X-Message-Number: 16934
From: "George Smith" <>
References: <>
Subject: Money makes the world go 'round.
Date: Mon, 9 Jul 2001 11:20:12 -0700

Recently a concern was expressed on the Cryonet regarding the political
suppression of stem cell research.

This caused me to sigh a bit.  Let me suggest a couple thoughts.

One of the best books I ever read was Harry Browne's "How I Found Freedom In
An Unfree World" (1974).  (I consider a Robert Ringer's later book "Looking
Out For Number One" to be a slightly more humerous presentation of many of
the same ideas - and it had CARTOONS!).

For those of you who might not know it, Harry Browne ran as the presidential
candidate for the Libertarian Party in the last two elections, asking for
your vote.  In his 1974 book he carefully explained why you should never
bother to vote.

I am not in the least bothered by the fact that Harry can change his mind
and my personal feeling is that his involvement in politics is probably for
the fun of it as I truly doubt he ever believed for even a moment that he
could win.

What I want to say here, folks, is that both of these authors, Browne and
Ringer, emphasized the useful idea that if you focus your energies on things
you CAN change as opposed to trying to change other people, especially
masses of other people, you can get more of the goodies in life and reduce
your levels of frustration.

I believe there is a deeply "wired" mentality in human beings which causes
them to want to sacrifice their lives for larger groups (the tribe, the
city, the nation, etc.).  One incredibly insightful book "The Lucifer
Principle" (by H. Bloom) suggested that in ALL life there exists this group
drive to subsume the needs of the individual to the group from one cell
organisms on up.

I believe this "wired" tribal mentality is behind all sports and political
activities.  Mass psychology is radically different from individual
psychology unless you view individual human beings as small units composing
a "super organism" (as Bloom suggested).  Then it all makes sense.

Folks, the fact is we are NOT this super organism.  We really are
individuals.  Browne and Ringer were trying to remind us that if we can
escape from the mental "traps" (as Browne called them) which cause us to act
like cells in the super organism then we have a much higher probablity of
enjoying life and reducing personal pain.

Suppose for a moment that this is true.

Suppose that there really is a deeply forceful "group think" which could
undercut many or all of your hopes for a happy life if you don't resist it.

That's premise #1.

Premise #2 is that your personal degree of influence or control over any
group of people numbering more than 1000 is, effectively speaking, zero.

Conside the following test.  Can you get the President of the United States
to change his tie color?

Can you?

If not, why waste your time trying to change anything else at that level?

(Please do not respond with group think slogans and rallying chants of "We
shall overcome" or something.  Democracy is just a fancy word meaning "mob
rule" anyway).

Do you want to understand WHY politics are the way they are in the United
States in particular?

It is easy.  Just follow the money,

Approximately one half of the United States adult population receive their
income directly from the government.  Half don't.

Half of the voters vote for the Democrats.  Half vote for the Republicans.

The rest is either footnotes or illusion in my opinion.

So will stem cell research be outlawed or otherwise hindered in the US?  It
will strictly depend upon who will profit when and how.

These events (the large money flow) are outside of our control.

It is fun to gossip and speculate.

It is wise, however, to not be fooled into believing too many slogans and
group think attitudes.

Of course, you can believe otherwise and act on it.

I can't stop that either.

Just my opinion,

George Smith
CI member

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