Meeting Minutes

We had a very philosophical and multi-topic meeting at La Madeleine's.  We had 3 attendees: (from left to right) Elena Swindull, VJ Arjan, and Tommy Schultze. 

Geopolitics of the U.S. military strike on Syria

Putin and Obama at recent G20 Summit in St. Petersberg

We discussed first, of course, the most pressing geopolitical issue, which is a potential U.S. military strike on Syria.  Even though, there are tentative agreements pressed by Russia for Syria to hand over their chemical stockpiles to avoid a military strike, that does not necessarily mean that it will happen.

VJ had taken some thought regarding the issue and saw that there may be several consequences of a strike on Syria:

- The largest blowback may come from Lebanon and Hezbollah, who is a neighbor, and may incite Hezbollah to antagonize the region against the United States and Israel

- There may be an indirect increase on the price of oil through Iran, as Syria does not have a noteworthy oil output.  Iran, a Syrian ally, can apply pressure by making things difficult for its buyers who seek their shipments of oil from the Strait of Hormuz, which especially China and India rely upon as their main source.

- Turkey is tied indirectly, but moreso on the financial front.  There have been several public demonstrations to the recent ascendancy to a non-secular, Islamicized political party especially by the youth who want to keep Turkey a secular state.  Should their political leanings sympathize with the Syrians, foreign investors, who have flooded their markets over the past few years, will be less willing to trust their money over.

We then discussed the impact on the price of oil.  The reality is that OPEC has had some internal dissension of late that prevents it from throwing about its full weight.  For instance, as a result of some Iranian threats on Israel last year, Saudi Arabia was pressured by the "international community" into setting up oil sanctions against Iran. 

King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia

In addition, it's chief player, Saudi Arabia, has historically been bent upon meeting the worlds growing demand for oil by increasing its output.  However, this is not what countries like Venezuela want, who are dependent on the price of oil and want it to be sold as expensively as possible, to fund their nationally subsidized programs.

This is also not to mention that emerging replacements to oil, like Canadian shale oil and ethanol, could begin to play larger roles and so the demand for oil would decrease, certainly over the long-run.  So the resulting scenario could be that should there be an increase in the price of oil, it may primarily be from speculation and not so much with any change to fundamental market forces.

Syria has, of course, issued military threats of its own, naming certain "repurcussions" should the U.S. issue a military strike.  Tommy went on to mention so-called "Dead Man Switches" which are authorized by Congress for unilateral retaliation towards any country who "threatens our national security interest". 

In other words, should Syria send over a chemical weapon to be used against the United States that causes large-scale casualities, the Dead Man's Switch ensures that militarily everything is done to wipe out the enemy. 

Tommy went on and mentioned how the Dead Man's Switch does not need approval from Congress first and was initially used during the Cold War to cope with the countless threats from the Soviet Union and their tremendous stockpile of nuclear weapons. 

VJ mentioned that the U.S. did not unravel this plan after the Soviet Union collapsed and is therefore in existence today, which he feel is unfortunate given that the U.S. has urged and pressured other nations to dismantle their weapons of mass destruction.

The New Energy vs. Old Energy

Tommy discussed that the emerging technologies regarding energy, such as solar, wind, hydrogen, natural gas, etc. will be made available by the same companies who control the main forms of energy today, namely oil and coal.

The reason for this is that given the extensive backing of sheer capital these companies possess, many of them have been smart enough to already see the coming tide and have bought out patents regarding these emerging technologies and they have purposefully shelved them as long as the current cash cows continue to lay their golden eggs.

He went on to say that market forces, along with political ones, in the desire to unfund and weaken terrorism, will naturally push energy technologies off of oil and onto other forms of energy.  According to the U.S. Department of Transportation, there are about 16 million cars sold in the United States each year.  By some estimates, electric car sales will account for 20% of these sales by 2020. 

Also the average Miles Per Gallon estimates, according to U.S. committments to the EPA, are expected to double by 2020 to 50 miles per gallon, from 25 today.  Therefore, the need of large quantities of oil may be reserved for those nations who cannot afford these technologies, but most of those top quartile nations will be making these shifts, which will naturally weaken the demand for oil.

The Path of Least Resistance - The Lemming Mentality

"Thinking is the hardest work there is, which is probably why so few people engage in it." - Henry Ford

"We are animals that are taught to be human beings." - Mark Twain

We all turned our thoughts to a very philosophical topic which really stemmed from the premise of how exactly political scientists calculate the risks and potential consequences of an action in any given situation. 

The conclusion we came to is that since it is very likely for the people of a certain region to identify with a certain belief structure, whether it is religion, race, nationalism, sex, etc., it is therefore very probable that that the likely reaction of the people in a region is going to be the same.

In other words, and respectfully, most people do not have a mind of their own and are content simply following the crowd.  It is why Plato remarked back in antiquity, that it is the rare individual who will have the fortitude "to stand strong amidst the wave of the masses."

This observation can be made in any aspect of life that, according to Tommy, that combines higher order cognitive thinking, emotions, and the survival instinct.  Nationalism and religion (especially religious extremism) are such examples. 

VJ mentioned, for instance, in World War II, it was only when the nation of Germany identified itself as belonging to the Nazi party with the Aryan supremacy agenda that it was able to wage war with united front.  VJ remarked that just as culpable as Hitler was for the atrocities of the Holocaust, the German people are equally culpable. 

In fact, VJ continued it could even be argued that the Allies in World War I were to blame as well as the Treaty of Versailles required the German people to pay back the debts of all involved in the war, which crippled their economy and led to enormous hyper-inflation in the Reichsmark.

Elena explained that most people choose the norm because it is the path of least resistance.  In fact, the markets have bought into this fact completely and that is why billions are spent on market research because companies believe that consumers are predictable because they gravitate towards a mean. 

The method of trial and error, she continued, that leads to the formation of principles and character in a human being requires a person to take accountability and responsibility for their actions - and this most people simply do not want to do. 

It is the reason that most people are content having sometimes completely incompetent politicians make decisions for the people because most individuals simply do not want to take the accountability for their actions.  Once things go awry, it is convenient for them to play the blame game, which is very prevalent in the culture of Washington today.

Tommy mentioned that this very "Lemming mentality" (a lemming is a mammal that has characteristics of a herd mentality) is the basis of issues such as racial discrimination today.  He bought up the example of a Cheerios commercial that featured a biracial family.  The Cheerios ad, which was posted on YouTube received such vitriolic racial comments that comments had to be disabled altogether.  It is reproduced for your viewing below:

Thankfully the next generation is more progressive in their thoughts about the issue.  Enjoy!

Miley Cyrus and the Ongoing Feminist Movement

VJ bought up Miley Cyrus's performance at the VMA music awards and how Miley has been castigated by many for the excessively provocative nature of the performance. 

Although it is no doubt provocative  VJ asked the question why should Miley be castigated for her performance and not men who engage equally provocative performances on stage?  Does it not seem very unfair to treat both sexes differently?

Miley Cyrus

Also, VJ added, many people fail to realize that Miley is an entertainer and she took her performance out of Madonna's playbook, who did the very same thing in the 1980s. 

Madonna was castigated in the 80s for encouraging freedom of expression of women and found the prevailing attitude that is was okay for a man to express his sexual side and taboo for a woman to do the same, very hypocritical.

Madonna

Today, Madonna is worth over $500 million. So there may be reason be believe that she won the argument on that case.

We discussed how there may be more to the picture than what is on the surface.  Tommy mentioned that the men-to-women ratio in colleges around the country are 1:1.5, in other words the compilation is 40% men and 60% women.  Single mothers are becoming more a norm in society due to the financial independence today's economy has made possible for women.

In fact, Tommy continued, that the service economy of today favors women over the dying manufacturing economy that was run predominantly by men.

As Miley Cyrus and entertainers like her continue to push the gender issue, Tommy believes that this gender inequality issue will become rapidly more and more important in the coming couple decades.  It will no longer be the norm, he says, for the man to be the sole breadwinner or even a breadwinner for the household in the near future. 

These roles may, in fact, be switched up, and it will actually be done that way by choice.

The next meeting will be on Sunday, October 6th, 2013. 

For those who have not attended a meeting, but would like to attend, please email your wish to VJ Arjan at scarletkings@gmail.com

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