Interesting...
Mar. 12th, 2012 02:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
avevale_intelligencer...that we have quite clear and worrying statistics about how many people aren't getting enough fibre, but on no food I've looked at can I find any indication of how much is "enough." No guideline daily amounts, nothing. So how does anyone know that people aren't getting enough? I suppose the sales of laxatives might be a rough guide, but not a very useful one to someone trying to amend hir diet. Daily Mail apparently says 18g, but then the Daily Mail says a lot of things, not all of which are true. Ditto the government. And if that's a solid figure, why don't the food manufacturers use it? (Not that they're going to be any more reliable than the other sources. We're surrounded by people who lie to us all the time. Yay for the Information Age.)
This post brought to you by a Nyrond who ought to be doing (a) something useful, (b) something creative, (c) something else. (Delete as applicable.)
Incidentally, I see that Nick Clegg is worried that the LibDems might be losing support as a result of entering into a coalition with the Tories. Well colour me dumbfounded. It might have been useful if he'd thought of that sooner. Except of course that as far as I'm concerned, that was his plan all along, and this display of consternation is just for the benefit of the rank and file. The man has no moral currency left, and it will take far more than a bit of public hand-wringing to make him credible again.
The reason that politics is based on compromise is that we have, at any given time, one party whose job is to govern the country, one party whose job is to ensure that the first party fails in all its endeavours, and one party which sees its job as to prop up whichever of the other parties looks as though it might have won but (for good and sufficient reasons) hasn't. This is certainly the worst political system apart from all the others. What it isn't, at the national level and in any meaningful sense, is democracy.
I see a unified parliament, stripped of ideology, whose members are elected on conscience alone, and which is impartially advised by the best and brightest in science, culture, economics and education, and which implements that advice without considering whether it fits this or that outdated manifesto (or puts money in its friends' pockets), but only on the basis of whether it benefits people who need help, which is all of us. What I can't see, for the life of me, is a way to get there from here.
And now I have got to do some work.
This post brought to you by a Nyrond who ought to be doing (a) something useful, (b) something creative, (c) something else. (Delete as applicable.)
Incidentally, I see that Nick Clegg is worried that the LibDems might be losing support as a result of entering into a coalition with the Tories. Well colour me dumbfounded. It might have been useful if he'd thought of that sooner. Except of course that as far as I'm concerned, that was his plan all along, and this display of consternation is just for the benefit of the rank and file. The man has no moral currency left, and it will take far more than a bit of public hand-wringing to make him credible again.
The reason that politics is based on compromise is that we have, at any given time, one party whose job is to govern the country, one party whose job is to ensure that the first party fails in all its endeavours, and one party which sees its job as to prop up whichever of the other parties looks as though it might have won but (for good and sufficient reasons) hasn't. This is certainly the worst political system apart from all the others. What it isn't, at the national level and in any meaningful sense, is democracy.
I see a unified parliament, stripped of ideology, whose members are elected on conscience alone, and which is impartially advised by the best and brightest in science, culture, economics and education, and which implements that advice without considering whether it fits this or that outdated manifesto (or puts money in its friends' pockets), but only on the basis of whether it benefits people who need help, which is all of us. What I can't see, for the life of me, is a way to get there from here.
And now I have got to do some work.
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no subject
Date: 2012-03-12 03:29 pm (UTC)http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1479724/
http://www.food.gov.uk/multimedia/pdfs/nutguideuk.pdf
http://www.recipes4us.co.uk/Dietary%20Fibre.htm#Fibre_Calculator_
However, I think the amount you need can be checked fairly reliably by frequency and consistency of your poo!
As for Clegg, he seems to be in denial as he keeps claiming the coalition has diluted the conservatives plans - but of course within the coalition they wouldn't be in power.
And my faith uses a similar ballot system. No electioneering, every adult can vote at local level - for anyone in their local area. The guidance lists desirable attributes for leaders, including honesty, good character and experience. No parties and no whips; they act according to their conscience.
At national level, delegates who vote on our behalf are elected on the same basis.
International elections are by the nationally elected reps.
Some entries from my quotes file:
Date: 2012-03-12 04:22 pm (UTC)prove that the other party is unfit to rule - and both commonly succeed
--H. L. Mencken
If a politician fixes a problem then he loses it as a campaign issue.
But if he makes the problem worse while heroically fighting against
it, then he's golden.
-- Rex Tincher
"Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car
keys to teenage boys."
-- P.J. O'Rourke
no subject
Date: 2012-03-12 07:44 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-03-12 10:50 pm (UTC)http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/fiber/NU00033/NSECTIONGROUP=2
That's page 2 of a 2-page article, page 1 has more general hooplah about fiber.
no subject
Date: 2012-03-13 09:28 pm (UTC)Meanwhile, use your understanding of individual psychology to start to develop an actual science of human interaction and co-operation to replace the half-arsed guesses and incomplete axioms that currently pass for sociology and politics.
When you have completed these two prelimary tasks we can see if we can do away with ideology (not necessarily a dirty word) and democratic institutions. Until then, while I can see room for improvements... Well, I am depressingly aware that the Great British Public voted overwhelmingly to keep our current quite inadequate electoral system just as it is, thank you. Hi Ho.
no subject
Date: 2012-03-14 11:27 am (UTC)And while there are people like that in the world, I devoutly and sincerely hope that the scientific approach to understanding human interaction continues to be at best a collection of half-arsed guesses and incomplete axioms, because if it ever becomes really useful gods help us.
It's long been my position that the scientific approach, while absolutely splendid in its own context, is not a universal tool, and that other approaches are possible and may even suit other contexts better. Concentrated acid of some sort, in sufficient quantity, will effectively remove your clothes, or most of them, without further effort on your part, but as a way of getting undressed at night it lacks a certain something. The old way works better.
As for ideology, I know this guy called Albert who disagreed with you (http://dglenn.dreamwidth.org/1891944.html), but I think you're right. Ideology in itself is neutral, just as a thorough understanding of human interaction would be, but allied to greed and selfishness (which we're not going to get rid of any millennium soon) they both become pernicious and lethal. If the five-year-old won't keep his hands off the gun, you lock up the gun, and if he learns to pick the lock, you get rid of the gun and try talking to people instead.
Science, in this context, will only lead to our further enslavement. We need another way to think about ourselves.
no subject
Date: 2012-03-15 04:47 pm (UTC)And unfortunately, every effort to do so is subject to the limitations of Godel's Proof (basically that there is no such thing as a 'self-evident truth' and at some point you just have to make assumptions). So you should always be examining your assumptions and your deductions from them against what reality seems to be telling you. Which is the idea of science.
I know all too well the temptations of the emotional charge that you get from ideology, from belonging to a group that actually BELIEVES something. But it's not a sin to try for a consistent set of ideas and see where those ideas lead you. The universe will let you know eventually when you've started making an arse of yourself. (Unfortunately, it sometimes does this by letting you lead large numbers of followers to their deaths...)
And I think that if it is possible to get a consistent understanding of human mental processes it will come eventually and we had best be prepared for it when it comes. There are already the early steps of direct brain machine interface, of recording human brain activity and playing it back. Best be aware of what might happen because the dangers if they ever manage to figure out how to edit and record over.... Are probably slightly worse than even you are imagining.