The Real Loser - Truth. Nature by Ralph Waldo Emerson. Introduction Our age is retrospective.
It builds the sepulchres of the fathers. It writes biographies, histories, and criticism. The foregoing generations beheld God and nature face to face; we, through their eyes. Why should not we also enjoy an original relation to the universe? Undoubtedly we have no questions to ask which are unanswerable. All science has one aim, namely, to find a theory of nature. Philosophically considered, the universe is composed of Nature and the Soul. Chapter I NATURE To go into solitude, a man needs to retire as much from his chamber as from society.
The stars awaken a certain reverence, because though always present, they are inaccessible; but all natural objects make a kindred impression, when the mind is open to their influence. When we speak of nature in this manner, we have a distinct but most poetical sense in the mind. To speak truly, few adult persons can see nature. Chapter II COMMODITY "More servants wait on man Than he 'll take notice of 1. 2. 3. Fact-Checking Obama, Romney Ahead of Debates: Blue Truth, Red Truth. No one would ever mistake the White House press briefing room for a courthouse or a confessional, so the blue curtains and official seal made an ironic backdrop this summer for President Obama’s impromptu homily on honesty in public life.
“The truth of the matter is you can’t just make stuff up,” he told the scribblers who get paid to check his facts. “That’s one thing you learn as President of the United States. You get called in to account.” It was just what reporters wanted to hear, even if it was not exactly true. At the time, Obama was speaking about a campaign ad from Mitt Romney that falsely claimed that the President had eliminated the work requirement for welfare. Cutter’s was a conditional accusation but an accusation nonetheless, and at the time it allowed the Romney campaign to take its turn playing truth teller. (MORE: Who Lies More? So it goes in the world’s most celebrated democracy: another campaign day, another battle over the very nature of reality. This is just the start and it never fucking ends. After reading this gem in the New York Times, we prevailed on Thomas Friedman to provide us with a part two.
And here it is. Future historians will long puzzle over how I was given an international platform to freely pontificate on the Arab people and be remunerated handsomely for it. It is true that I am not the only person in the world who formulates dubious theories based on scant or no evidence which I then harangue people with. Other people do it. They are called taxi drivers. Since I’ve been here in Egypt I’ve been putting together a list of “the-absolutely-irrelevant forces” that have captured the captive Arab mind and ignited the simmering coals of the instant garden BBQ that is the Middle East. I started my last extremely important column with an introduction in which I listed tyranny, rising food prices, youth unemployment and social media as the “big causes”.
Piercing the Gloom and Doom. Edmund Burke posited two major hypotheses about discussions of the future: that the future cannot be determined from the past, and that the present is pregnant with the future.
These propositions may seem mutually exclusive, but they are not. There are some matters, such as demographic profiles, that can be predicted, and some, like the next technological breakthrough, that cannot. A poll regularly conducted of college freshman asks, "Do you think your future will be filled with success? " More than 95 percent invariably say, "I will be successful. " The second question is, "Do you think the country will be successful? " Examples of this cultural pessimism abound, as is clear from the following discussion of recent media accounts. Land of Pessimism The first example of public gloom and doom is the notion that the U.S. is running out of arable land. Actually, land under cultivation and food production worldwide are increasing.
Population Pessimism Energetic Pessimism Economic Pessimism "Fly? " 10 Influential Business Models" While Apple and Google may appear at first to work in very different ways -- Apple as a consumer products and software manufacturer, Google as a suite of free online services -- they share one pioneering interest: you.
Apple, in practice, is more like three different kinds of companies working in concert: software engineering, hardware manufacturing and retail. Each of these gets to consumers in a different way, but they all work around the same core concepts of suiting the consumer's needs before he or she can even anticipate them: products for the home, business and entertainment, in-home and portable, for young and old, at price points high enough to make their products aspirational, but just low enough they're still attainable. Apple brands itself, software and hardware alike, as the standard for quality, innovation, design aesthetic and usability.