What happens when our institutions begin rewarding power more than responsibility, profit more than stewardship, and winning more than truth?
Whether you agree with every conclusion he reaches or not, his article challenges us to think about something bigger than politics. Every society creates incentives that shape human behavior. When those incentives reward empathy, honesty, and accountability, communities grow stronger. When they reward manipulation, fear, or indifference, everyone eventually pays the price.
His article also reminded me of a lesson from my own life. Years ago, while working around the Sea of Cortez, I realized I had become part of the environmental problem. That realization changed the direction of my life. I didn't want to keep arguing over who was to blame—I wanted to become part of the solution.
I think that is the challenge for all of us. We should be willing to examine our own assumptions, follow the evidence wherever it leads, and work toward solutions that leave the next generation a healthier democracy and a healthier planet.
We don't have to agree on everything to agree on that.
I often come back to the same principle:
The purpose isn't to find someone to hate. The purpose is to find a problem worth solving.
For me it was elections and I've been doing it for 22 years. I'm the executive director of a group called AUDIT (elections) USA.
During WWII, my dad was a surgeon. He stuffed peoples guts back into their bodies and when he came home after mopping up after Patton, as he put it, he decided to change career to a little trod place call psychiatry. I'm proud of what he did which was to help create a network of care. His particular specialty in the end were old people, a new specialty geriatrics and there was at that time a dire need to create nursing homes. Creating public health where there is none can be done and it's effective. It's not just a hospital but a network of people that visit, talk, listen and help. Public health keeps most importantly, the unwell away from the well. The network was being built and was working until Reagan. I know how you enjoy talking about Reagan, Jim.
Our growing population needs more discipline not less. I mean self discipline in the form of education and sports or other physical education. The empathetic seek it out I think. It's my thought that without it, one seeks with out aim. Finding shiny objects and well, trouble.
What I came to say is that the most ill among us can't be cured. I recall talking about this with dad, who shook his head about it. I also accompanied him to an asylum setting where I saw interviews of the most ill.
Hitler, Stalin, Trump, Putin all. No known cure. What made them break? I've gotten some new ideas. I'll say allowed to be bad. Honored just like the guy in the WH. Not stopped by others. And why would people who have a lack of focus care about something when you give them cash not to? What care has any one person made to insure anything at all? Basis of corporate America is you are a cog we don't want your thoughts just your labor. People protect what people sweat for. For that they will care, if some dude walks up and tries to take it ...
Impermanent jobs, lack of mental health help, individuals scrambling to make rent and raise kids. And Trump marches on in and pushes everyone over the edge with loving the worst among us. For years, and unrelenting years.
Chaos has an antidote called order. Chaos is the ground in which mental unwellness flourishes. One can create a structure and being to fill it. I personally used the frameworks of ballet and yoga for a lifetime physical practice. I taught both classical arts and saw what the disciplines gave people. I believe the structures where people come together and yet have their personal practice are best. Sports, a chorus things like that where a person contributes to the whole and yet individuals aren't lost and have the ability to excel. People shine like you cannot believe from their core and through their eyes as they sweat, caring to meet a goal.
All is not lost but pretty fucked up. It's not lost till we stop having children to teach. There are programs anyone can start you just have to gather up some people and find a common fun. Stick ball teams, square dancing, get some chalk and draw a pottsie framework on the sidewalk. Get people to take turns. Thanks.
It is tempting to blame the media, the oligarchy, the ruling elite, but in the end it is us, we who with our own selfish designs, our own agenda, our own sloth that empower them
A soldier in the trenches is told to go over the top when the whistle blows, and behind him is an officer with nothing more than a sidearm.
The purpose of the sidearm is to shoot whoever refuses to go over the top
In our society the stand in for the officer with a sidearm is ICE, the FBI, the county sheriff, the cop in a patrol car
And although we outnumber "them" in orders of magnitude, our resistance is limited to peaceful marches, written and verbal expressions (until such wind up getting unwanted surveillance and action, and expensive law suits, that eventual go nowhere
We do nothing until it is too late to do anything.
After a lifetime of direct experience with many psychopaths, I have a lot of useful information to offer. Too much for commenting here though. One very important thing to consider is that they never agree to being analyzed in any way. Or especially to donate their bodies for organs or to study after death. They cannot even conceptualize the inevitable demise of themselves. But this makes me wonder if the defect is caused by a parasitic organism that does not want to be found. Such as the toxoplasmo ghondei brain parasite, which could easily cut the neural pathways to the empathy center of the brain. There are other possibilities as well. A fungal slime mold among others. Which helps explain their defensive opposition to vaccines. Survival instinct in case a vaccine is developed as a cure for psychopathy???
Why a virus analogy; how about the organic existence of endoparasites; particularly the parasite that burrows into the host and takes control of its brain while eating the organism bite by bite, using its flesh for sustenance and reproduction. Wikipedia- and AI - “entomology term for a type of parasitoid wasp strategy””A koinobiont parasitoid lets the host continue developing for a while (often the host is only partially paralyzed), and the parasitoid kills the host later when it’s time to mature.”
I'm not ruling anything out. Especially that toxoplasmo ghondei brain parasite. They have determined that upwards of one third of the population has it. It is known to cut neural pathways and control the host.
This. Thank-you, Jim. Will be sharing.
Jim Stewartson asks an important question:
What happens when our institutions begin rewarding power more than responsibility, profit more than stewardship, and winning more than truth?
Whether you agree with every conclusion he reaches or not, his article challenges us to think about something bigger than politics. Every society creates incentives that shape human behavior. When those incentives reward empathy, honesty, and accountability, communities grow stronger. When they reward manipulation, fear, or indifference, everyone eventually pays the price.
His article also reminded me of a lesson from my own life. Years ago, while working around the Sea of Cortez, I realized I had become part of the environmental problem. That realization changed the direction of my life. I didn't want to keep arguing over who was to blame—I wanted to become part of the solution.
I think that is the challenge for all of us. We should be willing to examine our own assumptions, follow the evidence wherever it leads, and work toward solutions that leave the next generation a healthier democracy and a healthier planet.
We don't have to agree on everything to agree on that.
I often come back to the same principle:
The purpose isn't to find someone to hate. The purpose is to find a problem worth solving.
For me it was elections and I've been doing it for 22 years. I'm the executive director of a group called AUDIT (elections) USA.
This is a great counter to Musk's "empathy virus".
Terrifying but the only way we make it out is straight through the truth. We’re so lucky to have your perspective. 💜
The video of ICE pulling that poor man out of his car after murdering him is heartbreaking!
I want to know why it’s not all over the news
During WWII, my dad was a surgeon. He stuffed peoples guts back into their bodies and when he came home after mopping up after Patton, as he put it, he decided to change career to a little trod place call psychiatry. I'm proud of what he did which was to help create a network of care. His particular specialty in the end were old people, a new specialty geriatrics and there was at that time a dire need to create nursing homes. Creating public health where there is none can be done and it's effective. It's not just a hospital but a network of people that visit, talk, listen and help. Public health keeps most importantly, the unwell away from the well. The network was being built and was working until Reagan. I know how you enjoy talking about Reagan, Jim.
Our growing population needs more discipline not less. I mean self discipline in the form of education and sports or other physical education. The empathetic seek it out I think. It's my thought that without it, one seeks with out aim. Finding shiny objects and well, trouble.
What I came to say is that the most ill among us can't be cured. I recall talking about this with dad, who shook his head about it. I also accompanied him to an asylum setting where I saw interviews of the most ill.
Hitler, Stalin, Trump, Putin all. No known cure. What made them break? I've gotten some new ideas. I'll say allowed to be bad. Honored just like the guy in the WH. Not stopped by others. And why would people who have a lack of focus care about something when you give them cash not to? What care has any one person made to insure anything at all? Basis of corporate America is you are a cog we don't want your thoughts just your labor. People protect what people sweat for. For that they will care, if some dude walks up and tries to take it ...
Impermanent jobs, lack of mental health help, individuals scrambling to make rent and raise kids. And Trump marches on in and pushes everyone over the edge with loving the worst among us. For years, and unrelenting years.
Chaos has an antidote called order. Chaos is the ground in which mental unwellness flourishes. One can create a structure and being to fill it. I personally used the frameworks of ballet and yoga for a lifetime physical practice. I taught both classical arts and saw what the disciplines gave people. I believe the structures where people come together and yet have their personal practice are best. Sports, a chorus things like that where a person contributes to the whole and yet individuals aren't lost and have the ability to excel. People shine like you cannot believe from their core and through their eyes as they sweat, caring to meet a goal.
All is not lost but pretty fucked up. It's not lost till we stop having children to teach. There are programs anyone can start you just have to gather up some people and find a common fun. Stick ball teams, square dancing, get some chalk and draw a pottsie framework on the sidewalk. Get people to take turns. Thanks.
It is tempting to blame the media, the oligarchy, the ruling elite, but in the end it is us, we who with our own selfish designs, our own agenda, our own sloth that empower them
A soldier in the trenches is told to go over the top when the whistle blows, and behind him is an officer with nothing more than a sidearm.
The purpose of the sidearm is to shoot whoever refuses to go over the top
In our society the stand in for the officer with a sidearm is ICE, the FBI, the county sheriff, the cop in a patrol car
And although we outnumber "them" in orders of magnitude, our resistance is limited to peaceful marches, written and verbal expressions (until such wind up getting unwanted surveillance and action, and expensive law suits, that eventual go nowhere
We do nothing until it is too late to do anything.
Pastor Niemoller paraphrased.
After a lifetime of direct experience with many psychopaths, I have a lot of useful information to offer. Too much for commenting here though. One very important thing to consider is that they never agree to being analyzed in any way. Or especially to donate their bodies for organs or to study after death. They cannot even conceptualize the inevitable demise of themselves. But this makes me wonder if the defect is caused by a parasitic organism that does not want to be found. Such as the toxoplasmo ghondei brain parasite, which could easily cut the neural pathways to the empathy center of the brain. There are other possibilities as well. A fungal slime mold among others. Which helps explain their defensive opposition to vaccines. Survival instinct in case a vaccine is developed as a cure for psychopathy???
Why a virus analogy; how about the organic existence of endoparasites; particularly the parasite that burrows into the host and takes control of its brain while eating the organism bite by bite, using its flesh for sustenance and reproduction. Wikipedia- and AI - “entomology term for a type of parasitoid wasp strategy””A koinobiont parasitoid lets the host continue developing for a while (often the host is only partially paralyzed), and the parasitoid kills the host later when it’s time to mature.”
I'm not ruling anything out. Especially that toxoplasmo ghondei brain parasite. They have determined that upwards of one third of the population has it. It is known to cut neural pathways and control the host.
Is that anything like RFK's brainworm?
He did normalize brain parasites. While demonizing modern medicine.
Fascinating.
Thank you Jim, we need more of you! 💕—Jean Lingelbach
Exquisite. Brilliant. Get some rich person to buy a page of the NY Times and print it.
Hit the nail on the head, Jim!