Precocious Childrens' Trait Predictors

[I've discussed the topic as presented below with my good friend, Chuck.]

I'm taking "precocious children" to include physical and mental gifts bestowed upon children that can be recognized at early ages by trained and accredited professionals.

The Russians for years have developed a battery of  physical tests to discover whether a young girl, say, of about 5, is gifted in physical attributes that could be developed into those of an accomplished ballerina.  Today over the country. classroom teachers in the sciences are ever on the alert for students who obviously excel in both math and science.  Similarly, though the tests aren't quite accepted universally by political science teachers and sociologists, there is a growing acceptance of the idea in education that some children show traits of organizing and managing groups--in school, their fellow classmates--at as early an age as 10 years old (some prognosticators might believe even at much an earlier age).

Then too, some of us who have dealt in international affairs have commented that the really intellectual usually make sweeping, global generalizations somewhere in their thinking out an issue.
These instances are observable to someone in the field and can be noted, e.g., with regard to frequency.

So, there is being amassed a wealth of data about early indications of a youth's abilities to perform tasks associated with an occupation.  And, professionals in those fields and educators alike may note  the extent to which a particular's youth embodies the classic or paradigmatic model--what skills, even what interests, he shares with the practitioners of the art or trade.

Importantly, parents of precocious children can be alerted to the prospect that a child of theirs is in high demand within their social milieu for the skills he possesses.  May not mean much, but I think society through governmental structures should begin to encourage youthful individuals and their families to highlight and promote professional activities by identifying those rich in potential.  Imake it an action item. 



  


 

Project phasing out

You know when a project is just about over.  But there's that question, do you stay around for the review and evaluation phase or simply  move on to something else?

My approach through the years is to consider the nature of the new projects.  Do at least some of these mean to you simultaneously, new opportunities for growth and development and realizing the organizational goals of the enterprise for which you work?  That is to say, is there additional chance for a win-win project to be in your grasp if you press on rather than
explaining and possibly, defending your past decisions in projects already over?

Personal, physical attacks spanning the last three years!

Ever since my post-operative 7 months in Sacramento, California some three or so years ago, I've experienced several personal attacks.  In Sacramento, I was dragged across a parking lot for about 15 feet; and there, too, I experienced being hit on the head in my rented room causing a black eye that I had for several days.

After that, when I returned to El Paso, I was attacked several times.  One time an intruder came in even though the door had been locked.  I was in bed; he took my watch off my arm and money from my wallet.  The other times I was attacked when I answered a front door knock.  I opened the door, and someone hit me hard on the head with an object, causing me to lose consciousness.  Upon awaking, I usually had a black eye and a scar that sometimes became permanent.

No one claimed responsibility to any of these hostile acts against my person.  But the El Paso police thought I might from now on be targeted from someone or some group. At 80 years of age, rather than going to San Antonio to live--as was suggested for a place to move to--I decided to go back to Washington, DC, which I liked in the past times when I visited generally for over a week to several months,, and felt I could survive in--at least for some time more!   

Every Project Should Have a Profit Center!

The history of the country bespeaks a philosophical commitment to making money in the projects it undertakes.

The country was founded by businessmen who felt cheated by a government who refused to pay them what their time and services earned in the conduct of  their business transactions.  It is in the entrepreneurial spirit of fair wages for honest expenditures that we continue to uphold the principles upon which this country was founded.  The public's willingness to pay on a continual basis indicates they see worthy value in what their government is doing.

I have endeavored to retain the country's philosophical posture by looking upon what the government does for them as an imposition (on them and other beneficiaries) to negotiate a reasonable trade-off as just recompense.

"The Certainty of Perceptual Knowledge Claims" Revisited

My doctoral thesis for the PhD in Philosophy at New York University, 1969 was just this--as I remember those years ago. 

What drew me back in memory was the astounding realization that after my thesis was accepted, the philosophical problem that it was attempting to handle just about disappeared from discussion!

In it I attempted to argue against A.J. Ayer's formulation of the problem--that perceptual evidence was needed--not simply could be produced as any perceptual knowledge claim could warrant--on behalf of something about reality.  The point I was trying to make is that in ordinary parlance and typical perception, no substantiation from sensational evidence is appropriate, simply because the claim, e.g., "I see the book," is certain, as certain as any perceiver could believe.  Such knowledge claims are self-evidently true; and no further justification is in order, though reference to sensational evidence is always possible, as is necessary when one judges that railroad tracks converge in the distance based on his perceptual gaze.

So much for that.  I thought it was something to point out that a grad student in philosophy could make a case that perceptual evidence is not needed when a distinguished professor like Ayer seemed to think otherwise!

XXVIII. US Supreme Court may be engaging in Whacko-ism!

At the Cato Institute's meeting on March 1, 2018 in Washington, DC, the topic "Qualified Immunity: The Supreme Court's Unlawful Assault on Civil Right" was discussed by legal analysts Adelman, Baude, Glasberg and Pincus.  The moderator, himself a Cato Institute member, mentioned 2 major problems the high court in the United States seems to be currently bogged down over: 1) the extensive use of plea bargaining in the criminal court system that circumvents the jury system of meeting out justice; and 2) the complete lack of accountability in law enforcement, whose constituents are held to a much low state of accountability for their actions, (my added editorial note: many recorded on visual tape for the public-at-large to review).  The notion of qualified immunity, for one, has appeared in juridical decisions.  Using it, the Supreme Court has essentially lowered the standard of immunity for the police (though it does not so far apply to those outside the field of law enforcement."

The 14th Amendment, Section 93 guarantees the constitutional right to a victim to sue those liable under tort law for harm against him.  But the district Judge Adelman, surveying some appropriate cases against officers in his sample--found relatively few police were forced to pay claims against them.  Seemingly if true of the vast number of such claims made, minority populations across the country have little or no legal remedy for acts the public may deem as instances of police brutality in a significant number of community neighborhoods, e.g., those labelled as black ghettos.

The moderator concluded with the message "We of the Cato Institute will take up this cudgel.  Starting next week, we are to meet with Congressmen to rectify this diversion" (my added editorial note: into what can only be thought of as myth-devising by the Supreme Court of the land, there being no body of its opinions recognizing this concept prior to the 1980s.)

           

XXVII:"Where's our competitive edge if another country can produce it cheaper than the US?"

I attended 2 symposiums at The Brookings Institute on the US's new tax laws this past week.  It demonstrated the US' relatively new commitment to competitive taxes on imports and exports other countries use. But as our guru in the ad hoc think tank of Miriam's Kitchen asked--his name is 'Chuck'--"Why would the US produce a good (or, item) that is already produced in some other country at a much cheaper cost than it would be if from the US?"  Certainly, whatever the import duty is on such an item would not make a significant dent in the cost-of-good abroad as compared to its being produced here.

But if taxes upon items produced elsewhere won't penalize those companies who buy from abroad rather than make the item here, where is there a competitive advantage to the homebound manufacturers and producers to offset the greater cost of those goods made here than somewhere else?  There can only be one source, which as yet is not implemented fully in the US: robotics.  Picture a field of a cash crop, e.g., tomatoes, picked by machine, packed by machine and delivered with the aid of computers.  "AI assembly personnel" working 24 hours a day to get tomatoes to market!  That use of computer power to match the 'slave-labor' of children working in factories and in the fields some countries deploy might just be the competitive edge for which US agriculture and industry is searching.

The point is, Trump's proposal to bring back industries and agriculture gone overseas must cite a competitive advantage producing it here has over producing abroad.  The tremendous fluctuations in the Stock Market reflects the uncertainty of results were to penalize goods made abroad.  Without citing a competitive advantage to producing cheap goods here to rival the same goods cheaper-made or produced in other lands, attempts to promote American items VS. the foreign-produced is absurd:  ANOTHER WHACK-O THEORY IN THE MAKING!