All people could talk and understand each other

Today is celebrated the "Day of Pentecost", a time when all people could talk and understand each other regardless of their language or place of origin. The opposite of the "Tower of Babel" where the project failed due to people not being able to understand each other.

A lot of the problems worldwide today seem to me to be rooted in not being able to understand each other, and worse yet, not realizing it.

This is not talking about the many millions of pages here on the internet, mostly chattering away in typed words and pictures, each babbling away unaware of most of the others existence.

The Babel I focus on here, is instead that found between people of different "Temperaments", a modern union of the multiple-thousand year old concept of Temperaments, and Jungian psychological types. (See www.16types.com for latest renditions, clearly onto something.)

The theory describes a situation where each person is of some one particular Temperament, describing a particular functional mode of life. And they relate much better to other individuals of the same Temperament. That is, the accuracy of communication is a function of similarity of Temperament; when relating to someone of a different Temperament, although the same language is apparently spoken, their world view is sufficiently different as to confuse what they think they heard each other say. A Tower of Babel effect.

Although the point here is that the differences in functional life mode causes people to be chattering away in conversation without realizing the other person thinks something different is being said; so as to provide a sense of the different "Temperaments" to the reader, let me say that the theory suggests there are some people who primarily catalyze on the abstract level; others who primarily theorize on the abstract level; others who primarily stabilize on the physical level; and finally, others who primarily improvise on the physical level.

Whichever functional mode an individual primarily operates within, provides the lattice from which the person's life unfolds in daily affairs.

The existence of these four Temperaments seems to enable a balanced functionality overall in the affairs of mankind. Or, it ought to be able to do that.

However, the frustration of having only some people respond accurately to their own similar Temperament folk, the tendency is for people to seek out those of the same Temperament as themselves, for harmonious working relationships. Accuracy of communication dissolves lots of problems before they can start, it is easier that way.

The exception to this is in the selection of a mate with which to pair, the two needing to form a fairly balanced whole despite differing Temperament viewpoint, leaving the uniting force of common purpose to resolve the problems on the average.

In the other life relationships, however, people go for others who think like they do, enough so that there is enough accurate meaningfulness to enable coordination that gets the job done.

To see how a system proves out, one can isolate the components of the system from the rest of the universe, and let it all play out, to find the end result.

I have read a fine example of this happening, the isolation being provided by the ocean's vast expansive surface separating islands far from mainland. This description tells of the ancient Hawaiians having formed physically separate groupings, based on individual functionality closely resembling what is known in western civilization as "Temperaments." The powerful bonding of people of like Temperament enabled high achievements by each, a highly efficient system.

The four groupings had to interact with each other to make the civilization work; their civilization needed to provide for all things the civilization needed to survive and thrive.

However, having become adapted to the easy communication with others of the same temperament forming the individual groupings, they lost the ability to bend out of shape enough to work well with individuals of the other three Temperaments.

And so, as the historical legend goes, the four groupings got so frustrated with the other groupings lack of sense, that they made war on each other. It may be of no surprise that the group that was expert on improvising in the physical world, was far more effective in waging war, and that they did not have the sense to stop before annihilating the other three temperament groups. The remaining grouping was all that was left of the civilization, a highly unbalanced nation, when ships from the Western lands discovered them and began interaction, leading to where the Hawaiian Island people are now.

This illustrates how the four kinds of temperaments became recognized and enabled separation into groups of similars for efficient communication, yet also illustrates the unbalance thusly caused, which stirred the aggressive physically focused "improvisers" to destroy all those who did not think like them; thus the overall system was unable to cope with the changes that time inevitably brings. The banded together "improvisers" on the physical world level, seek control of all others at any price. Conflicts arise, not just intellectually, but instead on the physical level without rational basis, groupings led by proficient "improvisational" types run amok wage wars that have extended even around the world at times. Their expertise at controlling the physical world is matched by their craving to actualize that control; but they really have no idea what to do with the resulting messy devastation remaining after their conquerings, (other than to breed of course, attempting to replicate more copies of themselves.)

This kind of situation is not new. The novelty celebrated as the Day of Pentecost among Christians marvels at the new factor that enables all people to understand what the others are saying, despite the differences in language and backgrounds. It says there is a solution to the huge problem of Babel.

It is the year 2007 now. It is about time we figured out what this pentecostal principle of communication is, and how to use it, and go for a blended civilization that utilizes all the Temperaments in the newly re-found communication principle.

Earth's stores of cheap easy energy are approaching being used up, while having propelled civilization up to incredible ways. We are at a peak from which only valley remains before us unless we use our wondrous high civilization vantage point to reach for a higher mode, instead of crumbling back down again in the rivalrous onslaught of groups of the physically improvising Temperament types in their craving for control of the physical world, yet with no way to correctly steer the controlled world they have conquered. Maybe once again the Pentecostal principle will be found, this time to stay with us, forming a united harmonious world people.

Or, we can just do the same old knee-jerk bash and smash of each other, and down we go into the muck once again.

Can we break the pattern? And go for the real goodies?

Is it just coincidence that we are now wracking in the midst of Iraq, where the ruins of E-Temen-An-Ki, the legendary Tower of Babel, is located, as if a symbol of "you are back here, can you finally get it right this time?"

Jim Cline 2007/05/27

"interpersonal-combativeness"

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Waking up this morning to what seems an answer to the previous post here, that of what is pointed out by the comparison of "what I believe people ought to be doing intensively nowadays" vs "what people really are doing nowadays." It is a parameter that could be named "interpersonal-combativeness." "Interpersonal combativeness" would in turn be the union of the subsets "predatory" and "one's own kind." Identification of that which is "one's own kind" vs all else, would be involved, surely.

It does seem a well-matching parameter to the cause of why people have chosen to squander the nation's resources on war's extravagances ("we are doing to them before they do to us" kind of thing) instead of investing equal extraordinary effort to extend civilization into the Clarke Belt via space elevators and/or space escalator technology, so as to solve the many crisis upcoming for civilization so fast.

Grabbing the remaining goodies and disposing of the other people, is a primitive reaction to the situation of noticing diminishing usable resources and habitable territory; the making of that kind of choice indicates being forced down to instinctive behavior by overwhelming other distractions of some kind, taking too much attention and personal resources, to be able to cope in a much more refined and intelligent manner. It is a fall-back mode that civilization cannot take very often.

This does not explain why people chose that path, instead of reaching for the good life for humanity. It merely defines the parameter that kicked in, to cause the extraordinary grief for humanity.

The explanation of the why of it, probably goes down the path of the need to "show who is boss here", and that is a close relative of the "interpersonal-combativeness" parameter.

Now, they could have chosen to show "who is boss here" by going for the civilization extension into GEO, the Clarke Belt, as I have so often described. It could have been done just as easily as choosing the path they have actually taken, spending all our money as if it were theirs, for "squash & smash" instead of "build & grow." They could even have claimed that it all was their own idea and I had nothing to do with it, thus declaring themselves totally "boss here," sharing nothing.

So there were more factors heavily involved; and probably a major one is that they were far more practiced at warfare behavior, than the equally dangerous and daring behavior of building space escalators and the huge industries, farms and cities in GEO, ready to reach further out from that secure base thereafter. It was what the "they" who "are boss here" feel they know how to do in the public view. Thus was their choice that made the difference between what I believe people ought to be doing nowadays vs what they have been really doing.

And no, I never the slightest bit considered myself the boss here, nor did I have any urge to do so. Maybe that is also why the womenfolk don't seem to consider me a worthy mate for them... and that in turn may explain why the "who is boss here" interpersonal-combativeness kind of thing is going on, instead of the wonderfully beautiful kind of behavior people can do.

I can write about my own viewpoint

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A blog is there in case someone else is interested; few blogs take the time of others to read. So writing a blog entry is mostly for one's own fulfillment urges, most likely.

So, I can write about my own viewpoint.

What people ought to be doing now, per my evaluation, is utterly different from what they are actually doing. The difference between the two scenarios ought to be useful for something.

So, first, my belief of what people ought to be doing now, and how I help in that process:

I have spent much of my life focused on how civilization can expand healthily into nearby space, expanding the wonderful diverse earthlife to vivify the lifeless space beyond the oceans and land surface of this one planet, wonderful as it is.

We have grown populous enough to expand beyond the surface. We seem to have the scientific and technological knowledge and technological skills . We have used rocketry to use robotic spacecraft to explore the solar system, and have put people on the Moon for brief times, and in orbiting containers in orbit around the earth for lengthly periods, so we have been there, seen the strengths and weaknesses.

We have utilized the energy stored in fossil fuels hundreds of millions of years ago, a one-shot deal, our one energy chance to reach to where plenty of endless power washes through space from our star, the Sun. The inherent inefficiencies of rocket access to earth orbit provide measures of energy cost/benefit for the access process, and it is extremely limiting; rocketry as we know it has given us a tiny taste of space, and that is about all it is good for, but it has done the job.

I have been in love with technology's potentials in action even since before I have been in love with womankind. Both seem full of potential for fun and wholesome adventure for me, for civilization; and also have the responsibility for progressing civilization on, best possible ways.

Yet once something sort of works, people seem to stop there, engrossed in its workings. Transportation gadgetry fits this pattern too. From cars to bicycles to rockets, the busyness of reproducing something that works and people will buy and use, essentially halts progress beyond there; the cashing in on the idea, becomes the focus, seen as the endgame.

Rocketry is such a pattern. We have been stuck there too long. The aerospace corporate business people have found their place in the business, life is good, don't rock the boat, we have found the good life so don't you dare try to change anything. The whole purpose gets forgotten, just as forgotten is what propelled the aerospace business corporations into existence in the first place. Strange, how this happens.

Building railroads across the vast deserts and wastelands to reach lands of plenty, and to bring life to the wastelands, was in contrast to the wagon trains, pony express and horse-drawn stagecoaches that made their way across the same distance, their inherent low capacity and extreme effort expended for a small amount of transportation, controlled civilization's access to the greater area beyond where it was at the time. Rail transportation of a wide variety tends to be much more efficient than other modes, for routes of heavy repeated travel.

And so the "Space Elevator" anchored tether, earth rotation counterweight supported structure, would provide a rail to space, a structure to hang onto for support instead of expend energy just to hover above the planet while reaching another step higher.

Another kind of structure also is possible, reaching from the earth surface to high earth orbit, which does not use earth's rotation to centrifugally swing a counterweight around to support the structure, like the anchored tether would use.

Instead, encircling the planet, it would rotationally develop its own outward centrifugal force within itself, in opposition to the force of the planet's gravity.

Taking the form of a ring around the planet, from the earth surface somewhere on the equator, its loop around the planet extending to high earth orbit far above the opposite side of the planet. If that high place is also the balance point where the orbital velocity is identical to the earth's angular velocity, materials brought up the structure would stay put at the top, in the orbit known as GEO, Geostationary Earth Orbit, or the Clarke Belt, located some 22,3000 miles above the earth's equator, all around the planet. That is where our weather satellites and communications satellites now reside already, for example, like flowerpots put where vast abundant farmlands could be.

This ring around the planet structure from ground to space would be supported by the centrifugal force of continuous streams of mass sliding speedily around on the inside of the ring structure, their outward centrifugal force set to just a little more than that necessary to exactly balance the force of gravity on the structure's mass in which they slide, along with the weight of the payload-carrying vehicles continually going up and down the structure between the Earth's surface and the Clarke Belt construction site.

So I have been figuring out what principles and materials and construction techniques and utilization methods and the facilities in space they could enable become possible, much of my life, a primary focus of my existence. Something I could do while also living life's existence, paying bills, doing jobs other's would pay me to do. A hobby, of sorts, yet one that seemed to me to be needed for civilization to be able to rouse out of its well-fed slumber, to get up and go for the next round.

I have struggled to put the concepts "out there", assuming humanity would eventually notice them and excitedly see them as a treasure map to new wonders far beyond their daily grubbing lives now, and away they would go on the adventure of spreading civilization up into the Clarke Belt, a high place also from which to easily reach out to the rest of the Solar System, such as our Moon, Mars, and moons of other planets, to bring life where there was none before.

But this did not happen. Nobody seemed even to notice.

So I gritted my teeth more, put my shoulder again to the load, writing and preparing technical papers for printing in space conference proceedings, and traveled to distant places like Princeton and Albuquerque and Houston, dressed up in fancy suit, showed slides and PowerPoint presentations, the concepts in hard copy and on my websites on the internet. Extreme stress for me, standing up there talking to audiences of people whose identity was largely based on their lifelong high academic and corporate achievements, seeing me as an unwelcome intruder who was a college dropout and mere technician, daring to pretend he had something new for them, something they did not already know. Cat and mouse game.

Did people catch on to the concepts and the tremendous potentials for civilization, healthy escape from the path civilization is now on? Nope. They did not seem to notice even yet. Seemed too busy squabbling amongst each other, to set that pettiness aside once again so as to join together to take in new goodies for all.

What is that force that blocks their vision? Why do they prefer to squabble and play games of misinformation, ego-valued ways? Did we not get out of the hunter-gather mode of total predator on the natural world, and become the symbiotic win-win presence of agriculture and industry on the earth, working together to produce resources instead of be mere top predator?

So I wrote the concepts up in the form of Science Fiction, and put it on my websites, to broaden the imagination of people, and show the craggy paths from where we are now, a bit exaggerated for emphasis, leading to the space civilization. But magazine would not accept my sci-fi stories for publication. Eventually I realized that even my own hunger for science fiction adventures reading, there is a problem. The "science" in science fiction has primary purpose to provide an imaginary backdrop where people can temporarily step out of their ongoing reality, to play out their urges while not bound by the real world context with its unwritten heavy rules and expansion-stifling status quo. The science and technology of the stories was mere soil to trod while people played their ego games, free for the moment from the stifling crunch of the real world life situation of the readers. Since my science fiction novels such as "the Ark of 1984's Future" and "Building Up" interlaced people's drama with things that we could actually be doing right now, that perhaps was terrifying to those sci-fi afficionados that put cowboy rowdiness into space suited trodding on other planets instead of western prairie, but in actuality the same old ego games playing out as the feature stimulus. As if "What! Actually do it? How frightening! Things are just fine like they are, don't rock the real world boat! Get away from here with your ideas, we have got everything under control, a controlling grip on the world, it is our game to be won by defeating the enemy, so we get the goodies!" Experiencing the wild sci-fi adventures and ego games played out there, no matter how rowdy, one can then close the book (or turn the movie off the TV) get up out of the comfy chair, walk out of the adventure and back into the well known life we know so well how to play. If people built the systems I described and lived in them, there would be no way to close the book to escape. Responsibility would be reality. People do like to be more in control than that, and right now they are in control; don't change anything, please.

So. It seems I made a mistake about what people want. And that is possibly why they block me from getting what I want, in my loves of sci-tech potentials and womankind's liveliness interactivity with me, thus I remain semi-hermit man in a desolate land, considered a disruptive influence instead of a blessing enabling their much better future.

James E. D. Cline 20070509

Making swords into plowshares?

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Pondering some people's psychological type that is driven by their ego to use their mind to cleverly rationalize excuse to abuse. Some of them may gravitate to professions that support them in this mode, even making it a team activity. Is this really "making swords into plowshares" or merely feeding the ego-beast?

It probably will be necessary to acknowledge the psychological type that is utterly devoted to having power over other people in one way or another, since it has been so reproductively successful down thru the ages even to present day. Is understandable why women go along with it, unwise as it is in the long run.

That leaves the rest of us to do our best to continue to restore and even sometimes improve civilization, despite the ravages borne of the rompings of the ego-beasts amongst us.

Three categories of abusive behavior

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There seems to be three categories of abusive behavior exhibited by people.

The first type of abusive behavior is due to their fantasizing that the target person is an abusive person, and thus deserves to be abused first.

The second type of abusive behavior is caused so as to obtain something that the target person would have had.

The third type of abusive behavior is from disregard of others happening to be in the path as bulldozing goes on ramrodding toward the goal.