Category Archives: Politics

Abortion

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This post, to say the least, reflects advocacy, prejudice and disdain.

Mariner’s mother had congenital heart disease. He was born when she was eighteen. Four years later, she became pregnant with his brother. She was advised not to have the baby but no one would perform a safe abortion. Mariner’s father could find no one to perform an abortion. She carried to term and mariner’s brother was born. Mariner’s mother was bedbound for two years then spent her last year in a hospital in an oxygen tent. She died when mariner was eight years old, leaving horrendous hospital bills for his father and left mariner and his four year old brother without a mother.

For the holier than others conservatives, irrational religious fanatics and political hackers, mariner has disdain. They don’t understand that pregnancy has many reasons not to be in the best interest of people’s intimate lives. They don’t understand that abortion is not a political decision. They don’t understand that the Constitution in no way gives them the right to own the life of any woman – any more than owning black slaves. Mariner’s mother wasn’t even black.

Basing the political conflict on fetal arguments of any kind is useless. People who oppose abortion aren’t scientifically minded nor would those arguments matter. Mariner notes that these same faux aristocrats have the same disrespect for other life-taking issues:

Among all other issues, war kills more than any other political misappropriation. The last thing a sane, emotionally secure person would desire is to go to war – about anything.

Failure to provide medical care to the poor and indigent is another way of saying “Let them die before I measure my dollars versus their life.”

Should a woman give birth to an unwanted child, the curse of prejudice stays with the child. The United States tolerates one in five children living beneath the poverty line. Further, the United States and its anti-abortionists cause the United States to rank 47th among all nations in infant mortality per 1,000 births. Anti-abortionists are rife with hubris, irrational thought and no capability to feel empathy and compassion.

Ancient Mariner

 

 

Illicit Conversion

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This isn’t about religion. Illicit conversion is a class of fallacy in reasoning which, it turns out, is Donald’s favorite form of argument. Retrieved from one of mariner’s ancient college textbooks on logic, it is nonetheless recognizable today:

Donald would reason that criminals are Hispanics; therefore all Hispanics are criminals. Or, another reasoning, Donald likes rich white people and doesn’t like poor nonwhite people; therefore, what Donald likes is acceptable and what he doesn’t like is unacceptable.

Donald may assume crimes are synonymous with collusion; therefore no collusion means no crimes.

Obviously for Donald, all friends are useful; therefore all those not useful are not friends.

In simple terms, one assumes a premise then uses that premise in an inaccurate way to propose a second premise. A syllogism with a split middle is a specific construct within illicit conversion.

What makes Donald confusing is that he illicitly converts illicit conversions at the drop of a hat. His reporting on the North Korean issue is an example.

Certainly Donald is not the only person who uses illicit conversion. It just may be that everyone is guilty of the practice when it provides an easy answer to a complex situation. How many conservatives or conversely how many liberals must confess to using ‘what one likes is legitimate; therefore what one doesn’t like is illegitimate’? How many think the brand of car they purchased is a superior choice therefore all other brands are somehow inferior?

The loosely defined truths (or untruths) contained in illicit conversions inevitably lead to flawed judgment, prejudice, exclusivity, meaningless pride and in some conditions lead to violence and abuse. Even in strict scientific research, what may be construed as a valid assumption often turns out to be an illicit conversion.

Has one ever used an illicit conversion to justify procrastination or scheduling preferences or which school is best for the children?

Illicit Conversion is a practice that is a bad personal habit until it becomes common enough to influence society. Without illicit conversion, populism cannot exist; identity politics cannot exist; prejudice cannot exist, etc.

The best antidote is curiosity along with engagement. Why does one want to procrastinate? Why do the various financial classes discriminate and isolate? Why is government split between capitalism and socialism? Why does one like their neighbor from the other political party but dislikes everyone else in that party?

One for all and all for one dispels socially assumed illicit conversion – plus add some rational education. Yet, many in the electorate prefer to be guided by illicit conversions for every aspect of life.

Ancient Mariner

 

Did you know?

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Day to day, we forget that if the billions of years of life on Earth were scaled to a twenty-four hour day, our settled civilizations began about a fifth of a second ago. [Falter, McKibben]

This implies that the existence of humanity, regardless of many years of human life ahead, is but a microscopic blip in the history of the Planet. The dinosaurs (during the Mesozoic Era inclusive of the Triassic, Jurassic, and Cretaceous periods) existed for over 170 million years. So far, the Homo clan has existed for 2.2 million years; modern humans, the troublesome sapiens kind, have existed only for 200,000 years.

There is scientific debate about the cause of extinction for dinosaurs. One or the other or both a large asteroid and/or excessive volcanic activity blocked the sunlight and caused atmospheric gases that made life impossible for dinosaurs – although virtually every other creature made it through this catastrophe in one way or another. The survival of other species suggests that the end of the Cretaceous Period was a slower change in the environment. Some scientists think while both catastrophes may have contributed to the extinction, they suggest the real cause was a more gradual shift in climate and changing sea levels.

Does that sound familiar? Humans are not blessed with asteroids but from time to time, large volcanoes have disrupted daily life around the planet. Just to be sure, though, humans have fossil fuels to create a warming climate and changing sea levels.

Another study suggests that the dinosaurs were overpopulated and suffering from disease and malnutrition during the end of the Cretacious. Humans have that covered, too, with excessive global population and intentional starvation across much of the Planet.

Mother Nature is not deterred from her strict laws for survival. Mother Nature is the spirit of the Planet – not of any life form per se. As to troublemaking humans, she says, “Capitalism, shmapitalism; profit, shmofit; AI, shmai – humans have never been in charge and never will be.”

Humans snub their noses and say they will leave Earth and live elsewhere in the cosmos. Where? On another planet?

Ancient Mariner

 

No News is No News

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Frequently Mariner is asked to respond to Donald this and Donald that. Mariner does not follow Donald. Mariner spends most of his news gathering time catching up on the world and other matters non-Donald. The world is quite busy at the moment with war, political upheaval, scientific invention, even social events like a Prince and wife giving birth to a baby. Monsoons literally are wiping out a nation. These things are new news. Donald is not new news.

Consider:

We already know Donald is incompetent.

We already know Donald is emotionally disadvantaged.

We already know Donald is a pathological liar.

We already know Donald hates Barack Obama and wants to wipe his accomplishments out of existence.

We already know Donald intends to keep America divided and paranoid.

We already know Donald’s cabinet is destroying thirty years of regulations covering everything from oil spills to health services to the humane aspects of immigration to global destruction of the environment.

We already know Donald ‘says’ he wants to build a wall but really he wants to keep populism on the front page.

We already know Donald wants to be king.

We already know Donald is unscrupulous and immoral in his business and political dealings.

So what’s new news?

Know what? Donald is all he can be, to quote a phrase. What he can be isn’t very acceptable; indeed it is harmful. But one knows who Donald is and what he will be. Mariner, though frightfully concerned about the ramifications of Donald, is not angry at Donald.

Mariner is very, very angry at Senate Republicans. They have demonstrated the most egregious behavior one can imagine. America is not their concern. America is devastatingly broken – far beyond anything Donald could invoke. Nevertheless, the first allegiance of Republican Senators is to the 2020 primaries. A Republican Senator may lose his $175,000 job with excessive benefits if that Senator must win a primary without Donald’s base. In any other circumstance,  Donald would have been impeached for treason as soon as he was elected. But Republican Senators allow the scourge of Donald to do great damage to America and its position as leader of the world – a nation among nations – not for ideological reasons but just so they can keep their job in 2020.

Twenty-two Republican Senators are up for reelection in 2020. A curse on them all.

So what is new news? Donald is gone. Republican Senators are gone. The Electoral College is gone. Gerrymandering is gone. PAC money is gone.

That’s news!

Ancient Mariner

 

 

Dancing

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Mariner wrote a post some time ago that defines a physical difference between liberal and conservative thinking (Red Brain, Blue Brain posted June 19, 2015). The difference is where decisions are made in the brain.

֎ From an Atlantic article by Dan Meegan

Conservatives Have a Different Definition of ‘Fair’ and liberals ignore it at their peril.

[Some people have more than they need, and others need more than they have. Even when liberal leaders describe policies that are beneficial to everyone, they make it clear that the most important beneficiaries are those whose needs are most urgent.

Conservatives tend to value equity, or proportionality, and they see unfairness when people are asked to contribute more than they should expect to receive in return, or when people receive more than they contribute. Consider a hypothetical comparison of two people who graduated from college five years ago with equal amounts of debt. Jessie successfully implemented a plan to pay off the debt in five years, while Sam still has much to repay. Warren’s plan forgives Sam’s debt, but offers nothing to Jessie, despite her industriousness and self-discipline. To add insult to injury, Jessie must contribute tax dollars to the $640 billion fund necessary to forgive outstanding loans, including Sam’s.]

 Sigh. ‘Pass it Forward’ must not be a conservative concept. Where are the Evangelicals when Christ needs them?

No doubt the example above proved to be a litmus test for the reader. One option will ring more true than the other. The conservative option is based on self-value while the liberal option is based on human value. The twain, as it is said, will never meet. When one gives it thought, one realizes this is the very core of the dysfunction of US governments. Conservatives are willing to eliminate the Affordable Care Act (ACA aka Obamacare) because they already have health insurance and balk at paying someone else’s health insurance as well – and gratis at that. Liberals, on the other hand see the imbalance of the human condition and seek to rebalance equality using the abundance of others.

In a more subtle sense, conservatives operate from a point of view that induces prejudice and classism; prejudice and classism simply are rules of the road that keep proportionality in place. Liberals on the other hand see the injustice of prejudice and classism as lack of concern for the human condition.

There are handy government philosophies for this conflict: capitalism and socialism. Mariner has said in the past that these philosophies don’t work if either is an absolute. It takes two to mambo . . .

Ancient Mariner

Gettysburg Revisited

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Mariner has a mental image of walking across the Battlefield at Gettysburg during the Civil War. Over 7,000 dead bodies lay strewn across the field; over fifty thousand were wounded. Heavy smoke from gunpowder hangs in the air like fog; the stench of blood and death fills the nostrils. This image is a metaphor for citizens in today’s America – old and new concepts of government are in battle against one another. The difference is the citizens are the ones who will die and be injured.

[NEWSY] The Justice Department said in a filing Wednesday that it believes “the remaining provisions of the ACA should not be allowed to remain in effect.”

The Trump administration has joined a coalition of Republican-led states in asking a federal appeals court to strike down Obamacare in its entirety.

Should the Justice Department win this legal battle, many millions of US citizens suddenly will be left without health insurance, including virtually the entire Donald base. If this isn’t gunfire into the citizenry, causing many more deaths and injuries than at Gettysburg, then what is it? Old government forces (social conservatives) want to stymie inevitable change to the culture. The conservatives will cause a lot of pain and suffering both fiscally and emotionally but change is inevitable.

So it has been throughout history. Change means war. The innocent must die.

Ancient Mariner

Interpretation

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֎ The rising tide of white nationalist violence is in the spotlight in the 2020 presidential race, reports The Washington Post. “I think that’s what the crux of this campaign is going to be about,” said House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-S.C.). Over the weekend, Trump gave a full-throated condemnation of anti-Semitism following a deadly shooting at a synagogue north of San Diego. And days earlier, Joe Biden launched his presidential campaign with a video attacking Trump’s response to the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville — comments which the president quickly doubled down on. Some GOP strategists, however, think the issue could be a real weak spot for Trump, who has come under scrutiny for his rhetoric around white nationalism.[Politico]

 This is tied to immigration policy as well. Mariner believes that worldwide migration will continue to become worse as economies and climates bifurcate into have and have-not. Racism is an obvious defense for those on the margins, for example Donald’s base. Most western nations that are large enough are experiencing the same impact; nationalist parties are gaining political clout. At the moment mariner sees two alternatives: develop an economy that absorbs (needs) more population or develop an economic policy somewhat similar to China’s which is to invest heavily in nations with weak GDP thereby easing emigration (and fostering economic dependence on China).

For the US, with its fragile concepts of freedom and equality, racism translates into identity politics which is highly volatile and destructive; just ask Russia.

Perhaps the ideas about infrastructure may provide an economic boost – hampered only by indebtedness imposed by the last Congress and a severely imbalanced tax system. But infrastructure may be little more than an offset to job loss caused by automation. In short, living today is a lot like watching storm clouds approaching.

Ancient Mariner

A Seismic Shift

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The United States, indeed the World, stands at the precipice of an historic change. Not just generational change; not just new electronic horizons; not just shifts in culture; not even the same climate. The United States as it has existed since the Second World War and especially since the 1980s will not exist in twenty years.

Mariner hasn’t surmised this future. It is the opinion of many intellectual and professional writers, leaders, scientists and philosophers – several with Nobel Prizes, many with Pulitzer prizes – all with concern whether we will be prepared for the seismic shift. At the moment, the US and State Governments, the oligarchical economy, the lack of plans for an economy that cares for the entire population not just the privileged, the standoff between climate change and fossil fuel economy, the dysfunctional education and job preparation institutions, and the symptomatic rise of identity isolationism all suggest the common man on the street is woefully exposed to the vagaries of change over the next twenty years.

If the citizenry is to minimize its exposure to poverty, environmental travesty and political failure, each citizen must make an effort to improve sociability in family, community and have a moral obligation to the nation and its citizens. Further, each person must educate themselves to the realities that will confront the nation over the next twenty years.

To suggest a tone for pursuit of quality understanding and insights, mariner offers three recent books that address the seismic shift. There are many more books and magazines that already provide a steady stream about the nation’s imminent future. Mariner also lists several broadcasting sources that are veritable libraries of quality discourse. Everyone must respond to the changes. Become conscious of social morality and become educated.

Rewriting the Rules of the American Economy: An Agenda for Growth and Shared Prosperity

by Joseph E. Stiglitz

Joseph E. Stiglitz is a Nobel laureate in economics, University Professor at Columbia University, and chief economist of the Roosevelt Institute.

“The United States bills itself as the land of opportunity, a place where anyone can achieve success and a better life through hard work and determination. But the facts tell a different story—the U.S. today lags behind most other developed nations in measures of inequality and economic mobility. For decades, wages have stagnated for the majority of workers while economic gains have disproportionately gone to the top one percent. Education, housing, and health care—essential ingredients for individual success—are growing ever more expensive. Deeply rooted structural discrimination continues to hold down women and people of color, and more than one-fifth of all American children now live in poverty. These trends are on track to become even worse in the future.”

Falter

By Bill McKibben.

Bill McKibben is recognized around the world for his dedication to the environment and health of the planet. He first warned of climate change 30 years ago and says its effects are now upon us: “The idea that anybody’s going to be immune from this anywhere is untrue.”

In his latest book, Falter, McKibben broadens the potential disruption to question whether the human race is in an end game.

The Second Mountain, The Quest for a Moral Life

By David Brooks.

David Brooks is a Canadian-born American center-right political and cultural commentator who writes for The New York Times. He has worked as a film critic for The Washington Times; a reporter and later op-ed editor for The Wall Street Journal; a senior editor at The Weekly Standard from its inception; a contributing editor at Newsweek and The Atlantic Monthly; and a commentator on NPR. Brooks is currently a columnist for The New York Times and commentator on PBS NewsHour.

“This book is meant to help us all lead more meaningful lives. But it’s also a provocative social commentary. We live in a society, Brooks argues, that celebrates freedom and choice, that tells us to be true to ourselves, to march to the beat of our own drummer at the expense of surrendering to a cause, rooting ourselves in a neighborhood, and binding ourselves to others by social solidarity and love. We have taken individualism to the extreme degree—and, in the process, we have torn the social fabric in a thousand different ways. The path to repair is through making deeper commitments.”

Other Media

Mariner’s opinion is that FOX, CNN and MSNBC are low quality sources for actual and meaningful information. Instead, try perusing the CSPAN video library or keep an eye for meaningful book reviews on CSPAN-BOOKS.

Check out NEWSY, a low budget news channel with no frills, just the facts, no pundits and ongoing insightful specials about issues of the day.

Check out PBS and NPR – not just the broadcasts but peruse the websites.

Mariner has mentioned previously The Atlantic, The Economist, The New Yorker and Scientific American Magazine as solid sources for insight into the reality of these times.

Check the New York Times for new books on important subjects.

How will Citizens prepare for the rapidly rising neo-Nazi presence in democratic nations? Even the US has a nationalist, racist President.

The bottom line – in the US at least – is an individual’s vote. Like a chess move, the vote must be played with insight and an awareness of future moves. Today’s US governments clearly are inept representations of a past that no longer applies. It is the reader’s job to vote for new values and knowledgeable representatives that will help everyone survive the seismic shift.

Ancient Mariner

What can we do about the Base?

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The concept of a political whole has existed since Thucydides described the Peloponnesian War. In those days, a political whole was necessary to provide armies for war. Today, a political whole is the same as flour in a bread recipe: it holds a nation together despite endless differences in politics, society, technology, religion, economics, international treaties and the state of the planet itself – all part of the same recipe.

A way to feel the presence of a unified political whole, or unified nation, is to feel national pride. Remember in the old days when the phrase ‘I am an American’ was spoken with sincerity? An obligated feeling is to believe that each individual is America. America is each individual. Joined at the hip to use an old phrase. Alas, today the recipe isn’t working; the bread collapses into useless crumbs and bad tasting pieces.

Throughout history when change was in the air, in fact overdue, the idea of a unified nation no longer sufficed. Populist groups rose in rebellion; today we call it ‘identity politics’ and there are fractious campaigns across the board involving abusive class practices, abusive racial practices, abusive sexual practices, abusive economic practices, abusive corporate practices, political party elitism, and too frequently, a relapse into less than moral respect for the nation itself. The Base is among this list of entities. Why?

Mariner points to the over-capitalization of the US given that its resources have shrunk over time – from that time when an entire virgin continent was at hand to let capitalism generate the profits that it can generate so quickly. But in this century especially, there isn’t enough continent to go around and capitalism still reigns as the economic philosophy. Given less resources, those who garner wealth continue to maintain profits while the common citizen collects less and less over time until things obviously are unbalanced and unfair. The time has come that the common citizen knows their children will be economically disadvantaged.

The common citizen points their finger at Federal and state governments that have let this happen. It is a serious issue; savoir faire does not apply. The election of Donald, a pompous bully who is destructive, is not an issue with the Base. His job is to bring down an unsympathetic government – no love lost.

There are just a few ways a citizen can share profits derived from the nation’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP):

Investment – For those citizens and corporations that have ‘extra’ cash above normal living and operating expenses, the cash is invested in things like stocks and bonds and various funds or it is invested in business expansion. Today there are some new wrinkles in capitalization; antitrust laws are ignored so very large companies can supersize themselves to sustain market value and increase profits; investment has become an international reality and significant percentages of money are not reinvested in US interests but invested overseas. Having little or no extra cash, the Base does not participate in profit by investment.

Wage and benefit negotiation – At the beginning of the 1900s, there were some bloody clashes and major destruction as laborers fought to unionize. Today, at the beginning of the 2000s, unions have been outlawed to the point of not being a significant influence in corporate decisions about wages and benefits. Employers can now treat wages as a static overhead regardless of profits. Consequently, the Base is shut out from GDP profits with a net effect of underfinanced retirement. Another side effect is minimum wage; plutocratic influence in governments has pushed against increases even to levels of viability.

Taxation – It is common knowledge today that the tax tables are upside down. As a percentage of income, low income citizens are taxed at severe percentages while wealth in all its forms is virtually tax free. Further, corporations no longer are bound to one government’s tax laws and are able to avoid taxes of any kind. The Base feels it is paying an unfair share of taxes for a government that caters to the plutocracy instead of the tax-paying workers.

Discretionary Programs – Programs in the government’s budget that are beneficial to citizens in general, e.g., health, welfare, social security, worker’s compensation, support for the indigent, and equal treatment programs; add in public education. The Affordable Care Act is the first major program to be added since the Civil Rights Act in 1957 and Medicare/Medicaid in 1965. In the 1990s, the health industry became a profit taking industry; the cost of health services was no longer based on cost plus a margin, it became based on what the market would bear. This increased health insurance significantly; copays increased and many health services opted out of Medicaid and Medicare, forcing citizens to pay huge bills for special services and prescriptions. Major detractors of discretionary programs are Libertarians and conservative parts of the Republican Party. The Base feels that governments are ignoring their needs.

A paragraph must be dedicated to the screwy results of the 2016 election. When surveying Republicans, Donald has 70% of the GOP. When surveying the general population, Donald has 40%. The 40% represents Donald’s Base; the other 30% is the GOP faithful. Unfortunately, Hillary was in the crosshairs of history: the whole Bill thing, the Whitewater thing, the female thing, the Establishment thing – the crossover to vote republican was just enough for the Base to switch to Donald. The irrational Electoral College didn’t help either. Ironically, Hillary won by 4 million votes and in 2018 the Democratic Party rose like a tsunami to take control of the House of Representatives. But Donald, running republican, took the day. Mariner feels sorry for the Base in that they elected the personality they wanted but not the party they wanted.

So what can we do about the Base? Fear feeds populism. The Base feels threatened on every side. Salaries are inadequate; retirement is uncertain; automation eliminates jobs every day; upward mobility is denied (college costs, forced layoff around the age of 50, rising house prices, etc.), governments are awash in plutocracy, children can’t afford to move out and on and on.
Mariner isn’t touting either party these days; government is totally dysfunctional whether Democrat or Republican. Still, the Green New Deal may expand the necessary workforce – especially for the working class; retooled discretionary programs, including the expense of college, may help around the edges of life; the idea of a dole to every citizen may rebalance income conditions especially for the poor and elderly; universal medical coverage may ease the life of just about everyone. It seems that the Democrats need specifically to invite the Base back to their party for 2020. A lot hangs on who the presidential nominee will be.

Ancient Mariner

Being Real

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[“Real isn’t how you are made,’ said the Skin Horse. ‘It’s a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real.’

‘Does it hurt?’ asked the Rabbit.

‘Sometimes,’ said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. ‘When you are Real you don’t mind being hurt.’

‘Does it happen all at once, like being wound up,’ he asked, ‘or bit by bit?’

‘It doesn’t happen all at once,’ said the Skin Horse. ‘You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.”

― Margery Williams Bianco, The Velveteen Rabbit.]

From the Atlantic:

 Can We Touch?

Physical contact remains vital to health, even as we do less of it. The rules of engagement aren’t necessarily changing—they’re just starting to be heard.

James Hamlin, April 10, 2019

֎  Today’s post largely is a number of excerpts from James Hamlin’s article. Regular readers know that mariner is skeptical about modern technology, especially Artificial Intelligence (AI) which is cleaving human behavior away from interpersonal touching, hugging, conversation, and deliberate sharing of the intimate space – a column of space that extends about a foot from the body. Several studies are presented that show a human is dependent on touching and hugging not only for social acceptance but for healthy bodies and emotional development. Brackets [ ] encompass quoted material.

[ Tiffany Field has spent decades trying to get people to touch one another more.

Her efforts started with premature babies, when she found that basic human touch led them to quickly gain weight. An initial small study, published in the journal Pediatrics in 1986, showed that just 10 days of “body stroking and passive movements of the limbs” for less than an hour led babies to grow 47 percent faster. They averaged fewer days in the hospital and accrued $3,000 less in medical bills. The effect has been replicated multiple times.

Field, a developmental psychologist by training, went on to found the Touch Research Institute at the University of Miami’s Miller School of Medicine. She was a pioneer in highlighting the effects of “touch deprivation” among kids, famously those in orphanages. She explained to me that the effects are pervasive, influencing so many bodily systems that kids are diagnosed with “failure to thrive,” resulting in permanent physical and cognitive impairment, smaller stature, and social withdrawal later in life—which often includes aversion to physical contact. ]

       

      

   

֎ It is beyond question that hugging, touching, kissing, caressing, and many other intimate reinforcements are a biological requirement in primates – in fact all mammals require to some degree feelings of value, justification, affection, friendship, bonding, celebration and love.

[ Physical touch doesn’t make adults larger, but its effects are still coming to light. Field has published similar findings about the benefits of touch in full-term infants, and then children and pregnant women, adults with chronic pain, and people in retirement homes. Studies that involved as little as 15 daily minutes found that touch alone, even devoid of the other supportive qualities it usually signifies, seems to have myriad benefits.

The hug, specifically, has been repeatedly linked to good health. In a more recent study that made headlines about hugs helping the immune system, researchers led by the psychologist Sheldon Cohen at Carnegie Mellon University isolated 400 people in a hotel and exposed them to a cold virus. People who had supportive social interactions had fewer and less severe symptoms. Physical touch (specifically hugging) seemed to account for about a third of that effect. (The researchers conclude: “These data suggest that hugging may act as an effective means of conveying support.”) Cohen and his colleagues continued to show other health benefits of physical contact, such as a 2018 reveal in the journal PLOS titled “Receiving a Hug Is Associated With the Attenuation of Negative Mood That Occurs on Days With Interpersonal Conflict.” ]

֎ Everything mentioned to this point is critical to a healthy, mature sense of self. But there is another level of reality. Culture comes from human interaction; who we are among ourselves in a world of 7.7 billion people is reality. There is no way to identify and manage reality except through human interaction. Smartphones and iPads and computers are not reality. Let them take control and there will be no reality save ‘the cloud.’ Shades of “The Matrix”. We should have learned this on television: the fun parties in beer commercials are not real.

Reality comes from interaction with other people. The degree to which data mining distracts us from reality is damaging. Stop just to reinforce a friendship and hug them will enforce cultural reality. Giving the thumb a workout is time away from reality.

Ancient Mariner