TED Community » Marianne Delongi

More About Me

I'm passionate about

Human Rights and Justice. Torah.

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• A reply on Talk: Steven Pinker: The surprising decline in violence

  Apr 20 2013: Me thinks thou protests too much. Since it is impossible to prove a negative, it's not really worth the trouble to tell a believer that there is no God.
  
  It is unfortunate the the desire to "debunk" the scriptures ends up eclipsing the journey and vehicle of the most civilizing influence that mankind has ever undergone. Since every camp imagines that it wants to own Thomas Jefferson (and George Orwell) use Jefferson's premise that the "Jewish Carpenter delivered the most perfect moral system to man that ever was"..not a perfect paraphrase, but it skirts the problem that non-believers have.
  When Pinky posits that we need to keep doing what we have been doing that was right, it ends up a futile proposition if you are going to ignore the KJV. Better read your Fredrich Nietzsche if you want to understand what you are no longer doing right. It was the great atheist himself that promised when man embarked upon a godless course, he would soon lose a moral imperative.

• A reply on Talk: Elyn Saks: A tale of mental illness -- from the inside

  Apr 16 2013: You observation holds true in practical terms. When our family was dealing with a friend that was schizophrenic, if he was at at town home, the fear was that he would be killed by law enforcement. (The numbers bear out that fear, especially because he was a young, strong male). However, if he was at a home that was out in the country, the entire episode changed to being able to work with the problems without that fear of clashing with the community and inviting LE into the mix. Eventually, being unable to keep the friend in an open environment, we had to actually call LE and he was incarcerated, so certain we were that his behavior was putting him in the crosshairs. BTW..like the speaker, he has never hit anyone or threatened bodily harm.

• A reply on Talk: Jonathan Haidt: How common threats can make common (political) ground

  Jan 23 2013: Focusing on the ecological stewardship does pull in people from all strata. Only sociopaths want to destroy the planet. But when you get to "rewilding" or most of rural America..(check out the map from the "Rewilding Institute" you are definitely inviting bloodshed over jack boot environmentalism.
  
  I am not sure that we are really going to be discussing much in the near future, it seems like "they" are determined to make this nation come apart at the seams.

• A reply on Talk: Jonathan Haidt: How common threats can make common (political) ground

  Jan 20 2013: This brings us round to the question of "who can sit at the table and contribute to the Conversation of Civilized Men?".
  In the last few years we have seen people who quote Mao as a resource, seated at the "table" and continue to sit there after they praised Mao. Do we now accept killing large numbers of humans an acceptable means of achieving a goal? I won't sit at that table.
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  A comment on Talk: Jonathan Haidt: How common threats can make common (political) ground

  Jan 17 2013: It seems that "Common Ground" would depend upon all parties sharing the same definition of "common decency".
  If we hold convictions that the biggest threat to all of us is environmental catastrophes, is it now "okay" to embrace eugenics policies?
  If we hold that the dissolution of marriage is the greatest threat to all of us, is it okay to enforce it by law?
  What do we still agree on? I think that needs to be established.
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  A reply on Talk: Jonathan Haidt: How common threats can make common (political) ground

  Jan 17 2013: Also Robert, If you look at the maps within the states themselves, like California, Washington and Oregon, the voting trend is repeated with the densely populated cities voting for Democrats and the much larger rural areas voting for Republicans.
  This makes the current policy pushes that are aimed at rural America seem all the more ominous to those of us who live in the vast rural America. The dense population centers making all these policy shifts about a life that many of you have never experienced.
  In the 60's knee jerk environmentalism acted too fast and with too much emotional zeal to shut down forest based economies, ruining entire communities and also families. Even at the time the communities would have been agreeable to work with environmental concerns to get win/win results such an increasing the labor that was put into a smaller timber harvest, in the creation of more finished products...but the hotheads didn't have time and didn't have a stake in the community so they felt very righteous dictating from the cities. Those chickens come home to roost in the form of a polarized nation. There was no push from the rural populations to trample on city dwellers as if they were nothing.
  Environmental challenges had the greatest potential for the greatest numbers of people to work together to make a better planet, but instead, some people used it as stick to beat their rural neighbors with. In fact, they made themselves despicable to much of rural America with their "let them eat cake" policies.

• A reply on Talk: Jonathan Haidt: How common threats can make common (political) ground

  Jan 17 2013: Hello Jim Balter,
  Just an aside question to you, since you are a true believer in Global Warming, may I cut to the chase and ask you what you are willing to do to stop it? In particular, are you willing to actively reduce human population and are you willing to eliminate private property rights in order to address global warming?
  I think that those two questions are more relevant to most conservatives than whether or not you 'believe" in global warming.

• A reply on Talk: Jonathan Haidt: How common threats can make common (political) ground

  Jan 17 2013: Haidt's goal is worthy, and yes, he seems to be blind to his own prejudices. He also fails in his attempt to define what would constitute a significant asteroid to conservatives.
  
  If Haidt wants there to be a ROUND TABLE of men to discuss the SOCIAL CONTRACT..the first thing would have to define if the parties agree on a set of standards.
  It would be foolish to allow anyone to contribute unless they agreed to some basic tenets that would define that they had good will towards all men.
  
  That would, in the mind of most conservatives, eliminate persons who currently espouse policies that embrace or enable eugenics.
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  A reply on Talk: Jonathan Haidt: How common threats can make common (political) ground

  Jan 17 2013: The massive amount of states that are conservative and vote Republican are also great landowners and stake holders in a way that city dwellers can only imagine.
  
  It may be that people who live in less crowded living conditions (rural) tend to think differently than human populations that live in densely populated areas and are dependent upon the survival of the industrial model to get every aspect of their lives either pumped or trucked to them from "somewhere". Rural people don't always have a conflict of interest as a city dweller does, when they are considering their options.
  
  I think it is time to have a good conversation about the post-industrial world and how we harness the tools we have created for better lives for all. But much of the conversation here is only continuing the polarization with comments like "poor people" voting for Republicans.
  
  There's an Chinese proverb that says "A man would be a fool to give up a position of poverty" and I can think of no dichotomy than America today, where that proverb is more true.
  
  How many city dwellers would love to escape the city and live in rural America if they could just figure out how to get out of the Matrix?
  
  It may surprise you, but many of us poor rural rubes, we are very sorry that so many people are born and die in the cities. We vote Republican because they officially stand for smaller government, which is an inside joke at this point.

• A reply on Talk: Jonathan Haidt: How common threats can make common (political) ground

  Jan 17 2013: Can you catch me up here? When did the political left shift their main attention from the Civil/Human rights causes that they championed and have global warming be the issue that defines them?