of how much they have failed in other areas of their lives, and regardless of how heinous were crimes and misdemeanors they may have gotten away with, since they were saved, as it were, by taking in and gaining control of more almighty monetary units than other lesser mortals, saved, as if by Jesus, who forgave them their sins.
If you are not familiar with the definitions of transactional analysis terms, jargon, and lingo such as I’m OK—You’re OK, Ego States, Parent, Adult, Child, transactions, Games, scripts, rackets, life positions, Drama Triangle, etc., just type in your Internet search bar the words transactional analysis before them, making them transactional analysis ego states, transactional analysis Child ego state, transactional analysis Games, transactional analysis drama triangle, etc., while asking Google what they are, in sentences such as What are transactional analysis psychological Games? You will pull up more information about them than you want to know.
Most Earthian humans know what it is to be egotistical, but they have little understanding of how humans use specific human egotistical manifestations such as Parent, Adult, and Child ego states transacting with others socially and psychologically.
One of the biggest egotists of Earthian human history, a narcissist, playing BALANCE SHEET psychological Games, is Donald Trump. As shown in SOURCE articles below containing monetized numbers, Trump is a world-class liar and loser playing BALANCE SHEET, and he should go to jail for it, just like other famous political USian BALANCE SHEET psychological Game players in the US have, such as the renowned Georgia US representative, Bo Ginn, in 1995, and the notorious cotton farmer with political ties to USian president Lyndon Johnson, Billie Sol Estes of Texas in 1965, who served time for lying to bankers about their assets, liabilities, and net worth to get loans.
Trump told voters and bankers he was extorting votes and money from he was a stable genius and billionaire who could pay them back for their votes and loans, how many billions worth of a billionaire he was he never said, at least not to voters, arithmetic not being his strong suit; but it now appears it’s possible he’s no billionaire at all, using accounting principles and real market values, which he has adamantly and assiduously refused to show, since walking on the USian political stage for the 2016 presidential election. It’s possible he’s no kind of naire at all, not even a millionaire, having liabilities that exceed the market value of his assets, being close to bankruptcy.
It now appears as shown in recent public posts used as SOURCES below that Trump, his loyal Trump Organization lackeys, and his chosen loyal family members lied to bankers about his net worth to get loans, proving once again that “All that glitters is not gold.â€
P.T. Barnum is said to have thought there’s a sucker born every minute. If so, Trump may have thought there’s a sucker born every second, in high and low places.
If you have ideas on how to democratically discuss in Game-free ways (devoid of Persecutor, Rescuer, and Victim roles) economic and political problems and opportunities go to the Ogeechee Economic Forum at https://blog.effectivelearning.net/ogeechee-economic-forum/ and scroll up to and click on the RESPONSES tab at the top of this blog page and speak out about them in writing.
If you feel you’ve gained value from THE EARTHIAN, go to the Internet or any walk-in bookstore around Spaceship Earth and purchase one or more of the above books. As the Rooster Crows Earthian OKness Increases is the latest and probably most engaging Effective Learning Publications book, including an overview of USian economic history, including the Trumpian affair. Rout Logger is the protagonist of the novel story. It’s available now at Amazon for immediate digital reading on any device as a Kindle book for $4.99.
For practical doable short run strategies for dealing with Spaceship Earth’s social, economic, political, and military problems in the US read Recommendations for Waking Up From the American Nightmare by Richard John Stapleton, Effective Learning Publications, 2012, 217 pages, at https://www.amazon.com/Recommendations-American-Nightmare-Business-Voyages-ebook/dp/B009TOJVPI
For more free information on short run strategies and policies for dealing with current USian economic and political problems read “The FreeFairProgress Party†at https://blog.effectivelearning.net/freefairprogressparty/.
FOLLOWING IS PROBABLY THE MOST INTERESTING AND IMMEDIATELY RELEVANT PART OF THE EARTHIAN, A SMORGASBORD OF CURRENT THINKING OF HARD-HITTING TRUTH-SEEKING TRUTH-ACCEPTING COURAGEOUS WRITERS AND ARTISTS, FREELY AND HONESTLY THINKING, WRITING, CREATING, AND SPEAKING FROM ALL THEIR EGO STATES, PUBLISHED IN RECENT WEEKS IN LINKED ARTICLES, PODCASTS, AND MEMES IN INTERNET MEDIA AROUND SPACESHIP EARTH.
SEPTEMBER 26, 2022
They’ve already escaped reality, made possible by accidentally capitalizing on a few bright ideas that happened to them enabling them to exploit the bright ideas of a few tech geniuses and the drudge work of thousands of tech workers. They are Earthian humans who had very good luck living in their accidental worm holes of existence, having accidentally had very profitable ideas happen in their subconscious and conscious minds at the right time and place. Most likely their good luck will play out there in their bunkers if serious nuclear war breaks out aboard Spaceship Earth. Sooner or later they will run out of food and water inside them, and life outside won’t be worth living, if feasible at all.
“Billionaire bunkers: How the World’s wealthiest are paying to escape reality,†by Eric Spitznagel, NEW YORK POST, https://nypost.com/2022/09/24/how-the-worlds-billionaires-are-paying-to-escape-global-disaster/?utm_source=facebook_sitebuttons&utm_medium=site%20buttons&utm_campaign=site%20buttons&fbclid=IwAR2CmNkCv5wC9oujltdh3Ln_hXBRqNTpoj-Fk5yaj1yf_rNE7JTZKOxT81I.
September 26
Insane Power Moves
“US warns Russia of ‘catastrophic’ consequences of nuclear strike,†YAHOO! NEWS, https://news.yahoo.com/us-warns-russia-castastrophic-consequences-014544335.html?soc_src=social-sh&soc_trk=fb&tsrc=fb.
September 23
I could not agree more
“I Didn’t Join the Military to Fight for Taiwan,†by Dan McNnight, THE LIBERTARIAN INSTITUTE, https://libertarianinstitute.org/articles/i-didnt-join-the-military-to-fight-for-taiwan/?fbclid=IwAR1LPOnMk-1Ww3G_E1t37TiJMVjkYJdNlHG-ZThgq1ZbDzzEtWW8LkVBxHc.
September 23
Another dynamite article by Eve Ottenberg
“Class Warfare Grinds On,†by Eve Ottenberg, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/09/23/class-warfare-grinds-on/?fbclid=IwAR3GAadSDzJ75aKSMjqcczYc3dU7aFiJ7kRkB_Yi8xBYXw_lgbl-ZD_f_ys.
September 23
Another comprehensive overview by Noam Chomsky
“The War in Ukraine Has Entered a New Phase,†by Noam Chomsky, COUNTERPUNCH, https://truthout.org/articles/noam-chomsky-the-war-in-ukraine-has-entered-a-new-phase/?utm_campaign=Truthout%20Share%20Buttons&fbclid=IwAR15opul2tZKdJGBZ5QF4AEt18-WY-9kIlylvZDOxmN5_tubhjHtOG1OtOU.
September 23
“With hindsight, it appears what he sold to his voters as genius-level observations and ideas running for president and acting as president was little more than magical-thinking and wild-assed guesses that did not work. It’s possible he has lost money as an entrepreneur over his career, adjusted for inflation, after adding and subtracting his winning and losing deals from what he inherited, leaving him with less net worth now than he started out with. Regardless, to give him a little credit, he got his small hands on enough inherited and leveraged-loan money to buy some tall apartment buildings, casinos, hotels, and golf courses, and put his Trump name on them. He even bought a professional football team, the New Jersey Generals, that he owned before the American Football League, the AFL, became defunct, like a lot of things Trump bought. He even had enough money to buy the USian presidency in 2016.
“And then, after being exposed and deposed as a would-be fascist dictator, Trump told his supporters a very big lie, that the 2020 election was stolen from him, that he really did not lose the election, and he is now extorting and extracting more millions of dollars from his donors and cult members to run again in 2024, if, as he has said in[…]â€
Excerpt From
As the Rooster Crows Earthian OKness Increases
Richard John Stapleton
This material may be protected by copyright.
Available now as an ebook at Amazon for $4.99
As The Rooster Crows: Earthian OKness Increases, by Richard John Stapleton, EFFECTIVE LEARNING PUBLICATIONS, https://www.amazon.com/Rooster-Crows-Earthian-OKness-Increases-ebook/dp/B0B9XY3HKR/ref=sr_1_1?qid=1663870867&refinements=p_27%3ARichard%20Stapleton&s=digital-text&sr=1-1&fbclid=IwAR3ok5Y7HdKS3vf7ck4ZfQb7rU-u2H19LHwISO4fnvQzGA4PCLU_VZ2KrJE.
September 22
Say it ain’t so Joe
“In 1983 We Came Closer to Nuclear War Than We Knew: A Cautionary Tale,†by Patrick Mazza, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/09/20/in-1983-we-came-closer-to-nuclear-war-than-we-knew-a-cautionary-tale/?fbclid=IwAR3g_YRIiQfKqEJegxZdo1FPTn7woJyZUAO8N3UdTvXy8V6cN5-3NodydS8.
September 21
A case of mass insanity?
“Wall-to-Wall Mourning in Food Bank Britain,†by Kenneth Surin, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/09/21/wall-to-wall-mourning-in-food-bank-britain/?fbclid=IwAR2JjDlw5s4QTTMF1YTmybIu05bYbyEEgSsnr5gN1xbRF6PR1GLhYhwWgh0.
September 21
Pathetic
“Donald Trump Sued for Fraud by NY Attorney General—With Criminal Referral to IRS,†NBCNEWYORK.COM, https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/donald-trump-sued-for-fraud-by-ny-attorney-general-in-long-awaited-case/3874251/?fbclid=IwAR2avlA_l-fnOKViuPVqp0oVkVc49evgdCT8xLKDroFZZC6gN_u73h_a1Fc.
September 21
“Putin makes threat to NUKE West and declares ‘I’m not bluffing’ in chilling address,†by Nick Parker, Jerome Starkey, and Natasha Clark, THE SUN, https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/19870657/putin-addresses-russia-ukraine-invasion/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=sharebarweb.
September 21
You don’t say
“New York sues Donald Trump, company and family members over widespread fraud claims, seeks at least $250 million in penalties,†by Dan Mangan and Kevin Breuninger, CNBC, https://www.cnbc.com/2022/09/21/new-york-sues-donald-trump-company-and-family-members-over-widespread-fraud-claims-seeks-at-least-250-million-in-penalties.html?__source=sharebar|facebook&par=sharebar&fbclid=IwAR07lX3eePEYrpy3M2rg18G63P2PFnXsJRqu9uS02U291PsuWe0o-XgSpBE.
September 21
To take over the US, Repugs need to get more Repugs elected senators in various states.
How to get another one elected from the state of Georgia? Donald Trump and other oligarchs of the Republican Party knowing most Georgians like football, especially University of Georgia retired football stars like Herschel Walker, an African American, have arranged for him to be their candidate to run in the Georgia US senate race against Democrat Raphael Warnock, also an African American, a minister by profession, a good one who is articulate, intelligent, and coherent, but not charismatic.
Walker has worked for Trump before, starting his professional football career with Trump’s professional football team in the now defunct American Football League, the New Jersey Generals, at an inordinately high salary in 1983, after dropping out of the University of Georgia after his junior year.
Georgia has a lot of African American voters, and to capture more of those voters, the Repug establishment decided to recruit Herschel Walker as the Repug candidate in the Senate race. Most non-African American Georgians in usual circumstances will vote for Repug candidates no matter who the Repug oligarchs put up, and most African American voters in usual circumstances will vote for the Dem candidate no matter who Dem oligarchs put up.
Therefore, a good strategy for the Repug power structure to win the senate election in Georgia, they seem to think, is to put up Herschel Walker as their candidate. Because of his football fame and charisma, he might draw votes from African Americans who would normally vote for the establishment Dem candidate, no matter how unqualified Walker might be as a USian senator.
Cedric the Entertainer in his podcast below says he thinks Hershey Walker has been taking Creatine after retiring as a football player to keep his muscles tight and bulging.
Whether Walker becomes a paid running back again, this time running plays called by sociopathic quarterbacks of the national Repug political machine, such as Donald Trump and Mitch McConnell, remains to be seen.
Walker has not been shown wearing a coat and tie, the uniform of a USian senator, in any political advertisement I have seen, most likely to keep Georgia voters focused on his unusual muscles instead of how much he knows about solving existential social, economic, political, religious, and ecological problems.
Will Walker not wear a coat and tie in the Senate Chamber in the US Capitol Building in Washington, D.C. if he wins this bizarre manipulated Georgia Senate popularity and beauty contest Tuesday, November 8, 2022?
This is another political can of worms orchestrated by cynical USian Repug oligarchs for their own selfish short run entertainment and emolument, to be gained at the expense of others.
“Cedric the Entertainer hits Herschel Walker in new attack ad,†by Juliegrace Brufke, Congressional Reporter, WASHINGTON EXAMINER, https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/senate/cedric-the-entertainer-herschel-walker-attack-ad?fbclid=IwAR2jydegePeLKbr9XlNq9447RDr7bAAKozgtdUF5ZNecetBI2zC2CWiRryU.
September 20
Well worth a look and listen
“Carl Sagan testifying before Congress in 1985 on climate change,†YOUTUBE, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wp-WiNXH6hI.
September 20
I did not know about this
Here is a Churchillian-like comment I wrote expressing my sentiments about the English monarchy: “Never in the history of Earthian human states of affairs were a few Earthian humans rewarded so much for doing so little.”
“The First Billionaire to Become UK’s King,†by Sam Pizzigati, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/09/20/the-first-billionaire-to-become-uks-king/?fbclid=IwAR2rl5DJgKk91MKIAKXGSNCxCo90YPsC_WGyRoNXwhP8jxcd4B6sSu2Y_O8.
September 20
It’s hard to find cannon fodder these days, in both Russia and the US
“Critics of the Pentagon have long condemned what is known as the “poverty draft.†The military’s offers of financial incentives like student loan repayment, free college, and other cash incentives are a draw for young people experiencing debt or poverty.
“And, knowing this, the military often actively travels to schools in poor and nonwhite neighborhoods in order to recruit; then, once they join, Black, Latinx, Indigenous and low-income people are disproportionately placed in the most dangerous situations compared to other enlistees.
“This predatory practice is unethical for many reasons, critics of the practice argue. People in active military service are at high risk of mental health issues like suicide, and critics say that poor people shouldn’t have to put their bodies and lives on the line just in order to afford higher education.
“With that in mind, critics said on social media that it is alarming that Republicans would not only acknowledge this fact but also openly advocate for it, saying that Republicans were saying “the quiet part out loud.â€
“Activist group the Debt Collective wrote that if canceling student debt actually does decrease military recruitment, that would, in fact, be a good thing.
“One of the best parts about canceling student debt is thinking of all the people who no longer feel compelled to enlist in the military to pay off their loans,†the group wrote on Twitter. “It is not a stretch to say that canceling student debt — and making college free — would hamper U.S. imperial/colonial efforts.â€
“GOP: Student Loan Forgiveness Hurts Ability to Lure Poor People Into Military†by Sharon Zhang, TRUTHOUT, https://truthout.org/articles/gop-student-loan-forgiveness-hurts-ability-to-lure-poor-people-into-military/?utm_campaign=Truthout%20Share%20Buttons&fbclid=IwAR2RgBew_Dgg1hOS7kIRt9IoMbRLf889ROkIo42C-Rlhbzm098-afmiqqGg.
September 20
Say it ain’t so Joe
“Warnock, Walker deadlocked in new poll in Georgia Senate race,†by Julia Shaero, THEHILL.COM, https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/3651666-warnock-walker-deadlocked-in-new-poll-in-georgia-senate-race/?fbclid=IwAR37uzngBDad7FkxYWr8XQslfab0mf6HJA2Yd6qC8u2tj2R4gocW-XCl_Yw.
September 19
Say it ain’t so Joe
“Erasing QAnon Fascism: A Case Study in Black Comedy,†by Anthony Dimaggio, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/09/19/erasing-qanon-fascism-a-case-study-in-black-comedy/?fbclid=IwAR1OO9YQ4NsBqkJgxJGy4z04E3lx1yssVHl-eFK2pye6Ovrykxv1fm1n-QM.
September 18
Worth a read. Love is an oft-misconstrued word, often used to extort favors, exemplified by Trump telling his cult members at the January 6 insurrection when he finally told them to go home that he loved them. The word love is often considered synonymous with sexual arousal. This book gets to the heart of what love really is.
“Hannah Arendt on Love and How to Live with the Fundamental Fear of Loss,†THE MARGINALIAN, https://www.themarginalian.org/2019/02/25/love-and-saint-augustine-hannah-arendt/?fbclid=IwAR3IvDRMxMFg2ejFdQeNE9geIpDMwmEfnuk5RLIAz8K7SaRBYYUsU4rGYS4.
September 17
Spot on. Another dynamite article by Eve Ottenberg
“The Chuckleheads Take Charge,†by Eve Ottenberg, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/09/16/the-chuckleheads-take-charge/?fbclid=IwAR0VwnfS2sl2BC9SVQsG7dUMSwhDG-KXsSeQ2W5WEqKv8_1-JT47kMlokoY.
September 16
Some good advice
“What seemingly strange trait will reveal a lot about a person?,†by Cary von Seggern, QUORA.COM, https://www.quora.com/What-seemingly-strange-trait-will-reveal-a-lot-about-a-person/answer/Cory-von-Seggern?ch=1&oid=106391555&share=6f6238d2&srid=hkkCWN&target_type=answer&fbclid=IwAR0_PmAZFaTJp2xvyAoVlQm1szQzDURxJ5Ma81z54HL0MJdnbQ5zPv-Vp98.
September 16
Interesting. I grew up thinking I might have some African American heritage given my unusual kind of curly-wavy hair, which was not the case according to a DNA test at Ancestry.com that showed my heritage is England & Northwestern Europe, 46%; Scotland, 39%; Ireland, 9%; Wales, 4%; Norway, 2%
“Do all African Americans have European heritage? If so, how much on average?,†by Kent Etheridge, QUORA.COM, https://blackhistoryandpolitics.quora.com/An-excellent-read-https-www-quora-com-Do-all-African-Americans-have-European-heritage-If-so-how-much-on-average-answe?ch=1&oid=57495062&share=f6c3c229&srid=hkkCWN&target_type=post&fbclid=IwAR0W5WDtEHrAxiLxozvMtBRPWpLDzvHDdWhshPfL43Q6CeeVswvPWBR9QPc.
September 15
Here’s a well thought and reasoned article by Courtenay Barnett
“President Trump and past and present cognitive dissonance,†by Courtenay Barnett, PAMBAZUKA NEWS, https://www.pambazuka.org/democracy-governance/president-trump-and-past-and-present-cognitive-dissonance?utm_campaign=shareaholic&utm_medium=facebook&utm_source=socialnetwork&fbclid=IwAR3Ta6QFf–QpUuwxs1Q6XKLVNuZ-NjyCHRBJ4l4u19RDTSG0p5I_LDQyQs.
September 14
Spaceship Earth needs more corporations like this. This is probably unprecedented for an Earthian corporation. All corporations producing the necessities of human life would eventually have to do something like this to implement my idea on how to create Earthian human sustainability that I recommended in my article mentioned above, “The Evolution of Spaceship Earth, Inc.†at https://blog.effectivelearning.net/the-evolution-of-spaceship-earth-inc/ .
“Patagonia founder gives away the $3bn company to environmental causes: ‘Earth is now our only shareholder’,†by Ethan Freedman, YAHOO! NEWS, https://news.yahoo.com/patagonia-founder-gives-away-3bn-203333867.html?soc_src=social-sh&soc_trk=fb&tsrc=fb.
September 13
Say it aint so Joe. Another hard-truth telling article by Paul Street. This one is on how two wrong political parties do not make a right.
“What’s connecting and driving the playing-with-fire strategy is a pervasive pessimism. For all the sound logic of maneuvering to run against a weaker opponent, there’s also a dispiriting sense that without some nutjob or menacing villain on the other side, Democratic candidates can’t win on their own. ‘I watch focus groups, and Democratic voters are totally checked out and depressed,’ one [Democratic] strategist says. ‘They’re just so sick of everyone involved in politics. Yes, the Supreme Court’s Roe decision enraged them. But some of that ire is directed at their own party: Why the fuck did you guys not codify this when you had the chance? Instead of righteous indignation, it’s more like righteous resignation. So anything that would light a fire under Democrats in November is welcome’†(emphasis added).
“Anything…like the OFR being the Republicans’ presidential nominee in 2024. As Smith ads:
“Including—and especially—Trump making it official, sooner rather than later, that he’s running in 2024. ‘It would be a giant gift to everyone in the party, from Biden on down, to have that guy out there,’ another top Democratic consultant says. Trump has hardly kept his intentions a secret, but the reality of him as a threat, the thinking goes, would shift the conversation away from inflation and toward the existential threat to democracy.â€
“Hey: what could go wrong? Right?”
“Transparent Idiocy and Cynically Wishful Democratic Party Thinking: Reflections on a Poll and its Reporting,†by Paul Street, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/09/09/transparent-idiocy-and-cynically-wishful-democratic-party-thinking-reflections-on-a-poll-and-its-reporting/?fbclid=IwAR2E0OOPFYThbjiQ1FEYwD0XwUlG40LSv7qJqmA5JmUXDm5vBJIJpy5eo1g.
September 13
Of course, the abominable electoral college should be abolished
“Jan. 6 Committee Member Suggests Ending Electoral College,†by Chris Walker, TRUTHOUT, https://truthout.org/articles/jan-6-committee-member-suggests-ending-electoral-college/?utm_campaign=Truthout%20Share%20Buttons&fbclid=IwAR0CF6oTLy_MW6wZj06YOQhrlyDaRFwJLLuVmozHWiqOTouc2Pbo-e9mHYE.
September 13
Generally agree
“What did Kierkegaard mean when he said that ‘Truth is subjectivity and subjectivity is truth’,†by Frederick Dolan, QUORA, https://www.quora.com/What-did-Kierkegaard-mean-when-he-said-that-Truth-is-subjectivity-and-subjectivity-is-truth/answer/Frederick-Dolan?ch=1&oid=367771644&share=de76c81e&srid=hkkCWN&target_type=answer&fbclid=IwAR2VlU6Eq20tau8PkYc3oZOrZDdRDRR3kAd1tQ9n-5Ml5oaBjJ7MOjMh8AI.
September 12
How much longer can this go on? The USian Federal Reserve System can create funny money by punching digits into its computer system to produce numbers it calls real money. They use this “money” to buy USian debt instruments, treasury bills, notes, etc., and private debt and asset instruments. The US govt uses this funny money and tax money to stimulate the private sector and to pay for its yearly military and other expenses, including loan payments to the Social Security System Trust Fund to pay back real money the Federal govt borrowed from the Social Security System. The private sector borrows funny money at low interest from the Federal Reserve System to advance its own interests, including the buying back of stock of corporations to enrich stockholders and executive cronies owning the stock. The total federal debt keeps growing and growing through time. As of 2:57 pm September 12, 2022, the total US federal debt, accumulated throughout its history, according to US Debt Clock.org, was about $30,884,777,487,108, almost thirty-one trillion dollars. So far in fiscal year 2022, total USian federal spending has been about $5,952,558,908,352, about six trillion dollars; and total tax revenue has been about $4,459,634,257,768, resulting in a deficit of about $1,492,922,523,176, about one and one-half trillion dollars, to be paid with Fed funny money and money paid by other purchasers of USian federal debt. The US Federal Reserve System now owns about 11.2 percent of the total USian Federal debt, about 2.5 trillion dollars worth. About 50 percent of the Federal debt is owned by foreign countries, China and others. About 48 percent of the USian debt is owned by USian private citizens and other purchasers in the US. The Federal Reserve is now worried about inflation, so it has been jacking up the interest rate charged everyone in the USian banking system. This causes recession in the real economy. How bad will the incipient recession have to get before the Fed starts lowering interest rates again to cure the recession they had to cause to lower inflation by raising interest rates? Since 1980 or so the losers in this process have been middle and lower income USians who have received no increases in their real incomes while the real incomes of upper income USians have significantly increased. It appears middle and lower income level USians in the private sector will again pay a high price for another roller-coaster ride in the treacherous USian economy, getting stuck again with tenuous employment and lower real incomes after all is said and done coping with this swing of the business cycle, as the USian Federal Reserve System as usual creates funny money and lowers and raises interest rates causing and curing recoveries and recessions. How do Earthian humans responsible for creating and managing this diabolical system sleep at night?
“The US Productive Sector Recession,†by Daniel Lacalle, DANIEL LACALLE, https://www.dlacalle.com/en/the-u-s-productive-sector-recession/.
September 12
“Modern slavery is present in basically every country, with more than half of cases of forced labour and a quarter of forced marriages in upper-middle income or high-income countries.
“It would be a mistake to believe that forced labour is solely the problem of poor countries,” Ryder told AFP.
“The report found that the number of people — mainly women and girls — stuck in forced marriages had risen by a full 6.6 million since the last global estimates in 2016.
“The number of people in forced labour swelled by 2.7 million over the same period.
“The increase was driven entirely by more forced labour in the private economy, including forced commercial sexual exploitation.
“But the report also said that 14 percent of those in forced labour were doing jobs imposed by state authorities, voicing concern about abuse of compulsory prison labour in many countries, including the United States.
“It also pointed to grave concerns raised by the UN rights office about “credible accounts of forced labour under exceptionally harsh conditions” in North Korea.
“And it highlighted the situation in China, where several UN agencies have warned of possible forced labour, including in the Xinjiang region, where Beijing stands accused of detaining more than one million Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities.”
“50 Million People Stuck in ‘Modern Slavery’: UN,†by Nina Larson, BARRON’S, https://www.barrons.com/news/50-million-people-stuck-in-modern-slavery-un-01662966307?fbclid=IwAR1PCQ7I-cP6rX2IioJpZCKXXJzQ_o0vKzZ0JP0VQ6eNXotdgDXfkgsMD48.
September 12
Great article by the BBC on possibly the number one problem facing Earthian humans today
“How many people can Earth handle?â€, BBC, https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20220905-is-the-world-overpopulated?ocid=ww.social.link.facebook.
September 11
A relevant presentation on how Franco, Hitler, Mussolini, and Stalin are being reincarnated around Spaceship Earth
“Fascism Has Gone Mainstream,†by Kelly Hayes, TRUTHOUT, https://truthout.org/audio/fascism-has-gone-mainstream/?utm_campaign=Truthout%20Share%20Buttons&fbclid=IwAR3-s5QsYi4YSPZM08BBdcvzloRAEjH0n-17Li7I5q5fxb9avMWkfnO3umE.
September 9
End this I’m OK—You’re Not OK madness before it ends us all
“Sino-American Relations: Breaking the Gordian Knot,†by Melvin Goodman, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/09/08/sino-american-relations-breaking-the-gordian-knot/?fbclid=IwAR3-s5QsYi4YSPZM08BBdcvzloRAEjH0n-17Li7I5q5fxb9avMWkfnO3umE.
September 9
The filibuster must go
“Report: 17 of 18 Pro-Democracy Bills Were Killed by Filibuster This Congress,†by Sharon Zhang, COUNTERPUNCH, https://truthout.org/articles/report-17-of-18-pro-democracy-bills-were-killed-by-filibuster-this-congress/?utm_campaign=Truthout%20Share%20Buttons&fbclid=IwAR1lbr8Iv_bJK1LgpYja0nP4Xj0J_1diqEkgcpOfj-uO8NBx2YadTeN2RsI.
September 8
Worse than you might have thought
“Summary: U.S. Drought Monitor,†U.S. DROUGHT MONITOR, https://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/Summary.aspx?fbclid=IwAR17DcQ0icQt__LZugUlei3EN9ID-lOODa16G39XWlytguL9quR_ThUhiPM.
September 8
Say it ain’t so Joe
“Silencing the Lambs: How Propaganda Works,†by John Pilger, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/09/08/silencing-the-lambs-how-propaganda-works/?fbclid=IwAR2kNMnO3mVnBDEt9k3PZPNq7L7kKT96mrFDvoKnefbxwV7cc175cMbsQoQ.
September 6
Say this ain’t so Joe
“Let’s Stop Pretending America Is a Functioning Democracy,†by Chris Hedges, SCHEERPOST, https://scheerpost.com/2022/09/05/chris-hedges-lets-stop-pretending-america-is-a-functioning-democracy/?fbclid=IwAR12flPAn7XbuOJUteRkLGl1FVLlh97dk6jpG3De5eW9s-T6u2e1K5ITbTo.
September 8
So sad
“Trump is a ‘deranged, defective personality’ we’re watching ‘self-destruct in real time’: George Conway,†by Matthew Chapman, QUORA, https://nevertrumpers.quora.com/Trump-is-a-deranged-defective-personality-were-watching-self-destruct-in-real-time-George-Conway?ch=1&oid=80281575&share=fd6c83b4&srid=hkkCWN&target_type=post&fbclid=IwAR2kkx7BExumOAXi_FCCdVkH9sH62vb_l68H0cK7b1awYVdTpv0YEI3Ov7w.
September 6
If systemic changes are not made in the capitalistic system
“Our Super Rich Are Fretting About Their Great-Great-Grandkids,†by Sam Pizzigati, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/09/06/our-super-rich-are-fretting-about-their-great-great-grandkids/?fbclid=IwAR0f6wX-JJvh5Kfb163DuYKckZNdHGCc-1FcLUlqJQKScJuuAlCYCv3ovtg.
September 6
Greed and corruption at the top of large corporations, a continuing saga
“Does Mexico’s Wind Industry Deliver More Dirty Profits Than Clean Energy?,†by Tamara Pearson, TRUTHOUT, https://truthout.org/articles/does-mexicos-wind-industry-deliver-more-dirty-profits-than-clean-energy/?utm_campaign=Truthout%20Share%20Buttons&fbclid=IwAR0obTWS1628gozQDtL2KF45fcLCxm5MvrCpO05JFrM3tniR96c-F30U6Mg.
September 6
No. In order to be a genius one must do ingenious things and be widely recognized for it. Any genius worth his or her salt would know if s/he had met this criterion
“Can one be a genius and not know it,†by Emmanuel Brun d’Aubignosc, QUORA, https://www.quora.com/Can-one-be-a-genius-and-not-know-it/answer/Emmanuel-Brun-dAubignosc?ch=1&oid=109908637&share=92e156ab&srid=hkkCWN&target_type=answer&fbclid=IwAR0xjxjmT9MNLzlGXDQECPhC1SG5Ycp0osKNyRk-dBXAs-Ejdlb6zGAcqUo.
September 5
For some optimistic thinking read this
“How to Green Our Parched Farmlands and Finance Critical Infrastructure,†by Ellen Brown, SCHEERPOST, https://scheerpost.com/2022/09/01/ellen-brown-how-to-green-our-parched-farmlands-and-finance-critical-infrastructure/?fbclid=IwAR1VrVnFm0ddAFmROk_5ZXMFx2vgChq3XbYgkIcU6yGYKFxEiAKCu6LyKNA .
September 5
Two wrongs do not make a right
“Where’s the Outrage?,†by J Peder Zane, REALCLEAR POLITICS, https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2022/09/02/wheres_the_outrage_148136.html?fbclid=IwAR1jlSjGi1wIWlzF2NRuH7dmTNW7y0FV-Djgw2eBJw0WPGBSWMp4QMsJ-_U.
September 3
Facism anyone? Here’s another dynamite article by Paul Street
“No-so ‘Semi’-Fascism and its Bourgeois-Democratic Enablers,†by Paul Street, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/09/02/not-so-semi-fascism-and-its-bourgeois-democratic-enablers/?fbclid=IwAR2zRkzeRYXcsHqJA55yxcHdvtzoYExaF1VQLmgkh_JGQoMGJrM2WZDoNYY.
September 3
Never read or heard this before
“Why did the Confederacy lose the war?,†by David Sciacchitano, QUORA, https://www.quora.com/Why-did-the-Confederacy-lose-the-Civil-War/answer/David-Sciacchitano-1?ch=1&oid=325334514&share=a05c3ae1&srid=hkkCWN&target_type=answer&fbclid=IwAR0LH8deRTIg2MDNvSvLubsKJdKkme87O7Y-WQSAf07d0ww3zxD7UUndT_I.
September 2
“McGuire concludes: “This is a call to arms. So if you feel the need to glue yourself to a motorway or blockade an oil refinery, do it. Drive an electric car or, even better use public transport, walk or cycle. Switch to a green energy tariff; eat less meat. Stop flying; lobby your elected representatives at both local and national level; and use your vote wisely to put in power a government that walks the talk on the climate emergency,â€
“For the first time in modern history major changes in lifestyle are now a requirement for human survival.
“Wouldn’t it be wonderful if climate scientists like Bill McGuire (there are several others with very similar views) had it all wrong?â€
“How Bad Can It Get,†by Robert Hunziker, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/09/02/how-bad-can-it-get/?fbclid=IwAR0Lq373t8cO0TG8HuDcy_aor8UseoplMwlUFb7aRbDoF2jn4T4CVA5-Ne0.
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ABOUT THE EDITOR
Here’s Richard John Stapleton, PhD, CTA in his office at Georgia Southern University the year he retired in 2005, the senior professor of the university that year. The photo was shot by Lori Grice, a former student, founder of Lori Grice Photography.
The object under his left hand is a version of the Classroom De- Gamerâ„¢ he invented in 1978.
He would spin the spinner of the De-Gamer in his classes to randomly select a student at the beginning of each class session to lead a discussion of the case assigned for that day, a case taken from a business situation that really happened prepared by professional casewriters at Georgia Southern, Harvard, Stanford, and the University of Alabama.
Grades were based eighty percent on oral class participation in dialectical discussions about what to do about problems and opportunities; the rest of the final grade was based on two case write-ups. One write-up was about what the student observed, researched, analyzed, and wrote about an existing business in the local environment or a business plan the student created. The other write-up was an analysis of a case observed and and written by business professors assigned as the final exam. Cases used in his courses contained processes, problems, opportunities, and data occurring in all functional areas of business such as entrepreneurship, finance, marketing, operations management, control, management information systems, and business policy and strategy.
He learned how the case method works teaching with Bernard Bienvenu, DBA and Rexford Hauser, DBA (Harvard Business School doctorates) at the University of Louisiana– Lafayette in 1969-70.
He has published refereed journal articles and books explaining how his democratic Game-free Adult-Adult I’m OK—You’re OK case method system works, by banishing Persecutors, Rescuers, and Victims playing psychological Games from the teaching and learning process, first documented in an article titled “The Classroom De-Gamer†he published in 1978 in the Transactional Analysis Journal.
He learned and trained in transactional analysis with Martin Groder, MD; Graham Barnes, PhD; Vann Joines, PhD; and many others at the Southeast Institute at Chapel Hill, North Carolina (1975-1978).
He has degrees in economics (BS, 1962), organizational behavior (MBA, 1966), and management science (PhD, 1969) from Texas Tech University. He has an organizational and educational certification in transactional analysis (CTA) granted by the International Transactional Analysis Association (1978).
He taught in his own case method track at the undergraduate level in the management department of the business school at Georgia Southern University offering four or five different elective case method courses each academic year (1970-2005), in which he led, coordinated, and graded about twenty-five or so students each year who took all or most of those case method courses in their junior and senior years, of about two hundred students who signed up for all his courses each year. He used a democratic circle or amphitheater classroom layout in all his classes. He also taught most semesters two sections of a capstone integrative business policy course he added to the business school curriculum in 1970 that was required for all undergraduate business majors that could be chosen by any student in any major. He was the only professor in the business school to use the case method in any course.
His students agreed to a course learning contract that stipulated they would read the facts of the case before class and would lose a whole letter grade from the course final grade if the De-Gamer randomly caught them obviously not having read the case before class, if they had not slipped a note under his office door before class telling him they had not read the case, which they could do twice during the course without penalty.
About ten percent of his students made A’s and about five percent made D’s. Most made C’s, which is about right, since C = Average. There were few F’s in his courses. The main criterion for course grades was the quantity and quality of ideas sold by students in case method discussions. He used peer ratings to give students feedback showing what their fellow students thought about the quantity and quality of their ideas sold in class, having made it clear the final decision about final grades was his. He did not believe in Lake Wobegon grading.
No student was ever forced to take one of his courses to graduate, and the most hardened Game-players in the school did not sign up for his courses after he issued his Edict of 1972 in which he clearly spelled out in his syllabi the penalty for getting caught unprepared. His Classroom De-Gamerâ„¢ was roundly discussed by students in bull sessions across campus every year and was labeled various things, such as The Wheel of Fate and The Death Wheel. Most students near the end of his career simply called it The Spinner.
He appreciated Georgia Southern honoring his academic freedom while allowing him control of his teaching methods, classroom layouts, grading procedures, and course books, cases, and materials, some of which he researched, wrote, and published. He was promoted to full professor at age thirty-six.
He collected longitudinal research data using questionnaires in 1992 showing his case method students during 1972-1982 reported higher yearly incomes in 1992 than students electing the same courses in 1972-1982 taught by professors using the authoritarian lecture method and the militaristic row and column classroom layout, who graded students based on memorizing or calculating “right answers†for tests, indicating learners learning in Adult—Adult I’m OK—You’re OK Game-free democratic learning processes graded subjectively became more successful in the real world of business than learners lectured to and graded using so-called objective multiple-choice tests.
Only former students who had worked in the real world ten or more years after graduating from the Georgia Southern business school were included in the study. The data are shown, analyzed, and discussed in full in “Evidence the Case Method Works†in his book Business Voyages: Mental Maps, Scripts, Schemata, and Tools for Discovering and Co-Constructing Your Own Business Worlds, 2008, pg. 475). The data were also used in several refereed articles.
For more information on related classroom management ethical issues see Stapleton, R.J. and Murkison, G. (2001), “Optimizing the fairness of student evaluations: A study of correlations between instructor excellence, study production, learning production, and expected grades,†published in the Journal of Management Education, 25(3), 269-292.
Stapleton had one of the lowest student grade point averages among professors in the business school and was one of the lowest-ranked professors as an instructor on computerized campus-wide student evaluations that weighted only instructor excellence scores up to 2000; but he was one of the highest-ranked professors in a computerized student evaluation system he designed that generated data also showing and weighting study production, learning production, and expected grades scores for each professor, published in “Optimizing the Fairness of Student Evaluations.â€
To read the Optimizing Fairness article in full, go to https://studysites.sagepub.com/holt/articles/Stapleton.pdf . After this research was published, Georgia Southern in 2001 added study production, learning production, and expected grades questions to the student evaluation form used campus-wide.
“Optimizing the Fairness of Student Evaluations†has by now (September 27, 2022) been cited as a reference in 83 refereed journal articles concerned about the ethics of student evaluations in several academic disciplines, including eight new citations since April 2021.
As the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein propositioned, “The case is all there is.â€
If so, everything else said about Earthian human states of affairs is a rendition of what was or might be.
For more on Stapleton’s cultural, educational, and professional experiences go to https://blog.effectivelearning.net/.