Download or read book Rational Collapse written by Ken Benton and published by Andrew Kasch. This book was released on 2022-11-12 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Homeland Security Agent Harlan Welk is a man used to responding to our nation’s most covert domestic threats. But even he must admit no one saw this one coming. When a new type of terrorist attack targets a growing psychological weakness among the American population, our enemies are revealed as becoming ever-more resourceful. Harlan is visiting his conspiracy-plagued cousin Avery in Houston during a heightened period of civil unrest. Just as the frazzled nerves of law enforcement and protesters come to a head, twelve African-American teenagers simultaneously commit “suicide by cop” in the twelve U.S. cities most vulnerable to racial tension. None of the victims are found to be in possession of a real weapon. As a result, mass rioting erupts across our once-great country, which intensifies until our society can no longer function. From information acquired in an unexpected romance, Harlan believes he can gather the evidence to fully expose the plot as having come from foreign-based terrorists—and by so doing, possibly reunite America under the cause of a common enemy. But he must get to Memphis so he can interrogate the lone surviving terrorist. Traveling is now difficult. He finds himself bugging out of the city with his cousin’s family, facing a treacherous and uncertain path. Avery’s outright distrust of all things government only adds to their plight. Harlan discovers he must not only survive the hazards of criminal opportunism on the road, but the contagion of civil strife within his own family. And time is not on his side...

Download or read book The Imminent Collapse of America and of the Whole Western Civilization written by Angelo Bertolo and published by iUniverse. This book was released on 2012-09 with total page 185 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the 5000 years of the history that we know, great empires grew and fell according to certain patterns that repeat themselves like laws of nature. The USA rose and grew to prominence in the world, reached its zenith in 1945 with the military victory and with the atom bomb, but is not destined to stay there forever. The book tries to draw the attention to the signs of decadence that match the patterns of the decadence of previous empires in history, and the patterns of growth, of progress - in other cultural milieus: very few pundits in America, and in the western media in general, seem to be aware of this fact. The birth rates keep diminishing in America, and are very low in Europe. In other civilisations the birth rates have been high, and those countries count more in the world today, politically and economically, than a few generations ago. In addition, the irrational and passionate attitude of those peoples, including the aggressive suicidal attitude with religious and political connotations, is a sign of progress for them. Those people who are in favour of family planning programs and of a more relaxed morality - are acting against the general interests of their countries.

Download or read book Bursting the Bubble Rationality in a Seemingly Irrational Market written by David F. DeRosa and published by CFA Institute Research Foundation. This book was released on 2021-04-02 with total page 206 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The presence of speculative bubbles in capital markets (an important area of interest in financial history) is widely accepted across many circles. Talk of them is pervasive in the media and especially in the popular financial press. Bubbles are thought to be found primarily in the stock market, which is our main interest, although bubbles are said to occur in other markets. Bubbles go hand in hand with the notion that markets can be irrational. The academic community has a great interest in bubbles, and it has produced scholarly literature that is voluminous. For some economists, doing bubble research is like joining the vanguard of a Kuhnian paradigm shift in economic thinking. Not so fast. If bubbles did exist, they would pose a serious challenge to neoclassical finance. Bubbles would contradict the ideas that markets are rational or work in an informationally efficient manner. That’s what makes the topic of bubbles interesting. This book reviews and evaluates the academic literature as well as some popular investment books on the possible existence of speculative bubbles in the stock market. The main question is whether there is convincing empirical evidence that bubbles exist. A second question is whether the theoretical concepts that have been advanced for bubbles make them plausible. The reader will discover that I am skeptical that bubbles actually exist. But I do not think I or anyone else will ever be able to conclusively prove that there has never been a bubble. From studying the literature and from reading history, I find that many famous purported bubbles reflect inaccurate history or mistakes in analysis or simply cannot be shown to have existed. In other instances, bubbles might have existed. But in each of those cases, there are credible rational explanations. And good evidence exists for the idea that even if bubbles do exist, they are not of great importance to understanding the stock market.

Download or read book Cultural Collapse written by Rob Weatherill and published by Rob Weatherill. This book was released on 1994 with total page 228 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "What we have lost, writes Rob Weatherill in this wide-ranging meditation on contemporary culture, 'is our sense of, and a necessary respect for, the unconscious, for otherness, for mystery, for death'. We are preoccupied with survival and gratification at the expense of human suffering and concern. This is the denial of the psyche: a levelling-out of meanings and values." "The central paradox explored in Cultural Collapse is that while we enjoy greater freedom and abundance than ever before, at least in the rich parts of the world, we can't help noticing a corresponding inner weakness and loss of control. We are also alarmed by the prevalence of sex abuse, rape, hard porn, and violence. There is nothing new in these concerns; they have been voiced throughout the modern period. But psychoanalysis can and must make some comment on this severance of meanings, and this Weatherill sets out to do." "Cultural Collapse is not an academic study of psychoanalytic thought about culture. It proceeds from direct experience of a schizoid culture. The analytic space, from which Weatherill writes, gives people the freedom to be listened to properly, and because of this it has learnt something about the human condition and contemporary culture. Weatherill looks with an analytically informed eye at the loss of a religious dimension and the rise of new forms of utopianism; racism; addiction; the crisis in parenting and education; feminism and the collapse of male narcissism; and the loss of private space under capitalism." "At a time when the relations between morality, the social fabric and the inner world are causing distress throughout the world, Rob Weatherill provides a searching study of the growing impoverishment of life in Western society."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Download or read book Rationality The Critical View written by J. Agassi and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2012-12-06 with total page 469 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In our papers on the rationality of magic, we distinghuished, for purposes of analysis, three levels of rationality. First and lowest (rationalitYl) the goal directed action of an agent with given aims and circumstances, where among his circumstances we included his knowledge and opinions. On this level the magician's treatment of illness by incantation is as rational as any traditional doctor's blood-letting or any modern one's use of anti-biotics. At the second level (rationalitY2) we add the element of rational thinking or thinking which obeys some set of explicit rules, a level which is not found in magic in general, though it is sometimes given to specific details of magical thinking within the magical thought-system. It was the late Sir Edward E. Evans-Pritchard who observed that when considering magic in detail the magician may be as consistent or critical as anyone else; but when considering magic in general, or any system of thought in general, the magician could not be critical or even comprehend the criticism. Evans-Pritchard went even further: he was sceptical as to whether it could be done in a truly consistent manner: one cannot be critical of one's own system, he thought. On this level (rationalitY2) of discussion we have explained (earlier) why we prefer to wed Evans Pritchard's view of the magician's capacity for piece-meal rationality to Sir James Frazer's view that magic in general is pseudo-rational because it lacks standards of rational thinking.

Download or read book The Decline of Therapeutic Bloodletting and the Collapse of Traditional Medicine written by K. Codell Carter and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-09-08 with total page 147 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Over the course of a single generation, without significant discussion or debate, a key practice of traditional medicine was almost completely abandoned in mid-nineteenth-century Europe. K. Codell Carter's book describes how and why bloodletting was abandoned, noting that it was part of a process in which innovation was required so that modern scientific medicine could begin. This book is a masterful study on the collapse of a traditional medical practice. Bloodletting had been a prominent medical therapy in early nineteenth-century Europe and can be traced back to Greek and Roman physicians. The Hippocratic corpus contains several discussions of bloodletting. Galen, the most famous physician in classical antiquity, wrote tracts explaining and defending the practice. It was employed in ancient Egypt and is the most commonly mentioned therapy in the Babylonian Talmud. Indeed, it was practiced in virtually every part of the ancient world. Even though the practice abruptly ceased, there was little argument against it or reason to believe it ineffective. In reality, bloodletting actually worked. However, the rise of modern medicine required not just a change in how disease and causation were conceived, but also a change in the role of medicine in society. It has been claimed that the collapse of traditional medicine was a precondition for the rise of modern medicine, but there has been little support for this assertion before now. Carter provides this missing support. The result is a fascinating study in the history of medical practice and social expectations.

Download or read book Proceedings of the International Colloquium in the Philosophy of Science London 1965 written by Imre Lakatos (ed) and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1967 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Decline and Fall of the U S Economy written by William M. Wallace and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2010-07-01 with total page 239 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This highly original book puts the crash of 2008 into a broad perspective by digging deeply into the misguided theories behind the policies that allowed it to happen. Who was responsible for the 2008 crash? The Decline and Fall of the U.S. Economy: How Liberals and Conservatives Both Got It Wrong makes it clear that both parties were at faul—and explains how and why. This broad and far-reaching book is the first to analyze the crash from the perspective of evolution, or "punctuated equilibrium." As it explains, the punctuated boom brings on change, the bust leads back to a tightly constrained equilibrium. Both conditions pose risks and both—as William McDonald Wallace argues—can be managed to reduce the odds that economic imbalances will arise. Focusing on the policies that created bubbles in housing, stocks, and more, Wallace pinpoints historical events that gave rise to unrealistic theories and ideologies, showing how they, in turn, gave rise to policies that led to collapse. He explains how Darwin's now-discredited theory of "uniformitarianism" (evolution as a continuous, smooth process) led economists to ignore how evolution actually influences economies and economic behavior, and he shows what we can do so it doesn't happen again.

Download or read book How Reason Almost Lost Its Mind written by Paul Erickson and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2013-11-22 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the United States at the height of the Cold War, roughly between the end of World War II and the early 1980s, a new project of redefining rationality commanded the attention of sharp minds, powerful politicians, wealthy foundations, and top military brass. Its home was the human sciences—psychology, sociology, political science, and economics, among others—and its participants enlisted in an intellectual campaign to figure out what rationality should mean and how it could be deployed. How Reason Almost Lost Its Mind brings to life the people—Herbert Simon, Oskar Morgenstern, Herman Kahn, Anatol Rapoport, Thomas Schelling, and many others—and places, including the RAND Corporation, the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, the Cowles Commission for Research and Economics, and the Council on Foreign Relations, that played a key role in putting forth a “Cold War rationality.” Decision makers harnessed this picture of rationality—optimizing, formal, algorithmic, and mechanical—in their quest to understand phenomena as diverse as economic transactions, biological evolution, political elections, international relations, and military strategy. The authors chronicle and illuminate what it meant to be rational in the age of nuclear brinkmanship.

Download or read book Towards a Rational Philosophical Anthropology written by J. Agassi and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2012-12-06 with total page 414 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The thesis of the present volume is critical and dual. (1) Present day philosophy of man and sciences of man suffer from the Greek mis taken polarization of everything human into nature and convention which is (allegedly) good and evil, which is (allegedly) truth and fal sity, which is (allegedly) rationality and irrationality, to wit, the polar ization of all fields of inquiry, the natural and social sciences, as well as ethics and all technology, whether natural or social, into the totally positive and the totally negative. (2) Almost all philosophy and sci ences of man share the erroneous work ethic which is the myth of man's evil nature - the myth of the beast in man, the doctrine of original sin. To mediate or to compromise between the first view of human nature as good with the second view of it as evil, sociologists have devised a modified utilitarianism with deferred gratification so called, and the theory of the evil of artificial competition (capitalist and socialist alike) and of keeping up with the Joneses. Now, the mediation is not necessary. For, the polarization makes for abstract errors which are simplistic views of rationality, such as reductionism and positivism of all sorts, as well as for concrete errors, such as the disposition to condemn repeatedly those human weaknesses which are inevitable, namely man's inability to be perfectly rational, avoid all error, etc. , thus setting man against himself as all too wicked.

Download or read book The Collapse of Communist Power in Poland written by Jacqueline Hayden and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2006-03-23 with total page 194 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Based on extensive original research, including interviews with key participants, this book investigates the sudden and unforeseen collapse of communist power in Poland in 1989. It sets out the sequence of events, and examines the strategies of the various political groupings prior to the partially free election of June 1989. This volume argues that the specific negotiating strategies adopted by the communist party representatives in the Round Table discussions before the elections was a key factor in communism’s collapse. The book shows that on many occasions, PZPR decision-makers ignored expert advice, and many Round Table bargains went against the party’s best interests. Using in-depth interviews with major party players, including General Jaruzelski, General Kiszczak and Mieczyslaw Rakowski, as well as Solidarity advisors such as Adam Michnik, the text provides a unique source of first-hand accounts of Poland’s revolutionary drama.

Download or read book Legitimate Governance in Africa written by Edward Kofi Quashigah and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2024-01-22 with total page 637 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Any attempt to address the ever-present problem of instability in Africa gives rise to questions regarding legitimate governance. Without future thinking and action on the legitimacy of governance in Africa and how to secure it, past mistakes will go unheeded rather than informing forward movement. Surprisingly, no existing work has comprehensively addressed this critical issue. Legitimate Governance in Africa provides this needed coverage for the first time, examining such key components in the struggle for legitimate governance as the role of the international community in addressing the problem, the particular role women can play and ways in which women can improve their involvement in the whole enterprise of governance, and the roles of non-governmental organizations and civil society. In this diverse collection of essays, a wide range of expert legal contributors, all familiar with the status of the struggle for legitimate governance in a specific institution or particular African state, brings unique perspectives to the scholarly investigation of legitimate governance in Africa. The individual authors have thought deeply about the complexities and subtleties of conducting and evaluating the business of African state governance, considering both the practical sustainability of potential approaches and theoretical problems and issues. The probing, high-quality essays facilitate a real understanding of the obstacles to progress in the struggle for legitimate governance. Through their depth and diversity of views, every one of the papers included in this collection enriches the pool of knowledge on this important subject.

Download or read book The Collapse of the Fact Value Dichotomy and Other Essays written by Hilary Putnam and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2004-03-30 with total page 205 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: If philosophy has any business in the world, it is the clarification of our thinking and the clearing away of ideas that cloud the mind. In this book, one of the world's preeminent philosophers takes issue with an idea that has found an all-too-prominent place in popular culture and philosophical thought: the idea that while factual claims can be rationally established or refuted, claims about value are wholly subjective, not capable of being rationally argued for or against. Although it is on occasion important and useful to distinguish between factual claims and value judgments, the distinction becomes, Hilary Putnam argues, positively harmful when identified with a dichotomy between the objective and the purely "subjective." Putnam explores the arguments that led so much of the analytic philosophy of language, metaphysics, and epistemology to become openly hostile to the idea that talk of value and human flourishing can be right or wrong, rational or irrational; and by which, following philosophy, social sciences such as economics have fallen victim to the bankrupt metaphysics of Logical Positivism. Tracing the problem back to Hume's conception of a "matter of fact" as well as to Kant's distinction between "analytic" and "synthetic" judgments, Putnam identifies a path forward in the work of Amartya Sen. Lively, concise, and wise, his book prepares the way for a renewed mutual fruition of philosophy and the social sciences.

Download or read book Valuation of Internet and Technology Stocks written by Brian Kettell and published by Butterworth-Heinemann. This book was released on 2002-04-09 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: New ways of looking, researching and valuing these companies need to be addressed. Valuation of Internet and Technology Stocks offers practical information to enable institutional investors to value internet.coms and high tech companies more accurately. The author highlights the deficiencies in existing stock market techniques and shows how they need to be modified or, in most cases, replaced with techniques more suited for the revolution in economies which had taken place since 1991. The economic rules in the financial market place have changed to the extent that strategies successfully applied in the post war era have now been relegated to the deleted items box. 'Valuation on Internet and Technology Stocks' reviews existing stock market techniques highlighting their deficiencies and show how the New Economics necessitates new forms of investment analysis. * Investigates why there has been a high correlation between high loss companies and a rocketing stock price * Questions whether there is still a place for discounted cash flows when there is no cash flow to discount * Considers what new methods are available to value super growth companies and whether these methods are any better than existing techniques

Download or read book Sol Survivors 2 written by Ken Benton and published by Andrew Kasch. This book was released on 2022-08-17 with total page 259 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Forty days. That’s how long it’s been since the largest solar storm ever observed, now referred to as Helios, decimated modern civilization and released a polarizing nervous disorder into the human population. For diurnals like Joel McConnell and his odd assortment of guests, it means an all-out effort at self-sufficient living and keeping the local nocturnal population from stealing everything they produce. With military law enforcement busy saving terrorized citizens from the cadaverous remains of large cities, rural suburbanites such as Joel’s clan find they must fend for themselves and settle their own problems. Thanks in part to a cooperative trading post he established, which is starting to gain notoriety beyond their own neighborhood, Joel is managing to mostly keep peace. Until, he learns, he must make a daunting rescue attempt which leads him into the heart of what has become the darkest and most dangerous abyss in the entire south. A place many who escaped it refer to as the demon’s dump. Most know it by its former name: Nashville.

Download or read book The Medical Bulletin written by United States. Veterans Administration and published by . This book was released on 1937 with total page 940 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Medical Bulletin of the Veterans Administration written by United States. Veterans Administration and published by . This book was released on 1936 with total page 1390 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: