President Donald Trump

Summary of Chapters 1-15, published in RAIS, August 2020; and ResearchLEAP, February 2021.

Summary of Chapters 16 - 30, published in RAIS, October, 2020, and ResearchLEAP, April 2021.



 

Synthisophy - Integrating the wisdoms of history into present culture

Roots – Synthesis/History/Sophy

Synthesis - the integration of separate material or abstract entities into a single  
or unified whole

History - what has happened in the past; a detailed description of past events as
relating to a particular people, country, period, etc…

Sophy - Greek root: wisdom, knowledge; an intellectual system embracing
knowledge and truth; study of the real world based on fact and truth, science

As you know, the USA today is a very polarized society. Technology in the Digital Age can be challenging. It can also be an avenue for us to interact despite differences in viewpoints and geography. That is the role of Synthisophy, integrating the wisdoms of history based on fact and truth into present culture. To foster an understanding of the real world, it’s important to learn about points of view which don’t match your own.

Citizens are the crux of democracy, an educated and well informed citizenry is vital for the survival of a democratic republic. As Benjamin Franklin said after exiting the Constitutional Convention and was asked what sort of government the delegates had created, his answer was, “We’ve given you a Republic, can you keep it?” With synthisophy in mind the answer to his question is “Yes, we can.”

Synthisophy
Synthisophy
Synthisophy

"We've given you a Republic, can
you keep it?" Ben Franklin after
the Constitutional Convention

"If we falter and lose our freedoms,
it will be because we destroyed
ourselves." Abraham Linclon

"United we stand, divided
we fall." John F. Kennedy
Inaugural speech

"I believe, as I always have, 
that America's strength is in
'We the People.'" Ronald Reagan

Here are the latest discussions:

Special counsel David Weiss to seek indictment of Hunter Biden this month.

The filing is in the criminal action tied to an earlier agreement with the government over possession of a gun while someone is using narcotics.

The special counsel appointed to oversee the federal investigation into Hunter Biden intends to seek a grand jury indictment of the president's son before the end of September, the prosecutor's office said Wednesday in a court filing.

The filing was made in the felony criminal action against Biden over the possession of a gun while using narcotics, and it also refers to the separately filed misdemeanor tax case prosecutors brought early this year.

The filing suggests new charges could be filed in both cases this month.

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Source: NBC News

What do you think of the Alabama trifecta?

1) Alabama Senator Tommy Tuberville is blocking the appointment of over 300 military officers in the armed forces. “We’re going to be in a holding pattern for a long time,” he said, if the Pentagon refuses to end its policy of paying for travel when a service member goes out of state to get an abortion or other reproductive care.

2) Federal judges said Tuesday (9.5.23) that they will draft new congressional lines for Alabama after lawmakers there refused to create a second district representing black voters, despite the Federal Court order to do such.

3) Alabama’s attorney general, Steve Marshall, said the state has the authority to bring conspiracy charges against and prosecute groups who help women travel to another state for an abortion.

 

Here is more detail:

1) Politico and CNN: The leaders of three branches of the U.S. military criticized Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Alabama.) over his monthslong blockade of senior military promotions Tuesday (9.5.23).

“I would have never imagined that actually one of our own senators would actually be aiding and abetting communists and other autocratic regimes around the world,” Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro — a Cuban-born Navy veteran — said Tuesday during an interview on CNN alongside Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall and Army Secretary Christine Wormuth.

“This is having a real negative impact and will continue to have a real negative impact on our combat readiness,” Del Toro added.

Tuberville’s eight-month hold has forced more than 300 officers to extend their current tours or be sent on temporary assignments to wait out the blockade, according to the Pentagon. It’s also stifled any movement up the ranks for junior officers, freezing the status of even more military members and leaving military families in limbo.
“Our potential adversaries are paying attention,” Kendall said Tuesday on CNN. “It is affecting how they view the United States and our military capabilities and support for the military. This needs to stop.”

“It is just unprecedented to be attacking apolitical general officers and flag officers in this way,” Wormuth said. “It is taking our apolitical military institution. That’s a core principle of our constitutional democracy and eroding its foundation.”

 

2) AP: Federal judges said Tuesday (9.5.23) that they will draft new congressional lines for Alabama after lawmakers there refused to create a second district where Black voters at least came close to comprising a majority, as suggested by the court.

In blocking the newly drawn congressional map, the three-judge panel wrote that they are “deeply troubled” that Alabama lawmakers flouted their instruction to create a second majority-Black district or something close to it. The panel directed a court-appointed special master to submit three proposed new maps by Sept. 25.

“The law requires the creation of an additional district that affords Black Alabamians, like everyone else, a fair and reasonable opportunity to elect candidates of their choice. The 2023 Plan plainly fails to do so,” the judges wrote in the ruling.

The Republican-controlled Alabama Legislature hastily drew new lines this summer after the U.S. Supreme Court in June upheld the panel’s finding that the map — that had one majority-Black district out of seven in a state where 27% of residents are Black — likely violated the U.S. Voting Rights Act.

 

3) AP: Alabama’s attorney general, Steve Marshall, argued in a court filing that the state has the authority to bring conspiracy charges against groups who help women travel to another state for an abortion.

Alabama bans abortion at any stage of pregnancy. Marshall argued while it’s legal for a woman to travel out of state for an abortion, he suggested groups that help her do so could face prosecution.

Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall’s office made the assertion in a Monday motion to dismiss a lawsuit brought by an abortion assistance fund and others arguing such prosecutions would be unconstitutional.

 

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Pic Source: Mappr.co

What do you think of this brain development hypothesis? With the advent of AI, are our brains going to shrink even more?

The development of bigger brains has long been considered a hallmark of our species’ increased intelligence and subsequent dominance on this planet. The last two million years of our evolution were marked by a nearly fourfold increase in brain volume.

But a growing body of evidence suggests our brains recently changed in an unexpected way: They diminished in size.

“Most people think of brain evolution happening in this linear way. It grows, plateaus and stops,” said Jeremy DeSilva, a professor of paleoanthropology at Dartmouth College. “But we’ve lost brain tissue equal to the volume of a lime—it isn’t a tiny little sliver we’re talking about.”

A group of researchers led by DeSilva used a mixture of fossil and modern specimen data to pinpoint that this loss of gray matter happened between 3,000 to 5,000 years ago, according to research published in June in the journal Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution.

Many anthropologists had initially posited the changes coincided with the advent of agricultural practices around 10,000 years ago, and a global shift away from hunting and gathering.

The more-recent dates from DeSilva’s group point to booming eras for ancient civilizations in North Africa, the Middle East and South America—complex societies that they think may have played a role in the shrinkage.

They hypothesized that human societies got so cooperatively organized in the past 3,000 years that we began relying on what researchers call collective intelligence.

“It is the idea that a group of people is smarter than the smartest person in the group,” said James Traniello, a biology professor at Boston University and one of DeSilva’s co-authors. “So basically, if you live in a group, you solve problems more rapidly, more efficiently and more accurately than what’s possible for any individual.”

So the human brain has shrunk in the last 3000 years. We hypothesize that with the advent of AI, the brain will continue to shrink over the next 3000 years. We won’t have to think as much. Dumbing down I guess you could call it. Where will that take us evolutionarily?

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Source: WSJ

What do you think of this opinion column by David Ignatius in the Washington Post, 9.12.23:

Biden has had a remarkable string of wins. He defeated President Donald Trump in the 2020 election; he led a Democratic rebuff of Trump’s acolytes in the 2022 midterms; his Justice Department has systematically prosecuted the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection that Trump championed and, now, through special counsel Jack Smith, the department is bringing Trump himself to justice.

What I admire most about President Biden is that in a polarized nation, he has governed from the center out, as he promised in his victory speech. With an unexpectedly steady hand, he passed some of the most important domestic legislation in recent decades. In foreign policy, he managed the delicate balance of helping Ukraine fight Russia without getting America itself into a war. In sum, he has been a successful and effective president.

But I don’t think Biden and Vice President Harris should run for reelection. It’s painful to say that, given my admiration for much of what they have accomplished. But if he and Harris campaign together in 2024, I think Biden risks undoing his greatest achievement — which was stopping Trump.

Biden wrote his political testament in his inaugural address: “When our days are through, our children and our children’s children will say of us: They gave their best, they did their duty, they healed a broken land.” Mr. President, maybe this is that moment when duty has been served.

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