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 may contribute to this polarization, but it can also can be an avenue for us to interact despite our differences. The definition of Synthisophy is integrating the wisdoms of history, based on fact and truth, into present culture. To have that happen, we need to listen to points of view that don't match our own. Then, using history as a guide, we can process these different points of view, draw conclusions based on fact and truth, and express our views in public forums such as the Discussion Group shown above. This will decrease the level of polarization in the USA, which is the mission of synthisophy.

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 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:

What do you think of Trumps executive orders on his first day of presidency?  Here’s a few and a link to all:

Pardoning more than 1,500 people who were charged with storming the US Capitol on January 6, 2021.

Withdrawing the United States from the Paris Climate Agreement.

Withdrawing the US from the World Health Organization

Declaring a national energy emergency, aka ‘drill baby drill”.

Declaring a national emergency on the Southern Border.

Renaming of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America.

Delaying the ban on TikTok for 75 days.

https://6abc.com/post/list-executive-orders-president-trump-signed-first-day-office/15821421/

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What do you think?

Google Maps will change the name of "Gulf of Mexico" to "Gulf of America" once it is officially updated in the U.S. Geographic Names System, Google said on Monday.

The change will be visible in the U.S., but the name will remain "Gulf of Mexico" in Mexico. Outside of the two countries, users will see both names on Google Maps.

The Trump administration's Interior Department said on Friday it had officially changed the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America, and the Alaskan peak Denali, the tallest mountain in North America, to Mount McKinley.

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Sources: Reuters, Wikipedia, Google

What do you think?  Here’s the opinion of David Brooks in the NYT, 1.30.25:

This was the week in which the Chinese made incredible gains in artificial intelligence and the Americans made incredible gains in human stupidity. I’m sorry, but I look at the Trump administration’s behavior over the last week and the only word that accurately describes it is: stupid.

The administration produced volleys of stupidity this week. It renewed threats to impose ruinous tariffs on Canada and Mexico that would drive up inflation in America. It attempted a broad and general purge of the federal work force, apparently without asking how that purge would affect government operations. But I’d like to focus on one other episode: the attempt to freeze federal spending on assistance programs, and Trump’s subsequent decision to reverse course and undo the freeze.

When announcing the freeze, the administration stated its clear goal — to defund things like the diversity, equity and inclusion programs that Trump disapproves of. A prudent administration would have picked the programs it opposed and focused on cutting those, through a well-established process known as rescission authority. But the Trump administration decided to impose a vague, half-baked freeze on what it claimed amounted to more than $3 trillion in federal spending. Suddenly, patients in cancer trials at the National Institutes of Health didn’t know if they could continue their treatments, Head Start administrators didn’t know if they could draw federal funds, cities and states across America didn’t know if they would have money for police forces, schools, nutrition programs, highway repair and other basic services.

This Trump policy was like trying to cure acne with decapitation. Nobody seems to have asked the question: If we freeze all grant spending, what will happen next? Once the ramifications of that stupidity became obvious, Trump reversed course. And this is my big prediction for this administration: It will churn out a steady stream of stupid policies, and when the consequences of those policies begin to hit Trump’s approval rating, he will flip-flop, diminish or abandon those policies. He loves popularity more than any idea.

But it is still true that we’re going to have to learn a lot about stupidity over the next four years. I’ve distilled what I’ve learned so far into six main principles:

Principle 1: Ideology produces disagreement, but stupidity produces befuddlement. This week, people in institutions across America spent a couple of days trying to figure out what the hell was going on. This is what happens when a government freezes roughly $3 trillion in spending with a two-page memo that reads like it was written by an intern. When stupidity is in control, the literature professor Patrick Moreau argues, words become unscrewed “from their relation to reality.”

Principle 2: Stupidity often inheres in organizations, not individuals. When you create an organization in which one man has all the power and everybody else has to flatter his preconceptions, then stupidity will surely result. As the German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer put it: “This is virtually a sociological-psychological law. The power of the one needs the stupidity of the other.”

Principle 3: People who behave stupidly are more dangerous than people who behave maliciously. Evil people at least have some accurate sense of their own self-interest, which might restrain them. Stupidity dares greatly! Stupidity already has all the answers!

Principle 4: People who behave stupidly are unaware of the stupidity of their actions. You may have heard of the Dunning-Kruger effect, which is that incompetent people don’t have the skills to recognize their own incompetence.

Principle 5: Stupidity is nearly impossible to oppose. Bonhoeffer notes, “Against stupidity we are defenseless.” Because stupid actions do not make sense, they invariably come as a surprise. Reasonable arguments fall on deaf ears. Counter-evidence is brushed aside.

Principle 6: The opposite of stupidity is not intelligence, it’s rationality. The psychologist Keith Stanovich defines rationality as the capacity to make decisions that help people achieve their objectives. People in the grip of the populist mind-set tend to be contemptuous of experience, prudence and expertise, helpful components of rationality. It turns out that this can make some populists willing to believe anything — conspiracy theories, folk tales and internet legends; that vaccines are harmful to children. They don’t live within a structured body of thought but within a rave party chaos of prejudices.

As time has gone by, I’ve developed more and more sympathy for the goals the populists are trying to achieve. America’s leadership class has spent the last few generations excluding, ignoring, rejecting and insulting a large swath of this country. It’s terrible to be assaulted in this way. It’s worse when you finally seize power and start assaulting yourself — and everyone around you. In fact, it’s stupid.

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