Religious Progress & Development

In recent times, religion has come under fire. The problems are many. Biblical religion has a problem that many of the facts expressed, like Genesis don't match our observations. The problem with philosophy of God is that it's not experimental.

However, Mankind will never abandon it's pursuit of God. By "God" I mean the source of all. Man's natural desire for understanding of his environment naturally leads him to the doorway that stands between the finite and scientific to the infinite and theoretical.

However, it's too shallow and nearsighted to mark off the domain of the spirit as being impenetrable. I'll suppose here that at some point in the future, mankind will learn to develop in Spirit like he is currently developing in more tangible topics. Once a clear, replicable methodology for continual improvement in spirit has been formulated, man can get on track toward developing in Spirit.

Stock Selling Principles

Stock books tend to focus on what stock to buy, underemphasizing the importance of selling wisely. Here are some tips:

1. Buy Low and Sell High. However, "low" and "high" must be relative to future performance, not past performance.

2. The price and point at which one sells should be independent of the sell price. It should be based on speculation of future performance alone.

3. Here are 3 general approaches to selling points:

1. Sell when the calculations are the opposite of those you used to determine when and what to buy.
   
2. Sell at a specified time after you buy.
3. Sell at a specified change from the buy point, either up or down.
   

Vertical Genius: Culture & Language.

Vertical Genius is the acceleration of idea development through education. Without education, everybody develops ideas in parallel. However, education lets us begin idea generation from where others have left off, enabling us to "stack" our intellect upon others. Hence, it ascends vertically.

The principal that education and focus on vertical genius applies not only to hard sciences and technology, but also to the development of good culture. By "good culture" I mean social awareness, good social habits and practices, as well as the everyday habits of the individual. Uneducated cultures are liable to have more violence, inefficiency and health problems. They are liable to have relatively unrefined manners, and contribution to humanities.

Language can have a strong impact on vertical genius. A common language is the vehicle of communication, and communication is the instrument of education. The more people one shares a language with, the more people that can contribute to his genius.

The ideas related above mean that localities that speak uncommon languages are likely to have retarded cultures.

Work and Help

In an efficient labor market, the amount that one earns correlates with the amount he helps others.

Hence, a government of an efficient labor market should encourage people to earn as much as possible, not only because it increases tax revenues, or makes the economy more stable, but because the more people help each other, the greater the quality of life.

Living With Enemies.

The following link describes how a growing number of Palestinians are giving up on their dream of having a two state solution.

http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/opinion/la-fg-onestate8-2008may08,0,5661634.story

This is good news. There can only be peace when all of the parties involved realize that it is better to live together, despite all of the differences, than apart. Without that realization, there can be no long term peace.

The end of Outsourcing

The current ability to obtain skilled labor for cheap is short lived. This is for the following two reasons:
1. As foreigners become more confident in their ability to service more wealthy countries, they will raise their price to the point where it becomes questionable whether the low price compensates completely for the inconvenience of a gap in geography and language.
2. As the wealth of developing countries increases, local demand for services in those developing countries increases. As that demand increases, so will the prices of the services.

Hence, the current loss of American jobs to out-sourcing is short lived. Let's say that any society needs 3% of it's man hours for Data Entry. At present, those expensive Americans who used to do data entry are in danger of loosing those jobs to Indians, who can do the task almost as well, for a fraction of the price. However, if all of the Indians who are capable of doing data entry are working for Americans, who is supporting the Indian business that need them? The answer is that as the economies became more similar, the demand for services will also become more similar. Then, in the name of simple efficiency, the Indian data entry candidates will work for Indian companies, and the American data entry candidates will have their jobs restored.

Vertical Genius & Modern Progress

Why does the world seem to progress at a faster rate that it has in the past?

It's not because people are more intelligent than they were in the past. It's because people are better educated.

The open and rapid communication between people enables people to focus their genius on what has not been discovered, and develop the existing knowledge further.