Rigger or Riggee: Do to or done to

Coberst wrote:


Isn't there another option you're overlooking? How about being the rigger of YOUR OWN LIFE? Nevermind rigging the game to fleece anyone else or becoming the riggee of someone else's fleecing scam...
how about just making decisions for yourself that empower you to live the life you yourself want so that you're not dependent the choices someone else might make for you?

I think this takes a pretty dim view of people and society in general. I think maybe your poker analogy has caused you to take an unfairly negative view of the motivations of the majority of people in general society. Maybe in gambling situations it IS all about rigging the game and fleecing- but at least in my life, I've not come across that many people with such dishonest intentions toward me that they've looked at me as nothing but an opportunity to manipulate and/or "fleece" me in one way or another.
And for those who have approached me in that way and with that sort of dishonest intent - if they've succeeded- I just chalk it up to experience (on my part) and feel sorry for THEM that that's the way they choose to experience people and life in general.

You are exactly correct. We must become a rigger of our own life and learning CT is a big step forward in that adventure.

It is unfortunate but a fact of life is that there are predators and prey. Life is a bull fight. The sooner the bull learns to look under the cape the sooner it will become a fair fight.

Ha!

Don't you know that the House always wins!!?

I doubt that you have children in the current educational system. They are certainly not teaching critical thinking.

It was taught to me in public school some thirty years ago. I think you have that backwards.

The question then becomes just who is the "House" in this game of lfe in the US.

CA (Corporate America) has developed a well-honed expertise in motivating the population to behave in a desired manner. Citizens as consumers are ample manifestation of that expertise. CA has accomplished this ability by careful study and implementation of the knowledge of the ways of human behavior. I suspect this same structure applies to most Western democracies.

A democratic form of government is one wherein the citizens have some voice in some policy decisions. The greater the voice of the citizens the better the democracy.

In America we have policy makers, decision makers, and citizens. The decision makers are our elected representatives and are, thus, under some control by the voting citizen. The policy makers are the leaders of CA; less than ten thousand individuals, according to those who study such matters. Policy makers exercise significant control of decision makers by controlling the financing of elections.

Policy makers customize and maintain the dominant ideology in order to control the political behavior of the citizens. This dominant ideology exercises the political control of the citizens in the same fashion as the consuming citizen is controlled by the same dominant ideology.

An enlightened citizen is the only means to gain more voice in more policy decisions. An enlightened citizen is much more than an informed citizen. Critical thinking is the only practical means to develop a more enlightened citizen. If, however, we wait until our CT trained grade-schoolers become adults I suspect all will be lost. This is why I think a massive effort must be made to convince today's adults that they must train themselves in CT.


"Thomas R. Dye, Professor of Political Science at Florida State University, has published a series of books examining who and what institutions actually control and run America. to understand who is making the decisions that affect our lives, we also have to understand how societies structure themselves in general. Why the few always tend to share more power than the many and what this means in terms of both a society's evolution and our daily lives. they examined the other 11 institutions that exert just as powerful a shaping influence, although somewhat more subtle: The Industrial, Corporations, Utilities and Communications, Banking, Insurance Investment, Mass Media, Law, Education Foundation, Civic and Cultural Organizations, Government, and the Military."
http://www.21stcenturyradio.com/12-dye.html

I still have grandchildren in this system and it is clear that there may be some efforts to teach CT but they are failing because the parents know nothing about such matters; they were never taught CT either.

You may be part of the 1 % of adults who went to schools where CT was taught.