PhiloMadrid on Skype 6:30pm Sunday 3rd April: Bullying (cont) + News

Dear Friends,

This Sunday we are continuing with our topic Bullying which was proposed
by Ines.

Last Sunday we covered the topic in very general terms although we did
spend some time discussing bullying and children. We might next consider
for example bullying in the work place, not to be confused with mobbing,
or international politics but these are just ideas.

Best Lawrence

Links below

Bullying + News from Mariona

Dear friends,

This Sunday we are discussing: Bullying.

We can safely say that we are all familiar with Bullying which Ines
proposed for our meeting. In my short essay I question whether our
understanding of bullying is adequate.

Bullying by Lawrence
https://www.philomadrid.com/2022/03/bullying.html

News:
In the meantime Mariona has asked us if we can help her with her thesis:
Hi! I am currently working on my university thesis. I am studying how
users feel about hyper personalization (consumer data) and the impact
these have on their identity. You can choose to answer the questionnaire
in Spanish or English, select your preferred language at the beginning.
Thanks in advance! Mariona

Link to the survey:
https://qfreeaccountssjc1.az1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_1SOV04uJyz2BIAC

Finally, if you have problems with Skype try launching it again if you
have the App or browser. Send me a message for the link. Please note we
do not use the video to save on mobile phone batteries for those
connecting on a phone.

Best and take care
Lawrence

telephone/WhatsApp: 606081813
Email: philomadrid@gmail.com
http://www.philomadrid.com


PhiloMadrid on Skype 6:30pm Sunday 3rd April: Bullying (cont) + News

PhiloMadrid on Skype 6:30pm Sunday 27th March: Bullying + News

Bullying + News from Mariona

Dear friends,

This Sunday we are discussing: Bullying.

We can safely say that we are all familiar with Bullying which Ines
proposed for our meeting. In my short essay I question whether our
understanding of bullying is adequate.

Bullying by Lawrence
https://www.philomadrid.com/2022/03/bullying.html

News:
In the meantime Mariona has asked us if we can help her with her thesis:
Hi! I am currently working on my university thesis. I am studying how
users feel about hyper personalization (consumer data) and the impact
these have on their identity. You can choose to answer the questionnaire
in Spanish or English, select your preferred language at the beginning.
Thanks in advance! Mariona

Link to the survey:
https://qfreeaccountssjc1.az1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_1SOV04uJyz2BIAC

Finally, if you have problems with Skype try launching it again if you
have the App or browser. Send me a message for the link. Please note we
do not use the video to save on mobile phone batteries for those
connecting on a phone.

Best and take care
Lawrence

telephone/WhatsApp: 606081813
Email: philomadrid@gmail.com
http://www.philomadrid.com


PhiloMadrid on Skype 6:30pm Sunday 27th March: Bullying + News

Bullying

 

Bullying

 

Topic by Ines

Essay by Lawrence

 

 

We are all familiar with the meaning and experience of bullying. I will, therefore, won’t go into details about the constituents and various reported causes of bullying. Except that for language purposes, I will start by quickly distinguishing bullying from mobbing. By definition mobbing is bullying by a group on an individual, whereas bullying is a term usually used when a person bullies another person.

 

Whether the victim is bullied by a single person or a mob the effects are the same: from emotional distress to downright murder. Unfortunately, because bullying is a behavioural issue it tends to be the subject of psychological and medical analysis. I do not mean that these disciplines have no role to play in the very social and personal damage bullying causes, but rather an analytical analysis of the problem is the starting point to deal with bullying.

 

My main explanation for bullying is very simple: bullies pick on others because bullies are physically stronger than their victim. And we can expand physically stronger to include authority and power (eg Boss-Employee relationship). By definition a victim of a bully is one who cannot or doesn’t feel they can protect themselves or even retaliate in an act of self defence.

 

Hence my position is that bullying has nothing to do with mental disorder of the bully, or the upbringing of the bully, or any other sort of circumstantial background. The fact that a bully can make rational judgement such as, this is a weak person (ie the victim) so I can be aggressive to them with little or no consequences demonstrates that a bully knows the basics of right or wrong. Risk calculation is a rational mental event and, therefore, capable of understanding right or wrong. Of course choosing right from wrong does not mean that we always choose the correct solution.

 

Consider this sentence (Psychology Today) on the question “Why People Bully”: “People bully because it can be an effective way of getting what they want, at least in the short term, and because they lack the social skills to do so without harming others” (Psychology Today https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/bullying). The author of the article also mentions bullying as a means of “establishing social dominance”.

 

Getting what we want covers a lot of sins. Is emotional gratification something a bully wants in the playground when bullying junior members at school? And what does the boss want when they bully an employee for no reason at all? Once again I don’t think people or children will go from “I want X so I will get it by bullying the person who has it or can give it to me.” I would argue that the thinking process would start with incremental levels of bullying: when children are involved it starts with an insult here, a push there: taking a shoe or a book from a fellow student to taunt them.

 

Earlier I said that if a bully can access the risk of their action then they have, at least, an appreciation of good or bad. But we are also mentally lazy creatures; we, and especially bullies, depend most of the time on inductive reasoning to act one way or another. A bully might think something like, I got away with that little mischief yesterday, let me see what I can get away with today.  

 

As for social skills, bullies do not lack social skills, they lack an environment where bullying does not pay. And more importantly bullies do not find themselves in an environment where it pays to follow the rules or as was said “social skills”. Children are very active and curious people and the educational system does not always help stimulate all individuals equally. Irrespective of the progress made in teaching theory, education either on the savannah plains in Africa or the top 10 universities, the child (adult) have to adapt themselves to the educational system and not the educational system adapting to the individual.  Even the Bologna process of the EU does not necessarily create the right environment for all individual.

 

Oppressing or controlling subordinates is part of the evolutionary process of group formation: primates and chimps do it etc. Challenging authority is also part of the evolutionary process: a bully in the playground is not only being aggressive towards a weak victim but also challenging the authority and power of the institution. Irrespective of how aggressive a bully is, there must always be an environment for them to excel and achieve recognition without thinking about bullying as a substitute. In the playground, exams are a means of humiliating a large part of the school population. The answer is not to pass everyone for the dozen exams students take, but to offer subjects that even bullies would rather work on those subjects than bully people.

 

How would bullying affect in the playground if people could pass exams on football, tennis, cooking, dancing, acting, and other subjects that requires personal effort rather than being told what is or what to do, but rather how to do things and achieve goals?

 

Best Lawrence

 

 telephone/WhatsApp: 606081813

Email: philomadrid@gmail.com

http://www.philomadrid.com

 

PhiloMadrid on Skype 6:30pm Sunday 20th March: Brain conditioning by social media

Dear Friends,

This Sunday we are discussing: Brain conditioning by social media

This topic was proposed by James as a continuation of the topic we
discussed last week about the media. In my short essay I try to
highlight the issues of our topic. However, social media is relevant
today and if we had any doubt all we have to do is to see how quick
dictators cut access to social media.

Brain conditioning by social media – essay by Lawrence
https://www.philomadrid.com/2022/03/brain-conditioning-by-social-media.html

Finally, if you have problems with Skype try launching it again if you
have the App or browser. Send me a message for the link. Please note we
do not use the video to save on mobile phone batteries for those
connecting on a phone.

Best and take care
Lawrence

telephone/WhatsApp: 606081813
Email: philomadrid@gmail.com
http://www.philomadrid.com


PhiloMadrid on Skype 6:30pm Sunday 20th March: Brain conditioning by
social media

Brain conditioning by social media

 

Brain conditioning by social media

 

Topic by James

Essay by Lawrence

 

Following from last week’s meeting on media brainwashing this Sunday we are discussing social media. But what is social media?

 

In a sense, the term social media covers a number of services many of which are unrelated, and certainly address completely different context, including general interest, professional, hobbyist, and so on. Some of the leading social media platforms, such as Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram gather diverse interests and people looking for different information. Note there are many more platforms so I use these as an example at best.

 

I use these platforms because in principle they offer different types of information: Facebook is first and foremost a text based platform. Somebody writes an opinion or even shares an article and people comment on the content. Good content, including controversial comments, leads to active dialogue. TiKTok started off with short videos taken on one’s mobile phone and shared by including a music background. Instagram is a platform where photographers uploaded their images and share with the world wide community. YouTube was and still is the big platform for videos on any subject including professional content.

 

A quick word about these platforms is that they are all there to attract advertising money and in theory each individual is supposed to be targeted with relevant adverts. But if someone is so predictable that an algorithm can show them an advert and they will always click on, then surely that person is putting themselves open to manipulation. And this is not an issue with social media since these platforms are in it for the money.

 

What a platform shows us is determined by proprietary algorithms that are supposed to identify what we are interested in. Unfortunately, such algorithms depend heavily on inductive reasoning giving the impression that these companies never heard of the problem of induction. In effect they give higher priority to content we interact with that content we don’t interact but this is based on the assumption that “no action implies no interest”. It is not surprising that people, especially professional people, complain about the changes and vagaries of the various algorithm.

 

A third drawback of these platforms is that they tend to copy each other’s services but usually end giving an inferior product. For example TikTok was supposed to give a better product (experience) than YouTube, except that TikTok is very close to being the wild west of social media. YouTube, Instagram, and Facebook have now incorporated “short” videos to compete with TikTok but at best they ended up with annoying experiences.

 

There are, of course, more annoying features about most social media, but their redeeming feature is that they do have information and in many cases they do have very useful information. Except that many of these platforms are very stingy with letting subscribers accessing that information.  A good analogy is that these platforms are like gold digging, we basically have an idea where the information (gold) is but we still have to pan for it by hand.

 

This background implies a number of implications and issues. The first is that social media and any application we use on the internet especially search engines requires skills at information processing. This is an important change from traditional media: we more or less accepted the information given to us by traditional media as being true, but it wasn’t always the truth. Consider the information oppression in Russia where many old people believe the propaganda of the government on the war in Ukraine.

 

This basically means that not only do we have to look for the raw information ourselves, fact check it, and then edit it for relevance and coherence, before we enhance our stock of knowledge. These are skills which took the editors and journalists of traditional media decades of training and experience to perfect; we are supposed to have these skills within 24 hours of joining a social media platform. However, it is always our choice to joining and participate on these platforms. The consequence of not joining is that we are not as well informed and engaged in events of the day: we become subject to the information gap, those who have access to the internet and those who don’t.

 

It is true that social media tend to be a controlled environment for information we might be interested in, including political manipulation, but we are not just observers (lurkers) in many cases we are participants for example by choosing who to follow or not.

 

One of the consequences of social media is that we can become obsessed with a particular platform: TikTok has such an effect because we can become exhilarated quickly and consistently with a rapid stream of short videos. On a more positive point it is very easy today to confirm certain information and get useful advice by check on groups and other members of a particular platform or just a simple search.

 

Another consequence of social media is that today we are being conditioned not to extend our knowledge and information base since we can easily access this information on social media or the internet in general. This means that we are at a disadvantage when we don’t have access to a mobile phone or PC. Basically we become dependent on the internet and our mobile phone or PC.

 

The difference between traditional media and social media is that with social media (internet) we always have alternative for information we are looking for. And we can practically confirm information in real time: FactCheck.org is a very reliable site although there are many more sites to check information. If anything social media conditions our brain because it is very easy and efficient to access information we want or need.

 

Best Lawrence

 

 telephone/WhatsApp: 606081813

 

Email: philomadrid@gmail.com

 

http://www.philomadrid.com

PhiloMadrid on Skype 6:30pm Sunday 13th March: Brainwashing by the media

Dear Friends,

Thus Sunday we are discussing: Brainwashing by the media

The topic was proposed by James and in my essay I try to identify some
of the issues concerned. As advance information we will also be
discussing Social Media at another meeting.

Brainwashing by the media essay by Lawrence
https://www.philomadrid.com/2022/03/brainwashing-by-media.html

Finally please send me a message for the Skype link and if you have
problems with launching Skype try again. Please note we do not use the
video to save on mobile phone batteries for those connecting with a
mobile phone.

Best Lawrence

telephone/WhatsApp: 606081813
Email: philomadrid@gmail.com
http://www.philomadrid.com


PhiloMadrid on Skype 6:30pm Sunday 13th March: Brainwashing by the media

Brainwashing by the media

 

Brainwashing by the media

 

Topic by James

Essay by Lawrence

 

The term brainwashing is highly emotional and a provocative term because it creates an air of fear due to an inability to control our brain and what we freely think and belief. But it is the term media that ought to create the most concern for us.

 

There are two aspects about media. Firstly, today we need to distinguish between traditional media and social media (a generic term for information obtained from the internet). Secondly, traditional media (TV, newspapers, radio, magazines) are basically either the propaganda mouth piece of a government or the profit source for a company.

 

For our topic, we are concerned with traditional media: we’ll be discussing social media during another meeting very soon. Government propaganda media reflects the political balance of the government: for example today the Russian government controls all media in the country and their function is to distribute propaganda about the “success” Russia is having in Ukraine. The BBC in the UK, especially for the home service, has become a Brexit centred service (news, political debate etc) when in the past it was regarded as a balanced service.

 

For profit media companies exist for making a profit and, therefore, follow editorial policies that would make the media concerned a profit. Unfortunately, the belief that the private media has a duty to be objective and stick to the facts is close to fiction. This is not to say that all media outlets are not objective or honest, but that some media are more likely to be guilty than others.

 

But traditional private media in general are compromised because they depend on licenses and permissions from the government. This means that they are subject to various forms of pressure that, as I say, might compromise their editorial decisions. Some might even cross the line and become a mouth piece, of a political party, an ideology or a government. For example, Fox News, NewsCorp in the US and the Sun, Daily Mail and the Express in the UK are all pushing for a right wing agenda. The owners Daily Mail and the Sun are also known to have funds in off shore tax havens and it should be no surprise that they also have an agenda to be out of the EU because of the EU’s position on tax havens.

 

But before moving on I want to consider some philosophical considerations about the topic. Indeed the topic involves a set of factors that should be more important in philosophy. Our beliefs are based on information which we promote to knowledge after we assess and analyse such beliefs and the situation we’re in. The beliefs themselves depend on information and data we possess, thus false information and data might affect the nature of our beliefs. The philosophical issue here is what role do emotions play in converting false information into accepted beliefs and the as knowledge; consider the anti-mask and anti vaccines advocates these past two years.

 

Brainwashing or manipulation requires implanting in people false information that is converted into beliefs and then knowledge. The final objective is for people to act according to these beliefs. But we are motivated to act either after rational conclusions or emotional impulse. Of course, we also need to distinguish between mischief makers, who want to benefit from people acting in a way (e.g. people with untaxed illegal money in off shore tax havens) and people who give in to their racial or nationalistic convictions (e.g. immigrants come here to take our jobs).

 

Thus media who exploit the racial and nationalistic emotions (Daily Mail, Express, Fox News) of people by publishing false information about different races are exploiting the fears and emotions of those people. For example, Brexit was the biggest racial act and discrimination in modern history. Those who pushed and advocated Brexit racially discriminated against some 500million people and 28 different nations.

 

But here is the problem, a rational analysis of the information we receive requires a level of knowledge to carry out such an analysis. For example those who were well informed knew that the only group in the UK who paid most National Insurance and taxes were EU citizens even taking into account many would have been exploited regarding wages. The national population were net users of social services, but this is not because immigrants took their so called jobs, but because the local population weren’t qualified, didn’t want to take the jobs available and also not viable to take jobs far away from the roots.

 

Today, it is also accepted that older people (50+) tend to rely on traditional media for their news and current affairs. What the war in Ukraine is confirming is that the manipulation of state media can be absolute: we have all seen the reports of young Russian people living in the Ukraine phoning their parents in Russia to tell them that the Russian forces were bombing their city in Ukraine only to be told by their parents that this is not possible.   

 

The problem with the term brainwashing is that it is usually associated with extreme situations, such as religious cult, spying, captive POWs and so on. But I suspect that this term is more apt for sensational media and Hollywood films. Traditional media are more into information manipulation to exploit emotions rather than brainwashing. But the most effective form of manipulation is to give no information at all. Once again those media companies who have a vested interest in Brexit do not provide news about anything negative about Brexit.

 

The final question is whether social media is a balance against the drawbacks and inequities of traditional media.

 

Best Lawrence

 

 telephone/WhatsApp: 606081813

Email: philomadrid@gmail.com

http://www.philomadrid.com

PhiloMadrid on Skype 6:30pm Sunday 6th March: Are we taught to fear death? (cont)

Dear Friends,

This Sunday we are continuing with the topic: Are we taught to fear death?

The topic was proposed by James but for this Sunday, 6th March, Clara
suggested we also consider these questions:
- Are we taught to face death?
- How to cope with death?

In my original essay I tried to discuss how death is exploited:
Are we taught to fear death?
https://www.philomadrid.com/2022/02/are-we-taught-to-fear-death.html

Finally please send me a message for the Skype link and if you have
problems with launching Skype try again. Please note we do not use the
video to save on mobile phone batteries for those connecting with a
mobile phone.

Best Lawrence

telephone/WhatsApp: 606081813
Email: philomadrid@gmail.com
http://www.philomadrid.com


PhiloMadrid on Skype 6:30pm Sunday 6th March: Are we taught to fear
death? (cont)