OT WE 18 DEC 24 ~ Uncertainty
Submitted by QMS on Wed, 12/18/2024 - 5:00am
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how to harness not-knowing in the service of wisdom, invention, mutual understanding, and resilience
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A local author develops the notion of the anxieties related to 'uncertainty' can be harnessed
into consecutive energy to solve the underlying trepidations of not knowing how to react to
an ever-changing world. An interesting approach to something many people are dealing with.
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Perhaps, when in a dilemma, it is easier to flip a coin. Deeper pondering entails excavating
layers of presupposed conceptions. Examining potential consequences of actions.
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Can you be comfortable with indecision or do you feel intimidated by obscurity?
Curious minds wonder.
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Open thread zone. Please share your interpretations of whatever is going on.
Comments
Hey there
Enjoyed this assessment by Larry Johnson:
"Turning to the situation in Syria. With each passing day I’m more convinced that Putin had good intel on the Western plan to take out Assad and, based on intel provided in part from China, correctly assessed that in light of Assad’s refusal to listen to Russian and Iranian advice that Turkey and the West were going to create for themselves a shit sandwich. Neither was prepared to deal with the consequences of a rapid collapse of Syria. I believe that Putin correctly calculated that the West and Turkey were creating a level of chaos in Syria it could neither control nor contain. While Russia could have intervened militarily and defeated HTS and its Turkish/Western backers, Putin and his advisors believed this would ultimately turn out to be a nightmare for Turkey and the West, and Russia was happy to let them eat it."
(my bold)
https://sonar21.com/ukraine-and-syria-a-western-plan-goes-awry/
Uncertain of the outcome of this recent misadventure. Self harm is a trait of psychotic policy.
question everything
You broke it, you own it
Comes to mind in Syria.
In South Korea-
Yoon is refusing all summons to appear for questioning, all search warrants, etc. Essentially, it's the presidential guard which is refusing service and blocking entry to offices and residence. Therefore, it is Han Duck-soo, the acting president who is supporting Yoon.
The PPP floor leader in the National Assembly is doing his best to have the party stonewall all initiatives by the majority opposition, playing for time. The prime minister and opposition will likely to do all they can to block and stall appointment of three additional Constitutional Court justices. The Court which currently only has six justices which is supposed to have 9, does not have a quorum, seven, to decide the Yoon impeachment case. Two of those justices have terms that end 4.18. So three appointments seems appropriate. These are all Yoon trademark tactics, stall, block, evade, etc. Discussion of Han's impeachment has arisen.
I watched the DN piece on Nuttyahoo's corruption trial, and how he is using the wars he has underway to avoid loss of office and jail. I think the situation in South Korea is analogous in some ways. Yoon wanted to use the same tact, trigger a military crisis with the north, to avoid prosecution of his wife and himself, and justify martial law. Although, the five principal ringleaders of the coup, have been arrested already, it's apparent that Yoon has to be as well. The instability in South Korea is increasing despite the impeachment vote in the National Assembly. I still think there is a chance of war and martial law.
The US has always tried to influence, if not dominate, South Korea and its domestic politics. If they are opposed to the instability, and the threat to national security in South Korea, they should use their influence to persuade Han Duck-su and the legislative leadership of the PPP to stop their stonewalling. allow the appointment of justices, let all legal process be carried out, and all investigations to proceed, and remove Yoon from the scene, now, by jailing him.
It is not in the interest of the US or South Korea to let this unstable and dangerous situation continue. Let the constitutional process be carried out.
語必忠信 行必正直
Thanks soryang
.
certainly the MIC/CIA won't fix it
they just like to break stuff and
leave the pieces behind
question everything
I think you might like
this site.https://aeon.co The content aways changes, It could be history, science, music, art and more.
Hey, thanks for that link
.
Looks fascinating in an off-hand way.
Will bookmark it.
Speaks to my lingo.
cheers
question everything
Mu various web wandeings periodically dump me into a
page thereat via some link or another. Thanks for recommending it, I think I'll put it in a tab and follow it for a while.
be well and have a good one
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --
Good morning...
I live in limbo until I have evidence to come to one conclusion or another. I'm fine with uncertainty.
I think Larry's conclusions above are reasonable.
I wonder what Russia's retaliation for it's General's assassination will be. A good example of living with uncertainty.
Take care and have a great day!
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
I am uncertain
about my uncertainty. To my way of thinking, uncertainty represents the only reality I've ever known. If certainty were to somehow creep into it, I'm uncertain how I would react. I have come to strongly depend upon my uncertainty, and do not wish its supply to be threatened.
After all, once you remove the uncertainty from the equation, the only thing left is death and taxes. And where's the fun in that? (;-)
Twice bitten, permanently shy.
Ha, that is certainly uncertain
.
So, they opened a new restaurant in town.
It is named 'Karma Eats'. Went in to check out
the menu. Proprietor says, no menu.
You only get what you deserve!
question everything
How is your recovery coming?
Any luck with the vision after the air treatments?
Actually, yes-
and thanks for asking. The hyperbaric treatments have helped more than I would have dreamed. I'd say that my vision in that eye is back to 60-70% of what it was (!), and it continues to improve. I have two more rides scheduled, and then we'll review and decide what needs to happen next.
It is really funny to watch the process in real time. Before the first ride, the area of lost vision was just solid opaque black nothingness. After the first ride, it turned more gray. The second ride made it semi-translucent, with just two opaque gray blobs, but I could see some motion in it. The third ride brought some color back into the gray, and I can now see shapes and colors in what was the majority of the original blind spot. At this point, I can count fingers in the affected area (other than the two opaque blobs, which continue to shrink), so it is working far better than I dared hope.
I changed providers, and the new chamber I'm going to goes up to 2bar- somewhat higher pressure than the original chamber. That has helped speed the process up. When I'm getting up to pressure, I can see fireworks-like flashes in the area (the visual equivalent of pins-and-needles as the oxygen perfuses in, I think), and I can see the visual field change in real time.
My neurologist is utterly convinced I'm lying, of course. As far as he is concerned, the loss of vision was instantaneous, permanent, and irreversible, and I'm wasting my time: his laughing professional opinion is that there is simply no reason for me to go off and do something silly like this just on the thought that it might keep the retina alive. Needless to say, I'm in the process of firing him.
However, he did show me my brain scans, CT and MRI. It turns out that the inside of my skull is pretty ugly: it looks like somebody winged me with birdshot, and there are all these little spherical voids all over the friggin' place. Apparently, I've had a couple dozen silent strokes over the years. That certainly explains why my memory has been crapping out for the last decade or so, and why I've been sundowning (just like my parents did): maybe it isn't Alzheimers after all. So his assumption that I'm basically full of shit and hallucinating the progress with my eye is based on those scans, and I suppose that I can't really blame him.
Gotta go back Friday 7AM for a trans-esophageal echocardiogram, to try to see where the clot storm that is causing all those little ischemic regions might be coming from. So that'll be fun- a valium or two, a little milk of amnesia, swallow the ultrasound head, and it'll suddenly be noon. And then off to work. Just another day...
Twice bitten, permanently shy.
That is great news!
I’m so happy for you that it’s helping! Was it a branch artery or vein?
I hope they can find where the clots are coming from. This isn’t medical advice, but have you heard of Nikki-something? Maybe someone here can provide what I’m thinking of. It’s supposed to help with clots or keep the blood from clotting. Just something I’ve been seeing people recommending for about 4 years. Nikkitanotase? Hell if I can remember. If I do I’ll shoot you a message.
Welcome to the fuzzy brain club. I’ve had memory problems since 1977. Didn’t understand why for decades until my doctor explained it was caused by my head injury…I used to be self conscious about it, but since understanding it I just shrug it off. Beats being dead.
Thanks for the kind thoughts!
Yes, it was indeed an embolism in a branch artery. I'm on a whole bunch of different anticoagulants now. I've had to change my Indian name from "Breaks Glasses" to "Hæmophiliac". It makes it really sporty to have hemorrhoids, lemme tellya.
Cardiologist and neurologist are currently at war over the anticoagulants. Cardio wants more of them to try to break up the branch artery occlusion, Neuro wants none of them: they are afraid that I'll pop another vessel in my pint of blue mud and bleed out into my skull. Cardio has even given me some that I have to shoot up into my belly fat once a week, which is a trip in its own right. I forget the name of that one- something like "NotSmack", I think.
At this point, I regard talking to doctors in much the same light as I regard walking a male dog. They all have to lift their legs and put their mark over the top of all the marks from the dogs (and doctors) who have peed there before them...
Okay, after writing that last bit, I'm changing my Indian name again. It is now "Hæmophiliac Fire Hydrant". This "getting old" thing really is getting old- but it does beat the alternative. (;-)
Twice bitten, permanently shy.
Good for you! I know you are so happy!
That time I told the dr. what to test me for, in addition to what she insisted on testing me for, showed I was right, she was dead wrong.
She fired me. She practically threw my tests results at me.
Heh...
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
I once had
a thesis adviser who did exactly that with me, back during my misspent academic career. Induced a lot of uncertainty in me, that did- so I went off and did my own thing anyway. Fuggem!
Twice bitten, permanently shy.
Nattokinase
I’ve been taking Nattokinase daily since I read that Dr. Peter McCullough does, to avoid blood clots. Along with that he takes bromelain and curcumin.
I developed a somewhat wary attitude about doctors and hospitals as a result of helping my mother the last few years of her life. One of her experiences was with wet macular degeneration. For several years she was getting the eye injections for them. Some studies I read about somewhere convinced us to try giving up sugar, then for some reason to give up artificial sweeteners. As soon as she did that, she no longer had the leakage which necessitated the eye shots. When she had an appointment with an eye doctor who wasn’t her regular one, I mentioned the sugar thing. He just scoffed, said sugar wouldn’t be the cause. When I brought it up with her regular ophthalmologist, he said well, he doesn’t discount anything. But to me it was so dramatic that I’ve completely given up sugar after having a sweet tooth most of my life. I realize this is anecdotal, her experience doesn’t prove anything. But at the least since we are related perhaps the sugar/macular degeneration connection would affect me as well.
Anya
Interesting.
I used to drink a lot of Diet Coke back in the day, in a misguided effort to get sugar out of my diet. That continued until I started having some pretty major skin problems, that I won't describe here- I've already done enough of an organ recital. I went to an allergist who did the dermal patch test to find out what was wrecking my skin, and the result showed that I was incredibly allergic to formaldehyde, of all things.
The allergist asked me how long I'd been making surfboards or other fiberglass objects, to have developed such an intense contact sensitivity. I told them that I never had- and their next question was "How much artificial sweetener do you use, and what type?"
Turns out that aspartame (the sweetener in Diet Coke) is broken down by the gut into phenylalanine (50%), aspartic acid (40%), and methanol (10%). The methanol and some of the metabolites of the phenyalanene are then rapidly oxidized by the liver into (wait for it!) formaldehyde and formic acid. I was running my own internal surfboard factory, it seems, and had been bathing in formaldehyde internally, courtesy of my own bloodstream.
As soon as I quit Diet Coke (at the allergist's insistence), viola! My skin abruptly stopped falling off. Who knew? So I'm off artificial sweeteners since then. They are bad juju, at least for me...
Twice bitten, permanently shy.
Thank you so much for providing the name
It was floating around in my vast brain….
I left ophthalmology just as the field test for the injections for wet macular degeneration started and I was very disappointed not to be a part of it. I was there for whether laser treatment could help stop the progression and they stopped the study because the results were so promising. Fascinating field to work in.
The injections were to get vision back I believe because laser treatment wouldn’t work and would have made the vision worse. Did she get any vision back?
As to sugar…I haven’t heard of it causing the problem, but who knows what does actually cause it? For anyone interested in the disease think of your eye like a driveway that ages. Sometimes it just gets cracks in it and that’s called dry macular degeneration. Other times grass grows in the cracks….in the eye abnormal blood vessels grow in the cracks and bleed. If it’s outside the fovea, where there aren’t any blood vessels they can be treated with laser. Inside…nope.
This is your reading vision. If ever you start seeing wavy lines or a dark spot call an ophthalmologist ASAP. Usually once retinal tissue dies it’s not coming back.
Good luck Anya. I think the jury is still out on whether it’s hereditary.
I would really like to know more about your mother.
Macular degeneration
No, Mom didn’t regain any vision. My understanding is that all the injections do is prevent further leakage; you unfortunately don’t get any improvement in vision.
As I recall, she’d suspected she had macular degeneration for a while but eye doctors ignored her concerns. After she was finally diagnosed, they gave up on her left eye after a year or so of injections. She had extremely poor vision in her right eye by the time she died.
Anya
Just from what you wrote
That sounds like a giant ripoff. Since the vision is already gone I don’t understand why they wouldn’t use laser to stop further leakage. And especially if the medicine they are injecting isn’t doing the job. I admit that I’ve been out of the field since 1998 and I’m not current on the medicine that’s injected, but I still think I’m very knowledgeable about this subject. The abnormal blood vessels for this only grow in that tiny area of the retina as shown in the picture. They don’t spread to other areas of the retina. Plus the layers of the retina are very thin in that area. Color me confused about your mom’s treatment.
@snoopydawg You know
You know far more about eyes than I do. I don’t recall if I ever heard about the laser treatment. It’s been so long ago, and Mom had so many other issues—it’s possible they tried laser treatment and I don’t remember it. There were several people in Mom’s facility with macular degeneration, and I don’t remember any of them getting laser treatments though they were getting shots. My vague memory of the reason they gave for stopping the shots in her left eye had something to do with scarring caused by the shots but I could be wrong about that. They also must not’ve been working—the shots aren’t necessarily 100% effective.
Anya
@snoopydawg You know
You know far more about eyes than I do. I don’t recall if I ever heard about the laser treatment. It’s been so long ago, and Mom had so many other issues—it’s possible they tried laser treatment and I don’t remember it. There were several people in Mom’s facility with macular degeneration, and I don’t remember any of them getting laser treatments though they were getting shots. My vague memory of the reason they gave for stopping the shots in her left eye had something to do with scarring caused by the shots but I could be wrong about that. They also must not’ve been working—the shots aren’t necessarily 100% effective.
Anya
good for you
.
outsmarting the doctors
you know best what the body needs
t'hell with their myopic tests
good luck
question everything
Good morning Cap'n Q. Uncertainty is!
There is a sense in which certainty is the product of magikal thinking. Religions derive from that wellspring. There is some innate drive for apodictic knowledge, but such knowledge must come from tautologies or devine revelations, it cannot have an empirical component. (PS: don't go there)
We all know the uncertainty of an unknowable future, the uncertainty of the truth of the utterances of government officials, gossips and others, and the like, but, if we aren't focused on the epistemological issue, we tend to think of such things as somehow aberrant. They are not. There is global uncertainty at the quantum level and probabilistic uncertainty at the macro level. If I set irrefutability at the definition of certainty and set myself that goal I wind up trapped in solipcism. I can only speak with certainty about the immediately perceived reality and the admitted personal projections based thereon. (Live with it, there isn't really any other option)
Descartes, FWIW, cheated, his "cogito" was based on a sneaky little bit of Deus ex machina, a presumed god who was, furthermore not a trickster but some benign supernatural overlord who would not permit Descartes to err or fool himself. Lacking this magikal being he can only arrive at some endless regress of thinking that he thinks and thinking that he thinks that he is. A certain group of existentialists get past this by a "leap of faith" or "leap to faith" as the case may be, but it is both more honest and more rigorous to simply step up to the plate and knowingly assert "I AM!" and get on with it.
be well and have a good one
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --
that is certainly a good shake-out
.
of the issues, leaping faiths and all
will have to re-read this a few times to
get the mind wrapped around the concepts
bwango
question everything
Great tune, thanx n/t
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --
Escalation or Tit-for-Tat?
.
.
Russian Missile Jets Carry Out Flight Near Alaskan Coast
also
Two Russian Tu-95 Strategic Missile Carriers Fly Over Sea of Japan
Wonder if Palin can see the show from her back porch?
question everything
Good morning, Cap'n,
although I am uncertain if my well-wish for you can be accomplished. I certainly tried.
I thrive in a profession that is based upon uncertainty. You never know the outcome of any hearing, ruling, or trial. The biggest challenge is to get that reality clearly understood by the client/litigant.
The only certainty in history is that war profiteers are gonna make profits perpetually.
Very cool OT, friend!
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
thanks for attending counselor
.
arguing a point of law ad nauseam
rhymes with customer agreements
written in microprint leaving the door of
uncertainty wide open .. or is that an
interpretation of the definition of 'is'?
question everything
I am always uncertein and hate it .
https://www.euronews.com/live
think that was the point of the book
.
trying to transform uncertainty
into a potentially positive force
for change
cheers
question everything
It certainly looks as if Ukraine's future is uncertain.
Out sweeping the grass
with Mr. Tractor, picking up tons of leaves and sticks
making piles at the base of the trees for now
snow is coming this weekend
question everything
It FINALLY happened
.
Shitlibs have finally figured out that democrats don’t give a rat’s ass about their base.
Well except the one who always blames the voters for democrats losses or not representing them.
Connelly who Pelosi powered into the cabinet position over AoC is a slimy piece of work. I’ll try to find the tweet on his sliminess.
Connolly
I heard a few years ago that the people who head committees are picked by the companies that the committee is supposed to be overseeing. Looks like this confirms it.
Infuriates me that people just post a screenshot and don’t post a link.