Wednesday, October 20, 2010

Intro To Memetic Guerilla Warfare 001 • DV University Fall Semester 2010 • Professor Emeritus Denmark Vesey • 3 Credits



Anonymous said...

"I love how black conservatives will believe any scientific study that backs up their worldview, no matter how wild it is. Why don't you believe the multitude of studies that prove that black men are intellectually inferior to whites and have a natrual affinity for crime?

 Denmark Vesey said ...
Because John Keats can't fuck with Biggie Smalls and George Bush sold more coke than Big Meech.

12 comments:

Joanna said...

Damn I love Biggie... he is the only celebrity I ever cried over.... When my ex used to go on the street, people used to do double and triple takes cuz he looked just like Biggie. Everyone thought he was his reincarnation (well, really his little brother.)

HotmfWax said...

Speaking of scientific studies, The plantation media is starting to question themselves and their relationship to the real quacks.

New York Times?!

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/10/18/questioning-the-results-of-medical-research/?partner=rss&emc=rss


"He’s what’s known as a meta-researcher, and he’s become one of the world’s foremost experts on the credibility of medical research. He and his team have shown, again and again, and in many different ways, that much of what biomedical researchers conclude in published studies — conclusions that doctors keep in mind when they prescribe antibiotics or blood-pressure medication, or when they advise us to consume more fiber or less meat, or when they recommend surgery for heart disease or back pain — is misleading, exaggerated and often flat-out wrong. He charges that as much as 90 percent of the published medical information that doctors rely on is flawed. His work has been widely accepted by the medical community; it has been published in the field’s top journals, where it is heavily cited; and he is a big draw at conferences."

90% flawed!!!!!!!!! DV

Atlantic Monthly!?

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/11/lies-damned-lies-and-medical-science/8269/

Rats jumping of the ships?.....




"Much of what medical researchers conclude in their studies is misleading, exaggerated, or flat-out wrong. So why are doctors—to a striking extent—still drawing upon misinformation in their everyday practice? Dr. John Ioannidis has spent his career challenging his peers by exposing their bad science."

"Of course, medical-science “never minds” are hardly secret. And they sometimes make headlines, as when in recent years large studies or growing consensuses of researchers concluded that mammograms, colonoscopies, and PSA tests are far less useful cancer-detection tools than we had been told; or when widely prescribed antidepressants such as Prozac, Zoloft, and Paxil were revealed to be no more effective than a placebo for most cases of depression; or when we learned that staying out of the sun entirely can actually increase cancer risks; or when we were told that the advice to drink lots of water during intense exercise was potentially fatal; or when, last April, we were informed that taking fish oil, exercising, and doing puzzles doesn’t really help fend off Alzheimer’s disease, as long claimed. Peer-reviewed studies have come to opposite conclusions on whether using cell phones can cause brain cancer, whether sleeping more than eight hours a night is healthful or dangerous, whether taking aspirin every day is more likely to save your life or cut it short, and whether routine angioplasty works better than pills to unclog heart arteries."

J-Man said...

Hello DV, this is Anonymous from before. Thank you for your response. I think it is slightly ironic, as my comment was meant rhetorically. Your defense, as I expected, was to use anecdotes to disprove a correlation. By your logic, you would then have to extend that to the other groups you vilify on this blog such as homosexuals and politicians. If one of them is "good", or against the stereotype, your blanket judgment is null and void, correct? If so, you prove my original point, that people are individuals, not groups. Yes, there are exceptions such as Nazis and Al-Qaeda, as the core values of their ideology are physically harmful to others outside the ideology, but they are very very and far between. BTW, couldn't you have found a better black poet like Pushkin, Wheatley or Hughes? Seriously, "Me and my Bitch" has nothing on "A Dream Deferred"

Denmark Vesey said...

Hello J-Man.

Your Comment? Rhetorical? Of course.


"Your defense" lol

My defense? Come on bra. You making me laugh.

The truth needs no "defense".


"other groups you vilify on this blog such as homosexuals and politicians" J-Man

vilify?

How have I "vilified" homosexuals?

Because I said they are not real fathers?

Is that "vilification" or the "verifiable truth"?

Think about it before you answer.


"BTW, couldn't you have found a better black poet like Pushkin, Wheatley or Hughes? Seriously, "Me and my Bitch" has nothing on "A Dream Deferred". J-Man


"Me and my Bitch" is to "A Dream Deferred" what Marcus Garvey is to Harold Ford Jr.

J-Man said...

I noticed you dodged the point of my post which was to illustrate the fact that you believe an anecdote can be enough to override a correlation.

As to your vilification of homosexuals, this is made evident by the credence you give to hacks like Cameron and Makow.

Homosexuals are not real fathers? Depends on how you define "fatherhood". Is a father simply a sperm donor? Then anyone with XY chromosomes and working genitals can be a father. Does a father have to have a biological link to his children? Then men with adopted kids cannot be fathers. Is a father a man who supports his children emotionally, physically, and spiritually? Then any man, regardless of sexual orientation can be a father.

As to your analogy, it is off. Garvey was an activist, not a politician. Garvey to Dubois would be more apt. The brash and rough lower-class outsider, to the refined, elitist insider. While Hughes was refined, it would be a stretch to call him elitist, and Garvey had miles more integrity and class than biggie, a man who wasted his education and polluted his neighborhood with drugs.

Denmark Vesey said...

"I noticed you dodged the point of my post which was to illustrate the fact that you believe an anecdote can be enough to override a correlation." J-Man

Nah.

I don't 'believe' an anecdote can override a correlation.

I am experiencing an anecdote overriding a correlation.

They are both memes.

My refusal to subscribe to the Memetic heirarchy of the Plantation disturbs you because ... you know the rest.

"As to your vilification of homosexuals, this is made evident by the credence you give to hacks like Cameron and Makow." J-Man

Ahhhh ... I see.

It's a vilification because of WHO it gives credence ... not because of what it actually means.

You Secular Humanists are prisoners of your own warped Relativism.

You do not believe in Absolute Truth.

You pick and choose your truth based upon from whom it originates.

"Garvey was an activist, not a politician." J-Man

Please.

How pedestrian ....

Anonymous said...

We say "biological father" and "adopted father." But the reality is that you have only one father.

Emotion, physical and spiritual provisions are not conditions to anoint someone with fatherhood. Those are conditions to care for someone. To obtain someones love, but not to win fatherhood.

You can only have one father and one mother. If you are raised by your uncle or grandfather, are they no longer your uncle or grandfather? Do they up their rank to "father." Providing unconditional love as well as being blood related, wouldn't they be a more deserving candidate of being "father"? How can someone take claim of the "father" title who in no way are related? However, it is cultural, our culture, doesn't make it reality.

Not only do these concepts precede an American identity, but so does the act of fatherhood. Perhaps our terms and understandings would make our positions clear if we were to embrace honest cultural histories.

KonWomyn said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
KonWomyn said...

Gee Chee,

Not so, you can have more than one mother and one father depending on the culture you come from in the world, the language you speak and what kind of family you were raised in.

That the English language is limited goes without saying, but constantly operating within it's constrained parameters also constrains our thinking as people, IMHO.

Restricting the term father to define only the biological or to distinguish between the biological and 'adopted' ignores the more robust cultural and spiritual meanings of fatherhood in Black culture in general.

From my point of view, as an African, the vast evidence of African history and its Diaspora's many histories of the family and community structure is such that it's difficult to think of fatherhood in a limited way, for me. I can't say for certain this is true for the traditional Native Black American family structure, but I suspect this is the case if one goes back and 'embraces honest cultural histories' as you say.

In my language the word for uncle means father - big father denoting my father's elder brother or small father denoting the younger one. There are those that I'm close to, those I am not and of those that are close to they are my fathers. That they did not give birth to me is irrelevant.

Same goes for my father's close friends. They too are my fathers. Blood or totemic relation again is irrelevant.

In their various capacities these people have fathered me so my understanding of fatherhood is framed within this experience.

That's the culture I was raised in, that's my 'reality' - reality as you know, is socially constructed not an absolute so for you your experience of fatherhood is what it is. I just wanted to nudge you for 2seconds to tell you that my world is different.

Carry on...

J-man said...

Exactly. You, like the "relativists" you despise, experience anecdotes that defy generalization. Therefore, why generalize?

The "plantation"? Don't get me started...

I knew you would bring up moral relativism. I do not believe in absolute truth because it does not exist. What was considered true a century ago is laughed at today. Morality, like humanity, evolves. Even the bible advocates it! Read ecclesiastes 3. There is a time for everything.

When I look at a scientific study, I look at the methodology. Only a fool can say that Cameron uses good methods. Also, only a fool would believe that ideolouges like Makow and Cameron's science is completely untouched by their beliefs. Absolutists only research scientists who back up their beliefs, and de lare others "tainted" by some outside cabal du jour.

Also, if you believe in absolute truth, where does it come from? God is a cop-out.

If Garvey was a politician, who elected him?

HotmfWax said...

Ayn Rand could help. A=A. She was always my girl for a long time...whacking Kant until she got hi-jacked :).


http://fvdb.wordpress.com/2010/04/07/absolutism-versus-relativism/

"Absolutism—the acceptance of or belief in absolute principles, whether it be in the area of ethics, politics, metaphysics, epistemology, and other special sciences. Absolutism is the opposite of relativism, which is the doctrine that holds that knowledge, truth, and morality are determined by society, culture, or historical context and are not absolute. Epistemological absolutism is the view that there is a universal standard of truth, while ethical or moral absolutism holds that there is a universal standard of right or wrong, good or bad, practical or impractical."


In ayn rand's philosophy of objectivism she says that a man's only absolute is his reason. Since no man has the exact same reasoning (or intuition) would this imply that mankind's reason is relative? (jman?)

and if you were an objectivist, would that mean you would also be a relativist?(DV?)


Here are a few comments on that:


Any Rand said " reality is an absolute...a speck of dust is an absolute...whether or not a man lives is an absolute"...etc.

So, I would think that "reason" is not the only absolute for Rand,

As to the question "is reason relative", I would think that Rand would answer no.

For Rand, "reason" (e.g., the concept) is defined as "the faculty that identifies and integrates the material provided by the senses".

That is, all humans share a fundamental identity to integrate perceptions by means of forming abstractions and conceptions, all humans have the potential (or faculty) to reason, thus reason itself is not relative, it is an absolute faculty of the brains of all humans.


However, Rand also holds that "reason is a faculty that each man has to exercise by choice". Thinking is not an automatic function, thus in this way, perhaps one could suggest that the "process of reasoning" is "relative", that is, the quantity and quality of reasoning would differ from man to man.

because "reason" is implemented, utilized, in various degrees, does not mean that reason is relative. only that the utilization of "reason" is relative to varying degrees, pending on the "utilizer"

"reason" is not equally "unfolded" in all "reasoners". that is why statements can be refuted. the "stater" has not unfolded "reason" sufficiently, and therefore allows the "more exposed, 'weathered', or unfolded" reason to clarify the statement.

this may be the foundation of "wisdom". wisdom being the ultimate "unfolding" of reason. wisdom is, then, the paragon of rational thought.

What Rand is saying here is that "reason" as opposed to "emotion-feeling" is the only absolute way that any single human gains knowledge. This conclusion derives logically from the basic axioms of her philosophy: existence, consciousness, identity.

WISDOM....work it out Bra.

http://www.angelfire.com/weird/enanareina/essays/relobj.html

D.SMITH said...

As for "homosexuals", a father fathers a child, a man you call your father or your dad in any other sense is strictly based on an emotional bond. If a man "donates sperm", as in got a woman pregnant and never came back in her or the child's life again, he's the child's father even still. The next dude to come along and raise this child is playing a role.

"I do not believe in absolute truth because it does not exist." J-Man

Says who, you? That's your belief. BELIEF. Absolute truth "is what it is" whether you choose to believe it or not. You base your "truths" on what has been dictated by "scientific studies"...they don't deal with absolute truth. Case in point is your "God is a cop-out" statement in regards to absolute truth even existing. How is it a cop-out? Because "scientific study" can't prove your "ghost in the sky" understanding of God that spawned your atheism in the first place?