The Forty-Second Issue of a Management Systems Journal Concerned About Existential Earthian Human States of Affairs, December 1, 2023, Effective Learning Publications, 32 East Main Street, Statesboro, Georgia, USA, Richard John Stapleton, Editor & Publisher, Copyright 2023, All Rights Reserved
ASK MORE WHAT YOUR COUNTRY CAN DO FOR ALL EARTHIANS—TO REDUCE THE PROBABILITY OF EXTINCTIONS—CAUSED BY GLOBAL WARMING AND CLIMATE CHANGE (GWCC) AND/OR MILITARIZATION AND NUCLEAR WEAPONS PROLIFERATION (MNWP)
CONTENTS OF THIS ISSUE
1 — PERSPECTIVE OF A HYPOTHETICAL EXONEXUS OBSERVER FROM A PLANET BEYOND THE EARTHIAN SOLAR SYSTEM.
2 — RECENT EXISTENTIAL ARTICLES, IDEAS, AND COMMENTS
3 — TOWARD THE CO-CONSTRUCTION OF EARTHIAN PRODUCTION AND DISTRIBUTION SYSTEMS, INC. (EPDS)
4 — A GAME-FREE CASE METHOD TEACHING AND LEARNING PROCESS THAT WOULD PRODUCE DEMOCRATIC DISCUSSIONS, LEARNING, AND POLICY FORMULATION AROUND EARTH
AN EARTHIAN ELDER SPEAKS
“So, I guess what I’m saying is that, as we can establish that the earth is a sphere, and thus finite, then growth in your population and artifacts must have limits. And, your lack of a social-economic system to recognize those limits is leading us all to diaster.â€
See and read more about KOKO, the gorilla who knew over 1,000 words.
1 — OPINION OF A HYPOTHETICAL EXONEXUS OBSERVER FROM A PLANET BEYOND THE EARTHIAN SOLAR SYSTEM
Earthian humans are enthralled, manipulated, and in various degrees controlled by their leaders in some two hundred countries aboard Spaceship Earth. Leaders became leaders because of being caused to be leaders by concatenations of unbroken cause-effect chains resulting after our universe started evolving some thirteen billion years ago in the infinity of time and space.
Leaders are generally products of the same sorts of differentiated configurations of cause-effect chains as differentiated followers and members in differentiated countries. All Earthian humans are doing what they were caused to do in their daily lives starting at birth.
Earth as a planet was formed about 4.5 billion years ago and has undergone innumerable transformations in the meantime. Humanoid creatures have been aboard Spaceship Earth for some two million years, and they too have undergone numerous evolutionary changes, as have other Earthian species.
Unfortunately, Earthian humans have now reached a precarious and dangerous stage in their evolution as biological creatures. After slowly evolving more and more accurate, complex, and powerful understandings, technologies, and ways of life for two million years on Earth, during the last two hundred years Earthian humans evolved new technological devices at exponential rates that enabled them to increase the overly-fecund human population of Earth so much that they now threaten not only to destroy their own existence as a species aboard Spaceship Earth but also the existence of most other species alive on Earth.
Keeping eight or so billion humans alive on Earth has required so many goods and services to be produced to satisfy human biological and psychological needs and wants and so much carbon-based fuel to be burned to produce the goods that the climate of Spaceship Earth has been altered by carbon dioxide gas released into the Earthian atmosphere in large-enough quantities to cause extra heat to be trapped on Earth causing the mean Earthian temperature to increase at a yearly rate that threatens to destroy Earthian human life as it now exists, within centuries, if not decades.
Unfortunately, Earthian humans have also developed technological knowledge that has enabled them to produce over 10,000 nuclear weapons that could destroy human life if dropped and detonated around Earth, as they have the capability to do.
2 — RECENT EARTHIAN EXISTENTIAL ARTICLES, IDEAS, AND COMMENTS
October 19, 2012
“You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places. All these are the beginning of birth pains.
“Then you will be handed over to be persecuted and put to death, and you will be hated by all nations because of me. At that time many will turn away from the faith and will betray and hate each other, and many false prophets will appear and deceive many people. Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold, but the one who stands firm to the end will be saved.†— Holy Bible, New International Version
Seems prophetic alright, but it also normalizes war, and hopelessness, except for the “savedâ€. Saved from what, the eternal fires of a vengeful god? What greater torture could there be than that, created by a supposedly loving god. It’s bad enough to be bombed and tortured in wars by deranged not very bright sadistic Earthian humans, but getting punished and tortured eternally by a god for not keeping a “faith†is off the charts for cruelty and callousness. — RJS
“WERE THE BIBLICAL PROPHETS ANTI-SEMITIC,†BY MICHAEL HUDSON, COUNTERPUNCH.ORG.
Michael Hudson, the greatest economic historian alive, ties it all together in this article, the most relevant and illuminating article I have read in a good while. It’s a should-read for all Earthian humans. Seems to me there was not an old man up there in the sky with a long white beard wearing a long white robe on a white puffy cloud with a walking stick in his hand telling Jewish prophets what to do about economic policy: It was some highly intelligent Earthian humans called prophets considering rationality itself (truth, justice, mercy, love, etc.) God. — RJS
July 29
“THE CENTER CANNOT HOLD,†BY PAUL STREET, COUNTERPUNCH.ORG
Grieve this doesn’t happen. –– RJS
October 19
ISRAEL IS COMMITTING AN EPIC WAR CRIME WITH US BACK AND US ARMS, BY DAVE LINDORFF, COUNTERPUNCH.ORG
Say it aint so Joe — RJS
October 14
“THE WAR IS NOT MEANT TO BE WON,†BY ADMINISTRATOR, THE BURNING PLATFORM
This article is too cynical perhaps but it contains more than a grain of truth.
Here is what a renowned USian diplomat and historian had to say about the problem:— RJS
“Were the Soviet Union to sink tomorrow under the waters of the ocean, the American military-industrial establishment would have to go on, substantially unchanged, until some other adversary could be invented. Anything else would be an unacceptable shock to the American economy.†George F. Kennan (1904-2005), quote published in Foreword to ‘The Pathology of Power’†by Norman Cousins (Norton, 1987), from At a Century’s Ending: Reflections 1982-1995 (Norton, 1997, ISBN 0-393-31609-2), Part II: Cold War in Full Bloom, p. 118. Read more at https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/George_F._Kennan
October 14
FREE PALESTINE, BY AMEL MENJOUR, FACEBOOK
Why not just create a new name for the place, like the United States of Western Asia, or some such, perhaps something like the United State of Judah, Palestine, Israel, and Edum, giving all inhabitants equal rights of citizenship, with no mention of religion in a new constitution, save perhaps one sentence stating the United State of Judah, Israel, Palestine, and Edum shall pass no laws respecting the efficacy or irrelevance of religion, like the United States of America did in its constitution, the bravest and best thing the USian founders did. — RJS
October 36
DOES ISRAEL HAVE A RIGHT TO EXIST?, (W/MIKO PELED), YOUTUBE.COM
Here is the best video I have watched and listened to on the problem in Israel/Palestine. Well worth a look and listen.— RJS
October 25
“THE GREEN IS THE ARAB WORLD. THAT TINY SPECK IS ISRAEL,†BY ELISHEVA NEUMAN, FACEBOOK
The land of Israel has been populated by the Jewish people since 2000 BC. Here’s the timeline, in case you didn’t realize that it is their homeland.
1900 BC: Abraham chosen by God as the Father of the Jewish Nation.
1900 BC: Isaac, Abraham’s son, rules over Israel.
1850 BC: Jacob, son of Issac, rules over Israel.
1400 BC: Moses leads the people out of Egypt and back to Israel.
1010 BC: King David unites the 12 tribes into one nation.
970 BC: King Solomon, son of David, builds the first temple structure in Jerusalem
930 BC: Israel is divided into two kingdoms, the Kingdom of Israel and the Kingdom of Judah.
800s BC: The rise of the prophets, God’s messengers.
722 BC: Kingdom of Israel is conquered by Assyrians.
605 BC: Kingdom Judah is conquered by the Babylonians.
586 BC: Solomon’s Temple is destroyed by the Babylonians.
539 BC: Persians conquer the Babylonians and take control of Israel.
538 BC: The Jews return to Israel from exile.
520 BC: The Temple is rebuilt.
450 BC: Reforms made by Ezra and Nehemiah.
433 BC: Malachi is the end of the prophetic age.
432 BC: The last group of Jews return from exile.
333 BC: The Greeks conquer the Persian empire.
323 BC: The Egyptian and Syrian empire take over Israel.
167 BC: Hasmonean’s recapture Israel, and the Jews are ruled independently.
70 BC: Romans conquer Israel.
20 BC: King Herod builds the “second†temple
6 BC: Yeshua is born in Bethlehem
70 AD: Romans destroy the temple
After that, the people were captives to the Romans, Byzantines, Arabs, and Crusaders. Through all of these events, the Jewish people continued to live in Israel. There were more or less of them, depending on the centuries, but there was never a time when the Jews didn’t live in the land. They stayed, they built their communities, they raised their families, practiced their faith and they suffered at the hands of many outside rulers, but they always kept their faith. It is what sustains them, even now.
In 1948, the UN established the State of Israel, the nation of Jews. Don’t listen to the Palestinian lies that they are entitled to the land. It simply is not true. God will also provide a way for his chosen people to live in Israel, as He has for thousands of years. Pray for the people of Israel. — copied by Elisheva Neuman
Very sad. Map makes the stark reality of the problem clear. Why would anyone have wanted in 1948 to put a state like Israel in this situation in the first place? Included in the comments below is an excellent utube video containing a refreshing answer. Well worth a look and listen. — RJS
Shows ya competent Arabs are — SB
In my fantasy novel, the dragons and witches promised that land to me! — MR
I’m an Atheist so I’m not buying any of that right to ownership crap. Israel can have their land. However, the Palestinian people also deserve to have their land with their own government and not continue to live in an apartheid state. And yes, Hamas should be destroyed. — PB
Can you show in scripture where Israel is mentioned and where exactly on that map is Palestine? — DS
As you know, Richard, this is a myth-filled fake history, until it gets to 1948, and even there he falsifies the one solidly accurate sentence with fundamentalist prophecy. — PG
The land of Israel, is a greater land mass now, than during the time it had two states (Israel and Judea). There were many of other groups residing in Palestine. Elisheva Neuman, Do you live in Israel? If not would you like it if someone tried to expel you from your home? — CS
I see a lot of Zionist live out of Israel. So how do they justify their rights to ownership in a foreign land? When you consider that you may then have sympathetic understanding of the Palestinians plight. We need to dismantle borders. — CS
Israel including the USA makes a difference – GC
The Bible is made up bullshit. — TS
The Zionists and Hebrews have been manipulating the Bible in their favor. Israel is the barren fig tree, the modern Pharisees. Israel is so racist, that they killed Jesus because He wasn’t from David’s house. — MR
The only problem is, it’s presenting mythology as fact and then using that to justify genocide…otherwise yeah sure, spot on. — JS
Why do you think that these people of today are the same as two thousand years ago? And why don’t you understand that when Jesus came the covenant changed? — JK
Get rid of religion and treat everyone as an equal
It’s not hard
Both think they are superior to the other because of religion — MJ
Though I sympathize with the people of Israel this argument is faulty for if man gave back the land to its ancestral beginnings then dismantle America, England Europe and so many other countries. Why would Israel be the only country restored to its ancestral lands. The only argument I can see is why not let them both learn to share a small slither of earth and have other countries stay out of the affairs the region. Stop the racism and apartheid. Both nations need leaders that want to get along and live in peace versus destroy one another and get the world out of your nation. They are both being used by other nations for their own political financial agenda that doesn’t seem to benefit either group who live in the region. Overly simplistic answers to a complicated problem or is our only solution when we don’t like one another is to destroy the other. If so then man still lives in caves and progress is just a dressing. We are not ready for the stars because we can’t solve our oldest problems. — HP
The god stuff is Made up nonsense. The land is land. It’s not holy and it’s not worth losing one life over — MS
We are all inhabitants, temporarily placed here to know ourselves and learn how to get along with each other… all places are good for all of us… humankind has been on this earth for millennia. there is a real purpose for our temporary life on this Earth…which we still need to understand so we move forward, instead of keep coming back to make the same mistakes. — AA
A bunch of Eastern European Slavs and Western Jews who had never set foot on this Unholy Land, nor their ancestors for over 2,000 years, are suddenly, by Biblical fiat, entitled to displace its residents and apartheid these untermensch, this life unworthy of life, into Warsaw-like ghettos to be treated like animals? — CJ
Doesn’t that prove Jews can live in peace with Arab Muslims, and it’s the Zionists who are the problem? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gIX368TtOJs… — TD
Exactly! It’s really just geopolitical. — SC
Palestinians are Semitic peoples — AO
Maybe this video will help set the matter straight https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8M0mYzD8ZY — RJS
The territory of Palestine is one of the most strategically located parts of the planet, flanking the Suez Canal which is vital to the world economy. Having a Western style nation in control of it is advantageous to US Imperialism. — DK
DK, wise fellow. — EC
DK, good point. Sad but true — RJS
November 14
Here is my take on the situation.
All the US needs now is another costly war in Western Asia. Europeans, Zionists, and USians have made a hell of a mess of the situation in Palestine for over seventy-five years, having done seven or so times as much damage to Palestinians as Palestinians have done unto them. Zionists and their supporters have projected onto the Palestinians what they have done unto the Palestinians: destroying their existence as a state, stealing more and more Palestinian land and property, having by now reduced Palestinian territory to two small apartheid slivers of its original size before 1948, concentration camps for surviving Palestinians, having hypocritically used the Jewish religion and the German Jewish holocaust as an excuse for their colonial-settler crimes. End this barbaric merciless cruelty and callousness. Cease firing and bombing now! Both sides! Change the name of the state now called Israel to something acceptable to all inhabitants within its borders. Write a new constitution providing equal rights for all inhabitants, including a sentence in the new constitution stating the state shall pass no laws respecting the efficacy or irrelevance of religion, one of the things USians did right in their constitution. This would cure the overall problem in Israel/Palestine, if anything would, as screwed-up as Earthian human states of affairs are now in general. — RJS
November 13
Say it aint so Joe
November 2
NO LONGER A DEMOCRAT, BY L. MICHAEL HAGER, COUNTERPUNCH.ORG
Say it aint so Joe
November 2.
IS THERE SUCH A THING AS A “JUST WAR�, BY ALFRED DE ZAYAS, COUNTERPUNCH.ORG
More on war than most Earthian humans want to know — RJS
“What we know of history is mostly a form of literature akin to politicized fiction. Histories are written to legitimize the authority of the powerful, to justify the result of the wars and apportion blame as necessary for the desired political narrative. The ideal of history-writing proposed by the 19th-century German historian Leopold von Ranke, according to whom a historian should “simply†write history “wie es eigentlich gewesen†– how it actually happened – is not that simple, and has never been achieved.†— Alfred de Zayas
November 17
THE REPUBLI-FASCIST SPECTER LOOMS, BY PAUL STREET, COUNTERPUNCH.ORG
“Those Who Call Us Fascists Will Have Their Sad, Miserable Existence Crushed!†— DJT
Well, I guess I am crushed because I have said quite a few times lately I think Trump is a fascist. I am not so sure about his base. I think most of them just don’t know what they are doing. I think what is happening now in the US is similar to what has happened over and over in Earthian human history: a have-less class of people accumulate enough hatred for a have-more class that they become willing to commit crimes under an irrational dictator to take what they think they deserve from the targeted have-more class using violent physical force. In the case of the US now the have-more class is a relatively well-educated group that has more economic security and prestige than the have-less class. Seems to me the same sort of thing happened in situations that empowered Franco, Hitler, Stalin, Mao Tse Tung, Pol Pot, Pinochet, Hutu Power and other Earthian dictatorships that caused millions of deaths and massive suffering. Whether the have-less class and their leaders call themselves fascists, communists, socialists, democratic socialists, christians, magas, nationalists, or anything else is irrelevant. Rationality is irrelevant in these situations. The only thing that counts in the end with the have-lesses in these situations is their exaggerated hatred of the scapegoated have-mores that gives them permission to do anything they can to take what they think they deserve by violent brute force. Seems to me this process is now going on to some degree in several Earthian countries. Nobody knows what’s going to happen. — RJS
He is so scary! — S McW
November 27
You can build a case this assassination started the downward spiral of the US into what it has become today, an economy and society dependent on its military expenditures for its economic functioning. On the other hand, you can build a case this process got started during WWII when it became obvious military spending can get a country out of a great depression, causing the USian deep state to decide to perpetuate a war-machine system after winning WWII, the excuse at the time being it had to be done to fight communism. Well, after defeating Russian communism in the cold war in 1989, the military economy was perpetuated using Bush II’s War on Terror after 9/11. Both the Ukrainian and the Israeli/Palestine Wars have done a good job keeping a new cold war and cash flows flowing for the USian military-industrial-intelligence-banking-media economy.
Of course, there is no proof that the CIA was responsible for the JFK assassination. How could such a thing ever be proved to all Earthian humans? Nothing can be proved to all Earthian humans given the way their beliefs are caused to exist in all their learning processes and systems.
Up to now the USian military has not supported Trump in his efforts to turn the US into a full-fledged military dictatorship, thanks to General Milley’s handling of Trump during Trump’s January 6, 2021 insurrection attempt. But if Trump should be elected again in 2024 it’s possible a new insurrection attempt could work if Trump increases his power more and more by hiring and appointing more and more obsequious bootlicking USians to high offices who would follow his orders to destroy USian democracy in another insurrection. — RJS
October 14
“THE WAR IS NOT MEANT TO BE WON…,†BY TYLER DURDEN, ZEROHEDGE.COM
This article is too cynical perhaps but it contains more than a grain of truth.
Here is what a renowned USian diplomat and historian had to say about the general problem: — RJS
“Were the Soviet Union to sink tomorrow under the waters of the ocean, the American military-industrial establishment would have to go on, substantially unchanged, until some other adversary could be invented. Anything else would be an unacceptable shock to the American economy.†George F. Kennan (1904-2005), quote published in Foreword to ‘The Pathology of Power’†by Norman Cousins (Norton, 1987), from At a Century’s Ending: Reflections 1982-1995 (Norton, 1997, ISBN 0-393-31609-2), Part II: –Cold War in Full Bloom, p. 118. Read more at https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/George_F._Kennan
August 21
MY YEAR TEACHING ON USAF NATO BASES, BY RICHARD JOHN STAPLETON, EFFECTIVE LEARNING REPORT
I took Army ROTC for one year at Hardin-Simmons University, a Baptist college with about 1,700 students, at Abilene, Texas in 1958-59 as a freshman on a basketball scholarship. ROTC was required for two years for all males at Hardin-Simmons. I basically detested it, thinking marching, saluting, presenting arms, shining brass, etc. was the dumbest thing I ever did. I got out of the second year of required ROTC after finding out I could never be commissioned as an officer in the military because of a spinal fusion back surgery I had when I was a sophomore in high school. All I had to do was show a medical doctor in Abilene the ten-inch scar running up my back and have him sign a form affirming he had seen it. I was called up for the USian draft in 1962 and was required to take a standard Army physical at Amarillo, Texas. As I stood in line naked with other potential draftees during the physical a medical doctor took one look at the scar and told me, “I’m sorry but you are permanently disqualified from military service.â€
I thus never had to worry about getting drafted and sent to Vietnam to get my ass shot off, as a lot of not-yet-drafted young males in the States used to say back in those days. I would have volunteered to help defend the US in a war from a serious enemy threatening to invade the US. I am not sure there have been any since the War of 1812. — RJS
September 27
WHAT WOULD REAL “NATIONAL DEFENSE†LOOK LIKE? BY WILLIAM ASTORE, COUNTERUNCH.ORG
Interesting article, but I agree with the writers of the constitution that the commander in chief should be a civilian. We need politicians with these values to build a military to support them.
I’ve often wondered if professionalizing the military by eliminating the draft was a mistake. — PEZ
September 15
I WATCHED A DEMOCRACY DIE. I DON’T WANT TO DO IT AGAIN, BY ARIEL DORFMAN, COUNTERPUNCH.ORG
Say it cant happen here Joe
November 16
WAR IS A RACKET, BY NOT ME US, FACEBOOK
I served in all commissioned ranks from a second lieutenant to a major general. And during that time, I spent most of my time being a high-class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street, and for the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer. — Smedley Butler, Two Time Medal of Honor Recipient
November 27
Bidenism is old and outdated. Seems to me what is needed is younger new blood in a Dem, Independent, Green ticket comprising a combination of Newsome, West, RJK Jr., Harris, or Warren, to reduce the probability of the Trumpist threat to USian democracy. — RJS
You gotta be kidding!!! — VBC
I’m no expert on these matters but it seems like a good idea to me. All USians are entitled to express their opinions about these matters as of now. — RJS
Rick you are so right. Many have given the ultimate price to give us the freedom of speech and opinion. —VBC
Biden is nothing more than Trump in blue drag. — ML
November 8
EARTHIAN EMPOWERMENT SYSTEMS, BY RICHARD JOHN STAPLETON, EFFECTIVE LEARNNG REPORT
There may be hundreds of dead planets in our Universe that were once inhabited by human-like creatures that lived, learned, and evolved on their planets in learning processes resembling the learning processes of Earthian humans, who through eons on their planets learned how to develop lethal weapons like Earthian nuclear bombs and complex industrial processes requiring burning fossil fuel who became extinct because of what they were caused to learn and develop through natural evolutionary cause-effect chains.
The same sort of thing could happen to Earthian humans if they do not quickly in cosmic time learn how to satisfy their biological, psychological, social, economic, and political needs in significantly improved social, psychological, economic, political, and military systems that do not require or entail the burning of carbon-based fuel or the decision-making of ordinary and sometimes demented Earthian humans in fascist organizations.
Up to now, overthrowing existing economic, social, and political orders with new economic, social, and political orders in violent revolutions or wars has not been not a good idea. Existing dysfunctional orders were torn down or disintegrated and were replaced by new dysfunctional orders. — RJS
November 22
I’m recently 40…any advice? — JM
Assign the best probabilities you can to the possibilities confronting you and choose the best one. Unfortunately, there is no way to avoid risk. — RJS
Somewhat agree but many people would feel like a winner making it to 80 even as a has-been or having a lot of money. The rest definitely did not win and most have difficult lives. I think the key is for one to be thankful for what they have or had and be very tough to grow old. Hope you are doing well Dr. Stapleton. — AO
Thanks, Andy. Well said. I’m doing ok I guess. A wellness nurse asked me recently doing a Medicare checkup, “How much pain do you feel on a scale of 0-10?†I told her probably about a 2. So far no life-threatening maladies. I’m probably one of the lucky ones. Cheers. — RJS
3 — TOWARD THE CO-CONSTRUCTION OF EARTHIAN PRODUCTION AND DISTRIBUTION SYSTEMS, INC. (EPDS)
Establishing democracy chapters around Spaceship Earth as described and recommended in As the Rooster Crows Earthian OKness Increases might develop consensual answers regarding existential matters from the bottom up that might help save Spaceship Earth. These ideas 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 computerized Spaceship Earth management system, operated and controlled using artificial intelligence programming and supercomputers.
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 bottom-up recommendations of millions of members in discussions in democracy chapters around Spaceship Earth. Each member of the group 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, while insuring the indefinite functioning of all Spaceship Earth ecosystems.
Necessary moral and ethical requirements and constraints could be programmed in the Magnum Management System that Earthian humans at the top would be obliged to obey. If changes should be made in the moral and ethical codes in the overall program they would be sent back to the Earthian democracy chapters for discussion and then tabulated and analyzed before algorithms programmed in the system would create changes in the magnum operating system.
This 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 system
A management system such as this would significantly improve previous management systems used around Spaceship Earth that have frequently empowered egotistical, greedy, power mad, grandiose, poorly educated, not-very-bright Earthian humans to make existential decisions affecting the OKness of thousands, millions, or billions of humans around Earth, that have been used over and over again for millennia, that caused incredible losses and suffering at various moments of Earthian history, that were basically caused by indiscriminate unbroken cause-effect chains inexorably tunneling out through time bad, ok, or good luck for Earthian humans around Spaceship Earth, starting with the evolution of our universe some fourteen billion years ago.
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, causing wars and other disasters.
It follows that significant changes must be made in the way Earthian humans feel, think, and behave if the probability of human extinction is to be reduced..
Probably the best way significant numbers of Earthian humans can be caused to be significantly changed psychologically and socially by others is through democratic face to face discussions in honest serious and rigorous dialectical, dialogical arguing about facts using reasoning of all kinds, inductive, deductive, analogical, or whatever, dealing with Earthian human existential states of affairs over a relatively long period of time.
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 stages in their unique tunnels, as they are knocked around like balls in a pin-ball machine, as events inevitably and/or accidentally happen externally 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.
Changing the life 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 of Earthian human evolution a meaningless drift in the infinity of time and space.
What is God? Whatever it was that caused the universe to exist.
For more information on the use of Transactional Analysis to create better discussion groups and democratic processes read Born to Learn: A Transactional Analysis of Human Learning
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
Read “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.
This novel shows how to conduct a new kind of seminar invented and coordinated by Rout Logger, the protagonist, that might reduce the probability of Earthian human extinction if widely implemented that requires participants in a seminar to speak 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 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 beak to her or him sitting in the circle is automatically selected as the Leader of the Moment for the group.
The Leader of the Moment then leads 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 would 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 was 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. The results of the discussions were published to wealthy donors who financed the process.
Rout Logger was convinced most Earthian humans would not volunteer to participate in this sort of seminar to merely help save Spaceship Earth from GWCC and/or MNWP using their Nurturing Parent, Adult, and Free Child Ego States, given the reality that their life time and energy was already programmed and consumed with various forms of withdrawal, rituals, pastimes, psychological games, activities, and intimacy in their unique tunnels of reality, as they acted out their inherited life scripts; so they were paid $5000 per month to participate in a game-free, Adult-Adult democratic seminar that would require them to honestly discuss existential problems with forty other participants from disparate walks of life, if they were randomly selected by the spinning Truther Rooster as the Leader of the Moment.
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 general algorithmic matrix algebra form can help bring this state of affairs about,
Max CjXj, s.t. AijXj ≤, =, or ≥ Bi,
explained in “The Evolution of Spaceship Earth, Inc.†.
This mathematical formulation could help develop power in economics loosely analogous to the power of E=mc2 in physics. This formulation, Max CjXj, subject to, AijXj ≤, =, or ≥ Bi, 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.
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 formulation 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. He was the inventor of the appellations Earthian and Spaceship Earth.
Many Earthian humans like to win BALANCE SHEET psychological GAMES, to feel superior and lord it over others, regardless if Spaceship Earth is going to hell in a handbasket 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 in the process of amassing their riches, since they were saved, as it were, by taking in and controlling more almighty monetary units than other lesser mortals.
If you want to learn more about transactional analysis, such as Ego States, Scripts, and psychological GAMES, read Born to Learn: A Transactional Analysis of Human Learning.
Most Earthian humans know what it is to be egotistical, but they have little understanding of how specific human egotistical manifestations, such as Parent, Adult, and Child ego states, can be used to control and manipulate human behavior for nefarious ends.
For short run policies and strategies for dealing with USian economic and political problems read free the platform of the FreeFairProgressParty .
4 — A GAME-FREE CASE METHOD TEACHING AND LEARNING PROCESS THAT WOULD PRODUCE DEMOCRATIC DISCUSSIONS, LEARNING, AND POLICY FORMULATION AROUND EARTH
Richard John Stapleton, PhD, CTA would spin the spinner of his Classroom De-GAMERâ„¢ in his classes to randomly select a student at the beginning of each class session to lead a discussion of the case assigned for the day, a case taken from a planned or operating business prepared by case writers at Georgia Southern, Harvard, Stanford, and the University of Alabama.
This process insured that everyone would be relatively GAME-free transacting in class discussions. They all agreed to a learning contract at the outset of the course that they would read assigned cases and would be graded on the quantity and quality of ideas sold in the class market. Anyone caught obviously unprepared by the spinning De-GAMER would lose a whole letter grade from the course grade. No one could feel or think that s/he was being persecuted or rescued if selected to start the class discussion of the day by the Classroom De-GAMERâ„¢. The psychological GAME roles of Persecutor, Rescuer, and Victim were largely banished from the course learning process.
Be it noted that Stapleton sat in the same circle in the same kind of chair as students, and the De-Gaming rules also applied to him. If the Classroom De-GAMERâ„¢ landed on him he had to lay out the case just like any other student and discuss what was the problem, what were the alternatives, and what he recommended.
Grades were based eighty percent on class participation in dialectical discussions about what to do about problems and opportunities found in cases; 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 researched and written by professors about a business 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 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 has published seven books and over one hundred articles in various media containing cases, research data, and essays on teaching and learning and management policies and practices.
Stapleton learned and trained using 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 was a Harvard Case Method teacher who never went to Harvard, having 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 a BS in economics (1962), an MBA in organizational behavior (1966), and a PhD in management science (1969) from Texas Tech University, and an organizational and educational certification in transactional analysis (CTA) from the International Transactional Analysis Association (1978).
He taught 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 elected 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 by 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 solicited anonymous 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.
The ancient Greeks used a similar random-selection democratic process in the Third Century BCE to select leaders of political discussions, learning, and policy formulation in their halls of government. Such a process is called sortition.
For more information on related classroom management ethical issues see Stapleton, R.J. and Murkison, G. “Optimizing the fairness of student evaluations: A study of correlations between instructor excellence, study production, learning production, and expected grades,†in the Journal of Management Education, 2001, 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 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€
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 (November 24, 2023) been cited as a reference in 89 refereed journal articles concerned about the ethics of student evaluations in several academic disciplines, including 21 new citations since April 2021.
As the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein propositioned in his book Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, “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 see “RJS Academic Vita,â€
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