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Monday, July 28, 2003
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 Timothy Wilken, MD writes: Any group of humans organized as an Ortegrity are using synocracy. If a nation of people chose to organize as an ortegrity they would have a synocracy. If all of humanity were organized as an Ortegrity, we would have world wide synocracy. Synergic consensus is unanimous consensus. I can hear the objections now. “That’s impossible, you will never get everyone in the group to agree.” “Decisions will never get made.” “It is hard enough to get a majority to agree.” A Japanese business heterarchy is slower at making decisions than a single manager in an American business hierarcy. It takes longer for a group of individuals to discuss, negotiate, and come to agreement than it takes for a single American manager to decide all by himself and order his subordinates to follow his instructions. If the speed of making decisions is the only criteria for choosing a mechanism of decision making then the dictatorship—the rule by one is the clear standout. However, humanity has moved beyond dictatorships for reasons of fairness and justice. Majority rule democracy is not a rapid decision making process. Individuals within a group deciding—whether the group is a small committee or a large nation choosing a President—are seeking to gain the majority of support. This takes time—sometimes a lot of time. Our national elections often take place over an entire year. The focus is on lining up votes—working deals—in a word—politics. This process is anything but rapid. If all decisions in American businesses were made by majority rule, decision making would probably be even slower than in Japanese companies using heterarchical consensus. Synergic consensus is not commonly availability to humanity today. We do not yet know how fast it will be at making decisions. But, I predict that unanimous rule democracy will prove faster than majority rule democracy. Synergic consensus elimates conflict. Recall conflict is the stuggle to avoid loss. Conflict is at the very heart of majority rule democracy. The focus of synergic consensus is very different. The entire group knows from the outset that they cannot lose. They are focused on choosing a plan of action that serves the needs of all the members in the group—to choose a plan of action that causes no one to lose. The synergic veto is not invoked capriciously. The only basis for synergic veto is to prevent someone from losing. This is a mechanism to eliminate loss—to choose the very best plan of action for everyone. This may well speed up the process of decison making. In any event regardless of the speed of decision, implimentation will be rapid. There is no conflict. This is a major advantage over majority rule democracy. (07/28/03)
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 Wiseman Daniel Quinn speaking in 1997: In a recent semi-documentary film called Garbage, a toxic waste disposal engineer was asked how we can stop engulfing the world in our poisons. His answer was, "We'd have to remove everybody from the face of the earth, because humans GENERATE toxic waste, whether it be pathogenic organisms that we excrete from our bodies or whatever. We are toxic to the face of the earth." ... What is your gut reaction to this assessment? Please raise your hands if you agree that humans are inherently toxic. ... I understand that many representatives of the First Peoples are attending this conference. I hope there are many in this audience. Please raise your hand if you belong to an aboriginal people. Thank you. Now I'd like to ask you the same question I asked the whole group a moment ago. If you consult your traditional teachings, do you agree that humans are inherently toxic to the life of this planet? ... Those who know my work will know that you've just demonstrated one of my basic theses, that the people of my culture, whom I call Takers, have a fundamentally different mythology from the First Peoples, whom I call Leavers. In Taker mythology, humans are indeed viewed as inherently toxic to the world, as alien beings who were born to rule---and ultimately destroy---the world. As WE are currently ruling and destroying the world. In Leaver mythology, by contrast, the world is a sacred place, and humans are not perceived as alien to that sacred place but rather as belonging to it. In other words, in the Leaver worldview, people are no less a part of the sacred framework of the universe than scorpions or eagles or salmon or bears or daffodils. (07/28/03)
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 Washington Post -- Lance Armstrong, the Texan known as much as a cancer survivor as a superstar athlete, overcame two crashes, a dangerous near-miss, and an array of determined opponents to become only the second man, and the first American, to claim five successive Tour de France victories in the sport's 100-year-history. Armstrong's victory today, by a margin of only 61 seconds after more than 83 hours of racing across 3,500 kilometers, was his toughest of the five and capped what emerged as the most dramatic and unpredictable Tours in recent memory, with the champion not determined until the penultimate stage Saturday. ... "It's incredible to win again," Armstrong said. Speaking in French to local television, he said shortly after his victory, "I'm very happy because I'm finished and I'm very tired." Only Miguel Indurain, a Spanish Basque rider, has won five straight Tours, dominating the race in the early '90s. Armstrong becomes only the fifth rider to win the Tour five times, with three of the others winning in non-consecutive years. (07/28/03)
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 Environmental News Network -- The University of California Board of Regents has voted unanimously in favor of a system-wide clean-energy and green-building policy. The vote caps off a year-long campaign by U.C. students across the state with help from Greenpeace. Since last September, students and faculty have sent more than 10,000 postcards to the university in support of the campaign. “This victory for the environment is the product of collaboration between students, faculty, administrators, regents, and Greenpeace,” explained Kristin Casper, a campaigner with Greenpeace. “The University of California’s leadership will pave the way for campuses across the U.S. toward a clean, sustainable future. Now there is a clear road map for others to follow.” The new U.C. policy mandates: 1) Ten megawatts (equivalent to the power used by 5,000 homes) of renewable energy be installed across the ten campuses (currently only 40 MW of solar energy are grid-connected in California and only 52 MW total in the U.S.). 2) That 10 percent of the university’s current energy come from clean sources — ramping up to 20 percent by 2017. 3) A systemwide reduction of energy use to 10 percent below 2000 levels by 2014. And, 4) All new campus buildings (except acute-care facilities) across the state be built to green-building standards. (07/28/03)
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 Newsday.com -- With the blood inventory at dangerously low levels this summer, the Long Island Blood Service is hoping two core donor groups - seniors and teenagers - will help bolster the shrinking supply. Dr. James Louie, executive director for Long Island Blood Services, said donations are down 20 percent from last summer, and the supply is half what it was in June 2002. Seniors are still rolling up their sleeves, though in fewer numbers. "The World War II generation, those who have experienced war and been touched by war have a tradition of giving blood. They've been our strong supporters in the past," Louie said. The younger seniors are "not as sensitive to the need," he said. The veterans, some now in their 80s, have been a mainstay, according to Donna Piscitelli, manager of the Melville donor center. Many come with letters from their physicians, as required of donors over 76, she said. But their ranks are thinning. High school students are also among the most active donors, Louie said. Blood drives are held at high schools throughout the year, as many as three times a year in some Long Island schools, but the schools are closed for the summer. Louie said there's a falloff of donors during their college years and in the 20s and 30s, but it tends to pick up as donors age. (07/28/03)
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 Science News Online -- Give a man a fish, goes the Chinese proverb, and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime. If he catches too many fish, however, he may leave few fish behind for his children's table. It has taken less than a generation for modern industrial-scale fishing, once it's deployed in an ocean area, to exhaust the vast majority of that area's edible bounty. These massive harvests have left behind devastated ecosystems and depleted economic opportunities. ... For species after species, in sea after sea, the 20th-century juggernaut of commercial fishing swiftly thinned marine life to a fraction of what it otherwise would be, Worm and Ransom A. Myers of Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, report in the May 15 Nature. More than just documenting what the seas have lost, their analysis and other recent studies hint at the enduring economic costs of mismanaging marine resources. Unless governments take immediate, dramatic steps to curtail overfishing and undo the damage that's been done, swathes of ocean may be rendered practically barren, scientists warn with increasing urgency. ... The problems with fisheries may run deep, but the remedy is practically jumping into the boat. Regardless of how it's achieved, says Worm, the overriding requirement is to reduce fishing. "The solution is simple," he says. "The question is how do you get there." (07/28/03)
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 Science News Online -- The old saying that it's better to give than to receive may be true, at least when it comes to social support. Over a 5-year period, seniors who provided either a lot of practical assistance to friends, relatives, and neighbors or regular emotional support to their spouses displayed a higher survival rate than those who didn't provide such help, a new study finds. ... "Giving support may be an important component of interpersonal relationships that has considerable value to health and well-being," Brown's group concludes in the July Psychological Science. It's not yet known whether programs that teach ways to provide support to others would boost long-term survival rates, the researchers add. ... Statistical analyses of various subgroups revealed a lower death rate, by as much as half, for participants who reported in initial surveys that they had been providing either of two types of social support. One type involved helping people other than one's spouse with errands, housework, childcare, or other daily tasks. The other centered on listening to one's spouse when he or she needed to talk and making that person feel loved and cared for. The survival advantage for support givers remained when the researchers statistically controlled for individual differences in age, physical health, satisfaction with health, exercise, cigarette and alcohol use, mental health, and income. The findings also held after controlling for differences in extroversion, agreeableness, feeling vulnerable to stress, and other personality measures. (07/28/03)
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4:58:39 AM 
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© TrustMark
2003
Timothy Wilken.
Last update:
8/3/2003; 11:27:26 PM.
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